Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [54]
“Ramona,” Mae called up the stairs from where she stood in the middle of the living room, her bags surrounding her where she just let them lay where she’d dropped them. Her black and gray tweed coat was dropping off the back of her shoulder, her flowered scarf over her red wig was slightly crooked, and her lazy eye, the left one, which drooped and seemed to stare straight ahead, was more pronounced now; it always drooped more when she was tired. And tired she was after that long bus ride from Buffalo, after carrying the heavy bags to get on the el, then the waiting for the G bus, then trying to keep up with Addison and his long, fast steps. She was almost sweating, even as the cold March air was rushing in the opened door behind her and wrapping her up. She stood in the middle of the floor now and called for her only natural child.
“Ramona,” she said again, “get on down here and help me with my bags, please, Lord Jesus, am I ever tired.”
“Ma’am?” Ramona called from upstairs. “You here already?” Then her voice got closer as she ran down the steps; she gripped the banister so she wouldn’t slip and fall down the blue-bordered plastic runner that protected the new carpet hugging the stairs.
“What happened? Is Auntie better? Why you back today instead of Tuesday?” she asked as she walked straight past Mae to push the front door shut.
“Lord Jesus, child, quit with the questions and help me outta this coat. So tired I can’t hardly stand up.” Then a smile crossed her lips, and she said, “That Addison got such long, quick legs, my, has that boy grown, couldn’t hardly keep up with him after we got off the G bus.”
“Addison!” Ramona shrieked, stopping like stone with Mae only half out of her coat.
Mae shook her arms impatiently. “The coat, child, just get me outta this coat; then we can talk about Addison.” She pulled one arm out, then the other, used to Ramona helping her in this way. Then she tilted her head so Ramona could untie the scarf under her chin. “Yeah, my baby boy, Addison,” she said as Ramona tried to work the knot out. “I told him to go on and stop off at Smitty’s and play the jukebox or the pinball machine and relax hisself for a bit. Poor child been through a lot. Little heifer gets herself in a family way and then try to pin it on him. So I told him come on back to Philadelphia with me, ain’t nobody gonna hurt him or be saddling him with something they can’t even prove he did.”
“For how long?” Ramona asked, blowing her words out at Mae’s neck as she pulled and tugged at the scarf’s ends.
“Till that situation with that little hot-in-the-behind child blows over. Can’t rightly say just how long that’ll take. We’ll see, maybe through the summer.”
“Through the summer!” Ramona’s jaws were pushed way out, and her voice was shaking, as was the scarf that she’d finally untied from Mae’s head; it was hanging loosely in her hands and going up and down with her hands. “And where’s he supposed to sleep? The summer is three, four months away. And what about school? His dumb behind needs to be in school somewhere. I swear, I really don’t believe this, I just don’t believe this.”
The scarf was really going now in Ramona’s hands, and Mae snatched the scarf from her. “Don’t you be shaking this scarf in my face like you taunting me.” She squinted her eyes at Ramona, and the lazy one shut completely.
Ramona looked away. “Well, did you at least think about where he’s supposed to sleep?” Her tone was lower, but the shaking was still there. “I mean, you know those three girls are here now and they got a room, I got a piece of a room, and you got a room.” She swallowed hard so she wouldn’t cry. Another person for her to have to pick up after, do laundry for, cook for. Plus he was cocky and trifling and stupid.
“He’ll sleep back in the shed,” Mae said as she walked to the couch and sank into it. “I’ll put that little cot up for him that we used to use all those years ago when his daddy stayed here. He’ll be just fine.” The plastic covering snorted, and Mae extended