Free Pao by Kerry Young

calculations over how many eggs he got; and we driving chickens and eggs all over town and taking our cut.
    So business is good and we just beginning to think that maybe we should be hiring up some help, and that was when she turn up. Gloria. And everything that start with her start.

9
    Humanity
    The thing that play on my mind right after that night I go to tell Gloria about the wedding was how come she already know ’bout me marrying Fay. There wasn’t but three days between me asking Miss Cicely and me going to tell Gloria, but when I get there she already know all about it, I think it curious as is only me and Miss Cicely in the picture, apart from maybe Fay if Miss Cicely bother to mention it to her and I couldn’t see Fay going to Gloria with the news. So anyway I decide I going go ask Gloria but I dunno how to do it. I reckon I wait till Tuesday come round. That way she have the whole of the weekend to think on it and Tuesday is my regular day anyway. So I just bide my time and think that when Tuesday afternoon come I will just turn up on the doorstep like I do every week because my time with Gloria is Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon, and then Friday evening when I go make my collection but that is just business.
    I dunno why it like that. It seem to me that Monday, Wednesday and Friday would make better sense. But it no matter what I think. My days is fixed just the way Gloria want it so that is how it is.
    So Tuesday coming and I can’t decide whether to go over there or not. I don’t want to go in case she don’t want to see me. But I don’t want to not go in case she think I not interested. I don’t want her to start think that now I going marry Fay being with her, Gloria, don’t mean nothing to me. I hope she know that she mean more to me than that even though I can’t marry her. And then I start think what do I mean to her? She got so many men coming and going maybe she just think I one of them. One of them stupid, clumsy, good-for-nothing oaf that she and the girls always joking and laughing about when they gone. But I don’t think she see me that way. After all she even tell me I didn’t have to pay if I didn’t want to, but that no seem right to me. It would seem like I was taking advantage because I think she only say it to me because of the protection we providing. But then I think I must mean something more than that to her because if I didn’t she wouldn’t have react the way she done when I tell her ’bout Fay. She would have just shrug her shoulder and say pour a drink so I can make you a toast. But she didn’t do that, so that must tell me something.
    When Tuesday come, I go. I knock at the door and after some long time she finally turn up and open it. She look at me, sorta up and down, and she just shut the door. She never even say a word to me. She just leave me standing there on the porch when she turn back and go inside. And looking at the closed door like that, I realise I wasn’t going ask her nothing that day.
    When Thursday come I can’t make up my mind what to do. Is she testing me? Is she wanting me to show her how sorry I am? Maybe she want to teach me a lesson or maybe she just nuh ready. But the last thing I can afford to do is look like I don’t care, so I go.
    Gloria open the door and step back inside. And she just stand there looking at me. So I ease past her and step into the living room. And after a little while she walk out. I reckon she gone go make the tea so I sit down on the sofa and make myself look as prim and sorrowful as I can. I keep both my feet on the ground with my knees together and my hands in my lap so I don’t take up too much space even though I am the only one sitting there. Then I start look ’round the room and I think how masculine it look considering there is only four women a live here. So I try figure out what make it look that way, and I realise that there isn’t one single ornament in the place. Not a picture on the wall. Nothing.