Brown Girl In the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

to avoid her grandmother, then swinging around another way to stay out of Tony’s hands when they grasped for her. A few times he’d caught her, though. And she hadn’t pulled away immediately. They’d exchanged a few more sweet, sweet kisses. Ti-Jeanne felt sticky and feverish, her skin sensitized by Tony’s touch. She was sure that Mami noticed. The old woman became more and more sullen and short with her as the day wore on. And Baby had been driving Ti-Jeanne to distraction. He was colicky and cranky. Whenever she was gone from his side for more than a few minutes, he would start screaming. Once, Tony went into his room to try to comfort him. The baby’s screech had held so much outrage that Tony had had a hard time persuading her and Mami that he hadn’t pinched the child or something. Ti-Jeanne was almost thankful when the sun went down. Now Mami would do whatever it was she had in mind, and Tony would be on his way.
    But to Ti-Jeanne’s dismay, Mami told them that she wouldn’t do the ritual until well into the night.
    “’Bout two o’ clock or so,” she said.
    “Why so late, Mami?” Ti-Jeanne asked.
    “I ain’t know if…how Osain go hide he from the posse.” Mami jerked her head in Tony’s direction. At some point during the day, she’d stopped addressing him directly. Ti-Jeanne guessed that it was because her grandmother could see the flirting that was going on between them. “Is best if he leave while it still dark, and most people gone to bed. Fewer people to see what going on.”
    That was eight hours away! “Mami, what we go do in the meantime?”
    “All of we should get some sleep. It go be a long, hard night.”
    Mami didn’t put up with any arguments. They had a cold supper, then Mami gave Tony a blanket and a pillow and told him he could curl up on the living room couch. Tony looked at the love seat that was too short to allow him to stretch out his six-foot frame, but he said nothing. Mami bustled Ti-Jeanne upstairs and sat with her while she gave Baby his nighttime feeding. Mami said nothing, just sat, staring at the flickering candle on the windowsill. Her face was set hard as stone. She clutched her arms around her and rocked her tiny body back and forth.
    When Ti-Jeanne couldn’t stand the silence any more, she said, “Mami, I want to thank you for helping Tony for me.”
    The old woman kissed her teeth, a sound of exasperation. “I ain’t doing it for you, you know? I want his good-for-nothing Black ass out of here. Nothing but trouble.”
    She couldn’t argue with that. “Yes, Mami,” she said meekly.
    “Doux-doux, I have to tell you right now: I ain’t know if this going to work.”
    Ti-Jeanne felt fear threading itself ice cold through her veins. “Mami, you is Tony last chance. It have to work!”
    “It ain’t Tony I ’fraid for,” she said absentmindedly. “I ain’t really business with what happen to he, oui. But is so long Papa ain’t come to me. To tell the truth, doux-doux, I ain’t call he, either. He and me had a falling-out. If I ain’t call he and he ain’t come, that not too bad. But suppose I call he tonight, and he refuse me? What I go do then, Ti-Jeanne? What I go do without Papa?”
    Ti-Jeanne had no idea what her grandmother was talking about, but the lost loneliness in Mami’s voice was plain enough. Ti-Jeanne pitied her for whatever it was that caused her to sound so. She reached out and patted Mami’s shoulder. “Sshh, Mami, sshh. I sure things go work out.”
    But she wasn’t sure at all.
    After they had all gone to bed, Ti-Jeanne lay in her narrow bed, staring into the dark. Her mind was a storm, her skin on fire. All her senses focused on where she knew Tony was, curled up just downstairs on the couch in the parlour. Was he asleep yet? Was he thinking about her? She tossed and turned, imagining his lips softly kissing the back of her neck the way he used to do, moving down her back to the hollow of her spine, that place where the