Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [83]
“Ramona? You there?”
“Yeah, Beanie, I just wanted to make sure we had rehearsal Wednesday night, supposed to be a storm tomorrow night into Wednesday.”
Beanie exaggerated a smacking sound. “Awl, shucks, girl, I thought you was calling to talk. I’ll call you if rehearsal’s off, you know that. What you doing later? Me and a few of the girls going over to Sunny Honey’s to have some wings, you want to come?”
Ramona twirled the token along the ink blotter on her desk. “Can’t,” she lied.
“All right, well, listen up, Ramona, and listen up good. I’m here if you need me, I mean that too, girl. All right?”
“Yeah, sure, Beanie. Got to run.”
She hung up the phone and just sat at her desk playing with the token. The air was heavy around her, and now she truly missed Tyrone. Then it occurred to her just to go to the shop and visit him there. She was tired of waiting for him to come around anyhow. And now she wanted—needed—to be with him. That’s what she would do, go straight to the shop and keep Tyrone company until he was ready to close.
She grabbed her coat and purse and punched her time card and headed for the el. Now she couldn’t wait to get there, and the el ride was seeming to take forever. She tried to drive the el herself with her stomach and her breaths, rushing it, but the more impatient she became, the slower the clickety-clack of the wheels against the tracks seemed. Finally, once the el screeched and grunted and sighed to a stop at Sixtieth Street, she pushed past the throngs of people to get through the doors. She ran down the steps, zooming in and out between the slower walkers, and then across the street. She couldn’t wait to tell Tyrone about the apartment, about Mae; she’d never told anyone about Mae before. Maybe she’d cry. For sure he’d take her in his arms. She was at the door. She glanced back across the street at the clock atop the el platform advertising Morton’s salt that said, “When It Rains It Pours.” Almost six. Good, Perry would be gone. She turned the doorknob and pushed the door. The door pushed back. She jangled the knob. It wasn’t turning. She knocked on the door, looked for the sign that said be right back. That’s when she saw it, right in the bottom corner of the window, resting against the manila-colored window shade. The small red and white sign said CLOSED.
“Where the fuck is he?” she said out loud. She walked on down the street feeling like a zombie because she didn’t know what to feel. This kind of anger toward a man was new for her. She’d feigned it plenty of times, stroked their egos and pretended she was having a jealous rage even though deep down she didn’t give a shit. But now she really was angry, and hurt, and disappointed, and humiliated, and sad, she was very, very sad. She counted the days since they’d been together, before Victoria had fallen and hurt her leg; damn, that was well over a week.
She walked faster to do something with all the feelings spinning like a multicolored windmill until it was spinning so fast and all the colors washed together that she couldn’t tell where one started and the other ended. She was right in front of Sunny Honey now. She could almost hear Beanie’s laughter. She walked on past Sunny Honey and was in the next block, and then she couldn’t explain it, but she turned around suddenly and started to run, could feel a snag opening up in her stockings and rushing up her calf she was running so fast, she’d have to put her shoes in the shop, she thought as she felt the rubber tip on her high heel give and she could hear her heel scraping the cement as she ran. She was back in front of Sunny Honey. She didn’t stop to let herself