Chapter 9
B
ack at the house, peace covered my decision to stay in Bayford for a while, at least until I could get everything situated for Aunt Dottie. The option of hiring someone still involved research and coordinating, all vying for my time and attention. Bayford might have to become my second home for a while.
I took the liberty of unpacking and organizing my belongings in my old bedroom. The room hadn't changed muchâa queen-sized bed with nearly a foot of space beneath, covered by the same blue and white quilt. The cherrywood headboard and coordinating dresser still stood side by side. Across the room sat another bureau. She'd filled the top two drawers with knickknacks. I stuffed my foldables in the bottom two drawers.
In the closet, I discovered some of my old postersâJodeci, Blackstreet, R. Kelly. “Oh my gosh!” I sat on the bed reminiscing. I used to think I was going to marry K-Ci, for real.
Oooh-yeah.
A knock on the front door brought me back to the present. I walked to the front entrance, squinting to see if I recognized the silhouette on the porch. Cowboy hat, elderly slump. No one I knew.
“Hello,” I asked upon opening the door.
A white man in his late-forties with red, leathery skin tipped his hat toward me. “Hello there. Name's Josiah, from down the road. Saw a new car in the yard and I was just makin' sure everything was okay.”
“Yes, sir. Everything's fine.”
“Aunt Dottie gettin' better?”
“She's improving. Thanks for asking.”
“Alrighty then. Just checking.” He studied my face a moment. “Hey, didn't you used to stay with Aunt Dottie long time ago?”
“Yes. I'm Tori. I lived here when I was in high school.”
His eyes lit up with remembrance. “That's right, I remember now. That your fancy car?” He pointed toward my Cadillac.
“Yes.”
“Mighty fancy, mighty fancy. Looks like you've really made something of yourself. In spite of . . . everything, you know.” His eyes traveled to my stomach, rattling my sense of well-being.
The baby.
“Thank you, Josiah.”
“Okey-dokey. Believe I'll head on back to my house. Let me know if you need anything, and tell Dottie I'll mow the grass Friday when I do mine. No charge seein' as she's in the hospital and all. See you later.”
You'd think I was the first and last unwed mother to walk the streets of Bayford. Give me a scarlet
A
for my dress already. These people didn't forget anything, and they had no problem rudely reiterating the past.
It took me a moment to get past Josiah's playback. I had to remind myself: he came over to make sure things were okay. Lots of good people in Bayford cared about Aunt Dottie. I was there to round them all up and put them to work on her behalf.
A school bus entered my peripheral vision. I remained on the porch, watching the driver slow as the bus approached Humble Trail's halfway point. Back in the day, Bayford bus number 275 transported everyone from kindergartners to seniors to our side of the tracks. Curiosity kept me outside long enough to deduce not much had changed.
Children of various ages poured out of the bus, scrambling north and south.
“What time you coming out to play?” from a robust boy whose shirt didn't fully cover his stomach.
“In a minute,” answered another child. This little boy needed a haircut and, judging by the direction he was going, a compass. He ran straight up Aunt Dottie's driveway, past my car, jumped over the steps and landed within an inch of my toe.
He panted, “Where's Aunt Dottie? My grandmomma in there?” The trademark Lester nose, long and low, marked him as a relative. His cheeks held on to the last bit of baby fat. Still pinchable, if he'd hold still long enough.
“Hello. Who are you?”
“DeAndre.”
“Hello, DeAndre. How are you?”
He looked beyond me, past the screen door.
I repeated, “How are you?”
“I'm fine. Who are you?”
“Probably your cousin. Tori. And I'm fine, too. Thanks for asking.”
Clueless to my home-training lesson, he continued, “Is Aunt Dottie home yet?”
“No. She's still in the hospital.”
“Okay.” DeAndre breezed past me and opened the door. He threw his lunch box and backpack into the foyer area, pivoted sharply, and took off down the steps again.
“Excuse me.” I stopped him. DeAndre faced me, impatience urging him to hop from one foot to the other. “I need you to pick your belongings up off the floor. And are you supposed to be here? Who's watching you?”
He shrugged. “I was gonna get off on my daddy's street, but I saw a car here so I got off now. Can't you watch me while I go play with Chase 'nem?”
“Won't your daddy wonder what happened to you?”
DeAndre shook his head. “No, he don't care where I am, miss.”
“Tori,” I corrected him, hoping DeAndre had spoken those words regarding his father's nonchalance casually. I reminded myself of the setting. Bayford. People watched each other's children all the time in the country. If people still came over at the sight of an unfamiliar car in someone's driveway, no alarm would sound because a child had decided to get off the bus at a different stop. “You can call me Cousin Tori.”
The chubby child appeared at the edge of Aunt Dottie's yard. “Come on, DeAndre! You're
it
!”
DeAndre pressed his hands together in prayer formation. “Ooh, Cousin Tori, please. I gotta go play with Chase. You watchin' me, right?”
What could I do? I mean, DeAndre
was
“it.” He had to get out there and redeem himself, the quicker the better if memory served me. I sighed. “Get your stuff off the floor first.”
“Here I come!” he answered Chase. DeAndre rushed back into the house, threw the lunch box on the counter, and was off again before I could tell him to tie his shoelaces.
Is he always this rowdy?
The house phone's ring pulled me back inside. Hopefully, one of DeAndre's people had come to claim him. “Hello?”
“Tori?”
“Yes.”
“This Joenetta. Did DeAndre get off the bus over there?”
“Yes, he did,” I answered, glad to know that someone actually did miss him. “He's outside playing, but I'll go get him and bring him home right now.”
“He
is
home.”
“Would he be here if I
wasn't
?”
“Maybe not, but you
are
there, so be it. I'll come by later and cook him something to eat.”
“Joenetta, I'm not Aunt Dottie. I don't do kids. I'm not
good
with kids, and I'm not going to take care of someone else's child.” I mean, really, who did she think she was talking to? I wasn't a teenager anymore. She couldn't treat me like dirt because Aunt Dottie wasn't in earshot.
“What if Dottie had said that to your momma when you got pregnant? âI'm not going to take care of someone else's child',” she mocked me. “ âY'all let her get in this mess, y'all figure it out.' Where would you be right now if it wasn't for my sister?”
“I'd beâ”
“I tell you where you'd be. You'd be somewhere with probably five or six kids by now and just as many baby daddies, livin' in a government house on food stamps. So if my sister takes it upon herself to save DeAndre like she saved you, you got no right to stop her.”
Joenetta's knack for turning tables hadn't diminished in all these years. And no matter how I (or anyone, for that matter) tried to talk sense into her, she just didn't get it. Aunt Dottie was the only one who could handle Joenetta, but even
she
used to say Joenetta had a “bad understanding,” that once she made up her mind about something, she wouldn't change even if Thurgood Marshall proved her wrong.
I'd waste no more breath on Joenetta today. So far DeAndre hadn't been much trouble. This whole situation would have to wait until I could communicate with Aunt Dottie and find out how she wanted me to handle him.
“What time you cooking dinner?” I asked.
“ 'Round seven.”
Click.
Ooh! She irked me. Aunt Dottie had to hurry up and get better because I couldn't stomach Joenetta too long. What little raising my mother
did
do prevented me from going left on my elders, but this woman was pushing it!
I took a seat in the living room and took a few deep breaths. How could I have forgotten that dealing with Aunt Dottie also meant dealing with Joenetta? Maybe my brain had done me a favor and blocked Joenetta out of my memory.
Calm down, Tori, calm down.
Maybe I was getting all worked up for nothing. The drive down had been long, and seeing Aunt Dottie's condition was disconcerting, to say the least. I was hungry and I needed a nap.
Aunt Dottie's refrigerator housed nothing but high-fat, high-sodium, high-carb items galore. This had to be rectified if I planned on helping Aunt Dottie regain her health. Not to mention poor little DeAndre. An early grave awaited him if he absorbed all the preservatives and dyes lining the shelves of this fridge. After searching the pantry, too, I noted several replacements needed, including 2 percent milk, spring water, low-fat mayonnaise, low-cholesterol butter, and no-yolk eggs. How Aunt Dottie had managed to live this long amazed me.
Raisins and half a ham and cheese sandwich sufficed as my lunch. I relaxed in front of the kitchen television for a while. The familiar surroundings lulled me into yet another flashback. This time, I recalled the only time Aunt Dottie and I crossed each other. We'd been standing in this very kitchen when the discussion came to a head. She wanted me to wear stockings with my blue-jean skirt, said it was shameful to go around with my bare legs. “Sweetheart, I'm not telling you what to do. You have a choice. Either put on the stockings or wear a longer skirt.”
I told her no one wore stockings anymore. At that moment, the coo-coo clock went off and I remember thinking,
That bird is right! Stockings are coo-coo!
Aunt Dottie gave her own interpretation. “See, even the clock knows it's crazy to go out of the house with all these legs showing.” Though three inches shorter than me, Aunt Dottie always seemed taller. She didn't scream or yell, but she always meant what she said, and she backed her words with a firm love.
I'd seen enough television shows to know the classic teenage line I was supposed to say next:
Well then, maybe I won't live in this house anymore.
Lord knows I was tempted to say it, but I figured Aunt Dottie would call my bluff, still wearing that sweet smile of hers. And where would I go? Really, there's no running away in Bayford. Coyotes and vicious farm animals would probably get me first. My only other option would be moving back to Houston with my mother and Mr. James.
Laughter welled up in my stomach now as I thought about the incident. Those stockings covered my legs quite nicely.
Court TV shows cluttered the local airways, much the same as Houston. I loaded up on other people's drama to make light of my own until heavy eyelids slipped over my eyes one time too many.
My old bedroom faced the front side of the house, so I could keep an ear out for DeAndre while I took a little catnap. I had no idea how long he might be outside playing, but I was pretty sure I'd know the moment he came bounding up the front steps.
The smell of fresh laundry enveloped me as I literally climbed into the bed. Settling into the sheets, aches registered throughout my body, reminding me that I'd undergone a serious surgery only weeks before. Slowing down to take care of Aunt Dottie might actually help me get back to 100 percent, in more ways than one.
Chapter 10
S
lam!
The screen door jolted me out of a peaceful sleep, hurling me toward the immediate disorientation of waking up in someone else's bed.
“Cousin Tori!” DeAndre ran into the bedroom just as I regained my wits. “Cousin Tori, Chase cut his foot on some glass. He's bleeding real bad. You gotta help him.”
I sat up, wiping my eyes. “Where are Chase's parents?”
“They're still at work.”
Chase's yowling from beyond the window came into focus now. I surrendered. “Okay. I'll look at him, but I don't do blood.”
“You're the one who's watching us, right?”
“I'm watching
you
.”
“Come watch me watch Chase.” DeAndre took my hand and dragged me to the porch, where Chase's right foot took center stage. Chase sat on the wooden deck rocking himself back and forth, holding his foot between bloodied hands. Tears drenched his cheeks as he attempted to quell another scream.
Poor thing.
“Let me see.” I kneeled down to get a good look at the injury.
“Don't touch it,” he begged while extending his leg toward me.
Had my food not fully digested before I'd lain down, I might have lost it. The deep gash in Chase's small foot spilled over with deep tissue never meant to see daylight. This boy needed stitches.
“You're going to have to call your parents to take you to the hospital,” I informed him, hoisting my cell phone from my pocket.
Horror gripped Chase's face. “Wait. Are they gonna put alcohol on it?”
I'd almost forgotten: alcohol on open wounds is every child's worst nightmare. Instinctively, I curbed the alarm in my voice. “Probably not.”
“I gotta get stitches?”
“I'm not sure. Maybe they can just put special tape on it.”
Chase looked at DeAndre, DeAndre looked at me, then back at Chase again. “Man, this is my cousin Tori. My grandmomma told me all about her. She went to college and everything. She knows stuff.”
“I never heard of no tape.” Chase shook his head, pulling his foot from my reach.
I couldn't let DeAndre go on record with this tape mumbo-jumbo. “I said
maybe
they can put tape on it. The doctor will have to make the final determination. Just because I went to college doesn't mean I know
everything.
“What's your mom's work number?”
Chase wailed, “Aaaawwww! I gotta get stitches. No, no, no. I don't wanna get stitches. Please, don't call my momma.”
DeAndre intervened. “Chase, we have to. You could get an infection and they'll have to cut off your foot.”
“But I'm going to get a whippin' for playing outside without my shoes on,” he hollered even louder.
As Judge Judy would say, that falls under the category of
too bad.
“What's your momma's name?”
“Katrina Webb.”
“What's her number?”
Through a flood of tears, Chase rattled off the number. After another failed attempt to dial out on my cell phone, I resorted to using Aunt Dottie's land line in the kitchen. Thankfully, her phone was cordless, so I was able to return to the porch with the boys.
I called Chase's mother and calmly explained to her that we weren't facing a life or death situation, but he certainly needed medical attention.
“Shoot, we just had one in the hospital last month with pneumonia,” she fussed. “Was he outside playing with his shoes off?”
Chase definitely knew his mother. I looked down at Chase's body quivering through a minor mental meltdown. “Yes, ma'am, I believe so,” I replied.
“Uh huh. I told him about keeping his shoes on.”
If she could see him now, she might go easy on him later. “Well, an unpleasant trip to the doctor would certainly teach him a good lesson,” I offered.
She paused. “I guess so.”
I gave a thumbs-up to Chase. He smudged tears and snot across his face with the back of his hand. “What did she say?” he mouthed.
DeAndre begged to know as well. “Is he gonna get a whippin'?”
I silenced them with an index finger over my lips.
“I'll be home in a few minutes,” Chase's mother finally acquiesced. “And who is this, again?”
“This is Tori. Aunt Dottie's niece from Houston.”
“Oh, yeah,” she singsonged. “You're the one who was pregnant and lost the baby and then went to college, right?”
Oh my gosh!
The correction came out with attitude. “He was stillborn.”
“He was
what
?” from DeAndre.
I whispered, “Not you.”
Katrina's voice lowered. “Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie.”
Which wrong, exactly, was she apologizing for? And why was she calling me “sweetie” when she was probably only a few years older than me?
She continued, “I tell you what. Your Aunt Dottie sure does brag about you all the time. She's got a copy of your degree on the wall behind the counter. The print is kinda small 'cause I think she wants people to ask her about it so she can tell them all about you.” She cackled. “Drives Joenetta crazy.”
I joined in Katrina's laughter now. Anyone who read Joenetta the way I read Joenetta was on my sideâbad manners notwithstanding.
“How long until you can get here?” I wanted to know.
She blew a breath of concession. “I gotta log out of the system. Fifteen minutes. You think he'll be okay?”
“Yes. I'll keep an eye on him until you get here.”
Just before I hung up, I heard her yell, “Thank you, Tori.”
“You're welcome.”
Chase belted out, “Is she coming?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
Chase cried even harder when his mother's classic Cutlass groaned up the driveway. I laughed to myself, knowing his antics were meant to save his hide.
Together, Katrina and I helped situate Chase in the backseat. “Keep the towel pressed against your foot,” I instructed him. “The force will stop the blood.”
The rims of his eyes had reddened from crying so hard. “Okay,” he agreed. “You
are
smart, Miss Tori. Just like DeAndre said.”
I winked in response.
DeAndre gave his friend a pat on the back and told him not to worry. Everything would be okay.
After Chase and Katrina left, DeAndre and I were left to await Joenetta's arrival. He followed me from the porch to the kitchen. I made him a sandwich. When he was finished, he plopped himself on the couch right next to me. Obviously, this child hadn't heard the term “personal space.”
He scrunched his face. “You like these shows?”
“Yeah, I like court television. What do you like to watch?”
“Cartoons,” he replied. “Mostly I watch
Kamen Rider
so I can learn how to fight.”
I lowered the television's volume. “Why do you need to know how to fight?”
“'Cause people tease me all the time about my momma since she went to prison for a long time.”
Too much information.
“Oh. Maybe you should ignore them.” TV volume rising again.
He shrugged and hopped up from the couch. “I'm gonna go see if Mike-Mike can play.”
“Wait a minute. Don't you have some homework?”
“Ummm . . .”
I didn't know DeAndre well, but I knew a lie-in-the-making when I saw one. “Get your backpack, go to the table, and do your homework.”
“But, Cousin Tori, I gotta play before it gets dark outside,” he whined.
“Uh uh. Homework first, playing later.”
A scowl covered his face as he snatched up his backpack and stomped over to the kitchen table, mumbling under his breath. If this was the kind of flip-flopping attitude Aunt Dottie dealt with day in and day out, no wonder her blood pressure was high. I hadn't witnessed such disrespect except on those nanny shows. My first instinct was to snatch
him
up the way I used to see people at Mount Pisgah rearrange their children's facial expressions, but who was I to jump in? DeAndre was not my problem.
When he finally reached the assigned homework location, he blurted through tears, “You ain't my momma!”
No better words have ever been spoken.
This kid has got to go.
Â
After his little homework incident, DeAndre and I didn't speak to each other the rest of the day. I just let him vegetate in front of the television and wait for his granny.
Joenetta finally came by at a quarter till six to make dinner. She shuffled through Aunt Dottie's pantry and then declared, “Whew! She ain't hardly got nothin' in here!”
I took her words as my cue to leave. She and that bad DeAndre could starve together, for all I cared. Sonic would be my savior.
I grabbed my purse and headed for the door.
“Where you goin'?” he wanted to know.
Away from you.
“To the store.”
Joenetta called from the kitchen, “Oh, good. Pick up some flour and hurry back.”
I grabbed my purse, my keys, and my laptop. “I'm not going to the grocery store. I'm going someplace else. I'll see you later.” The screen door slammed behind me.
Joenetta's fussing followed me to the car. She said something about me not caring, and she was right. How on earth she could claim to care for Aunt Dottie and yet leave her to raise this little boy was beyond me.
Yes, Aunt Dottie had taken me in, but I was a
good
boarder. Okay, yes, I was pregnant, but even in my precarious situation, I never gave her any real trouble. I was respectful, I cleaned up, I helped out around the house and the store. I was good companyâAunt Dottie even said so herself.
This little boy, on the other hand, was a sixty-pound ball of energy with a hair-trigger attitude. He was more than a handful, and no woman past forty-five should be raising him.
Sonic was my first stop, the church my second. After fuming over the situation with DeAndre, I'd mustered up enough gusto to give the out-of-office idea to Preston straight. He often worked late, so I figured I could catch him at the office.
“Preston, it's Tori. My aunt's recovery may take months. I'm proposing a telecommuting arrangement. I can make it back to the office once a week or so for meetings, and the rest I'll handle via the Web, business as usual.” There. I got the whole pitch out in one big blurb. Maybe that DeAndre was good for something after all.
Preston cleared his throat. “Sounds like you've given this some thought.”
Not really.
“Yes, I have.”
“How much longer do you expect to be out?”
I took a deep breath and gave my best guestimate. “A month or so.”
Preston hesitated. I imagined him sitting there thumbing through his calendar. I hoped he was thinking about my vital role in the team. “We've been talking about offering a telecommuting option at NetMarketing for quite some time. I suppose there's no better person to test the waters than the top producer.”
Relief swept over me and my shoulders dropped an inch. “Perfect. I'll contact my colleagues for updates and pick up right where I left off.”
I ended the call on an exhilarating high. Maybe there was something to this whole church-mountaintop signal arrangement. I could have my job and take care of Aunt Dottie, too. And if I dug up an Internet connection, I might actually be able to pull this whole thing off.
I left the church parking lot determined to stay away from Aunt Dottie's house as long as possible. Maybe if I rode around long enough, Joenetta and DeAndre would disappear.
I scoured the town for Wi-Fi signs so I could put my files to work. The gas station I'd visited earlier had an ATM light, so Bayford must have some kind of link to the outside world.
Driving through downtown Bayford presented a quaint collection of businesses connected by a cobblestone road. Main Street's charm slowed time. Though most of the businesses had already closed for the day, their window displays spoke of pride in long, hard working hours, not to mention faith. A flower shop, a bakery, a newly remodeled bank on the left. A tea room and an antique mall on the right. The center median flourished with evergreen brush, and I imagined some retired people's horticultural organization would come by in the spring to tend these minigardens.