Dead to Her(53)

Keisha had never forgotten about the boy. She couldn’t forget about the boy, no matter how much she’d tried, even when she’d stopped entirely believing he was real, and now she knew Auntie Ayo had been right, she was cursed and she couldn’t run from that. Nothing was good. Everything was rotten, and she was the black core of it. She’d been stupid to think she could be happy, to think she could have everything, to have believed in the joy she’d felt dancing in the field with Marcie. Dansé Calinda!

Yesterday it had all come back to haunt her. It was Sunday morning before church and she’d felt good. Looking back, she’d felt too good, even with William breathing down her neck. She’d gone outside into the glorious heat. Gardeners were working hard, pickups coming in and out as they pruned and watered and weeded the already perfect lawns and flower beds. The pool was also being cleaned. There was a delightful joy in the hubbub of others while she had nothing to do. It appeared that maybe here Sunday was only a day of rest for the rich, that’s what she remembered thinking as she strolled barefoot on the grass while William showered.

She found it under the big oak tree toward the back of the gardens. A tin plate of rice, peas, and beans, flies buzzing lazily across the congealed surface laying their slick white eggs. Coins glittered in a circle around it, grabbing her attention. She knew immediately what it was, similar but different, like so much in this country compared to home. An offering. A sacrifice. A curse. A warning. It was magic, and no good could come of it.

No good will come of you, KeKe.

She’d run inside, her legs shaking beneath her, calling for Billy, her words a jumble of fear until he came with her outside to see what all the fuss was about.

“It’s bad juju,” she said breathlessly, as he stared at her discovery.

“It’s just someone horsing around,” William said. “Maybe Zelda’s grandkids made it during the weekend.”

He bent over and picked up the plate, nose curling with revulsion, before calling over one of the gardeners. “Throw that in the trash, will you?” The man took it and disappeared as Billy reached forward for the coins, those six silver teardrops among the flowers.

“Don’t touch them!” Keisha’s voice had been almost a shriek, as she clawed at his arm, trying to pull him away.

“For God’s sake, woman!” he’d snapped. “It’s only a few dollars! What is wrong with you?” His voice dropped and Keisha was suddenly aware that all eyes in the gardens were on them. “You’re embarrassing me,” Billy muttered under his breath, his eyes narrow.

Chastised, Keisha had dropped her hand and simply stood and watched as he picked up the coins that glinted in the sunshine, winking their wickedness at her. “Waste not, want not,” William had said as he pocketed them, before striding inside again, smiling at his staff and leaving her to her silent fear.

She’d felt sick all the way to church and the air had been so hot and the waist of her skirt so tight from days and days of rich food, she’d been sure she was going to puke right there in her seat. When William whispered he was going to put the dollars in the collection plate, she’d retched with the wrongness of it all and fled outside. It was then that she’d seen her. As if she’d been waiting.

The old woman had been standing under a tree, her body almost as thick and tall as the trunk itself, chuckling to herself in the shade, her dry, frizzy orange hair ready to burst into flames in the heat. While one hand leaned her formidable weight on her walking stick, the other flipped a silver coin, a dollar no doubt, catching it between her fat fingers without even looking.

She winked at Keisha. “I see you,” she said, nodding as the coin danced in the air once more. “Light and dark and dark and light, I see all to come. The dead don’t stay sleeping, not when Mama Laveau and her daughters come to call. Ghosts got them own needs.” She smiled at Keisha, the fat in her face squashing outward. “We all got our own needs. We all got our wishes. Ain’t that the truth?”

“I don’t want . . .” Keisha had started, panicked, before the words fizzled out. What didn’t she want? To be free of William? That had been her wish. To be free of it all was always her wish.

“We can’t help what we want, honey,” the old woman said, turning and shuffling away, back out to the street. “We all got our wishes.” She paused before banging her cane three times hard on the pavement, chuckling and shaking her head, amused at something and everything, before going on her way again.

Keisha had said nothing more after that. She’d sat on the low wall by the parking lot and taken the second Valium she’d brought in her purse and waited until the drugs worked their own magic and soothed her trembling soul. She needed distractions from the darkness. She needed to be wild. To be free. She needed not to care. To be numb to it, the wickedness that followed her. She’d tapped at the side of her head, trying to knock her hysteria away. She couldn’t break now. She couldn’t.

And she hadn’t. Not yesterday. She’d flirted with Jason in the garage, she’d laughed with dull Virginia in the house, she’d ignored Marcie as best she could, she’d drunk too much wine, and then she’d fucked William like the whore he probably thought she was.

But today, today was a different story. Today, Valium and wine or not, her mind was breaking. Spiders ran amok in her thoughts, scattering her rationale.