Free Pickin Clover by Bobby Hutchinson

mother’s inside?”
    “Yeah.” He frowned. “Clover’s in there, too. She went in to get a drink a while ago and hasn’t come out yet. Maybe tell her I want her out here with me? I sure don’t want her bugging Mrs. Rafferty.”
    “I’ll tell her.” Polly went up the wooden steps to the kitchen door, careful not to lean on the broken railing. She tapped on the screen door and then opened it.
    “Mom? Hi, it’s me.”
    “I saw you drive up.” Isabelle was seated at the kitchen table, a cigarette between her fingers and a mug of coffee at her elbow. A small, unattractive little girl sat beside her, boosted to table height by several telephone books. In front of the child was a mug of milky coffee, and between her fingers she had a small piece of paper towel rolled up to resemble a cigarette. She was holding it exactly the way Isabelle held hers, and she had her denim covered legs crossed at the knee just the way Isabelle did.
    “This is Clover. She’s Jerome’s kid.” Isabelle gestured at the child and then at the coffeepot.
    “You want some? I just made a pot.”
    Polly went to the cupboard and got a mug, surreptitiously checking to make certain it was clean before she poured coffee into it. Isabelle’s cupboards were often infested with bugs, which bothered Polly a whole lot and her mother not at all. She sat at the table, thinking it was unfortunate Jerome Fox’s daughter hadn’t inherited his good looks.
    Clover was a most unappealing looking child with her stringy pale hair and watery, narrow eyes. To make up for her critical thoughts, Polly gave the little girl a wide, friendly smile. “Your daddy said he wants you to come outside with him now,” she told her in a kind tone. The girl gave her a suspicious look and didn’t smile back or move an inch from her perch. She put her imitation cigarette to her lips and pretended to take a long drag, then she blew as if exhaling smoke. She even squinted at Polly the exact way Isabelle did when she exhaled.
    It should have been funny, but Polly was disgusted, instead. Her mother’s smoking was something both she and Norah abhorred. They’d tried every ruse to get Isabelle to stop, with no success. Allowing a child to imitate such a dreadful habit was nothing short of criminal in Polly’s estimation.
    “Leave Clover be. She’s not hurting anything.” Isabelle took a drag on her own cigarette and blew the smoke out through her nose in a long stream.
    Irritated, Polly waved a hand in front of her to deflect it. “This smoke’s hurting her, Mom. She’s been sick and it’s a lot healthier for her to be outside than to sit in here inhaling this poison. You know the studies all say that second hand smoke is just as bad for you as smoking yourself, and children are particularly vulnerable.”
    Why did her mother always bring out her prissy, preachy side? Polly wondered.
    “Oh, pooh, you can’t believe everything you hear. I’ve got all the windows open. Don’t get your shirttail in a knot.” Isabelle tapped ash into the ashtray defiantly and Clover instantly copied her.
    Isabelle laughed. “Susie used to pretend to smoke like me, too, when she was small, remember?”
    Of course Polly remembered. She’d spent hours talking to Susannah about smoking, telling her how dangerous the habit was, trying her best to walk the fine line between not castigating her own mother while still discouraging her daughter from adopting Isabelle’s filthy habit.
    And why had Isabelle insisted always on calling her granddaughter “Susie”? Her name is Susannah, Polly had said more times than she could count, to no avail. And it irked her now just the way it always had.
    Well, this was typical, Polly thought with disgust. She couldn’t be around her mother for two seconds without either lecturing or wanting to scream.
    “I’m sorry I didn’t get your message about Norah’s birthday dinner, Mom,” she forced herself to say. “Michael was out of town, and I wasn’t