The House of Eve (42)
“What did the doctor say?”
“That you and your mom have gotten your wish.”
“Huh?”
“There’s no more baby,” she choked.
“Don’t say that.”
“I’ve miscarried, so you can bow out gracefully. We don’t have to go through with the wedding, and you can return to your perfect life as planned,” she spat.
William put his hand over his mouth in shock. “How could this have happened?”
“Oh, it happens more often than you think,” she responded coldly. “Did you even want the baby, William? This whole wedding thing?” She pushed his hand off her knee.
“What?” He looked at her incredulously.
“You heard me. Did you even want it!”
“Baby, calm down.” He took her hand and held it firmly. “Naturally, I was surprised at first, but I’ve started looking forward to building a life with you. Why? You weren’t?”
Of course she was. Marrying William would have been the best thing to ever happen to her. Securing a good marriage and future for herself with a doctor who loved her and could provide a stable life was beyond her wildest dreams. And not just any doctor, but William, whom she loved deeply and completely. Isn’t that what every girl at Howard wanted? Why their parents sent them to the prestigious Negro college, to get a good education and find a mate that they could love and build a solid life with? Another cramp rolled through her body and she gasped.
William reached for her. “What do you need?” His eyes were tender and then he drew her into his arms, where she collapsed and allowed him to hold her until the sob that she felt in her chest burst free. She had lost the baby. The baby they had made together, and she trembled all over.
“I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve failed you.” Her voice was small. “I don’t even know where we go from here.”
William dried the wetness under her eye with his thumb. “I’m not letting you get away from me that easily. Eleanor, I love you and I still want to marry you.”
Her eyes glistened. What had she done to deserve such a kind, good man?
“We can try again. Everything will be fine, you just wait and see. That’s a promise.”
William’s words were comforting, but for once, Eleanor wasn’t so sure he was right. What she was sure of was that he didn’t know her. Not well enough to make such a promise.
PART TWO June 1950, one year later
Sometimes there are no words to help one’s courage. Sometimes you just have to jump.
—Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
CHAPTER FIFTEEN TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
Ruby
My summer job going into my senior year of high school was to help Aunt Marie three mornings a week give Kiki’s a deep clean. Although Aunt Marie hated doing domestic work with a passion, the money man she wrote numbers for had gotten busted a month ago in a police raid, and she needed to replace that income.
“Things are hot on the streets,” Aunt Marie told me, “and I don’t know who might run their mouth so it’s best to lay low. Do something else for a while.”
To hold us over, she accepted the owner of Kiki’s offer to clean up the place, and she paid me fifty cents a shift to be her assistant. In a bleach-stained T-shirt and gym shorts, I wiped down the tables and chairs, while Aunt Marie scrubbed behind the bar. While we worked, she sang along to Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’?” playing on the jukebox.
“When you mop the floors, get those corners good,” she called to me from behind the bar. She had removed the many bottles of liquor and was sponging down the floor-to-ceiling mirror with dish soap, white vinegar and water. The mahogany shelves she polished with Murphy’s Oil. I sloshed the mop in the soapy water, with a few caps full of ammonia. When I bent down to ring out the mop with my rubber gloves, a dizziness washed over me. I gagged and dry-heaved, then put my hand on the nearest wooden table to brace myself, belching up sour acid.
Aunt Marie’s oil-stained rag swept over the bar top, but her eyes never left me. “Told you ’bout playing with fire, didn’t I? Now your ass done got burnt.”
Her frankness irritated me as much as the raw, red skin that rubbed against my cotton knit panties. I had caused the chafing by wiping too hard and too often, searching for my monthly visitor.
“Give me that damn mop.” She came round the bar and snatched the stick from my hand so fast it caused a splinter. “Go sit your fast ass down somewhere.”
Inez had called me a fast ass after that thing with Leap, when she kicked me out the house over a year ago. Coming from Aunt Marie’s lips, the words stung like alcohol being poured into an open wound. Even though that time wasn’t my fault, this time was, and I cowered in the corner under the picture of Nat King Cole, refusing to let all my shame and self-loathing out.
* * *
It had started with a handwritten note.
Philadelphia had been blessed with a warm day in March after a snowy February, so I decided to sit on the front steps with a small canvas and my color palette. Rowdy boys were playing stickball with a dismantled broom and a piece of a tennis ball. I was focused on painting the filling station across the street when out of the blue, Shimmy trudged up the street. My stomach did a pirouette at the sight of him, but I quickly turned my head, hoping he had not seen me. When I looked again, he had disappeared inside his uncle’s paint store on the corner.