by Mary Monroe
Louis was a man of his word. He showed up the following Monday right when he said he would with three of his employees to help him set up and serve me and my staff Yankee pot roast with all the trimmings. Not once did he make even a remote pass at me. As a matter of fact, he was so businesslike and aloof, I thought he’d lost interest in having anything to do with me, other than feeding me and my staff.
He called me later that afternoon, about two hours after we’d finished our lunch.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well what?”
“Are we going to do business or not?”
“We will. My employees can’t stop raving about your food and your service. But only if we can do this on a trial basis. Say for three months. If things work out, then we can talk about a formal contract.”
“You’ve already told me that,” he said sternly. “Repeatedly.”
“I know. I just want to make sure we keep that information in the forefront.”
“That sounds reasonable enough to me. Now what about that other thing?”
I swallowed hard. “What other thing? What are you talking about?” I whispered, even though I was in my office, with the door closed.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”
“Oh, that. I’ll have to get back to you on that.” The telephone suddenly felt so hot in my hand, I could barely hold it. Even after I hung up right away, I could still feel its heat. I didn’t know if it was just my imagination, or if I was truly losing my mind.
I made a few calls to clients and got cussed out royally. Then I called Rhoda.
“I’m so glad you called,” she stated. “Jade just called me collect from Mexico. She’s flying in this evenin’—with that bullfighter. Her daddy is about to have a heart attack.”
“Where is this bullfighter going to stay?”
“In the spare room, with Bully, when he returns from London.”
“I didn’t know Bully had gone back to London,” I said, trying to avoid talking about Jade as long as I could.
“I put his horny black ass on the plane last night. Like always, he’ll be back in a few days. Before he packed last night, I washed a few of his clothes. While I was in the laundry room, he snuck up on me, bent me over the top of the dryer, and fucked me from behind like a hound dog. Otis almost caught us again.”
Rhoda had been carrying on with Ian “Bully” Bullard, her husband’s best friend, right up under his nose for so long, he had to know. But if he did, he didn’t care. And no matter what I said, she always dismissed my comments and opinions about her extended affair. It had become such a worn-out subject that we discussed it only when she brought it up.
“Is Bully going back to his wife again?”’
“Oh, hell no. She’s livin’ with his best friend in a flat in Paris, fuckin’ his brains out. Bully’s just goin’ home to check on his property. I tried to talk his dumb ass out of buyin’ those two apartment complexes, and now he wishes he’d listened to me. They’ve been nothin’ but trouble. That’s what he gets for rentin’ to illegal immigrants! He’s spendin’ a fortune goin’ back and forth from here to London a couple of times a month.”
“Well, it is his money and his property. And you are not his wife, so you really don’t have a right to tell him what to do, Rhoda.”
“I know, I know. He just seemed so much happier when he was just managin’ that luxury hotel. Anyway, it’s a good thing he’s goin’ to be out of the way for a little while. With Jade comin’ home and all, I’m goin’ to be busy as hell keepin’ her in line.”
Rhoda’s last sentence saddened me even more. “I guess I won’t see much of you for a while, huh?”
“Why do you say that?” she asked, sounding alarmed.
“You just said you’re going to be busy with your daughter,” I replied in a meek voice.
“Horsefeathers! Nonsense! You’ll see just as much of me when Jade gets home as you do now. I’ve already told you that I am not lettin’ her come between us again. And I meant that from the bottom of my heart.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. I was worried about it,” I confessed.
“Well, don’t worry about it, because you don’t have to. Jade’s my problem. Now, tell me somethin’ good.”
It took me a few moments to decide what was “good” enough for me to share with Rhoda. “Is this a good time for me to tell you about that caterer?”
“Louis? What about him?”
“He’s a…really sweet guy.”
“I told you. And isn’t he sexy?”
“He is. We…he wants to…you know, get to know me better.”
“You mean he wants to fuck you?”
“You could say that,” I answered, without hesitation.
Rhoda started to breathe so loud and hard, for a moment I thought she wanted to fuck me, too. “Do you want him to? And don’t lie to me.”
“I like him, Rhoda. I like him a lot. As a matter of fact, I’m going to call him up and see if he wants to meet me for a drink after work.”
“You’d better enjoy it while you can. Life is shorter than you think,” she said. The last part of her comment had an ominous undertone, but I chose to ignore it. “Look, I’d like to continue this conversation, but I’ve got to get ready to drive to that damn airport. I know I said Jade’s return won’t interfere with us, but I might not be able to call or see you for a couple of days. I need to get her settled in first. I hope you understand.”
“I understand.”
As soon as I hung up, I immediately called Louis and asked him to meet me at Antonosanti’s again after work. He didn’t ask why, but I told him, anyway. I simply said, “I need to talk to you about something important.”
He was there when I arrived, waiting for me in the same booth where he had worked me over with his fingers. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something important,” he stated, pouring me a glass of wine. “Is it about your husband?”
I shook my head. “It’s a lot worse than that,” I said. He listened with bated breath as I told him everything there was to tell about my horrific experiences with Jade. When I stopped talking, half an hour later, he gave me a profound look of pity and shook his head.
“She tried to drive you crazy and take your husband. What a bitch!”
“Thank you for listening to me, Louis. I don’t really like to discuss this too much with my husband anymore.”
“Well, you can discuss it with me anytime you feel like it.” He gave me a hungry little kiss on my cheek. “I am here for you, Annette. Day or night, seven days a week.”
“Uh, you remember that motel you mentioned?” I said, blinking hard. “The Do Drop Inn?”
He nodded.
“Maybe we can go there to relax or something, real soon.”
He nodded again.
“My best friend belongs to a bowling team, and they go bowling every Thursday night. I can use that as my alibi when I need to get out of the house. I’ll have her pick me up and drop me off wherever you are so it’ll look real convincing—in case my husband gets nosy. Besides, a lot of people know my car, and I wouldn’t want them to see it parked somewhere it shouldn’t be.” I paused to catch my breath. “And…” I wasn’t sure how I wanted to finish my last sentence, so I decided to stall.
He took the cue and ran with it. “This Thursday night would be a good time for us to get together at that motel, right?”
This time I hauled off and kissed him. “Right,” I said.
That following Thursday, we made the first of many visits to the Do Drop Inn.
CHAPTER 25
It was a little after four on Sunday afternoon, two weeks after my first motel rendezvous with Louis. I had not spent last Thursday with him, even though we had made plans to. But Mother Nature had pulled a prank on me and made my period start a day early, which happened to be last Thursday. I had actually gone bowling with Rhoda and her team that time, like I was supposed to, and had been bored to tears.
/> Pee Wee had gone fishing, or so he claimed, somewhere near Akron. Charlotte was at my mother’s house, where she had spent the weekend. My mother had called my house and left three messages on my voice mail, all within the last hour. I had ignored them all until now.
Her messages were always the same. All she ever said was, “Call me back.” It didn’t matter what the reason was. Last month when I returned a call to her, it was because she wanted to know if I could remember the name of the first blonde who had replaced Suzanne Somers on Three’s Company. The “call me back” message that she’d left the very next day had to do with the death of a girl I went to school with.
She answered on the first ring when I finally called her back. Before she could start one of her rambling conversations, I immediately told her about my joining Rhoda’s bowling team and how I was going to bowl with them every Thursday night.
“Every Thursday night? You are gwine to be bowlin’ with Rhoda and her bowlin’ team every Thursday night?”
“Yes, Muh’Dear. You’ve been telling me for months that I need to have more activities outside of work and my home.”
“Well, one of them outside activities needs to be you spendin’ more time in church. I didn’t see you at the service this past Sunday or any other Sunday this month. Pastor and half of the congregation ask me about you all the time. They don’t want you to be lost.”
“I’m not lost, Muh’Dear,” I protested.
“Well, you must be! You get lost when you stray away from the Word and get too caught up in the world. Me, I know, because I used to be in the world in a big way. You been weak these last few months and backslidin’ like you was travelin’ on a sled.”
“Muh’Dear, please don’t be so negative,” I said. Her comments usually exasperated me, but this was one time that I was not going to let her rain on my parade.
I had called Louis again Saturday morning and told him again how much I had enjoyed our time together in the motel. We had also met for drinks at the Red Rose that Friday after work. That had been wonderful, too. But the bartender and some of the other patrons there knew me. Therefore, we’d kept our encounter businesslike. Not once had his hand slid up under my skirt.
We’d spent a couple of hours discussing, over drinks, his menus and other items that he wanted to experiment with. Then he’d walked me to my Mazda, which I had purposely parked two blocks from the bar, in an alley behind a Burger King. Leaning against the door on the driver side, and pressing against me like a Siamese twin, Louis had kissed me so long and hard that I had to push him away before I could breathe again. That was when he had proposed—no, he’d demanded—to see me on a regular basis and any other time I could get away.
“Is Pee Wee gwine to bowl, too?” Muh’Dear asked.
I had been so deep in thought that I had almost forgotten that my mother was still on the telephone. “Huh?”
“You didn’t hear what I said?”
“Yes, I did. No, Pee Wee is not going to bowl with me. This is a women’s bowling team. He’s not interested in bowling, anyway,” I said in a dry voice. I was no more interested in bowling than Pee Wee was. But it was the best that I could come up with to explain going out at night on a regular basis. Rhoda had convinced me that this would be the perfect alibi for me to use when I wanted to be with Louis. And after I had heard about my husband’s mysterious “doctor visits” every Friday, it had been easy for me to make up my mind. “No husbands, period.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” my mother said as soon as I paused.
I continued talking, as if I had not heard her comment. “And when they have their tournaments in Cleveland, I will have to go for the whole weekend.”
I hated lying to my own mother, but it was necessary and prudent for me to add this “tournaments in Cleveland” clause to my declaration. And it was all because Louis had already hinted about us embarking on a romantic weekend getaway every now and then. I had already told Pee Wee all the stuff that I was now telling Muh’Dear. He had not even remotely protested or challenged me in any way. As a matter of fact, he had responded with extreme indifference, which consisted of a nod, a shrug, and a blank expression on his face.
“When is all this gwine to start up?” Muh’Dear asked, speaking in such a gruff and loud voice, it sounded like she was in the same room with me. “You ain’t never been into no bowlin’ in all these years. Why now?”
“I just started bowling a couple of weeks ago, but I had been thinking about doing it for a long time. And, like I just told you, you’ve been after me to get involved in more outside activities. I promise I will be in church next Sunday, sitting on that pew, right next to you and daddy.”
My mother grunted before she replied. “Well, you might be in church next Sunday, but you won’t be sittin’ on no pew with me and Frank. We won’t be there,” she informed me.
“Oh? And why not?”
“Me and Frank is gwine to spend the rest of the summer in the Bahamas.”
“Excuse me?”
“On top of everything else, you need to get your ears checked or cleaned. You didn’t hear what I just said?”
“It sounded like you said you and Daddy are going to spend the rest of this summer in the Bahamas. Did I hear you right?”
“Yeah, you heard me right. That’s what I called to tell you when I left those messages.”
“Well, will you at least tell me how this came about all of a sudden?”
“It’s a long story,” she began. Just as I suspected, Muh’Dear was going to answer my question in a roundabout way.
“I’ve got time,” I insisted, rubbing my forehead with the balls of my fingers.
“You remember old Miss Jacobs, whom I used to work for when we lived in Florida? That white woman with them real hairy legs, remember?”
“I remember the Jacobs woman,” I said, groaning. My mother was reopening one of the many wounds from our past. “How could I not remember that old battle-ax? She hit you with her cane that time for not cleaning something right, and I bit her on her hairy leg.”
“And you shouldn’t have done that to that white woman. It could have got us lynched. White folks was straight-up bloodthirsty back then.”
“She used to fart in front of her company, and you used to claim it was you,” I reminded her.
“That was part of a servant’s job. No decent white woman in America would ever own up to somethin’ as gruesome and unlady-like as a public fart. I can’t even begin to imagine dainty white ladies like Sophia Loren or Princess Diana pootin’. They like to keep a dog or a servant around so they can blame it on the dog or the servant, if they have to.”
“Muh’Dear, where is this conversation going? Are we going to sit here and discuss white women’s gas problems?”
“You the one that brought it up!” Muh’Dear got silent and stayed that way for a long time.
I was getting more and more frustrated and sorry that I had returned her call without having a few drinks first to make it less painful.
“I thought you were going to tell me how this trip to the Bahamas came about,” I said, hoping that she could tell from the curt tone of my voice that I was impatient and tired. I always tried to hurry my mother along, but it never did any good. She did and said everything at her own pace.
“Well, old lady Jacobs passed away a few weeks ago, and her son Ezra got a detective to hunt me down. She’s the Jew lady that used to play with your ears so much when you was a young’un. Remember her?”
“I just told you that I remember the Jacobs woman,” I stated flatly.
“Her boy wants to sell the beach house that Miss Jacobs bought in the Bahamas after her husband died so she’d have somewhere to go in the wintertime. At least that was what she told her boy.” At this point, my mother lowered her voice and said what she had to say next in a whisper. “Your daddy said she probably bought that place down there so she could take advantage of them black island men.” Muh’Dear paused long enough to suck
her teeth in disgust.
She continued, speaking in a loud voice again. “Anyway, her son has to be in Spokane, where he lives, for a long murder trial. He’s a prosecutor. Miss Jacobs had fired every single one of her servants a few days before she died. To make a long story short, the boy wants me and Frank to go down there and look after the place until he can get down there to sell it and do whatever else he needs to do.”
My ears were almost numb, and I was so exhausted, I didn’t even care what the rest of the story was. But I knew that my mother was not going to release me until I’d heard it all. “I’m glad to hear that, Muh’Dear. I know how much you love the Bahamas,” I managed, rolling my eyes up toward the ceiling.
“Well, this time when I go, it’ll be free, and I won’t be in no economy hotel, like all them other times we went down there. Old lady Jacobs always bought the best that money could buy, so I know her place will suit me just fine. Jenny Rooks, my day manager, will run the business while me and Frank is away. All I need for you to do is check on the house from time to time.”
“When are you leaving? When do you want me to pick up Charlotte?”
“That’s the other reason I called. I don’t want Charlotte to miss out on all the things you missed out on when you was her age, so she’s gwine with us. This will be a good experience for her. How soon can you get all her summer clothes packed up?”
My breath caught in my throat, and I was stunned speechless.