Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [109]
“Actually, now that you mention it, Perry, we could use some flyers.”
“You know, I was thinking that exact thing,” he lied. He’d had no such thought, could kick himself now for not having had the thought, for not being the one to say, “Let me do a run of flyers to help find the girls.”
“We’d sure appreciate it,” she said. She hesitated and then pushed the door wide open. “Come in, Perry, please. I don’t mean to leave you standing out there; it’s still half cold out. I—I just didn’t know if you were coming for a visit or just to, you know, I hate to say ‘pay your respects,’ it’s not like somebody died, I just feel almost, you know—” Her voice cracked again.
Perry covered her hand over the doorknob with his own. “I wouldn’t mind visiting for a minute, Miss Ramona, ’specially if you getting ready to cry; we can’t have you doing that, at least not alone. Nothing worse than a beautiful woman crying alone.” He tried to keep the whisper from taking over his normal voice, but it was no use; his voice was so low it was like he should have had his mouth to her ear. And now he realized that his hand was covering hers; he pulled his hand back as if he had just touched a hot iron. He wished Tyrone weren’t such a late sleeper. Should have had his ass up and at the shop first thing this morning so he would’ve gotten the news same time as me, he thought. He should already be here. Should be sitting on the couch and saying, “Hey, Pops,” when I walk through the damned door.
Ramona was looking down at the porch floor, had been looking there since Perry said the part about a beautiful woman. She wished she had put on another sweater. This sweater was not only berry red, not only tight across her chest, but short too; meant the print of her hips was showing through her Wranglers. But then she reasoned it wasn’t like she knew he was coming, wasn’t like she’d said, “What’s the most revealing outfit I can put on today because Perry’s gonna drop by out of the blue?”
She ushered him into the living room, trying to walk her stilted walk, the one she reserved for walking past corners filled with gold-toothed, processed-haired men who’d call out, “Hey baby, what’s yo number?” Not that Perry was uncouth; she just didn’t want him to think she was coming on to him.
“You have pictures of the girls you can spare just for today?” he asked as he stepped into the living room, unable to keep his eyes off of her sweater, then her Wranglers, then back to her sweater again, before letting his eyes fall on her face. “I’ll make sure you get them back once I run the job.”
“Mnhnh. All I have is the one that was in the Tribune. Please, have a seat, rest your jacket; I’ll go get the newspaper.”
He folded his jacket along the arm of the couch and then sat down to the plastic chair cover’s clatter. He sat back against the couch and crossed his ankle over his knee and let his arm hang casually from his knee.
Ramona came back into the room with the newspaper. She sat next to him, close enough so that they could share in their view of the paper, close enough so that she could tell that both he and Tyrone wore Aqua Di Silva aftershave.
“Mnh, this picture probably won’t reproduce too well,” he said as he held one edge of the paper while she held the other. “They sure are cute little girls too.”
“Nice girls too,” she said, and then stared off into the gray air of the living room. “All three of them, very nice girls.”
“What you think happened? I mean, why you think they ran away? You do think they ran away, don’t you? I mean, you don’t think they were kidnapped or anything like that, do you?”
Her eyes clouded up. “They ran away, I’m sure of it.”
“To get back to their mother?