by Mary Monroe
“I have a real busy social life,” I reported, hoping that that statement would make him ease back a little.
“I’m sure you do. A fine sister like you. I should be so lucky to get you to go out with me again. But if I do, it’d be a blessing. Especially after all of the grief I’ve had to deal with lately.”
“You mean your mama’s passing?”
He nodded. “That’s part of it.” He paused and blinked a few times. When he spoke again, his voice was so low I had to lean closer toward him to hear. “My son by my high-school sweetheart passed, too. Suicide.”
“Oh? I didn’t know you had a son.”
He nodded again. “When I got back from ’Nam, me and his mama had him. My son’s mother is a sister named Lois Dench. She didn’t want to get married, but she wanted that baby. His name was Michael. Me and Lois broke up right after he was born, and they moved to Cleveland. The boy stayed in trouble up there, so they moved back down here. He took a shine to one of his uncles, who happened to be a straight-up thug, so he kept backsliding. He got into one mess after another down here.”
“I didn’t know you were related to the Dench family,” I mumbled. “I knew Michael, and I had no idea he was your son. He used to work for the same company I work for.”
The room suddenly seemed dark and more like a long black tunnel or some kind of cave. It was nowhere I wanted to be. I really wanted to flee the scene now. How in the world was I going to tell Jacob that some people held me responsible for his son’s death?
CHAPTER 44
“Your son…he was a sweet boy and a hard worker,” I stammered. “And Michael is my favorite name for a boy.”
“He was my only child.” I could tell that Jacob was in pain, but he managed a weak smile. “He was smart, too. I bet he could have ended up working in a high-level management position some day. Yep, he was the only child that the good Lord saw fit to bless me with.”
“Hmmm,” I said, rubbing my chin.
“Hmmm what?” Jacob gave me a confused look.
“I am surprised to hear that you have only one child. Now, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you got around in the bedroom, brother. And you got around in a lot of different bedrooms.”
“Well, that’s true. But he was the only one I had that I know about. And he will be the only one I ever do have. My baby-making days are over.”
“Oh. I can understand that. With all the diseases we have to be concerned about these days, a lot of folks, just as many men as women, are choosing to abstain.”
Jacob threw his head back and laughed long and loud. Now I was the one with a confused look on my face. “That’s not what I meant! I don’t plan on giving up my fun for at least another twenty or thirty years. And even then, if my motor needs a tune-up, I will make a beeline to a doctor and get myself a big supply of Viagra. Maybe by then they will have something even more potent.”
“I’m sorry. But when you said you were through making babies, I thought…”
“You thought I was through having sex? You’re not the first woman to think that when I mention my situation. But the truth of the matter is, I’d love to have more kids! It’s just that I can’t. See, a few years ago, I got some strange virus, and that ruined my chance of ever having any more biological children. That was why I really wanted to have a relationship with Michael.”
“I always knew that you wanted kids, and I knew you’d make a good father, Jacob. At least we have one unique thing in common.”
Jacob’s eyes searched mine. Apparently he had no idea what I was talking about. “You had just the one child, I have just one child, and we both would like to have more,” I stated. “I had my daughter late in life, and for a long time I was happy with just one child. But my daughter was not happy about that, and she was the one who told me, ‘An only child is a lonely child.’”
“Is your equipment still working? You don’t have to answer my question if you don’t want to. It’s just that the last woman I was involved with, she’d had a hysterectomy. And the one I was with before her, she’d had her tubes tied. I know that when a woman reaches middle age, her baby batter is usually a little stale by then. Having babies that late in life, there’s no telling what kind of crossed-eyed gnome you might give birth to.”
“Jacob, if my daughter was a crossed-eyed gnome, I wouldn’t love her any less. But I am thankful that she is healthy and attractive. Your son was, too.”
“Yeah, he was. Thanks for saying that, Annette.”
“The females in my office couldn’t take their eyes off of him,” I said with a giggle.
“I guess he got his good looks from me,” Jacob said with a straight face. I didn’t comment on his comment, but it wasn’t true. Jacob was no baboon, but he was no Mr. America either. The exceptionally good looks that his son had possessed had come from his mother.
“You’ll be happy to know that I thought your son was one of the sweetest young men in Richland. And I’m sure he loved you.”
“I appreciate you saying that, too. Too bad his mama didn’t feel that way. She made it hard for me to see him. Every time I tracked her down, she moved.”
“Didn’t you have to pay child support?”
“Oh, I did that. I didn’t miss a payment. But since I couldn’t keep up with her, I paid her for his upkeep through the system. And the situation stayed that way until he reached legal age and I didn’t have to support him anymore. But since he was grown by then and could make his own decisions, he let me know where he was staying at all times. We had just started to get close a few months ago. He got a job, but that didn’t work out. They say that’s what pushed him over the edge. I don’t know all of the details, and nobody wants to discuss it with me.” Jacob choked back a sob and I had to hold my breath to keep from doing the same thing myself. “Anyway,” he continued, “I was visiting some of my mama’s folks in DC when he hanged himself. It just broke my heart. I would have done anything in this world to help save my boy, and that’s what I was trying to do. But I was too late.”
“I got to know your son fairly well. Actually, I was his supervisor when he died,” I admitted.
Jacob’s eyes got so wide so fast he looked like an owl for a few seconds. “You? You were the one who fired my boy? I was told that it was some mean-ass bitch that had ice water in her veins! That doesn’t sound like you!”
For a moment, I thought that Jacob was going to strike me. But he just stared into my face, like he was searching for an explanation as to what my role was in his son’s death.
“I didn’t know people saw me that way. I was just doing my job,” I whined, knowing that that was the last thing that a grieving father wanted to hear.
“I see,” Jacob said with a sniff. He suddenly looked so sad I thought he was going to burst into tears and weep like an old woman. I was glad he didn’t, because the look on his face made me want to crawl under the table.
“And I didn’t fire your boy. I got attached to him right away. I want you to know that if I had a son, I would have wanted him to be as polite and as ambitious as Michael was.” I paused and swallowed one of the lumps in my throat. I was glad to see that Jacob didn’t look as sad now. “The last day that he worked for me, I was prepared to offer him the job on a full-time basis, but he didn’t give me a chance to talk to him about it.”
Another unbelievable look of sadness crossed Jacob’s face. This time I was the one patting his hand.
“He was a fine young man, and I am so sorry about what happened to him. I would give anything in this world if I could go back to that day. I would have met him at the door that morning and told him he had a permanent job. I wanted to help him, but I guess I was too late, too.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over something you can’t change, Annette.”
I still felt some guilt over Michael Dench’s suicide, and the sooner I got over that, the better. I knew that if I could do anything to make Michael’s family get over their tragedy faster, I had to do it.
“Jacob, I hope you still like good home-cooked meals. Because if you do, I’d really like it if you’d come by the house some time soon to have dinner with my daughter and me.”
“I’d love that,” Jacob said, almost drooling.
“Jacob, what are you grinning about?” Jade asked as she stumbled off the dance floor and back to her seat, with Vernie, Rhoda, and Otis close behind. They all sat down at the same time. “Annette must be putting some real funny bugs in your ear for you to be showing so much of your gums.”
“I hate to leave, but Jacob and I are going to go home and finish off a mess of collard greens and some hush puppies that I had left over from yesterday’s dinner,” I lied. Jacob didn’t bat an eye, and he didn’t even seem surprised by what I’d just said.
“Aw, shuck it! That’s a damn shame. I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon. I’d love to hear more about…uh…whatever it is you’re doing these days to keep your mind off the fact that your husband left you for another woman, Annette,” Jade babbled. As soon as she stopped speaking, a loud, viper-like breath hissed from her pouting lips. A veil of indifference covered her face.
“I am really sorry that I can’t stay longer, too, Jade.” Now I was the one being nasty and sarcastic, and I knew she knew that. I could tell by the glare on her evil face. Jade was an extremely beautiful young woman. Like Rhoda, she seemed to look more and more like supermodel Naomi Campbell with each passing day. But Jade’s personality and demeanor were so ugly—at least as far as I was concerned—that I could only acknowledge her beauty through a pig’s eye. You would have thought that I was Miss Piggy by the way I was looking at her now.
“Annette, why in the world are you staring at me like that with that stupid look on your face?” she asked, fidgeting sideways in her seat. If Vernie had not secured her in place by wrapping his arm around her shoulder, she would have slid to the floor. She was slurring her words and the whites of her eyes had begun to turn red.
“I was just thinking about how sweet you were when you were a little girl,” I replied in a heavy voice.
She released a loud hiccup before she stammered, “I’m…I’m still sweet!” She looked from me to her parents and then to her confused-looking husband for confirmation. “Aren’t I, Mama? Daddy? Vernie, you told me to my face one time that if God made a sweeter woman than me, He kept her for Himself. Didn’t you?”
“I sure did,” Vernie answered, his words fumbling over his lips like clumsy feet. “And that’s still true today.”
“Seeeeee,” Jade sang. Her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets as she shot dagger looks at me.
I gave her a pitiful look and shook my head. That made her look even more indignant. “Good night, everybody,” I said gently, not taking my eyes off of Jade. “Jade, happy birthday again. If I had known that you were going to be here tonight, I’d have brought you a present.”
“And I wonder what that might have been?” Otis yelled. He was beginning to look and act drunk, too.
“Oh, there is just no telling!” Jade shouted, almost leaping out of her seat. “After all, Annette is the dollar-store queen.”
Rhoda was obviously annoyed, and I had a feeling that she was as uncomfortable as I was. Somehow, she managed to keep a smile on her face.
“Annette, you don’t want a piece of cake?” Otis asked. “Or are you still counting dem calories. You can still take a tiny sliver with you!”
“Don’t force her, Daddy. Can’t you see she’s gained back some of that weight—and in all of the wrong places.” Jade snickered, shaking her head as she lifted a knife and positioned it above her birthday cake. “Vernie, scoot over to the bar and see if they’ve got some milk—and make sure it’s low fat!”
Vernie rose at the same time that Jacob and I did. He went one way and we went the other.
CHAPTER 45
“Annette, this is Pee Wee. You know I don’t like to talk to noanswerin’ machine, and knowin’ you, you probably standin’ right next to it listenin’ to me talk. So pick up!” Pee Wee paused for about ten seconds.
I was in the living room where the telephone with the answering machine sat on one of the end tables next to my couch. I rolled my eyes and just stared at it. You would have thought that I was looking at a rotten apple, because I didn’t even want to touch it.
When I didn’t turn off the answering machine and pick up the telephone, Pee Wee continued speaking. “I don’t want to say what I’m goin’ to say to a machine, but you don’t give me no choice.” He paused again, and this time I heard ice cubes clinking against a glass so I knew that he was drinking. That made me really not want to pick up that telephone. It was hard enough trying to have a sensible conversation with him when he was sober. And now that I had so much red-hot anger practically cremating my peace of mind, the less I talked to him the better. At least until I cooled down to a sizzle.
“You listen here, woman!” He was yelling so loud his voice echoed. “I don’t know who you’ve been talkin’ to and who’s been puttin’ shit in your head, but you better straighten up and you’d better do it quick. I don’t appreciate you sendin’ a process server to the restaurant where I was havin’ dinner with some friends this evenin’. Do you know how embarrassed I was? And if you think I’m goin’ to make it easy for you to get a divorce, you got another think comin’. Shit!”
I could not believe that this was the same mild-mannered man I’d known for over thirty years. If a midlife crisis was responsible for the metamorphosis that had turned him into such a dick, there was no hope for the rest of the world.
I reached over to turn off the answering machine and take his call, but I was too slow. He had already slammed down the phone, and so abruptly and hard that it made me shudder.
I called him back immediately. He didn’t answer. I hated talking to answering machines, too, but I did.
“Pee Wee, if you’re there, please pick up the phone.” I gave him a full minute to do so, but he didn’t.
I had other things to do, so I wasn’t going to waste any more time on him. I had invited Jacob to dinner, and I wanted the evening to go well.
I had left work early so I could take my time shopping for all the things I needed for this special occasion. Jacob was a meat and potatoes man, so I wasn’t going to insult him by serving pizza like he had suggested.
I had picked out one of the best-looking rump roasts that I’d seen since my size 24 days. That and a pot of collard greens, some baked potatoes, and a peach cobbler seemed like the perfect reunion feast for me and Jacob to get reacquainted over.
He had been to my house a few times since that night at the Red Rose, but he’d stayed for only a couple of hours each time. Other than a few lingering kisses, and his hands roaming over a few intimate locations on my body, we had not taken our relationship to the next level. And I had my work cut out for me. I started by telling him that he needed to do something about his bad breath. He was surprised to hear that he even had that problem. And he was even more surprised when I told him that he’d always had that problem. I couldn’t believe that nobody had told him about it in all of these years—especially the women he kissed. He thanked me for telling him, and from that point on, he kept an ample supply of breath mints and other breath-freshening products in his pocket. And just to be on the safe side, I stocked my candy dishes with the same things for when he visited me.
Charlotte liked Jacob, especially since two of the times that he’d been to the house he’d brought gifts for her. When I told her that he was going to join us for dinner tonight, she got so excited you would have thought that he was her date. But only because she knew he’d be bringing her another gift. However, she had chosen to eat dinner and spend the night with the Turner kids across the street. She’d made that decision as soon as she found out I was planning to serve greens
again for dinner. One reason my daughter, as well as most of the other kids in the neighborhood, liked to hang out at the Turner residence was because the Turners rarely cooked most of the foods on the average black child’s hate list, like the collard greens and the rump roast that I had on the menu.
We rarely ate meals in my spacious dining room anymore. So since this was such a special occasion for me, I thought it would be nice to set the table with a new white linen tablecloth, candles, and a vase of fresh red and white roses. I had even purchased some maroon-colored place mats.
Jacob was due at six, so when I heard a car in the driveway, I assumed it was him. I glanced at my watch. It was only five thirty. Before I could make it to the window to peep out and see who it was, my kitchen door flew open.
Pee Wee stormed in looking like a mad man. “What the hell is this?” he screamed, waving some papers in my face.
I calmly took the papers and looked at the top page. “Hmmm. It looks like a notice that I’m divorcing you,” I said, tilting my head. I looked around the kitchen to make sure my rolling pin was handy. Since the day that I’d used it on Lizzie, I kept it on the counter close to the door. Pee Wee saw me looking at it, so he moved back a few steps. “What did you think the papers were?”
He snatched the papers out of my hand. “I can read! I know what it is!” he hollered, shaking the paper like he was trying to shake off the words on it.
“Well, if you know what it is, why are you asking me what it is?” I folded my arms defiantly. “What did you expect? Did you think I was going to wait around for you to serve me?”
“Who said I was goin’ to serve you?” There was a wounded look on his face. You would have thought that I’d already slapped him upside the head.
“Why else would you be talking to a lawyer?”