The Honey Well

by Gloria Mallette

  “That’s too bad,” Big Walt said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  “Believe me, I would never be interested in a guy named Ace.”

  “Well, Ace isn’t his real name. That’s his nickname. His name is Clifton Jameson. He’s an electrician, he owns his own business. I think he has about twelve guys working for him.”

  Confused, Arnell looked hard at Big Walt. “So . . why would he—”

  “He was watching my back. He’s my brother. We do that for each other.”

  “Do you mean brother as in blood?”

  “My name is Walter Jameson, remember?”

  “To tell you the truth, I’ve been calling you Big Walt for so long, I forgot that you had a real name.”

  “That name was part of the job. The day of Tony’s funeral, I had a job to do and it wasn’t one that I was comfortable with, so I pulled in my boys. The Hammer, or rather Roy, which is his real name. He’s a cop.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “He was off duty.”

  “But did he know who Esther was? Did he know about her brothel?”

  “Yep.”

  “And?”

  “Arnell, a lot of cops know about The Honey Well. Some have even been there. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Well, yes, but Roy—”

  “Yeah, he could have gotten into trouble, but he didn’t. No one knew who he was.”

  “That was so sick,” Arnell said. “Why would he risk—”

  “For me,” Big Walt said. “Look, we played it so that no one would get hurt.”

  “Excuse me, but big guns more than hurt people.”

  “True, but we had dummy bullets. We knew better than to go in there with live ammo, and we knew that just seeing the guns would make people back off, which they did. If you noticed, the boys out front never came inside. They were scared of their own shadow.”

  Arnell was amazed. “Damn. Big Walt, ah, can I just call you Walt?”

  “My family calls me Walter.”

  Tears threatened, but Arnell held strong. “You should have everyone call you Walter. Walter, don’t you think you need to get another job?”

  “After today, no doubt. I was just doing this until my music hit anyway. I just sold six songs to a singer who’s about to burst on the scene. He’s gonna be large, and so am I.”

  “That is really great. I hope it all works out for you.” Arnell meant that.

  “So, what about my brother? Can he call you? He’s thirty-five. He’s really a good man. He won’t do you wrong. I’d kill him if he did.”

  Glancing up at the road sign, Arnell saw that they were exiting onto the Southern State Parkway. “Give me some time,” she said. “I have to nurse my soul for a while.”

  “I hear that.”

  Arnell closed her eyes. “Wake me when we get to my house.” She felt the car pick up speed. It was nice to be going home.

  Big Walt shook Arnell first gently then a little harder when she didn’t stir. He had cut the engine before Arnell finally opened her eyes.

  “You have company,” Big Walt said, looking toward Arnell’s house.

  Still sleepy, Arnell slowly focused on the lone figure of a girl sitting on the steps to her house. “Who is that?” she asked, wondering why the porch light hadn’t come on.

  “It looks like that young girl, Trena.”

  And it was. Trena had made her way back to Arnell’s. She didn’t know where else to go. She stood when Arnell began to climb out of Big Walt’s car.

  “Do you want me to take her back to Brooklyn?” Big Walt asked.

  Arnell closed the door. “No. She needs me.”

  The bathroom lights were off. Only candles—eight large white ones—illuminated the room in a dreamy, fantastical glow. Esther lay back in her bathtub filled with lavender scented oil and big white bubbles. The stereo in her suite was turned up loud so that she could hear it clearly in her bathroom. Yanni was soaring on the wings of flying violins. The music filled the large bathroom. Esther closed her eyes and let the hot water relax her muscles while the beautiful music embraced her and carried her away. She really needed to unwind after all that drama. As soon as Melvina brought her martini, she’d relax even more and maybe stop, for a minute, thinking about Arnell. The others—James, Kesley—she didn’t give a damn about. Arnell might be angry with her right now, but she’d get over it. She always had before. This was no different. Arnell would pout, and she might not call for a few weeks, but she’d eventually call and they’d forgive each other and then they’d go on. They had to, they only had each other.

  Warm tears eased down Esther’s cheeks. She really hated that she’d hurt Arnell so badly. Why in the world would she set out to seduce James to get back at Arnell when she knew that Arnell would hate her? And all for a man that was a nothing. Arnell had to know that James wasn’t right for her—he was weak. Arnell should be thanking her for breaking them up instead of being angry with her. Arnell needed a strong man, a man who didn’t get a hard-on the minute the scent of a new woman drifted up his nostrils. One day Arnell would realize her mother was right and forgive her. Hopefully soon.

  Esther let unwanted tears flow unchecked, unabashed. Damn. She brought her fist down on the side of the tub. An overwhelming feeling of loss consumed her, but the hell with that. She never lost anything, not anymore, not since she had gotten on her feet and lived her life as Queen Esther. That’s who she was, Queen Esther, and no one would ever take that from her. Tony understood that. He was the only one who allowed her to be herself without condemnation or reproach, but he was gone now. Poor Tony. She was really missing him. In her heart, she knew that he had been murdered and the way things stood with his family, she would probably never learn the truth.

  Esther was alone, but she was going to be all right. She was Queen Esther, after all. No one got the better of her. Hadn’t today proven that? Kesley was out of her life and Arnell wasn’t going to marry James. Oh, Arnell was upset right now, but she’d be back and they’d be friends again.

  Esther scooped up a handful of bubbles. She blew them and watched a few float in midair. Like those bubbles, she should have been feeling as light as air. She had come out on top. Why wasn’t she feeling some measure of satisfaction? Why was she feeling so terrible? It could only be because she had hurt Arnell—her baby. What she had done with James, what she had done with Kesley all those years ago, was too much for Arnell to deal with. There had to be a way to make it up to her. Damn, but she was too tired to think about that right now. She would figure it out tomorrow. That’s what tomorrows were for.

  Behind Esther the door to the bathroom closed. “Melvina, don’t close it. I wanna hear the music.” She slid lower into the water, up to her shoulders. Closing her eyes, she let the warmth of the water relax her muscles and soothe her troubled mind.

  Esther could feel Melvina standing over her. “Just leave the drink on my bath caddy.”

  No glass was set down. Curious, Esther opened her eyes. She opened her mouth to scream, but hands, big, strong hands, the same hands that killed her husband, suddenly gripped her head and began pushing her below mountainous clouds of bubbles. Esther kicked wildly, she clawed frantically at those hands, those arms, but her scratching didn’t stop Kesley Hayden from forcing her head under the scented water. Esther thought of Arnell. She wasn’t ready to leave Arnell, they hadn’t made up yet. Esther kicked harder, splashing water and bubbles against the wall, onto the floor, and onto Kesley Hayden. She tried to scream but the water that filled her lungs choked her, burned her throat, stung her nose, and finally, took her life.

  Forty-Two

  The tears wouldn’t come. As hard as Arnell tried, she couldn’t pull a tear from her heart. She sat in front of Esther’s open casket wondering if she had died knowing that a part of her—that little girl inside her who had yet to be hurt—still loved her. On that ugly day that Arnell had last seen Esther, she had planned to never see her again, although she didn’t think for a minute th
at her last good-bye was to be so final, so soon. That urgent telephone call from Melvina would forever sound in Arnell’s ear. “That man! He kill Queen Esther! Arnell, your mother, she dead!” At Esther’s funeral, Melvina and Jeanette were the only ones that cried.

  Arnell couldn’t say that she ever mourned the woman that birthed her into the world—the tears she finally shed after burying Esther were more for herself than for Esther. She truly felt like she was all alone in the world, although being alone was what she needed after all she had been put through, but Sharise would not allow her to be by herself to welter in the dark, dreary pit of depression she had let herself sink into. Sharise left her children to their father and the nanny to stay with her for two weeks, proving to Arnell that she was not alone. To Sharise, Arnell was able to admit that she was glad she was now a motherless child for she was forever free of the voice that stifled her words, and free of the arms that encaged her. She thought often of Esther—the good and the bad—but she didn’t miss her. Any love she had for Esther came only from that little girl, Sweetie, but Sweetie had ceased to be when a price was put on her vagina. What she had been feeling all these years for Esther, was a daughter’s obligation, and her death freed Arnell of that.

  A month after burying Esther, Arnell was sorting through Esther’s papers and came across letters from her brother Matt. Some were dated as late as the year before. Arnell was stunned. Esther never mentioned that her brother even knew where she was, or that he had been in touch. The fact that Esther kept the letters or even read them was mind-boggling in itself. There were twenty-seven letters in all, most pleading with Esther to straighten out her life and to come back to the Lord. Back? Was Esther ever with the Lord? Arnell doubted if she was even with the Lord now. Surely, Esther must have scoffed at that suggestion from her brother, but nothing could have prepared Arnell for the letter that read, “Sister, we were born in the Church. We were both baptized as babies. Our father was a minister, he taught us at his knee to be righteous and clean. Sister, you live an unclean life. Your greatest sin is that you washed your only child in the smutty waters of fornication and degradation, and not the holy waters of redemption. I should have fought harder to take her from you, I am sorry that I did not.”

  Those words brought tears to Arnell’s eyes to know that someone, at one time, had really cared about her. Although Esther had mentioned that her brother had tried to take her from her at one time, Arnell didn’t remember it herself. But just the thought that he had wanted to rescue her from Esther was comfort enough. What Arnell hadn’t known, was that her grandfather had been a minister and that Esther had been brought up in the Church. How could a person veer so far off track? How was it that Esther never told her anything about her upbringing? But then, Esther never told her anything on her own. Everything was always pulled from her. Arnell had to know more.

  Setting her manners aside, Arnell didn’t call the telephone number she found in several of the letters from her uncle; she took a chance and drove to New Rochelle in upstate New York on a cool October afternoon. It was a Saturday so she prayed that her uncle would be home. Uncle Matt opened the door, and only after a moment of looking in her face, he opened his arms. Arnell closed her eyes and let her uncle’s arms do for her what no man’s arms had ever truly done—touch her soul. She cried for all the hugs she had missed and when she realized that her Uncle Matt was crying, and that there was a woman, who had to be his wife, who had come up behind him and was also hugging her and crying too, Arnell knew that she had found her family.

  “Esther was a loving child who grew up to be an angry woman,” Uncle Matt said. “Esther was twelve when Daddy died and about seventeen when Momma died. She had changed even before then, but she became another person after Momma died. She started smoking and drinking, and going around with young people that were up to no good. I thought I understood why, but Esther always said that I was wrong. I guess I just never knew.”

  Arnell told her uncle about his Uncle Slick. His gasp of alarm filled the room and his tears for Esther were long overdue.

  “I should have protected her, she was my little sister and Daddy always said, ‘Take care of your little sister.’ I failed to do that.”

  Arnell realized that there was so much Uncle Matt did not know about Esther. Too much for Arnell to tell on her first visit, much of which she would never tell—some things just ought to be buried with its owner. Esther never answered Uncle Matt’s letters after the first two, so whereas Arnell thought her uncle’s letters meant that he knew about Esther’s brothel or even about Esther pimping her, he didn’t. He just thought that Esther was living a loose life around her child. Arnell let him continue to believe that. It was for the best.

  She stayed the night and the next morning met Gary, one of her three cousins. Over time, she would meet them all, but none had to know.

  EPILOGUE

  Arnell admired the ring of frosted pink rosettes she’d designed along the border of Ashley’s two-layer vanilla-frosted birthday cake. The sounds of high-pitched squeals and laughing children sailed through the open kitchen window. There was a yard full of toddlers being entertained by a cherry-nosed, big-footed, chalky-faced clown. Arnell could not believe that Ashley was three years old today. It seemed like only yesterday that she and Cliff were bringing Ashley home from the hospital, but Ashley’s size and her boundless inquisitiveness confirmed that the years had indeed slipped by. She was the most talkative child Arnell had ever known, not to mention smart and unbelievably adorable. Of course, it was disconcerting that Ashley was every inch a look-alike for Esther. But Arnell didn’t let her baby’s resemblance to Esther taint her love for her. She would never harm her baby girl as Esther had done.

  Esther would no doubt adore Ashley, but even if Esther had not been murdered, she would not have been allowed within a mile of Ashley. Arnell was serious about being a good mother—she would teach Ashley morals and principles, and she would protect her from the lechery of men and women who sought only their gratification. She would see her baby girl safely into adulthood.

  It took six months for the police to track down and capture Kesley Hayden in Dallas. This time, he was sentenced to twenty-five to life without the possibility of parole—Esther would have loved that. Somewhere on the other side, Esther was probably mad as hell that she couldn’t laugh in Kesley’s face. But that wasn’t all that Esther would be spitting fire over. Arnell was certain that Esther turned over in her grave ten times the day her precious mansion sold for nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Again Melvina cried—after all, her home had been sold right from under her. Arnell had no use for the house where only bad things had happened to her and perhaps many others. It wasn’t a place that she could ever lay her head down in again.

  “Hey, babe, the cake looks good,” Cliff said, sticking his finger in the bowl that the vanilla frosting had been made in. He licked at the frosting on his finger. He frowned. “This stuff is too sweet.” He looked around for something to wipe the rest of the frosting on.

  Arnell took Cliff’s finger into her mouth and sensuously sucked it clean of the frosting.

  “Behave yourself. There are fifteen innocent children outside.”

  “They’re not in here.” Arnell pressed her body into Cliff. She licked his lips.

  “Now, I like this sugar better.” Cliff took Arnell into his arms and tongued her deep and long.

  This was just one of the many stolen moments since Ashley was born, and Arnell relished each as if it were the first. She could never thank Walter enough for pushing her to give his brother a chance. It had been the last thing she wanted to do, especially after getting out of the relationship with James. She never heard from James again, and that was a good thing. They would have never been able to look each other in the eye and not see Esther or the ugliness of Arnell’s past. When she did finally take that call from Walter’s brother, Clifton, a whole year had passed, Trena had delivered a son, Chad, and Arnell had begun to take classes toward
her master’s. It wasn’t so much that she was eager to start dating; she did it to silence Walter. Like Sharise and Trena, he was driving her insane. Sharise had been checking on her, Trena had been leaning on her, and Walter had been calling under the pretext of asking how she was doing to see if she was ready to go out with his brother. The funny thing was, she and Cliff hit it off right away—the truth up front helped, although Cliff knew a lot about her already. They had just celebrated their fourth anniversary that past May—two months ago. It was a good marriage, Cliff was as good a man as Walter had said. Cliff was very patient in the first year they dated. He didn’t push Arnell when she held back sexually. That period of celibacy strengthened their relationship and allowed Arnell to see the man who came to love her with no strings attached. Cliff never brought up her past, not even when heated words between them pulled them a foot apart—but they never let that foot become a mile. The ring Cliff gave her had never fallen into the toilet and Arnell didn’t expect that it would—she never took it off in the bathroom. Why tempt fate, when her life was so right?

  Arnell was in her fourth year of teaching high school English at Francis Lewis, and loving it. Trena was in her junior year at St. John’s University and doing quite well—she wanted to be a child psychologist. After Chad was born, Trena never made plans to move out and Arnell never suggested that she should. Time healed Trena’s womb and her mind. She was going to make it, that Arnell was sure of. The Honey Well didn’t steal either one of their dreams, it only stole an ounce of their dignity.

  In Cliff’s arms, Arnell forgot about cake frosting.

  “Y’all cut that out!” Trena said, entering the kitchen. “This is supposed to be a kid’s party.”

  Arnell and Cliff ended their long passionate kiss, but they didn’t leave each other’s embrace. “What are you up to?” Cliff asked. “I thought you were supposed to be outside helping to oversee the activities.”