“Rose said there’s going to be a mother-daughter book club, and you and I can be in it,” Mavis said.
Her mother didn’t answer.
She didn’t open her eyes.
She sat in the chair in the corner of the apartment with her feet up on the end of the bed and her head on a pillow.
“Mama,” Mavis said.
No answer.
“Mama!” Mavis yelled.
Her mother opened her eyes.
“Seriously, May?” she said. “Seriously?”
She lifted her feet with a grunt and dropped them to the floor like they were sacks of rocks. Then she leaned forward with her hands on her knees and said, “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No,” Mavis said. “I am not kidding.”
“A mother-daughter book club.”
Mavis nodded.
Her mother dropped back in the chair and shook her head.
“Mavis,” she said, “mother-daughter book clubs are for mothers and daughters who eat cold soup and use a dang silver spoon for their salt instead of a salt shaker like the rest of the world. Mother-daughter book clubs are for mothers who need clean sheets every other day and daughters who belong to the Junior Garden Club.”
She leaned forward again and jabbed a finger in Mavis’s direction. “Mother-daughter book clubs are not for you and me.”
Mavis felt anger working its way up from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head.
“Why do you have to be so mad about everything every minute of the day?” she hollered. “Every time we move somewhere new you say you’re going to like it better, but you never do. You just have something new to gripe about.”
Mavis stalked to the door. “Well, I like it here, and Rose is my best friend,” she said, yanking the screen door open and stepping out onto the little porch. “And she does not belong to the Junior Garden Club,” she yelled through the door before stomping down the steps.
Maybe her mother thought they weren’t good enough for that stupid book club, but Rose didn’t think so because she had invited them.
Mavis had a bad feeling about her mother and Mrs. Tully. It seemed like all they did was argue. It seemed like Mrs. Tully thought her mother did everything wrong. And it seemed like all her mother ever did was complain about Mrs. Tully.
Mavis got Rose’s skateboard out of the garage and went around front to the driveway. She wasn’t allowed to ride the skateboard on the driveway anymore. Mrs. Tully didn’t like it. But the Tullys weren’t home. They were going to some fancy restaurant over in Mobile. Rose had told her it would be boring and she wished she could stay home with Mavis.
“Really?” Mavis had said.
Rose had looked surprised and said a very un-Rose-like thing.
“Well, duh!” she had said, holding out her palm so they could do their special handshake.
Slapping, snapping, and fist-bumping.
Now Mavis rode the skateboard up and down the driveway, thinking. She felt more determined than ever to fix things for Mr. Duffy. She had promised Rose that she would come up with plan B, but so far, she hadn’t.
How could she convince Mr. Duffy that he needed a dog and Henry needed a home?
She had been so certain she could do it, but now it seemed harder than she thought it would be.
Maybe Mr. Duffy’s heart really was a thumping gizzard after all.