I sit in my favorite stool at the bar and rest my plate on yesterday’s paper. I keep it there like a placemat so I don’t ruin Sam’s good polishing. The newspaper letters are showing from under my plate. I pull the top page away. “Wanted,” it say. “Faunsdale Murder. Five hundred dollars.” It got a line-drawn picture of a negro man. Big nose, it got.
There’s chanting outside.
Tones like a song but more like a hum. I lean back on my stool. See out the window. Church people. Same ones that come most Sundays to have service. Young white women and one old one, too. All of ’em got
Bibles and babies and young children with ’em. Even the old one got a baby. This particular lot always comes before sunlight, telling us to burn in hell just after “amen.” But they don’t need to pray for me. I ain’t like these whores here. We’re alike in the way that all women are, but the root of us ain’t the same. They value things that ain’t worth nothin, throw away their lives for pretty things that Albert can melt down and burn up. They do what greedy women who want the easy way out do. Still trying to prove to their fathers that they was worth his love, after all. They have sex for money. But not money all the time. Free things, too. Gifts and special time. Time to be treated like somebody’s spoiled child. But in private, they earn every bit of it, trading their God-made bodies for man-made shit. Exchange their everlasting souls for combustibles. “Free ain’t never free,” Cynthia say.
But love is.
Like the kind me and Jeremy got.
Ours cain’t be bargained or paid for, it just is. Same way God is. He keeps me protected and above this place, shows me Hisself in the way I love Jeremy and the way Jeremy loves me. Keeps me outside their world but lets me wade through it.
So I ain’t worried about them church ladies.
I stand up in the side window so they can see me proud and I tie my apron around my waist, watch the sun rise and feel it on my face.
The ones outside are shouting now. Their children are doing what the grown ladies do, scrunching their faces like they hate this place. Hate me. The old lady picks up a rock, slings it at my window. It clicks against the glass.
She ushers all the children up the road and turns around a last time to spit. It dangles from her chin and she wipes it with the sleeve of her pretty dress.
She should forget about us.
She should save her foul mouth for smiles and kisses on her grandbaby ’cause what Cynthia and her ladies do here ain’t got nothin to do with her. It’s not my business so I’ll mind mine ’til me and Jeremy go. But for now, I’ll bide my time.
It’s my birthday today.
I ain’t told nobody but Jeremy. I reckon he’s gon’ come and surprise me with something special ’cause he like to do that. Maybe sing me my own song that he wrote just for me, and that way every time he play the tune, it’ll be him telling me he loves me, out loud to everybody, but only me and him know.
I pick up the last kernel of egg and poke it through my smile, sweep it down my throat with a wash of water, wipe my hands down my apron and leave Albert’s plate on the bar top for when I get back from the toilet. I hop down from my favorite stool and start down the hall to the back.
The gambling parlor door swings open. I cover my mouth so I don’t laugh. He’s dressed in the same clothes he had on yesterday. He slams his fist in the wall and walks up the hallway the other way. I stay quiet. I don’t want to scare him. And I want him to look for me first.
The sunlight from the saloon window traces his arms, between his legs, his straight hips. He still don’t see me. His strut makes me want to touch him. But I stay quiet.
I tiptoe up the hall toward him, glance in the gambling parlor as I pass. Mr. Shepard’s in there collecting money from the floor. His door shuts from a wind gust.
“Naomi!” Jeremy say, coming toward me. “Thank my lucky stars.”
He wraps his arms around me like he don’t care who else see. He pushes me against the wall the way I like it, kissing me.
Stops.
But I don’t want him to stop. I smile and wait for him to say, “Happy birthday.”
He say, “You got that money I gave you?”
I steal kisses from his cheek, his neck.
“That half I gave you?” he say, pulling away from me. “Do you?”
I straighten my clothes and notice how fidgety he seem. Not because of me. Not no surprise he hiding. He’s worried.
“I need it ’cause of that asshole dealer,” he say.
“Mr. Shepard?”
“He won’t lend me anymore.”
“Then maybe it’s time to stop,” I say. “You told me to save our money for Boston.”
“I can win it back,” he say. “I can feel it. One more roll and I’m back in the game. Get us a new home where we going. Boston is where you want?” He puts his hands on my shoulders like we pals. “I tell you what. I’ll start saving the money for you. Investing it, like. For both us.”
“I don’t know what you mean, ‘invest.’”
“Let me do the worrying. You trust me, don’t you, Mimi?”
“It’s my birthday,” I say, smiling, stopping him talking.
“Oh, Mimi. . I’m sorry. Happy birthday, doll.” He grabs my face, kisses the top of my forehead. “I’m going to do something real special for you tonight. Something I planned. Jewelry? You like jewelry? When I’m done with you, you’re gonna be sparkling like a Christmas tree.”
“You don’t have to buy me nothing,” I say. “Maybe you could play me a song or. .”
“Mimi. I need to get back in the game!”
I take our wadded dollars from my stockings and throw it at him.
Instead of asking what’s wrong, he counts it.
“I gave you more than this,” he say.
“I didn’t spend it!”
“This is less than half!”
He finally sees my tears. He pulls me under his chin. “Come here, I’m sorry. Happy birthday. I know you didn’t spend it. It’s just not enough.”
When he lets me go, he leans back against the wall. I go to lay on his chest, say, “What we gon’ do for my birthday?”
“We can’t do nothing now, we’re broke,” he say. “Isn’t that what you said? That this is all there is?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I wish I had more to give you. I don’t know what happened to the rest.”
He kisses my forehead again, holds his lips there when he speaks. “You’re my baby girl. The birthday girl. I wish I had more to give you, too. You know I’d do anything for you.”
I know.
“And you’d do anything for me, too?” he say.
I nod.
“Anything?” he say, hugging me tighter now.
“Anything,” I say.
“Then help me, Mimi.”
I want to help.
“You like Mr. Shepard?”
“I suppose so. . he’s all right,” I say.
“Suck his dick for me.”
“What?”
“Mimi. .”
I slap his face hard as I can.
He say, “He’s always talking about how he never gets none. His wife is too mean. I’m not asking you to have sex with him. He’ll pay you.”
“Jeremy!”
“It’ll be just enough to get back in the game and you said you’d do anything for us. I can win it all back.”
“Get away from me!”
I’m light-headed. Like the wagon I was in hit a dip in the road and I’m sailing through the air, in flight with wheels off the ground, my stomach in my throat, and my mouth waiting for throw-up to come.
“I’m sorry,” he say.
“I don’t want to look at you!”
“Come on now, Mimi.” He catches my hand and stops me. “I’m sorry,” he say. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s like I can’t stop.”