Miss Pearly's Girls Read online

  Also by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  More to Life

  The Stolen Daughter

  ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  Miss Pearly’s Girls

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - Maxine

  Chapter 2 - Stella

  Chapter 3 - Maxine

  Chapter 4 - Leslie

  Chapter 5 - Stella

  Chapter 6 - Maxine

  Chapter 7 - Leslie

  Chapter 8 - Maxine

  Chapter 9 - Stella

  Chapter 10 - Leslie

  Chapter 11 - Stella

  Chapter 12 - Leslie

  Chapter 13 - Stella

  Chapter 14 - Leslie

  Chapter 15 - Stella

  Chapter 16 - Leslie

  Chapter 17 - Maxine

  Chapter 18 - Stella

  Chapter 19 - Maxine

  Chapter 20 - Leslie

  Chapter 21 - Stella

  Chapter 22 - Maxine

  Chapter 23 - Stella

  Chapter 24 - Maxine

  Chapter 25 - Leslie

  Chapter 26 - Stella

  Chapter 27 - Maxine

  Chapter 28 - Leslie

  Chapter 29 - Maxine

  Chapter 30 - Stella

  Chapter 31 - Leslie

  Chapter 32 - Stella

  Epilogue - Stella

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  DAFINA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2022 by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  The Dafina logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-3539-3

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-3540-9 (e-book)

  First Electronic Edition: March 2022

  For Grandma Pearly,

  the inspiration for this story, minus the secrets

  Chapter 1

  Maxine

  The creaking wicker rocking chair suddenly stopped. Maxine Bell Cartwright leaned forward and inhaled. The aroma of fried chicken was wafting out through the open screen door and onto the back porch. That scent was better than the relaxing bubble baths she took every Sunday evening and her stomach growled in anticipation. When it came to Southern fried chicken, her mother could show the Colonel and Mr. Church how it was really done.

  Maxine’s nostrils weren’t the only ones being tantalized. The smell made Petey Lawrence stop in midmow. He wiped his brow, ridding it of the sweat that dripped from his hairline, brought on from the brutal August Arkansas sun. He sniffed, then a wide smile spread across his young face when he glanced up at Maxine.

  He flipped the lever on the handle and the whir of the lawn mower slowly subsided. “Oooh, Miss Pearly is at it again,” Petey said.

  “It’s Sunday, so you know Mama is in her element.” Maxine lifted her long, salt-and-pepper curls, which made her look a lot older than her fifty-two years, from her neck and tied the hair in a bun. Then she fanned herself with her hand. “The air is out in there, so I don’t even understand how she’s standing it inside that kitchen. I’m sure that cooking oil raises the temperature another ten degrees.”

  Petey laughed. “My granny said the AC has us spoiled.” He walked over to the edge of the back porch, picked up his orange watercooler, and took a long gulp.

  Maxine dismissed Petey’s comment with the wave of her hand. “Tell Mother Channing that Jim Crow said she’s allowed to have air conditioning now.”

  Petey was shaking his head before she finished her sentence. “Un-huh, you want me to tell her that and then have to hear an hour lecture on how high her light bill is? No, ma’am. I’ll just let her go on believing what she wants to believe.”

  That brought a smile to Maxine’s face because those words sounded just like what Mama Pearly had been saying when they’d first bought the AC unit for her back in 2010. Even after they’d installed the unit in the dining room window, it had still taken two years to get Mama Pearly to stop complaining about the cost of electricity and just turn the darn thing on.

  Once she’d done that, though, Mama Pearly had quickly gotten spoiled and enjoyed having a cooler house, especially in the middle of these savage summers. But it seemed that Mama Pearly hadn’t yet convinced her best friend, Caroline, or Mother Channing to everyone in Smackover, of the benefits.

  Petey took another gulp, his thirst from his hour of mowing their acre and a half obviously taking its toll. “ ’Bout that chicken; you think Miss Pearly got an extra piece for me?” Petey asked. His eyes were wide as he rubbed his stomach like it was waiting on an affirmative answer.

  “We would both be insulted if you didn’t stay and eat supper,” Maxine said before she leaned back in the chair and resumed her rocking. Outside of Walter and her mother, Petey had become her most-welcomed companion. Sometimes he would sit for hours and listen to her tell stories of growing up in Smackover. Sharing stories with him brought them both joy.

  “Yum, my belly is doing a happy dance,” Petey replied as he hopped around, doing a little jig. “Let me get back to work so that when we sit down to dinner, I don’t have to think about nothing else but your mama’s good home cooking.” He yanked the chain to turn the lawn mower back on. It sputtered before the motor roared and Petey went back to his task, with a little more pep in his step now.

  Maxine smiled at the sight of the boy as she watched him push the thirty-pound machine. He reminded her of her own son, Walter Jr., at that age. Only Junior, as they called him, would’ve rather performed open heart surgery on a bull than do manual labor. Not at the age of fifteen. Despite trying to always make sure he had chores, Maxine hadn’t been able to keep up with her son. Junior was always off somewhere, exploring the acreage, dissecting animals, digging up bugs. He was completely disinterested in anything that didn’t serve his own needs. By high school, chores were for everyone but him as his complete focus was on anything related to science. It had paid off, though, as her baby was now considered one of the top pulmonologists in Philadelphia.

  Maxine set her journal where she’d been reading notes from today’s sermon aside, preferring instead to watch Petey and think about her son. When Petey rounded the corner of the house to tackle the one acre of land there, Maxine called out, “You need any help in there, Mama?”

  “No, baby, I’m good.”

  “Really? I know you’ve got to be suffocating in that kitchen,” she said, though she didn’t make a move to go help.

  “I got the fan on, plus I’m just about done,” her mother replied.

  “Okay,” Maxine said, leaving out what she was thinking—that that fan was doing nothing except moving that hot air around. “Just let me know if you need me.” When her mother said nothing else, Maxine turned her attention back to her sermon notes. She read the first line, like she’d do
ne the last dozen times she picked up the journal. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make it to the next line. It was this blinding heat that kept her mind from focusing. She had to do something to get more comfortable so she could study and review her notes from that good word that her husband gave this morning.

  What could she do, though? She already had on her sleeveless housecoat, something that she really didn’t like to wear. Normally, she wouldn’t be caught dead in anything sleeveless, but during last summer’s heat wave, she’d cut the sleeves off her favorite flowered housecoat, and now she only wore it on days like today.

  She glanced down at her housecoat and a small smile crossed her face as she remembered Mama Pearly a few years ago, when she’d come home from shopping at Flora’s Boutique in El Dorado and she’d shown her mother her purchase.

  “Who did you buy that for?” her mother had asked with a deep frown.

  “It’s for me, Mama. Don’t you like it?”

  Her mother had huffed and puffed before she said, “Yeah, I like it. For someone who’s eighty years old.”

  Maxine hadn’t been insulted or shamed by her mother’s words. Everyone in town had been calling her an old soul since she was a little girl.

  The sound of the chicken sizzling in the pan mixed with the aroma that already had her stomach lurching. Without even going into the house, she knew her mother had fixed a grandiose meal, despite the fact that she was only cooking for a trio. Their large family had been reduced to just Mama Pearly, Maxine, and Walter Sr. (and, occasionally, Petey). Yet, especially on Sundays, her mother couldn’t seem to adapt to the fact that she wasn’t cooking for a dozen folks, which left them with leftovers for just about the whole week.

  “I’ll let the chicken cool down. Collards will be ready in a bit,” Pearly said, appearing at the screen door. Her petite frame was draped in the red-and-white apron Maxine had given her last Christmas and she’d worn just about every day since. Her jet-black-dyed curls were still fresh from her Saturday trip to Miss Wanda’s Cut-n-Curl and framed her plump face like an oval picture frame.

  “I can’t believe you’re sitting out here in all this heat,” Pearly said, pushing the screen door open and stepping out onto the back porch that stretched from one end of the house to the other.

  “It’s cooler than the house, Mama. Especially with all that frying that you’re doing.”

  Pearly grinned. “I know you’re not complaining about that.”

  “No, I’m not.” Maxine chuckled. “You know how much I love your fried chicken. I just can’t sit in there with the temperature inside probably near one hundred and twenty degrees. Why we can’t call someone else to come fix the AC is beyond me.”

  “Because I don’t want anyone but Henry Taylor working in my house and he’ll be back in town tomorrow. Besides, it’s not that bad, but you’re right. It is a little bit cooler here out back.” She glanced at Maxine. “You’d probably feel better if you put on a hat. You’re frying out here just like my chicken in there. You know you easily get sunburned and those peach cheeks are gonna turn scorching red.”

  Maxine had gotten a horrible sunburn once when she was nine years old and Mama Pearly had been scared of the sun ever since.

  “I’m fine, Mama. Henry Taylor didn’t build this big ol’ porch covering for nothing.” When the worried look didn’t leave her mother’s face, she changed the subject. “But please tell me you scaled back a little bit on dinner. You know Walter went to the revival in Shreveport,” Maxine said.

  “I know.” Pearly folded her arms and nodded. “And we should have gone with him.”

  “That wouldn’t have made sense, Mama. It was just Walter and the deacons. And how would you have made that trip all the way down there with the way you were feeling yesterday? You didn’t need to be on the road like that.”

  “I feel just fine.” Her hands went to her thick hips as if she was offended Maxine would even suggest that she was sick.

  “Well, you weren’t feeling that way yesterday, so it’s good that we just stayed right here.”

  “Hmph,” Pearly huffed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out something.”

  “Something like what?”

  “When did you become the mama and me your child?”

  Maxine chuckled, Pearly did not.

  Pearly said, “Anyway, my son-in-love still needs to eat when he gets back. Plus, I’m sure Petey wants a plate.”

  “Of course he does. Just thinking about it already has him cutting the grass a little bit faster.”

  Pearly leaned off the porch to see if she could see Petey, but she could only hear the whir of the lawn mower. She turned her attention back to Maxine, stood for a moment, shifted her weight from one foot to the other, inhaled, then said, “Petey sure does a good job” as her eyes surveyed the fresh-cut grass in their backyard. “He’s a hard worker.” She paused, and Maxine could tell there was something her mother wanted to say. Finally, it came out. “Leslie called me today.”

  “Did she now?” Maxine said. Suddenly, her attention was back on her journal as she resumed her rocking. And now, she was able to make it to that second line of her notes.

  “Yeah, she calls me just about every week.”

  “Does she now?” Maxine said as if she didn’t already know this.

  “Yeah. We didn’t talk long, but she seemed downright giddy about something.”

  “Did she now?” Maxine repeated, without lifting her eyes as she studied the third line of her notes in her journal.

  Pearly’s shoulders sank, the way they did every time she talked about her daughters to one another.

  “When’s the last time you talked to your sisters?”

  Out of habit, Maxine did what she always did whenever her sisters were mentioned; she sighed, then rolled her eyes. “I have no desire to talk to my sisters. You know that.”

  “Stop being ugly,” Pearly said, her voice tinged with sadness. “I keep telling you, family before everything.” She took a long, deep breath, then released it. “Lord, I don’t know where I went wrong with you girls.”

  Maxine pressed her lips together so the words she was thinking wouldn’t come out. She would never disrespect her mother, but she’d long ago given up on her mother’s dream of “one big happy family.”

  There was something evil that hung over the Bell sisters; at least, that’s what Maxine believed. A force that brought out the worst in them all, especially when they were together. So, they were at their best when they kept their distance and lived their own lives. That was their reality—even if their mother refused to accept that fact.

  “It just makes me so sad to see my girls hating one another.” Her voice was soft and peppered with a thousand pains.

  Maxine filled her cheeks with air, then blew it out. She closed her journal and glanced up at her mother. “Mama, we don’t hate one another, but we don’t get along. Never have and probably never will.”

  “And I will never understand why.” A mist covered her eyes.

  Maxine paused the sway of the rocking chair. “I just don’t need the toxicity, Mama. Stella is in her own self-centered world. Star and her moods have always been exasperating.”

  She stopped, and Pearly gave her a hard stare before she asked, “And Leslie?”

  Maxine stared back and then shook her head. “Well . . . I just can’t do it. I can’t do it with any of them. The only thing I have in common with my sisters is that we all love you, and that’s all that matters. And now that we’ve gone through this for at least the four hundred and thirty-third time, I’d really appreciate it if you dropped it.”

  Pearly’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to listen, but one day you’ll hear me,” she said, her voice stern. “When all is said and done, family is all you got.”

  “Okay, Mama,” she said, her tone meant to put a period on the conversation. “You probably should go check on your collards.” Maxine leaned back in the
chair and the squeaking began. Her body was stiff, her eyes straight ahead onto the yard that Petey had just tackled. The rocking, her stance, a dismissal to her mother.

  Pearly crossed her arms, tapped her foot, and, when Maxine said nothing more, Pearly huffed, then let the screen door slam behind her as she turned and walked back inside.

  Maxine’s shoulders slouched a bit. She hated disappointing her mother in this manner, but what else was she supposed to say to her except the truth?

  She pushed aside her journal, her attention no longer on her sermon notes. Instead, she rocked, and once again took in the fragrance of Sunday dinner before her gaze roamed to the cows grazing in the pasture across the street. Between that sight and the sounds of Petey’s lawn mower and the birds chirping, she was back in that zone where she was before her mother had come out.

  Maxine marveled at how her home brought her such peace. To her, Smackover was the definition of serenity. That was a drastic difference from how her sisters felt. They hated Smackover; not the town so much as all of its country ways. Even from the time they were kids, her sisters had talked about how they couldn’t wait to leave.

  As soon as they graduated high school, both Stella and Leslie were on the first Greyhound out of town. Star had been anxious to leave, but not eager to go too far. So, she’d moved an hour and a half away to Hot Springs.

  But as for Maxine, she would never leave. There was nothing out there that was better, nothing out there that was greater than this place that would always be home.

  * * *

  “Ma-xine . . . Maxine!”

  Maxine sprang up in the rocking chair and tried to get her bearings. Had she dozed off?

  “H—help me, Ma-xine . . .”

  “Mama?” Maxine blinked as she tried to focus on the voice. Was it real? Had she been dreaming?