Above the pink walls the sky was static and blue, bottomed by a soot-colored cloud bank that hid the horizon. Someone in the neighborhood was barbecuing, and a mixture of scorching fat and lighter fluid spread its cheerful toxin through the autumn heat.
“You don’t think I’ll be honest, huh?” I said. “Been burned by other doctors, or is it something about me?”
She turned toward me slowly and put her lanyard in her lap.
“I think you do your job and go home,” she said. “Just like everyone else. I think you do what’s best for you, just like everyone else.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’m some saint who’d work for free or that I really know what you’ve been going through, cause I don’t-thank God. But I think I understand your rage. If someone had done it to my child, I’d be ready to kill him, no question about it.”
She took her Winstons out of her pocket and knocked a cigarette loose.
Sliding it out and taking it between two fingers, she said, “Oh you would, would you? Well that would be revenge, and the Bible says revenge is a negational action.”
She lit up with a pink disposable lighter, inhaled very deeply, and held it. When she let the smoke out, her nostrils twitched.
Tiffani began jumping very fast. I wondered if we were within her earshot.
Evelyn shook her head. “Gonna break her head one of these days.”
“Lots of energy,” I said.
“Apple don’t fall far.”
“Ruthanne was like that?”
She smoked, nodded, and started to cry, letting her tears drip down her face and wiping them with short, furious movements. Her torso pushed forward and for a moment I thought she was going to leave.
“Ruthanne was just like that when she was little. Always moving. I never felt I could. .. she had spirit, she was-she had. ..
wonderful spirit.”
She tugged her shorts down and sniffed.
“Want some coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Wait right here.” She went into the house.
“Hey, girls,” I called out.
Tiffani kept jumping. Chondra looked up. Her mouth hung slightly open and water droplets bubbled her forehead, like oversized sweat.
I went over to her. “Swim a lot?”
She gave a very small nod and splashed one arm, turning away and facing the avocado tree. Young fruit hung from the branches, veiled by a cloud of whiteflies. Some of it was blackened with disease.
Tiffani waved at me. Then she began to chant in a loud voice: “I went to the Chinese restaurant, to get a loaf of bread bread bread, a man was there with a big mustache, and this is what he said said said.
El eye el eye chicholo beauty, pom-pom cutie Evelyn came back holding a couple of mugs. Bonnie marched behind her carrying a small plate of sugar wafers. The look on her face said she’d been created for better things.
I walked back to the lawn chairs.
Bonnie said, “Here you go,” handed me the plate, and sashayed off.
Evelyn gave me a mug. “Black or cream?”
“Black.”
We sat and sipped. I balanced the cookie plate on my lap.
“Have one,” she said, or are you one of those health-food types?”
I took a wafer and chewed on it. Lemon-flavored and slightly stale.
“I dunno,” she said, “maybe I shoulda been a health fooder, too. I always gave my kids sugar and stuff, whatever they wanted -maybe I shouldn’ta. Got a boy went A.W.O.L over in Germany two years ago, don’t even know where he is, the baby don’t know zero about what she wants to do with her life, and Ruthie She shook her head and looked over at Tiffani. “Watch your head on that branch, you!”
“Bonnie’s the baby?” I said.
Nod. “She got all the brains and the looks. just like her daddy -he coulda been a movie star. Only time I ever went gaga for the looks, and boy, what a mistake that was.”
She gave a full smile. “He cleaned me out thirteen months after we were married. Left me with the baby in diapers and went down to Louisiana to work the deep-sea rigs. Got killed soon after in a fall that they said was an accident. Never took out the right insurance for himself, so I got nothing.”