Come On, Rain!
Reading
Come on, rain. Come on, rain. I say squinting into the endless heat. Mama lifts a listless finer size. Three weeks and not a drop, she says, sagging over her parched plants. The sound of a heavy truck rumbles past. Uneasy, mama looks over to me. Is that thunder testing? She asks, mama hates thunder. I climb up the steps for a better look. It's just a truck mama. I say. I am sizzling like a hot potato. I ask mama. May I put on my bathing suit? Absolutely not. Mama says frowning under her straw hat. You'll burn all day out in this sun. Up and down the block. Cats pant. He wavers off tar patches in the broiling alleyway. Miss grace and miss Vera bend, tending beds of drooping lupins. Not a sign of my friends lose or rosemary. Not a PEEP from my pal Jackie Joyce. I stare over rooftops. Past Jimmy's into the way of distance. And that's when I see it coming. Clouds rolling in. Gray clouds, bunched and bulging under a purple sky. A creeper of hope circles round my bones. Come on, rain. I whisper. Quietly, while mama weeds, I crossed the crackling dry path past miss glick's window. Glancing inside as I hurry by. Miss glick's needle sticks on her phonograph, playing the same notes over and over. And the dim stuffy cave of her room. The smell of hot tar and garbage bullies the air as I climb the steps to Jackie Joyce's porch. Jackie Joyce. I breathe, pressing my nose against her screen. Jackie Joyce comes to the door. Her long legs like two Brown string beans, sprout from her shorts. It's going to rain, I whisper. Put on your suit and come straight over. Slick with sweat. I run back home and slip up the steps past mama. She is nearly senseless in the sizzling heat, kneeling over the hot rump of a melon. In the kitchen, I pour ice tea to the top of a tall glass. I am a spoonful of sugar into my mouth. Then a second into the drink. Gotcha some tea mama. I say pulling her inside the house. Mama sinks onto a kitchen chair and sweeps off her hat. Sweat trickles down her neck and wets the front of her dress and under her arms. Mama presses the ice chilled glass against her skin. Aren't you something tessie, she says? I not. Smartly. Rains come in, mama. I say. Mama turns to the window and sniffs. It's about time. She murmurs. Jackie Joyce in her bathing suit. Knocks at the door. And I let her in. Jackie Joyce has her suit on, mama. I say. May I wear mine too? I hold my breath waiting. A breeze blows the thin curtains into the kitchen, then sucks them back against the screen again. Is there a thunder? Mama asks? No thunder I say. Is there lightning mama asks? No lightning Jackie Joyce says. You stay where I can find you, mama says. We will, I say, go on then, mama says, lifting the glass to her lips to take a sip. Come on, rain, night cheer. Peeling out of my clothes and into my suit while Jackie Joyce runs to get Liz and rosemary. We meet in the alleyway. All the insects have gone still. Trees sway under a swollen sky. The wind grows bold. And boulder. And just like that. Rain comes. The first drops plop down big. Making dust dance all around us. Then a deeper gray descends and the air cools and the clouds burst. And suddenly rain is everywhere. Come on, rain. We shout. It's dreams through our hair and down our backs. If freckles are feet, glazes are toes. We turn in circles, glistening in our rain skin. Our mouths wide, we gulped down lane. Jackie's choice chase is rosemary. Who chases this? Who chases me? Wet slicking our arms and legs with splash up the block. Squealing and whooping in the streaming rain. We make such a racket. Miss glick rushes out on the porch. Miss Grayson, miss Vera come next. And then comes mama. They run from their kitchens and skid to a stop. Leaning over their rails, they turn to each other. A smile spreads from porch to porch. And with a wordless nod, first one. At all. Bling off their shoes, skim off their hose, tossing streamers of stockings over their shoulders. Our bare legged mama danced down the steps and join us in the fresh clean rain. While the music from miss glick's phonograph, shimmies and sparkles and streaks like night lightning. Jackie Joyce Liz rosemary and die? We grabbed the hands of our mamas. We twirl and sway them, prompting through puddles, robbing and reeling in the moist Y green air. We swing our wet wild haired mamas till we're all laughing under trinkets of silver rain. I hugged mama hard. And she hugs me back. The Rain has made us new. As the clouds move off, I trace the drips on mama's face. Everywhere. Everyone. Everything is misty limbs springing back to life. We sure did get a soak in mama. I say. And we head home purely soothed, fresh is due. Turning toward the first sweet rays of the sun.