The Secret Life of Bees by Kidd Sue Monk

Author:Kidd, Sue Monk [Kidd, Sue Monk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novels
Published: 2011-07-12T02:27:01.325000+00:00

The whole house smelled like fried okra. Rosaleen was setting the table in the kitchen while May dipped down in the grease and brought up the golden brown kernels. I didn't know what had brought on the okra, since it was usually bologna sandwiches and more bologna sandwiches.

May had not had a crying jag since June performed her tomato-throwing fit, and we were all holding our breath. After going this long, I worried that even something as simple as burned okra might send her over the edge.

I said I was hungry, and Rosaleen said to hold my wild horses. Her lower lip was plumped out with Red Rose snuff. The smell followed her around the kitchen like it was on a leash, a combination of allspice, fresh earth and rotten leaves. Between the okra and the snuff I could not get a decent breath. Rosaleen walked across the back porch, leaned out the door, and spit a tiny jet stream across the hydrangeas.

Nobody could spit like Rosaleen. I'd had fantasies of her winning a hundred dollars in a spitting contest and the two of us going to a nice motel in Atlanta and ordering room service with the prize money. It had always been my fond wish to stay in a motel, but at that moment if you had told me I could've had my choice of luxury motels with heated pools and television sets right in the room, I would've turned it down flat for the pink house.

There had been a few times, though, just after I woke up, when I thought about my old house, and I would miss it for a second or two before I remembered kneeling on the kitchen floor with grits digging into my kneecaps or trying to step around a great big pile of T. Ray's nasty mood but usually landing right in it. I would remember him tearing into me, shouting Jesus H. Christ, Jesus H. Christ! The worst slap across the face I ever got was when I interrupted him to ask just what did the H. stand for anyway? One quick walk down memory lane and the old home feeling would blow right over. I would take the pink house any day.

Zach shuffled into the kitchen behind August.

"My, my. Okra and pork chops for lunch. What's this about?" August asked May.

May sidled over to her and said in a low voice, "It has been five days since I've been to the wall," and I could see how proud of this fact she was, how she wanted to believe her days of hysterical crying were behind her, how this okra lunch was a celebration.

August smiled at her. "Five days, really? Well, that deserves a feast," she said. And May, she beamed.

Zach plopped down in a chair.

"Did you finish delivering the honey?" August asked him.

"Everywhere but Mr. Clayton's law office," he said. He was fidgeting with everything in sight. First the place mat, then a loose thread on his shirt. Like he was bursting to say something.

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