Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [117]
Ness reached beyond Blue and grabbed Til’s arm. Said, “Sister, whatever you thinking that’s got the muscles behind your ears jumping like jackrabbits is not worth it; it’s just not, let’s just find out why Shern called and look our girls over and make sure they’re okay.”
“Lord have mercy,” Mae said, clutching at her chest and thanking the God that she was sometimes prone to call in such situations for the substantial weasel room she’d just been blessed with, “are you the natural kin to those girls? Lord, forgive my lack of manners, please let me have your coats. Lord, yes, I am Mae, and those little pudding pies of yours been such a delight, such a pure delight. Now what can I offer you, all kinds of food here, something to drink? Some soda or a little taste?”
“I’ll have one, thank you,” Blue said as he slipped in the chair Mae had just gotten up from and took a shot glass and the Four Roses from a tray in the center of the table.
“You help yourself with your tall, good-looking self,” Mae said, and let her hand rest on Blue’s shoulder, and then lifted her hand quickly as if Blue’s shoulder were a glowing coal. “Pardon me, please,” she said to Til, “I didn’t mean any disrespect if this is your man friend or intended—”
“My brother,” Til said, putting all her weight on her feet so that her usually squared shoulders rounded out some. “His name is Blue, and behind me is my sister, Ness, and that’s my other brother, Show.”
“Mae, you in the game or out?” Clara Jane called from the table. “’Cause I’m getting ready to deal your hand to this tall man with the pretty mouth who done took over your seat, he damned sure better to look at than you.”
The crowd around the table laughed except for Til and Ness and Show. Then Clara went on. “Mae, thought you already knew about them anyhow. Didn’t your cut buddy Vie tell you everything you needed to know about the kinfolk of those girls?”
“Vie?” Til said as her shoulders went square again.
“Vie?” Ness repeated behind her sister. “You a friend of Vie’s?”
“Vie?” This from Blue as he drained the shot glass and stood at Mae’s back.
“Vie?” Even the short, reserved brother, Show, added his questioning, threatening tone to the air in the kitchen that had gotten suddenly stark still.
“Vie?” Now Mae said it too. “What the hell you talking about, Clara Jane? I ain’t seen nor talked to no fucking Vie!”
“You’s a damned lie,” Clara Jane said, incited by her several shots of the Four Roses and a decade and a half of harbored resentments over Mae’s ability to get foster children over everybody else. “I can’t even get a foster child placed with me but once or twice a year since you and that fat-assed Vie so chummie. Shit, between you and that no-good Bernie, it’s a wonder any foster mother in this city gets work.”
“Clara Jane, shut your big, lying mouth right now.” Mae started moving through the kitchen toward Clara Jane. If she was going to have to fight in here today, she’d take her chances with Clara Jane over the square-shouldered Til.
“I ain’t shutting shit.” Clara Jane stood and grabbed the knife resting on the plate with the coconut cake. “And I hope once they find those girls, they take them right from your conniving ass. Ain’t like they safe here. I live all the way downtown, and I heard about how some printer’s son had to step to crazy-ass Larry about bothering those girls. And when I heard it, I said, ‘Well, that conniving Mae ain’t gonna say nothing. Shit, might mess up her good thing she got going with Vie.’”
The aunts and uncles gasped simultaneously at this information about needing to find the girls. Their lifestyle of contented isolation had kept this news from seeping under the door to their Queen Street row house. Now Til suppressed a