Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [70]
“Before you leave outta here, tell me one thing, please,” Mae asked instead. “Why do you insist on wearing those black stockings on your legs? I’ve told you before they make you look like you trying to be a whore, either that or like you trying to hide the fact that you’re yellow. Which is it?”
Used to Mae’s rhetorical insults, Ramona didn’t answer; she was busy thinking about what Mae had said about those girls’ mother, wondering how Victoria felt watching her mother go crazy like that. And now she was thinking about Victoria’s knee, about how she was still limping when she’d passed her in the hallway this morning. She sliced up bananas over the three bowls of shredded wheat. “I think that middle one needs to go to the doctor,” she said into the bowls.
“What you mumbling about, girl? Speak up.” Georgie’s voice was coming through the radio again. “Especially if you insist on listening to all that mess all loud, you got to speak up.”
“That middle one, the hurt one—”
“You mean, the one you let get hurt.”
“She needs to see a doctor,” Ramona shouted it.
“When did you notice, hawkeye?”
“Pus still draining, she’s still limping, and it’s been more than a week since she fell. Not good, might be infected.”
“Well, Ramona, isn’t that exactly the point I was trying to make with you after it happened, that the child was hurt? You know I hate to be cursing and carrying on, acting like a maniac around here, but your ineptness brings that out in me.”
Ramona flinched and rubbed her tongue inside her jaw. “I know my mouth is still sore from last night. You just better be glad it’s not swollen or I was gonna have to call out sick from work today, and we get docked two days for calling out on a Monday.”
“No, darling”—Mae slurped her coffee again and paused to swallow and let out a small belch—“you just better be glad it’s not swollen.”
“So you gonna take her to the clinic?” Ramona asked, shrugging off Mae’s last comment, just wanting to get Victoria’s medical needs met so she could get the hell out of here and go to work. “I would, but like I just said, I can’t call out from my job on a Monday.”
“I will, I will. Ain’t no sense in me trying to hide the fact that the child got hurt, the child is hurt, I know hurt in children when I come across it. I’m just gonna have to fill out those thousand forms and document it. So before you walk out of that door, leave enough money on the table for hoagies for dinner since you won’t be here to cook and I got to spend what little I got at the clinic on that child you let get hurt.”
Now Stevie Wonder was blowing “Fingertips” on the harmonica and Addison danced his way back into the kitchen. Mae let out a little hoot and clapped her hands to the rhythm of his dancing feet. “Get it, Addison.” She laughed. She pushed herself up from the table and danced a few steps with him. “My boy,” she said, “go on with your bad self.” She reached out and grabbed Ramona’s arm. “Come on, Ramona, dance with your momma and your cousin. You know you can dance us both under the table with your pretty self.”
Ramona pulled her arm from Mae’s, not a jerk but still a determined pull. This is as close as Mae would come to apologizing. Ramona knew that. No matter. She wouldn’t have to feel anything but relief when she could leave here finally. A good belch after a bad meal