Lousiana Hotshot

Finally, deciding he wasn’t going to, she got up the courage to speak. “Eccch. Can you imagine? Taking a bunch of fourteen-year-olds over to his house?”
    “We got a real piece o’ toe jam here. He’s got the right name.”
    “Think she knows the real one?”
    “Yep. They all do— all the kids who were there. Ya want to go with me to see Shaneel?”
    “Sure.”
Is the pope a bear!
she thought. She said, “Eddie, I gotta ask you something. I thought Angela was your only kid.”
    He shook his head. “Nope. Got a son.” He stared off into space for a moment, and said, as if he wasn’t used to the word, “Anthony.”
    “He must be a lot older than Angie.”
    “Younger. Why?”
    “‘Cause I don’t get it. How could you have a grandson old enough to volunteer at the zoo?”
    “I don’t.”
    “You
don’t?”
    “Ms. Wallis, ya got a lot to learn. Lemme tell ya somethin’ll be the best thing I ever taught ya: all women like babies. Even if they think they don’t, they do. Ya want to get to a woman, ya talk about babies. And if she’s under fifteen, ya make it baby animals— furry ones. Ya can’t go wrong.”
    She stared at him in shock. “No grandson
and
no baby tiger?”
    “Could be a baby tiger. Cats are randy as goats, ya know that?”
    Feeling slightly breathless, she changed the subject on him. “Where’s your son live?”
    “Who knows? Haven’t heard from him in ten years.”
    She knew she should back away from the subject, but she was in too deep to just let it hang there. She tried to sound casual. “Your choice or his?”
    “Both, I guess. Neither one of us has a bit of use for the other.”
    Talba suddenly felt exhausted, too tired even to go out with Darryl, and that meant breaking a date. She never did that.

Chapter 5
    “It’s your fault,” she said when he phoned. “You got me the client.”
    “Whooo. Some piece of work, isn’t she? I don’t think I’ve
ever
heard that much noise coming out of that poor counselor’s office.”
    “She strikes me as somebody who expected the kid to raise herself, and then when Cassandra got in trouble she had to point the finger somewhere else. I mean, that’s the only reason I can think of for pursuing this through a detective.”
    “Ah. Beautiful, poetic,
and
perceptive. She’s a type— every teacher’s seen her a million times. The kid’s grades are bad, so it’s the school’s fault— usually, that’s what you hear them yelling about. They always want you to tell them what a good kid they’ve got, because if the kid’s not so great, it reflects badly on them. They’re embarrassed. I mean, embarrassment’s their reaction to their kid having problems. So it’s somebody else’s fault— if not the school’s, then the other kids’.”
    “Wait a minute,” Talba said. “I don’t know if I buy this embarrassment thing. It seems like more than that. I mean, if it’s somebody else’s fault, then it’s not only not their fault, but they don’t have to do anything about it.”
    “Oh, man, you wouldn’t believe! I had a woman last fall at parents’ night— the kid’s grades were falling, he was acting up in class, the whole thing. And this woman asks, quite naturally, what she can do. So I say, ‘Easy. Take away the TV, the phone, and the computer, and have the kid do his homework in a central area, somewhere near you, like in the dining room if you’re working in the kitchen, so you can answer questions if he has them.’ Now tell me, Your Grace— does that sound unreasonable?”
    “Sounds a hundred percent right to me.”
    “You know what the woman said? She said she couldn’t do that, the kid would get mad at her.”
    “And then she’d have to deal with it.”
    “You got it.”
    “And she couldn’t be bothered because she’s busy getting her presentation ready for work. Or going out with her boyfriend.”
    “You got her down cold. Her and Aziza Scott both.”
    “Aziza’s a type, huh?”
    “Oh, yeah. A pretty far cry from Miz Clara.”
    Talba sighed, but Darryl continued. “And woe betide the younger generation. I swear I think it all fell apart when families stopped having dinner together.”
    “Well, hell. I may not think Aziza’s the greatest mother in the world, but I can handle her. At least I got the job. I’ll make it up to you— canceling like this.”
    “I don’t get it. That job can’t pay much. I mean, you’ve had
much
better ones in terms of compensation. And if you just