Chapter Thirty-Nine
Thirty-Nine
“Well, hello, Brooklyn—didn’t think I’d be seeing your country ass so soon,” I said as Crystal and I made our way down Fulton Street for the second time in two weeks.
Crystal turned around and threw me a pained look. “Brooklyn is nice. Stop putting her down.”
“I just called her country, is all,” I said in my best Georgia drawl.
Crystal laughed. “Brooklyn is just as cosmopolitan as Manhattan.”
“Hush your mouth!” I said and swatted her on the shoulder. “How dare you insult Manhattan in that way. If that gets back to her, she might not let us back in.”
We walked along, Crystal always three steps ahead of me. Even though I had my sneakers on and she was in pumps, I still couldn’t keep up. Well, maybe I could have if I’d put out my cigarette and stopped topping off my fried dinners with ice cream.
—
We stood staring up at Noah’s brownstone. It looked almost unlived in. The sidewalk outside the house was littered with debris, and the potted petunias on the stoop and down the steps were all dried up and dead.
Looking at the windows, we saw that all the shutters were closed.
Crystal and I exchanged looks and then climbed the stone steps.
We rang the bell, knocked on the door, and tapped on the parlor-floor window, and still nobody came.
I gave Crystal my “See what I mean?” look, flopped my big ass down on the top step, and lit a cigarette.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m smoking a cigarette,” I said and took a long puff.
After a while, Crystal came and sat down beside me.
“Some people just don’t want to be helped,” I said as I tilted my head back and cocked off three smoky circles.
“I guess,” she said, deflated.
“I ain’t coming back here again,” I said matter-of-factly. “You’re on your own next time.”
Crystal just smirked at me.
“C’mon,” I said and hoisted my body up. “Let’s go home.”
Crystal gave the brownstone one last sorrowful look before we descended the steps and started up the street.