She Called the Bride the Help, So I Read the Bill Aloud novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Six Hundred Dollars
Joelle's POV
On Sunday morning my grandmother took over the commissary stove.
She had not been asked. She had walked in at seven with her apron in her purse, put my three cooks out of the kitchen with one look, and begun frying eggs.
I sat at the steel table with an ice pack against my wrist and a cup of coffee in both hands.
The bruise had come up overnight, four narrow ovals the color of plums.
Reuben sat across from me, eating his third plate.
He ate, steadily and with his whole attention.
"You did not sleep," I said.
"I slept two hours," he said.
"You came off the stage," I said.
"I did."
"You said you wouldn't."
"I said I would stay on the bandstand until somebody touched you," Reuben said. "You're right. I broke it."
"I told you I had it."
"You did. And I stopped. That was the whole of my courage."
I looked at him over the rim of the cup.
"I'd like you to know that I noticed," I said.
"Noticed what?"
"That you stopped."
His mouth moved at one corner.
My grandmother put a plate of grits in front of him without being asked, and he said "Thank you, Mamère" before he could stop himself.
She did not turn around.
"Eat," she said, and I saw the back of her neck go pink.
At nine-fifteen my phone buzzed with a message from the lawyer above the tailor's shop.
Priscilla Claiborne's counsel has withdrawn from both matters as of 8:15 this morning. The defamation suit will be dismissed by Friday. Congratulations. Please eat something.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of She Called the Bride the Help, So I Read the Bill Aloud are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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