Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [34]
“Is that a lot to ask?” She said it softer. She could see how low his eyebrows were. That’s what she’d first noticed about him, when the women’s contingent of the gospel choir clacked about this new, fine guy, Perry the printer’s son, up from Virginia to live with his father, “tall and muscle-bound,” they’d said; “slim waist; wide, straight back; good hair; grin that opens his face and softens the hard line of his nose. Girl, Ramona, you got to see him,” they’d said; “coloring that’s like a purple-brown; mix that with someone light like you, girl, y’all would have some pretty babies,” they’d insisted. But it was his eyebrows that caught Ramona and made her think that for once she could settle into an honest relationship. They were coal black and thick and had their own life the way they dipped and bowed and punctuated in the most genuine way whatever else his face was showing. Now they looked to her as if they wanted to drop to the floor.
“Look”—she walked toward him—“the sooner those brats get here, the sooner I can lose this attitude you the only one here to absorb. You do want me to lose this attitude?” She widened her eyes and fixed them on him. The muscles in her face loosened; she let her hips go in an exaggerated side-to-side swing. “Don’t you, baby? Don’t you want me to lose this attitude so I can be nice to you?”
Sam Cooke was at the end of the song. Tyrone was pudding now, and he knew it. He cleared his throat and licked his lips, which were dry. He moved like a robot. “I’ll go get my pops; then I’ll come back here and wait to let them in.”
Ramona watched him leave. She smoothed at the edges of her French roll, which were soft and silky straight.
6
They landed on the porch, three piles of plaid wool, like they’d just fallen from the sky. First Bliss, then Shern, then Victoria came limping and crying. All the way back to Mae’s they talked about what could have happened: Suppose Larry had had a weapon, suppose Victoria had fallen on her head instead of her knee, suppose Larry was the type to take a young girl back in the woods of the park and do nasty things to her, suppose this, suppose that. They scared themselves so with their own imaginings that they ran as hard and fast as they could, pulling Victoria as she half ran, half hopped. The cold air in their chests had them gasping and wheezing, their undershirts soaked from perspiring, and the porch at the house they hated was such the unlikely welcome sight that they collapsed on it and heaved and coughed while their hearts settled some. Such was the scene when Tyrone clicked the switch to turn on the porch light to the house Mae and Ramona shared.
“Hey,” Tyrone said, walking into the bright light of the porch. “I was hoping that was y’all. It’s about time. Ramona’s out looking for you. Her jaws all tight over y’all being so late.” He stooped and lightly tugged the tassels on Shern’s hat.
Shern slowly unfolded herself from the porch floor and sat up and jostled Bliss and reached beyond her to nudge Victoria. Victoria started to sob fresh all over again.
He walked over to where Victoria was. His eye went to the bloodstain seeping through the knee of Victoria’s brown corduroy pants. “Awl, man. You’re hurt? What you do? Let’s get you in the house.” He picked Victoria up and carried her into the house.
Being lifted and cradled like that reminded Victoria of the way her father used to carry her when she’d fall asleep in the rec room. She’d keep her eyes shut tight and nestle in her father’s arms, fearing that if he knew she was awake, he might make her walk on her own. She kept her eyes opened now. It didn’t matter if Tyrone tried to make her walk on her own, she wouldn’t be able to. Maybe hop. Crawl on her good leg maybe. But the pain in her hurt knee pulsed like the neon sign at the House of Hong Kong in Chinatown, where their father would take them for dinner. She imagined