All-Bright Court by Connie Rose Porter Page B

many friends
you
got? Who you bring ’round here?”
    â€œMost of them rumheads I know I wouldn’t bring ’round you and the kids. You know I go out, play some cards, go to the diner sometime, to the hall. You don’t do nothing.”
    â€œI be tired. Don’t you think I be tired?” Mary Kate asked.
    â€œI ain’t saying you not tired. I’m saying I’m starting to think you hankty.”
    â€œYou going sit there and call me stuck-up in front my kids?” She felt fire in her throat and jumped from her chair. She had been holding Mary on her lap. The baby rolled onto the floor and started crying. The baby’s fear spread to the other children and they began yelling.
    Mary Kate circled Samuel’s chair. “Hankty, hankty, hankty,” she said over and over, her voice getting higher and higher each time she said the word. She came to a stop in front of his chair. Samuel was scared. It was like he poured water on a wildcat. She looked as if she were going to scratch him to death.
    â€œThe baby,” he said. “Look at the baby.”
    She did not look.
    â€œIt ain’t me that said it. I just heard it said.”
    â€œWho said it?” she pressed.
    â€œYou know how Negroes talk.”
    â€œWho said it?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t know. You know Negroes always talking, always got to have something to say. That’s our problem. We talk too much.”
    â€œI don’t know ’bout ‘we.’ You don’t know when to shut up,” Mary Kate said.
    â€œI’m shutting up right ’bout now,” Samuel said.
    â€œWell, you should,” she said. She picked the baby up from the floor. Samuel grabbed Mary Kate and pulled her onto his lap.
    â€œDon’t you be trying to make up to me.” She began patting the baby gently on the back. “And what ya’ll was screaming for?” she said to Mikey and Dorene. “Ya’ll little pitchers got big ears.”
    â€œWhat that mean?” Mikey asked.
    â€œThat mean don’t be minding grown folks’ business. Hollering like ya’ll crazy.”
    â€œLet’s put the kids to bed now,” Samuel whispered.
    Mary Kate got up from his lap. “What you going to go and ask a hankty woman that for?”
    â€œCome on, baby. Let it die.”
    â€œSo, now I’m your baby?”
    â€œYeah. You know that,” Samuel said.
    â€œSamuel, do you really think I’m hankty?” she asked. She was serious.
    Samuel looked at her. “Naw. I told you I never said it. I say you keep to yourself too much. I’m a stand by that. You can be mad at me if you want to. It’s the truth. You need to get out, make you some girlfriends for your own good.”
    â€œI’m not mad,” Mary Kate said. “Dorene and Mikey, ya’ll go on upstairs.”
    â€œWhat about the baby?” Mikey asked.
    â€œDon’t worry ’bout her. You do what your mama say,” Samuel said.
    Mary Kate went and sat back down on Samuel’s lap. “You know,” she said to Samuel, “putting the kids to bed and going upstairs with you is how I stay in trouble.”
    â€œIt ain’t trouble. I’m your husband. We going to have a boy this time. I can feel it. You carrying a boy.”
    Â 
    In the last few days of winter, when warmth was beginning to push its way up through the earth, Mary Kate took on Samuel’s challenge. She had stopped in the Red Store with Dorene and Mary, and Venita was at the counter. Mr. Jablonski was weighing a piece of salt pork for her. At first, she walked past Venita like she did not see her, leaving Venita to feel secure in her guise of invisibility.
    Venita was staring at Dorene. Dorene had taken off the woolen scarf that covered her head. Her hair was greased and parted into a series of interconnected braids that ran off the back of her head. To Venita, her hair looked like a newly planted