When the shot went off and R.C. fell to the floor, Gussie shook awake.
Min lay beside her, reading with the penlight required in early-autumn New England mornings, strangely comforted by the little noises of their Mount Hope home: the drip-drip faucet in the en suite bath, the sputtering hot-water tank off the kitchen in what used to be the maid’s room, back in 1886 when the house was built. The curtains behind their bed, slightly parted, let through enough light to tell on their recent household neglect. Min could live with the dust but knew Gussie would have to go over every piece of furniture with a rag and a little Lemon Pledge before the sun set that day.
“Same dream?” Min said, touching Gussie’s shoulder.
“It’s Willadeene’s boy. He’s in our house. Don’t know why he’s here, but he’s asking for trouble and you give it to him. You shoot him, Min.”
“What you dreaming like that for?” Min said in agitated Kriolu, the Cape Verdean dialect Gussie had fallen in love with. “You know I’ve never fired that gun. Only reason I hold onto it is ’cause it meant so much to Daddy. I don’t even know where the damned thing is.”
“Watch it now. Don’t go starting the day off with ugly language.”
“It just makes me nervous, Gussie—you dreaming something like that. Make it so bad, you keep dreaming it over and over. Just gets me riled up.”
Gussie raised a large veiny hand to work at the kink in her neck. “I don’t know why I’m dreaming it either. Maybe I feel bad for Willadeene. Bragged on that boy so tough when he finally got himself situated at the halfway house over on Friendship Street. Now he’s back home. She says he on that stuff. Say he’s lost his mind. Cracked out. That’s what the youngsters call it. Cracked out.”
“R.C.’s dough never was quite done but I don’t think he’s on that stuff. Just can’t handle his liquor,” Min said, drawing the curtains. “But R.C.’s not behind your nightmares, Gussie. Willadeene neither. You know I told you to stop eating after eight o’clock. You can’t sit up all hours of the night, watch reruns of no-good shows, and eat too.”
“I been snacking well into the night all my life.”
“You call what you do snacking?”
“I tell you that ain’t got nothing to do with it.” Gussie threw back her half of the quilt and frowned. Everything was dull and gray, even her toenails, she thought, wiggling her feet. Did Father Time really think he could win without a fight? Might not dye my hair ’cause it can’t take it, thin as it is, she thought. But I can paint these yellow toes staring up at me, making me feel old.
“That was my cachupa you got into last night, wasn’t it? You think I could sleep through that aroma? The spices in the linguica could wake the dead. With your indigestion you’d think you’d know better than to fool with sausage after eleven o’clock.”
Gussie yanked the covers, disgusted she had finished the delicious soup and none remained for today’s lunch, but grateful Min hadn’t also smelled the peach cobbler.
“Eating late doesn’t have anything to do with anything. That’s just something folks say to keep old folks from enjoying the little bit of juice left to squeeze out of life. Now if I tell you a hen dips snuff, look under her wing: I’m not dreaming that dream in vain. Something’s going on with R.C.”
“What’s on your dance card today?” Min asked.
“Thought I’d shovel the drive. Don’t feel like doing much of nothing, but somebody needs to do some dusting.” Catching another glimpse of her toes, she added in a disgusted tone, “Need to go over to White Cross and pick up my prescriptions and some nail polish.”
Why a woman needed to polish her toes when everybody was in boots was beyond Min. “If you’re going to Randall Square, could you pick up my eyeglass prescription?”
Gussie nodded. “Well, minha flor, you ready to go get this day?”
“I’m ready and I ain’t gonna let nothing get in my way.”