Bill did not change his shirt. He carried everything upstairs for Mary. He left her in the storeroom while he made the first trip up the stairs and he found her still sitting there when he came down for the second trip. He took a moment to kiss her on the lips before he took the next trip up. By the third and last trip she was gone.
He was checking the round and the sauerbraten when Mary came back into the kitchen. Bea was busy making her list for what needed to come up from the storeroom for her station.
Mary walked over to the coffee urn and drew herself a mug of coffee. For the time being, the kitchen was quiet. Only the exhaust fans gave off real noise. The dish machine was silent. Dishwashers did not get in until ten when the transport van arrived from downtown. She stood by Bea a moment. Bea was cleaning iceberg lettuce in her sink.
“Lord have mercy,” Mary said.
Bea looked at Mary over the top of the glasses she wore.
Mary didn’t say anything. She stood on Bea’s station, away from the heat, and sipped her coffee. Then she reached into the sink and pulled out a piece of lettuce which she chewed. She took another and dipped it into Thousand Island dressing before chewing it.
“I’m tired, Bea. I’m tired, and my black ass is dragging. Sometimes I just want to lay down and not have to ever get up.”
“I hear you,” Bea said. “You just need your coochie serviced.”
Mary sighed, a deep, heavy sigh. “If only it was that simple.”
“It is that simple. Take that boy to the Upper Room and use him till it hurts so much you can’t bear it no more. Get drunk, fall-down drunk. Then let yourself rest. Then start all over again till you can’t put your legs together to walk.”
“I wish,” Mary said.
“Only you can make that wish come true. That boy only twenty. He’s like the energizer bunny.”
“You crazy.”
“You got to keep your head and your heart out of it. Remember back when you first learned to please yourself. All you wanted was the sensation, the release. Well, go get that, girl.”
“Lord have mercy.”
“What’s good to you is good for you. That’s what Robert would say. He may not like all this, but that’s what he says and he does what he wants.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” Mary said.
“Girl, one time in your life, go for pleasure. It’s a free shot. He got a girl. He’s gonna be gone. You know what they say. It don’t mean shit to a train.”
“Maybe you right, Bea.”
“I know I’m right. You want it, go get it.”
Mary went back on her station. No. It wasn’t like that for her. She didn’t know it, but in many ways she and the white boy were very similar. Like Bill, for her it had to be about anger. She could do what Bea said if she were mad enough, angry enough at the white boy, angry enough at the world, angry enough at her kid, not only for what he called the white boy, but for his being right about her staying away from him.
She had to be angry, steaming. Then she had to turn it into a what-the-hell, an existential decision reached by reasoning that it didn’t matter either way. And really, when she thought about it, in the long game it didn’t matter either way. She wasn’t a virgin. He was already fooling around. No matter what she did, everyone else was gonna do what they did. So…
Upcoming:
The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide
