Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.

Stuart stands and says, 'Come here,' and he's on my side of the room in one stride and he claps my hands to his hips and kisses my mouth like I am the drink he's been dying for all day and I've heard girls say it's like melting, that feeling. But I think it's like rising, growing even taller and seeing sights over a hedge, colors you've never seen before.

Bosoms are for bedrooms and breastfeeding.

Truth. It feels cool, like water washing over my sticky-hot body. Cooling a heat that's been burning me up all my life. Truth, I say inside my head again, just for that feeling.

Im a Southerner - I never take satisfaction in touching a nerve.

At one O'Clock, Miss Celia comes in the kitchen and says she's ready for her first cooking lesson. She settles on a stool. She's wearing a tight red sweater and a red skirt and enough makeup to scare a hooker.

I nursed a worthless, pint drinker for twelve years and when my lazy, life-sucking, daddy finally died, I swore to God with tears in my eyes I'd never marry one. And then I did.