The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [51]
“Scott Fenney.”
“Mr. Fenney, this is Louis.”
“Louis…”
“From the projects.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, Louis.”
“Well, Mr. Fenney, Pajamae, she ain’t come back yet, and I be getting kinda worried…She still with you?”
“Oh, Louis, I’m sorry, I should’ve had my secretary call you. Pajamae’s going to stay with us until the trial’s over.”
“Us who?”
“Me. My family.”
“You taking Pajamae in?”
“Well, yeah, you know, until this is over. We were down at the courthouse with Shawanda this morning and I didn’t want to drive—” Scott decided not to mention that he didn’t want to return to Louis’s part of town—“and, well, I’ve got a daughter her age, and we’ve got four bedrooms sitting empty, and I just thought it might be better that way. Shawanda thought so, too.”
“What about her stuff, clothes and all?”
“Oh, she can wear my daughter’s clothes. They’re about the same size and, hell, my daughter never wears half the clothes my wife buys her anyway.”
“You want, I can bring her stuff to you.”
“To Highland Park?”
The phone was silent. Scott thought again he might have angered Louis. But he was wrong again.
“Louis?”
“Projects ain’t no place for a little girl living alone, Mr. Fenney. Tell her I said hey. And if you need any help down my way, you let me know.”
“Okay, thanks, Louis.”
“Oh, and Mr. Fenney…”
“Yeah?”
“I guess I wouldn’t expect something like that from a white man. You a good man, Mr. Fenney.”
Scott disconnected and wondered if Louis was right.
Boo bounced down the stairs to the kitchen and over to the table, followed by Pajamae. Mother took one look at Boo, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Young lady, what have you done to your hair?”
Boo’s long red hair was now braided tight to her scalp with long braids hanging to her shoulders.
“Cornrows. Pajamae did it. Pretty cool, huh?”
Mother turned to A. Scott and said, “Well, Scott?”
He shrugged and said, “She looks like Bo Derek.”
“Bo Derek?”
“Yeah, from that movie.”
Mother threw her hands up. “Barbara Boo Fenney, Highland Park debutantes don’t wear their hair in cornrows!”
“Then it’s not a problem, Mother, because I’m not gonna be a deb.”
Mother sighed heavily, restraining her anger, and said, “Pajamae, I hope you don’t have any tattoos.”
Pajamae laughed, but she didn’t know Mother wasn’t being funny. Consuela held up the salt and pepper shakers and said from the stove, “Is twins, like these.” She pointed at Boo—“Is salt”—and then at Pajamae—“is pepper.” Consuela chuckled and her body shook like Jell-O. “Salt and pepper.”
Mother was shaking her head and her lips were a tight line across her face, normally not a good sign.
“Finish the enchiladas, Consuela.”
“Y’all expecting company?” Pajamae asked.
Boo turned to Pajamae, who was standing at the table.
“What?”
“All this food, are you having a party?”
The table was crowded with tacos and enchiladas and guacamole and refried beans and flour tortillas and hot sauce. Mexican food night.
“No.”
“This is all just for us?”
Boo shrugged. “Yeah.”
Pajamae smiled and said, “Where-as.”
Butch and Barbara Fenney had always discussed family matters at the dinner table, in front of their young son: good things and bad things, successes and failures, possibilities and problems. They figured he would learn by listening. Scott recalled one such conversation, not too long before his father died, when Butch said a contractor wanted him to cut some corners on a job to reduce costs and increase the contractor’s profits. The owner would never know. Butch was