by Mary Monroe
“I just might do that. Good night, Lola. Sweet dreams.”
“Good night, Calvin.”
I hung up and poured another drink.
* * *
It was a good thing I had a buzz when I got to Sylvia’s house at 6:25 p.m. Her family and their friends were more annoying than I expected, especially her pie-faced mother, Gisele. “Calvin, you don’t have enough food on your plate to feed a gnat,” she complained as she piled a yellow meal-like concoction onto my plate. “You’re way too thin for a man!” she added.
People stood around in the dining room with plates of food, chatting away about how happy they were that Sylvia was finally going to get married. “I been telling her all her life no man was going to marry her until she lowered her expectations,” Aunt So-and-So said. Her statement confused and angered me at the same time. I couldn’t decide if this withered old hag was implying that I met Sylvia’s requirements or that she had “lowered her expectations” by settling for me. It didn’t matter which one it was. I was not going to spend too much time with them in the future anyway.
All eight seats at the dinner table were occupied. I sat between Sylvia and her mother. Sylvia’s sister, Sonia, sat directly across from me between her husband, a hatchet-faced Dominican with very dark brown skin and silver hair, and one of her brooding teenage male cousins. “Calvin, you don’t look well,” Sonia blurted out. Every eye in the room was suddenly on me.
“I . . . I’m sorry. I ate something this afternoon that didn’t agree with me.” I coughed and rubbed my chest.
“Don’t worry. I have just the thing for heartburn,” Gisele said. She gave me a pitiful look and started scooting her seat back. “I’ll go get it.”
I held up my hand. “I’m fine. Sylvia already gave me something for it. I left it at home, so I’ll have to leave in a few minutes.”
Sylvia whirled around to face me, but she confirmed my lie. “Uh-huh. I gave him some of the strongest charcoal pills we have in stock.”
“It’s so good to have a pharmacist in the family,” Sonia’s husband said. “We can all get sick for nothing. If we could get us a preacher in the family, we could all be good for nothing.” Everybody in the room laughed, even me.
“Calvin, wouldn’t you like to go lie down in the guest room for a while?” Gisele suggested. “I’d hate to see you leave so soon.”
“I really wish I could stay, but I do need to get home and take care of myself. I have a very important haul down to Long Beach tomorrow and I can’t afford to be sick,” I said as I rubbed my chest some more.
“Well, fix yourself a plate before you leave,” Sonia said. “You barely touched that flank steak I cooked.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled with a grimace on my face. To complete my performance, I wobbled up out of my seat and made a beeline for the bathroom and stayed there for five minutes. When I returned to the dining room, I coughed again. Everybody felt so sorry for me, three people offered to escort me home. “I’ll be just fine. I have only a couple of miles to drive,” I told them.
Sylvia fixed a plate for me and walked me to the door. “I love you, baby,” she whispered.
“I love you too. I’ll call you later tonight or when I get to Long Beach tomorrow.” I couldn’t leave fast enough.
When I got home, I immediately turned on my laptop and pulled up Lola’s profile. I stared at her picture for so long and with so much intensity, it began to look like it was in three dimensions. “You filthy slut! You’re finally going to get what you deserve!” I blasted. “This was a long time coming and I can’t wait to see your face tonight when you see mine . . . for the last time! BITCH!”
Chapter 55
Lola
IT WASN’T EVEN COMPLETELY DARK YET, BUT I HAD ALREADY PUT ON my nightgown and stretched out in the couch bed with a glass of wine and the new issue of Brides magazine. I laid my cell phone on the coffee table so it’d be close enough to answer right away in case Calvin called. Before I could get comfortable, a call came in. I cringed when I saw Elbert’s name on the caller ID. If I didn’t answer, he’d call again. And he would keep calling until I talked to him.
“Hello, Elbert.” It was hard not to sound annoyed.
“Hello,” he mumbled. He rarely asked if he was calling at a bad time, but every time he called was a bad time as far as I was concerned. “I’m cooking dinner for Mama tomorrow to celebrate Mother’s Day. Would you like to join us? I know you’ll be thinking about Bertha not being here to celebrate one last Mother’s Day with you.”
“I have other plans, but thanks for the invitation,” I muttered.
“If you change your mind, let me know.” Elbert hesitated, and listening to his loud breathing for several seconds annoyed me even more. I knew that if I didn’t end this call myself, he’d stay on the line fifteen minutes or longer. Before I could, he continued. “Guess what?”
I let out a loud sigh. “Elbert, I’m busy so I don’t have time to play guessing games.”
“Well, I had a manager’s sale on my meat products today. Jeffrey came in a few minutes before I closed and bought some oxtails. He’s cooking dinner for his mother tomorrow too. He told me he moved out of Bertha’s house and in with one of his cousins until he finds a place.”
“Oh?” I suddenly got interested in whatever else Elbert had to say. “I didn’t know that. Do you know why he moved?”
“He said he’s going to divorce Libby because he’s no longer happy being married to her.”
“I’m so sorry for Jeffrey. He’s such a nice person. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll give him a call tomorrow. Divorce can be so traumatic.”
“Tell me about it. I told Mama that when I get married again, I hope I stay married.”
“I hope you will too, Elbert.”
When he hesitated again, I knew he was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. I was prepared to turn down another invitation to a bingo game or a pot-luck dinner with a bunch of his equally boring church friends. He said the last thing I expected. “Lola, you’re the only woman I can see myself being married to.”
I rolled my eyes and blew out an impatient breath. At the same time, I felt a churning sensation in my stomach. “Me?”
“Don’t act so surprised. I’ve been grooming you for months to be my wife.” He laughed, but I knew he was dead serious.
I liked Elbert, but he was the dullest man I knew. He could bore me to tears, so being his wife was out of the question. “I’m flattered, but I don’t know if I’m ready to take such a big step.”
“Not ready? You’re the only woman our age I know who has never been married.”
“You don’t need to remind me of that!” I snapped.
“Is it that you’re not ready to marry me?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Then tell me why you don’t want to be my wife. I know you have feelings for me.”
“I do have feelings for you, but I have feelings for several other men I know and I don’t want to marry any of them either.”
“I see. So basically what you’re telling me is that I’m competing with ‘several other men’?”
“I didn’t say that,” I said sharply. Now would have been a good time to tell Elbert that I was in love with Calvin, but first I had to find out how Calvin felt about me. “I have to be honest with you. I know I couldn’t live with you and your mama and be happy. I would end up taking care of her and then I’d be tied down just like I was with Bertha. And that’s one thing I never want to go through again.”
“Is that the only reason you don’t want to marry me?” Elbert didn’t give me time to respond. “You won’t have to. Mama’s been seeing a man since last year who’s been badgering her to marry him and move into the senior citizen facility where he lives. She told him to give her a little more time to think about it.”
“Do you think she’ll marry him?”
I didn’t expect his long-winded response. “I know she wants to. I overheard her tell on
e of her friends that she’d love to be married again. My four siblings live in Philadelphia, but they don’t want to be bothered with Mama, so the whole burden is on me. I love her to death, but living with her is no picnic. She recently told me she feels the same way about living with me! She also told me that I’m the only reason she hasn’t moved on with her life. She blames me for her missing out on things she’d rather be doing with her boyfriend. I can’t tell you how that made me feel. Not only that, she told me years ago that she didn’t want to be a burden to me in her old age. She had to take care of her mama and she admitted that it was such a bad experience, she ended up hating my grandmother. Mama was actually glad when she passed. A couple of her friends had similar experiences, and they eventually dumped their parents into the first old folks’ home that had room for them, where they got abused and neglected. Mama doesn’t want that to happen, and neither do I. I didn’t know how she felt until we had a long talk the day after Bertha’s funeral. So you can forget about having to take care of another old lady. Now that I know how Mama feels, I realize I’m a burden to her.” Elbert finally paused. “So what’s your next excuse? Is it because you don’t have any feelings for me? Love isn’t the only reason for two people to get married. Marriage is a partnership, and love is just one of the aspects. We both want children so—”
I cut Elbert off in the middle of his last sentence. I couldn’t stand to listen to him for another minute. “You picked a bad time to bring up such a serious subject. I’m still grieving Bertha’s passing and my personal life is in an uproar. I’m not in the mood to discuss a marriage proposal tonight—especially over the telephone.”
“I can come over right now and do it in person if you’ll give me your address!” I couldn’t believe how eager he sounded. “I’m surprised that you haven’t given that information to me already.”
I was so exasperated, it was hard to remain composed. I had to end this call before I started screaming. “I have to go. We can finish this conversation at another time. I’ll give you my address then.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. We can discuss marriage later. In the meantime, will you still let me take you out?”
“Elbert, we can still go out and we can still be friends. If you don’t mind, I really need to get back to what I was doing. I still have things to unpack.”
“Will you give me a call soon?”
“Yes, I will. Now you have a blessed night.” I hung up before he could say another word.
I turned off my phone and for the next five minutes I stared at the wall and thought about Elbert’s clumsy proposal. Now that I knew how serious he was about me, I was glad I hadn’t told him about Calvin. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings any more than I already had. And I didn’t want to sever my relationship with him completely in case I needed to fall back on him someday.
Joan showed up half an hour after my conversation with Elbert. I decided not to tell her about his proposal for the time being. With her life in such a mess, she probably would have said something I didn’t want to hear.
After a few minutes of small talk, she poured herself a large glass of wine and flopped down on my couch. “Let’s take a Caribbean cruise or fly first class to Mexico and party for a couple of weeks. We could leave next week. I know this rowdy bar on the beach in Puerto Vallarta where we can really let our hair down.”
“Joan, you know better.”
“What?” She took a drink and belched.
“I have a job to go to. I’ve missed several days since Bertha died, so taking off two more weeks this soon is out of the question. And with all my unexpected new expenses, I can’t afford a vacation right now.
“Pffft!” Joan gave me a dismissive wave and took another drink. “You’ll be my guest, so I’ll pay for everything.”
I shook my head and gave her an apologetic look. “I can go with you later in the year, but for now I need to get my affairs in order. And that list keeps getting longer.”
She must have been reading my mind, because what she said next was exactly what I was thinking. “I’m sure that Calvin is at the top of that list.”
I nodded. “Like I told you already, I’m going to find out where I stand with him this coming Monday.”
Joan hunched her shoulders and gave me a skeptical look. “Good luck. Do whatever you have to do if it’ll make you happy. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Before I start partying like a rock star, I’m going to get in touch with DrFeelGood and tell him to set up a date for me to come to Palm Beach for the breast implants and all the rest of the surgeries he promised me. The next time Reed sees me, he’ll realize what a fine-ass, young-looking bitch he gave up.” Joan finished her drink, stood up, and yawned.
“You’re drunk and you look sleepy. You can have the couch and I’ll sleep in the bedroom in the sleeping bag,” I said, rising.
“No. You sleep out here and I’ll take the sleeping bag. Good night, Lo . . . la. Sleep tight,” she slurred as she staggered out of the room.
I left the end table lamp on and stretched out on the couch. I eventually dozed off and probably would have slept through the night if I hadn’t felt my comforter being tugged. “Joan, cut it out and take your drunk ass back to bed,” I scolded. A split second later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned over and opened my eyes, I saw the last person in the world I expected to see hovering over me: Calvin!
Chapter 56
Lola
CALVIN WAS ON MY MIND SO OFTEN NOW, I DREAMT ABOUT HIM almost every night. But tonight’s dream seemed so real! I assumed it was because we’d talked about us dreaming about each other earlier tonight. It took only a few seconds for me to realize I was not dreaming this time.
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and stared at him. “How did you know where I lived? How did you get in my house?” I asked with my voice cracking. He ignored my questions. “Would you please tell me what is going on?” All kinds of strange thoughts were swimming around in my head. Had Calvin died and I was looking at his ghost? He was not an apparition, because his body was flesh and blood and as solid as mine. What I saw in his hand didn’t make any sense. My next question slid out of my mouth like vomit. “Why are you pointing a gun at me?”
“It’s judgment day, BITCH!” he snarled.
I could not believe what I was seeing and hearing. What the hell was going on? My head was throbbing like it had never throbbed before. Either I really was dreaming after all, or I had lost my mind and was having a delusion. Maybe Calvin had lost his mind. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No! I’m as sane as you are! And a lot smarter! You are the stupidest bitch I have ever met!”
Except for Libby and Marshall, no other human being had ever spoken to me in such a disrespectful and hostile manner. Now here was the man I had hoped to marry talking to me like I was a dog. “What are you talking about? Why are you calling me those vile names?” I held up my hand. “I know you have a great sense of humor, but if this is your idea of a joke, you’re scaring the hell out of me!”
“Humph! You should be scared. Because tonight you’re going to get everything a skanky whore like you deserves!”
The gun in his hand kept me from reaching for my cell phone. Without another word, he pulled something out of his pocket and moved closer, holding it up to my face. It was a picture of me! “Where . . . when . . . I never posed for that!” My first thought was that he had photoshopped one of the pictures I had posted on the Internet. But why? I squinted and stared at it a few more seconds. When I looked back at his face, his eyes looked as cold and empty as the eyes on a dead man. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on?” I wailed. “You break into my house dressed like a burglar and point a gun at me and I have no idea why! Was that story about you being a truck driver a big lie and you’re really a criminal who befriends women so you can rob them? If so, why did you choose me? What do I have that you’d want to take? You know damn well I don’t have much now!
And . . . and . . . now you’re showing me a picture of myself that I don’t remember taking.”
“That’s because this is not a picture of you,” he said calmly. “She is . . . was my wife.”
I gulped. “That’s Mrs. Ramsey?”
“Yes and no. Her name was Glinda Price. She refused to take my last name because she claimed it would interfere with her independence.”
This information hit me like a thunderbolt. Glinda Price was one of the three missing black women I’d read about in the newspaper! Calvin’s eyes darkened as he continued. “I was pissed because she didn’t want to take my last name, but I’m glad she didn’t. A lot of the people who read about her disappearance didn’t even know I knew her. She left me for a fucking career criminal. That sucker had been accused of making other people disappear, so nobody who knew she was my wife suspected me when she went missing.” He leaned forward and waved the picture so close to my face, it brushed my nose. “I loved Glinda. She was my world and I would have died for her,” he added in a weak tone. Tears began to roll down his face as he sniffled and cleared his throat. “I couldn’t let her go.”
“What’s that got to do with me?” I whimpered, sounding like a sick kitten.
“Look at this picture some more, BITCH! You thought it was you! The first time I saw the picture you posted online, I realized Glinda was still very much alive.”
“She’s . . . she’s dead?” I stammered.
“Very dead, and has been for several years.” Calvin blinked and shook his head. “But she’s still with me.” He narrowed his eyes and gave me the most menacing look I’d ever seen on a man’s face. “I killed that whore the night she tried to walk out on me. She’s in a freezer in my garage.”
“You killed your wife and stuffed her into a freezer?” I asked in stunned disbelief.
He nodded. “And she’s not alone. Two other sluts, who looked enough like her to piss me off, are with her. And guess what? It’s a big freezer, the kind they use in restaurants and hospitals and whatnot. And guess what else? There’s room for one more body. Do you want to know whose body that’s going to be?” He laughed.