Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [37]
Shern’s eyes darkened some when he did that, and Bliss stomped back to the couch and sat down. The plastic covering exhaled loudly.
“I’m trying to discipline them,” Ramona almost snarled at Tyrone. “They gotta listen and do what I tell them to do.”
“Awl, Mona, she’s hurt for God’s sake.” Tyrone motioned to Victoria and then handed her the ice. “Just dab that against your lips,” he said.
Ramona looked at Victoria for the first time good since she’d been back in the house. She rarely looked at Victoria, the quietest, the plainest of the three. She was always looking at that youngest, Bliss, arguing back at her, threatening to slap her dead in her mouth. And Shern, that oldest with those eyes, who had a maturity about her that Ramona didn’t trust, she had to look at her to make sure the child didn’t have a pair of scissors aimed at her back. But Victoria was mostly compliant; she didn’t even argue with those other two like that bad-assed Bliss. Ramona suddenly felt a twinge of something other than intense dislike for Victoria, not just because the child was hurt but because she was, well, good.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked Victoria in a softer tone, not a nice tone, but at least the steel was gone from her tone.
“I—I fell.” Victoria tried to swallow the suds in her voice.
“And she chipped her teeth.” Bliss puffed out the words as if they could knock Ramona over. “So you and your momma gonna have to put out the money to get them fixed. Aren’t they, Shern?”
Ramona ignored Bliss this time. “You think she need to go to the hospital?” she asked Tyrone. “Shit, who feels like sitting up in some emergency room all night, a Saturday night at that?”
“I don’t think so,” Tyrone said. “Least not for the knee, can’t be stitched ’cause all the skin has been rubbed off, more like a burn than a cut. Got to be kept cleaned, though. If it gets infected, mnh, won’t be pretty. She will need a dentist for that chipped tooth.”
“Damn. Just what I need, for Mae to come back here Tuesday to a hurt foster child,” Ramona said under her breath.
“Don’t let that ice water drip on the carpet,” she said to Victoria as she picked up her coat from the chair and went to the closet to hang it. It was her good coat, the one with the suede trimming. She’d worn it so Tyrone’s father, Perry, would be impressed. Not that he’d noticed. Ramona had been so nervous once she’d slid into the supple-feeling front seat of the new-smelling deuce and a quarter, and since it was a rare thing for a man to make her feel nervous, she just stared straight ahead or out the passenger side window looking for the girls. She gave one-word replies to his gentlemanly attempts at small talk, the “How’s the job? How’s your mother?” type conversation. Finally she was able to pull her eyes from the window and concentrate on him instead of the fast pace of her heart thumping under her good coat. She gasped silently when she noticed the hair curling around the thick gold band of his watch as he reached across her lap to get his cigarettes from the glove compartment. Thought she would melt from the sound of his voice as he sang along with Johnny Hartman something about you are too beautiful, and I am a fool for beauty. Knew then what he’d probably been doing at Miss Hettie’s, could tell by the drained, satisfied tone to his voice and the way he was leaned back in the car, faraway-looking smile turning his mouth up; scent rising off of him was like he had just showered with Palmolive Gold soap. So she just looked out the window, thinking about how much she hated Miss Hettie and hoping she’d see the girls so she could jump out of the car before her nervousness showed through.
Tyrone was trying to tell Ramona how Larry had bothered the girls on Dead Block, of all places, how something was gonna have to be done about him, he was gonna have to be reported or something, and anyhow, hadn’t she warned them about being on Dead Block around midday? he asked.
She told him nothing could be done about Larry, that Larry’s sister, Vie, kept Mae with a decent