Girls Like Us (16 page)

“You seen him, didn’t you?” My voice went up high and scared, but I was mad too. Robert didn’t have no truck comin’ here and scarin’ Biddy.

Biddy nod. “He’s out there pullin’ weeds in the vegetable garden.”

Robert was pullin’ weeds? Sumpin’ wrong here. Robert not goin’ pull no weeds. And how would Biddy know what Robert look like, come to think of it.

“Who pullin’ weeds, Biddy?” I axted.

“That Stephen boy. Who else? I can’t go down there and get”— she look up in the air and then count on her fingers —“a big eggplant, tomatoes, and a couple of squashes if he out there.”

I went and look out the window. There he was, weeding away. I turned to Biddy. “We just have to wait till he leave for our vegetables.”

It wasn’t two minutes later we hear footsteps trompin’ up our stairs and then a knock at our door —“Delivery for Biddy and Quincy”— and then footsteps back down the stair. I look out the window in a few minutes and I see Stephen squatting back down to weed.

I go open the door a crack and there set a big ole eggplant, a batch of tomatoes, and four squashes. That boy done heard everything we said out the window. I open the door wider to pick up the vegetables, and Stephen, he stood up and said, “You be needing anything else, Quincy?”

I wanted to run back in our little apartment and hide, but something clomp me upside the head. This boy wadn’t nothing like that Robert. He wadn’t goin’ hurt me. None at all.

“I could use onion, parsley, and green beans.” Stephen nod and I shut the door. Pretty soon, he come a trompin’ again, and then he knock. This time he didn’t tromp away. I open the door, but Biddy be hidin’ in her bedroom listenin’ at the door like a scaredy child.

“Quincy,” Stephen say, “I don’t know what I might have done to scare Biddy so bad or make you so mad at me, but whatever it might be, I’m sure sorry. Miss Elizabeth says it’s not my fault, but Biddy shakes and goes white if she sees me, and you look at me like your fists are in the air ready to swing at me, so I kind of think she’s wrong about that. If we can’t be friends, I wish for Miss Elizabeth’s sake that we could be friendly to each other.” He scratched his nose. “I wouldn’t hurt neither of you two for the whole world. I know you are special to Miss Elizabeth and that’s enough for me.”

He scratch his nose again. “Boy, howdy, that’s a lot of talk out of me at one time. I usually just do my job and don’t talk much.” He tried on a little ole grin. “So, can we try to get along a little bit for Miss Elizabeth’s sake?” He hold out the vegetables.

And I got another clomp upside my head. I knew if I look in the mirror, I wouldn’t see the same ole Quincy that I seen all the other days of my life.

I took the vegetables and say, “Thank you, Stephen. Biddy might still be scaredy of you for a while, but I promise I’ll be friendly to you. You didn’t do nothing wrong.”

“Thank you. You enjoy those vegetables.” He clomped on down the stairs and went back to his weedin’.

Now I knew why Biddy and me was put to be roommates. It wasn’t because we graduated at the same time. Nobody else would have me but Biddy. Because I’m so mean. I fuss about people being bad to me, but I’m the one that always gots her fists up being not nice to peoples first. I’m the mean one. Always have been. Got hit with a brick and been hittin’ other peoples back ever since. People that didn’t do nothin’ to me.

Then I shook my head. But Robert did something bad to me and I didn’t do nothing wrong to him. I sassed him a little when he called me ugly, but that don’t give him no call to . . . hurt me.

But Stephen didn’t hurt me. And I don’t think he’d hurt me nor Biddy neither. It’s hard not to blame him and make him pay for what Robert did just ’cause Robert ain’t here. Life is hard and muddled.

I got to cook me something and get my head a little straighter.

I got potatoes, carrots, garlic, and olive oil, put a knife on the counter, and set myself on the stool. “We gonna make us some ratatouille.”

“Rat a what?” Biddy come out her bedroom lookin’ a mite uneasy.

“That’s a big word mean vegetable stew.”

“Ain’t no rats gonna be in this stew. I like all you cook, but, Quincy, I ain’t eating no rats.”

I felt myself ’bout to yell at that fool, when I see Biddy’s mouth twitch. She was funning with me.

“I swear, Quincy. You cain’t call nothing by a right name. This here you call an eggplant. It don’t look like no egg, and I bet if you planted it, it wouldn’t grow no baby eggs.”

I shake my head at the girl, but I was feeling a chuckle somewheres.

“And you calls chocolate pudding ‘moose.’ I tell you, when I saw what was in that bowl, I was scaredy of what part of that moose we was eating.”

Girl be trying to make me laugh.

“Now you got me making rat stew, and I’m chopping squash, not little whiskers and feets and tails.”

I bust loose then. Nothing she said was all that funny, but her trying hard to make me forget my troubles felt fine.

“Hush up, girlfriend, and wash them veggies. You gonna do all the cooking. I’m gonna sit up here like some kinda queen and give orders.”

“If you the queen, then I’m a princess, so that’s OK with me,” Biddy say.

That same night, I start work on my secret project.

Quincy showed me how to chop. I learned to put the point of the knife down. Use the back to cut. I was a little scaredy that I’d find one of my fingers in with the carrots. But I done it right.

When the vegetables was all cut up, Quincy told me how to put the stew together with herb-weeds and water. Set it to cook real slow. After a while, it started to smell real good.

It “simmered”— that’s a Quincy word for slow cooking. Then I toss up a salad.

“I think we ought to eat first. See if one of us falls out dead before we take any to Miss Lizzy,” I said.

“It be perfect.”

So I gathered the stuff. I trotted it over to Miss Lizzy.

I told her that Quincy feeling some better. But not ready to spread her germs around.

Miss Lizzy looked sad and said, “I hope she gets better soon. I certainly miss your company.”

I wished I could tell Miss Lizzy about what happened to Quincy. I was afraid. I didn’t want to lose Miss Lizzy’s good thoughts about us.

Back to our house, Quincy put place mats on the counter. Dished up the stew. I sat like a princess. I dipped my spoon. Lifted it to my lips and tasted.

It was good. It was a lots good. My head couldn’t hardly believe what my tongue told it.

Quincy smiled. “You see anybody here too stupid to cook?”

There was nothing for it but to go to work Monday. The cuts was scabbing over and the bruises lighter. I didn’t sleep much, and when I did, I dreamed evil. I’d cry and have to get a cold washrag to lay over my eyes so they wouldn’t get swole up.

I got up before the ’larm and made omelets at Lizabeth’s. She smile and pet my hand and say she glad to see that I was recovered. I tried to smile, but it came out sideways. I drank my orange juice and coffee, but I couldn’t do nothing with them eggs but stir ’em ’round my plate.

Biddy was plumb full of chat and tole Lizabeth ’bout how she learning to cook.

I got my plate away from the table without Lizabeth noticing that I didn’t eat.

I went up to our apartment, brush my teeths, and put on my uniform. Biddy done washed and ironed ’em. I cried again when I pulled them pants on, but I fuss at myself hard and stop blubbering.

Biddy stood on the porch in her big coat.

“How come you ain’t doing the dishes?”

“I’ll do them when I get back,” she say.

“From where?”

“I’m walking you to work,” Biddy say.

“You don’t like to go out in the world. And I ain’t no little child. I can walk by myself.”

“I feel like having a morning walk. Can’t you nor nobody tell me I can’t.”

I sigh like I was mad at her, but the ache in the back of my head easied off.

Biddy walk along with me, chatting away like a chipmunk.

I don’t know what she was saying ’cause I look for Robert and that ole car. It seem like we walk to Mars before we finally got to the Brown Cow. Biddy march me right up to the door and didn’t leave till I went inside.

I tried not to show how scaredy I was. I wanted to leave my coat in the closet. But that boy Robert might be out there. I couldn’t let Quincy go alone, but I couldn’t go without my coat.

I talked a blue streak to keep from turning tail and running back to our safe house. I saw Quincy slitting her eyes all around. She was looking for the same thing I was. Peoples with meanness.

I watched her go in the store. I walked fast and hard back to our home. I hung up my coat. I looked at it for a long time. I felt some ashamed. If Quincy had the gumption to go to work, why was I so scaredy that I had to wear my coat? I closed the closet door. I wasn’t gonna wear it no more.

At Miss Lizzy’s I dusted every knickknack in that big house. I scrubbed the kitchen floor, even though it was shiny.

Miss Lizzy must have been happy to see Quincy over her flu. She smiled and sang little bits of songs all the day. Just before Quincy was supposed to come home, the doorbell rang. I answered it and a man stood there with two flat boxes. “Delivery from Redmond’s,” he said.

Miss Lizzy thumped up behind me in her walker. “I’ll take care of this, Biddy.” I figured somebody done sent her a present.

“I’m gonna go for a walk, if that’s OK,” I told Miss Lizzy.

She nodded, busy signing for the deliveryman.

I walked to the Brown Cow without my coat and didn’t get shiverish but once.

Jen and Ellen axted how I was feeling. I tole them I was still tired as whupped pup. I wore a cloth mask over my nose and mouth. Tole ’em I didn’t want to spread no germs. So I got left pretty much to my ownself.

I couldn’t help but look for Robert. I was ’fraid he would jump out from behind the stacks of Cheerios and drag me outside.

It was a long ole day. I knew it would be a long day every day. I’d always be watching for Robert over my shoulder. I chopped and diced and minced, and then a thought started up in my head. It was hard for me to figure. It was like I had holt of the end of a string that was in a big tangly knot. If I pulled here, it got too tight there and the knot got worser. I worried at that knot all day, and finally the knot came undone all at oncet. As long as I kept my mouth shut, Robert didn’t care nothing ’bout me. I didn’t have to worry ’bout him no more. I was trash that he had throwed away.