Freaky Fast Frankie Joe by Lutricia Clifton Read Free Book Online Page B

grasshopper. His mama was one of my first customers—encouraged me to go into business on my own.” She pauses. “Maybe that’s why FJ confided things like that to me. I was kind of a second mother to him.”
    She pushes her glasses up on her nose and motions me to sit down. “Well, you see, it was this way. . . .”
5:15 P.M.
    â€œI suppose Martha Jane came by her jackrabbit ways natural enough,” Miss Peachcott says.
    Martha Jane is Mom’s name, only it’s not what she wants to be called. “Marti doesn’t sound so old-fashioned,” she once told me. “Know what I mean, kiddo?”
    â€œAnd Mom was born here, too—like me?”
    â€œBorn and reared right here. Martha Jane Elliott.”Miss Peachcott shoves the sack of cookies toward me. “Your grandparents worked at a dairy—did the milking, cleaned the milk house. Martha Jane had to help, too. Hard life. Have to milk twice a day, you know. Morning and night.” She hesitates. “And then both your grandparents got killed in an accident, right out there on the road into town. Hit by a grain truck. But I guess she told you that.”
    I shake my head no. Mom never told me that. She never told me much of anything.
    â€œAnyway, Martha Jane went to live with the only family she had left. Your aunt Geraldine—only she preferred to be called Gerry.”
    Miss Peachcott goes
humph
.
    I go
hmmm
, thinking about the way Mom changed her name to Marti.
    â€œGeraldine was a wild sort,” Miss Peachcott continues. “Lived downtown in one of the upstairs apartments that looked out over the town square.” Her eyes twinkle. “Back then Clearview wasn’t such a one-horse town. Fresh-air movies on the square in the summer. Even had a bowling alley and a baseball team! You like baseball?”
    I hear the question, but my mind is on something else. “What do you mean, ‘wild sort’?”
    â€œIrresponsible! Liked to go out partying. Dance and live it up. She worked odd jobs—waitressed here and there, barhopped at some of the taverns. Clearviewwasn’t big enough for her; she was always chasing rainbows.” She pushes her glasses up on her nose and eyes me. “You know what that means? Chasing rainbows?”
    â€œShe, uh, she wanted to make it big?”
    â€œExactly. Well anyway, Geraldine took off with a man passing through town.” She shakes her head. “Never heard from her again.”
    â€œShe took off! But what about Mom?”
    â€œWell,” she says, pausing. “Of course, Martha Jane was the impressionable sort. What high school girl isn’t? She liked living with her aunt Geraldine, that’s for sure. And she was just as eager to rid herself of this one-horse town. Anyway, after she was left high and dry, she was taken in by a widow lady. Good soul, but strict. The two didn’t hit it off.”
    She pauses again. “Then
you
happened. Don’t know why Frank and Martha Jane didn’t marry up, but I figure it was Martha Jane’s idea to leave town. When she turned eighteen, she came into a little money—insurance settlement from her folks’ accident. Said she was going to use it for a stake somewhere else.” She looks at me. “Don’t know what she did with the money or where she ended up.”
    â€œMom bought us a house in Laredo . . . but she had to sell it.”
    â€œIn Texas? My, my. Well, all I know is, we never heard from her again.”
    â€œLike Aunt Geraldine.”
    â€œJust so.”
    I don’t know whether I feel better or worse.
    Miss Peachcott straightens her back. “Now what are you doing back here, Frankie Joe Huckaby? And what’s that jackrabbit mother of yours been up to all these years?”
    I chew a cookie slowly, wondering what I should do. I like this little woman; she reminds me of my friends at the trailer park. But she