by Mary Monroe
“Do you need a ride home? How did you get over here?”
“I took a cab. I got out at the corner and walked the rest of the way.”
“Well, can I offer you a ride home?”
“Oh, Lord no! If one of Jade’s nosy neighbors saw me getting out of your car, she’d teach me a lesson I’d never forget. I appreciate your listening to me, and I’d appreciate it if you’d keep my visit a secret. I’ll flag down another cab at the corner.”
“You don’t have to worry about me telling anybody about you coming over here. And please feel free to come again.” I hugged Vernie and walked him to the door. “And, Vernie, I’ll be praying for you,” I told him as I clicked on the porch light.
He gave me a weak nod, pulled the hood on his windbreaker back up so that it covered the top part of his face again, and then trotted off the porch. I watched him move toward the street, dragging his feet like he was on the way to his execution. It broke my heart. I knew that if Vernie didn’t get tough with Jade soon, he’d end up just like me: bitter and prone to violence.
I went back into the living room to finish my drink. A couple of minutes later, somebody knocked on my door again. I looked out the peephole, but even though I had turned on the porch light, I still couldn’t see who was at my door this time. That meant that the visitor was covering my peephole. I moved over to my front window and cracked open my curtains. It was Jacob.
I snatched open the door and gave him an angry look. “Please tell me why you are here?” I demanded, one hand on my hip.
“Never mind all that! I want to know who that young nigger was that just left your house, bitch!”
CHAPTER 52
I had promised myself a long time ago that the one place I was not going to tolerate somebody disrespecting me was in my own house. I grabbed the broom that I had placed by the door. Then I stood in my doorway looking at Jacob like he had lost his mind.
“You can’t be coming over here talking to me like that!” I hollered with my fingers curled around the broom handle. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I am Jacob Lee Brewster, BITCH!”
“So?”
“I am your man!”
“Not anymore!” I screamed before I slammed the door in his face and locked it.
I was surprised that he didn’t knock again. I waited until I heard him leave the porch before I put down the broom. I peeped out the window and saw him driving away, and that was when I went back to my drink.
The following day at lunchtime, Rhoda dropped by my office. She looked as gorgeous as ever. She wore a beige dress with a matching shawl and a pair of low-heeled black pumps. Her makeup was flawless, and her long, thick black hair was in a ponytail. She looked fifteen years younger.
“I tried to call you last night, but you didn’t answer and your machine didn’t pick up. Is everything all right?” she asked as soon as she entered my office. In addition to the vinyl sofa in my work area, there were a couple of chairs that faced my big cherry oak desk. She dragged one up close to me and placed her elbows on the top of my desk. “You look worried.”
I looked at her and shook my head. “Same shit, different day,” I said with a shrug. I couldn’t tell her about Jacob’s visit last night without telling her about Vernie. I decided to improvise. “I don’t think things are going to work out between Jacob and me.”
“Here we go again,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Does this have anything to do with what we talked about yesterday? His relationship with your daughter?”
“It’s not just that. He’s too pushy and possessive for me. I need a man who knows how to behave.”
Rhoda laughed. “Like my son-in-law?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I sat up straighter in my chair and straightened a stack of manila folders on my desk.
“The boy is so docile. He’ll do anything you ask him to do without protest. That kind of behavior can cause a person more grief than anything. I’ve told him that if he stood up to Jade, she would back off.”
“Have you tried to talk to Jade about her cutting that boy some slack?”
Rhoda didn’t even bother to answer that question. She just rolled her eyes. “Next question.”
“Well, he seems like such a sweet young man. I hope she doesn’t run him off like she did that sweet little Mexican dude. You can kick a dog around for only so long and he’ll get tired. And when he gets tired enough, he’s either going to retaliate or haul ass.” I dipped my head and turned it slightly to the side as I gauged Rhoda’s reaction.
“You don’t think my beautiful daughter can hold on to her husband? The women in my family don’t believe in divorce, you know.”
“I know that. This is not about your beautiful daughter being able to keep her husband. He’s got a mind, too. And sooner or later, he’s going to put it to use.”
“Let’s change the subject,” Rhoda suggested with a heavy sigh. “I had a rough night. Jade came home from a night out with her girls and as soon as she saw Vernie, she got all over him because he’d gone to bed when he should have waited up for her. Hell, it was three in the mornin’ and everybody else in the house was in bed. What did she expect him to do? Anyway, she made him get up and go to the Grab and Go to get stuff to make her some tacos. He was gone only twenty minutes. When he returned, she met him in the driveway convinced that he’d taken so long because he’d met up with another woman. She choked, kicked, and punched him, and made him drop the taco things. By the time me and Otis got dressed and outside to calm her down, the package of ground beef, taco shells, and everything else was all over my front yard, all in the street, even up under my SUV, girl.”
A sad thought crossed my mind. I couldn’t get the image of Vernie’s long face out of my head. I even tried to shake it out, but it remained there as I resumed my part of the conversation. “Rhoda, I don’t know what to say about your daughter or my new man. But I think they both need some serious help.”
Rhoda looked at me with renewed interest. “Is Jacob so bad that you want to cut him loose?”
“I…I don’t know what I want to do about him. He’s fun…sometimes. He’s good for some, uh, maintenance sex. And…and he keeps me from feeling lonely. When I’m with him, I don’t think much about Pee Wee and what I’m going to do about him. Let’s go get something to eat.”
I went to a salad bar with Rhoda and when I returned to my office, there was a huge floral arrangement on my desk from Jacob. He had also left four voice mail messages. In each one, he declared his love for me, and he moaned and groaned about how sorry he was for the way he had acted at my house the night before. Even though he sounded genuinely sorry, I still didn’t want to talk to him or see him.
Two days later, when Pee Wee brought Charlotte home from a night out with him at the pizza parlor and the mall, he came in. He usually didn’t come in when he returned her home, but since she had several bags, he did.
“I just wanted to help Char get her stuff in the house,” he said, giving me an apologetic look as he entered the kitchen. “But don’t worry, I ain’t goin’ to stay but a minute.”
Charlotte must not have wanted me to see all the junk and other unnecessary mess she’d talked her daddy into buying, because she’d already dashed through the kitchen like a reindeer and on up to her room.
“You can stay as long as you want to stay,” I told him. I took the remaining two shopping bags from him and set them on the counter. “You want a beer or something?”
I was so preoccupied I was not even aware of what I was saying. When I realized I’d invited him to “socialize” with me, I changed my tune. “Uh, you can take one with you if you want,” I amended.
I pretended not to see the dry look that he shot at me. “You got company comin’ or somethin’?” he asked, removing a beer from the refrigerator.
“That’s right!” I said quickly. “He’ll be here real soon.”
I decided that my last statement would prompt him to leave immediately. It
didn’t. He dragged a chair from the table to the middle of the floor, turned it backward, and straddled it. From the look of things, he was going to take his good old time leaving.
“Uh, excuse me a minute. Charlotte sounds like she’s tearing down the house. I’d better run upstairs to see what she’s into,” I said.
I dashed upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. I cracked open Charlotte’s bedroom door, gave her a quick dirty look, scolded her about all of the noise she was making, and then ran into my bedroom and called up Jacob.
“Annette, baby, I’m so glad to hear your voice,” he said as soon as he realized it was me on the other end of the line. “Baby, please give me another chance. I am sorry about barging up on your porch. But it was my dead son’s birthday and I was depressed. I didn’t mean to behave the way I did. I’d been drinking…”
“I got the flowers you sent today and I wanted to thank you. I also wanted to know if you’d like to come over for a little while tonight?”
I could tell he was surprised. The gasp that he released sounded like the hiss of a cobra. “I can be there in ten minutes!” he yelled, sounding so giddy it was frightening.
He lied. It didn’t take him ten minutes to get to my house. Eight minutes later when I returned to my kitchen, where Pee Wee was still kicking back at the table drinking his beer, Jacob stumbled up on my front porch.
Charlotte let him in, squealing his name. He entered the kitchen with her riding him piggyback.
The minute Pee Wee saw Jacob’s face and Charlotte riding his back, he rose so fast he almost knocked over his chair, grumbling with disgust under his breath.
“I didn’t know you had company,” Jacob said, looking embarrassed. There was so much tension in the room you needed a meat cleaver to cut through it. I was glad that Jacob immediately untangled Charlotte from his back and set her down on the floor. “Dude,” he greeted Pee Wee, attempting to slap his palm. Pee Wee just glared at Jacob, looking at him like he wanted to punch him in the nose.
“Annette, I’ll talk to you later,” Pee Wee said, looking at me like he wanted to strike my face, too. Then he seemed to soften. “By the way, I wanted to thank you for droppin’ the divorce….” There was a smug look on his face as he turned to Jacob. Then he looked at me with his chin tilted upward, and his legs reared back like he was about to moonwalk.
I tried to look nonchalant so it would seem like the divorce was not that important to me for the time being. “Well, I delayed it so I could give it some more thought,” I clarified. “You’ll be hearing more from me and my lawyer eventually.”
Pee Wee rubbed the top of Charlotte’s head, kissed her on the cheek, and then left. He didn’t even bother to look at me again; but from the way he looked at Jacob on his way out the door, if looks could kill, Jacob would have dropped dead on the spot.
CHAPTER 53
They say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Less than a week after I’d allowed Jacob back into my life and bed, he started acting a fool again.
I had dropped Charlotte off to spend Thursday night with Pee Wee so I could go to a bachelorette party with Rhoda that night. The agreement was, he’d keep her with him until he heard from me on Friday.
That Friday morning around ten, a folder ended up on my desk at work. It was red, which meant it was an extremely difficult case. Those were some of the ones that I usually handled. I groaned as soon as I saw it. I knew from past experiences that whoever the debtor was, he or she was going to cuss me out, talk about me like a dog, call me all kinds of obscene names, tell me to do something sexual to myself that was anatomically impossible, and then tell me where to go. That’s what I usually had to put up with. I groaned again when I opened the folder and saw who that deadbeat was. Jacob’s name leaped out at me like a panther.
“I’ll be damned,” I said to myself as I looked over the documents. I could not believe my eyes. Jacob had defaulted on a huge bill to the funeral home that had handled his mother’s funeral!
That devil had not paid one penny of the six thousand plus dollars that he had agreed to pay! I squinted my eyes to make sure I was seeing right. I leaned back in my chair and gave this situation some thought. I knew that most people had insurance on their loved ones so that they’d be prepared to cover final expenses when the time came. I had such insurance on my parents, my daughter, and myself. I still had burial insurance on Pee Wee. I was glad that he had not made me mad enough for him to require a burial. And Jacob had told me to my face that his mother had made him her beneficiary on her life insurance policy—two hundred thousand dollars! He had used the money to go on that lavish cruise he’d told me about, purchase his new car, upgrade his wardrobe, and do some home improvements. Had he no shame?! Apparently, he did not.
It saddened me to know that there were people on the planet who cared more about material things than they did their mother’s final arrangements. And this was the man whom I was involved with! That saddened me, too. When old Mr. Boatwright died, well, when Rhoda smothered him to death, I had treated him with utmost respect to the very end—and he’d sexually abused me for ten years! Despite that, I’d helped my mother plan his funeral, I’d prayed for his wretched soul, and I was there when my mother wrote a check to the undertaker to cover his funeral. Not once did she, or I, even think about not paying off that expense.
To my surprise, Mr. Boatwright had left instructions in his will stating that all of the money left over after his funeral expenses had been settled was to go to me. Even then I had a hard time spending that ten thousand dollars on myself. And it never occurred to me to spend it on something as frivolous as a cruise and a new car!
I got so light-headed that I had to stand up. I couldn’t understand how anybody could do what Jacob had done. And he must not have cared because he had let it go into collection. His poor mother was probably spinning in her grave.
I looked at the telephone; then I looked at the folder in my hand. I had no idea how I was going to approach this mess. But it was my job and I had no choice.
I reached for the phone, but then I stopped when I realized he was at work. I didn’t want to leave him a voice mail message, so I decided to confront him face-to-face. I knew that this shit was going to have a negative impact on what was left of our relationship, so I had to resolve it with a long-handled shovel.
I kept myself busy the rest of that afternoon, calling some of the other deadbeats. By the end of the day, I’d been cussed out and called every name in the book. I was still tired from staying late at the bachelorette party the night before, so I couldn’t wait to get home.
I picked up some Chinese takeout after I left work. Around six that evening, I called up Pee Wee and asked him what time he was going to drop Charlotte off.
“Charlotte’s not with me!” he said quickly, panic in his voice.
“But—but the girl from her school called me up and told me that her daddy was there to pick her up!” I hollered, clutching the telephone in my hand like it was trying to get away. “What—oh shit!”
“What in the hell is goin’ on, woman? My child is missin’?”
“Um, that must have been Jacob that picked her up. You know white folks think we all look alike. That girl probably thought it was you!”
“Look, I don’t care what the hell you do with that punk! But I sure as hell care about what he does with my daughter. Now, if you don’t want to end up in court in a custody battle, you’d better get the spirit, sister!”
“I wish you would calm down. Jacob loves children!”
“That’s what’s got me so worried! And you, of all people, after what you told me you went through with Mr. Boatwright—”
“Hold on. I hear a car.” I laid the kitchen phone down on the counter, ran to the living room window, and snatched open the curtains. There was Charlotte crawling out of Jacob’s car with three shopping bags. As soon as I opened the door, he blew his horn, waved at me, and sped off like he was driving a getaway car.
I grabbed Charlotte by the arm and pulled her into the house.
“What the hell is the matter with you, girl? You don’t leave school with anybody but me, Rhoda, your daddy, or your grandparents.”
“Dang, Mama! Why are you tripping? I was with Jacob. He says he’s more like family.” She was clutching the straps of her shopping bags so tight she must have thought that I was going to take them from her. “He took me to that sale at the Barbie store in the mall. Then when I told him you had picked the stems off some greens last night so you could cook them up for dinner tonight, he felt sorry for me and took me for pizza.”
“Go put your things away and get back down here. We need to have a long talk.”
As soon as Charlotte stomped up the stairs with her lips poked out so far it looked like they’d been starched, I returned to the telephone. “Everything’s fine. It was just a big misunderstanding,” I told Pee Wee in a calm voice. “Jacob had picked her up from school.”
“Shit! Oh, hell no!” He was frantic. “If you can’t straighten out that punk, I will! If I hear about him pickin’ my daughter up from school or doin’ anything else with her that I don’t think is right, I am goin’ to kick his ass! Will you pass that on to him for me?”
“Pee Wee, you are overreacting. And as far as I’m concerned, this conversation is over.” I hung up.
When Charlotte finally joined me in the kitchen, her face was so long it almost touched the floor. “You don’t want me to have no fun,” she said with a pout.
“Honey, I want you to have fun. I know it’s important for a girl your age to be happy. But it’s more important for you to be safe. The world is not what it used to be, and you can’t trust everybody.”
“What are you talking about, Mama? I was with Jacob, not the boogeyman. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”
“You don’t understand. Anybody can be the boogeyman….”
I could see that I had only confused her more. “Charlotte, when I was a little girl, younger than you, somebody my mama trusted took advantage of me.”