Having a restful sleep was essential tonight. Charity looked for the one gown she knew would make that easy to accomplish. She went through two drawers of clothes to find the long, thin white cotton gown with pink embroidered flowers on the bodice and wide shoulder straps. She draped it over her shoulder and went to the bathroom to draw her bathwater. As the water filled the tub, she lit a jasmine-scented candle on an adjacent black wrought-iron stand. The only thing missing was a cup of hot tea. She left the tub running and went to the kitchen to boil a small pot of water.
When she noticed the blinking red light on the wall phone, she picked up her cordless and dialed the number to check her messages.
Welcome to the message center. Two new messages are in your mailbox. First message, today, three thirty-one p.m. “Hellllloooo, this Emmitt. Just calling to let you know I picked Lil’ Man up from school. Hold on, he wants to say something. Tell your momma hey.”
“Hey, Mommy.”
“She not there, we leaving a message. Tell her you love her.”
“I love you, Mommy.”
“All right, tell her bye.”
“Bye, bye.”
“Like I said, we was just calling. Call us when you get in. Bye.”
To save this message, press two, to erase—
She pressed “two.” She knew it wouldn’t be long before she’d start missing her son and would want to hear his voice again. It made no sense for her to call him, because it would make him want to come home. And the last thing she wanted was to hear him cry. Especially while he was with his father. That would make things harder for them both.
Charity walked back to the bathroom to check on her bathwater.
Message saved. Second message, today six p.m.
“Cherry. It’s Mom. Y’all must still be at work. I ain’t heard from Esha yet either, she supposed to bring the kids by. I was calling to find out how she did on her first day at work. Hope you ain’t had to fire her already. Take it easy on her, you know she ain’t never worked a day in her life. I don’t know where she get that from ’cause I ain’t raise her to be like that. What you do with Zavey if y’all still at work? Lord, this his weekend with his daddy, ain’t it? They better not mistreat my baby down there or I’ll go down there myself and… Hello? Hello? See, God don’t like ugly, your answering machine trying to cut me off. What Esha say? ‘They better recognize, they better ask somebody.’ Let me get off this phone, I cracks myself up. Call me later, Cherry. Love ya, bye.”
To save this message—
“Definitely erase this one,” she chuckled, and pressed “three.” She ran her hand through the bathwater to make sure it was hot. “Just right.” She dried her hand on a nearby towel and dialed Emmitt’s phone number.
Lord, set a guard over my mouth and keep watch over the door of my lips.
“Joe’s Pool Room,” Emmitt answered.
There used to be a time when Charity thought his dry sense of humor was cute. But after they married it irritated her that he would answer like that. It didn’t matter to him that she was a professional woman, that important people from her job or church called the house. There was no telling how many opportunities they missed from people who hung up thinking they’d really dialed Pizza Hut, The House of Blues, or Psychic Friends Network.
“It’s a good thing I’m not Ed McMahon calling to tell you you’ve won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes,” she said, forcing laughter into her voice.
“Well, are you?”
“Emmitt, it’s Charity. How are you?” She hoped she didn’t sound too agitated.
“I’m hanging in there. How ’bout you?”
“Really tired, but I wanted to return your call and see how Zavey is.”
“He’s out like a light. I knew he was sleepy around seven ’cause he started whining.”
“Umph,” was the only thing she could think of to say. She knew he was getting ready to go into his spiel about boys crying like little punks.
“He must’ve forgotten where he was ’cause he know I don’t play that whining mess. It might work when he’s with you ’cause you let him have his way. But I done told him, whining don’t get you nowhere.”
She attempted to appease him. “You’re right about that. Whining won’t get you anywhere. Well, I just wanted to return your—”
“I’m just saying, sweetie…”
Charity straightened her back like she was bracing herself. She knew that he only called her pet names when he wanted something.
“The boy six years old whining like a little girl,” Emmitt continued. “You need to nip that in the bud. It ain’t cute no more. He too old for that.”
“Okay, I will.” Charity fought back frustration and worked hard to keep her voice even. She didn’t want to raise her voice or let any choice words slip out of her mouth. In the past she’d given him plenty of reasons to accuse her of not being Christian-like, and she didn’t want to add this to his repertoire. She’d grown tired of his sarcastic remarks about not believing that she was really a minister.
“I ain’t fussing at you. You’re doing a good job with him, but all that whining ain’t necessary for a boy. People gone think he a punk. He’s already small for his age and I know the little boys are gone tease him. I’ve been there, I know. You used to work with kids, you know that too.”
She could still hear him talking even though she’d taken the phone away from her ear. Every now and then she’d put the phone up to her ear and mouth to say, “Uhm hum.”
“All right, Emmitt. It was good talking to you. You have a nice night and kiss Zavey for me.”
“I will. Just think about what I said.”
“Okay, good night.” She hung up the phone before he could respond.
She grabbed the Bible she kept in the bathroom on the shelf above the toilet. She could feel her emotions rise up on the inside of her like boiling hot lava in an erupting volcano. She was either going to cry or vomit if she did not calm down. She hated feeling like this—like a scared child who could not stand up for herself. No one could make her as angry as she allowed Emmitt to. She turned her Bible to Ephesians 6. But she kept going back and repeating verse 12 over and over. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” she read aloud. “But against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” She meditated on that Scripture until the strong grip of her anger was loosened.
She ran more hot water into the tub and relaxed every part of her body easing into the water. She wondered if Calgon could really take her away.
Iesha was glad to get those boots off her feet. It felt as if she’d already spent the night on the dance floor and she hadn’t even left the house. She figured that if she soaked her feet for a few minutes and wore her bedroom shoes for awhile, her feet would be rested by the time her friends arrived to pick her up for the club.
“Raquan, what’chu in there whining about?” she yelled from her room to her son.
“Sha-Lai hit me, Momma,” he whined.
“Sha-Lai, get your fast tail somewhere and sit down ’fore I come in there and sit you down. I done told you, you ain’t nobody’s momma. You ain’t got no chaps to be hitting. Is your stuff packed?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Quan, you done packed your bag?”
“Almost.”
“Get y’all stuff together so I can drop y’all off at Momma’s. Y’all getting on my nerves and we ain’t been home but fifteen minutes.”
Raquan walked into her room carrying the cordless phone. “Telephone, Momma.” She’d been yelling so loudly that she hadn’t heard the phone ring. “She got it, Sha-Lai,” he said into the telephone, “hang up that other phone.”
Iesha snatched the phone from him. “Hello?”
“Hey E, what you up to?”
“Nothing, girl. Hollering at these hard-headed chaps of mine. Wait a minute, Mercedes, hold on a minute.” She covered the mouth
piece with her hand and yelled, “Sha-Lai, put some water in my foot spa and bring it here since you need something to do with your hands besides hitting people.” She took her hand away from the phone and continued her conversation with one of her best friends, Mercedes. “I’m back, girl. These chaps getting on my nerves. Sha-Lai is nine, going on nineteen. And Quan seven acting like he two. They’re getting ready to go to Momma’s.”
“You late. Mine are already gone. Why yours still there?”
“You know I started working today.”
“That’s right. E is a working woman now. How ya like it?”
“It’s all right, I guess. I don’t think I’mma like working for Cherry and all her uppity, super-Christian friends,” she said, plopping her feet into the bubbling foot spa. “She got this one chick working for her who be talking in proverbs like Gandhi or somebody. We had to introduce ourselves tonight and she gave a freaking speech. And then had a nerve to bow. I think something wrong with her, myself. She ain’t quite right if you ask me. She weird and I don’t fit in with them and I ain’t gonna try.”
“That’s right. Keep it real. West siiii-eeed,” Mercedes chanted.
“Girl, you stupid. There is a lot of plus sides though.”
“Like what?”
“For one, her office is in the black Taj Mahal.”
“You lying? Your sister got an office in Present Day? She is uppity, ain’t she?”
“Watch your mouth. Can’t nobody talk about my sister but me.”
“My bad.”
They laughed together. “Girl, the biggest plus is all the BMWs they got in there. It’s black men working in there everywhere. Doctors, lawyers, you name it. I even met one today.”
“Whaaaaaat?”
“Yep, a businessman. His name is Wallace and the boy got it going on. You hear me? He gotta body like a man fresh out of prison,” she laughed. “Ya’ll gone have to come and eat lunch with me in the courtyard one day.”
“You ain’t said nothing but a word. How ’bout Monday?”
“Long as you don’t come looking as desperate as you sound. What time ya’ll gone get here tonight?”
“I don’t know why I’m still your friend with all the junk I let you talk to me.”
“’Cause you know I love you.”
“Nah, it must be because I love you. It’s almost eight-thirty. What time you gone take the kids to your mom’s?”
“As soon as I get off the phone with you, I’m out the door.”
“Well, I’mma pick Traci up and we’ll stop by the ABC store and then head on over to your place. You want anything in particular?”
“Nah, the usual will be fine.”
“All right then, I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Peace out.”
Iesha carried Raquan into her mother’s house. He had already fallen asleep during the fifteen-minute drive.
“Hey, Ma,” she said, opening the door with her own key.
“Hey, Mah Mah,” Sha-Lai sang as she wrapped her arms around as much of her grandmother’s wide waist as she could. It was unmistakable that Iesha got her looks from Mama Lorraine. They were both the same cocoa complexion, same height of five-foot-seven, and had the same body type. Mama Lorraine looked young for her age and was always mistaken to be Charity’s and Iesha’s sister.
“Hey, Tootie,” she reached down to return her granddaughter’s hug. She kissed Iesha on the cheek, “That boy already sleep? Go lay him across the bed in the back.” Iesha left the kitchen but she heard her mother tell Sha-Lai, “I guess we’ll have to watch The Son of the Mask and eat this popcorn and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies all by ourselves.”
“Ma, ya’ll still buying those bootleg videos?” Iesha called from the back room. “I thought Daddy said he wasn’t going to buy any more of them tapes since the last ones were messed up?”
“Chile, Willie gave him his money back and let him trade them tapes. Your daddy’s been a faithful customer ever since.” When Iesha walked back into the room, Mama Lorraine pointed to the long cabinet drawers on the bottom of the entertainment center. “Look down there. We got Mudear Goes to Jail, Man of the House, and Diary of a Mad Black Woman.”
“Ya’ll wrong. Ya’ll still Christians ain’t you?”
Mama Lorraine laughed. “Where in the Bible does it say we can’t buy bootleg tapes?”
“Ooooh, Ma. You know you’re wrong for that. Your Bible does say ‘thou shalt not steal,’ don’t it?”
“Since when you know what the Bible says, Ms. Lady-of-the-night? If I’dda known it was only going to take one day for Cherry to rub off on you, I would’ve prayed about this sooner than I did.”
Iesha raised her eyebrows. “Cherry ain’t rubbed off on me. I ain’t nothing like her and never will be.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing to be like her.”
“I don’t mean it like that—”
“I was gone say, ’cause the girl doing good. She done gone to college and got not one, but two degrees. She has her own business and got you working in it. She in church every Sunday, not to mention that she’s a preacher. And, she doing a good job raising that boy all by herself without so much as a penny from that sorry ex-husband of hers who still living with his momma. What you see that’s so bad about that?”
“Nothing Momma,” Iesha said, figuring she’d better quit while she was ahead. Mama Lorraine was not the type of mother to lose an argument. At least not without a fight. Iesha still remembered the whipping Mama Lorraine put on her when she was thirteen. She recalled sneaking out of the house after Mama Lorraine changed her mind about letting her go to the mall with friends. When she returned, Mama Lorraine didn’t let her get in the door before she pinned her to the floor. If her father hadn’t pulled her off Iesha, Momma would probably still have her hands around Iesha’s neck. If she didn’t know it before, she learned it then that Mama Lorraine doesn’t play. “Cherry never could do no wrong in your eyes anyway,” she heard herself say before it registered in her brain.
“What’chu say?”
Oh Lord. Iesha didn’t say anything, for fear that she’d already said too much.
“I said, what did you say?”
“I was just saying, Momma, you always call me on my mess but you don’t never say nothing to Cherry when she mess up.”
“Girl, I’ll slap the tastebuds out your mouth, accusing me of treating y’all differently. As hard as I work not to give one of y’all more than the other. You been whining about I love Cherry more than you ever since she became a part of our family. I love that girl like she my own flesh and blood and here you is acting like the adopted one. Girrrrrrrl,” she growled.
Iesha grabbed her purse. “Ma, I did not come over here to argue with you. I just wished you’d realize Cherry and I are two totally different people and be okay with that.” She turned her back on her mother to walk to the door. She just knew Mama Lorraine would snatch her back.
“I am okay with it, you’re the one that’s got a problem with it.”
“Okay, Ma. I gotta go.”
“See, there you go. You’re always running when you get uncomfortable with something.”
“No, I don’t want to keep Mercedes and Traci waiting. They’re probably already at the house,” she said, trying to sound like she wasn’t lying.
“All right then. I expect we’ll finish this over dinner on Sunday. That way your daddy and Cherry will be involved. I wanna get this out in the open. Should’ve done this a long time ago. You go on. I’ll see you tomorrow. What time you coming to pick up the kids?”
“About noon.”
“All right, I’ll see you then.”
When Iesha got outside she couldn’t do anything but thank God because she knew it was only Him that kept her mother off of her. She sat in the car for almost ten minutes, to think more than to warm up the car. Maybe Momma’s right. Maybe I am the one with the problem not being like Charity.
Chapter 3
IT HAD TO BE A
LL OF SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. The bedroom was enveloped in total darkness. Emmitt raised up high enough to look at his alarm clock.
“Boy, you better go back to bed,” he said, lying down again. Xavier was on his knees bouncing up and down on the foot of his father’s bed.
“Is it time to eat, Daddy?”
“Time to eat? Xavier, it’s six twenty-seven. Go back to bed.”
“Six twenty-seven in the day or at night?”
“Xavier Ahmad, it is early in the morning. You need to go to your room before you get a whooping.”
“Ooookay, Daddy,” he whined, crawling backward off of the bed. “Can I sleep in your bed?”
“Only if you gone sleep.”
Xavier climbed back onto the bed and snuggled so close to his father that he felt like a second layer of skin. He and Emmitt lay on their sides, and he fell asleep with his head under Emmitt’s chin and his back against his chest. Emmitt secured his son in position with his arm over him. He wished it could be like this always. He hated that Charity had left him. Talking about she didn’t want a divorce, she just wanted to separate for a while. She could’ve at least left Xavier. Emmitt smiled before he drifted off to sleep, remembering how hurt she was when she received the divorce papers in the mail. That was a move she never expected him to make.
“Aaahhh… ain’t that sweet?” Emmitt’s mother sang as she watched them sleep from the doorway.
“Can a man get some sleep around here?” he joked as he yawned and stretched, waking himself up. “Lil’ Man came in here ready to play at six this morning. I thought I was gonna have to whoop his behind to make him go back to bed.”
“He probably used to waking up that time of morning since he’s in school now.”
“I know he tired.” Emmitt smoothed Xavier’s hair with his hand. “Always running with Charity—she got a meeting on this day, working out that day, church services this, and prayer meeting that. The boy be up from six in the morning to about seven thirty at night. That ain’t good for a little boy. I bet that’s why he so hyper.”
Good to Me Page 3