Free Life Is Short But Wide by J. California Cooper Page A

your money. I want you all to
move
so I can get some peace. Every evening and every weekend is ruined! Full of nothing but your arguing! How can you live that way?”
    Ethel tilted her little head, looked sorrowfully down at her feet and said, “It’s mighty hard on me, I can’t tell ya how sorrow I am, to have to live this here way. I never like to argur; neverlike to fuss and cuss. Not used to it. My mama and papa got along jes fine. But since I been wit him, married, I don’t get no peace neither. Pleasssse take this here money, Mz. Rose, please. Else I have to worry bout that, too. “We gonna find a place. Jes give us one more month …”
    Rose was aghast. “Another month!? No, Lord! Don’t take any more time than you need to find another place. Have you asked the new minister? Your mother knows everybody!”
    “I don’t know him, yet.”
    “Your mama does!”
    Ethel held her hand with the money out, saying, “Take half.”
    Rose looked into the sad, darkened eyes of Ethel, and said, “I’ll take one dollar, but you better move. I hate to tell you this, because you have enough trouble; but you married him. Take one more week, and then I’m going to the sheriff. I’m going to have some peace, or someone is going to be sitting in jail, or on the street with no peace. And I mean it!”
    Ethel walked away with her head bowed down, thinking, “That ole bitch! Just cause she got a house, and some kinder edukertion, she want to treat peoples like they’s dogs!” But it was quiet that night. Everyone rested, even Will Moore.
    The next evening, after work, Will Moore had a visitor, and he brought him to meet Rose.
    Evenings were Rose’s lonesome time. She looked through her window when she heard the two men approaching her porch. She didn’t want to answer the door, but it could be that the handsome man with Will might want a reference for their rent application. She sighed and answered the door.
    Will smiled at her, while she searched for all that anger and any signs of violence in his face; she did not see it. “I’m a poorjudge of men,” she thought. Will indicated his friend with his hand, saying, “Mz. Rose, I know I’m gonna be leavin here soon, but I been workin with my friend here. He a good friend, a good person, and I wanted ya to know who was comin by here to help us find a place. His name is Leroy, Leroy Aimes. Leroy, this here is my landlady, Mz. Rose.”
    Rose had been looking at Will as he spoke; she was thinking of them moving soon. Now, she looked at Leroy. She remembered him from somewhere. He was a tall, handsome, brown-skinned man. He had a dimpled smile which showed off his shiny white teeth and strong chin to good advantage. Dark attractive eyes with long, sweeping lashes completed his face of promising romance.
    On closer inspection a wiser person might have seen that his agreeable smile, his air of sympathy and interest, his carefully worked-out laughter, even his smile, were studied, practiced.
    Will said a few more words, “He the mos poplar man at my job. We works together! He the supe’visor of the janitors, under the white boss, of course.”
    “He is going to help you find another place to rent?” Rose asked, looking at the neatly combed dark hair atop the playful, yet serious dark eyes. She thought, “He is handsome. So many new men are moving to Wideland.”
    “Well, yes’m, Mz. Rose.”
    Rose answered, looking into Leroy’s eyes, “Good. We need some efficiency around here! How are you doing, Mr. Aimes?” Rose was thinking as she looked at his clean-shaven face, his crisp white shirt, open at the collar.
    She looked down at his shoes; her mother had always saidyou can tell a lot about a man from his shoes; they must be clean and polished. His shoes were highly polished, and not run over. She didn’t show her impression on her face. Her mother had also said, “When it comes to a man, keep most of your thoughts to yourself.” But she thought, “Why, he’s