“Annette, this is my ‘uncle’ Carmine Antonosanti,” Rhoda said, with her back to me. She had her arms around Mr. Antonosanti’s neck.
I smiled; the man smiled and nodded in my direction.
“How’s Mr. Boatwright these days, Annette,” Mr. Nelson asked, waving his wineglass.
“He’s about the same,” I said quickly. For a moment it looked like Mr. Nelson was going to laugh. Mr. Boatwright’s insurance money had come through, and he had paid off Mr. Nelson and Scary Mary after boomeranging the money back and forth for thirty days like he said he would.
“Annette is my friend now,” Rhoda announced proudly. “She reads a lot, too, and she’s smart.”
The men complimented Rhoda excessively for the next minute or so. I was glad when she jumped up from Mr. Antonosanti’s lap and led me out of the room. As soon as we got back out into the hallway, another white man appeared from a side doorway. He was older than Rhoda’s daddy and not as handsome. He was tall and too thin for his height. Limp, thin gray hair hung around his long, chalky face. He stopped narrowed his beady green eyes, and looked from me to Rhoda. Instead of a nice suit, he had on a plaid cotton shirt and brown-corduroy pants too short for his legs. He was clutching a wineglass, too.
“Uncle Johnny, this is Annette,” Rhoda introduced.
“Boatwright’s girl?” Johnny slurred, extending his hand.
“Not exactly. He just lives with us,” I explained, shaking his cold, dry hand.
“You done your homework yet, girl?” Johnny asked Rhoda, glaring at her, wobbling so hard he had to lean against the wall.
“I just got home, Uncle Johnny,” Rhoda whined, pulling me away by the arm.
We reached the living room, where a scowling, muscle-bound teenage boy, who looked almost exactly like Rhoda, glanced up from where he was on the floor, angrily leafing through a textbook. I had seen enough on TV to know that some boys didn’t think that a sissified thing like homework was a cool thing to do. It made them evil. That’s why they had to have so much sex and beer. This boy’s frustration was written all over his handsome face.
“Daddy said for you to have your homework done before you park your butt in front of the TV!” the boy snapped at Rhoda. He was fifteen. I had heard about him, and I’d seen him around the neighborhood with his gang drinking beer straight out the can and making obscene gestures to girls. Not me, of course, but the pretty girls that dared go around the bad boys. This brooding pit bull had beaten up a lot of kids, Black and white. As one would expect, he had a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his right arm. There was a tattoo of a hula girl on his other arm. He was so brazen he even smoked in the church parking lot and sassed some of the old church sisters when they tried to chastise him.
“Nyah, nyah, nyah,” Rhoda replied, showing her brother her tongue and flipping him the finger. “I already finished my homework in my last period class.” For a minute I thought the boy was going to leap up and attack Rhoda. Instead, he just rolled his green eyes and returned his attention to his book. “Jock-o, this is Annette from across the street. My best friend. She goes to my school now,” Rhoda told him.
“Hi, Jock,” I said firmly, moving toward him, expecting him to shake my hand the way Rhoda did when I met her.
“GET OUTTA MY LIGHT!” he roared at me, not even looking up from his schoolwork. I almost jumped out of my skin, but, surprisingly, I didn’t back down. I did get out of his light though.
“Um,” I continued nervously. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” I told the boy, forcing a smile.
“LIES! ALL LIES!” Jock wasted no time dismissing me with a wave of his callused hand.
“I told you he was mean,” Rhoda whispered proudly. She grabbed me by the arm and led me back to the hallway. “He’s just mad cause Daddy makes him help turn over the dead people on the slabs and stuff, when all he really wants to do is fight and drink beer and feel girls’ butts up and down. The boy’s nasty.”
“The boy’s a boy.” I sighed with disgust. “He can’t help it.”
“I know,” Rhoda agreed with a nod. “I just hope he didn’t upset you too much. You’ll like him once you get to know