Rosie
Date: 10/13/2015,
Categories:
Interracial,
Author: billybroadband
... appear out of the blinding white curtain of snow. She was shielding her face from the elements with a scarf and didn’t see my truck. I hit the brakes too hard and skidded sickeningly toward her. Those new tires saved her; they stubbornly gripped and grabbed through the deepening snow and I stopped just inches from her. Her face was looking at me with terrified eyes and a silent scream in her throat. It was Rosie. I threw the truck into park and opened my door and got out into the cold and the wind-blown white. I was so shaken I didn’t have any words ready to say to her and she was the same way. We just stared at each other for a second and then I yelled at her, “Get in, Rosie, I’ll take you home!” Without a word, she slipped and slid through the snow to the passenger door and got in. She was wearing a short, bulky winter coat and a heavy scarf and a huge knit cap and mittens. She had on winter boots but her legs were exposed. As I got in the truck, I couldn’t help notice the snow melting on her knees, the huge white flakes contrasting with her lovely dark skin. I stammered out an apology and she did the same for not watching where she was going. “Do you know where I live, Billy?” she said, taking off her scarf and brushing off the snow. “You still live on Brookfield, right?” “You remember? How nice.” And then she gave me that smile that I had admired throughout the years, the one that exposed her perfect white teeth and animated her face. I felt my pulse quicken. “Settle ...
... down,” I thought to myself. “She’s way out of your league.” I took a deep breath to relieve the anxiety of nearly hitting Rosie and navigated the Studebaker through the snow. I didn’t look at her, concentrating on driving through the mess outside. She did something I didn’t expect. She started talking to me as though we were the oldest of friends who were catching up after not seeing each other for a while. It was the first time I’d talked to her in over nine years, but she seemed at ease with me. I felt comfortable in no time, not at all as nervous as I thought I would be. When we got to her house, she insisted I come in for some hot cocoa. Her parents weren’t home, she said, as they both worked and it was a weekday. I knocked the snow off my boots outside on the porch while she opened the door with her key. Inside, the house was chilly. She took me into the dining room that adjoined the neatly kept kitchen and sat me at a large formal dinner table while she started making hot chocolate with marshmallows. She kept chattering, asking me my opinion on this or that teacher at school. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she later told me she was nervous about me being with her. Bringing our hot chocolate, she set herself down beside me, scooting a chair out from under the table in order to face me. Her afro-styled hair was wild, frazzled from her large knit cap. I searched for a topic, anything, to keep her talking and to keep me in her house. I was in awe that I was there and ...