Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [92]
Ramona was trying to recover from the shock of finding Perry here instead of Tyrone, and now standing here in this printshop with just Perry and the space heater and the paper cutter and the long spreading-out table right in her view, right where she was looking now so that she wouldn’t have to look at Perry. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” She looked at her fingernails after she asked it and coughed and put her hand to her mouth.
“I said I’m sure he had it in his plans to stop off and see his ladylove, and I don’t mean your mother, Mae.”
Ramona forced a laugh and wanted to say something like “Thanks, tell him I stopped by.” And then she wanted to turn around and leave the shop. And she would have been able to do it had she just focused on the straight edge of the cutter, or the orange lines humming in the space heater on the floor, even if she’d kept her eyes on the long table right behind where Perry stood, but she didn’t. She looked up at that instant right into Perry’s face.
The eyebrows were Tyrone’s, but the rest of that face was years ahead of Tyrone, filled with those deep river lines that meant he had lived awhile, knew a little about the hard life. She looked at that face and all that that face meant. What did it mean? She hadn’t figured it out. All she knew was that her mouth was dry and her hands were wet. The skin on her face was tight and hot, and she knew it was shadowed in red.
Perry was looking at her now, and his look was as strong as the lines in his face. He knew the look of women, and since he did know, he was surprised as he looked at Ramona now and saw that unmistakable look of roundness, like a rhododendron that swells itself shut right before the blossoms explode. He hadn’t known. Damn. He couldn’t acknowledge what he was seeing on her face, couldn’t give rise to the desire that was in fact his own manhood rising, right now, catching him off center, like he hadn’t been caught since he was a young man. And now he was a young man as he looked at her: He was Tyrone’s age, and she was his woman. Damn, he thought, the Lord ain’t supposed to put more on a mere man than he can stand; fine as she is, this just might be more than I can stand. Now he was ashamed at the thought. This was his son’s lady. Not his brother’s or uncle’s or even best friend’s. His son’s.
Now he cleared his throat and forced a cough. Now he looked away from Ramona.
They did a cha-cha then, of pretending not to see what each was in fact seeing. Now they looked around everywhere in the printshop except at each other.
“Could you, um, tell Tyrone, um—”
“I’ll tell um, Tyrone, um—”
“Um, thanks, um, Perry. See you later.”
She was out of the door then. She almost stumbled across the street she was rushing so, to get back to the Laundromat, where she should have stayed in the first place, she told herself, so she’d be there to add fabric softener at the right time in the cycle, and the blue-in for extra whitening. Should have even gone back home in between cycles instead of trying to seduce Tyrone; should have dragged another load over, to make sure there was enough clean linen to last in case she couldn’t get back to the Laundromat for a while, in case the pavements became impassable to that wheeled laundry cart should the