“When you plan on leaving?”
“July. I figure August’ll be too crowded. What do you think?”
“July’ll be just as crowded,” Gussie said, turning to face her new friend. “Why don’t you give me your number so we can plan this trip the right way.”
*
Min topped off Gussie’s mug at the table filled with rye toast stacked high, gooseberry jam, turkey bacon fried perfectly flat and crisp, scrambled eggs, and sliced cantaloupe. “We are officially off of real eggs. May I introduce you to Egg Beaters,” she quipped.
Gussie waved a hand, as if shooing a fly. “Problem with the stand-your-ground shit is the children don’t have any ground to stand ’cause they’re children! They should lower the voting age and the gun permit age. Level the ground! Adults running ’round with guns, picking off these black boys with impunity. Trayvon Benjamin Martin. Need I say more?”
Min flashed on a terse exchange she’d had with a reporter at the newspaper. Be sure you include his middle name, she’d said to the guy who was writing about a black boy killed by cop a little south of Providence, in Bristol. A middle name reminds people of all the thought a parent put into naming a child.
“And now Jordan Russell Davis—for playing his music too loud. The day after Thanksgiving. Jesus.”
“Burns my ass,” Min said.
“They ought to level that ground down in Florida. Let the boys vote and carry a gun, die like a citizen, not some dog in the street. It’s like Daddy used to say, we didn’t invent the world or its trouble, but we gotta keep on living or die trying.”
“My daddy didn’t put it quite that way. Whenever there was talk around Fox Point about somebody being wronged on account of their color or accent, he’d say to me, ‘Minha flor, you just remember you are as high above them as cake is over shit.’”
A hard knock on the kitchen door made Gussie jump.
“You expecting somebody?” Min asked, standing up from the table.
Gussie shook her head no.
Min looked out the window over the sink, wondering why on earth Willadeene Rutherford’s son was standing on her back porch wearing nothing but a cardigan on such a cold day. “It’s R.C.—with miles of smiles.”
Gussie choked a little, clenching the front of her housecoat.
The man just didn’t look right. Still, that was no reason to mistreat a soul or forget your manners. “Morning, R.C.,” Min said, trying to fix his shifting eyes with her own steady gaze.
The young man grunted something. Whether it was a Good morning or whatever hip greeting the young folks used these days, she didn’t know. But she heard his question clear as a bell: “Can I shovel your walk for twenty dollars?”
“No thank you. We planned on doing it today ourselves. We need the exercise. Besides, you’re not dressed properly, R.C. You’ll catch pneumonia like that.”
“Don’t worry about me, Miss Min. I’m what they call hot-blooded. Hotheaded too. Least that’s what they said at the last group home I was at. Won’t take me long. You and Miss Gussie don’t have no business out here in this mess. It’s real icy. Hate for Miss Gussie or you to break your hip. Mama broke hers two winters ago and she still ain’t right.”
“Well, okay then. You shovel the drive and the sidewalk out front.”
“You don’t listen, Minrose,” Gussie began no sooner than the door closed. “I told you I’d do the shoveling.”
“That was before I looked out there. You don’t have sense enough in that hen head of yours not to go outta here on a day the devil himself wouldn’t walk around. You courting a hospital stay? R.C.’s right about that hip business.”
“What about my dream?”
“Gussie, it was a dream, darling. Just a dream.”
“And you think it’s fine to give him beer money, or money for that stuff?”
“Even a fool makes sense some of the time. He had a point about the ice.” Min looked out the window. She could see the open door of the toolshed. Where was R.C.? She left the kitchen for the living room. None of the windows gave sight of him, so she stepped out on the front porch. No R.C.
*
A few days later, when the snow nearly reached their knees and neither the snowblower nor the shovel could be found, Willadeene Rutherford paid Gussie and Min a visit.
“I envy you and Minrose. At least it’s two of you. That sure do make things a lot easier. I have to struggle to make ends meet all by myself.” She fumbled with the clasp on her black patent-leather pocketbook. “I sure wish I could do more. It’s awfully hard without a husband—being on a fixed income and all.”