The House of Eve (62)

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When I told Aunt Marie about my decision, she had the owner of Kiki’s draw up a contract stating all the facts and promises we had agreed upon. When she brought the papers home for me to sign, she explained her thinking.

“White folk got short memories. This way there ain’t no room for funny business. Ain’t trying to go to jail for kicking a white woman’s ass.” She tossed me a black ink pen.

As the week drifted by, I tried not to think about the egg growing inside of me. When I felt sick, I told myself that I was coming down with the flu. I tried not to think about Shimmy either. I had thought by now he would have at least called. It fired me up how easy it was for boys to slip away and leave the girl with all the responsibility of carrying the baggage. Shimmy would have no issues returning to college for his sophomore year, but I would miss the entire fall semester of my senior year of high school. Mrs. Shapiro said that I’d be able to take general classes while I was away, and that she would arrange with Mrs. Thomas to get all of my work sent for We Rise so that I wouldn’t fall behind and would still be in position to receive the scholarship. It was also her idea to cover my absence with the notion that I was going to D.C. for a few months to partake in a prestigious internship. It’s what I told Inez on the rare chance that she’d look for me while I was out of the city.

My time leading up to my departure was terribly lonely. I mostly stayed in the apartment with my paintbrushes and canvas, and even that didn’t relieve me of the blues I was feeling. Or of the guilt and constant shame.



* * *



At the end of August, I was nineteen weeks pregnant when Mrs. Shapiro phoned to tell me that she would pick me up before daylight the following day and drive me to the home for unwed mothers. I suspected that the only reason she was taking me herself was so that she could confirm with her own eyes that I was there.

The next morning, Aunt Marie rose early and made me a sandwich with two slices of crisp scrapple to take along with me for the ride.

“Did you pack enough clean underwear?”

I gestured to my two muslin bags sitting by the door and nodded.

“Make sure you wash your panties out each night. Don’t want you running around with dirty drawers and have them white folks talking ’bout you ain’t got no home training,” she fussed, and then just like that, my tear ducts burst and the waterworks fell.

“Chin up,” Aunt Marie said. “You know you can call home anytime, little money McGillicuddy.”

“But I’m scared,” I murmured.

“Be strong. When you get back, you can focus all your energy on being the biggest money McGillicuddy this family has ever seen. Hear?”

I wiped my tears on her flowered muumuu.

“Go on now.” She gave me a little push.

I picked up my two bags and clumped down the stairs. The blue Ford was parked in the alley. When I opened the back door of the car, I saw that Shimmy was in the passenger seat next to his mother. My heart split in two as he reached over the seat and wrapped his arms around me.

“This is not a social visit.” Mrs. Shapiro clicked her teeth, while shoving Shimmy off me and back into the front seat. “Shimmy, must I remind you that you are only along for the ride because a proper woman should not travel on the highway alone. Please act accordingly.”

She passed me sunglasses and a scarf for my hair. I realized they were my disguise.

As we drove down Broad Street, past city hall and the bronze statue of William Penn, Shimmy stuck his right hand through the seat and passed it back to me. I clung to his soft fingers like my life depended on it.

We drove in dead silence. Mrs. Shapiro would not turn the radio on because she said she had to concentrate on the road and the music would be a distraction. After what seemed like ages, Mrs. Shapiro instructed Shimmy to get the food from the picnic basket that they had brought, but she didn’t offer me a morsel. Shimmy passed me back half of his pastrami sandwich on rye bread, and I could see her brows crinkle through the rearview mirror.

It was a clear day. I’d never been to Washington, D.C., before, and I recognized some of the monuments from pictures in my textbooks. And then, before I fully realized what was happening, Mrs. Shapiro was steering the car up a long driveway. At the end was a home that was huge and foreboding. It didn’t look like a place I wanted to spend the night, let alone a few months. The reality of what I was about to do suddenly seemed very distant from the thing we’d planned on.

Mrs. Shapiro slipped from the driver’s seat and dusted the front of her tan suit. Her jacket was belted at the waist and the sleeves were cuffed just below her elbows.

“Shimmy, come with me,” she said as she added the final touch, a short black hat with a mesh net that stopped at her nose.

“I’ll wait here with Ruby.”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

“Ma, just give me this last moment. You’ve gotten what you want.”

Mrs. Shapiro huffed, then marched up the driveway to the front door of the redbrick house. Shimmy turned around to me in the seat.

“Marry me, Ruby.” His green eyes were clear, full of hope and innocence. I wished I could be as na?ve as him.

“You don’t have to go through with this. We can jump out of the car right now and run. You, me and the baby.”

“Shimmy.”