Knee-Deep in Wonder (14 page)

Now everything thumped in Liberty's hands. Cups full of coffee crashed on the café tables, brooms banged while sweeping the floor, dishes clattered in the kitchen sink. Liberty made a racket with everything she laid her hands on, and no one had the courage to say, “Who's acting like the baby girl now? You should be shamed, carrying on the way you is.” People in the café turned into ballet dancers, tiptoeing around Liberty and her anger.

She still loved Chess, she'd treated him better than her own, but she had pride, the flagrant storming sort of pride that was capable of smashing a water pitcher she had saved for over two summers or punching through a wall she had built with her very own hands. Yes, Liberty had pride. Who would be above feeling a prick of it, when she stepped into her café and heard that hush that silenced every mouth? Gossip sprinkled with spite hovered above the tables.

“Heard he playing house.”

“So soon?”

“Some folks don't need much time.”

“Amen.”

“Who he with?”

“Some lemonade piece named Halle.”

“Girl, no.”

“And Liberty the one give him her house.”

“Didn't even lift a finger while he was here.”

“Well, who the fool now?”

“Say, say. Tsk, here she come—”

Liberty, stepping into that room bloated with silence, knew full well that she had created the situation, had willingly shamed herself and hers because Chess in those few months had scratched something soft in her and made compassion her weakness. She couldn't stand her customers' smiles laced with sympathy. The words “Oh, it's all right” came too easily when she spilt their coffee or overcooked their eggs. Even Mable fell prey. “Girl, you sit down, I'll get it,” she'd say, as if Liberty hadn't almost been running the café by herself since it opened.

Those days without Chess mocked her and at night the reproaches—
I should of, I should of
—scrambled into the bed with her, snapping away her sleep, making her see her own foolishness. I should of slapped his face clean through when he talk the way he do with Queenie. That's what I should of done. I did it with Sweets. Telling me not to kiss my own baby girl. I just let him run wild, him and Sweets both. Never said boo, and now everybody and they mama want to hold my hand. Should of made him get a job. Even Sweets got a job. Lord knows what he did, but he got one all right. Who ever heard of a grown man not working for a living? He never mention getting work. Just happy as a pig in shit for me to make a way for us all. I should of knowed he was up to leaving like that from the way he walked in. Sneaky and all that. Slip on in like a sneeze and not say a word to nobody. I should of knowed better. And then he walk out. Open or close door don't make no difference … On and on she went until morning, till she grew tired of hearing the sound of her voice. Recriminations wouldn't change a thing. She heaved herself out of bed and slipped into her robe. Well, the most I can do is stop picking at it, she thought, as she went to wake Queen Ester. “Get on up now.”

“Hmmm?”

“I said get on up.”

Queen Ester rolled on her back and stretched. “He ain't coming back, is he?”

“Naw. And I don't want him back neither.”

*   *   *

Sunday morning came brand new for mother and daughter. Almost better than new, since both Liberty and Queen Ester began the day not only wanting to start from scratch but also needing a sabbath to shake the somberness that clung to their manless house. Liberty suggested they close the café for the day. Why not? she asked herself, we can't fall down in one day; they'll be here tomorrow for sure. “We ain't gone open today,” Liberty told Queen Ester, then hushed her whooping.

“What we gone do?” Queen Ester asked.

“Well.” Liberty stuck out her tongue, thinking. “I guess we'll see.” Their five o'clock breakfast turned festive before their eyes. Two eggs apiece, bacon, hominy grits with fried catfish stirred in and jack biscuits on the side—a meal they wouldn't have had except on Christmas. Full as ticks, they napped most of the morning in the empty café, waking up every now and again to yell out the window, “We closed! Come by tomorrow!” and then giggle themselves back to sleep. It was almost noon before they fully woke up. “Maybe we ought to take him on out of here for good,” Liberty said, as she stood and stretched out the kinks in her back. “You know, clean the house and make a big racket while we at it.” They carried buckets full of hot water and a touch of lye, dust rags, and the mop. Together they scoured every floor and wall, beat out the rugs, washed the windows. Where the stool was too low, Queen Ester climbed on Liberty's back and laughed herself almost sick from the height. Even the rooms Chess hadn't seen they aired out. Queen Ester made wings of the doors and swung the wood hard back and forth, creating a gust that blew Liberty's shirt open. They ran through the house and wiped away every smudge and footprint that belonged to Chess. All the while, they made plans.

Maybe we could even do a coat of whitewash? Ideas for the day grew into projects that would take a week to do right. Need more than a day for that, and we got to open tomorrow. Maybe we keep the place closed for the week. Well, at least a couple of days, pick the weeds out of the yard, maybe after we done walk around town. Heard they moved the sawmill north a few miles. You want to go see it? Make a day out of that for sure. Got to get that catalog from Mable and get us both some shoes, maybe even a dress or two. By dinner, Liberty and Queen Ester had exhausted both themselves and their plans. Dinner was over, the heap of cold beans cramped their stomachs, and they both ached from the work they had done, too tired to take their bodies upstairs and put them in bed. Liberty dozed, her head resting in the cup of her palm, but Queen Ester kept moving. Her finger scratched her chin, then her cheek. A whole hand ran over her face, then her neck. She watched her mother drowse, and just when it seemed as if Liberty would sink into deep sleep, Queen Ester coughed loudly or clattered an empty bowl on the table. Finally, she said, “Ma'am?”

“Yes, baby.” Liberty yawned.

“Why you let him stay on in the first place?”

She woke then, sitting up in her chair. She saw her daughter's hands moving as if they couldn't stop. “Stop all that fidgeting.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Queen Ester's hands fell to her sides. “Why you let him stay? We don't need anybody.”

“I know we don't.” Liberty stared at her daughter. Such a little thing. “I guess I saw him and thought we could go back to what we had with your daddy. Maybe cause I'm older and ain't innocent, I could of fixed the wrong with me and Sweets.”

“What was wrong with you and Daddy?”

“I don't know.” They fell into silence, with only Queen Ester's moving hands slicing the quiet.

“Shhh.”

“What?” Queen Ester stopped shifting in her chair and heard a soft knocking at the door.

“Tell them we ain't open. Just yell it through the door.”

Queen Ester ran down the hallway and screamed at the closed door, “We ain't open!”

“It's Mable.”

Queen Ester grimaced and cracked open the door far enough to fit her shoulders and head.

“Hey, Miss Mable.”

“Hey, baby. Where your mama at?”

“Look like you got news.”

“I do. Where your mama at?”

“We was at the table.”

“This important.” Queen Ester didn't step aside. “Well, girl. Let me through. I swear the older you get”—Mable looked at Queen Ester—“you don't step aside, and I'm liable to forget the map I brung you.”

“You got another map for me?” Glee slipped into Queen Ester's face.

“Sure I do, but I ain't gone give it less you straighten up.”

“Sorry, Miss Mable.” Queen Ester allowed Mable to step through the door.

“I bet you are.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “This here is Tennessee.”

“I still got Alabama.”

“I hope you do.”

“You know they got a Lafayette there?”

“You don't say?”

“Sure do. You think there folks just like us there?”

Mable looked at Queen Ester. Liberty ought to be shamed letting Queenie get so old and foolish. Lord knows what's being said about the both of them. I'm gone talk to Liberty about it. “Ester, I told you I got something important to tell your ma'am.”

Mable stepped into the kitchen, looking windswept and a little mad. “Clean enough to lick the floor, girl,” she said to Liberty.

“Well, I thought we close for today and tidy up a bit.”

“Ummm-hmm.” Mable said, and looked around.

“Well, what is it?”

“Chess.” As Mable said his name, Liberty wiped her hand over her face. “Drunk as a river-bottom coon and making a mess at Bo Web's.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Heard he done picked a fight with somebody and got cut. The man pissed in Bo Web's yard. Right next to the house.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And Liberty.” Mable let her voice drop. “I got told he slapped some woman in the mouth.”

“Uh-huh.”

While Liberty and Mable talked, Queen Ester whisked in and out of the kitchen, catching snatches—no, whole sentences—that seemed to boom and fade in her ear. Between their words, Queen Ester thought, We shouldn't of wiped everything clear, like he was never with us. Now fore things get dry she miss him. The shoulds that climbed into bed with Liberty had come to rest in Queen Ester: we should of left a bit of him behind so Mama could see the mess he make when he round us. If she could see it, she tell Mable to get on out of here and stop bothering us. Queen Ester whooshed back and forth between the kitchen and the hallway, taking in their conversation.

“Well, somebody got to gone and get him.”

“He ain't mine, Mable, to fetch.”

What kind of excuse is that? Queen Ester thought, and then another thought leapt atop her first one: it's cause she bending. Mable standing there laying out the worse and Mama can't help but to pick at it, cause that's her way.

“Liberty, he more yours than anybody else. And Bo Web's old lady fit to be tied. She want him out of there.”

“I ain't gone to get him.”

“Who the one that let him stay from the get-go? Maybe he would of left by now if you hadn't let him in. Bo Web's lady ain't blaming him for acting up, she looking at you.”

“Well, shit, Mable.”

Queen Ester appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Mama, you ain't gone to go nowhere, is you?”

“Shut it and get out of grown folks' business.” Queen Ester chewed her lip and walked out of the kitchen. Liberty looked at Mable again. “What was I saying?”

“I think you said, ‘Well, shit, Mable.'”

Liberty took a deep breath. “Well, shit, Mable.”

“Mama?” Queen Ester rushed back into the kitchen, wearing her yellow dress, too light for cold weather, too small for her breasts and hips. I don't know who's the worse off, Mable thought, Liberty for liking her girl this way or Ester for going long with it. “I can come with you, can't I?”

The brand-new day Queen Ester and Liberty had started was lost. Liberty went with Mable to Bo Web's to get Chess and Queen Ester walked a step behind them. They tramped through the wilderness that separated them from the town, while Mable (breathless, since every step Liberty took meant three for her) worried about Queen Ester's yellow dress. She watched Liberty's hand slap away tree branches and wondered about the wisdom of her actions. Lord knew Bo Web's woman had seen it all and would have been able to get rid of Chess in the end. But she had cornered Mable, asking her to get Liberty. Now here they were the three of them, slashing through country darkness on their way to carry a grown man home who didn't even have the decency to be kin. But that didn't bother Mable. How many times had she gone and plucked some child or grown man away from trouble? Lafayette's business was her business; no one would contest that.

The woods lay behind them now, and all three walked quickly down the main dirt road without a light from a house (and there were only three) to show them the way. So what's gnawing at you, girl? Mable asked herself. It's that dress, that too-light yellow almost-see-through dress. Maybe Queen Ester didn't know any better, but Liberty should. We're on our way to Bo Web's of all places, and that girl wearing a dress so tight and thin she might as well be naked. Queen Ester was not a child, whatever Liberty thought. How many times had Mable seen Queen Ester at the table with her legs wide open, calmly scratching her crotch as if there wasn't a man in sight? One day trouble would come and settle on them, because as far as Mable could tell, Liberty's love couldn't move beyond what she thought was small. She grabbed Liberty's wrist.

“Liberty?” Mable whispered.

“What now?”

“What you gone do bout Queen Ester?”

“Ain't nothing wrong with her.”

Step around the dress, Mable warned herself. “I'm just saying she ought to be turning wild by now. And look at her. She act a fool if you ain't three steps away.”

“And I ought to shame her cause she mind and love her ma'am? Mable.” Both their voices, though low, turned hot and sticky.

“Come on, girl, this me telling you.”

“What you trying to say?” Liberty slowed down.

“She grown, Liberty. What is she, eighteen? Nineteen? And you seem like the only one that ain't noticed.”

“You telling me how to raise what's mine?”

“You know I ain't gone do no such a thing.”

“Really? Cause that's what it sound like you trying to do.”

“Liberty.”

“What?”

“They done opened a shop in town. One of them beauty parlors. Maybe Ester can work there.”

“She got plenty to do round the house.”