William watched her as she spoke on the phone with her grandfather. She had the call on Speaker, that was how transparent she was, and they talked about her coming to see about him tomorrow.
But William still couldn’t believe he took her all the way to Bridell tonight and was able to convince her to come right back with him. But he knew it was needful. She had to get out of Chicago, even if for a few hours. She had to put distance between herself and the place of her trauma. And then, once out of this place, she was able to see her situation more objectively. Thank God, he thought.
“You’ve gotta go to the doctor, Gramps,” she said over the phone.
“No thank you very much. Them doctors charge too much. They ain’t taking my money.”
“I told you Medicare will pay for it.”
“Not all of it! They wanna make me pay a co-pay of two-hundred dollars, I already checked. You got two-hundred dollars laying around somewhere?”
Joy rubbed her forehead as William continued to stare at her. He could see the stress still all over her face. “No sir,” she said to Gramps. “I don’t have two-hundred dollars laying around.”
“Then don’t be talking to me about no doctors. My stank ass okay. How’s yours?”
“Not stank I hope,” Joy said in that deadpan way she had, and so out of the blue that William laughed out loud. Whichmade Joy, who never seemed to realize she as being humorous, smile too.
“Anyway, Gramps, I better get off this phone.”
“I heard that man laughing. You on a date? That’s why you couldn’t call me? Is he the reason you got arrested?”
Joy felt embarrassed. “No, Gramps, he had nothing to do with it. And I’m not on a date.”
“You oughta be. I wouldn’t be mad at you for that. You don’t never go on no dates. That’s what’s wrong with you. You need a man.”
For some reason William’s throat constricted when her grandfather said those words. She didn’t even date? Then he remembered how many hours she often worked. Not to mention she had been incarcerated for the last five weeks.
“Call me tomorrow,” Gramps said.
“I will. Have a good night, Gramps.”
“You too,” he said, and ended the call.
William handed her a glass of champagne. “Drink this,” he said to her.
She took the glass, but no way was she going to take a sip.
“Paternal or maternal?” he asked her.
She looked puzzled. “Excuse me?”
“Is your grandfather from your mother’s side of the family, or your father’s?”
“Oh!Neither.”
Now William was puzzled. “Neither?”
“He’s play-play.”
“Play-play? What on earth is play-play?”
“He’s my play-play grandfather. We’re no kin. He’s just somebody who looked out for me when I was a little girl.”
This interested William. “What about your parents?”
Joy shook her head. “Didn’t know my father, and my mother loved to party with her men friends. Still does. Butwhen I was little and every time she got paid, which she was paid in cash, I would go to her job and get the money we needed to pay the rent and the utilities and to get food to hold us until she got paid again. Then I’d go to Gramps, he was this older man who lived down the street from us, and I’d give him all the money and he would take care of our bills and buy us groceries. That was the only way I ate and kept a roof over me and my mama’s heads.”
“How old were you then?”
