Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [71]
Addison was dipping and twirling all through the kitchen, and Ramona had to dodge his waving hands or she would have surely been hit.
She went into the living room to get her coat from the closet and called up the stairs for those three to hurry up so they could have breakfast. “And don’t dump the whole sugar dish in your cereal,” she said.
“Yes, Ramona,” she heard Victoria answer. She almost wanted to wait for them to get down the stairs, wanted to look on Victoria’s sad, lean face for a minute before she left. Addison and Mae were still laughing and dancing in the kitchen. It was time for her to get to work. Time for her to pretend she empathized with her coworkers’ complaints about having to come to work on Mondays. She left two dollars on the coffee table for their hoagie dinner. “Lord, thank you for this piece of a job that I can go to today,” she whispered as she stepped out into the sun and walked quickly up the street, headed for the el that would take her to work.
Because she really did love her job, especially when no one called out sick and she wasn’t pulled down on the selling floor. She preferred working with merchandise over people. She developed feelings for the items that ended up in her department: the low-budget, cheaper knockoffs of originals, picked over by buyers from all over the world, then rejected. The selling floor in the half-lit basement was the last stop before they were finally discarded, donated maybe to some famous charity for the tax write-off, but no longer on display, no longer having a shot at being chosen.
Tyrone hadn’t come back over the night before. Even though Ramona had whispered that Mae was going out to play cards, why didn’t he come and keep her company after she got back from the night service where her choir was singing and after those girls went to bed? He declined, though. Said he had to be up early to start running a big four-color job, the church program covers for Palm Sunday. Ramona almost asked him then what her name was. She held her tongue, though. Had heard too many men complain to her over the years about their nagging, suspicious wives or other lovers. She shook her head even now thinking about it as she turned the corner off Addison Street. They’d be laying up with her with their pants down and complaining because they had suspicious wives. Her consolation was that Tyrone was honest enough, and they’d been together for almost nine months; he wouldn’t be able to lie for long and look her right in her face. At least she hoped. She decided she wouldn’t confront him just yet, she’d try to wait it out; a confession rising up out of his own guilt was better than one dragged out by a confrontation. And maybe he wouldn’t even confess; maybe he’d be so bothered if she didn’t get in the way of his guilt and just allowed it to fester, maybe he’d just stop. She put Tyrone from her mind as headed for the el, she walked past Perry’s printshop. She looked straight ahead so she wouldn’t be tempted to look in the two-way mirror that stretched along the side of the building. Undoubtedly some man would see her and call across the street all loud, “Hey, sugar, you looking good.” Or else Perry might be in the shop looking out at her. She quickened her pace at the thought of Perry, trying to outwalk