The Perfect Place by Teresa E. Harris Read Free Book Online

heaven sounds like the other place.
    I mix the butter in the steaming grits anyway—yellow on white, like dog pee on snow. I stick a spoon in my grits and take just a small bite off the top. I roll them around in my mouth—and my taste buds turn against me. They like the buttery taste. I take another bite. The grits are sweet and lumpy and make me feel warm all the way to my pinky toes.
    Tiffany picks at her food, her eyes on Mr. Teddy Daniels.
    Great-Aunt Grace doesn’t eat at all. She smokes the rest of her cigarette and flutters around us like a bad-tempered waitress. When Tiffany drops her spoon, Great-Aunt Grace is right there to give her a dirty look and hand her another. When I finish my orange juice, she pours me more so fast it’s like she conjured the stuff out of thin air.
    I watch Great-Aunt Grace’s every move. She’s got about twenty-nine strands of hair, pulled back off her face in a tiny bun. She has to be three hundred years old. Mr. Shuffle waddles in and she tosses him a piece of flabby bacon. He gulps it down in two bites, and Great-Aunt Grace tosses him another piece. When she catches me watching her, she says, “You got something you wanna say, Miss Treasure?”
    â€œActually, it’s Jeanie.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’m not going by Treasure anymore. I’d like to be called Jeanie now. It’s my middle name.”
    â€œMy middle name is Onika, but I’m still Tiffany, and this is still Mr. Teddy Daniels.” Tiffany holds up her bear.
    Great-Aunt Grace comes to stand over us at the table. “If y’all think I got time to be rememberin’ middle names and teddy bear names, y’all got another think comin’.” She looks right at me. “I’ll call you whatever I want to, girl, and when I do, you best come runnin’. Understood?”
    She stares, waiting for an answer. I nod.
    â€œCan’t hear you, girl.”
    â€œYes, I understand,” I say between clenched teeth.
    â€œGood.” Great-Aunt Grace eyes us, her forehead creased like she’s deep in thought. “Y’all need chores,” she says.
    â€œChores?” Tiffany asks, as if the word is foreign to her.
    â€œYes, chores. Didn’t your mama and daddy put y’all to work?”
    Tiffany and I shake our heads.
    â€œSpoiled as the day is long, I see. Well, y’all gonna pull your weight while you’re down here with me.” Great-Aunt Grace points at Tiffany. “You gonna feed Mr. Shuffle every mornin’ and every night. Half a cup of dry food and a can of wet. And don’t take too long gettin’ the food down, girl, or he’ll swat you good. Lord knows he ain’t got all day. Now you.” Great-Aunt Grace jabs her index finger at me. “Starting tomorrow, you gonna wash the breakfast and dinner dishes.”
    â€œDishes?” I say slowly. “Every day?”
    â€œEvery. Dang. Day. Now hurry up and finish eatin’.”
    I go back to eating my grits, slowly, so Great-Aunt Grace won’t know I like them. I’m snail-walking the fifth spoonful to my mouth when the phone rings. Great-Aunt Grace says, “I’ll-get-it-Treasure-stop-messin’-in-them-grits,” all in one breath as she hurries by me.
    Is it wrong to will an old lady to fall on a linoleum floor? In this case, no, it’s not. But Great-Aunt Grace makes it to the phone in the living room without so much as a stumble. She tells whoever it is that she doesn’t have time to talk because she’s been invaded by her freeloading kin.
    She returns to the kitchen a few minutes later and tells us it’s time to go.
    â€œThe three of us got thangs to do,” she says.
    Great-Aunt Grace clears our plates away before either of us is finished.
Thangs?
What
thangs?
    â€œHurry up, wash those faces and get dressed so we can get goin’.”
    â€œGoing where?” Tiffany asks. “To do super-fun