“I’m sorry to hear that. What did you do with the hog head cheese?”
“We ate it. How you think we found out it was bad?”
“Y’all ate all two pounds?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“If you noticed ‘right away’ that it was stale, why didn’t you stop eating it and bring back what was left so I could take a look at it?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Sadie mumbled.
“We was hungry, that’s why we kept eating it!”
I gave Sadie a pleading look. “Give Sister Miller a refund.” I turned back to the Miller woman. “Is there anything else I can help you with, ma’am?”
“Well, I been meaning to come talk to y’all about the baloney I got here last Friday. There was a green spot on one of the slices. The only reason I ain’t been back to straighten things out is on account of I misplaced that receipt.”
I held up my hand. “Um, we can discuss the green baloney when you find that receipt. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a lot of work to do. Y’all please excuse me.”
I closed my door and sat back down at my desk. There was so many thoughts bouncing around in my head, it started throbbing. After resting for about twenty minutes, I started counting money again. I had lost my place and had to start all over. Two minutes later, somebody knocked on my door again. I assumed the Miller woman had found her receipt and had come back to get another refund. Before I could get up, the door swung open and Milton strutted in like a banty rooster. Something told me this was not going to be a pleasant visit.
“Oh, it’s you again,” I groaned, dropping the bills to the floor before he could see them. When he started strutting toward me, I scooted the money farther up under my desk with my foot. I stood up with my hands on my hips.
“Yeah, it’s me again. I need another favor,” he said. He gave me a smug look and held up his hand. “And I swear this will be the last time.”
“It better be. What do you need more money for?”
Milton leaned over my desk and whined, “I got a mess on my hands. I got skunked in a crap game we had at the house last night, so I’m in a pickle again. Yvonne will shit a brick if she was to find out I lost the rent money.”
“Didn’t I give you enough money for two months’ rent?”
“You did. That’s exactly what I lost. So now I’m right back where I was when I first came to see you. . . .”
I was fit to be tied. I realized that this greedy motherfucker was going to milk me like I was a cow! Somehow I managed to keep my cool. But if I thought I could kill him and get away with it, I would have jumped over my desk and wrung his fucking neck!
“Look, Milton. I ain’t a bank, so you need to find another way to get money when you get low. How do I know you won’t come back for more?”
“I won’t . . . unless I really need to. I don’t want to put too much pressure on you. I figure you got enough of that already. You . . . um . . . you do take care of that other woman and them young’ns, right?”
I took my time answering. “I help out as much as I can.”
“Good! If I was you, I’d be doing the same thing.” He gave me a smug look, and then he had the nerve to smile. His big, dingy teeth reminded me of stale hominy corn. “I really like you, my man, and I enjoy being around you. I hope your class and good manners and whatnot rub off on me. If you give me a job in the store, I can be around you even more. And I’d be able to cut back on my bootlegging hours. I’m so sick of doing that shit so much anyway. Entertaining a house full of drunks every night and doing business with them hillbillies done finally got to me. I do declare, I been waiting on a good opportunity like this all my life.”
Chapter 47
Odell
I COULDN’T BELIEVE MY EARS! MILTON WAS THE LAST PERSON I wanted to look at eight hours a day, five days a week. Especially now that I knew what kind of man he really was. If he could blackmail me, there was no telling what else he was capable of doing. I thought about that picnic basket Betty Jean had packed last Saturday and how it had looked exactly like the one Joyce had packed when we’d celebrated our anniversary last year. Now I realized that it had not been just a coincidence; it had been a premonition that something real bad was going to happen to me. “You want me to give you a job in this store?”
“Yup. I know you’ll pay me good and you know I’m a hardworking man. With me making more money, I’ll be able to take care of my finances without no more help from you.”
“I don’t know if my in-laws would go for me hiring you—”
Milton wasted no time cutting me off. He held up his hand and shook his head. “Uh-uh. Don’t even go there. I don’t want to hear that shit!”
I let out a loud, heavy sigh and rubbed my eyes. The sight of Milton was making them burn and itch. “The only position I have open right now is stocking shelves. It’s only part-time and I can’t pay you but thirty cent a hour, the same thing Mac paid me when I stocked shelves. Working part-time, you’ll take
