A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [145]
Jada kept looking around. She was trying to think of some way to dump him. His cousin Antawan had been his last resort until the cops came around last night trying to find some connection between him and the old lady that got her head bashed in.
“Fucking Polie,” he said again, then spat onto the cracked pavement. He was convinced Polie was paying him back for the Dearborn thing. “Like it’s all my fault or something.”
“Yeah, well, next time give us flashlights or something.” The problem had been her eyes as much as the street lamps. If they got any worse, she’d be blind.
“Fucking asshole, know what else he told them?” He passed her his cigarette.
“No, what?” She took a long, dizzying drag. Her stomach was shaky. Now every time her mother threw up, she felt nauseated.
“About trashing the big guy’s place. So now they’re going, ‘Oh, okay. That makes sense. The kid, he musta broke in there, too, so then the old lady comes home and he cracks her head open.’ ”
“Polie, he doesn’t know anything about that.” She threw the cigarette onto the sidewalk. How could he possibly know that? If he did, then he must know she’d been there, too. Then Gordon would really hate her. Her face was burning. What was she thinking? It was so much worse than that, even. “What about me? He didn’t say I was there, did he? I mean, the old lady, he’s not saying that, is he? That you and me—”
“No! Just me, the fat fucker. You’re like the last person he’s gonna mess with—’least not until he can get Marvella to get rid of that thing of his.”
“What thing?”
“The baby! She’s pregnant, right? He’s like, ‘I can’t believe that rag’s doing this to me.’ ”
“It’s Polie’s? He’s the father?”
“Yeah! Where’ve you been?”
She felt numb. There wasn’t any sweet little baby to look forward to, just an ugly little Polie. They had walked on a few blocks when she decided that Thurman was lying. Polie wasn’t really the father, which was probably why he couldn’t get her mother to get rid of it. Besides, her mother hated Polie. He was just trying to be the man, bragging on like that to Thurman, who until now had looked up to Polie.
Thurman hurried out of the liquor store with two cans of Ice jammed into the pockets of his sagging pants. The old guy in there was so worked up trying to show some retard how to fill out his lottery slips that he’d been able to clip the cans. They ran downtown to the common and sat on a concrete bench engulfed by lilac bushes. Thurman popped open his can and guzzled half of it. “I was just thinking, that asshole, that fat bastard, I’m just gonna go tell Feaster. I mean, he told me once, he said, ‘Anybody ever give you shit you go straight to me.’ ”
“Polie’s not the father,” she said.
“Oh yeah? Well, who is, then?”
“It’s a secret. I can’t tell you.”
“C’mon!”
“I can’t. It’s private. My mother, she’d like, kill me.”
“Why?” He laughed. “What the hell does she care?”
“Fuck you!” She jumped up and sprinted along the dusty path while he hoisted up his pants, trying to keep pace with her long-legged gait.
“I was just kidding! C’mon! Don’t be mad,” he panted. Easily winded, he kept stopping. “C’mon, tell me!”
“Why? What do you care?” What did anyone? Even she did not. What was the point? She couldn’t even think about that pig Polie being the father of the sweet baby she dreamed about nightly now.
With a lunge Thurman caught her around the waist and brought her down. The more she kicked and punched, the harder he laughed. “Let go-a me, you bastard. You no-good son of a bitch,” she screamed, jackknifing her knee into his groin. He curled up, groaning. She was halfway down the path when a cruiser pulled onto the wide dirt path on her right. She turned, trying not to run as she hurried back. “Thurman!” He couldn’t have gotten very far. She walked around the clump of dusty lilacs and called again.
“Be right out,” he said above the spray hitting the dry inner twigs.
Cops, she started to say when the cruiser pulled alongside. The cop at the wheel asked her name. “Izzy Rodriguez,” she