by Mary Monroe
Grandma Lilly never got the chance to see my daddy’s mansion or meet the “lovely woman” Daddy was so crazy about. Three days before we were supposed to do that, my beloved grandmother went to sleep and never woke up. I didn’t know she was already dead before I returned to school that Tuesday morning in February, the day after the President’s Day holiday. We’d only been in our new home a couple of weeks. When I got home that night around eight (I’d treated some friends to a movie and dinner after school) and found her still in bed, I knew immediately that something was wrong. My hands were shaking so hard I kept dropping the telephone when I attempted to call my daddy. A woman answered.
“Is this Mrs. Lomax?” I asked in a loud voice. I knew Daddy had a housekeeper and since I’d never spoken to my new stepmother, I didn’t know her voice.
“Yes, this is Mrs. Lomax.”
“Um, I’d like to speak to Mr. Lomax, please.”
“Who are you and why are you calling here for my husband?”
Since this lady sounded so gruff, I lowered my voice to a whimper. “Uh . . . I’m his daughter, ma’am.”
“Oh,” she said. She didn’t sound so gruff now. But she sounded disappointed.
“I need to talk to my daddy right away. It’s real important,” I bleated. My stepmother didn’t say another word. She didn’t even give me a chance to explain why I was calling. About a minute later, my daddy was on the line.
“Lomax speaking. How can I help you?” he said, sounding distant and businesslike. I guess his wife didn’t even tell him that it was me calling!
“Daddy, it’s me,” I sobbed. “Grandma Lilly won’t wake up.”
“Sarah? Is your grandmother ill?”
“I don’t know. I just got home a little while ago and it looks like she didn’t get out of bed today. She’s just laying there with her eyes closed. And . . . and she’s real cold and stiff, and she’s not breathing.”
“Oh my God! Don’t you move! I’ll be right there!”
CHAPTER 15
VERA
I HAD PUT OFF MEETING SARAH AS LONG AS I COULD. BUT WHEN KENNETH brought her to the house the night her grandmother died, I had no choice. I groaned when I saw her suitcases. My finding out that she existed had been traumatic enough. Her moving in with us meant that I’d have to see her every day, talk to her every day, and worst of all, be her “mother” every day. This whole mess had become unspeakable and unbearable. I didn’t know how I was going to get through this latest development. How I managed to smile at her was a mystery to me. But I did. I even hugged her as soon as she entered the living room.
“Sarah, I’ve been so anxious to meet you,” I declared. I had to hold my breath to keep from smelling that loud cheap hairspray she had saturated her hair with. With her thick curly brown hair and her boxy, corduroy jumper and flat-heeled loafers, she looked like a black Orphan Annie. Why she was dressed in such a pitiful outfit was a mystery to me. What I couldn’t understand was with all the money Kenneth was giving her these days, why was she still shopping in dollar stores?
“Yeah,” she muttered, giving me a distant look.
“It’s just that I’ve been so busy and sick these past few weeks,” I lied. Every time Kenneth had attempted to arrange a meeting, I’d feigned one ailment after another. And he didn’t dare dispute my claim. He didn’t want to lose me (and Lord knows I didn’t want to lose him), so he bent over backward to keep me happy.
Having Cash and his wife under the same roof now gave me more leverage. Whenever a dispute came up between me and Kenneth, they took my side and Kenneth backed down real quick. He knew he had to if he wanted to keep me happy. That was why he didn’t even bat an eye when I told him I was thinking about bringing my cousin Bohannon Harper up from Houston so he could work at one of the stores. Cash and Bo were about ten years younger than me, but we’d always been close. I was the big sister they had always wanted and they were the brothers I used to pray for. Cash was a jackass, but Bo was a sweet, hardworking man who was just as easy to manipulate as Cash. That was fine for me, but other people took advantage of Bo’s easygoing manner too. His wife, Gladys, was a greedy bitch who had him working two jobs to keep her happy. From the complaints I had heard from my poor cousin, even that wasn’t working out. I had to do something for him.
The more of my family members I had around me—the acceptable ones, of course—the easier it was going to be for me to deal with Kenneth’s child. Now that Kenneth had put his daughter in his will, I had to work overtime to make sure she didn’t get what was mine. But last night when I called up Bo and asked him again if he wanted to move to California and work for Kenneth, he told me his wife had suddenly become a “changed woman” and he wanted to stay in Houston to work on his marriage. “I appreciate your generous offer, though, cuz. And I appreciate how you always put family first,” he told me before we ended our conversation.
I used to look forward to family affairs. But that was a long time ago. Now that I had an unfaithful husband and an inconvenient stepdaughter, the word family had become like a double-edged sword in my book. I would never look at family the way I used to. That’s why it was so important for me to keep Cash and Bo in my life.
But Kenneth and Sarah were not the only family members I resented these days. I didn’t keep in touch too much with most of my blood relatives either, especially my sisters. Those jealous hussies couldn’t stand the fact that I’d married a wealthy man, and they were still struggling just to make ends meet. It didn’t matter how generous I was to them. They were never satisfied. Last year when I went to Houston, I bought my baby sister Darla a brand-new Altima so she would have a way to go out and look for a job. She let her man talk her into using her car to go visit his mama in Chicago, and he never returned. Since she had let the insurance lapse and she had put the boyfriend’s name on the pink slip, there was nothing she could do. The car was his and she had to go back to riding her bike or using public transportation. When I refused to buy her another car, she stopped speaking to me. My other sisters eventually stopped speaking to me when I stopped sending them designer outfits and money. So now the only family members I helped were the ones who were still loyal to me.
Six months ago, when I went home for my mother’s funeral, two of my sisters didn’t even show up to pay their respects. Nellie, my middle sister, moseyed into the church twenty minutes late. She started whispering into her cell phone as soon as she plopped her bony ass down on the pew next to me. Not once did she shed a tear, and she didn’t turn her phone off until the pallbearers had hauled our mother’s coffin out to the hearse. That really pissed me off.
After my mother’s funeral, I decided I didn’t want to attend another one any time soon unless I had no choice. The minute Kenneth told me that Sarah’s grandmother had suddenly passed, I knew that this was one I wouldn’t be able to get out of.
“Sarah, I am so sorry about your grandmother,” I told her with my arms still around her. “I only wish I could have met her before she died.”
Sarah exhaled and moved back a few steps. “I wish you could have met her too.” She was talking to me but looking at her daddy.
“Uh, Sarah, your stepmother has had a very busy schedule lately and she’s been a little sick,” Kenneth blubbered, mopping sweat off his face with a white handkerchief. “But she’s feeling much better now, so I’m sure she’s going to rearrange a few things on her schedule. Then she can spend time with you and help you get settled in.” He paused and forced a smile. “Now let’s get you upstairs and unpacked so you can pick out something to wear to your granny’s funeral on Saturday.”
Now here I was sitting on the front pew just a few feet from that old woman’s casket. I had only looked at her a few times, and that had been all I could stand. Nothing freaked me out like being in the presence of a dead body. I couldn’t believe how many people actually touched that old woman’s remains. And a few even had the nerve to lean down and kiss her—even Sarah! I couldn’t tell you what all that preac
her babbled about or what songs that sorry off-key choir sang. It was all gibberish to me. My mind was a thousand miles away. Well, actually, my mind was only a few miles away. I was wondering what Tony was doing across town. I glanced at my watch and let out a loud sigh.
“Are you all right, sweetheart? You look uncomfortable,” Kenneth whispered.
“I’m fine. But you know how I feel about funerals,” I whispered back.
Sarah occupied the spot on the other side of Kenneth, boo-hooing up a storm. I had been crying a lot, too, but for a different reason. Having that child living in my house was going to be the biggest challenge of my life. Every time I looked at her, I would be reminded of Kenneth’s betrayal.
CHAPTER 16
VERA
JUST WHEN I THOUGHT THINGS COULDN’T GET ANY WORSE, THEY DID. First of all, I was extremely disappointed that Bo was not going to move to California. He was a smart man but docile enough for me to keep him under control. I had manipulated him and Cash since they were toddlers. If Bo lived in San Francisco and worked for Kenneth, he could help me keep Kenneth and all of that money the business was making under control. And since I had no intentions of working for Kenneth (or anybody else for that matter) so I could keep an eye on him myself, I decided that Bo would be the next best thing.
One of the things racing around in my mind during Sarah’s grandmother’s funeral was my telephone conversation with Bo the night before and how stupid he had sounded talking about how his wife had changed. That woman had been fucking him over for years. Just last week when he and I spoke on the telephone, he was threatening to kill her! The more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got.
Then, after that old woman’s funeral, two of Sarah’s hoochie-coochie friends crawled into the limo with me and Kenneth and Sarah because they wanted to see Sarah’s new home. Their names went in one of my ears and out the other; I just thought of them as Hoochie Mama One and Hoochie Mama Two.
“I want to see what kind of house gots eight bedrooms,” Hoochie Mama One hollered. This one had spent most of the time at the funeral standing in the back of the church listening to her Walkman and flirting with a boy with several gold teeth and his hair in cornrows.
“I feel you,” Hoochie Mama Two yelled back. Both of these bums wore outfits and hairdos I had only seen in nightclubs: tight skirts; see-though, low-cut blouses; fishnet stockings; and stiletto heels. Their weaves looked like they had been attached to their heads with staples.
I was horrified when one said to me, “Where you get your weave done at?”
“I don’t have a hair weave,” I snapped, patting the side of my hair. Yes, I did have a hair weave, but since mine looked so much better than theirs, I refused to admit to it.
“Well, who be doing your hair?” the same one asked, giving me a suspicious look.
“I go to Pierre at Tres Chic,” I bragged. I was one of the few black women that Pierre Bardot—one of the most famous hairdressers in Northern California—worked with. Not because he didn’t like to deal with black folks but because I was one of the few black women who could afford his prices.
“Ain’t that some kind of French?” I was so detached from these two hoodlums I didn’t even know which one was speaking now.
Kenneth sat facing me, looking disgusted and amused at the conversation I’d been dragged into. Sarah’s head was on his shoulder. Every time one of her crude friends said something, Kenneth looked at me and rolled his eyes. I was glad to see that he appeared to be as annoyed with them as I was. Now, because of Sarah, kids like these two were going to be in my presence on a regular basis.
I was elated when the limo stopped in front of the mansion. I ignored the two hoodlums gasping and oohing and aahing like they’d just landed in Disneyland for the first time.
Kenneth had a headache, so he went upstairs to lie down as soon as we got inside. Sarah was grieving so hard she had a headache too. All she wanted to do was sit on the plush blue velvet living room couch with a long face. It was up to me to “entertain” the two hoochies, and that was one thing I was not too thrilled about. When I left Houston, I thought I was through dealing with people like these and their uncouth behavior. Now here it was again, in my beautiful mansion!
“Would you girls like some tea?” I asked, forcing myself to keep the fake smile on my face.
“Tea?” Hoochie One snickered, looking toward the bar on the opposite side of the room. “My grandmama don’t even drink tea. You ain’t got no Pepsi?”
“And what y’all got up in here to eat?” Hoochie Two wanted to know. She repeatedly turned her ashy neck from side to side like a marionette, looking around the living room at the antique furniture and original paintings that I’d picked out myself right after I moved in with Kenneth. “This is the first funeral I went to where they didn’t have no real good stuff like fried chicken and some greens and corn bread. That’s what we served at my baby daddy’s funeral last month.” She shook her head and mumbled more complaints under her breath.
“Whoever heard of black folks serving them itty-bitty ham squares and cheese sandwiches at a funeral in the first place?” Hoochie One complained.
I had helped Kenneth make the funeral arrangements. Had I left everything up to him, he would have ordered fried chicken and greens and corn bread. He had protested when I suggested cheese sandwiches and ham squares. But like always, I had gotten my way this time too.
I had given Delia the day off. I excused myself to go get a couple of soft drinks and some ham and cheese sandwiches that I’d asked her to make the night before.
Sarah offered to show her friends the rest of the house. They were so loud I could hear them even after I had entered the kitchen. Now that they were out of sight, I couldn’t tell which one was doing the talking at all now. “I ain’t never seen no spiral staircase like the one up in this motherfucker!” They kept babbling about how “cool” or “hella sharp” this or that was and asking how much things cost.
“What bus do we take to get home?” Hoochie One asked, walking back into the living room with her shoes in her hand. Her heavy thigh bumped against one of the end tables by the couch, almost knocking one of my exquisite ivory ashtrays to the floor.
“Bus?” I said the word like it was obscene. I would travel by skateboard before I got on a bus. “It’s been more than thirty years since I rode on a bus. I don’t know how they run or even where the bus stops are in this neighborhood,” I replied, setting the ashtray on the mantel above the fire place.
“Dang!” the hoochies yelled at the same time.
“Can’t we give them a ride home or get Daddy’s chauffeur to take them home in the town car?” Sarah asked in a small voice. She was looking down at the floor when I whirled around to give her one of my meanest looks. But both hoochies saw it, too, and I guess that was enough for them to get the message.
“We can walk them nine or ten blocks to the bus stop,” Hoochie One sneered.
By the time they left, stumbling out the door in those four-inch stilettos like two drunken streetwalkers, I had a headache. The insides of my nostrils burned from the unholy stench of their cheap cologne. I sprayed the entire room and the seats they had occupied with air freshener.
I was glad when Sarah got up off the couch and went to her room to continue her grieving. And I was glad that Kenneth was still upstairs lying down. I moved to the kitchen where I sat down in a chair at the large round red oak table that I’d ordered from an exclusive furniture store in Pebble Beach last month. It even had a lazy Susan in the center like the tables featured in some of my favorite old movies. We ate our informal meals here. Dinner was always served in our spacious dining room, which was located on the other side of the living room. I sat in my seat enjoying a glass of wine, going over the unpleasant events that I had endured on this gloomy day.
About an hour later, Cash and his wife, Collette, wandered in from their weekly movie date. Cash and I were first cousins and I loved him to death, but he was as oafish as they
came. He looked like a dark brown frog, but his short, stout, pecan-colored wife looked even worse. She had a wide flat face, beady black eyes, and a nose that resembled a frozen meatball. The only attractive thing about her was her thick black hair. She practically kept the women who braided hair in business.
“How was the funeral?” Collette wanted to know, dropping down into a chair across from me. They had come in through the kitchen door. Each one was clutching a bottle of beer. Cash, still ghetto to the bone, was chomping on a hot link wrapped in a napkin.
“Pure torture,” I moaned, rubbing my forehead with the balls of my thumbs. Then I told them about Sarah’s two visitors and how much they had irritated me. “I’m so glad you two moved in here. I’m going to need both of your shoulders to cry on from time to time now. Otherwise, Sarah and her friends just might drive me crazy.”
“Don’t you worry about nothing, cuz. You know I always got your back,” Cash assured me, giving me a warm look. He set his half-eaten hot link down on the top of the lazy Susan and gave it a few twirls, something you’d expect only a very young child to enjoy.
“And me too,” Collette said, wiping beer suds off her lips. I liked my cousin’s wife. She had been raised in a middle-class neighborhood in Long Beach. But she’d hung out a lot in Watts and Compton, so she was very much aware of the behavior of folks in the ghetto. She knew how I felt.
“I hope Sarah’s friends don’t come around here too often. We’ll have to keep our eyes on them when they do and make sure they don’t walk off with anything.” A frightened look suddenly crossed Collette’s face. She looked toward the ceiling. “Since we’re on the subject, I’m going to lock my bedroom door from now on as long as that girl lives here. I am not even going to let my purse out of my sight when she’s around or when any of her friends come to visit.”