Finding My Thunder (14 page)

Finding My Thunder 22

In
my dreams, just like in real life, Danny had carried me. He had dragged me. He
had held me. But he was a kid, too. Granted he looked grown, as did I. But
inside…we were still very young and I was trying to make others see this. I was
preaching it in Naomi’s pulpit. And the sisters gathered round and poured
pennies on me until I was buried, just my head out, and I was still saying,
“We’re just kids!”

When
I woke up, early morning sun was just coming up, its first light barely in the
corners. Two of us on my twin bed wrapped in each other. Danny had turned my
little fan on but already it was hot and we were so close.

I
was thirsty. I’d cried myself out last night. No one had bothered us. Not after
that first time when Danny had taken care of it. The birds were singing and the
thought of rainbows was in my head.

“Hey,”
he whispered to me and I moved myself against him. He straightened his legs
like we were unfolding and lining ourselves up. We looked at each other. His
eyes were tired and dark and deep. His lashes were long and thick and matched
his eyes for color.

He
swallowed and I licked my lips.
 

“I
wonder how you’ve stayed under the radar at school…you’re so beautiful,” he
said softly.

He
was just being nice. Probably feeling sorry for me. I was so pathetic. I just
made a face at him like he was crazy.

“Don’t
scrunch up my beautiful face,” he said, the backs of his fingers moving over my
cheek.

“Doesn’t
your mom wonder where you are?”

He
smiled. “Sometimes. She’s too tired to wait up. As long as I show up in the
morning. Dickens will cover for me.”

“Teaching
him to lie to his mother?”

“Goes
with getting to sleep in Sukey’s bed,” he said.

I
smirked a little. “Where did you come from yesterday? I thought you’d gone
home.”

“I
thought you went into Naomi’s. Then…I just knew.”

I
laughed a little. Inside. Outside I smiled. “That’s like…supernatural.”

“Or
just putting two and two together,” he laughed a little. It was a beautiful
sound. “I have to go,” he said, “assuming I still have a job.”

“I’m
holding you here supernaturally,” I said tightening my arm around him.

“I
can feel you against me and it’s…super…and I’m having a natural reaction.”

He
hugged me tight and we laughed again. I put my face against him and the
envelope from the sisters was still in his shirt pocket and it crinkled and his
heart was so steady and true and I kissed him there.

And
this disgust for myself hit. Before I sunk my teeth into his neck and just
latched on in the sickest of ways I pulled back. He was doing too much, giving
too much. I was going to drain him.

I
let him go and sat up beside him. I tried to smooth my hair, comb it with my
fingers.

He
stood and stretched and his beauty filled my shabby room. His Sunday clothes
were rumpled. He was sticking his feet in his shoes then he sat on the bed to
tie them and the bow of his back captivated me and I ran my hand over it.

“Danny,”
I said, pausing to cover my mouth and yawn hugely. He finished with his shoes,
then he stood there
retucking
his shirt. I wiped at
tears in my eyes. “
Everyday
I know you…you give me
more reasons to love you. Not that I need them. But….”

He
laughed a little, then he bent to kiss me. His lips were so comforting. I made
myself refrain from clinging to him but I did rub my fingers on one of his sideburns.
He had a scratchy morning beard. It just made his lips more sinful.

He
straightened. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like
what…Ricky Nelson?” I fluttered my lashes.

He
laughed then and kind of tackled me on the bed and tickled me a little, just a
little. It didn’t last, there was heaviness in me, but it had been a noble
effort and I was smiling easily.

He
pulled back and looked at me. “You coming in to work? Or…I get it if you can’t
look at him.”

“Um…I
don’t know. He told me I didn’t need to...as in never again. So….”

“He’s
such a bastard.”

“Danny…if
you need to take a break from me…I mean we’ve been together a lot and then you
have to work with him….”

He
stood up then and turned away from me and ran his hands through his thick dark
hair. He had actually growled and I could see the strength in his back and
shoulders. “What will you do today?”

I
didn’t know. I had to think. “Naomi told me yesterday we have to go to Mr.
Durr
office to see about Mama’s estate. We go around one, I
think.”

He
turned back toward me. “Oh. That sounds important.” He kept his voice even,
like everything we shared wasn’t so bizarre.

“Please
just…what I said about a break….”

“Hilly…are
you trying to get rid of me?”

“No.
It’s the opposite. I feel…very attached. I’m worried that…I know you have
another life…friends…things you like to do. You’ve done enough for me. More
than enough.”

“Sometimes
you have to be the one who needs so others can have the blessing of giving,” he
said, his dark eyes shining with his cleverness.

“Oh.
Yeah. But there has to be a limit,” I said, my chin lifting a little.

“Yeah…well
I’ll let you know. Right now…I’m doing what I want to do. A girl told me that
too…people do what they want.”

“Okay,”
I took in a big breath. “You have to go.” I said. “Are you going to be able to
work for Lonnie without losing it? He’s not worth it.”

We’d
made it to the door of my room now and he held my hands and kissed my knuckles.
He looked pleased with himself for remembering the quotes. “You’re kind of
adorable in the morning,” he said.

“Adorable?
Try telling that to Lonnie.”

We
laughed some. But inside…I wanted him to stay…forever.

“Oh,
the book.” I dug in my shelves and gave him books one and two.

“Thanks,”
he said. “She’ll be happy.”

We
kissed some more, but I fumbled for the knob and pulled the door open against
us and pushed him a little. He got the message and slipped out. I didn’t follow
him. But I watched him go to Mama’s room.

“It’s
empty,” he whispered.

I
nodded, relieved. But even with my bladder ready to burst I wasn’t ready to go
out there. He looked at me as he went down the stairs and I blew him a kiss and
he winked.

I
went to the window and watched. I heard him on the porch and the sound of him
feeding Sooner. As if he knew I watched he appeared below walking backwards and
looking up at me. He pointed to the porch and mouthed something.

I
put my hands up like, What? And he held his hands apart like he was showing me something
small. Then he pointed to the porch and held up eight fingers.

I
had puppies.

Finding My Thunder 23

As
soon as Danny left I grabbed clean clothes and holding my hand up to shield my
eyes from the sight of Mama’s empty room I hurried to the bathroom. There I
washed and dressed, failing to ignore the box of things that did not belong to
anyone I knew which sat on the floor under the pedestal sink, the
Spoolies
, the
Jergens
lotion, the
White Rain Hairspray and Pond’s cold cream, lots of brush curlers and pink
sticks to hold them in place. This was the one bathroom and I was sharing it
now.
 

I
was held in three very emotional realities: One, I was, to the core of my
being, in love with Danny. Two, moving Mama’s things hit me so hard it was like
I was facing her death with a new kind of amazement. Three, my home was
invaded.

I
wore a dress, one I had ordered from the J. C. Penny’s catalogue with some
money Naomi had given me last Christmas. It was the best dress I had, my
favorite dress ever put together. It was an orangey brown with a cream colored
mod-type pattern over it. It had a scooped neckline, flared some in the skirt
with a ruffle around the hem. It tied at the waist. The sleeves were long and
with elastic around the wrists that could be pushed to my elbows. I did that. I
left my hair long and pinned it back on each side with barrettes. I changed out
my hoops for some long fake tarnished gold earrings.

Good
or bad this was me, and I said that to myself looking in the mirror. I hoped I
didn’t look childish or something. I turned to the side and stood on my
tip-toes to see if my breasts made much of a show and they did. Not
spectacular, but not back-row either, so it would do. Maybe they would help me
look more than twelve years old.

Back
to my room. I did not put my hand up this time to shield my eyes from Mama’s
bare room. I even walked to the door and looked in thankful Danny had done it
first that morning and told me the coast was clear.

I
walked into the middle. I stood upon her magic carpet, the one she couldn’t
ride out of here. I wondered when she had given in, when was the moment?

I
already knew it was way before the lump in her breast. That lump was just the
ticket to glory-land. Way before that she quit. I was not judging her harsh, I
didn’t think I was, but when had she decided her life was so heavy she was
pinned beneath it, trapped and dying?

Did
I even know? Or had I brought her a cheese sandwich or some soup and here she’d
just said to herself, in her mind, I quit. I’m dying now. When did she pull the
plug on herself? Was it during “
Columbo
,” or while I
read her my homework?

I
couldn’t
of
done it myself, packed her up. It was
brutal…this new family pushing in…dismantling Mama. They had no right being
here, no conscience. But it wasn’t them. It was Lonnie. He knew.

Naomi
would say, ‘Hate will change you. Wash it off. Get washed. You
can not
take a fire into your breast and not be burned,’
she would say.

How
I loved that image of a girl swallowing fire, a girl licking the smoke off her
fingers, swallowing big and smiling, smiling, until she turned red, until the
fire burst out of her mouth, her eyes, and she disappeared into ash…but she
burned some of the world before she left, she
singed
it good and black.

I
wanted a cigarette.

I
could self-destruct in front of Lonnie. But wasn’t that what Mama had done? It
didn’t change a thing. When someone wanted you dead, wanted you gone, the very
best thing you could do to help their cause was to die.

I
wasn’t here to help his cause, that I did know. I’d left the notion of killing
myself in the bathroom that afternoon I held the razor blade.

The
one I was really mad at and couldn’t even get to…the one who had taken herself
beyond me as if I didn’t matter…was Mama.

Hate
for Lonnie made me want to turn on something…a bottle through a window. But
hate for what she’d done could easy make me turn on myself.

I
heard Naomi’s voice like a tape in my head…hate changed a person.

And
so did love.
 
Naomi’s kind. Her ladies. The
love Danny had awakened in me and the bargain I had made with God…for my
beloved.

Dickens
reacting to a friendly kiss. Annie trying on my shoes. Sooner. This was my
heart. Hate could squeeze me, choke me, pierce me…but it could not choke the
love from me…it would not.

Love
had to win.

At
one o’clock that afternoon we were sitting at that big smooth table in Mr.
Durr’s
office, me and Naomi. She wore her blue hat, the one
reminded me of a flying saucer cause the netting swirled round and round. She
wore that and she sat there holding her big purse. She looked at me and smiled
cause I was staring at her.

That
morning as I left my house, I stepped quietly past the living room where
Loreena’s
two children slept, the girl on the couch, the
boy on the floor. I was not jealous…but I did pity them and that surprised me
much as anything. They didn’t know yet, life with Lonnie Grunier was sinking
sand.

Once
outside I had looked under the porch and seen the puppies, the mix of innocent
colors. I dragged the bag of dog food off the porch to the entrance Sooner used
to go under and rolled the sides down so it made kind of a bowl and she could
help herself. Then I put that right under the porch, but I had to keep my dress
clean so I could not go climbing under just yet, bad enough my hands already
smelled like dog-food.

I
had hours to kill. So, I walked some keeping an eye peeled for
Tahlila’s
blue car. I took refuge in the library once it
opened. I started to look through an art book they had on one of the tables in
the quiet section that was often empty. I hadn’t been turning the pages long
when I came upon a picture of a painting that captured me. It was of a Dutch
man and woman…looked like he was going off to war, or he’d just come home, and
she was standing there, head bowed, all of her angst in the way she stood. His
arm was around her and his attention, the way he looked at her…I’d never seen
such an expression captured, but I’d felt that way…with Danny…the way he could
look at me, in me, through me to my soul. I don’t know how long I looked at
that painting. I would think I’d seen it enough, then I’d return to it again
and again. I passed those hours that way.

Now
I was here in Mr. Jenks’ office, picking at my nails and thinking of Annie’s
little fingers, each tip in chipped pink, each nail bitten. I pictured them
holding one of the Nancy Drew books. I pictured her under the covers reading by
flashlight and I couldn’t help but smile.

And
Dickens, lying for Danny, it went with sleeping in Sukey’s bed, Danny said. Such
admiration in his eyes for his big brother. I pictured him in Danny’s bed once
he left for the army. I hoped he didn’t have to lie for Sukey. Lord.

But
before I got sad I thought of the sweet times Danny and me had shared in my
room, and I was glad I had these thoughts to bring to this table that shone
like still water, and Mr.
Durr’s
strange papers
floated along the top like a raft ready to crash into my thoughts, thoughts of Lonnie
and his new family and they didn’t know.

“You
can step out Don,”
Durr
said to his security man and
Mr.
Durr
waited until he closed the door. Then he
turned to us. “Miss Naomi and Hillary I asked you two here today, to make known
to both of you the terms of
Renata
Grunier’s
estate.”

Naomi
reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. It’s like she squeezed my heart too,
while she was at it. Hearing Mama’s name like this…official…reminded me of the
funeral.

“Isn’t
Mr. Grunier supposed to be here?” she asked.

“He’s
late,”
Durr
said.

But
on cue we heard Lonnie talking to Don, the fake jovial voice I knew he saved
for special occasions when he had to act normal and was ready to shit his
pants. Then the door burst open and slammed against the wall, “Oh shit,” Lonnie
said, then put his hand over his mouth and grabbed the doorknob. He’d seen me,
seen Naomi, and all smiles dropped off.

“What
the hell is she doing here?” he said looking at
Durr
but nodding Naomi’s way.

“Have
a seat Lonnie,”
Durr
said releasing a big breath.

Lonnie
yanked out a chair and sat. The air moved with the oil smell and the smell of
beer. He’d probably been drinking for a couple of hours by now. Seemed like the
white walls moved in about a foot all around.

Durr
sat at the head of the table. That put Lonnie across
from Naomi and me. If at any time during this discourse he leapt over that
expanse of wood for Naomi, I planned to stop him. I almost laughed at how many
times I’d planned how I’d stop Lonnie. If I had a knife or a gun I wouldn’t
have to work so hard.

I
was staring at him, pondering if I’d have the guts to use such when he looked
back at me, but he couldn’t hold my gaze so he shifted his eyes and his butt
side to side and
Durr
picked up the papers again.

Durr
read how Mama, being of sound mind and body…and Lonnie
guffawed some on that and cleared his throat…but
Durr
went on. I was half listening drowning in my thoughts again, Mama and sound
mind, when Lonnie slapped the table. It did not ripple like water at all, but
held firm like ice.

I
could see to the back of Lonnie’s throat he was that gleeful, mouth open,
sounds like hallelujah. “She finally got it right after all this time…all this
time she held out…fought against me…that one behind it all,” here he pointed to
Naomi and I felt myself get ready.

Mama
had left the house and land to Lonnie. He seemed shocked. I guess he would be,
but what did he think she would do? She didn’t need it no more. It was the one
thing she’d had to use as a weapon in her life and now….

But
there was a stipulation, a loss. Naomi was given the patch of ground her house
sat on. She had a fenced yard and that was hers.

Well,
he didn’t like that. “The neighbors are gonna tear it down and carry her off,”
he said pointing at Naomi. “A Negro will never own property on Willard Street. They
was somewhat appeased knowing she didn’t own the land, but now…now you have
done it,” he pounded his middle finger on the top of the table. That finger
held straight. I’d been waiting for it to break for years but it never would.

Well,
he would sue. He would. He went on and on.
Durr
told
him to quiet down and Don opened the door.

Lonnie
didn’t like Don opening the door. He stood then, his finger pointing at Naomi,
pointing at me. We were all in cahoots according to him.

I
was on my feet and words were flying out of my mouth. “You’re not going to do
anything. Not to anyone, you’re not,” I said. Then I told them all, “He’s
already moved a new family into the house.”

“That’s
my business,” he yelled at me. “You’re the shame. Tell her,” he pointed at
Naomi again, “you got that boy up in
there
spending
the night? Bet she don’t know about that.”

I
was leaning over the table toward him and he was pulled back some.

“Don’t
you even speak of him. You don’t know anything,” I said.

“Oh,
I don’t know? I know what you are…I know that. You are black as her, black all
the way in. Always have been. I want you out of my house…just like I said.”

“Lonnie,”
Mr.
Durr
said standing, “sit down and shut up.”

“I
will move out…I will go peaceable,” I said to Lonnie. “But you have to agree to
leave Naomi in peace.”

“You
won’t tell me what to do.”

Naomi
was pulling on me.

“No,”
I said to her, but I did not take my eyes from him. “I got you in me you sick
Mister, much as you’d deny it. You’re the black in me. You. If you make a move
against Naomi I will come after you for support. I can be as crazy as you I got
nothing else to do and I’ll start with your new family. I’ll fill their ears to
bursting. From my room. You can’t get me out I don’t go willingly. Not without
a big shameful to-do.”

Then
to
Durr
I said, “He has never been a father to me. But
if he tries to hurt Naomi in any way I will bring his shame upon him and the
whole town will know.”

“You
ain’t mine,” he sneered back. “You ain’t ever’ been mine.”

“Mr.
Durr
,” I said, looking at the sweating lawyer,
“please write him a paper saying he will not sue Naomi and that he will do
nothing against her.” Then I looked at Lonnie. “You will sign that paper and I
will move out of your house and leave you alone.”

Mr.
Durr
sighed and scribbled on the back of one of his
papers. He read it back to me in a monotone and it sounded better, more cleaned
up. “You don’t need this Hillary. You’re a minor child. By law you’re his
responsibility.”

“Now
sign that paper,” I said to Lonnie.

“I
told you girl…you don’t tell me what to do. Not ever.”

“Think
of it this way then. I am telling you what you better not do. You better not
miss this chance. You sign it…I move out of Mama’s house.” It’s at this moment
I became aware of my legs. They were shaking.

“He
still needs to support you, Hilly,” Mr.
Durr
said.

“He
never has. He never will. I will have more without him. That’s what Mama knew. I
can get a job….”

“Not
after throwing that rock through my window. The whole town seen what you are
and there’s no one to blame but yourself.”