How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616) (26 page)

“Yeah. Guess I’ll make me some more.” I moved the tiny sugar bowl from the counter to the table and watched her dump half of it into her cup.

“Mama, this what grown folks do? Sit up in the kitchen drinking coffee?” It was funny watching her sitting at the table, her legs swinging like always and her back straight as a board, trying her best to look grown. “Like you used to do with Auntie Clara?”

“Yeah, guess that’s about right. Me and Clara used to sit up in here and talk until y’all came home from school. We’d talk until y’all was ready for dinner and get right back to it when we were cleaning up after.”

“Whatcha talk about?”

“Grown folks stuff.”

“Did you talk about me?”

“Sometimes.”

“What’d you say?” Jackie must have been imagining something good because she couldn’t stop grinning.

“We’d say...Let’s see...We’d say how you was an awful awful chile. And how we couldn’t wait to get rid of you!”

“No you didn’t!”

“Yeah we did. All the time.”

“I miss Auntie.”

“I know you do, baby. Me too.”

“I miss…I miss how she tell us stories—like the one about how she grabbed the guy by his collar and told him a thing or two! That one’s my favorite.”

“Yeah I know. She’d tell it over and over just because you liked to hear it.” Made me smile just talking about Clara, even though it reminded me of how long it had been since she’d been gone.
 

“Mama, whatcha doing?”

“Locking the back door.”

“How come you gotta do it a million, ca-jillion times?”

The deadbolt snapped to one side, unlocking the door just so I could lock it again. Had to unlock it just to be sure it’d locked, otherwise I’d be wondering about it all night. I still had to check on the downstairs windows one more time but I decided to wait until Jackie went off to bed since it bothered her.

“Baby, what happened to your hair? Hmm?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged and slurped down the last of her coffee.
 

She had four braids when the day started but by the time bedtime came around they were just a few loose gatherings of hair. The colorful little balls that wrapped around each one was two seconds from the floor. I got to fixing me another cup of coffee and me and Jackie sat down and talked about all sorts of things. About school...her teachers...kids in the neighborhood...wasn’t until Nat came stumbling into the kitchen with a big old yawn that I realized what time it was. Nikki’d already gotten them in their bed clothes so I just had to tuck them in.

“But I ain’t sleepy, Mama.”

Was all the damn coffee. Jackie sat right up in bed, looking bright as the day is long. Wasn’t like I could make her sleep so me and her sneaked across the hall and got into my bed. Snuggling up good so we were like two peas in a pod, nose to nose. Was all good, until my little pea had to go and ask me about Heziah.

“I think the time done come for you to let that go.”

“But he’s my daddy. I gotta love him. If I don’t, then who will?”
 

Her little girl lashes fluttered with innocent belief and I knew she couldn’t see the difference between the lie and the truth. Jackie had said it so much she’d actually talked herself into believing it was true.
 

“Jackie...baby...”

“You love him too, right, Mama? You just gotta have faith. That what Auntie used to say. She say when God got to feeling real good, he was gonna set things right like they supposed to be. He’ll bring Heziah back to us so we can be a family. Heziah’ll come like the-the man on the white horse—the man in the story that save the princess. Then you won’t have to lock the doors a bunch of times every night.”

“Jackie—”

“It’s gonna happen, Mama. You’ll see. It’s gonna be like this.” She bounced up outta bed and stretched both arms out in front of her then started running in slow motion. “That’s the way it goes in the movies.”

T
HE
VERY
NEXT
DAY
it seemed, Mr. Silverman was sending me a letter saying Ricky wasn’t going to fight me on the divorce but that he wanted sole custody of the girls. He had to get on the phone to explain it to me because my brain just wasn’t getting it. Wasn’t no way Ricky could’ve wanted them, not really. Wasn’t no way he was going to get them after what he did. Mr. Silverman told me to be real calm and not let it get me upset. He said it was most likely some stunt that Ricky’s lawyer was pulling to get out of paying child support. But he ain’t know Ricky like I did. Money wasn’t enough. My stuff wasn’t enough. Not even my body. Ricky had set his mind to breaking my spirit too.

I
WENT
TO
WORK
,
THINKING
myself lucky that Ricky’s friends ain’t take all of my clothes. Wanted to wear something bright and fun to celebrate my freedom so I picked out this red and black dress with black tights and Mary Janes. It was one of them outfits that Ricky ain’t never want me to wear unless he was taking me somewhere special. I was wearing it anyway and it felt good! By then it was all outta style but I acted like I ain’t know it and pranced around the store like a peacock until it was quitting time.

Mr. Bryer came outta the woodwork, fitting his hands into brown gloves that probably cost more than my whole outfit. He smiled and I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing with suede gloves this time of year. They ain’t keep him warm, ain’t even keep him dry. Just ain’t make sense. I figured Mr. Bryer was a smart man, at least he looked that way.
 

He offered to drive me home but it just ain’t feel right. The last of the night shift was slipping past us, a few of them looking at me sideways. They were his employees too. Going home same time as me, on the same bus as me, and he ain’t ask none of them if they needed a ride.

I ain’t have no long history of getting special treatment so my first thoughts were to suspect him of something. But what did that say about me? Didn’t I deserve someone wanting to protect me from the late night hours? Somebody to ask me how my day is going? Ricky was gone and still messing up my head. So, I let all that suspicion go and just accepted Mr. Bryer for what he was­—a nice boss. To me, any ways.

“O
H
COME
ON
B
ELINDA
—I can call you Belinda, can’t I?”

“Yeah, sure, Mr. Bryer.”

“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret about men.” He was sitting on top of his desk and he leaned over and dropped his voice so nobody’d hear the secret but me. “There’s three ways to a man’s heart—food, sports, and well…the last one I’m sure you can guess. You should know this if you want to get remarried any time soon. You’re thinking about it right? You’re still young. Got your looks. You follow my advice and you’ll snatch up another husband, like that.” He grinned and snapped his fingers.
 

He was so sure of it, I couldn’t help but smile, even though I wasn’t too keen on the idea of another husband. Wasn’t like I had any good record of picking them. All I needed was to end up with another Ricky.
 

“I know what you’re thinking.” He eased off the desk and poked his head out his office to ask his secretary for another cup of coffee. “You want one?”

“No—my lunch break just started.”

“Now hold on here. Let me just make this one point then I’ll let you go. Go on now. Sit back down.” He took the seat next to me and crossed his legs. “I have a niece, got divorced around your age. Smart girl. Not so pretty. Or motivated but don’t tell her I said that. Anyway...she’s divorced. Couldn’t find another man to save her life because, you see, her best years were already behind her. She kept putting it off and putting it off. By the time she hit forty, men her age were looking at women your age! And now...now she doesn’t have any options. Her kids are going off to college and she’s going to be all alone. It’s really quite sad. I don’t want that to happen to you.” He sighed real heavy like and squeezed the top of my shoulder.

Mr. Bryer’s secretary knocked at the door, carrying his coffee. She wasn’t what most people’d call good looking but she dressed like she ain’t know. “Black with two sugars. Just like you like it, Mr. Bryer.”

“Oh, thank you. You can set it right on my desk.”

“Um, Mr. Bryer, I really gotta get to lunch.”

“Oh! Sure, sure, sure. Don’t let me keep you.”

I got up to go and made it all the way to the outer office where a few ladies had their desks pushed together, whispering. All of them stopped soon as they saw me. Everything in me wanted to run back to the sales floor but I suddenly remembered what I’d gone to see Mr. Bryer for in the first place.

“Back so soon?” He looked up from the pile of work he was sorting through on his desk.

“I forgot to ask you...um I was wondering if I could get the afternoon shift. Well really the morning shift. I just can’t be here to open because I gotta get my kids off to school but I do kinda wanna be home when they get there because they not really old enough to be alone all night.”

Clearing his throat in a raspy sorta gargle, he pulled off his glasses, holding them by one side until they dangled over his papers. “I’ll see what I can do, Belinda.”

And he did. From then on I was never on the night shift. Which made me the enemy of every other salesgirl on the floor but it made my girls happy. First few days they were real surprised to see me when they got home even though I told them I’d be there. I think it made me work harder too. I was just so grateful to have something work out the way I wanted, and I was grateful that I had a boss that was understanding.

T
HE
CAFETERIA
WAS
BUZZING
with secret conversations and busy little eyes. Outside of Helen none of them girls were any kind of friendly towards me. I wouldn’t have put it past any of them to run back telling Ricky everything I did.

Helen parked herself right across from me and crossed her legs, waiting for a answer to an unspoken question. “I’m your friend. I’m trying to be your friend. Now, I know this the first job you done had so maybe you just don’t know—”

“Know what?”

“How it goes. Maybe you just don’t know how hard it is for us...for women to get respect around here. Respect, Pecan. That’s all any of us got.”