Spare Change by Bette Lee Crosby Read Free Book Online

the kitchen table from his
father and ate warmed-up cans of spaghetti. Afterward, when his daddy settled
down to read the newspaper or watch television, the boy would bicycle five
miles into town and head for the diner. “Hi, Mama,” he’d say with a broad-faced
grin, then she’d sit him down with an oversized slice of peach pie or a bowl of
butterscotch pudding. 
    “Sweetie, this here is Scooter Cobb,” Susanna said, cozily edging
herself alongside the pudgy-faced man who was round as a pregnant cow.  “He
owns the place. Ain’t he just the cutest thing you ever did see?”
    “Pleased to meet you, Mister Scooter,” Ethan Allen replied, chomping
down on another bite of strawberry rhubarb pie. Although anyone watching would
have thought the boy was one-hundred-percent focused on scooping up that chunk
of rhubarb, the truth was he’d seen Scooter’s hand slide down Susanna’s back
and come to rest on the round of her butt. “Mama,” he asked days later, “…do
you like Mister Scooter more than Daddy?”
    “Good Lord, Ethan,” she answered, “what’s got into you? If your daddy
got wind of you asking a thing like that, there’d sure enough be hell to pay!”
    “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it; I swear.”
    “I know you didn’t, baby.” Susanna playfully tousled Ethan Allen’s hair
and promised that if he’d keep such thoughts to himself, she’d make sure to
have enough spare change for the movies. 
    “Candy too?” he asked.
    She grinned, “Yeah, candy too.”  
    After that, Ethan Allen had only to mention Scooter’s name and he’d
find himself jingling nickels and dimes in his pocket. He found he could go
into the diner any time, night or day, whether his mama was behind the counter
or not, and have all a boy wanted of pies and puddings. He’d order up a bowl of
tapioca or two balls of chocolate ice cream, then tell the person scooping it
up they ought to add some whipped cream and a cherry. “Ain’t he something,”
Susanna would grin, “chip off his mama’s block, that’s what this boy is!”    
    When Susanna said something like that, Scooter would smack his hand up
against her behind and start chuckling. “He sure is,” he’d laugh, “he sure
is.” 
    Even a blind man could see there was something going on between the two
of them. A blind man maybe, but not Benjamin, he was too busy counting up the
dimes and quarters Susanna was dropping into the cookie jar every day. Each
time that jar got heavy, he’d empty it out and cart the money off to the bank
in town where he’d opened up an account in his own name, claiming it would keep
the money safe from robbers.
    “What robber is gonna come way out here?” Susanna said, but he of
course reminded her of all the things that had gone missing.
    “What about the rug? What about the portable radio?”
    It was true that any number of things had simply up and disappeared; so
even though she enjoyed counting up stack after stack of coins, she agreed the
money might actually be better off in the bank. “Just you keep track of what’s mine ,”
she said, “because when I got enough, I’m taking you and Ethan Allen on a
vacation to New York City!”
     “You still harping on that?” Benjamin asked. “Shit, you passed
the age of being a Rockette, ten years ago.”
    “Maybe so, but I still got a
real good singing voice.” If she wasn’t afraid he’d come after her with a
butcher knife, Susanna would have told him that men still whistled when she
walked by; that they’d sometimes follow her for blocks just to watch the swing
of her hips and the toss of her head. Benjamin might think she was no longer
capable of making men stop dead in their tracks, but she knew better. She knew
that a man such as Scooter Cobb would give most anything for her favors—why,
she already had a genuine gold necklace and a pearl ring hidden in the glove
compartment of her car.
    I n the fall of the year, when you
would expect a boy in the fifth