Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(13)
“Yes’m,” the girl said, her face now radiant. She grabbed the first case with both hands and hauled it up to May’s side, then skittered back down and managed the second, which seemed a tad heavier. May would have helped the girl, but she didn’t trust herself to be even a single inch closer to Opal’s mother.
“What you going to Atlanta for?” May asked, pulling Opal close and laying a protective hand on her head.
“Walter has business there,” Betty responded. May scanned the new auto, its scintillating chrome causing spots to rise before her eyes.
“She a beauty, ain’t she? She’s a Chrysler Airstream.” He smiled, oblivious to May’s disdain. “Only thing prettier is my lady here.” He reached up to place his arm around Betty’s shoulder.
“It’s too hot, baby.” Betty flashed the man a smile, but stepped quickly forward, sliding out from under his embrace.
“That explains why . . . Walter”—May very nearly used her interior moniker for the man—“is going. Why are you going?”
Betty reached back and, seeming to forget her earlier avoidance of his touch, took Porkpie’s arm. She beamed and flashed May the most sincere smile May had ever seen on her ex-daughter-in-law’s face. “Walter here has arranged for me to have an audition with Ty King and His Golden Syncopation Swing.”
“An audition?” May crossed her arms.
“Yeah, I’m gonna sing for Mr. King . . .”
“I know what an audition is,” May snapped, but her gaze caught hold of Jilo, still toddling around, chasing after a fat bumblebee. To her disbelief, the bee hovered over the child’s outstretched hand for a moment and then landed on it. Rather than startling or trying to run away, Jilo pulled her hand closer and stared intently at the insect. May got the oddest feeling that the two were somehow communicating, and the thought made her feel real uneasy. “Opal, honey,” she said, “you go fetch Jilo before she gets herself stung, and take your sisters inside.”
She scanned Opal’s thin face. “You hungry?” she asked. When her grandbaby didn’t answer, she called out to Betty, “You feed these girls their lunch yet?”
Betty began to speak, but May answered her own question. “No, ’course you haven’t.” The scrawny things probably hadn’t even had their breakfast. Forcing her anger down, she placed her hand on Opal’s back and gave her a gentle nudge. “Go on, get Jilo inside, and Nana will come in and fix you girls something real good. All right?”
Opal nodded and scrambled down the steps. “Jilo,” she called out to the littlest one. Jilo spun around, arms held high overhead. “Come on, Nana says it’s time to eat.” May was relieved to see the bee rise up and take to the air.
Opal bent to try and lift the girl, but Jilo was having none of it. She pulled back from her sister, intent on making the trip under her own steam, but then stopped and took Opal’s steadying hand after a half-dozen steps. Nearing the porch, Jilo let go of Opal and crawled up the steps. May looked down at the smiling face creeping up to greet her. May didn’t give a pea-picker’s damn that the child’s face didn’t look a thing like her boy’s. This was her grandbaby every bit as much as Jilo’s older sisters were.
“Go on and take your sisters inside. Nana will get the bags.” Opal herded her younger sisters past the screech of the screen door and into the darkening house.
May reached through the still-open screen door and pulled the main door shut. The spring on the screen door groaned and snapped as it closed with a thwack. “Let’s just say you do get this ‘singing’ job,” May made sure her disapproval rang through. It wasn’t that Betty couldn’t sing, for the woman certainly could, but May knew there was a hell of a lot more going on in those Atlanta clubs than singing. “Who’s going to look after the girls while you’re out all night?”
Betty rolled her eyes, but only a little. “You saw Opal. She’s practically a mother to the other girls already. She always looking after them, bathing ’em, feeding them.”
Betty’s words confirmed May’s worst fears. “She don’t have much of a choice about that, now does she?”
Betty’s face froze at the older woman’s words. There was no doubt in May’s mind that Betty had finished with being a mother. May and Reuben had hoped for a household full of children, but Jesse was the only one her womb had allowed her to carry. And now the selfish woman who’d robbed her of her only child was shirking the responsibility of her own babies’ care, all so she could be this buffoon’s fancy woman.
May felt like screaming, but instead bent down and grasped the handles of the suitcases. “Not much more trouble cooking for you two, if you want to come in.” It would take all her strength to allow this woman back under her roof, but never let it be said May refused anyone hospitality, even the likes of these two. As expected, Porkpie’s eyes lit up.
“Thank you, no,” Betty rushed through her response. “We should be getting on. It’s best if we get out of these parts and make it into Atlanta before sunset. Ain’t that right, Walter?”
As silly as Betty could be, this time May knew she was right. It wouldn’t be wise for a black man to be driving his shiny new automobile around these roads after sunset.