Tumbling by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Author:Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-04-28T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

Tom Moore couldn’t have known this was the absolutely worst time to be walking up Noon’s front steps. It was less than two hours before Fannie and Liz’s sweet sixteen party at the Christian Street Y. Better that he’d walked in on their wedding day, or the day one or the other brought her firstborn home, not today, not while a tornado was spinning through that usually immaculate row house. Nerves frayed, like short-circuited wires popping and smacking with unpredictable sparks all over the place.

First Fannie and Noon. Fannie got a run in her nylon just as she attached it to her garter belt. Made her say, “Oh fuck!” Noon heard her. Ran into her room with her fist balled at hearing such language come from her mouth. Then Fannie told Noon she didn’t know why she had to wear stockings anyhow. Furthermore, she was still upset with Noon for making her get her hair pressed out.

“I like it crinkly and bushy and pulled back in my pompoms,” Fannie said.

“The hair don’t have a thing to do with that language I heard coming out of your mouth,” Noon retorted.

“No, I just look like one of the Lennon Sisters on Lawrence Welk, is all, with this straightened hair all the way down to my shoulders.”

“The mouth, Fannie, I’m talking about the mouth.”

“Awl, Noon, give her a break,” Herbie called from downstairs. “If the worse she do is say a four-letter word every now and then, what the hell.” He chuckled at his unintentional cleverness. “Now tell me which of these boxes spread all down here got to go to the Y.”

“The bud vases, I told you the bud vases.”

“What the hell’s a bud vase?”

“The box with the vases wrapped in newspaper. Should be ten. One for each table. The carnations are in the icebox. My hospitality members from church gonna set it all up. Just make sure Maybell gets it. She’s there already. And don’t forget the cake. Lord Jesus, not after I was up half the night icing that cake, please don’t forget the cake.”

And then of Fannie, she demanded, “Go see if Liz got a nylon that comes close to matching this one. I’m gonna run my bath. And let me know quick if she doesn’t. Have to catch one of those kids playing in the street to send them to the store.”

Fannie pushed open the white wooden door to Liz’s room. Liz had the larger room thanks to Fannie’s generosity. The one with the walk-in closet that Noon said must have hidden slaves because people back then surely didn’t believe in closets.

Fannie drew her breath when she looked at Liz. “Oooh, Liz, you’re—you’re beautiful.” Liz’s dress was white brocade, strapless, cinched at the waist with a wide pink satin sash, and then fanned out softly to the scalloped hem that hit just above her ankle. Her flaming red hair was freshly tapered, the rounded hairline prominent in the strapless dress. Her face was made up in lipstick and rouge and pink powdery shadow to her almond-shaped eyes.

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