Read Online Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley - Free Book Online

you.”
    “How did you find me?”
    “I went to ask Bobby.”
    “Why didn’t Newell ask him?”
    “’Cause I told him that I’d go over and ask and when I told him Bobby didn’t know he believed me.”
    I couldn’t seem to take a satisfying breath. The clamor of new love was rattling around in my chest in spite of my intentions.
    I knew it was an effect of the riots, that the passion of release had let something go in me. And Juanda was a black woman looking out for me, taking chances for me. She was a poor man’s dream. And I was still, and always would be, a poor man in my heart.
    “Why’d you do that?” I asked.
    “I don’t know. I like you, I guess.”
    “I’m parked over on Graham,” I said. “What’s the best way for me to get there without having to kick Newell’s ass again?”
    My brave words thrilled Juanda.
    “Down out the back way. We could go on a Hundred and Thirteenth Street across Willow Brook and over to Graham.”
    “You comin’ with me?” I asked.
    “Maybe, if you don’t mind. I need a ride to my auntie’s over on Florence.”
    I gestured for her to lead the way and she smiled. Everything we did seemed to be important. I knew that any step I took, either toward her or away, I would regret in the morning.
     
     
    “WHAT’S NEWELL’S PROBLEM with people?” I asked as we crossed Willow Brook. “I mean, I didn’t start this thing with him.”
    “He just jealous.”
    “Of me? He don’t even know me.”
    “Naw, it’s me,” Juanda said. “He think if he say I’m his girl enough times, it’a wind up bein’ true. But you know I might have other ideas.”
    “But what do I have to do with you?”
    “You stood up to him and he got embarrassed, that’s all.” Juanda gave me a sidelong glance that made my heart flutter.
    I led her to my car.
    “This new car is yours?” she asked.
    “Yeah. Jump in.”
    She squealed and hopped in. For the next few minutes her talk followed a meandering line starting with how her uncle had a car like mine. Her uncle was a plumber for the city, he’d married her mother’s sister twenty years before when Aunt Lovey (whose house we were going to) was only seventeen. Everybody thought it was scandalous for a thirty-eight-year-old man to wed a teenager but Juanda thought that it was okay. She liked older men. But not men like Newell. Newell was always complaining about how people did him wrong, white people mainly, but he didn’t like black bosses, ministers, store owners, or policemen either. When a man got older, she said, he should feel comfortable with the world and not mad because things didn’t go his way. That’s why she liked me. I stood up for myself but still didn’t lord it over people when I had the upper hand. For instance, I could have kicked Newell when he was down but I didn’t. I could have told everybody that I was a friend of Raymond Alexander’s but I didn’t. That’s because I was sure of myself and Juanda liked that, she liked it very much.
    It may sound like I’m making light of the young woman in the tight yellow dress but I’m not. I remembered every word she said. They were burned in my memory.
    “Do you know Nola Payne?” I asked during a lull in her narrative.
    “Yeah. Why?”
    “Her aunt Geneva is in some trouble. Nola might be too.”
    “Bobby said that Geneva was in jail and that Nola was missin’,” Juanda said.
    She crossed her legs and I resisted laying my hand on her bare knee.
    “Did Nola have a white boyfriend?”
    “Not that I know about,” Juanda said. “I mean, Nola’s a friendly girl and she don’t hate nobody. If she met a nice white man she would go out with him I bet.”
    “What about a guy named Loverboy? You know him?”
    “Uh-huh. He around. He wear nice clothes and have a nice car but you know he’s a thief and a thief always wind up in jail or another woman’s bed.” It was clear that Juanda judged every man on his prospects as a boyfriend or more. But I didn’t hold