Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [90]
17
While Shern and the reluctant Bliss were huddled in the bedroom, planning out their escape and trying to convince Victoria that they had to go, Ramona dragged the shopping cart filled with dirty clothes against the wind. This was Tuesday and not even her regular night to do this, but a big storm was forecast for later, and it might be three, four days before the sidewalks were clear enough to get the wheeled cart through, and the dirty clothes basket was always overflowing with those three girls going through towels as if they were Kleenex.
She felt so poor wheeling the cart those three long blocks to the Laundromat. Most working people had a washer these days, even if it wasn’t a semiautomatic washer, even if they were sending the clothes though the wringer and then hanging clothes on the line to dry. She’d tried to talk Mae into getting a washer last month instead of that overpriced royal blue wall-to-wall carpet. But even though she usually dreaded and despised this walk, right now she hummed “My Guy” and laughed when she got to the part: “I’m sticking to my guy like a stamp to a letter.”
Last night at Sunny Honey had almost transformed Ramona. After she’d wet Beanie’s shoulders with her tears, and apologized for leaving a stain on her white polyester blouse, and Beanie said, “Oh, here, Ramona, get the other side, so at least I’ll match,” Ramona laughed the chest-vibrating laugh that she usually reserved for the choir changing room in the basement of the church. Then she told them about Tyrone. She held on to the part about hating Mae, but she let loose with Tyrone. Told them when she noticed his mouth change, how scarce he’d been, how she felt when she came upon the closed shop. Told them how honest he was otherwise; she couldn’t fathom what had gotten into him; she wasn’t used to this, just wasn’t.
Then, after they’d listened intently, echoing her words with heartfelt “mnh-hm,” “know what you saying now, girl,” “oh, yeah, I been there too,” Beanie said it sounded to her like some experienced hussy had the man’s nose open. Told Ramona she should fight for him, because all the emotions she’d just described signaled head over heels in love. Told her she should buy some sexy lingerie, even spring for a bottle of wine, then call him up and whisper in his ear what she was gonna put on, and then how she was gonna take it off as soon as he rented them a fancy room somewhere for the weekend. Told her she was more than equipped to go up against whoever the scampy bitch was who taking advantage of Tyrone’s honest country ways. Ramona had winced when Beanie said “scampy bitch.” She winced right now as she dragged the cart. She wondered how often a bunch of girlfriends sat around a basket of chicken wings and said similar things about her.
She tried to shake the thought, difficult to do because now she was walking past Mr. John in his real estate office. There he stood at the window, peeping through his venetian blinds, his mouth formed as if to say, “You don’t have to pull that cart, baby. I’ll pay your Lit Brothers’ salary plus buy you a Maytag.” She turned away and walked around to the other side of the laundry cart so she could switch hands that she pulled the cart with, give her right arm a rest and pull with her left.
She pushed her free hand into her pocket and tried to forget about Mr. John and asked out loud when the month of March was going to show its lamb side. She could use a pair of gloves right now like those girls’ mother knitted. She’d never seen a stitch like that, a cross knit and purl that didn’t let the cold through. That mother must love the shit out of those girls, she thought. She wondered how it must feel to be so loved. She felt a stirring in her chest, as if she had known that kind of motherly love once, a long time ago; every now and then she would get such a stirring, try to figure out what it meant, but then a block of granite would come up in her chest and make her feel like she was suffocating. It did now.
Mr. John had come out of his office now