Girls Like Us: "Girls Like Us" by Gail Giles

All she’ll say is that my mama showed up one day, dirty and stinking and toting me.

When Granny woke up the next morning, Mama flown the coop. And I was roosting.

Since me and another girl was wards of the state, we would be took care of.

Then she start back to her seat, but she turnt wrong and start loping right off the field.

I slept on a pallet in the living room.

There was scrawny green things growing in a by-itself place.

Quincy rolled her eyes. “Make food taste good. Don’t you fret 'bout that. Just don’t go pulling ’em up when you gets a cleaning fit.”

Then I mince some basil up long with those green onions.

I put a couple sprigs of parsley into the chicken to purty it up.

Biddy look shamed and started pondering her toes again.

“I ain’t calling you Miss Lizzy,” I say, the dare back on my tongue.
“Ah,” she says. “Makes you feel subservient?”

That girl was plumb scared to death.

“No!” she yell, and bust out in tears. Bawling her lungs out and stuffing those cookies in at the same time.

I hear Biddy in her room, blubbering into her tape maybe.

She didn’t spout me no lies.

I set the table purty, and when the potatoes ready, I finish the soup and call the hogs to the trough.

“Fool,” I say. “That’s a parsley sprig. It’s call a garnish. You don’t got to eat it.”

“A princess fills her spoon half full so she can take dainty princess sips.”

My brain got addled.

I kind of jut out my chin and sound mad, so she don’t think I'm wrong or nothing.

Biddy open her door. “What’s that ruckus? Is that a lawn mower? Who’s mowing the lawn?”

“Maybe when that boy is mowing the front I’ll come over,” Biddy say, and I could see a cryin’ jag about to commence.

I skedaddle down the steps crosst the yard to Miss Lizzy’s.

I thought about saying we oughta roast that duck and make omelets from the eggs, but sassy as Biddy done got, I figured she might stab me with her fork.

Biddy bustle in just about the time Lizabeth show up.

Lizabeth look a bit peckish.

“You know, Biddy, I was raised to be a southern belle. That means that I always use good manners.”

Then we going on a shopping spree. I don’t know exactly what that is. But I think we’re going to spend the money we made this week.

“We all got a dys. One kind of dys means you cain’t read. Biddy got that kind of dys. I cain’t say all the dys words ’cause they long. But I can say mine. Dysgraphia. That dys means I can read a word and know how to spell it, but when my hand goes to write it—it just don’t come out.” I lift up my chin. “I can write. It’s just hard and I’m slow at it.”

My eyes must have goggled plumb out my head.

I don’t know how to let go a grudge.

I was fidgety ’bout some stuff and wasn’t careful.

She wipe her cheek with the sash of her robe.

Biddy went off happy to be doing something besides watching me mope.

Life is hard and muddled.

Biddy come out her bedroom lookin’ a mite uneasy.

If Quincy had the gumption to go to work, why was I so scaredy that I had to wear my coat?

When I got done with work, I dawdled putting my apron in the laundry.

I slap the tea tray down without saying boo or squat and left them women to fend for they ownselfs.

“Quincy, you are a woman. You can make your own decisions — I’m not going to meddle and risk making things worse. I can’t force you to tell the police. But I think you should.”