Every Woman's Dream

by Mary Monroe

  I was impressed. But I was shocked to hear that Shirelle, a woman who had grown up in the hood and fooled around with so many other women’s husbands, had actually found one for herself on the Internet. “When can I meet him, your husband?”

  Shirelle held up her hand, looked toward the street, then back at me. The way she started blinking and shifting her weight from one foot to the other told me she was nervous and anxious to be on her way. “Lola, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’d be a good idea. My husband doesn’t know that I shacked up with your daddy in the same house where you and your mama lived at the same time. I don’t want him to know what kind of woman I was back then, so it’s best if you and I stay out of one another’s lives. I’m very happy and I want to stay happy.”

  “I understand,” I said glumly. I was so disappointed; I thought my heart was going to stop beating. “Well, it was nice to see you again. Can we have lunch or something before you go back to Frisco? We can go someplace where nobody will see us.”

  Shirelle glanced toward the street again. She gave me a pitiful look and shook her head. “I’m leaving to go back home in a couple of hours. I hate to rush off now, but I’m supposed to meet my cousin at her house in a few minutes so we can have a few margaritas. I only came here to pick up a bottle of tequila.” She faked a smile and held up a brown bag with a bottle in it and waved it in my face.

  “I’m listed in the telephone book if you ever want to call me sometime,” I told her.

  “That’s good to know. I just might do that. Um, I’m glad we ran into one another. You take care of yourself, sugar. Have a blessed day!” She gave me another hug before she rushed out the door. She sprinted to the parking lot and got into a shiny black Town Car and sped off like a bat out of hell.

  Right after I cashed my check and got back outside, I pulled out my cell phone and called Joan. She answered right away.

  “I just ran into my other mother,” I told her, my voice cracking as I walked toward my house.

  “Shirelle? Where?” she squealed.

  “She was coming out of the convenience store on Grant Street. Guess what? She’s married to an architect. They have two little boys and she says she’s very happy.”

  “No shit? A hoochie like Shirelle caught herself an architect? I’d sure like to know how she managed to pull that off! Let’s invite her to go have pizza or something. My treat. I’m dying to hear what-all she’s been up to.”

  “Joan, she met her husband on an Internet dating site. He’s in the Church, so she doesn’t want him to find out about her past. Because of that, she told me we shouldn’t keep in touch with one another.”

  “Oh, well. It is what it is, I guess. So she found a husband in an online lonely hearts’ club, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t call the site she met her husband on a ‘lonely hearts club.’ She met him on a Christian dating site.”

  “Well, at the end of the day, all of the clubs on the Internet and in magazines are for people looking for love.” Joan snickered. “And money. Gotta run! Talk to you later.”

  “Later,” I mumbled, clicking my phone off and sliding it back into my purse.

  It made me sad to know that Shirelle didn’t want to have a relationship with me again, so I decided to put her out of my mind and forget about her. But I knew that if she ever changed her mind, I’d be eager to have her back in my life. In the meantime, I decided to focus on the “club” that I belonged to now.

  The following Monday after school, Joan rented a small public-storage unit to hide some of the things we’d purchased. We made eight trips by bus and cab to the unit, carrying two shopping bags each that contained clothes, perfume, CDs, books, and other small items. We did it over a five-day period so nobody would notice. An hour after the last trip on the fifth day, we went shopping again and had to make another trip to the storage unit the same day. At the rate we were buying things, we were going to run out of space real soon.

  “We’re going to need a much bigger place if we keep shopping so much,” I told Joan a week after she’d rented the storage unit. It was a Tuesday evening and hotter than usual for early October. We had both scored A’s on a math test that morning and had decided to celebrate with a nice dinner at Angelo’s Grotto, a very expensive Italian restaurant not far from downtown San Jose. “Between the two of us, we can easily afford an apartment. And it has to be one located in a neighborhood across town so we won’t run into anybody we know.”

  “Let me think about that,” she said. “We don’t need to get too carried away.”

  I tilted my head to the side and sucked on my teeth. “‘Carried away’? Duh? Don’t you think it’s a little late for you to be saying that? How much more ‘carried away’ can we get?”

  Joan huffed and gave me an impatient look. “I know that, so don’t even go there. We have enough to worry about. We don’t know what might happen if we get into this too deep.” The silence that followed was spooky.

  After almost half a minute, I exhaled and locked eyes with Joan. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “No,” she replied with a shrug. “It’s all good.”

  Joan’s cousin Larry had recently moved in with her family while his apartment was being painted. He’d let her borrow his ten-year-old minivan to drive to the restaurant.

  “Just thought I’d ask.” I sniffed and pursed my lips. “I’ve been thinking.... If we had an apartment, one with a garage, you or I could buy a decent vehicle. I’m tired of cruising around in your cousin’s hooptie. And you had the nerve to park that jalopy right next to a brand-new Jaguar! I’d love to cruise around in a brand-new Mazda or a Jetta.”

  Joan took a bite of the garlic bread we had ordered to go along with our steak and lobster dinners. “Be serious, girl. Hiding our new clothes and other stuff is one thing. How would you or I explain a new car while we’re still in school and unemployed? Even if we hid it somewhere, sooner or later somebody would see us in it and want to know who it belongs to. Forget about either one of us getting a car.” Joan snorted, gave me a dismissive wave, and shifted in her seat. It was time to change the subject. “By the way, are you still sneaking Bobby Hayes into your house after Bertha goes to bed?”

  My eyes rolled back in my head. “He came over last night. He was so hot he couldn’t even wait for me to take off my panties. He ripped them off,” I recounted, swooning. “Bertha came downstairs to get a glass of milk and almost caught us getting busy on the living-room couch. Thank God we’d finished our business in time.” I giggled and slid my tongue across my bottom lip.

  “I thought you said, once she went to bed, she slept like a corpse.”

  “She usually does. But every now and then she’ll get back up and wander down to the kitchen for a snack or something to drink. I really like Bobby and I’m going to do everything I can to hold on to him. The last boyfriend I had kicked me to the curb after one date because he couldn’t deal with Bertha.”

  A very cute Italian waiter delivered our main courses, but the smell of all that spicy food was very potent. Joan rubbed her nose and excused herself before she made a mad dash to the ladies’ room. When she returned about ten minutes later, I folded my arms and looked at her with both eyebrows raised. “I was just about to come check on you. I thought you might have fallen into the toilet.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Joan collapsed back into her chair and drank from her water glass. “I’m fine.” She lifted a napkin and wiped her mouth.

  “You don’t look fine. You’ve been acting weird and looking sick lately. Right now you look pretty bad—dark circles around your red puffy eyes and all. What’s up?” I asked, spearing one of the asparagus spears on my plate with my fork.

  Joan took a deep breath first and then she started talking again with a grimace on her face. “There’s something I need to tell you. I’ve been putting it off, but I can’t do that any longer. You and everybody else will know soon, anyway. It’s the reason I don’t think we should rent an apar
tment or buy a car.” She sighed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me in the near future. . . .”

  “Oh no!” I said in a hoarse whisper. “Please don’t tell me you’re dying too! I’ve lost my parents and I don’t think I could go on if I lost you too. Do you have a health issue that—”

  Joan interrupted me by holding up her hand. “No, I don’t have any health issues. Well, in a way I do.”

  “Joan, stop beating around the bush and tell me what the hell is going on.”

  She took another deep breath and wiped her mouth again before she continued. “We have enough on our plate already, so we don’t need to complicate things. How long do you think we could keep the news about us renting an apartment hidden from the big mouths?”

  “Joan, you’re talking in all kinds of circles. Exactly what is this ‘something’ you’re holding back that me and everybody else is going to find out soon, anyway? And how does it involve us getting an apartment or a car?” I narrowed my eyes and looked at her with my lips pressed together. I beckoned with my hand for her to continue.

  “You know I don’t believe in abortion, right?”

  My eyes got big and my face froze. “Did I miss something? How did we get from talking about us getting an apartment and cars to the subject of abortion? Is one of your sisters pregnant again?”

  She shook her head. “I wish,” she replied, just above a whisper.

  “Speak up and get to the point.” I glanced at my watch, then back at Joan, with a distasteful look on my face now. “I’d like to finish eating and get up out of this place before midnight.”

  Joan snorted, coughed to clear her throat, and sat up straighter in her chair. She placed her hands, palms down, on top of the table, as if she was about to participate in a séance. “Remember that going-away party I went to back in July that my hairdresser hosted for a young dentist she went to high school with?”

  “Uh-huh. The one who started his practice last year. He was going away to participate in some program to assist some dentists in Haiti for a few weeks, right?”

  Joan nodded. “Reed Riley. And it was Martinique, not Haiti.”

  “I saw his picture in the paper the other day about some charity function he helped sponsor. Hmmm. Not only is he impressing a lot of folks, he’s cute. Too bad you didn’t get a chance to get to know him, if you know what I mean.”

  “I did. . . .”

  “Oh? I thought he left the country the day after that party.”

  “He did. We really hit it off and I went home with him after the party. We were drunk, so I don’t have to tell you what happened when we got to his place.”

  I sagged back in my seat and muttered some gibberish under my breath. Then I looked at Joan with my eyes squinted. “No, you don’t have to tell me. I’m just ticked off because you hadn’t told me before now. So, are you telling me that you slept with that man?”

  She nodded again. “Reed’s a nice catch, good family, fantastic job. He’s going to make some woman a good husband someday. I know he’s several years older than me, but he’s only twenty-seven. Mama was sixteen and Daddy was twenty-five when they got married.” Joan stopped talking and stared off into space for a few seconds. Then she started talking in a slow, controlled tone of voice. “Lola, I know I’m young, but I know what I want—a good-looking, smart, successful husband, a nice home, and a few children.” She stopped talking again, and gave me a mysterious smile. “I want to have a lot of fun too.”

  “I want all the same things,” I declared, swallowing a lump in my throat. “That’s every woman’s dream. Are you trying to tell me you want to marry this man?”

  “Maybe.”

  I looked at Joan like she had just sprouted a goatee. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I am serious.”

  “Well, if you want to be with him and he wants to be with you, go for it. The age difference is not really that big. My mama was still in her teens when Daddy married her and she was already pregnant with me. He was almost thirty.” I gave Joan a thoughtful look and then I giggled. “Let me know if Reed has any single friends.” I quickly paused and gave her a suspicious look this time. “Why are you even thinking about marriage while you’re still in high school?” I whispered. “And what was that abortion comment about?”

  “I’m pregnant and Reed is the father,” she blurted out.

  “Pregnant?! You?!”

  “Lola, stop talking so loud. Put your eyes back into your head,” Joan advised. “It’s not the end of the world.”

  “But you’re going to have a baby. And after all the times you reminded me to keep a stash of condoms in my purse.”

  “Lola, I never said I was perfect. Everybody is entitled to at least one big mistake. Even me.” Joan lowered her head and stared into her lap for a few seconds. When she looked back up, I was staring at her with a look of pity that was so extreme, it made her squirm. “Stop looking at me like that!” She stopped talking long enough to grit her teeth. “I already feel pitiful enough. I hope you’re not too disappointed in me,” she whined.

  “I’m not disappointed in you, but I am surprised. You were the one with all the big plans for your future—writing for magazines and traveling all over the world.”

  “I know, I know. But things happen.”

  “Apparently.” I blew out a loud breath. “Does Reed know?”

  “Not yet. I looked up his home number in the telephone book yesterday. I called to see if he had returned from the islands. His voice mail was full and I couldn’t leave a message, so I called his office this morning. He’s back, but he was with a patient and couldn’t take my call. I told his receptionist to let him know that I need to talk to him as soon as possible about an extremely urgent matter. He hasn’t called me back yet, and if he hasn’t called by tomorrow, I’m going to storm his office.”

  “Joan, how the hell did you let something like this happen? And with a man who’s almost thirty! You’re the last girl in our graduating class I expected to get into a mess like this! The busybodies are going to roast you alive.”

  “Fuck the busybodies. They’ve been bashing me since kindergarten. And for your information, we did use a condom. But, as everybody knows by now, those damn things are not foolproof.”

  “Are you sure you’re pregnant? Maybe you’re just a little late.”

  “I’ve been early before, but never late. Besides, I took two different pregnancy tests three days apart and they were both positive. I would have told you sooner, but . . . well . . . I wasn’t ready to talk about it until now.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “That all depends on what Reed wants to do.”

  Chapter 14

  Joan

  “Y OU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE IN FOR. YOUR LIFE WON’T EVER be the same again,” Lola told me, giving me the third or fourth pitiful look in the last five minutes. I didn’t appreciate that look because there was nothing pitiful about me, now or before. Motherhood was going to be a new beginning for me and I was going to do whatever I had to do to make sure it was a positive one.

  “Don’t you get crazy on me. I’m just pregnant, girl, not dying.”

  “Remember when Ann Brody got pregnant? She had to drop out of school and go on welfare. She lives with her baby in a shack on some backstreet—”

  I held up my hand and waved it in Lola’s face. I had to cut her off before she went too far. “You stop right there!” The last thing I needed was my best friend going off on a tangent. As long as we’d been BFFs, we had never had a serious falling-out. “Ann was a skank. Her family is trifling and in no position to help her, so that’s why she had to go on welfare. You know my family will be there for me. I don’t know why you think things are going to change that drastically. I’ll still be the same person after I have my baby.”

  “I sure hope you’re right, Joan,” Lola said in a heavy voice.

  It was a very tense ride home. When she told me again that my life was never going to be the same, I
flat out told her to shut up or talk about something else. After that, we were as silent as mutes until I pulled up in front of her house. Before she piled out of the van, she gave me a hug and told me, “I don’t care what happens next. I’ve still got your back.”

  “And I’ve got yours,” I told her.

  Things changed drastically for me the very next day. Reed called me that morning just as I was about to leave for school. He didn’t mention his trip to the islands and I didn’t bring it up. I figured we’d discuss that after we’d discussed the reason I needed to see him. I gave him my address.

  “Joan, I don’t know what this is about, but I will be there right after I finish up with my last patient this evening,” he assured me.

  I was surprised that he had agreed to come, even though he didn’t know why I needed to talk to him.

  Then his voice got real soft and gentle. “I’ve been thinking about you ever since that night we met and, uh, you know. I couldn’t send you a note or a postcard or even call you while I was away because you didn’t give me your telephone number or your address. And none of the folks who’d attended my party would give that information to me when I asked. Is everything okay?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I muttered. I had a feeling Reed knew the reason I needed to talk to him, but I was going to make him wait to hear it from me.

  He had not met my family yet. I’d casually mentioned him to them the night I’d hopped in a cab and gone to that party, but nobody had seemed interested. When he showed up at the house in his light green scrubs a few minutes before six P.M. the day we had spoken, you would have thought Dr. Phil had walked into our living room. I was glad that only Mama, my stepfather, Too Sweet, and Elaine were present. Had some of my more unsophisticated relatives been on the premises, Reed might have freaked out, especially when he didn’t even know what I needed to talk to him about.