Which is why, until Arnell did what Esther wanted her to do, Arnell would have no peace.
“Arnell, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, and you know it. All you need to do is ask, and what I’m asking you to do for me, isn’t anything you haven’t done before.”
“And that’s exactly my point,” Arnell said. “What I’ve done before, I’ve done too many damn times as it is. And I’m just not going to do it anymore.”
“So this is how you show appreciation for the sacrifices I’ve made for you.”
Arnell wanted to scream but she took a deep breath. “You know, Mother, I am tired of hearing about these so-called sacrifices you’ve made for me. What damn sacrifices? I’m the one that had to prostitute my body, not you!”
Esther cooly dragged on her cigarette. “And that’s because youth is the most powerful aphrodisiac. You had it and I didn’t. You’re selfish, Arnell. I could have made a better life for myself without you, but I was determined to raise you on my own. After your father died, I could have put you up for adoption or in a foster home—lots of people told me that I ought to, but,” Esther shook her head, “no, you were all I had, and I was all you had. There was no one to put a hand out to us. We had to take care of each other, but I would take the food from my own mouth to put in yours, if you didn’t have enough to eat. So don’t tell me about sacrifices.”
Esther always had plenty of guilt to dump on Arnell’s head, and as she had done in the past, Arnell tucked her tail and let Esther set her up with Mr. Parker, but still she couldn’t bring herself to stick her hand down inside the toilet. She had been staring down at her own shit for damn near thirty minutes, trying to figure out how to get her diamond ring out. More than once she started to flush the toilet but she didn’t know if the ring would stay put on the bottom when the water swirled and pushed the waste out, or if the rush of water and waste would push the brand new white diamond out into the city sewer. In fact, Arnell had foraged around so much in the toilet bowl with the clothes hanger that she couldn’t even see the ring anymore, although she knew that it was there hiding underneath all that crap. The irony of it all was that this situation was so much like her own life. Underneath all the crap, there was another her, a better her, trying to get out. If only she could get Esther to release her hold on her.
Way off down the hall, the wall clock in the living room chimed. It was eight o’clock. Arnell was supposed to meet Mr. Parker at nine at the mansion. She wasn’t even dressed yet. Ahead of her, from Garden City, Long Island, she had at least a forty-five minute drive into Brooklyn. Time was rushing by, but Arnell couldn’t leave her ring to marinate in waste. While James might be understanding about the ring if she lost it, surely he would kill her if he ever found out about the life she once lived that he knew nothing of. He had given her the ring three months ago at the engagement party Esther had thrown for them at the mansion. Esther had been real proud when James slipped that expensive rock on her finger. The size alone had impressed her. Hell, Esther might want to kill her, too, if she didn’t get that damn ring out of the toilet. Come to think of it, if that had been Esther’s ring, Esther would not have thought twice about sticking her hand in all that crap to retrieve it. Arnell was reminded that nothing would stand in Esther’s way when she was going after what she wanted. That’s how Esther faced life’s problems—head-on. No matter how messy, how ugly, how difficult, the end result was all-important, and that was that she come out on top. At this moment, something she’d heard Esther say a long time ago was never truer—Sometimes you have to stick your hand in a bowl of shit to get what you want.
Outside the bathroom door, Arnell could hear the telephone ringing. It would be no one else but Esther calling to see if she had left. The ringing was persistent.
Arnell looked back down into the toilet.
It was now or never.
As she bent over the bowl, Arnell held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. Haltingly, she eased her hand down toward the murky water. She wretched. She stopped short, yanking her hand back. She couldn’t do it. Gloves. She needed a pair of rubber gloves. Arnell threw open the vanity doors underneath the sink. Squatting, she looked inside and there, draped over the drain pipe, lay limply, a pair of yellow rubber gloves. She snatched them. She was about to close the doors when she glimpsed a bottle of green pine disinfectant. That, too, she took. She plugged up the sink and poured the whole bottle of disinfectant into it—the strong pine smell filled the room and Arnell’s nostrils. Now she was ready.
Holding onto the cuff of the right glove, pulling and stretching the rubber as far up her arm as it would go, Arnell again closed her eyes and eased her hand down into the midst of her own waste. She grimaced when the coldness of the water reminded her that although her eyes didn’t see it, there was more touching her gloved hand than water. Yuk! Disgusting. Again she wretched.
“Just do it!” Arnell eased her hand haltingly but gingerly to the bottom of the bowl. She pressed her fingers firmly against the porcelain, feeling for the roundness of the gold band or the rock-like feel of the diamond. Suddenly, she touched the hardness of the stone.
“Thank God!”
Arnell wasted no time pulling the ring and her hand out of the toilet. Immediately, she dropped the ring into the pine disinfectant. The ring was still sparkling. The gloves she pulled off inside out and dropped them into the wastebasket lined with plastic. The whole thing she would discard on her way out of the house. No matter what happened this evening, nothing would faze her. Not after what she just had to do. Although, as with sticking her hand in the toilet, Arnell was about to wade back into the cesspool of a life she wanted so badly to forget. After this one last time, nothing, not even Esther, as expert as she was with laying a guilt trip on her, was going to get her to step foot back inside The Honey Well. Mr. Parker had best enjoy what she was planning to lay on him; he would never have the pleasure again.
Arnell pushed down on the handle of the toilet and sent all the crap in her life on its way. Tomorrow was going to be a new day.
Two
Sixteen was a lousy age and Trena Gatlind couldn’t wait to get out of her teens. It seemed that some adult always had something to say about what she did, especially her sister, Cheryl, who was older than her by eight years. Cheryl had her own car and a full-time job. Why Cheryl didn’t get out and get her own apartment, Trena didn’t know. If Trena was twenty-four, she would have been long gone, but not Cheryl. Cheryl didn’t look like she was ever going to move out, which meant that she was always going to be there to keep bossing her around. Ever since their mother, Maxine, who was a nurse, started working the night shift at Kings County Hospital nine years ago, Cheryl had become a serious pain in the ass. Their dad, Joe, when he was home the last time, told Cheryl to ease up, but he wasn’t home much to see that Cheryl did. Joe was a long-distance trucker, “pushing the big rigs,” he called it. He had been “putting his foot in the floor and getting in the wind” way before Trena was born. Joe said, “The only thing that would pull me off the road is death—my own,” and he meant it. His own mother died two years ago; he never made it to her funeral.
Trena heard her mother say every time she argued with her father, “You love the freedom of the road more than you love your family.” Her father never denied that and thought electronically transferring large portions of his pay back home from wherever he was more than made up for his lack of presence at home. He made good money and supported them well, but Maxine still worked long hard hours all the same. At the end of the day, she barely had enough energy to climb into bed, which is why Cheryl pretty much did as she pleased. Since Cheryl stopped seeing Alex, she was always in a nasty mood. Cheryl wasn’t going over to Alex’s apartment anymore so she was always home to get on her case about every little thing. “Clean up your room, Trena. Have you done your homework, Trena?” Trena was beginning to hate to hear her own name said out loud, but that’s all right. It was Friday night. She was going partying, and it was
none of Cheryl’s business where she was going. She was so damn nosy. Always sneaking around trying to catch her doing something so that she could snitch on her, especially after what happened two weeks ago.
Cheryl said she was going shopping after work with her girlfriend, Phyllis. If they did their usual dinner afterward, Trena figured Cheryl wouldn’t be getting home until after ten o’clock. Breathing room—plenty of time for her to have some fun with Omar, her boyfriend of four months. But then, just as she and Omar were getting a good feel on down in the basement, Cheryl comes home—early.
“Trena, are you down there?”
Trena abruptly pushed Omar off top of her and scrambled to her feet.
“Damn!” Omar whispered. He had a hard-on that uncomfortably strained the skin it was in. Holding himself, he scrambled to find a place to hide in the wide-open basement. There was nowhere.
Trena quickly adjusted her breasts inside her bra and pulled down her oversize T-shirt. She hurriedly ran her hands down her thighs, smoothing out the wrinkles in her denim skirt.
“Trena, I hear you down there. What are you doing?”
“Nothing! Dang, Cheryl.”
Omar shoved his hand inside his open fly and tried to adjust himself inside his loose-fitting boxer shorts. He kicked out his left leg.
“Trena! You got somebody down there?”
“No, I don’t!” Trena looked over at Omar squeezed up in the far corner of the room trying to hold himself down. He started moving from foot to foot like he had to go to the bathroom. Trena covered her mouth and doubled over to keep from laughing out loud.
“I want you upstairs, Trena. Now!”
“Cheryl, will you leave me alone!” Trena could hear Cheryl overhead, walking around in the kitchen. Any minute she might rush down into the basement and neither Trena nor Omar wanted that. As funny as Omar looked, he had this panicked look in his eyes. He had cause to be scared—he had been jumped on by Cheryl once before. Trena wasn’t supposed to have a boy over when no one was home, and Omar, in particular, wasn’t suppose to be there—ever. A month after they started going together, Cheryl caught her and Omar in her bedroom and of all places, on her bed hugged up tight in a deep-throated kiss. After Cheryl had screamed on Omar and kicked him out, she called his mother.
“Mrs. Lester, I just pulled your son off top of my little sister. I suggest you buy Omar a boatload of condoms because he’s going to get somebody pregnant and it had better not be my sister.”
Omar’s mother retorted, “I’ll deal with my son when he gets home, but I suggest you put your little sister on the pill because she is obviously a fast one.”
After calling Mrs. Lester an old bitch, Cheryl had slammed the telephone down in her ear and turned on Trena. The funny thing was, she was still a virgin. That didn’t stop Cheryl, though. In the end, Trena and Omar were both grounded for two weeks and forbidden to see each other ever again. Yeah, right. Cheryl and Mrs. Lester had better recognize.
“Trena, what’s taking you so long to get up here? I want you to come upstairs right now and take out the garbage.”
“Dang, Cheryl. How come you can’t take out the garbage sometime?”
“Because that’s your job.”
Trena glanced at Omar. He was again shaking out his leg. Nothing dropped. His penis was hard and pressing into his gut. By the look on his face, he was hurting. Trena thought that was funny and began to giggle behind her hand.
“Trena, if I have to come down there to get you, I’m—”
“I’m coming! Dang.”
The anxiety of being caught had finally softened Omar’s penis. He mouthed to Trena, “Stop provoking her.” Trena disregarded what Omar was saying as she was only interested in getting him back on the bone. She pulled up her T-shirt and started rubbing her nipples through her bra while flicking her tongue at Omar. Right away, Omar began massaging himself through his unzipped fly. He had barely started when he was on the bone again. That excited Trena. She felt a warm tingle in the very spot where Omar had earlier been pressed up against her. She couldn’t take her eyes off Omar’s hand.
“Trena.”
“Give me a minute, Cheryl. I’ll be right up,” she said, no longer shouting. “I thought you were going out after work.”
“I did.”
“Then why are you home so early? It’s Friday night.” Trena’s heart was beating faster as Omar’s hand massaged faster. His eyes rolled back in his head. He began to moan softly. There was a throbbing sensation between Trena’s thighs. She wanted to touch herself. Her eyes stretched as Omar was about to get off right before her eyes. Intrigued, she giggled nervously.
“I have to get up in the morning, Trena. Now, get your behind up here and take out the garbage.”
“Okay, I’m coming. I just wanna hear this last side.” The music had been on, but all the CDs had played out when Trena and Omar had gotten hot and heavy.
“I don’t hear any music,” Cheryl said, starting down the stairs. “Trena, what are you up to?”
Omar made a headlong dive behind the sofa. Trena sprinted softly to the bottom of the stairs. “Dang, Cheryl, why don’t you stop trying to be my mother.”
Cheryl stopped midway down. She studied Trena’s flushed face. “You have a guilty look on your face.”
“Cheryl, didn’t Dad tell you to stop hounding me? I am not a kid, and specifically, I am not your kid.”
“No, but you are my responsibility.”
“No, I’m not. Why don’t you go and make your own baby and leave me alone. You’re such a pain. I can see why Alex dropped you for that other girl—you were probably trying to be his mother.”
Cheryl blanched.
Trena immediately regretted her cutting words. Cheryl hadn’t told her about Alex and the other girl; she had overheard her talking to him about it on the telephone. “See, Cheryl, you made me—”
“You know something, Trena? I don’t like that I have to baby-sit you either. You’re a selfish, mean-spirited little girl that has never appreciated the fact that I’ve missed out on a lot of good times with my own friends because I’ve had to be home taking care of you. Well, I tell you what. I don’t care what you do anymore.” She started back up the stairs.
“Cheryl, I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did! But that’s all right, Trena. You’re free of me. You go ahead and do whatever the hell you feel like doing. I’m no longer your baby sitter.”
“’Bout time.” She and Omar both waited until they heard Cheryl walk across the kitchen floor toward the living room.
“Man, your sister is whack,” Omar said, getting up from behind the sofa. “She be trippin’.”
As glad as she was about finally getting Cheryl off of her back, Trena didn’t take any pleasure in knowing that she had made her cry. She could hear Cheryl crying as Cheryl climbed the stairs to her bedroom on the second floor. Her crying was definitely a mood breaker. Plus Omar no longer had a hard-on but he was trying get it back by rubbing up against Trena.
She was no longer in the mood. “Cut it out, Omar. You got me in trouble.”
“Your sister didn’t even know I was down here.”
“Just go home.”
Trena sneaked Omar out of the house through the side door. Just like before, Cheryl had spoiled it for her. Sure, Trena had promised her mother that she’d stay a virgin until she was eighteen, but not getting her feel on wasn’t part of that promise. She liked the feeling she got when Omar rubbed himself all into her, all in between her thighs, and the intensity of what she and Omar were both feeling might just have gotten him a taste of the sweet juice that was oozing from her just before Cheryl showed up. Dang. It was getting harder and harder to keep that promise.
With nothing else to do the rest of the evening, Trena took out the garbage, and when the pangs of guilt over making Cheryl cry crept up on her and wouldn’t let up, she knocked twice at Cheryl’s bedroom door to apologize, but she wouldn’t answer. It was just as well. Trena wanted C
heryl to stay mad, maybe then she’d stay off of her back for real.
As strange as it was to not have Cheryl bitching at her, Trena missed talking to her, but she didn’t miss her enough to try to apologize again. She was glad to be free of her mothering. Like she did two weeks before, Trena was going to hang out with her girl, Alyson. Afterward, she might go somewhere private with Omar.
Outside Cheryl’s closed bedroom door, Trena taped her handwritten note. I’m hanging out with Alyson. We’re gonna catch a movie. I’ll be back by two. She was pushing the two in the morning part, but then, hey, her parents weren’t home to tell her to make it back home by her midnight curfew. They were lucky she left a note at all. After all, she was almost grown.
Three
For the third time in the past half hour, Esther pressed hard on the talk button disconnecting the unanswered ringing at Arnell’s house. “Damn it.” Esther tossed the cordless phone onto her bed and turned her back when it bounced into the padded golden brocade headboard. Fresh out of the shower, she hadn’t begun to dress, she was too nervous. She began to pace. If Arnell didn’t get there soon, she was going to have a stroke. Esther went to her outer suite door; opening it, she stuck her head out. Saying nothing, she listened. The only thing she could hear was the orchestral sounds of Yanni making love to his piano. The melodiously grand music filled the first floor corridors.
The Honey Well Page 2