Читать книгу Keeper of My Soul - Keshia Dawn - Страница 11

“Stoney, g’on out yonder and get me a switch from that tree. I’m fed up wit’cha, girl.” Grandma Susie was ready to make a promise of her threats. “G’on now.”

Walking as slowly as her bony legs would tote her through the screen door, Stoney hesitated as she teetered under the threshold. “But I didn’t even do nothing,” the seven-year-old mumbled under her breath. “I just don’t want no medicine, that’s all.”

“Wha’cha say, gal?” Grandma Susie positioned her big hands on either side of the rocking chair’s arm-rests, hoping to show Stoney that there was no playing. “Don’t make me come out there and get it myself.”

Once her bare feet landed on the porch, Stoney looked back at her grandmother and snatched her head back around as fast as she could. Knowing her grandmother couldn’t see her facial expression, Stoney stuck out her tongue and wrapped it in the corner of her mouth, which was her only comeback.

This would be the third whooping she’d gotten in one week, all because she didn’t want to take medication that Grandma Susie said she didn’t have a choice but to take. Grandma Susie said, “If I gotta take some medicine, so do you.” Every time Stoney drank the bottled purple stuff, she didn’t like the way it made her eyes look at things. She’d heard Grandma Susie tell her old lady friends that giving Stoney medicine was the best way to get her to sleep, hushed up, or to sit down somewhere. As far as Stoney was concerned, she didn’t want to do any of the above.

Finally moving forward in Grandma Susie’s mission for her to get self-destruction ammo, Stoney stood in front of the only thing besides medicine that she hated: the switch tree.

With the house she lived in with Grandma Susie behind her, Stoney looked to her left and watched her friends scatter off on the hidden trail. To her right was the alley that would take her toward town. Peeping over her shoulder, Stoney took off toward the alley, hoping her plan to run away led her right into the arms of her mother: someone she had never laid eyes on.

“So are you down? hello? earth to Stoney.” Vicky snapped repeatedly in her coworker’s face.

“Uh, huh? Oh, girl.” Stoney sat up straight at her desk. Lost in the recap of her youth, Stoney broke loose from thoughts of one of her runaway attempts.

“No can do, Vicky the Vixen,” Stoney joked around with her coworker and friend who had been pressuring her all afternoon to have cocktails after work. Remembering that she held a tablet of medication in her left hand, Stoney reached for her bottled water to wash down the pale capsule. “When are you going to give up? If I don’t boogie, you know I don’t guzzle.” Stoney stared at her friend before her frequent eye flutter took over. When Vicky’s own eyes began to water while looking at Stoney’s repeated eye jerking, Stoney paid no mind, and continued her reasoning on why happy hour was out. “Drinking is for the birds. Plus, hanging around you already has me acting thrown off. What you trying to do, get me locked up?”

“Uh-uh. Chunked is more like it. I feel ya, though.” Vicky shared a laugh with her younger counterpart. “You’re doing the right thing.” easing seriousness into the conversation, a short and vibrant Victoria really did admire Stoney for being young and making God the head of her life. Totally.

Knowing Stoney had been raised by her grandmother, Vicky could argue with some of the old-fogy ideas that her young friend had about individuals and the world itself, but she respected the twenty-one-year-old for at least giving her life to God and sticking with it. She just wished Stoney would take her advice and lose the coffee-colored stockings and sandals.

“Girl, keep doing what you doing,” Vicky halfway chanted. “By the time I was your age, I had twenty-one painted on my forehead and all I wanted was for the bartender to keep mixing and pouring. No small talk please.” She hunched her broad shoulders and turned her face, giving an academy award example of her story. When she saw Stoney give her a questioning start, Vicky announced, “Oh, that was months before I knew I was pregnant. By the time I was twenty-five, I had sobered up and was pregnant with my third child.” Vicky let out a weakened sigh, thinking that in her thirty years she had experienced a lifetime.

Getting up from her desk, Stoney shook her head about Vicky’s comment. “You are a mess,” Stoney said in her nasally tone. “Anyway. I have choir rehearsal and I’m teaching a new song tonight,” she shared as she filed away patient charts for the doctor she worked for.

“Brother Mike is letting us borrow space in his home since new bleachers are being put in the choir’s stand. You know he got that bad house everybody been talking about. I sho’ can’t miss tonight. You sure you don’t want to come?” Stoney sang to her girlfriend. “I keep telling you he got the sweets for you.”

“Hmm. That’s nice,” Vicky responded, and then silenced herself. Vicky had had a major crush on Brother Mike since she started going to Bethel sanctuary five years earlier. Recently she had made her move, jumped the gun, and acted on her feelings before knowing all she needed to know about Brother Mike. There was no way she would let on to Stoney, who was still considered fairly new to the church, that she had been all up and through Brother Mike’s new home. And she surely wasn’t going to let on that the fling they had had flung. He may have been sweet, but on her, she figured, he wasn’t.

“Girl, well, let me run and meet up with the girls. You know li’l Risha Coleman from church charging me by the hour now for keeping my kids.” with the “no she ain’t” expression on Stoney’s face, Vicky knew she couldn’t believe it either. “Yeah, girl. I know. Okay. Well, I’m out of here. I’ll see you at church on Sunday if I don’t see you tomorrow.”

“Cool. See ya.” Stoney gave her friend a quick hug and waved her out of the office. Glad that she was finally close to someone who was more like a big sister than just a friend, Stoney allowed her smile to linger longer than usual.

Not used to having any female friends back home, Stoney thought about what Grandma Susie would say if she’d known that Stoney had let someone in her personal life. That was just something people shouldn’t do, as Grandma Susie always said. “People just nosey and want to be in your business.”

“Aw, Grandma Susie.” Stoney snickered to herself upon reminiscing on her grandmother’s words. “Vicky is different. I finally got a friend.”

When she first moved to Dallas, Stoney became one of the smartest female students at the most expensive private university in town. That’s where she met Vicky, who had given her the heads-up about an open position at the optometrist’s office. Their initial meeting at a scholarship banquet ignited a quick friendship.

A student herself, Vicky had defied odds like no other, getting a two-year degree and fighting tooth and nail to get accepted into the prestigious school. She had set out to prove that having three kids out of wedlock didn’t automatically label her doomed. “Just don’t try it,” was always her retort, once she tooted her horn about breaking the odds of statistics. Finishing up her interning at the doctor’s office, it wouldn’t be long before Vicky had her own white jacket with her name embroidered on it.

Along with providing a job, Vicky befriended Stoney even more when she invited her to church. Since then, a year earlier, Stoney had been attending Bethel and had even joined the choir. No sooner than that, she had been voted the choir’s assistant director, right under Brother Mike.

Now at the age of twenty-one and two years after her grandmother passed away, Grandma Susie’s death had left Stoney alone in a town where their family came in the form of her grandmother’s friends. Being alone until she moved to Dallas, Stoney had to grow up quickly and make decisions for herself. She hadn’t even thought about packing and moving in with friends, who she knew could turn into foes overnight. She just kept her job as a cashier at the Brookshires in Greenville, Texas, and paid bills as they came in. With the small planked house long since paid off, Stoney didn’t have to worry about the roof over her head. If it weren’t for her move to Dallas, no doubt she’d have resided in the house she grew up in.

Raised under her grandmother’s lax care, Stoney learned at a young age to pay bills, cook, and clean a house, along with saving for a rainy day. On top of that, her grandmother inadvertently instilled in her the importance of an education, and drilled in even more how important it was to plan for the future. The only thing she didn’t teach her was how to heal from the past.

Over the years growing up in her grandmother’s care, it was a rare occasion when Stoney could bring up her biological mother or ask questions pertaining to why she wasn’t being raised by this mystery woman. On one of those good days, Stoney could hear Grandma Susie say, “Your mama loved you, but I guess the timing wasn’t right. She was angry about lots of stuff.” But if she caught her grandma on a hot, fan-in-the-window type of day, the conversation was always, “She just selfish. Always was and always will be.” and for asking, Grandma Susie would lay into Stoney, telling her, “Stop being so disrespectful. You act like you ungrateful I took ya in or something.” with all of that, Stoney never knew when she would get the truth. But it was all too late now. Passing away in her sleep at age eighty, her grandmother didn’t have a chance to give her history to go on so that her future wouldn’t be repeated. That was her main reason for the move to Dallas: to find her own past.

Being born and raised in Greenville, Texas, for most folk, meant that all roads led to the closest big city. That was only one of the reasons Stoney followed suit. With the leftover money from the insurance policy, Stoney found herself an efficiency right smack dab in the middle of Dallas and called it home. Her other reason for moving to Dallas was that she planned to scout out her birth mother. Being that she only had a picture to go on, she had to go back to the drawing board on more than one occasion. Nevertheless, the one thing she wasn’t going to do was give up hope.

Finished earlier than she thought she would be, Stoney scribbled something on a prescription pad and rushed out of the office. Standing in the hallway, waiting for the elevator to arrive, Stoney wished it would arrive sooner than later. One of the young doctors always made it his duty to try to escort her out of the building to her car. Besides being embarrassed about driving her grandmother’s older-than-thou Ford escort, Stoney hated that Dr. Connor flirted with her every chance he could.

The chime of the elevator’s arrival sounded off. As soon as her heels touched the glossed wood of the compact room, Stoney repeatedly pushed the “close” button.

“Hold the elevator, please,” Dr. Connor yelled.

“Dang it,” Stoney grunted. Sweeping her bangs off of her rectangular eyeglasses and giving them their signature push up off of her nose, Stoney stood up straight and tried to look as serious as possible. Vicky had told her that to get someone out of her face, someone she was not at all interested in, looking serious would always do the trick. But to Stoney, Dr. Connor was in a league all his own.

“Hi there, Stoney,” a lean and toffee-colored Dr. Connor spoke as he entered the elevator. With his white jacket draped across his arm, he stood not too far away from Stoney.

“Hi, Dr. Connor.” Stoney kept it short while trying to keep the sweet out of it. Seeing him, she suddenly regretted taking her khaki jacket off so soon. Her new off-white camisole she had chosen to wear under her jacket left her cleavage screaming for cover. When Dr. Connor pushed the button for the first floor, Stoney was relieved. Exhaling, she then pushed “G” for the garage, and silently thanked God she wouldn’t have to be bothered with his advances today.

Right as the elevator started to move downward and Stoney thought she was home free, Dr. Connor, being the overachiever he was, the good doctor, changed his mind.

“Oh, you’re parked in the garage today? I’ll just ride down with you,” he offered without question.

“No!” Stoney yelled before she knew the venom that had come out of her mouth. She lowered her voice. “I mean, you don’t have to do that.”

“Nonsense. I can just take the stairs back up,” he suggested.

It wasn’t that he was a bad-looking man, or that he came off as a stalker. It was just the mere thought of what Grandma Susie had told her about his kind.

“Folks who got it easy will see a young gal like you and think they can do what they want to. If ya smart, you’d getcha all the education you can and then take a pick of the man you want. Don’t be no man’s flunkie.”

With those words embedded in her heart, Stoney only knew what her grandma had told her. As far as she knew, it was the truth. Some may have continued to call her country, and that was all right by her. One thing she didn’t want to be called was dumb. Better safe than sorry was all she knew to be.

“Got any plans for the weekend?” he asked as the doors opened. Single with no children, the twenty-nine-year-old Dr. Connor had taken a liking to the well-developed and smart (now twenty-one-year-old) college student.

“You know me, just church and hanging with other young people at the church.” She thought if she often referred to herself as a young lady rather than a woman, he’d back off. So far he hadn’t bought into it.

She could wear all the skirts—long ones, short ones, pleated ones, or a-line ones—it wouldn’t matter. Stoney couldn’t hide the body that made her age appear to be on the other side of twenty-five rather than next door to twenty. Cornbread fed took a new meaning with Stoney.

After the elevator’s doors opened, Stoney took off walking at a faster pace to Old Crusty, while Dr. Connor reminded Stoney of an earlier conversation.

“You know, you really should consider the surgery. If your eyes are giving you problems like they are and your eye prescription is as fluctuating as it is, it seems to be necessary,” he recommended in his expertise. Taking her keys from her hands, Dr. Connor did Stoney the unwanted favor of unlocking her door. “Plus it’s free. You can’t get any better than that. That’s one of the perks of working for doctors: free health insurance.”

With her inability to control her blinking for the moment, Stoney gave a gentle, polite smile that housed full lips. Nodding in agreement instead of reminding him that she didn’t have anyone to care for her after the surgery, Stoney eased her body closer to her old standby car.

“You have beautiful eyes, Stoney, and I’d like to see them more often without your glasses.”

Her uncontrolled and rapid blinking had been a reaction from medications she’d started taking as a teenager. Not bothering to mention it to him, Stoney tried not to acknowledge him at any level. Retracting her keys from his hand once he’d unlocked the door, Stoney moved closer toward the driver’s door. After easing inside, and with the door shut, she threw him a fake wave and blew out the breath she’d been holding in. Through gritted teeth Stoney blew out steamed breath.

Making her entrance onto the smooth-flowing Central expressway, Stoney drove while reminiscing about her new life. She hadn’t dated at all while being in Dallas. As a matter of fact, she had never dated. Grandma Susie had made sure of that.

In high school, when young girls were painting toes, doing hair, getting ears pierced, and eager to turn sixteen—the age their parents were dreading but at which they had agreed to allow them to have boyfriends—Stoney wasn’t able to participate. Grandma Susie had made it very clear that Jesus, church, and school were all the boyfriends Stoney needed.

For the last year since Stoney had made Dallas her home, she hadn’t found anyone who interested her, nor was she really looking. Grandma Susie may have been dead, but her spirit still lived very much in Stoney’s thoughts.

As she drove, tears ran down Stoney’s face as she allowed her mind to focus on being motherless and not knowing who would remind her when it was okay to date, kiss, or marry. If there was anything she hated, it was not knowing.

Driving in the big city, each chance she got Stoney glanced at the picture she had taped on her dashboard. Inadvertently it allowed her to wallow in self-pity. Stoney told herself that keeping the only picture she had of her mother was for the just-in-case moments. Just in case she ran across someone she thought could be her mother, Stoney wanted the proof close by.

It hurt in a different spot in her heart, not having a mother around and not knowing if she was dead or alive. At times she felt that if she knew her mother was dead, seeing a grave or something, it would bring closure to her burdened heart.

All Grandma Susie could tell Stoney about her mother was that the woman had dropped Stoney off within two weeks of her birth. She had brought Stoney to Greenville from Lord knew where, with the best baby clothing, the most expensive baby furniture, and Pampers galore. Stoney’s mother didn’t leave a birth certificate, social security card, or anything that would link them. It was even up to Grandma Susie to name her as she had. When asked about her name years later, Grandma said exactly what Stoney had figured: “Ya mama had such a stony heart, girl, I couldn’t see ya being named anything else.”

Only God had slowed down the process of the pain of not having a mother or a father. But being alone in a city where girls frequently shopped the malls with their mothers, Stoney’s heart often pained as if she were a kid again.

Staring one last time at the picture of her mother, Maeshell, Stoney parked her car in front of Brother Mike’s mini-mansion. When she got out of her vehicle, Stoney dusted invisible particles onto the ground, knowing he would give her a once-over. It made her laugh how attentive Brother Mike was about her hair, clothing, or anything having to do with fashion. Always saying how he liked “His girls” to look nice, Stoney thought he’d make someone a good husband one day, and couldn’t for the life of her understand why Vicky was so against being friends with him.

After adding her khaki jacket back to complete her Anne Klein outfit, the very one that Brother Mike had picked out when he accompanied her on a shopping trip, Stoney retrieved her songbook folder and purse, and headed toward the door.

It wasn’t until she had reached the front door and looked back that she realized she must have been the first to arrive, being that no other cars were parked out front. Wanting to reverse her steps and sit in the car until someone else drove up, Brother Mike, one of her new best friends, opened the door with a smile.

“Hey, Stoney. Come on in. Ugh.” he threw his hands up to his mouth. “Is that a ponytail, or better yet, was it?” he escorted her through the threshold and locked the door behind them. Knowing that Brother Mike had never made a move on her, and was more like a brother than friend, Stoney tried her best to relax, but couldn’t stop thinking how Grandma Susie had told her about putting herself in certain predicaments. Without realizing he had asked how she was doing, Stoney asked, “Am I the first to arrive?”

“Um, yeah.” By the way Stoney’s brow furrowed, and the way she had been clutching her belongings, Brother Mike could tell she was a bit uptight. Having had plenty conversations with Stoney, he knew that Stoney held her guard up high, and he respected that, especially since she seemed to be in the world all alone. “Look, I’m going to go finish putting the finishing touches on the appetizers and beverages. If you don’t mind, make yourself at home, and please answer the door if anyone shows up.” not waiting for a response from a dazed Stoney, Brother Mike pushed up the sleeves of his button-down, crisp canary yellow Ralph Lauren shirt, and headed toward his kitchen area.

Taking minor steps around the front part of a home almost the size of their medium-sized church, Stoney didn’t know where to begin. It seemed as though the windows made up the majority of the house, but not in an awkward way. Peering out one of the windows a distance away, she could see the sparkle of a ground pool through the wood blinds. Hot as the early May’s day was, and with having no working air conditioner in her car, Stoney wondered how the water would feel against her warm skin. As soon as she thought about swimming, she then remembered a swimsuit would have to be worn in order to do so.

“Don’t worry, I’m not even thinking about it,” she spoke confidently, as if she were talking to someone in the very room with her. Grandma Susie, to be exact.

In the living area, Stoney walked a short distance to a curio housing family photos. Unlike Grandma Susie’s house, where she had pictures covering the majority of the walls with nails and tacks, Brother Mike had the type of taste that Stoney hoped to be able to one day afford. Taking a glance at the walls and seeing no photos tacked on, Stoney remembered when she moved out of Grandma Susie’s house. In order to have it rented, she had no choice but to take extra money off the deposit for the sake of all the holes punched through the paint. When she thought about her own place, her studio apartment, Stoney realized that she hadn’t thought about complementing her space with art, pictures, or anything, for the fear of messing up her apartment complex’s property. Stoney made a mental note to ask Brother Mike to help her with that portion of her life as well.

“You need anything?” Brother Mike called out from behind a wall. Not knowing which direction he had disappeared to, Stoney responded with uncertainty.

“Ah, yeah. A cup of water, please,” she replied.

Through the glass, there were pictures of him and his fraternity brothers that were displayed in the medium brown elevated curio. Other photos of the choir members and different conferences they had attended over the years were crowded in as well. Stoney even recognized herself in some of the newer photos. As she glanced at another photo of Brother Mike and who seemed to be a friend, she wondered if he was another frat brother, and out of nowhere wondered if the nameless fellow was single. Thinking he was a handsome something, Stoney’s eyes glistened as she wondered if Brother Mike would even introduce her to someone special.

“Oh my goodness, Stoney.” She scolded herself by slapping her mouth with her open hand. Feeling guilty about thinking that very thought, Stoney blinked her eyes shut and said a quick sinner’s prayer. “Lord, forgive me for my sinful eye and my sinful thought. Amen.”

As she kneeled down to focus on other photos, her lingering question about the guy’s attached status was soon answered as she saw the same guy in a wedding photo with his bride.

My dear Jesus, I was pining for a married man, she prayed to herself, for fear of Brother Mike hearing about her disgusting sin.

That alone didn’t stop Stoney from staring at the photo the best she could with it being housed behind glass. Overlooking her weakness, Stoney needed a closer look, especially at his wife since her face looked vaguely familiar. Just as she was about to open the curio, Brother Mike walked in with most of the choir members trailing him. Too wrapped up in her own hunt, Stoney never heard the chiming of the doorbell.

With her stare evident, Brother Mike welcomed a question from Stoney, once he trailed his eyes to where Stoney’s gaze had been focused.

“You know him?” he asked with his chin almost landing on his chest. He handed her the water she had asked for.

Quickly standing erect from her crouched position, Stoney didn’t dare try to pretend she wasn’t interested. “Uh, no. She…Um, is he one of your friends?”

“Yeah. That’s my frat brother. He lives in Houston, though. You know that’s where I’m from, right? h-Town,” Brother Mike barked as he put his curved hands around his mouth to make his chant louder. Everyone laughed.

“That’s his, um, wife.” he smiled and patted Stoney’s shoulder as he started walking to where the others had gathered. “The wicked witch of the south if I shall say.” he looked back at Stoney with an even bigger smile.

Looking more at the picture of Keithe, but not forgetting his bride, Stoney chose to hold the rest of her questions in until after she and Mike were alone.