Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
RICH
After Faye left Senior, the best days were always the ones where I ran into her around the neighborhood.
Sometimes I’d see her at Heritage Bank when I went to deposit Senior’s payouts, or when I met LaTanya at the Whataburger on Bayou Bend to share a patty melt, or at Lucky’s getting gas.
The random run-ins didn’t happen as often after she started her cleaning business and they built a Valero over by Chantilly, but when they did happen, I figured that God she was always talking about was real.
Nowadays, I get to run into her at least once a week at Beatrice’s or when she fills up here at Lucky’s, and even at my big ass age, my heart still skips a beat when I hear her raspy voice screaming, “Rich!” over the R&B thumping from the speakers outside the store.
I push out of my truck and power walk toward pump two where she’s standing outside her car. As soon as I get close enough, she stands on her toes, raking her fingers across my scalp. Her touch feels better than the distracted voice messages she sends me between cleaning jobs during the week.
She drops her hand. “You got a haircut.”
“Jamie just cut it.”
“What about your daddy’s hair?”
“I told her to stop by B’s and take care of all the guys there.”
“How mu—”
“C’mon, you know better than that. I took care of it.”
“I’m just making sure.”
“You don’t gotta do that.”
“I know, it’s just…” She eyes the stained parking lot, crossing her arms.
It’s been almost twenty years since I’ve seen her as often as I’ve been seeing her these past two months, so I try to hold on to these little moments just in case she decides all of this shit with me is too much. If she did, I wouldn’t blame her.
“Ain’t nobody holding nothing against you. You know that, right?” I ask.
She looks up with her brown cheek lifted. “How you been this week?”
It’s a simple question, but I never know how to answer it, so I shrug.
She swipes the stray hairs from my shoulder that Jamie missed with her neck brush, eyeing me up and down. “Well, you’re still here. You still got all your teeth, all your fingers and…”
She narrows her eyes at my face. “You’re still handsome as ever—even with that black eye. Your jaw looks better too. I guess you doing pretty good this week, huh?”
The last punch I took to the head on Sunday flashes behind my eyes.
I blink hard. “As long as I still got a lil’ breath left in my body, I’m good.”
“One of these days I’m gonna teach you the proper way to answer that question. It’s more out there for you. You know that, right?”
“Like what?”
“A beautiful world that God made for you to explore. He ain’t holding it in his hands for you to scoff at and wave off.”
“I told you I don’t know nothing about all that.”
“But you will one of these days. I don’t subscribe to all of that mess your daddy preaches. We’re all meant to live—even Lovelace men.”
“And we’re all meant to die too. Remember that preacher you used to make us listen to said that.”
“I can’t hear this right now—not after I told you we were gonna get through this stuff.”
Even the way she talks about the situation with Melo makes it seem survivable. She has that same air of naivety around her that Arnez keeps trying to run from.
She shakes her head. “Gimme my hug. I’ve gotta get some gas and head over to Mr. Jackson’s. I’ve got a potential hoarding situation. His wife’s been sick, so it’s just him there.”
My shoulders tense in a way that I only ever associate with Faye leaving. “I got you. Go get in the car.”
She reaches for her back pocket, but I grab her forearm. “I said I got you.”
Her thin lips perk up, and she wraps me in her arms before pulling away and planting a wet kiss on my cheek. “I’m still sorry about that whole thing that happened last week with Lovie and the house.”
As soon as I hear “Lovie” my heart does that weird stutter that mimics the way words tumble out of her mouth, and the pit of my stomach tingles.
It’s a nauseating tingle that makes my heart stutter faster.
The only time something like this almost happened was in fourth grade when Briana Russell told me she liked me.
The next day she said she couldn’t be my girlfriend because her mama found out who my people were and that nauseating tingle just turned into nausea.
Faye avoids my eyes. “I told her it was unacceptable to leave your place like that. She knows better.”
I frown. “Wait, you got on to her?”
“Not in a harsh way.”
And Slim took it, instead of telling her I lied?
“Look, Lovie can be…a lot,” Faye adds.
My eyebrows bunch together.
I like Faye more than I like myself most days, but just the thought of her raising her voice at Slim makes my mouth twitch—even if it was over a stupid lie I told.
“I’ve got clients to keep happy, Rich. Even clients I know well.
If she left your house like that, imagine how she’ll leave my other houses if I let her do another job alone.
She’s usually better than this with the business.
I think she might be going through a rough patch with this boy she calls herself wanting to marry, but I can’t afford to lose any of my clients right now.
She can’t just leave folks’ houses any kind of way because they’re in an argument. ”
I gulp in a mouthful of air.
She really didn’t have a clue.
She sounds like she’s living on another planet far away from Slim. This is the same woman that looked at Arnez and knew she had started her period, but for some reason she can’t see what Slim is hiding? How the fuck could she miss what was right in front of her?
“What the fuck Kenny got you cleaning houses for anyways? Tell him to make more money,” I blurt.
She widens her eyes and raises her finger at me before I can take it all back. “What do I look like not having my own? There’s only one man I trust with my all, and you know that.”
She pushes her finger into my lip.
I feel like I’m ten and full of preteen hormones again where just the thought of upsetting Faye feels like somebody took my head in their hands and smashed it.
“Yeah…I know.” I pull my mouth away from her finger.
“Arnez rubbing off on you?”
I snort, shaking my head. “No, ma’am.”
“Uh-huh. I only have room in my heart for two smart-mouthed babies—not a third. Especially not the one who takes care of me the best.” She drops her hand, pushing it against my sore stomach.
“Go get my gas, and if you see Lovie, tell her to come out of there. She’s got her F&S cleaning shirt on. She ain’t hard to miss.”
I swallow the “Yeah, I know” that almost comes out while backing away then turning around.
I take long strides toward Lucky’s entrance where DeRay holds the door open for every person that walks up. His dingy white tee hangs in a tattered heap against his body and he smiles a snaggle-toothed smile as soon as I walk up.
“What you looking for, Pup?” he asks.
“That pretty girl you opened the door for not too long ago. You remember what she looked like, right?”
He brings his shaky hand to his forehead and salutes. “Got her drawn in my head.”
“You ain’t try to steal her, did you?”
“Now you know I’d never steal from you, boy.” He howls out a laugh while I dig a wad of money out of my pocket and peel off a twenty.
“Get you something good.” I shove it in his hand, walking inside.
“‘Preciate you!” he yells, letting the door swing closed. “I’ll keep my eye on lil’ mama from now on.”
Lucky’s smells like only a fifty-year-old gas station can. Arnez says the staleness of it is what makes it special, but her brain is just as strange as her mama’s because ain’t shit special about Lucky’s except the garage bays that are still intact after three renovations and one raid.
It’s quieter than it is on Sundays. People ain’t parked out front blasting music or trickling through the back doors to get to the pit.
“Pup-Pup…” Lucky’s son, Donovan, murmurs from behind the counter, looking at his phone. “What’s going on, big man?”
“What’s up, D? Gimme thirty on pump two and…whatever she gettin.”
I nod toward Lovie as she wanders down the candy aisle with a handful of Honey Buns. The loud crinkling from the Honey Bun’s plastic wrappers makes Donovan glance up and stare at her with a bashful smirk.
“You get one for me too, Slim?” I ask.
She looks up from the floor and her throat jumps violently as she gulps.
She glances at the Honey Buns. “There might be one for you.”
“Might?”
Her eyes scan the wrappers until a sweet smile coats her lips because she’s still too tender—especially with men.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“I’m getting gas for Faye. What you doing walking with your head down?”
“I didn’t realize I was.”
“Well, now you know. Pick it up. How you gon’ be tough if you walking around here with your head down?”
She rolls her eyes, lifting it slightly.
Something’s wrong.
She doesn’t look any different from how she looked when I dropped her off at the Commons last week, but I always see her, even when she doesn’t want me to.
“Give ‘em here. What else you want, mama?” I hold my hand out, and for a second I think she debates about running toward me because of the way she steps forward.
She walks closer, leaving a foot of space between us, and drops the Honey Buns in my hands. “I don’t think I want anything else.”
“Not even more Honey Buns?”
She shakes her head and I dump all of them on the counter while Donovan stares between us with his eyebrows raised.
Every word we exchange feels easy, and I guess it should after all the energy we swapped while we argued at the end of Joliet.
There’s no awkward moments like the ones I have with Rasheeda when she comes back to me after trying to find me in other places and people. It feels like we haven’t missed a beat.
Donovan picks one Honey Bun up, scanning it six times with a glazed look in his eyes because Faye let Slim be silly and cut her shirt all up. It drapes off her shoulder, so Donovan’s eyes keep brushing her toasty brown skin.