Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [108]
Finally, after she thanked the girls and closed the door, a quiet descended on the house. She paused then: no phone, no doorbell. Now she could take her bath. She ran the water as hot as she could stand it. So hot that her skin blushed its red undertones. She leaned back in the tub and closed her eyes and squeezed the hot water through her washcloth around her neck and her shoulders until her neck throbbed steady like a reverberating drum. She was perspiring and tasting her sweat, which dripped down her face around her lips. The air in the bathroom was white with steam, and she reached through the steam to the silver-toned faucet to turn the hot water back on full blast, lest the water in the tub cool. She held her foot under the running water, forced herself to hold it there until her foot sprang back of its own volition from the assaultive stream of heat. Then she just sat there and felt the new water get hotter in ripples, until the ripples moved through the layers in her skin, until she was ready to cry out. She stood then and yanked on the black chain to the skylight, pulled it all the way down and the cold gray air rushed in. The air was wet too, and it popped and sizzled along her skin like water dancing in a hot skillet. It found her open pores, as usual, closed them so tightly that her skin beaded up. This is how she always bathed, hot to cold, gaping wide open to nothing out, nothing in. From the time she was five and Mae made her bathe that first night on her own this is how she’d done it. Except this morning the cold couldn’t reach all the way, couldn’t close those parts that the hot water hadn’t opened, couldn’t make her skin bead up at the part of her where the soft, sweet-smelling robe had touched. Way, way under her skin, way deep, way deep.
Perry had second thoughts once he rang the bell to the house Mae and Ramona shared. He kept telling himself that he was doing a proper thing, stopping by to offer his assistance. But now he was chewing on the inside of his jaw because he hadn’t called Tyrone to wake him so he could know about the news of the girls missing too; maybe they could have both come here together. That would have really been proper, he thought. He considered running across the street to see if his lady, Hettie, was home, bring her over with him, but now the door was opening, and there Ramona stood, looking like butter that was softening on a counter to make a cake, as if her soft beauty would just melt and drip all between his fingers if he were to stroke her face right now.
“Miss Ramona,” he said, and then looked back around him across the street, hoping maybe Hettie was coming or going through her front door.
“Yes? Perry, oh, hi,” she said. And then, watching him turn around, asked, “What is it? Is that Tyrone with you?”
“Oh, ugh, no. Thought I heard somebody call my name.” Perry turned back around, and his eye caught the jump rope tied in a bow hanging from the wreath nail at the top of the door. “Now that’s different,” he said. “Your idea?”
“Neighborhood girls. I was so touched—” Her voice cracked and she put her hand to her mouth.
“Uh, listen,” he said quickly, rushing to fill the gulf of air before she started to cry, “I just heard about the girls being missing and all, and I just came by to offer my assistance.