by Mary Monroe
“I see,” I said with my cheeks throbbing like every tooth in my mouth was aching. “Then I presume you’ve been with that woman again?”
“Um ... yes and no.”
“Well? Is it yes, you’ve been with her, or no, you have not been with her? Which one is it?”
“I haven’t been with her the way you think,” he said quickly.
“Then what way have you been with her?”
“Her mama called me up right after Lizzie went into labor. She damn near begged me to drive them to the hospital. Peabo had a big fight with Lizzie a little while back, so she moved back home with her mama and stepdaddy. The stepdaddy got a ticket for drunk drivin’ the other day and they suspended his license. Lizzie’s mama is recoverin’ from a mild stroke, so she’s too nervous to drive anywhere for the time bein’.”
“Why did she call you? Lizzie and her folks have other friends. They’ve got neighbors. Why didn’t she just call a cab or an ambulance? Neither one of them is on strike that I know of.”
“Uh, Lizzie’s mama said I was one of the best things that ever happened to her daughter. She knew they could count on me.”
“Pee Wee, it is one thing for you to be the kind of man that everybody can count on, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. If you don’t, people will continue to run to you every time they need some kind of help. You are not Mother Theresa or the Wizard of Oz. You need to start saying no when people come to you for favors.”
“This was different. I would have done this favor for anybody. You didn’t make a fuss when I took that Puerto Rican woman down the street to the hospital when she went into labor.”
“You didn’t sleep with that Puerto Rican woman—or did you?”
“Annette, please don’t go off on a tangent on me. You and I both need to keep our wits about us so we can be there to support Rhoda and Otis when they get back from Jamaica. Besides, I’m still tired. I was up most of the night that Lizzie gave birth. She had a real rough labor. There were some complications because of her age, and they thought she needed a Cesarean. Things eventually worked out in her favor and she had her son the natural way, praise the Lord.”
Lord! I wished he had not mouthed those last few sentences! The words that pertained to Lizzie bounced off my head like bricks. I held my breath to keep from choking, but holding my breath led to something worse. I began to gasp and hyperventilate. I even felt dizzy. If I hadn’t been lying on the couch already, I would have fallen onto it.
“Annette, you all right? It sounds like you havin’ some kind of attack or somethin’! You want me to come over there?”
“I’m fine!” I snapped. “You don’t have to worry about taking me to the hospital.”
CHAPTER 57
“MAYBE I SHOULDN’T HAVE BROUGHT UP THIS SUBJECT, huh?” Pee Wee sounded so contrite now, you would have thought that he was the recipient of bad news instead of me. And as far as bad news went, this was worse than I had expected.
“But you did bring it up.” I swallowed hard as I glared at the telephone in my hand like it was the source of my discomfort. I wanted to stomp it to pieces and then throw it out the window into the street. “Do you mean to tell me that once you got that woman to the hospital, you stayed until she gave birth?”
“Lizzie didn’t want me to, but her mama practically begged me to stay with her until it was over. It was the least I could do. That old lady ain’t never been through somethin’ like this, and this bein’ her first—and probably her only—grandchild, she needed somebody there to support her, I guess.”
“Pee Wee, why did you take Lizzie to the hospital when you know how I feel about that woman and her baby—and how she tried to make you her ‘baby daddy’? Why are you telling me that you escorted her to the hospital and stayed with her during her labor—like you were the baby’s daddy?”
“Another reason I went was because I wanted to let her know as soon as possible that I want to get a blood test done. I know if I don’t prove to you, and all your gossipy friends, that that baby ain’t mine, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“You don’t have to prove anything—”
“I do! Anyway, right after the baby came, I told her that I was goin’ to talk to the doctor to see how soon I could get that blood test done. Lizzie didn’t want to hear that. She got all huffy and puffy, almost leaped up off the bed. She told me she was not goin’ to let me do a blood test because she knows I ain’t that baby’s daddy.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“Because it seems like that’s the only way I can convince you that I’m tellin’ the truth. And by the way, that baby don’t look no more like me than none of them other babies in that hospital nursery.”
“Most newborns look alike,” I mentioned. “You said so.”
“I didn’t mean it.” He got silent. I remained silent, too, because I didn’t know what to say next. I was glad that he was the one who spoke again next. “Where’s Charlotte? I haven’t chatted with her in a few days and I’d like to.”
It was a good thing that he changed the subject. Had he not, I would have ended this conversation. He was beginning to annoy me. “She’s in her room. Hold on.” I laid the telephone on the coffee table and trotted to the foot of the stairs and yelled for Charlotte. She didn’t answer. I called again. She still didn’t answer. Annoyed at her too now, I took the stairs two at a time and stomped down the hall to her room. She was not in her room and her bed was still made. She had gone to her room more than four hours ago....
Just as I was about to go back downstairs, Lillimae came out of the bathroom, grinning and shaking her head and waving her cell phone. “That man of mine is about to drive me up the wall with his whinin’. He didn’t treat me right when I was there. But now he calls me up and tells me when I come back, he’ll treat me like a queen. He just told me that one of his sisters came to the house and stuck some of those yellow Post-its on everything she wants if I don’t come back home. That heifer!” Lillimae grinned some more. “I guess I need to start gettin’ myself ready to go back home soon. I swear to—”
“Lillimae, is Charlotte in your room?” I asked, cutting her off.
“No, I haven’t seen her since I came upstairs. You checked her room?”
“Yes, I did, and she’s not in it. She hasn’t even been in her bed.” Lillimae followed me back to Charlotte’s room. I was just about to check her closet when I noticed the typewritten note on top of her dresser.
It read:
Mama, I am running away from home. I love you and my daddy and my auntie Lillimae and everybody else. But I can’t stay here no more. You don’t want to listen to me, and I can’t keep trying to talk to you about Harrietta. I thought that after Vivian ran away, you and everybody else would finally believe that something is wrong with Harrietta and get in her face! That woman is a freak and a skank witch! When the bank sends my Christmas Club money, give it to the church. Maybe when I get grown up, I will come home and maybe you will listen to me then because you grown folks only listen to and believe what other grown folks say. Even though you are the way you are, I still love you anyway. It’s real late and I know you and Aunt Lillimae are probably asleep by now. But I am sneaking real quiet out the back door downstairs.
Love, Char
P.S. I have been hiding a hamster in a shoe box in the basement for a long time. Please feed him and hug him every night like I did.
After Lillimae had read Charlotte’s note, she immediately started punching numbers on her cell phone. “Harrietta, this is Lillimae! Now Charlotte has run away! Check with your girls to see if they are hidin’ her! Take a look-see around your house and call me back! Listen—I have to go!” Lillimae whipped around and looked at me. “Annette, let’s call the police!” she hollered.
I screamed and swayed from side to side. If I had not been so close to the dresser, I would have fallen to the floor. My head felt like it was about to burst wide open. I made it back to the living room telephone in record ti
me. I had forgotten that Pee Wee was still on the line so I attempted to dial 911 as he started yelling.
“What’s all that whoopin’ and hollerin’ about?” he wanted to know.
“Charlotte is gone!” I hollered.
“Gone where?”
“She’s run away!”
“What the hell do you mean by that? That girl ain’t had no reason in the world to be runnin’ away!”
“I punished her for letting Harrietta’s runaway daughter hide in her room, but I’m sure there’s more to it than that. She left a note, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense! I ... I thought she was in her bed! She went to her room like she always does! She slipped out while Lillimae was in her room and I was taking my bath. I need to call the police!”
“I’m on my way!” Pee Wee yelled.
“If I don’t call you back on your cell phone in a few minutes, meet us at the police station!” I hollered. I ended the call with Pee Wee and dialed 911.
Lillimae stood behind me, wailing like an injured lamb.
I could not have reached a more disinterested dispatcher on the line if I had tried. “What’s your emergency?” she asked, like it was painful for her to speak. I could just picture the look of indifference on her face and it made my blood boil.
“My daughter has run away!” I croaked. “You need to send a policeman to my house. My address is—”
“Ma’am, calm down. Your name, please?”
“Annette Davis! I think—”
“Address?”
“Uh, 1028 East Reed Street! I—”
“Your daughter’s name and age?”
“Charlotte Davis. She’s almost thirteen—”
I didn’t like the fact that every time the dispatcher asked me something, she cut me off before I could finish answering her.
“I’m sure your daughter will turn up. You know how these young kids are today. A runaway is not considered an emergency.”
“Look, lady! Stop cutting me off and let me finish before you ask me another dumbass question! My daughter is missing! She snuck out of the house tonight in this storm and she left a note. Now, if you don’t send somebody out here, I am coming down to that station and I might end up in jail for kicking your fucking ass!” I yelled.
“Ma’am, if you don’t get a hold of yourself, I am going to end this call. Now, if you—” I cut the woman off in midsentence, hanging up the telephone so hard my hand vibrated.
Lillimae and I threw on some clothes and our coats, and we ran out the door of our house. We piled into my car and shot off down the street like a cannonball.
There was an elderly couple, walking like they were taking their last steps, and a younger woman holding a baby wrapped up in a dark brown receiving blanket like a burrito. It was Lizzie and her parents. She looked right in my face. I guess she didn’t know right away that it was me because she smiled. But that smile didn’t stay on her face for more than a couple of seconds. She pressed her lips together and rushed across the street, still looking back toward me. I didn’t have time to react to seeing her with her baby for the first time. None of that mattered to me anymore. I had much more important things to deal with tonight.
As soon as I sped on down the street, I almost sideswiped a hearse coming from the opposite direction, and that scared the hell out of me. I took that as a bad omen, but I didn’t know who it was meant for. My daughter and my best friend were both in trouble.
No matter what happened, and to whom, my life would never be the same again.
CHAPTER 58
THE RAIN WAS COMING DOWN SO FAST AND HEAVY, EVEN WITH MY windshield wipers on full blast, I had a hard time seeing my way. I drove down one street after another, driving like a bat out of hell. Thankfully, I didn’t encounter or cause any accidents, or any other mishaps that would have delayed me.
The wind was howling like a wolf and blowing so hard, the few people I did see out walking on the streets were losing umbrellas left and right. I even saw the wind blow one woman’s wig off her head.
For Charlotte to run off at night in a storm she had to be mad as hell about something. I knew that when we did locate her, I was going to get the full story from her as to exactly what it was she’d been trying to tell me. And since she’d been so vague in her note, I imagined the worst! Everything from her contracting a venereal disease to her being pregnant.
Good God! The thoughts running through my head were unbearable.
I almost slammed head-on into the side of the police department building when I arrived. I thanked God that I didn’t. In addition to my latest crisis, the last thing I needed was to injure myself and Lillimae, and wreck my car.
Lillimae and I scrambled out of my car and were stumbling up the steps to the building entrance within a matter of seconds. We didn’t even bother to get the umbrella that I kept in the trunk of my car.
The lobby was more crowded than I expected it would be on such a stormy night. There was the usual mob of handcuffed criminals being detained: belligerent hookers, two thugs with bloody noses and other facial injuries, and even a prosperous-looking man in a three-piece suit.
The woman behind the front desk was black, so I couldn’t claim racism when she rolled her eyes at me and Lillimae when I blurted out the reason for our visit.
“You’ll need to file a missing persons report,” the woman informed us, tapping her multicolored fingernails, which were almost as long as her tongue, on the top of the desk.
“The girl is not missing, ma’am. She’s run away and she could be in serious trouble,” I wailed, trying hard to remain reasonably composed.
“She’s only twelve,” Lillimae pointed out, looking at that woman like she wanted to slap her. If Pee Wee hadn’t arrived when he did, I would have slapped that bitch myself. While I was standing there crying and sweating like a pig, this woman began to fiddle around with the pens and pencils in a cracked coffee cup in the middle of her desk.
“Don’t y’all look for missin’ kids no more?” Pee Wee asked, his arm around my shoulder. It was a good thing he was supporting me, because my legs felt like they were about to collapse like a defective folding chair.
“Was your daughter kidnapped?” the woman asked, looking from Pee Wee to me.
“No, she was not kidnapped. She ran away on her own,” Lillimae said. “She even left a note.”
“And she left a note?” the woman asked, rolling her eyes again. “Oh, well, technically that’s not a missing person situation. A voluntary runaway and a missing person are two different things.”
“Sister, this might just be another statistic to you, but this is my daughter we are talking about!” I shrieked. “Now, what are you people going to do about it?”
Without speaking, the woman’s hands shuffled around on her messy desk until she located a form under a pile of other papers. Looking bored, she grabbed one of the pens out of her cracked coffee cup. Had she rolled her eyes again or said the wrong thing, I was prepared to put a crack in her head to match that damn cup.
My daughter had run away and all the authorities were going to do was fill out a report! I could not believe what I was hearing. Pee Wee was even more furious than Lillimae and I were. He demanded to speak to somebody with more authority.
“Sir, you might as well calm down and let me do my job. This is not the first time somebody has come here to report a runaway child, and it won’t be the last. We don’t have the manpower or the time to go off looking for runaway kids. This is not Hollywood, so we don’t send officers out to get cats out of trees either—”
“If something happens to my child, I am holding you responsible!” I threatened. But even that didn’t faze this woman. She just blinked and tapped the tip of her pen on her desk. She asked the pertinent questions and filled out the report; then she told us to come back if Charlotte had not returned after forty-eight hours and sent us on our way.
Pee Wee, Lillimae, and I didn’t speak until we got out to the visitors’ parking lot. “We’ll do
all we can on our own. I am not goin’ to sit around waitin’ on these bastards to do their jobs,” Pee Wee said through clenched teeth.
“Annette, you want me to call your mama and daddy?” Lillimae asked, rubbing my shoulders. We stood between my car and Pee Wee’s.
“Yeah,” I managed, so shaken I could barely speak.
“I’ll call them as soon as I get back to the house. Annette, I can drive your car. You ride with Pee Wee,” Lillimae told me, bless her heart. I was so glad that she was still with me. “As soon as we get to the house, I am goin’ to get on the computer and print up some flyers. I am goin’ to go out myself tonight and tack ’em up in store windows and on telephone poles all over town.”
“I need a list of all Charlotte’s friends so I can pay each one a visit tonight,” Pee Wee said, his voice trembling. “In the meantime, let’s all try to stay calm. This might not be as bad as it seems. She could be layin’ low at one of her little friend’s houses like I did one time when I took off.”
“Things have changed since we were kids, Pee Wee. I was a crazy kid, too, like almost everybody else. I ran away several times. By the grace of God, nothin’ bad ever happened to me. But thirty years ago, people were not as crazy as they are now,” Lillimae stated, her voice trembling like it was about to crack. Her face was as red as a tomato, and dark circles outlined her eyes. Her hair, which was even more askew than mine, was saturated with sweat.
I had shed a lot of tears since I’d read Charlotte’s note. I didn’t realize that a few more had begun to trickle down the sides of my face until I tasted them on my lips.
“Maybe we should wait a while before we tell Muh’Dear and Daddy. If Charlotte comes home tonight, or tomorrow morning, we will have worried them for nothing,” I said, folding and unfolding my arms.
“You’re right. They don’t need to be gettin’ upset if they don’t have to,” Lillimae decided. “But I will print up some flyers tonight anyway. We’re goin’ to do everything possible to find that child.”