The Beauty of Staying Together

"Comin'!" Bonnie called out as she brushed back the brownish-black lock of coarse hair that continually fell across her forehead. She opened the door and Roberta, not waiting to be invited in, rushed past Bonnie. She was a very light-skinned woman, barely twenty years old, whose voice became high pitched whenever she was excited.

Once inside she blurted out, "Yo' husband didn't go to work." Her gaze was fixed on Calvina. "He's checked you guy's apartment and know you ain't there," she continued. "He knocked on my door and asked if I knew where you was." Roberta stopped to suck in a breath. "I told him that I would go next door to tell ya' that he was lookin' for you. He asked me who you was with next door and I told him that you was at Bonnie's." She rested a hand on her chest and swallowed before continuing. "He's waitin' for you to come home." She was still staring, wide-eyed, at Calvina.

Calvina pushed away from Edgar and jumped to her feet. Always uncomfortable with her five-foot-ten frame, Calvina dropped in one hip as she stood there, fearing what Duane would do to her if he ever found out about the affair with Edgar. The hip-drop was her coping mechanism whenever she was on display: like the time Ms. Williams, her fifth grade Math teacher had called her to the blackboard to work out a difficult Division problem that only Calvina had answered correctly on the last test. She had felt her peers' eyes at her back as she made her way to the front of the class. At five-feet-six inches, she was the tallest kid at Grant Elementary School. Fearing another call to the blackboard, Calvina never solved another difficult test problem.