One House Over (The Neighbors #1)

by Mary Monroe

For a colored woman, being too tall was almost as bad as being too dark and homely.

Jim Crow, the rigid system that the white folks had created to establish a different set of rules for them and us, was strictly enforced.

Like almost every other colored person, I couldn’t tell the difference because we’d been going through a “depression” all our lives.

I HAD JUST FINISHED STACKING THE CANNED GOODS SHELVES IN THE grocery section aisle when I noticed Mr. MacPherson and a tall young woman walking toward me. She resembled Mac and was almost as tall as he was. He was leading her by her hand. I could tell by the way she was blinking and smiling that she was shy. That was probably the only detail about her that Buddy and Sadie hadn’t told me. I liked shy women. They were easy to control.

I couldn’t think of nothing better than me stumbling into an unmarried woman that had so much to offer a man who’d been down on his luck as long as I had. All I had to worry about was getting her to like me.

We ended up in America by default, so it’ll never really be our home.”

“I’m alone, but I’m not lonely. I have a few friends that I do things with, but I like to do a lot of things by myself, too.”

“Your opinion of yourself is the only thing that’s ugly about you,”

“Men who really love their wives don’t cheat on them.”

Tonight was the first time I felt really guilty about what I was doing to Joyce. But it was way too late for me to do anything about it now. I was swimming in shit up to my neck and I had to do everything I could to keep from drowning.