by Mary Monroe
I was immediately taken aback. Maybe she was not as sharp as I thought she was after all.
“Uh, are you still interested in the job at my husband’s barbershop?” I asked in a reserved tone of voice. I had to remind myself that since I didn’t know Lizzie that well, she could turn out to be just as big a nut as some of the other people I had interviewed.
“Oh, my God! Are you serious? I thought about what you’d said in front of Henry and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like you were saying it for his benefit. I didn’t know you were really that serious about hiring me!”
“When can you start?” I asked.
“I got the job?” she squealed.
“If you still want it, you can start right away. Now, take a couple of hours and think about it, and call me back at my office.”
“Can I start tomorrow?”
“Sure, be at my husband’s shop at nine.”
I didn’t like to call Rhoda’s house now that Jade was back in the picture. I usually waited until she called me. But I couldn’t wait this time. I called her as soon as I got off the phone with Lizzie. To my horror, Jade answered the telephone.
“Hello, Annette. Are you still with that fine-ass husband of yours?”
“Hello, Jade. Yes, I am still with that fine-ass husband of mine,” I said stiffly.
“Hmmph! I guess anything is possible. To tell you the truth, I thought he’d have moved on by now. And you, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Jade?”
“Well, I have a hard time believing that a man like Pee Wee is still married to a woman like you.”
“If my husband ever leaves me for another woman, you will be the first person I tell. Now, if your mother is available, please put her on the phone.”
“She’s in the den having a drink with my husband,” Jade reported.
“Oh yeah! She told me you got married. Congratulations!”
“You don’t have to worry about getting me a gift this time.”
“I won’t.” I covered my mouth so she wouldn’t hear the snicker that I couldn’t hold back. “Hmmm. Well, Jade, they say you can’t keep a good woman down. You’re living proof that that’s true. You’ve had two nervous breakdowns, flunked out of college, and had your first fiancé desert you on your wedding day, and you’re still going strong. I admire you.”
“Look, lady! If you or anybody else thinks that I am going to curl up into a ball and slide into a hole because Marcelo jilted me, you’re wrong—with your piggly wiggly self! Do you hear me? I could marry any man I want, and I did! LaVerne loves me to death! And he does everything, and I do mean everything, that I tell him to do! See, he knows what he’s supposed to do to keep a woman like me happy!” Jade’s outburst did not surprise me, and her hostility didn’t faze me the way it used to.
“Have a blessed day, Jade.”
“Ugh,” she grunted.
I was very anxious to meet her husband now, so I could see with my own eyes what a real fool looked like.
The next voice I heard belonged to Rhoda. “I hope my daughter didn’t say anything nasty to you.”
“To be honest with you, I couldn’t tell if she was being nasty to me or if she was being her usual self. Anyway, I called to tell you that I hired somebody to work for Pee Wee, and she’s going to start tomorrow. She was just that anxious. Remember Lizzie Stovall?”
“Lizzie…Lizzie—oh yeah! Your mama and I were just talkin’ about her the other day. Of course I remember her. Poor thing. She was that lame-legged girl who used to sit behind me in Miss Kline’s homeroom. Lizzie was so sweet! She used to bring the whole class homemade chocolate-chip cookies twice a week. You couldn’t have found a better person to work for Pee Wee. I am so happy to hear this news!”
I laughed. “Rhoda, calm down. It’s just a manicurist job, not a walk on the moon.”
“Well, it’s an important job, and I know that Lizzie will look at it as such. Not only is she dependable and loyal, she’s as appealing as a sow’s ear. You won’t have to worry about her runnin’ off to get married or comin’ in to work late because she was out partyin’ the night before at the Red Rose.”
“Based on what she told me, if her social life was any slower, she’d be dead. She doesn’t even date much either.”
“Much? Honey, she doesn’t date at all. Can you believe that in this day and age? She’s even a couple of months older than I am. And accordin’ to the gossips at Claudette’s beauty shop, that poor woman is still a virgin, or at least close to it.”
“That’s her business,” I remarked.
“Well, she does good work. If you like her, you’d better make sure Pee Wee treats her well so she’ll stay.”
“I’m sure he will,” I told Rhoda.
CHAPTER 23
The northern part of Ohio was enduring one of the worst winters in years. There was so much snow on the ground the last Friday in February, the schools and some businesses had to close until the weather got better. I was not lucky enough to get any time off. We had too many cases pending. Some were fairly recent, like people who had overspent on Christmas a couple of months ago. They were the people who had acquired new credit cards just before the holiday season. Then they’d maxed them out and failed to make the first payment. The merchants wasted no time turning them over to us. But the majority of the delinquent accounts were from the previous year, and the years before. Mizelle’s Collection Agency kept the local process servers in business.
I still looked forward to going to work. It was a tough job, but that was one of the things I liked about it. It kept me on my toes and well grounded. It also made me appreciate all of the things that I had to be thankful for, like my husband and my daughter. Speaking of Charlotte, she was as happy as a clam that she didn’t have to go to school that Friday or Monday, and her plan was to lounge around the house and watch music videos. Her daddy had other ideas. He decided to take that Monday off, too, but he didn’t plan on sitting back and letting Charlotte goof off.
The weather got even worse. By Tuesday evening, it was so bad they had to close some of the streets, so I couldn’t drive home from work or get home any other way. The closest motel to my office was one that I swore I’d never set foot in again because it was where I’d spent a lot of my time sexing my young lover last summer. But it was spend the night at the Do Drop Inn, my office, or my car. It was too cold and dangerous for me to sleep in my car. The few diehard employees who reported to me who had come to work that day had all managed to get rooms at the Do Drop Inn because they’d called early enough. By the time I called for a room, there were no vacancies left. Just as I was about to get comfortable on the vinyl couch in my office, using my tweed coat for a blanket, the motel manager called me back and told me they had a cancellation. I didn’t think to call Pee Wee up to tell him where I’d be. But the next morning when he called my office, he didn’t sound too happy.
“Where the hell did you spend the night, woman?” I didn’t like his gruff voice, and I had told him more than once that I didn’t like it when he referred to me as “woman.”
“I told you that I couldn’t get home because the roads over in this part of town had been closed down by the city.”
“That ain’t what I asked you!” he bellowed.
I didn’t respond right away, and that seemed to upset him even more. “Annette, did you sleep in your car or what?”
“No,” I mumbled.
“Well, you didn’t sleep in your office like you said you was goin’ to do. I called your office four times, and you didn’t answer your phone. Now, was there someplace at your work where you slept that was so far away you didn’t hear the phone ringin’ in your office?”
“I slept at a motel. Most of the people who work with me had rooms there, too. Happy?”
“You slept at that fuck-nest where you fucked that punk last year, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I slept at the Do Drop Inn. I had no choice. Like I said, the roads were closed. The
y kept coming on the radio telling people not to try and drive. I couldn’t fly, so I couldn’t come home. What else could I do?”
“Did you sleep alone?”
“Of course I slept alone, dammit. What the hell makes you think I didn’t? I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”
“You did before.”
“Well, I am not lying now!” I must have been talking pretty loud because the receptionist knocked on my door. “Yes!” I shrieked.
“Annette, is everything all right?” Donna asked in a shaky voice.
“Everything is fine!” I hollered back. “Pee Wee, you got some kind of nerve coming at me with this foolishness. I spent the night at that motel last night, and if I can’t get home tonight, I will spend tonight there, too. If you don’t like it—you can kiss my ass!”
“I just…see I…for one thing, you could have called me from the Do Drop Inn to let me know you were there!”
“So you could talk all that trash about it being that fuck-nest where I screwed Louis Baines? Look, I am not in the mood to deal with you right now. I’m sitting here in the same funky underwear and clothes that I wore yesterday, and even though I took a shower before I left that fuck-nest, I feel nasty as hell. I am warning your black ass that if you continue this foolishness when I get home this evening—if I can get home—you will be sorry.” I slammed down the telephone.
An hour later, he called again. “Look, baby, I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean no harm.”
“You told me that you wouldn’t throw my affair in my face,” I whined. “And it was the first thing you could think of…”
“I said I was sorry. Now, I just called to apologize, so when you get home this evenin’, we won’t mention it. All right?”
“Well, I can assure you that I won’t mention it. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a meeting to go to.”
He didn’t mention our heated discussion when I got home that evening. He didn’t mention much of anything, and neither did I. We talked only when we had to. It was a tense week. He slept in the same bed with me, but he slept so close to the edge that the only way I knew he was even in the bedroom was by his loud-ass snoring.
Since he was so grouchy, I waited until the end of the week to ask him how Lizzie was working out. He had softened a lot by then. A sour look immediately formed on his face, so I braced myself.
“You and your bright ideas,” he said with a dry laugh. He stood by the sink in the kitchen working on his second cup of coffee that morning. He was already dressed for work. He looked so good standing there in his crisp white smock and black pants. Right after I’d sent Charlotte off to school, Pee Wee and I rushed to our bedroom and made love for the first time since our argument. We had just returned to the kitchen.
“Oops,” I said, cringing. “Things aren’t going that well, huh?”
He shrugged. “I won’t say things ain’t goin’ well. It’s just that things ain’t goin’ the way I expected them to be goin’ by now.” He set his empty cup in the sink and joined me at the table. “Henry might run me out of business after all.”
CHAPTER 24
“Please stop singing that tired old song!”
“Baby, I am just bein’ up front with you. Hirin’ Lizzie might not be the answer to my problem with Henry after all.”
“Exactly what is the problem with her?” I wanted to know, crossing my legs.
“She’s kind of quiet when she’s workin’ on a customer’s nails. You know how much socializin’ we do over there.”
“Tell me about it. I know all about the whooping and hollering that goes on in that shop. I’ve walked by there more than once when you and your boys were on such a rowdy roll, I didn’t bother to enter.”
“It’s just barbershop stuff, baby. We ain’t no louder up in there than you and your women friends are at Claudette’s beauty shop. I’ve walked by there a few times myself and I was scared to enter.”
“The thing is, you just might be a little too rowdy for a woman as shy and conservative as Lizzie. If you want her to feel more comfortable, and more like a part of your team, encourage her to participate in the conversations. They say that still waters run deep. Maybe all she needs is for something to stir her up a little.”
“I can do that, I guess,” Pee Wee offered. He paused and gave me a sad look. That told me that there was more to this than just Lizzie being too quiet. There were times when it was hard to get information out of Pee Wee. I wondered if I didn’t drag certain things out of his mouth, if he’d ever tell me on his own. This was one of those times. He had me all worked up about his problem with Lizzie and, as usual, it looked like he was going to leave it up to me to sort it out. And by making me drag the information out of him that I needed to work with, it made my role in this mess that much harder. And I didn’t like it one bit. As a matter of fact, I promised myself that in the future when he had a problem that was related to his business, I’d let him handle it on his own. That is, unless it involved me directly.
“Pee Wee, something tells me that there is something else you want to complain about regarding Lizzie. If that is the case, would you please do so? Or do I have to sit here and play twenty questions, or some other kind of guessing game?”
He covered his mouth and released a quiet cough. Then he started talking real slow and in a low voice. “We need to discuss her appearance.”
“Her appearance? What’s wrong with her appearance?” I laughed. “Now look. Even in school Little Leg Lizzie was no femme fatale. She didn’t have any fashion sense then, and she doesn’t have any now. So what? You don’t need some hoochie coochie woman up in that barbershop with her titties and her booty hanging out of a see-through mini-dress, now do you?” I laughed again.
“That ain’t exactly what I’m talkin’ about.” Pee Wee paused and gave me an “I’m not sure what to say next” look. He waited, looking at me like I was supposed to know what was coming next.
“Baby, my mind-reading skills are kind of rusty, so could you help me out here?”
“See, she ain’t exactly ugly after all, or nothin’ like that, but a little eye makeup and some rouge wouldn’t hurt. Women customers might get the wrong idea when they see her. They might get offended….”
“What do you mean by that? You make the woman sound as gruesome as a one-eyed Cyclops.” I pushed my half-empty coffee cup to the side.
“If you went into a beauty shop and saw the woman who was goin’ to work on you to make you beautiful, wouldn’t you feel better if she was already lookin’ mighty spiffy herself?”
I blinked.
“I’m just sayin’ that we have to look the part. We can’t expect our customers to have much confidence in us makin’ them look good if we ain’t lookin’ good. Is that makin’ any sense to you?” Pee Wee rubbed my shoulder. “I mean, I like Lizzie and I know she needs a job. But if I am goin’ to hold my own against Henry Boykin, I need all the help I can get. I heard a real reliable rumor that he’s got some of his boys out on the street passin’ out flyers advertisin’ all kinds of deals and puttin’ coupons on folks’ windshield wipers at the mall parkin’ lot.”
“So? You can be just as enterprising as Henry.”
Pee Wee kept talking, as if he had not heard a word I’d just said. “He’s got so many new customers; if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he was dealin’ drugs again. If that’s the case, I don’t have a chance to move up to the next level. I will need all of the help I can get just to stay in business. And I don’t think Lizzie can help that cause. There’s a lot of young people out there. The hip-hop crowd. They don’t want to come into my place with a grandmammy-lookin’ woman like Lizzie workin’ for me. It’s bad enough that Henry is part of that generation, so he’s already got that edge on me.”
I gave Pee Wee’s words some thought. “You’re right. The only way to fight fire is with fire. And you have to really get on the ball in this case.”
“Meanin’ what?”
“We could give Hen
ry a run for his money if we do things right. We need to do something extreme.”
“Like hirin’ one of them cute little Asian gals to work for me?”
“Not that extreme,” I chided. I was only half joking. “I’m telling you now that if you do hire an Asian woman, she’d better look like Charlie Chan,” I snapped, surprised and annoyed that a man as sensible as Pee Wee would make such a frivolous remark. “You know I’m just kidding. You can hire anybody you want to hire as long as she’s competent. But I hope you give Lizzie a good reason when you fire her.”
“I don’t want to fire Lizzie. I just want to spruce her up some,” Pee Wee said quickly. “She’s a really nice woman.”
“And you know what else? I got a real close-up look at her that day in the café when I interviewed her. She’s not nearly as homely as people make her out to be. As a matter of fact, she’s got some really nice features to work with. With the right hairdo and the right makeup, she could shine like a new dime. I know you can remember how people used to treat me like a frump—and I was.”
Pee Wee gave me one of the most loving looks I had ever received from him. I could have looked like Mighty Joe Young, but from the way he was looking at me, you would have thought that I looked like Sade, Janet Jackson, and Mariah Carey all rolled into one. “Let me tell you one thing right now, you ain’t never been no frump to me. Since the day I met you, I have always thought you looked like a film star.”
“That’s not saying much. Godzilla was a film star.” I chuckled. From the stiff look on his face, it was obvious that Pee Wee didn’t see any humor in my comment, so I cleared my throat and got serious again. “Anyway, because I worked on my appearance, and lost all of that weight, the same people who used to make fun of me are now stopping me on the street to tell me how good I look. I don’t care what people say about looks not being everything, that’s a damn lie. People respond to the way you look. Why don’t you tell Lizzie in a nice way to fix herself up a little.” I didn’t think that there was anything wrong with my suggestion, but the way Pee Wee reacted you would have thought that I’d just told him to cut off Lizzie’s head.