Ms. CeeCee had been the neighborhood candy lady since the Low Cuts’ parents were kids. She was known for making sure everybody got a fair shot at sweet treats because she knew not everybody could get to the corner store. There wasn’t one on the corner of Crossman. Actually, there wasn’t one within five blocks. So she had to be it. And the best part about Ms. CeeCee was that she was open twenty-four hours a day.
With Bit leading the way, the Low Cuts beelined up her obstacle course of a driveway and rang the doorbell, which chimed a melodic yawn, like an old man just waking up. The Low Cuts waited nervously. But Bit, full of fire and impatience, rang the bell again.
And again.
“Come on,” he growled. “Ain’t nobody got all day.”
“Chill,” Francy said. “You know she move slow.”
Sure enough, a few seconds later they heard the sound of Ms. CeeCee’s slippers slowly sliding across the floor and her voice oozing through the wooden door. “I’m coming. I’m coming. Don’t poop your pants.”
Trista smiled at that because Ms. CeeCee always mentioned pooping as if the only people who ever rang her bell were people in desperate need of a bathroom.
The door swung open, and there she was. A small lady, jet-black wig sitting on top of her head like a hat she’d purposely cocked to the side. The hair was too dark, especially compared to the few silver hairs springing from her chin. She wore a turquoise sweat suit, the sleeves and legs cut off, threads hanging like a blue-green spiderweb. Her ankles were swollen, and so were her cheeks. If it weren’t for the hair and the bumpy freckles, her face would’ve looked like a baby’s. Her voice, on the other hand, sounded like a truck engine.
“Look who it is: Eenie, Meanie, Minie, and Mo,” Ms. CeeCee said, pointing at each of them. “What y’all want?”
“Well,” John John started, because John John was usually the one who spoke for the crew. The nice one. He dug in his pocket, opened his hand showing all the silver and copper. “We got ninety cents, and—”
“We need candy, Ms. CeeCee,” Bit blurted. Then, clapping his hands together, he repeated, “We… need… candy.”
“Bit.” Francy’s voice was a warning to calm down, but Bit’s ears didn’t hear it that way.
“What? We do. And we in a rush!” He tapped his wrist where there was no watch. Checked it like checking a pulse. A live one, for sure.
“Don’t be rude,” Trista said, calm. Like, too calm. So calm that even Ms. CeeCee took a step back. Bit quieted down. Huffed, rolled his wrist, and muttered, “Go ’head, John John.”
“We got ninety cents and we need as much candy as you can give us,” John John explained.
Ms. CeeCee looked at the four of them, a stairstep from John John, the tallest, down to Bit.
“Do I want to know what y’all up to?” she asked, and they just looked at her like she hadn’t asked it. Like she hadn’t said anything. So she acted like she hadn’t said anything either. “Wait right here.”
The thing about Ms. CeeCee’s house was that kids could never go in unsupervised. Even though she knew them and their parents, she was always very careful about young people in her home buying candy because it basically was the plot of every abduction story she’d ever watched, and she didn’t want people thinking she was doing that. Because she wasn’t. So the Low Cuts had to wait at the door another few minutes until Ms. CeeCee returned with a small card table. She set the table up just outside the house, then pulled boxes of candy from a small closet right by the front door, where most people would hang their coats.
She set the boxes up on the table.
“Okay, today in the penny, nickel, and dime categories, we got the old stuff.”
“You always say that when we come here. Don’t nobody want no stale candy, Ms. CeeCee,” Bit said, fighting himself to cool his tone.
“It’s not stale, Britton. It’s just older styles of candies. Like how them Michael Jordan sneakers y’all be paying all that money for keep getting remade? That’s what this is. Retro candy. Hard to get, and used to cost only a penny a piece when I was a little girl, but I gotta charge y’all four cents more. Attitude tax.” Bit cocked his head. Ms. CeeCee cocked hers right back. “Let that be a lesson, son. Plus, everything costs more over time.”
“Inflation,” Francy said.
“Sounds more like deflation,” Bit grumbled under his breath, patting his pockets.
“What you say?” Ms. CeeCee asked, adding the last box to the lineup on the table.
“Nothing,” John John subbed in for Bit.
“Okay, y’all know the rundown,” Ms. CeeCee said. “I got Mary Janes. Tootsie Rolls. Squirrel Nut Zippers—”
Bit did his best to trap his laugh, but a pfft slipped from his mouth. No matter how tough and tight he was, Squirrel Nut Zippers broke him every time.
“Let her finish,” Francy said, through her own giggles.
“Squirrel Nut Zippers,” Ms. CeeCee repeated, then continued with the list. “Life Savers, individually wrapped. Bit-O-Honey, Charleston Chews, Bazooka bubble gum, and…” She popped back into the closet, mumbling to herself, then popped back out. “I think that’s it, in terms of bang for your buck.”
They leaned over the table looking at all the candy, trying to decide which was the right candy to get. Finally Francy spoke up.
“What you think, Bit?”
“Oh, now y’all care what I think,” he snapped back.
“Don’t be petty all your life.” That was from John John.
“We just know you know what to do with it better than us,” Francy explained. “You know… how to… use it.”
“Exactly,” Trista said, scratching her head.
Ms. CeeCee covered her ears. “I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna know.”
Bit turned to her. “I mean, you said this candy from when you were young, right?”
Ms. CeeCee pulled her hands away from her face. “That’s right.”
“So which was your favorite?”
Ms. CeeCee surveyed the table. “Hmm. It’d have to be a tie between the Mary Janes and the Life Savers. I mean, that peanut butter mixed with syrup in the Mary Janes was like heaven. But the pure sugar of the Life Savers was to little Cecelia, a life saver.”
“So, we’ll take as many of both of those as we can get.”
Ms. CeeCee started to count them out, and a few seconds later there were eighteen pieces of candy in front of them. Nine Mary Janes. Nine Life Savers.
John John lets the coins fall into Ms. CeeCee’s hands, Bit scooping up the candy.
“Later, Ms. CeeCee,” he said, already walking away.
“Boy, one of these days you gon’ learn some manners,” she clapped back. “Tell your mama I’m praying for her. Matter of fact, I’m praying for all your mamas. Knuckleheads.”
“Low Cuts,” Francy said, smiling.
“Right, Low Cuts. Short Cuts. Whatever. You’ll always be knuckleheads to me.”
“Come onnnn.” Bit was at the end of the driveway, rocking back and forth, antsy. “We running out of time.”