“The Ace of Clubs,” Isaiah said.
Sister Walker smiled. “Very good. You got nineteen out of twenty. Very good, indeed, Isaiah. You may help yourself to the candy dish.”
“Next time, I’ma get all twenty, Sister.” Isaiah reached into the candy dish sitting on the lace doily in the center of Sister Walker’s freshly waxed dining room table, fished out two Bit-O-Honeys, and tore off the candy’s blue and red waxed paper.
“Well, we’ll see, but you did a fine job today. And you feel fine, Isaiah?”
“Yessh, ma’am,” Isaiah slurred around the candy.
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth,” Memphis chided.
“Well, how’m I ’posed to answer? Only got one mouth,” Isaiah said, glowering. It didn’t take much to make him hot under the collar, Memphis knew.
“Thank you, Sister,” Memphis said pointedly, looking at Isaiah, who was ignoring him.
“Of course. Now, Isaiah, you remember what to tell your aunt Octavia, don’t you?”
“You were helping me with my ’rithmetic.”
“Which I did, so it’s not lying. You remember that it’s best you not tell your auntie about the other work we do with the cards.”
“Don’t worry,” Memphis said. “We won’t, will we, little man?”
“I wish I could tell ever’body, so they’d know I’m something,” Isaiah crowed.
“You are something, Isaiah,” Sister Walker said and handed him another Bit-O-Honey.
“Something else,” Memphis teased. He put his hand on Isaiah’s head and moved it around. “Got a head like a football. Bumpy, too.”
“That’s my brains!” Isaiah twisted under Memphis’s head-vise grip.
“Is that what it is? Thought you’d been hiding candy up there all this time.”
Isaiah took a swipe at Memphis. Laughing, Memphis dodged it and Isaiah charged again, nearly toppling a lamp.
Sister Walker shooed them both toward the door. “All right now, gentlemen, please take your foolishness outside and leave my house in one piece.”
“Sorry, Sister,” Memphis said. Isaiah was already pulling him out onto the stoop. “See you next week.”
Aunt Octavia was waiting for them in the dusky parlor when they returned. She had on her apron, and she did not look happy. “Where you two been? You know supper’s at six fifteen, and if you’re late, you don’t eat.”
“Sorry, Auntie. Sister Walker wanted to be sure that Isaiah understood his arithmetic,” Memphis said, shooting Isaiah a warning look.
“Margaret Walker,” Octavia harrumphed. She pointed a serving spoon at them. “I don’t know if I want you to keep associating with that woman. I’ve been hearing some things lately about her that don’t set well with me.”
“Like what?” Isaiah pressed.
“She doesn’t go to church, for one.”
“She does, too! She’s a member at Abyssinian Baptist.”
“Ha!” Octavia snorted. “Selma Johnson goes to Abyssinian and says Margaret Walker hardly ever crosses that threshold. The Lord wouldn’t know her if you showed him a picture. You’re more likely to find that crazy old Blind Bill Johnson in church than you are Miss Margaret Walker.”
Memphis hoped he could divert his aunt from what sounded like the beginnings of a tear. She went on tirades sometimes about people for perceived slights and imagined injuries—“ The Lord wouldn’t know Miss So-and-So if you showed Him a picture.” “Barnabas Damson hasn’t got the sense God gave an animal cracker, if you ask me.” “Corinne Collins doesn’t have any business teaching Sunday school. Why, she can’t even keep up with her own children, who run around like a bunch of fools in a foolyard.” “Do you know I saw Swoosie Terell at the grocer’s, and she acted high-hat, and after I made her a plum pie when her mother was sick.” He wondered what trivial sin Sister Walker had committed that had set Octavia off.
“They say Margaret Walker got up to some trouble years back,” Octavia continued. “She was in prison and moved here to start a new life. If she weren’t an old friend of your mama’s, I wouldn’t give her the time of day.”
“Sister Walker was a jailbird?” Isaiah’s eyes were huge.
“You don’t know that’s true, so don’t go repeating it, Ice Man,” Memphis warned.
“You don’t know everything, Memphis John!” Aunt Octavia was in his face. “Ida Hampton told me, and I expect she knows a lot more about what’s what than you do.”