She points her finger at me and steps back into the doorway. “You need to get off my porch.”
That light and dark feeling in the pit of my stomach is more dark than light now.
She grabs the handle of the screen door and pulls it, but I grip its edge before she can slam it shut. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to do that.”
“I think it’s a good ass idea. As a matter of fact, let me call Pup and tell him what you up to.”
“Look, you’re gonna play nice with me.”
“And why the fuck would I do that?”
I yank the screen door until the handle slips from her hand. “You wanna know how easy it was to get Rich to stop fucking you?”
I huff. “Because that was the plan after he ran Wendell off, right? Y’all were supposed to fall back into whatever it was y’all had before I came along because things cooled off a little. He’s paying the price for what he did now so he can come back and fuck you and fix all your problems while you give him nothing in return—not even emotional support. That’s what you wanted, right? Dick with no strings attached.”
“You don’t know shit about what me and Pup have or had?—”
I laugh. “Oh, I know everything. It’s not like it was much outside of sex.”
“Look here, lil’ girl. You need to go home.” She points her finger back in my face.
This time she inches it closer. The tip of her long nude-colored nailalmosttouches the tip of my nose.
“I told him to stop fucking you,” I blurt, ignoring her finger and staring right into her hard eyes. “I told him to stop, just like I can tell him to stop fixing all these pain in the ass structural deficiencies that are keeping you from getting that license you want so bad. Rich has a three-bedroom house. We can easily move Senior back home. You know that, right? Rich might not have the time to take care of him, but I do.”
She tsks under her breath, dropping her hand. “You’d really do some heartless shit like that? You know how much these guys mean to Pup. They been in his life longer than you have.”
“Right…and do you know how much Rich means to me?”
“You can’t be serious right now.” She laughs.
“Do you?”
She tosses her hands up, shrugging.
“He’s always doing something for somebody—paying this, fixing that, taking care of this person, filling in the gaps for all the sorry-ass men around here, but who’s there for him? Huh, Beatrice?Who?I know it’s not you. You might not want some young fightin’ nigga who won’t live long enough to see love through, but I do. So if I have to be the heartless bitch to protect him, then I’ll be that, and you won’t get another nail hammered into anything around here. I promise you. You don’t get to borrow him when you feel like it anymore.”
Another rumble of thunder erupts and makes our eyes shoot up toward the blackening sky. We look back at each other at the same time. Her eyes veer down to my neck where Rich’s diamond chain peeks out from the collar of the F&S cleaning shirt I still had on.
She folds her lips under her teeth, then steps to the side. “You got thirty minutes and not a minute more.”
“Here,” Beatrice grunts, pushing Senior’s door open. “He likes to nap in the afternoons now, so if you gonna make this a habit, you need to come in the morning.”
She eyes me as I slide past her into his dark room. Ironically, the only light comes from theFamily Mattersrerun playing on his TV. It illuminates his bushy eyebrows and tight lips. There’s already an empty chair sitting at the head of the bed right next to him, as if he were expecting somebody.
I glance over my shoulder at Beatrice. “I don’t think we need supervision. You can go now.”
She sucks her teeth, stepping back and leaving the door open. As soon as the soft patter of her house shoes disappears down the hallway, I ease into the empty chair next to his bed and drop my bag onto the floor.
He looks as intimidating as he did the first time I met him—like if I reach out and drag my finger across the jagged scar on his face, he’ll grab it.
I let out a deep sigh and bury my head in my hands as all of my adrenaline drains out of me while Steve Urkel’s obnoxious laugh rings out, taunting me and another one of my stupid ideas. As soon as I glance up at the TV, Myra Monkhouse shows up in all of her nerdy, obsessive glory.
A harsh burn crawls up my throat, and a violent sob tries to fight its way out of me.
I can’t cry here.
I slap my hand over my mouth, swallowing a muffled choke and closing my eyes while tears fall over my hand.
