In the back alley, out of range, she heard Victor screaming, smashing in the side of Dev’s face with the butt of that pistol, breaking the orbital bone. You. Will. Tell. Me. Victor kicked him in the side five, six times. You poor dog, he said, and she knew even then that she could go back in there. She could brave Victor and save Dev from the worst of it. In the hospital, they told her Dev had cracked five ribs. The day he came back to the Pelican, his face looked fine, but he still couldn’t take a full breath. He made sure to dance with her in front of Pea. She didn’t have any standing to object.
11
The house was swaddled in darkness, as Tamara was swaddled in memories, and neither of them sufficiently braced against the evening chill. Behind her, the lights of the taxi illuminated the driveway as it crunched down the gravel, making and unmaking the path to come until it swung out onto the road and disappeared entirely.
She climbed the stairs slowly. What felt different? She had only left that morning, but she was not the same.
Phyllis opened the door before she could knock. She did not invite Tamara in.
“Forgot your toothbrush?” She was arch, but Tamara could feel the effort it took her to keep her spine straight and her eyes cold. Phyllis wasn’t the same either. Hadn’t been for a long time, strange that she’d only now noticed.
“Forgot a card,” Tamara lied.
“Which one?”
“Devil joker,” she replied immediately.
Pea cracked a smile. “Oh? Could have sworn you’d taken him with you this time.”
“He’s got a habit of popping up where I least want him. So I figured maybe I’d stop running away.”
“For a change.”
“For a change,” Tammy echoed uncertainly. “Pea. Walter says he found the snitch.”
Pea’s expression didn’t shift, her hands didn’t twitch, the soft pulse of her exposed jugular continued its steady beat, unperturbed. If Tammy hadn’t already known, she never would have guessed. She was a wonder, this best friend of hers, as strange a creature as any Tammy had encountered in her literary days back in Lawrenceville or her grandmother’s stories.
“That’s good news, isn’t it? I take it Mrs. Robinson was safe.”
“Yes. Pea. That’s not it. They found the Barkley brothers. He said that the family was going to take the money they came into and start a numbers bank. He said he wouldn’t interfere, as long as that was as far as this goes.”
Phyllis shivered. But that might have just as well been the open door, the bracing air, the encroaching night.
“Well,” she said, at last. “Come inside, honey. The nights are still cold.”
They went into the kitchen and Pea uncovered a pie on the table and cut two generous pieces.
It had to be pumpkin from the color, but covered in the oddest fluffy white crust, and who put crust on a pumpkin pie, anyway?
“Is that meringue?”
Pea laughed. “Would you believe I told her that it was ‘very white of her’ and she just thanked me!”
Tamara laughed so hard she had to wipe her eyes, probably more than the joke deserved, but it felt so good to be here again.
“And your sister?” she asked.
“Coming in two days. It was the soonest she could take off. Are you going back again, once you find your card?”
“Oh, no,” Tammy said, stretching back, draping her coat over the back of the chair, settling in for good. “You ain’t getting rid of me again till that baby is born.”
And she would be, Tamara thought, as Pea skimmed off the meringue and then tasted it with the tip of her pinky. The three of them would make it through this; no dead ofay’s curse or angry ancestor could stop them. The oracle made her choice in that old kitchen; she put her hands over the angel’s—bloodstained both—and said in her heart, I will take what you cannot bear, love, and gladly.
They went to the river, still high and red from the winter melt. Spring had finally arrived in full: new blossoms on the trees, new bugs in the grass, and birds screeching so loud it made Tamara think the city was comparatively restful. They shared a caramel apple while they sat on the blanket. Mrs. Grundy had brought back a whole dozen, individually wrapped in waxed paper and nestled like eggs in a basket of straw. Tamara had been all astonishment and her lips brimming with thanks, but Mrs. Grundy had only given her a soldiery nod and said, “I’m glad you decided to return, Miss Anderson.” Tamara had just stared at her. She supposed Mrs. Grundy had been thawing toward her for a while now, but this felt decisive. As though even this not-quite-old white lady could see the battlements crumbled inside her and the wildflowers just peeking their colors out above the wreckage. Then Tamara had remembered Pea’s story and was politely overcome with a fit of coughing.
Tamara smiled again now, remembering. Phyllis was buried deep in one of her silences. Tamara might have taken it for judgment, before. She might have goaded Pea into speaking about her past, just to make her ashamed. Now, Tamara settled on one elbow and dedicated herself to polishing off the apple. She contemplated the cards, restless in her pocket. She had made the decision, but she still hadn’t found a way to formally make the exchange. She supposed she should try tonight. Pea was as full as an old moon; they didn’t have much time. She wiped her
