What's Mine and Yours(3)
Jade stared at him, as if she were thinking of apologizing.
“Did that reporter come by yet?”
Ray could sense her mood shifting. She was penitent, maybe because she wanted him to bake the best he ever had and impress that reporter, or maybe there was no reason at all. Sometimes, Jade was tender, gathering up Ray and Gee in her arms, declaring how lucky she was to have a family that loved her. Other times, she tore through the house, kicking things that were out of place and going on about how she hated living all cooped up, and she hated her dinged-up car, and she hated that Gee was never quiet when she had to study, when she had two hours to sleep before her shift.
“We’re just watching the door,” Ray said. “He’s supposed to come by before three.”
“I’ve got an exam today, too. Drawing blood. I was going to practice on you last night, but I lost track of time.”
“You were gonna come home and stick a needle in me even if you couldn’t see straight?”
Jade laughed and covered half of her face with her hand. “No, I was going to find your vein. Pretend to stick you.”
“You can pretend later. Tonight. You can show me how after you’ve aced it.”
“Why are you so sweet to me, Raymond?”
Ray leaned toward Jade and kissed her. She smelled of the musty couch where she’d fallen asleep, her rose perfume, the cream she rubbed on after a shower, naked in the bathroom, her limbs spread wide. She was all ribs and small breasts, a brush of hair between her legs. Ray groaned a little, without meaning to, thinking of her. They had been missing their time together lately, Jade hard asleep in the mornings before he left for the shop.
Linette could say what she wanted about Jade, but she deserved, at least, some respect. None of her people had gone to school, and here she was, pushing, making a way. Who could blame her if sometimes she needed a break, to go out and have a few drinks?
Ray kissed her again. “You deserve all the sweet things in life,” he said, and went inside to collect Gee. When they returned, Jade had her headphones on, a song roaring in her ears. Ray handed her coffee and a devil’s food doughnut, then kissed his boy two, three, four times.
“Come and meet us after your shift. We’ll be at Wilson’s house. He called for a favor.”
“What’s he want?” Ray asked.
“Help moving furniture or something.”
“He can’t ask one of his boys to do that?”
Jade shrugged. “I never ask Wilson questions.”
“I don’t like you going over there alone.”
Wilson lived in a rough corner of the east side, but it wasn’t just the neighborhood that bothered Ray. Wilson was the sort of man who lied about the plainest things: how much he’d paid for a microwave, why he’d been fired from his last job. He teased Gee for his missing tooth, slapped Jade’s behind to say hello and good-bye. More than once, Ray had run interference for Wilson after he started an argument at a bar. More than once, they’d lent him cash they’d needed themselves. But Jade tolerated him because he was her cousin, and he’d been good to her. He’d bought her beers when she was sixteen, taken her to her appointments when she was pregnant with Gee.
“Did he ask you to bring money? Who else is going to be over there?”
“You worry too much,” Jade said, and kissed Ray good-bye. She pulled Gee along by the hand, and the boy leaned into his mother, content to finally have her eyes on him.
Ray watched them walk to the corner. He felt distinctly that he was watching his whole life move away from him: the slender shape of Jade and her mussed hair, Gee’s backpack immense on his little body. He wanted to run after them and draw them back, keep them in the shop, where he could protect them. From what? From Wilson? Ray knew it didn’t make sense, these urges he got sometimes to hold everything he loved close, the occasional shock of how much he had to lose. Maybe he was nervous the reporter wouldn’t like his doughnuts. Maybe he’d poured himself too many cups of coffee. He moved to follow them, to give Jade another kiss, his boy another squeeze, but he knew it was just nerves. He stayed put. By sundown, they’d all be back at home.
At noon, the reporter still hadn’t arrived, and Michaela and Michelle gave up their waiting and left for lunch. Linette sat in her office, a supply closet where she’d installed a fan, a hanging bulb. Ray was alone at the register, watching Beard Street out the windows. The passing traffic was sparse: a truck headed for the highway, the sleek cars pulling up to the lunch window. They wore suits, the people who came from downtown, and Ray had no idea what kinds of jobs they had. A pair of police officers came into the bakery for sandwiches, and a crew of construction workers, Latin American, for coffees. They were tearing down one of the old tobacco factories nearby. Eventually, the mechanic from the garage came in for his weekly sandwich, on the house.
He was close to Ray in age, but he looked much older, a lean man with the beginnings of a paunch at his hips. He had a sunburned brow, a dark mustache, and no beard, and he wore his wavy hair hardened to his head with gel. He came into the shop, wearing aviators and a white polo shirt that somehow wasn’t stained with grease.
“White, man? How you going to wear white to work on cars?”
The mechanic laughed. Ray could hardly ever remember his first name, but he usually wore his last name embroidered on the pocket of his uniform: Ventura.