“Stop grumbling. It’s Christmastime and for once in your life you don’t have to cook the dinner.”
“But I have to do the dishes, I bet.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Who then? You? No Mary. No Yardman. They decide not to show up without telling anybody. Everything’s on me. A pile of laundry a mile high in there. Jadine off playing games with that jailbird; guests coming…”
“I told you he already called Dr. Michelin, and Dr. Michelin said he’d get us somebody right away. Maybe not right away because they got Christmas there too, but he thinks his housekeeper can find somebody. We’ll just have to make do for a day or two. Let the laundry stay there, and get yourself organized. You are worrying the life out of me.”
“You can stop riding me any time you please. And if you expect anything at all to go right, you better quit soon.”
“You the one riding people. You been hot for days. Nothing can please you.”
“The whole house is upset. Hard to think and be nice in a house that’s upset.”
“The house is not upset. You are. Everybody else is laughing and having a good time but you. Mr. Street slept with his wife last night. You know how long it’s been since he did that? Slept in the same bed with her?”
“Slept is the word all right.”
“Don’t you believe it. They been cooing all morning.”
“I don’t care. They ought to sleep together. I never did know how he puts up with that. Whoever heard of married folks sleeping any other way but together. They can sleep anywhere they want. It’s where Jadine sleeps that bothers me.”
“She slept in her own bed.”
“I’m going to bring this basin down on your head. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Well, what you want me to do about it?”
“Talk to somebody.”
“Who?”
“Her.”
“Get away from me.”
“Sydney, listen here. I don’t like it. None of it. What she want to mess with him for? He ain’t got a dime and no prospect of one.”
“She’s just playing. Nothing much else to do out here, you know that. Cleaned him up and he looks fine and even acts all right. Look here. They pack a lunch, go off to the beach and swim a little. What is that? Marriage? First you was screaming because you thought she was going to marry some white boy; now she goes swimming with one of us and you still mad. Jadine’s not a fool and he’s okay.”
“He is not okay.”
“When he busted in here you were the one trying to get me to calm down. I was ready to shoot him. Now you the one want the gun.”
“I just don’t like it.”
“What you afraid of? She’s not going off with him. Just because you foolish, don’t think she is. She’s worked hard to make something out of herself, and nothing will make her throw it all away on a swamp nigger.”
“It ain’t what she thinks that worries me. It’s what he thinks.”
“You know something I don’t?”
“No.”
“Well then.”
“But I’ve seen his eyes when nobody’s looking. At least when he thinks nobody’s looking.”
“And what did you see in his eyes, Ondine?”
“Wildness. Plain straight-out wildness. He wants her, Sydney. And he’ll do what he has to do to get her and what he has to to keep her.”
“Takes two, Ondine. He can’t kidnap her.”
“Wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Mr. Street likes him.”
“He likes him because Jadine likes him.”
“No. He helped him with those plants in there. Made something grow that was dying.”
“He wants to keep him here so Jade will stay and if Jadine stays then his wife might stay and if Michael does show up maybe she won’t want to go running off after him.”
“Well. Maybe he’s right.”
“Don’t rely on it. If that boy gets in she’ll be out of here like a shot. She’s got a lot of cleaning up to do with Michael. It’s sitting on her heart and she’s never going to have no peace until she cleans it up. She’ll trail him to the end of the world and God himself knows that is exactly where she ought to be.”
“You hate that woman, and you want her out of here so you can run everything your way.”
