Leaving: A Novel by Richard Dry Read Free Book Online

lights made Easton feel as if the floor were moving and the walls collapsing. He closed his eyes and Lida started crying again. Ruby took her from his arms.
    “I didn’t think twice about you being colored, Ruby. I don’t think you could say that we’re prejudiced here. We simply can’t lose customers. I would hate to feel that we couldn’t sell your dresses anymore because of some sort of accusation or misunderstanding.”
    “No ma’am. That’s not what I meant. If you don’t: have a spot for him, we’ll jus look nearer where we live.” Ruby rocked Lida gently in her arms, but the baby did not stop crying.
    “Yes. Yes. I’m glad you understand. I’m sure he’d be much happier there.”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    Easton turned and walked up the aisle quickly, as if he were underwater and dying for breath. Ruby thanked Mrs. Usher for taking the dresses and apologized again for disturbing her.
    When she finally emerged through the glass doors, she found Easton leaning his head against the telephone pole. Ruby shifted Lida into one arm and put her hand on Easton’s shoulder.
    “Come on, now. You got to get yourself used to it. I jus put it out a my mine and say de Lawd has his reason for everything.”
    “Leave me alone.” Easton shrugged her hand off him and shook his head.
    “Don’t be angry at her, Love E. She doin us a favor.”
    “I’m not angry at her.” He turned and yelled, “I’m angry at you. I knew I shouldn’t have tried. I shouldn’t have listened to you and your countryfied ways.”
    “Why you angry at me?”
    “You sound like some field nigger in a henhouse: ‘Oh, yes ma’am. He jus turn fourteen.’ ‘No ma’am, we don mean nothin by it.’ ‘You jus gots to listen to de Almighty.’ ‘Oh, yes ma’am. Hallelujah.’ Why don’t you learn to speak proper now that we’re out of Carolina.”
    He turned away again and walked to the bus stop. On the bus, he sat in a separate seat behind her, and they rode in silence the entire trip home.

CHAPTER 3B
    DECEMBER 1976   •   LIDA 16
    LIDA SHOWERED IN the evenings before going to work at Lucky’s, her first job ever. She raised her arms in the air and held on to the curtain rod, breathing the thick steam into her nostrils, the water running down her back and thighs.
    Through the half-open rectangular window by her face, she listened to the evening sounds of the street: the scraping of metal roller-skate wheels; Telli, their Jamaican neighbor, laughing from her stoop; and on this night, a car honking and a man calling out, “Come on, come on.”
    She picked up the orange clamshell soap and scrubbed her arms from her shoulders down in a counterclockwise direction, then put her nose against her arm and smelled the peach scent on her skin. The warm soapy water gathered around her feet over the partially clogged drain and she put her big toe on the holes of the mesh, pressed down, then lifted up, and the water drained more quickly. She turned her foot over and looked at the geometric imprints on her skin.
    The door to the bathroom opened, and as if a sudden breeze had blown through the stall, she put her foot down for balance and pulled her arms to her sides. The curtain, normally transparent between the flower pattern, was all steamed up.
    “Mama?” she asked. The bathroom door closed and then the medicine cabinet squeaked. Lida pictured her towel hanging on the door hook. “Mama? That you?”
    “Naw. Just me,” Easton said.
    “I’m taking a shower. Can’t I get privacy?”
    “Can’t never wash all that ugly off a you,” he said, without a trace of his old News English.
    “Where’s Mama?”
    “She fixin supper.”
    “What you want in here?”
    “I’m just gonna shave.” He tapped the razor on the sink and turned on the water.
    Lida faced the shower nozzle and put her forearms together in front of her chest, as if she could make herself narrow enough to hide in the stream of water. She heard the spray of the shaving