the TV Guide. Pee Wee was sitting on the arm of the couch next to Rhoda.
“Where’ve you been?” Rhoda pouted. “I thought you were comin’ to my house to help me give Granny Goose a bath.”
“Oh, she been upstairs shot up in her room borin’ that poor little old blind gal to death.” Mr. Boatwright laughed. “That blind gal left here runnin’ like somebody ablaze.” Mr. Boatwright hadn’t said it, but I knew he didn’t like Florence. He rolled his eyes at her when she came to the house, and he trashed her just as often as he did everybody else.
“I’ve told you that blind girl is too much trouble to be gettin’ too friendly with,” Rhoda reminded me, waving her finger in my face.
“Oh you just jealous, Rhoda,” Pee Wee teased. “Sister Goode, can I have a bottle of pop?”
Muh’Dear waved Pee Wee to the kitchen with a tired hand. I never would have thought Rhoda was jealous of my relationship with Florence if he hadn’t brought it up. But it made sense. Even though she had Otis, I realized now that Rhoda needed me but probably not as much as I needed her. Other than her boyfriend and Pee Wee, the other kids still didn’t want to be her friend, which is the way it still was in my case. In almost every class, I watched invitations to all the junior parties get passed around, and there was never one with my name on it. I often wondered what I would have done if I had not met Rhoda. I didn’t waste too much time thinking about that because I would never know.
I wanted to remind Rhoda that she was with her boyfriend all evening when I tried to reach her, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to make her any angrier with me than she already was. I liked Florence but not enough to risk losing Rhoda. I decided then not to encourage Florence to incorporate herself into my life any more than she already was.
“Do you still want me to come over and help you give Granny Goose a bath, Rhoda?” I asked, looking at Muh’Dear for approval.
“Uncle Johnny’s already done it, but you can come help me do it tomorrow,” she answered, rising. I walked Rhoda to the porch.
She looked over my shoulder back into the house first to make sure nobody could hear us talking. “Now don’t you let that blind girl ruin everythin’ between us. Do you hear me?” Rhoda shook her finger in my face. She was grinning, but I knew she was serious. This was the first time since we had begun our friendship that another girl had entered our lives the way Florence had.
“Nobody can come between us, Rhoda. Not Florence or anybody else,” I mumbled with my head bowed submissively.
“You see that she doesn’t. I’d hate to think that I’ve wasted all these years developing our friendship for nothin’,” Rhoda told me. I was confused, wondering what she considered Otis O’Toole’s position in our lives.
CHAPTER 26
I avoided Florence the next few days. But a week later, I got desperate for company after Rhoda stood me up to go to a drive-in movie with her boyfriend. I let Florence come over mainly because I didn’t feel like being alone in the house with Mr. Boatwright. We sat next to one another on the couch. Mr. Boatwright sat across from us on the love seat rolling his eyes and tapping his foot impatiently. He often used a rolled newspaper to swat flies. There were no flies in the room, but he had a newspaper in his hand that he kept hitting at the air with anyway.
“I love Liz’s old movies,” Florence said thoughtfully, looking alongside the wall.
“How did you know it was an Elizabeth Taylor movie? Can you see enough to tell?”
“I can barely see the screen, but I know Liz’s voice. I know most of my favorite actors’ voices,” Florence said proudly, her chest stuck out.
“I like her movies too. She’s so beautiful,” I said longingly. “No wonder so many men fall in love with her.”
“That hot-box, Jezebel movie star goin’ to get her comeuppance sooner or later. She ain’t got no shame atall the way she be runnin’ amok all over Hollywood with other women’s husbands. It’s a wonder Debbie Reynolds didn’t whup the shit out of her for stealin’ Eddie Fisher,” Mr. Boatwright said seriously. Nobody escaped his wrath, not even Liz Taylor.
I ignored his comments.
“I can think