[Section opener]
Meg
Chapter 27
Snack. Now that is a word that tastes as good as it sounds. Mealtime is about the only way I
measure the days around here. It starts with a juiced orange with Tom in the morning, then a hot
breakfast cooked by Willy May, a cold lunch in the icebox, that dab of a snack to get you by, and
finally a supper that will dazzle the mind.
We are in the kitchen having breakfast when Lucille announces she is going shopping. If
the word was on a page, it would have a line drawed under it.
That’s a swell idea, Tom says. Why don’t we all drive to town together?
I’m not going to those claptraps down the road, Lucille tells him. I’m driving to Memphis
and checking myself in at the Peabody hotel.
Tom follows her up the stairs. I wait so they don’t notice me slip up to the hall to listen. I
like to know what is going on around here.
Now sometimes, Lucille is very sweet to Tom and lets him nuzzle all up on her neck.
They kiss on each other’s mouths on the sofa when they think I am not looking. I have not been
around that type thing, I do not mind it. But who knew a husband and wife could mash and kiss
one minute and fight like damn cats and dogs the next. From what I can find, there is not a
manual for how married people are supposed to operate. And in no book I have ever read does
the wife call the husband a goddamn mama’s boy and do not tell her to calm down, when all he
was trying to do was address her drinking.
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