Sex in a Sidecar by Phyllis Smallman

Author:Phyllis Smallman [Smallman, Phyllis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780987803313
Publisher: Phyllis Smallman
Published: 2009-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 40

It happened again. Driving slowly, telling myself there was nothing to see, I crept past the entrance to the beach rental. A hundred yards beyond I pulled into another driveway, turned around and went back.

This time, I didn’t drive around the circle. This time I parked at the foot of the stairs facing the north side where the tree had fallen. The loss of the tree had left a gap in the tropical underbrush between the houses. I sat staring at it, willing myself to get out of the car. When pride conquered fear I got out of the Miata, had a good look around and went gingerly through the gap. I wanted to see what was next door.

A large black woman was shoving a canvas carrier bag in the back seat of a clapped-out old blue Ford parked near the plantings, well away from the mansion. She straightened. “Well I’ll be damned, Bodillia Jones,” I said.

The woman, her hand on the door handle, looked over her shoulder at me. Beneath crazy bleached blond hair, her smooth black face lit up in delight.

“Sherri,” she screamed and then charged at me with her arms out.

Bodillia and my mother had worked together as maids out at a motel on Tamiami Trail and on those days when I was sick or when there wasn’t school, I’d hung out at the motel. Hid out was more like it since the owner of the motel didn’t allow staff to bring their kids to work. Bodillia had helped my mother conceal my presence and while they changed beds, I watched television in an empty unit or rode up and down the corridors on the laundry carts, listening to the laughter and chatter among the maids.

I loved Bodillia, a woman who lived to laugh and who brought joy to everyone around her. No matter how tired or ill or unhappy she should be, she laughed and she made you laugh right along with her. Nothing life threw at you seemed too bad when Bodillia was around and just seeing her brought a smile to my face Bodillia had a complicated life. Her first husband died in a freak accident. Stan was afraid of heights. When he and Bodillia moved into a broken-down old house and started doing it up, one of the things that needed fixing was the roof. Even though afraid of heights, Stan gamely took on the job of laying down new shingles while his brother rebuilt crumbling plumbing inside. Stan fell through the roof. All the time he’d been worrying about falling off he should have been worried about the rotten boards under him.

Two husbands later, Bodillia still remembered Stan as the love of her life, whispering to my mother that all men are not created equal, at least not when naked, that Stan equaled any two men. I was about ten when I heard that exchange and their fit of laughter that followed gave me something to mull over.

Now Bodillia pushed me away from her, still holding me by my shoulders and shaking me gently.

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