Dancing on the Edge of the Roof

by Sheila Williams

  Well, was someone going to act like I was here at all?

  And since when did Randy know how to cook?

  “Excuse me!”

  The entire diner turned to look at me. My son and the love of my life both turned to look at me like I had landed from the moon.

  Jess's eyes twinkled. It only made me more pissed off.

  “If I can interrupt this happy reunion … just when did y'all get to know each other?” I turned to my son, hands on my hips. When he was ten, this used to strike fear in his heart. I could tell it wasn't having the same effect now.

  “Lord, Juanita, that's old news,” Jess answered, grinning. “Randy called here collect one day looking for you. I think you and Millie went to Missoula or maybe that was the day that you and Mignon went to the Joann Fabrics looking for kinte cloth.” He stopped and peered into the saucepan where the grits were simmering.

  “You didn't find any, did you?”

  I stared at him. Mignon was giggling again.

  “Find any what?” I asked.

  “Kinte cloth,” Jess replied, his lips curving upward into a smirk.

  “Jess, that is not what I'm talking about.”

  He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Anyway, Randy called. You weren't here. I accepted the charges and we got to talking.”

  “Found out we have a lot in common,” added my son, who was now gulping down juice that I had squeezed last night from tangerines, oranges, and lemons.

  “We talked about food …”

  “And that's another thing!” I was almost yelling now. And there were just too many grins going around.

  “Where did you learn how to cook?” I asked my son. “You never even turned on a coffeepot.”

  Randy smiled.

  “I learned a lot of things inside, Momma,” he said evenly. “Most of what I learned, I don't think I'll need outside. But the cooking part … well, I kinda like that.”

  “And that smothered chicken dish sounds all right to me,” Jess chimed in, giving those grits a stir.

  “That's what I'm talking about,” Mignon flew by me again.

  “Listen, I want to know …”

  I didn't get the next word out. They were off and running without me.

  “Now be sure to use Lawry's seasoned salt on the chicken,” my son advised, raising his finger in the air to emphasize the point. “It adds just enough flavor to the dish.”

  “I …”

  “OK, and the parsley in the dumplings, not on the chicken, is that right?” Jess asked, jotting down something on a notepad on the counter.

  “Um-hum …” Randy answered. “But not too much. You don't want 'em to look like they came from the Emerald City.”

  Jess's eyes narrowed as he studied Randy over the top of his reading glasses.

  “I think I know how to garnish a dish, boy,” he snapped back.

  Randy shrugged.

  “Just thought I'd let you know …”

  “Let me tell y'all something …” I interrupted. These two good old boys had something going on that I just hadn't picked up on.

  Jess gave me the evil eye now.

  “Juanita, you gonna stand in the middle of the floor and pontificate forever? Or are you going to eat up your breakfast and get over here and mix up that Italian pasta salad you were going on about? You know Violet Mason's quilting circle is coming over here for lunch at eleven-thirty.” He flipped the notebook shut and turned back to the grits, ladling out a huge spoonful. “Must have forgot that pill again,” he muttered loud enough for me to hear.

  I threw a tangerine at Jess.

  And missed.

  It split when it hit the floor behind the counter.

  Jess's grin was like a spotlight. I could never stay mad at him long.

  “Are you gonna make that juice drink by throwing the fruit on the floor or are you going to use a cutting board and a knife like normal people?”

  The lemon that I threw hit him right on his butt.

  There was so much orange drink left over that I served it to Violet Mason and the girls for lunch.

  And Jess and Randy made the smothered chicken as the dinner special that night. By eight they ran out of it.

  The crickets were singing up a storm that night. Montana was cooling down and the evenings, once softly cool and quiet, had become the stage for singing critters using all octaves. I couldn't believe that summer had come and gone. I couldn't believe that my son was actually here beside me.

  “What are you doin' out here?” I asked Randy once we were alone, sitting on Jess's back porch swing. The yellow porch light cast a warm glow on Randy's face. I couldn't resist, I reached up and stroked his cheek like I had when he was little. I was surprised when he didn't swat my hand away as he would have done only a few months ago. “What made you decide to come?”

  “Well, when I got out, it seemed like the thing to do,” he said matter-of-factly. “I didn't have anything else planned for a month or so. And besides, Jess sent me the money.”

  I shook my head. I was still trying to get over that.

  “We had been talking on the phone off and on for a few weeks. When I told him that I was getting out, he said I ought to get a change of scenery. Sent me the money for a bus ticket and food. All I had to do was show up at the Greyhound station.”

  He paused for a moment as if he was thinking about something. Then, I realized that he was looking at a fawn and a doe who were standing on the ridge, barely visible in the waning light. They were looking out over the cliffs. I could tell from his expression that he hadn't seen anything like this before.

  “No one ever did anything like that for me,” Randy continued, shaking his head. “Only you, Momma. But nobody else. Not my father …”

  I looked down at my hands. I had just turned eighteen when Randy was born. His father had seen him only a few times in his life and had made himself scarce after I went to court to try to get child support. I felt bad about that and I said so.

  “Momma, don't worry about that. You did the best that you knew how. What I'm talking about is that this man I never met before treated me like I was his son. He and I talked like we'd known each other for a hundred years. And he was into cooking. It felt good to talk to a man like that. About life and real things and not be … not be afraid to say what was on my mind.”

  I was nosy. I wanted to probe and ask him what had been on his mind but I decided not to. As much as I found it hard to reconcile, Randy was a grown man now, not my little boy. Some of his thoughts had to be his own. And the ones that he shared with Jess, well, I realized that maybe those weren't thoughts I needed to know about. Maybe he needed someone like Jess to share them with.

  “How long are you planning to stay, sugar?” I asked, wondering how much time I would have to bask in the glow of this newly formed man.

  He chuckled.

  “I can only stay about ten days, then I have to go back. My job starts in three weeks.”

  “Job?” My voice squeaked.

  Randy chuckled again.

  “I know, I know. You probably never thought I'd have a job. But I got one. I'll be the chef's assistant trainee at Le New Orleans over on Rich Street. I'm also going to Colum bus State. I'm in the advanced food preparation program.” My mouth dropped open. A job. And school. And I thought I wouldn't live long enough to see this boy get turned around.

  “I'll be staying at the apartment until I can save up a little money,” he continued quietly, talking and stopping to listen to the birds calling out to each other as they flew home to invisible nests in the dense forest. “Then I'm going to get a place of my own. Someplace quiet.”

  “Rashawn's music getting to you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Naw. Rashawn doesn't get to me. He's a knucklehead, but he's my brother. I just … I've been living surrounded by other people for so long, I'd like to have
some real peace and quiet for a change.”

  I had started to say something but now I was quiet. Randy and Rashawn had been as thick as thieves, cut from the same cloth. Or so I had once thought. Now it sounded as if I was wrong about that. “Is he still …” Sometimes I couldn't bring myself to say the words.

  “Yeah, he's slinging,” Randy answered the question that I couldn't ask. “But he's on borrowed time, and I've been telling him that. He won't listen, though.”

  A low “who who” pierced the darkness.

  Beside me, Randy's body tensed.

  “What was that?” He looked around, his eyes wide.

  It was my turn to chuckle.

  “If you weren't such a city boy, you would know.” I pulled his ear. “That's an owl.”

  “Man …” he said. There was wonder in his voice. It was nice to hear it there.

  “So, you're headed to California next month.”

  It was a statement, not a question.

  I took a quick, deep breath. And I bristled a little. I knew that I would have to say something about this sooner or later. I had hoped it would be later. I wasn't ready yet. California was something that I felt I had to do. Now, with Randy here, the water was getting muddy. The old fears and my doubts about myself rushed back.

  Should I go? Should I stay? Should I go back to Ohio with Randy?

  “That's OK, Momma, it sounds like a good idea,” came my son's verdict. “Don't go back home. Rashawn will drive you crazy.”

  “Well, maybe I should. He may need me.”

  “Momma, Rashawn won't turn around until Rashawn wants to turn around. And that shit won't happen until he hits the floor. And hits it hard.”

  The owl hooted again in the darkness. Randy's body tensed.

  “That's what happened to me. I hit the floor. And then I decided that I'd better do things another way.”

  I knew he was right. Rashawn was as hardheaded as they come. He wouldn't change just for fun. And he wouldn't change just because his momma said so. It would have to be more dramatic than that.

  But there was always Bertie. And I told Randy that.

  He chuckled.

  “Momma, there's nothing wrong with Bertie, 'cept she's lazy.”

  “She's pregnant, too, Randy, don't forget that. I could probably help her …”

  Randy's laughter startled a little critter that had been sneaking around the porch. We heard it scurry away through the grass.

  “Momma, Bertie wasn't pregnant. Just fat! All that beer, the potato chips, and sitting on her butt all day. Once Dr. Jefferson told her she wasn't pregnant … well, you should have seen her! She was off that couch in a flash. Said she didn't want to be a fat ass all her life! She's working back at the Kroger, doing customer service. I'll keep Teishia until I go to work at two, then Aunt Kay said to use the woman who keeps her granddaughter.”

  I should have known that my sister would know someone. She knew everything. I wondered aloud why none of this stuff had come together before. Why it had taken so much time, so much grief, and so much frustration, not to mention the near-death experiences that Rashawn kept putting himself in.

  Randy shrugged his shoulders and stood up, stretching and cracking his knuckles.

  “It was just time, I guess,” my son mused, yawning and scratching his back.

  I thought of all the sages, philosophers, doctors, and shamans who had pondered these questions and come up with the phrase that everything happened in its own time. And now I could add my son's name to that list.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Randy went back on the Greyhound over a week later. I had to fight with Jess to pay for his bus ticket. Of course, he and Randy had worked all this out beforehand and I was fighting for nothing. Lord, that man is stubborn!

  Which is exactly what he said about me.

  “Juanita, let me do this, OK?” he growled at me. I wasn't intimidated. Jess was always growling at me.

  “He's my son,” I shot back, handing Randy a small stack of bills. Randy passed them right back to me.

  “It's been taken care of, Momma,” he said with a huge grin.

  “Randy, take the money and do what I say,” I tried to play the bossy mother role. But I guess I was getting too old for that. Or was it Randy who was getting too old?

  “Momma, I already have my ticket.”

  “Day late, dollar short, Juanita!” Jess said, sniffing with a superior and smug expression on his face. He folded his arms proudly across his chest. I sighed.

  I was outnumbered again.

  And I liked it.

  Randy left on a Saturday afternoon. He took a couple of Jess's sauce recipes (including sauce Juanita) with him. He left his smothered chicken recipe behind.

  I stopped looking over my shoulder after that. I finally realized that my old life wasn't going to come looking for me.

  I didn't stare at the rising sun anymore with a sense of fear because I thought it was the messenger of doom bringing me a note from my past that said:

  “Juanita! Who do you think you are? You take your butt back and pick up that sorry life you had and don't give me any back talk!”

  Now, as I watched the sun cross the sky and set in the west, I didn't worry about my past anymore. Life goes on.

  Even my life.

  And my children had moved on with their lives— without me. Guess they would have done that sooner or later, but it helped that I moved out of their way. My progress had made their progress possible.

  And even though Rashawn hadn't changed his ways, I had changed my way of thinking about it.

  That made all the difference.

  One day in Paper Moon is pretty much like the next.

  Oh, as September moved into October, the breakfast crowd thinned a bit since Mr. Ohlson and the teachers went back to work. But otherwise, everything stayed pretty much the same.

  And today wasn't any different.

  I got up at five, stubbed my toe on a book I'd left on the floor; cursed at my stupidity and took a shower. Dressed quietly in the dark and listened as the forest woke up. Put on the coffee and stood on the porch to drink it and watch the sun come up. I decided to walk to work. Figured that the exercise would do me good.

  The mornings were cool now and Jess was buried beneath the quilts. I wiggled his big toe and he growled at me.

  “Be there by seven or your omelet will be as hard as a rock,” I told him.

  “Hummph!” he answered.

  I pulled at his toe again.

  He kicked at me.

  The mountain was alive with noise and activity. The animals were so busy, they didn't even notice the funny-looking, two-legged creature in their midst with twisted hair on her head going every which way and a tote bag on her arm. Even the deer hardly gave me a look. There were a few other homes up this way, but I didn't see another human form until I reached the highway.

  Opened the door at six-fifteen sharp and heard heavy breathing and a slipping, sliding sound coming toward me. Dracula nuzzled my hand. I petted him on the head.

  “Good morning, handsome, did you have a good night?” The dog yawned in reply. I opened the door to let him out. Looked around the floor of the diner. “I hope you didn't leave any presents for me like you did yesterday.”

  Dracula sniffed and seemed to frown at me as if he was insulted that I would insinuate such a thing. I laughed and scratched him behind the ears.

  “Get out of here.”

  He padded out and bounded down the porch steps.

  I clicked on the radio and sighed. A country and western tune came through the speakers. Someone had changed the station on me again. Probably Mountain when I wasn't looking. I let it go. Hummed along with Patsy as she talked about “Sweet Dreams.” Put two pots of coffee on and went to the refrigerator to get some eggs.

  Jess's omelet was getting cold by the time I finished stirring u
p the pancake batter, frying up three pounds of bacon and four pounds of sausage, and stirring up a pot of grits. Had just popped some toast when I heard the squeak of the front screen door. I'll have to oil that thing, I said to myself.

  “Whatcha know, Juanita?” yelled Abel as he and the boys fell into the diner with the same grace that the Marx Brothers had in their movies. The morning went on as usual from there.

  By seven-thirty there were twenty people sitting around the diner in various stages of breakfast from coffee and doughnuts to steak and eggs. Mountain came in and ordered the works; Mr. Ohlson, the school principal, stopped by “just for a minute” and ordered a sweet roll, coffee, and fruit (said he was on a diet); and even good old Bobby Smith sat at my counter with his elbows out to his sides throwing down a bowl of grits with enough butter in them to choke a cow. I threw out Jess's omelet.

  By nine, the diner was bursting at the seams. The restaurant license gives us a capacity of sixty—there were at least seventy-five people crammed into the place.

  “Where's Jess this morning?” Peaches asked with her mouth full.

  “I don't know, but I threw his omelet out,” I told her as I filled her coffee cup.

  “He called fifteen minutes ago, Juanita,” Mignon shouted at me as she flew by. “Said he had something he had to do.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I wouldn't worry about Jess. One way or another, whether he was late or early, he always managed to be right on time.

  “Is Millie coming over this morning?” Peaches asked.

  I laughed.

  “Are you kidding? Millie's a night owl. She never even comes out of her rooms until noon. Never goes to bed until three or four in the morning.”

  “Oooooo,” moaned Peaches, her eyes widening as she swayed from side to side like a seasick spirit. “She stays up late to commune with the ghost!”

  Mignon, Mary, and I laughed, not only because Peaches was so silly but because what she was saying probably wasn't too far from the truth.

  “Elma Van Roan approves of what you're doing,” Millie told me the day before when I stopped by her room early in the evening. I didn't ask her how she knew that Elma approved.