Hot Flash by Carrie H. Johnson Page B

of a gazelle, then lifted her glass. “Soon as I settle my brain with a few swigs, I’ma hook you up. To the evening.” Dulcey took a few sips and set her glass on the table.
    I gulped and let the sweet, aromatic Sancerre warm my insides. Second go ’round I sipped and savored.
    â€œNow, spill it,” she said.
    I unloaded the happenings of the past few days: my testimony at Boone’s trial and how I felt like a victim, Laughton’s weird behavior and his ex-wife, my sneaking around behind him, and Nareece’s neurotic behavior and desire to confess all to Travis. I held back the part about the letter Nareece had received. There was no sense getting Dulcey in a tizzy until I knew what was in the damn thing.
    â€œYou and Laughton ain’t nothing but a minute. You all will work that stuff out and move on like nothing happened. Too much glue in you all’s relationship for anything different. Now this thing with Nareece, that’s another story.”
    Silence fell between us as she readjusted her legs, one over the other in the opposite direction, and jerked her head back to empty her glass. Then she got up and went for refills.
    â€œShe got a letter today addressed to Carmella Ann Mabley.” I don’t know what made me say it, but suddenly I needed Dulcey to know exactly what was going on.
    Dulcey stopped her steps, spun around, and made her way back, almost tripping over rather than into the chair. “Nobody knows she’s who she is. I mean, nobody knows who she was.”
    â€œSomebody knows.”
    She returned to the table and sat down, empty glasses in hand. “What are you gonna do? What did the letter say?”
    â€œShe wouldn’t tell me. Rather, she wouldn’t open the envelope. Said she won’t open it until I’m with her. She just started talking crazy. Said something about they know what she did. You know how Reecey can get.”
    Dulcey got up again and went to the kitchen. “Then we need to take a road trip,” she called over her shoulder. She must have had second thoughts about more wine before doing my hair because the next thing that came out of her mouth was, “C’mon in here, girl, let me fix those numbers you got invading your head.”
    I obeyed her command. I sat in the chair Dulcey had set up at the kitchen sink and let her wrap a cape around my shoulders, before I commented on the road trip comment. “Yeah, I was planning on going to Boston this weekend, see what’s in the envelope.” I hesitated. “I should have been there, Dulce.”
    â€œDon’t go there, girl.” Dulcey snapped on some rubber gloves and began parting and retouching the roots of my hair. Part, dab, rub. The mercaptan smell of the perm made me pinch my nose and breathe through my mouth to survive. She moved through my head like gangbusters, yapping all the way. “You were there or the girl might not be with us now. You been carryin’ guilt around in your briefcase all these years blockin’ you from livin’ life the way God intended.”
    â€œI’m ready to retire from the job, Dulcey. Do something more . . . sane. I’m forty-nine years old, no man, change coming on, Travis in college, and then there’s Reecey.”
    â€œLong as you do what you do for you, Muriel. Reece got her life. And what you mean, no man? You got that fine Calvin dotin’ on you now. Nothing like a good man to soothe what ails ya. And if he’s fine, then all the better, and Calvin is fiiine!”
    â€œAnd you know about a good man soothing ailments how?”
    â€œHoney, Hampton is a good husband and fine as they come. Hamp got issues for sure, but what man doesn’t?”
    â€œExactly.” I huffed for air, then jumped up, grabbed the day’s newspaper from the counter, and waved it for a breeze.
    â€œWhat the hell is wrong with you? I mean, I know what’s wrong with you, but you must