I Wish I Had a Red Dress (25 page)

LYNETTE AND GENEVA WERE
all atwitter about the guard that Nate was going to place around their house. They had their own two shotguns, but knowing there were people assigned to keep watch over them made them feel much safer.

“I haven’t felt this protected since Daddy died,” Geneva said as she walked me to the door after I had dropped off some things for Tee’s room. Lynette was busy making up the daybed with a set of brand-new
Lion King
sheets. They wanted Mavis to feel at home.

Lynette had asked me when exactly I thought we’d get back tomorrow so many times that I finally offered to stay the night so she could continue to ask me the same question at five-minute intervals until I left for the hospital in the morning, but I understood. We all felt relieved and we knew Tee would too.

“That Nate Anderson is a good man,” Geneva said. She was trying to sound casual and having about as much success as her sister does. “Don’t you think so?”

“I sure do,” I said, giving her a good-bye hug and a wink. “Tall too!”

Her laugh followed me down the front steps. “See you tomorrow, dear. Drive carefully.”

On the way home, I decided to do my walk, then call Nate and see if he wanted to come over for dinner. By the time I had changed my clothes and stepped out into the yard, I could feel the temperature dropping. I tucked my scarf in a little tighter and wondered how it felt to be hiding in the woods on a night like this. I wondered . . .

Junior turned into the yard so fast I thought he was going to hit the pine tree in front of the house. I jumped out of the way instinctively, which put his car between me and the back door.
Damn!
I thought about running, but the idea of being chased through the woods was even scarier than standing my ground.
What was he doing here?

It didn’t take long for him to tell me. He rocked the car to a stop, jumped out, strode around to the passenger side, jerked it open and dragged Sheila out by her arm. She was wearing gray sweats, no coat, and her eyes were swollen from crying or something worse.

“You want her?” he shouted. “You her mama now? You gonna be her family?”

What was he talking about?
I tried to make eye contact with Sheila, but her eyes were rolling around in sheer panic. He jerked her roughly around the back of the car. Her legs crumpled and she almost fell. I started to move toward her to help,
although I don’t know what I thought I was going to do once I got to her.

Junior’s voice brought me up sharp. “Where you goin’?” That’s when I saw the small silver pistol in his hand.

I stopped where I was. “Don’t do this.”

“Fuck you!” he shouted. Sheila winced and closed her eyes. “You the one always makin’ trouble! These bitches all got somethin’ to say now ’cause of that shit you be teachin’ ’em. Nik done quit me. That other bitch pointed a gun at me, and this fool.” He shook her like a big rag doll. “This fool think she can take a side against her own blood!”

He squeezed her arm harder and she whimpered softly. Junior didn’t care. “Talkin’ about tellin’ the cops where to find my ass. Her own brother!”

He was ranting now. Sheila and I were a captive audience and the words came tumbling out of his mouth like a river of poison. He squinted at me and wagged the gun in my general direction. I wondered suddenly if it was a real gun or simply another one of his nephew’s toys. I couldn’t tell and I couldn’t take a chance. He was too angry and Sheila was too scared.

“My mama scoped it out first,” he snarled. “She told me all you bitches think you can just take a brother manhood but you can’t! ’cause when you cut one down with your bitch ways and your callin’ the cops in and puttin’ people behind bars and runnin’ ’em out like they some kinda undesirable and shit, it don’t matta because another one gonna rise up in their place! You hear me, bitch? Another one gonna rise up and another one and another one until all you bitches bow down and act like you got some sense. You understand me?”

I knew I couldn’t reach the door in time to get to the phone
inside the house and Sheila wasn’t going to be able to help. He had either beaten her or scared her into submission, so it was just me and Junior in my snowy front yard, taking each other’s measure one more time. I wondered if he had a plan or if he was making it up as he went along. If he was improvising, I might have a chance to change the direction of his solo.

“What do you want?” I said, wondering if he could even tell me.

“I want you to stop fuckin’ wit’ me!”
he bellowed.

The sound of his shouting frightened Sheila into attempted action and she lunged suddenly against his restraining hand. He jerked her back so hard she lost her balance and fell to her knees, groveling pitifully in the snow.

“He gonna kill me!” she screamed. “Oh, God, Miz J, don’t let him kill me!”

“Yeah, that’s jus’ what I’ma do,” he hissed at her. “Ain’t nobody callin’ no cops on me and live to tell it.” He turned back to me and smiled that twisted smile. “And since she learned that shit from you, I’ma let you watch.”

He cocked the gun and pointed it at her head and I realized he really might do it
just because he could.

“That’s stupid,” I said.

His eyes narrowed to disbelieving slits. “What the fuck you say?”

Now I was the one improvising, making it up as I went along, and I swear Miles Davis never worked harder. “I’m the one you want. You said it yourself.”

He frowned, trying to remember. I prompted him, trying to keep my voice from shaking. Trying to sound as brave as I wanted Sheila to think I was.

“I’m the one who made her act this way, right?”

He lowered the gun to his side and considered what I was saying. “Yeah, so?”

“So if you mad enough to kill somebody . . .” I swallowed hard and spread my hands, palms up, like the answer was obvious. “I’m standing right here.”

He narrowed his flat black eyes even more. “Oh, you that bad, huh? You ain’t scared to die for this fool?” He pulled Sheila back up to her feet and I saw that she was staring at me. She wanted me to save her and that was exactly what I intended to do. Junior was a coward. He didn’t know the meaning of standing up for your blood, but I did. He’d had us all scared to death, but all of a sudden, I wasn’t scared of Junior anymore. I was more scared of being scared, and I was the only one who could do something about that.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said to Sheila. “You hear me? Don’t you be afraid!”

“He’s crazy, Miz J,” Sheila whispered without taking her eyes off me.

I looked at her and I felt calm even though my heart was beating double time. Nobody had ever stood up for Sheila, ever. But this one time, she had backup, and so did Tee, and so did I. As long as we all stood together, Junior had no power over us at all.

“Don’t be afraid of him,” I said again. “He can’t hurt us anymore.”

“Shut up,” Junior snarled. He seemed to be trying to figure out what to do next.

“If we stop being scared, everything changes.” I was crooning to Sheila like it was a song. “Do you believe me?”

She hesitated, swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“I said
shut up!
” Junior pushed her roughly aside and grabbed my arm. Sheila was scrambling around on her hands and knees,
screaming at the top of her lungs, but all I could hear was the roaring in my ears like the ocean. Junior jerked me up against his side and pressed the gun against the side of my head. “Now what, bitch? What you got to say now?”

I closed my eyes and then I heard that unmistakable rumble.

“Drop it!”

Nate was standing at the end of the driveway and he had a gun too. Junior whirled around without letting me go.

“I said drop it!”

“Fuck you,” Junior said. “I ain’t droppin’ shit!”

Sheila stood frozen nearby, her eyes flickering from me to Junior, sobbing and shuddering, unsure where to look to avoid what she was convinced was going to be something terrible. I was watching Nate moving slowly toward Junior.

“That’s close enough,” Junior said.

Nate stopped on a dime. “You don’t have a chance, young brother. Let the lady go and put the gun down
slowly.
”

“I ain’t your fuckin’ brother.” Junior spat the words at Nate. “And this bitch is goin’ down.”

I closed my eyes again. My legs felt like water, but I willed myself to keep standing. I knew Sheila was watching me.
I couldn’t fall.

“I’m warning you,” Nate said slowly. “Put . . . the . . . gun . . . down.”

“Or what?” Junior snarled. “You think you can shoot me before I smoke this bitch?”

I opened my eyes again, but Nate’s eyes were locked on Junior.

“I don’t think so, man,” Junior taunted Nate, and I heard him cock the gun beside my ear. “You ain’t that good!”

But he was.

THE BULLET WENT THROUGH
Junior’s wrist as clean as a hole punch through paper. It went by my ear so close I swear I could hear it whistling “Dixie,” although why that would be its tune of choice, I couldn’t tell you. Turns out the Smitherman twins had just started on their dinner when they looked out of their kitchen window and saw what was going on in my front yard and called Nate. By the time the sheriff got here, Nate had stopped the bleeding in Junior’s arm, tied his feet with the clothesline, wrapped Sheila in a blanket and cuddled me for long enough to be sure I knew I was okay. I was better than okay. Sheila and I were shaken up but otherwise unhurt. Junior was going to jail. He wasn’t going to be able to bother any of us for a long, long time. We were finally safe, and it felt great.

The sheriff took our statements and the ambulance came to
get Junior. Nate left me on the phone to reassure the Smithermans while he rode to the hospital behind that ambulance just to make sure there were no mishaps on the way. Patrice came to get Sheila and we hugged each other hard before she left.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I ain’t goin’ back there at all. Patrice already got my boys at her house and ain’t nothin’ else back there I need.”

I watched them drive away and tried to realize it was finally over. Tee would come home and we’d welcome her and drive her crazy fussing over her, until she made us stop and we all got back to the things we were doing before Junior started acting a fool. Especially in one critical area . . .

I went upstairs and ran myself a hot bath.

Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in.

Breathing out, I smile.

I soaked out the terrors of the day and got out feeling like somebody new. The phone rang while I was rubbing cocoa butter on my knees.

“Hello?”

“Joyce?” Nate rumbled on the other end. “How’re you doing?”

“A little shaky,” I said, “but I’m good. Where are you?”

“I’m at the jail,” he said. “I want you to speak to a buddy of mine. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, disappointed. I was in no mood to give another statement about Junior to anybody.

“Ms. Mitchell?”

“Yes?”

“This is Sergeant Ford. Mr. Anderson just wanted me to let you know that the prisoner Lattimore has been treated at the hospital and released to our custody in good condition. He’s in
the maximum security area of our jail here right now and he’s not going anywhere.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying not to smile. Nate wasn’t taking any chances this time.

“You’re welcome, ma’am,” he said. “And anytime it would make you feel better to check on him, please feel free to call and ask for me.”

“Thank you,” I said again. “I will.”

He handed the phone back to Nate. “You still there?”

“Of course.”

“So you heard that, right?”

“I heard it.”

“Do you feel safe now?” There might be sexier questions he could have asked me at this moment, but if there are, I couldn’t tell you what they are.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I feel very safe.”

“Then will you do something for me?” he said.

“Yes,” I said softly, feeling my body opening like a flower. “What do you want me to do?”

“Will you
please
go and put on that red dress so I can come calling?”

I looked at that dress, already lying across my bed like a scarlet silken promise. “I will,” I said, wondering if surrender always felt so sweet. “I surely will.”

THAT NIGHT, I SLEPT
like a baby. Nate did too. In the morning, just after sunrise, I woke up from a dream I couldn’t quite remember, but wanted to, so I slid out of bed without waking him, went down to the kitchen and put on the teakettle. The mist was still hovering over the lake like a low-hanging cloud, but across the way, I could see the Smitherman twins already walking slowly down to the dock for their t’ai chi.

When I opened the window, it was so quiet, I could hear them laughing with each other just like they’d been doing for seventy-five years, and it was such a sweet sound that all of a sudden, I remembered my dream. So I grabbed a pen and wrote it down so I wouldn’t get distracted by love or work or worry and forget that the first step is always to imagine . . .

Imagine it is dinnertime. Imagine we are sitting around a
campfire. Imagine we are ancient, magical women who live in peace with all creatures, so that just beyond our cooking circle, the lions that we keep around as allies more than pets are yawning and settling their massive heads on their massive paws while we confer and confess, conducting our business as ancient, magical women often do, over steaming pots and sleeping children, a stone’s throw from the mysterious male creatures with whom we share our blankets and our babies and our blood memories.

Imagine our business includes culture and commerce and health care and technology and defense and diversions and endless discussions of what it means to fall in love and stay there. Imagine there is a full moon. Imagine there is peace and plenty and safety and spirit. Imagine what language we might speak. Imagine the sound of our laughter . . .