Now Cookie rolled her eyes.
“Okay,” Gayle said. “I’ll unbolt the back door and put your robe in the pantry, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want.”
“But you gotta do something I want. Go and say something nice to your daddy. Cookie, the way Uncle Luther cried at Miss Great’s bed breaked my heart in two.”
“Awright,” Cookie said.
Unh-unh, Gayle noted. She couldn’t trust Cookie to do the right thing. If Cookie was listening she would have said, “It’s broke not breaked.” Instead Cookie stared her down, full of her own will.
Uncle Luther went to the funeral parlor to make the arrangements while Miss Auntie called people on the phone with news of Great. Gayle wondered if she’d be lying by smiling in Miss Auntie’s face, knowing Cookie was up to no good. She decided it was better to stay out of Miss Auntie’s way and keep her hands busy.
Folks from the South can show out, Gayle thought, taking stock of the tinfoiled casserole dishes and pans cradling pies, macaroni and cheese, cobblers, hams, and salads. Their donors had been blessed at one time or another by “Miss Abigail’s” charity and patience. Each party came bearing a dish and their most amusing or strongest recollection of Abigail Coston Gates. Gayle was amazed by the outpour, but quickly fell into the spirit of the visitors, who were gracious, sorry, and cheerful all in one shot. Gayle never tired of repeating how Great went peacefully, looking toward paradise. It made everyone happy.
“Know what, Cook? You should put on some music. Some of that stuff you said your opera-loving grandma liked.” Gayle would have said “our” but she had never seen the woman except in a picture frame. And in her mother’s face.
“Papa don’t like the stereo playing music. He uses it for his tapes.”
“You still going, ain’t you?”
“Soon’s folks stop coming by.”
“People come here asking for you. Turned your own mother into a liar talking about ‘Cookie and Great was very close.’”
“We were.”
Gayle put her hands on her hips. “You singing Great’s burial?”
“I don’t feel up to it.”
“But you up to hopping into Stacey’s bed.”
“Leave me alone, Cousin.”
“No problem, Cuz.”
Cookie stomped into her room. Gayle went down the hall. It was the second time she had opened the door to Great’s room only to be stopped by the empty bed. Instead of standing at the threshold, she entered this time, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Everything remained as it was. The mirrors were covered. The rocking chair faced east. The mason jar sat on the windowsill filling the room with its fragrance.
By late afternoon Miss Auntie became fed up with Cookie’s rudeness and made her come downstairs and sit with the company. From what Gayle could see, Cookie still hadn’t spoken to her daddy.
“Wish my daddy still living,” Gayle told José as she fed him. “Cookie should be glad she got a daddy.”
José agreed wholeheartedly. He grabbed the spoon from his mother and yelled, “Da-da-da-da-da-da.”
By ten o’clock the house was quiet. Miss Auntie and Uncle Luther retired early. Miss Auntie said Uncle Luther didn’t react well to death, though Gayle had already figured as much. Gayle could see Uncle Luther making that stone face as a boy driving his daddy’s body home for burial. She could see him standing by as his daddy and granddaddy were lowered into the ground. Uncle Luther preached paradise, but his heart didn’t leap toward it. Not like Great’s heart before it finally gave out.
Gayle cleaned the coffee urns, put away the tins of food, and wiped down the kitchen. She was mopping when she heard footsteps behind her.
It was Cookie, face swollen with stubbornness. So swollen her mouth wouldn’t open to speak as she tramped across the damp tile.
“Wait,” Gayle said as Cookie went out the back door.
“Go back, Cousin,” Cookie said, heading straight for her car.
Gayle followed. “Thought you was saved, Cookie.”
“Leave me alone, Cousin.”
“And what if I don’t?” Gayle asked.
“I’ll make you,” Cookie told her.
Gayle ran ahead and planted herself against the car door. Cookie was coming at her.
“Go through me, you so bad,” Gayle dared.
Cookie said plainly, “I don’t want to hurt you,” and kept coming, keys jingling in her hand.
“You the one gon’ get hurt,” Gayle bluffed, holding her ground. Hadn’t she tussled with Mama? She could handle Cookie.
All Gayle knew was a second ago she was on her feet. That second was all Cookie needed to jam the key into the door. Gayle picked herself up and latched onto Cookie before she could get the door open. With one foot dug in the dirt and the other against the car door, Gayle grunted and pulled against Cookie’s weight. Cookie was immovable and determined to get inside her car. She didn’t have time for fooling around and ended it altogether, sending Gayle back down in the dirt, this time flat out on her back. Gayle reached out for the tire to steady herself, but instead felt something round. It was the mason jar she had emptied earlier.
Gayle heard the accelerator being pumped and smelled the fumes that sputtered from the exhaust. Curious peachy mixture. She sprang up out of the dirt and ran to the driver’s window, beating her fist against the glass.
“You s’posed to be saved, Cookie! I know you hear me.”
The engine ssssshhhhred.
Cookie shook her head to drown out her cousin. She shook the steering wheel and pumped the accelerator relentlessly. The engine shrieked before it gave out completely.
“I know you hear me, Cuz. Let me save you. Just let me save you.” Gayle’s mouth opened. She tried to say it again—“Let me save you”—but could only mouth it. Something choked her, deep in her throat. It choked and choked and choked, then broke through. Tears. Down her eyes, her nose, her mouth. A mess. Just a mess. She couldn’t stop crying.
The car door opened and she fell in alongside Cookie. They sat and cried and cried hot tears long before either could speak.
“Let me save you, Cuz,” Gayle said. “Just let me save you.”
“Who,” Cookie sniffled, “gonna save you, Cuz?”
“Yawl,” Gayle sobbed. “All yawl.”
From their lighted window neither Miss Auntie nor Uncle Luther could make out who was leading whom back to the house. But something about the smell of fermented peaches in the air told them that both girls were finally home.
August 20
Homegirl,
What up? Don’t think I havn’t forgot the letter you never sen me. So much hapen since my last letter.
Great had her a big blow-out funral lik she always wanted. Mama came and Mama and Cookie sang Great into the ground somthing nice. I never cryd so much. It was butiful. Mama and Junie staying. Uncle Luther grumbel but Miss Auntie got her way. Cookie and Stacie holdng hands at the funral. Girl, he stick on her like glue. Disgusting. The baby try to walk and talk. He gots a mouth full of teef.
Mama say shell watch the baby if I go to school. Miss Auntie say I can stay home and work in the house if I want to. Miss Auntie aint slick and I aint stupid. I’m gon to school. Beats being a house slave.
Yawl shud come on down. Its so nice.
Peace,
Gayle
About the Author
Photo by Ferdinand Leyro
RITA WILLIAMS-GARCIA’s Newbery Honor Book, One Crazy Summer, was a winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and a New York Times bestseller. The two sequels, P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama, were both Coretta Scott King Author Award winners and ALA Notable Children’s Books. Her novel Clayton Byrd Goes Underground was a National Book Award finalist and winner of the NAACP Image Award for Youth/Teen Literature. Rita is also the author of five other distinguished novels for young ad
ults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here, Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book), Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); and Blue Tights. Rita Williams-Garcia lives in Jamaica, New York, with her husband and has two adult daughters. You can visit her online at www.ritawg.com.
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Books by Rita Williams-Garcia
Every Time a Rainbow Dies
Jumped
No Laughter Here
One Crazy Summer
P.S. Be Eleven
Gone Crazy in Alabama
Gaither Sisters Trilogy Collection
Clayton Byrd Goes Underground
Like Sisters on the Homefront
A Sitting in St. James
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Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
LIKE SISTERS ON THE HOMEFRONT. Copyright © 1995 by Rita Williams-Garcia. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2019 by Erin Robinson
Cover design by Catherine San Juan
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019944064
Digital Edition DECEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-282393-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-282392-2
* * *
19 20 21 22 23 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First HarperTeen edition
Originally published in 1995 by Lodestar Books, an affiliate of Dutton Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
Published by Puffin Books, 1997
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1 begotten
2 The word Wolof, an African dialect, has been changed through the retelling of the family history.
3 cowrie shells
4 African
Like Sisters on the Homefront Page 14