Running Wild.

3.

3.

Aminata.

"You gone let me give you something for your eye?" I asked Reina as we cleaned the left over mess from the party. "Only if you can come back here. I don't want Xavier seeing me like this." She said, and I frowned. "So you not gone see him for bout a week. He gone think you don't like him again." I said, and she shrugged. "But I look ugly now. What he gone think?" She sighed, and I shook my head.

"Tell him the truth. It wasn't your fault." I said, and she frowned. I had found out that Reina didn't come back out yesterday, because Master Jean hit her in the eye with his belt. It maybe wouldn't have been so bad, but the buckle hit her and made her eye bloodshot. "I don't know." She said, and I shook my head. "How you liking the new boy?" She asked, changing the subject.

"He alright. Quiet, I guess he nice enough." I told her and she nodded. "I know the girls in the house been trying to see what he look like. He came by earlier with Master Jean." She said, and I frowned. "What was they doing?" I asked. "He was putting him to work. Showing him the fields and where the cane stop and the cotton start." She said, and I shook my head.

"Master Jean don't show nobody nothing. You sure that's what he was doing?" I asked, and she nodded. "I heard him myself. Plus you know he was bragging and carrying on. He told him on days he fight, he wont work in the fields and if he win he gone have the next day off." She said, and I nodded. "You seen George?" She asked and I sucked my teeth.

"Yeah, I seen that fool yesterday. Sucka talkin bout he want me to be his wife." I said, and Reina laughed. "Wife? You'd have to get in line first." She said, and I agreed. "I know, I told him I wasn't interested. Then he started talking bad bout Marceil, calling him a savage." I said, and she shook her head. "He just mad everybody seen him get whooped. He don't hardly know that man." She said, and I agreed.

"Neither do we, but I know I like him better than George already." I said, and she nodded. "Ma Dear like him?" "Yeah, I think that's why I'm okay with him. She would have said something by now if it was anything different." I responded. "I guess, I could come by and meet him later today. When you fix my eye, and I'll talk to Xa too." She said and I nodded.

"Good, he still don't talk though so don't expect too much conversation." I told her remembering Ma Dear's warning. "That's okay. He understand what you saying though right?" She asked, and I nodded. "Yeah, he just answer with head shakes."  I explained. We finished cleaning up, and moved on to the kitchen where Ma Dear and Tabitha were making lunch.

"You girl's finished in there?" Ma Dear asked, and I nodded. "Yes ma'am. What you need us to do next?" "Mistress Sophia want the china and silver to be polished. Mina you can do that, and Reina you go head and take a break, you don't need to be in the light with your eye like that." She said, and Reina took a seat in a chair in a shady corner.

I pulled all the silver out, and the polish with the rag, and started the long process of shining the silver up. "I can't wait til Sunday come." Tabitha said, and I raised my brow. "That's all the way at the end of the week. What got you waiting?" I asked her. "George, came by here this morning asking me to go out and fish with him. He gone teach me." She said, and I looked at Reina and she shook her head.

"Mmm, that boy gone teach you something else." Ma Dear said making her face. "He nice, Ma Dear. I don't know why you don't like him." Tabitha said, and I rolled my eyes. "She don't like him cause he nice to everybody. A little more than nice with some, more than others." I spoke up, and she looked at me with a frown. "What you talkin bout Mina." "I'm talking bout him being fast, into every girl here. He was just with Sarah yesterday, you the night before and been knocking round our cabin trying to be nice to me." I said, and she shook her head.