Chapter 1 #2
Besides, I was already well-versed in letting go, seeing as I’d let go of a thirty-year marriage. Living next to Gabriella couldn’t be any worse than living parallel to Eric. He and I both being Black, making vows, and raising kids hadn’t made us stick together forever, clearly.
“Yoo-hoo!” a voice rang from the front of the house, along with a gentle rap on the screen door.
Instinctively, I pressed down the front of my cotton skirt and re-fluffed the bottom of my dolman shirt to better camouflage my stomach.
“I see your fancy car!” the visitor announced. Her shadow tilted to the right, along with her body, as she attempted to look inside the house.
Nosy folk gon’ be nosy; it’s in their blood. The only way to deal with them is to stay polite and keep distance between you and them.
“Morning,” I said, pulling the main door closed behind me and stepping onto the porch and into her personal space at the same time, effectively shutting off her view of my newly remodeled home and pushing her back with my midsection.
It’s not that I don’t like people—I do. It’s the small talk that I don’t like.
And being married to Eric came with wheelbarrows full of shallow banter at dinners and conferences and fundraisers where technically you didn’t have to donate.
But if you didn’t, you wouldn’t get a personal invitation to the private luncheon with the headmaster of the exclusive school where you wanted your kids to go.
And then your child would be in the lottery for real for real, just another number like all the other folks without connections.
That was how it worked in the city, in wife-of-a-city-engineer world. You laughed and smiled and played nice because it was a giant game of chess.
In the country, it wasn’t so much a game. It was more a slow, deliberate waltz.
This woman standing on my porch was the mailman. Mailperson, I should say, and I did recognize her, but I couldn’t imagine that the same woman who had brought mail to this house when I was a child still held the same position and same route.
Then again, how many paths to promotion or delivery routes could have been open in Robin Creek?
She squinted, and suddenly I noticed that neither the glasses on her nose nor the wig on her head were sitting quite right. I wanted to help her out, push them up a little. But I knew better.
“You Miss Jewel’s grandbaby? Charlie’s daughter?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied softly, enunciating respectfully, the way I’d been taught to show address to my elders. “I used to come here every summer.”
She looked me up and down, appraising me, which I understood meant she was also measuring me against all that the Hicks name meant in this town.
Fine, upstanding folk. I felt like I’d shrunk five inches at the mention of my grandmother and my father, and with the mailwoman’s fake eyelashes—thick as caterpillars—sweeping over me.
I am a grown woman, I chanted to myself until my shoulders drew back and returned me to my actual height. “Yes. I’m Joyce Hicks.”
“Li’l Joy?”
A ripple of resentment washed through me. “People used to call me that. But I prefer Joyce. Now.”
She gave me a speculative grin, stretching the thin mustache above her red lips. “Come on, Li’l Joy. You ain’t in the city no more; you can let all that proper talkin’ go now. I’m so glad you’re here!”
And then she clobbered me in a cloud of sweat, hair sheen, and sweetness. She meant no harm, and I had to take that into account.
My shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”
“Name’s Mary Buford. You remember me?”
I did. But I’d just walked into my new home. Hadn’t even gotten a moment to take a drink of water. “No, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other…tomorrow.”
“We sure will. Every day. I figured you’d be coming soon. Saw mail come through with your government name on it. Your husband coming, too?”
“No,” I replied even as the question made my gut twitch.
“You a widow?”
“No. Divorced,” I said. The word still scraped my throat on its way out. No sign of that announcement getting any easier.
“Well, that’s one way to solve problems. Sorry to hear that.”
I gave a tiny shake of my head. “Don’t be. It’s for the best.”
Mary sighed. “I suppose it is, sometimes. Menfolk can be triflin’. Anyway, your box got too full, so the rest is waiting in the mailroom. I can bring it all by tomorrow if you’d like.”
Such a kind offer, and such an easy acceptance of the d-word (divorce) made me feel worse for wanting her to leave. “Tomorrow is great.”
“Okay. Well, here’s the stuff everybody’s getting today.
” She pressed a wad of junk mail—coupons and sales flyers—into my hand.
“You sure you and your husband can’t work it out?
Me and my husband divorced and then remarried each other.
Cost us a whole lotta money, when we could have stayed married the first time if we’d just ‘communicated’ better, you know.
” For some reason, she air-quoted the word communicated.
I didn’t care enough to ask why. “Thanks for the mail.”
Mary took the hint and moved on to another line of inquiry. “You got somebody named Gabriella moving in, too?”
“Yes. She’ll be the second occupant.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Your daughter?”
Here we go again.
“No.” I tensed, remembering that Mary Buford delivered more than just the mail around Robin Creek.
The way she looked at me, she was wondering way too hard, ready to fill in the blanks with whatever came to mind.
Gabriella might be my nurse, my girlfriend, or my drug dealer by the time the rumors finished racing through the streets.
That was when I decided I’d better use Mary Buford to control the narrative if I wanted to get settled in this small town without causing too much stir.
I grasped my hands in front of my skirt. “My new tenant moves in tomorrow.”
Mary sucked in her chin. “Oh! Look at you, now, taking in tenants. You always were a smart cookie, according to your grandmother. But you know how grandmothers are—they think all their grands are brilliant and can’t do no wrong.”
Before I had time to wonder if she’d given me a backhanded compliment, she added, “I feel the same way about mine. I just knew all six of ’em were headed to Howard or Harvard.”
“Nothing wrong with high hopes,” I said, landing on a note that I thought signaled an end to our conversation.
But Mary elaborated, “Well, two of ’em went to junior college, one went to Job Corps, and two—the twins—got hired at the factory in Dallas and left on the first bus smoking.”
“Well, we have our dreams and they have theirs,” I said. Then I remembered she’d said there were six and, without thinking, asked, “What’s going on with the last one?”
Suddenly, her eyes drooped, and I knew.
“I’m so sorry, Miss Mary.” We were definitely past small talk now, and my heart drooped, too.
“Thank you. He came down with leukemia when he was seven. Fought a good fight, though! He made it to eighteen and almost to graduation. They gave us the diploma anyway. Real nice of the school district. Everybody loved Quinton.”
I smiled warmly at her, hoping she could feel my empathy. “I’m sure everyone did.”
She shook out her arms. “Well, he’s in a better place now.” She skipped on to the next topic: “So, now, you plan on getting everything all formalized for your tenant? With her own mailbox and all?”
“I…I guess I really hadn’t thought about it.”
“If you want her to get her own box, you’ll need to designate. Maybe ‘A’ or ‘B’ for each unit. And the city has to approve before we can make the change on our end.”
“Approve of what?”
She laughed. “They gotta figure out some kind of way to get more money out of you, sugar!”
“Sounds about right.”
“Don’t make me no difference. Just add her to your address so nobody mixes things up, hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good talking to you, Li’l Joy.”
“Same here, Miss Mary.”
“And it’s good to have you back.”
“It is.” I had to agree. And somehow, when she called me Li’l Joy that last time, it didn’t bother me one bit.