One House Over

by Mary Monroe

  “That’s nice of you to be so concerned about your daddy. Is he the reason you never married?”

  I scratched my chin and gave Joyce the most sincere and intense look I could come up with. “No. I’m not married yet because I’m still looking for the right woman. . . .”

  She blinked, tapped her fingers on the table a few times, and cleared her throat. She was smart, but I was smarter. I had got her number two minutes after I met her. I could tell that she was fishing for the same kind of information about me that I was fishing for about her. She was probably as anxious to lock us into a serious relationship as I was. “My daddy drives me up the wall sometimes, but I don’t mind. I enjoy spending time with him. I don’t know what I’m going to do when he dies.”

  “I can understand you wanting to be with your daddy as much as possible, but everybody should strike out on their own once they reach a certain age. If you don’t mind me asking, if you got such a good job, how come you still live at home?” From the tight look on Joyce’s face now, I could tell I’d asked a question that made her feel uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.” I held up my hand and tried to look apologetic. “You ain’t got to answer that. That ain’t my business.”

  “I don’t mind answering it.” She stopped talking long enough to take a long, deep breath. “I tried sharing a room with another girl a few years ago and it almost ended in a bloodbath.”

  “Was she hard to get along with?”

  “That and everything else, which was a surprise to me. I’d known her since tenth grade, and she seemed like the kind of person who’d make a good roommate. Well, I was wrong. She never had her share of the rent on time, and she kept the place looking like a pigsty. Her boyfriends were in and out all hours of the day and night. Every time I complained, she accused me of being jealous on account of I had one date for every five she had. I moved out and tried living by myself. It was okay for a few months until I got tired of coming home to an empty room and not having anybody to talk to.”

  “I see. That’s one thing me and you got in common.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t like being lonely either.”

  I must have struck a nerve because Joyce’s mouth dropped open. She looked me in the eye and told me in a firm tone, “I’m alone, but I’m not lonely. I have a few friends that I do things with, but I like to do a lot of things by myself, too.”

  I wanted to laugh. Only a “lonely” person would say something so pitiful. I didn’t think it would benefit me much by dwelling on this subject, so I shifted gears. “You don’t know how lucky you are to have a good job. Times is harder than they used to be for colored people these days. We have to take whatever we can get, whether we like it or not. You ain’t got to worry about nothing like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you ever get tired of the job at that schoolhouse, you still got your folks’ business to fall back on. You lucky.”

  Joyce nodded. “I guess I am pretty lucky. But work is about the only thing I’m lucky in. . . .”

  Chapter 6

  Odell

  JOYCE’S CLAIM THAT SHE WASN’T LONELY WAS NOTHING BUT A BUNCH of happy horse manure. I knew a lonely woman when I saw one. “What do you mean by that?” I had already made up my mind that I was going to take this woman, so I had to play my part to the hilt. I was going to be everything she wanted a man to be.

  She took her time answering my question. “If I could be lucky in love, I’d be all right,” she said with a faraway look in her sad eyes. Even with all the face powder she had on, I could still see the dark circles up under her eyes. Either she stayed up late reading every night, or she spent a lot of time crying. I had a feeling it was both.

  “I know what you mean. I ain’t had much luck with love myself.”

  Her eyes got big. “Say what? Why would a man that looks like you need luck when it comes to love? Are you serious?”

  I nodded. “I’m as serious as a heart attack. Looks ain’t everything. Most of the women I done been with looking for a lot more than I have to offer. I got kinfolks so trifling I’m too ashamed to tell people I’m related to them. I dropped out of school in the middle of the eighth grade, so I ain’t even got no education to fall back on. Folks like me, and Lord knows there’s too many of us these days, we take what we can get. Most women want a man that’s got a decent job.” It probably wasn’t even necessary, but I decided to add to my last comment anyway. “Like the job I got now. God is good. . . .”

  “Hmmm. I can’t tell you how happy I am that you came along when you did. My mama and daddy were getting desperate to find somebody to replace that last stock boy they had to fire. That lazy rascal could never get to work on time and when he did, he did only half of what he was supposed to do. Daddy has enough to keep him busy with the orders and dealing with the vendors and supervising his employees, but he’s been doing his job too long. He does too much lifting and stocking and other things, and he’s too old to keep it up. I tell him all the time that he needs to retire and let a younger person take over. Mama’s not much help. She hangs out at the store almost every day but she spends most of her time in the office knitting or putting together new recipes. Up until you came along, they had a knack for hiring all kinds of creepy people. I know you must realize how strange Buddy and Sadie are.”

  I laughed. “Oooh yeah. I had them figured out a hour after I met them. It’s been a long time since I met people who like to yip-yap as much as them two.”

  “If they ever say anything nasty about me, don’t believe them. Sadie is a nice old lady, but she likes to be all up in other people’s business. A couple of months ago, she told a woman from my church that I had turned funny. The very next day, that woman told me what she’d said.”

  “Funny how?”

  Joyce swallowed hard and gave me a disgusted look. “Sadie likes to jump to conclusions. One day she asked me when I was going to get married. I told her I probably never would and that I didn’t care because men didn’t mean that much to me anymore. She took it and ran with it. Next thing I knew, she got it in her head that I was a bull-dagger.”

  “Sadie thought you wanted to start fooling around with women?”

  “Uh-huh. And all because of that one little comment I made about not being into men anymore!”

  “I don’t know about you, but if somebody accused me of being funny, I’d set them straight.”

  “I did. First I told her that it wasn’t true. Looking back on it now, I wish I had told her that the reason I wasn’t into men was because they had stopped being into me. That might have set her straight and stopped her from telling other people the same thing—but she’d probably done that already. I told her if she ever said something like that about me again, or any other nasty thing, I’d make Daddy and Mama fire her. She’s been real sweet to me ever since, but knowing her and Buddy, I’m probably still one of their favorite subjects to mean-mouth.”

  “Sadie’s problem with you is jealousy. And I can understand why. You still have your whole life ahead of you, you got brains, a job to die for, and you look so much better than her. Her life is miserable and empty, and she’s old and homely. And Buddy”—I snickered and rolled my eyes—“poor Buddy. A blind man could see his crush on you. But even with a list of instructions, he wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For one thing, he’s old enough to be your daddy. For another thing, you are way out of his league. I still can’t believe I’m sitting here with you now. . . .”

  I hoped that Joyce would stop widening her eyes every time I said something that complimented her, because I didn’t want her eyeballs to roll out.

  “I feel the same way,” she said, almost in a whisper. A few awkward seconds of silence passed before she spoke again. “Um . . . Daddy told me you used to work for Aunt Mattie, that whorehouse woman. How did you end up in a place like that?”

  “Well, at the time I didn’t have nothing. I had
a few bucks saved from my last job on a sugarcane farm, so I was able to pay my rent for a few weeks. When that ran out, I had to move. You wouldn’t believe how many different folks’ couches I slept on. When that ran out, I spent a week sleeping in one of my old bosses’ barn. Aunt Mattie was the only person who’d give me a job.” I stopped talking long enough to let my words sink in and from the pitiful look on Joyce’s face, I could tell that I was getting to her. “I ain’t proud of working in no whorehouse, but I did what I had to do. Believe me, it wasn’t no picnic.”

  Joyce shuddered. “I’d rather shovel shit than work in that business. I can’t for the life of me understand how some women can sell their bodies. A girl I went to school with works for Aunt Mattie. But she was the kind of girl who was giving it away for free to anybody that asked for it anyhow. I guess she got smart enough to start making money. What kind of work did you do for Aunt Mattie?” There was a tense look on her face.

  “Oh, this and that. The usual handyman stuff. When something broke, I fixed it. When Aunt Mattie needed something hauled from one spot to another one, or a chifforobe busted up, I done it.” I stopped talking for a few moments and laughed. “That Aunt Mattie. She’s a real piece of work. She ain’t all work and no play, though. Once or twice a week, she shuts the house down for a few hours. And then she and her girls go to the jook joints and bootleg houses to party and scout out new tricks to lure to the house. On them nights, I’d have to do some sweeping and dusting, and any other housekeeping chores that needed to be done. She even made me take a rag and sop the cum up off the floor when a trick shot his load too soon. If all that wasn’t done right, Aunt Mattie would dock my pay.”

  The tense look was no longer on Joyce’s face. Now she looked like she wanted to laugh. “Goodness gracious! It sounds like Aunt Mattie kept you busy.”

  She seemed to be enjoying my story, so I decided to keep talking. “Sure enough. On top of all the other stuff I did, I ran errands for her and her girls. Aunt Mattie is a good businesswoman. She’d send me to pick up high-grade liquor that she sold only to the white tricks. The colored tricks could only drink the homemade shit.”

  Joyce shook her head. “Even in whorehouses, white folks got the upper hand. Why did you quit that job?”

  “Politics.”

  “Huh?”

  “Or maybe I should say it was a family thing.” Joyce looked confused. “When Aunt Mattie’s godson Grady got out of the army, he needed a job.” I let my shoulders droop and started fidgeting in my seat. “She had to let me go so she could hire him.” I had told Mac and everybody else the same story. I prayed that he and Joyce would never find out that I’d been fired for trying to pick the pockets of one of the regular tricks.

  “That’s a damn shame. Well, you’ll never have to worry about something like that happening now. I don’t want to work in the store and everybody knows it. My relatives are probably as trifling as yours. And that’s one thing my mama and daddy don’t tolerate. But most of our folks live in Mobile and Birmingham and only come around when they want something, so there is no chance of Daddy or Mama firing you to give one of them your job.” Another few awkward seconds of silence passed. “You . . . uh . . . ever been close to being married?” she asked with a little bit of hesitation.

  Joyce’s question caught me off guard, but I didn’t waste no time answering it. “Nope. But I’m more than ready to settle down. . . .”

  I ain’t never seen a person’s face light up so fast. This poor woman was screaming for attention, and I planned to give her all I could. “Me too. I’m itching to get married and have children.”

  I was so glad that our waitress finally brung our food before I had time to say anything else on the subject of marriage. The interruption would give me a few moments to reorganize my thoughts. I wanted to continue saying the things I knew Joyce wanted to hear.

  Chapter 7

  Joyce

  MOSELLA’S WAS LOCATED ON ONE OF THE BUSIEST STREETS IN THE colored part of town. It was owned and operated by Mosella Cramden, a heavyset woman in her seventies with a sharp tongue and a lazy eye. She was one of my mother’s closest friends and one of the nicest people I knew. Like my parents, she did all she could to help people get through the Depression by letting some of her regular customers eat meals on credit when they didn’t have any money. She even passed out free sandwiches on the street four or five times every month. The small dull-brown building had once been a colored funeral parlor until ten years ago when a mentally disturbed man broke in and strangled the undertaker. People swore that the place was haunted by the spirits of the dead undertaker and some of the people he had prepared for burial. I’d never seen a ghost on the premises, but a lot of people claimed that they had. Every item on the menu was so good, some people would come in twice in the same day. There was a big boxy black phonograph and a stack of records on top of a milk crate near the door. If you wanted to listen to some music, you had to drop a nickel in the Mason jar on the floor next to it, and Mosella would let you pick out the five tunes. That record player never stopped playing.

  I was enjoying Odell’s company and listening to a record by a new singer named Billie Holiday, not to mention Mosella’s fried pork chops and collard greens that we were smacking on. But I was anxious for this dinner date to end. I was getting tired of other patrons staring at us, and it was making me uncomfortable. I knew most of these lookie-loos’ business and they knew mine. They were probably just as surprised to see me out in public with such a handsome man as I was.

  I didn’t know what was happening to me. My heart was beating so hard, it felt like it was trying to escape.

  “Joyce, I’m really enjoying your company,” he told me, looking at me like he wanted to lick my face.

  I lifted a napkin and wiped off my lips and chin. Another thing about the food at Mosella’s was that it was so messy, by the time you finished a meal it looked like you’d been swimming in a bowl of grease. “Um . . . thank you,” I croaked. I cleared my throat and added, “I’m enjoying yours, too.”

  Of all the men I’d known, Odell was the only one who seemed to be sincere. He had no reason to lie to me, so I believed everything he said. But when I heard what he said next, I froze. “I don’t want to sound like some of them jackasses that’ll say everything they think a woman might want to hear, but . . .” I held my breath when he stopped talking and stared at his plate. When he looked back up at me, there were tears in his eyes. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” His question almost made me fall out of my seat. Except for my daddy and the preachers I knew, love was a word no other man had ever said in my presence.

  I gulped. “I guess I do. It happens all the time in some of the books I read. Why? Do you?”

  He nodded. “Sure enough, baby doll.”

  Baby doll? No man had ever called me such a cute name. “Oh, okay.” I shrugged. “Are you telling me that ‘love at first sight’ happened to you before?”

  “Something like that.” Odell coughed and cleared his throat and gave me a serious look. “It ain’t never happened to me . . . until today.” He reared back in his seat and scratched the side of his head as he gazed into my burning eyes. I wasn’t just nervous now; I was in a state of shock. “Before I go on, tell me if you think I’m moving too fast.” There was a pleading look on his face.

  This man was too good to be true! After all the sorry experiences I’d had with men, here was one telling me to my face that he was in love with me. “No! You ain’t moving too fast!” I really wanted to tell him he was not moving fast enough.

  “Maybe I should stop while I’m ahead. The last thing I need to hear is that you . . . um . . . want a different type of man. I mean, a beautiful woman like you could probably get a rich businessman.”

  “I don’t want no rich businessman,” I said, speaking so fast I almost bit the tip of my tongue. “All I want is a decent Christian man. And one who won’t run off when he gets restless and leave me to raise a bunch of kids by myself like
so many women I know.” I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and massaged my temples. When I opened them, Odell gave me a big smile.

  “Where do you want to go from here?” he asked, squeezing my hand.

  “Do the people who own the boardinghouse where you live allow you to have women in your room after dark?”

  “Nope. Some of the men do it anyway. But the landlady is blind in one eye and can’t hear too good. She wouldn’t know if the house was on fire. Why?”

  “We can go to your room after we leave here if you want,” I said with a sniff.

  He laughed. “What I meant was, where do you want this relationship to go? But we can go to my room if you want to.”

  This time I laughed. “Like I said, we can go to your room. When we get there, we can talk more about where I want this relationship to go.”

  Odell squeezed my hand some more, told me how beautiful I was again, and commented on how he couldn’t believe I was still single. Mama had been telling me since I was a little girl that anything worth having was worth waiting for. I hadn’t believed her until now.

  Odell was definitely worth the wait. Now I was glad no other man had asked me to marry him. But even after all he’d said, I still didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. I recalled an ex-lover who had told me he’d been looking for a woman like me all his life. He borrowed five dollars from me on our second date, and I never heard from him again. That had really hurt, and it took me a while to get over it.

  When our waitress brought the check and dropped it in front of Odell, I immediately opened my purse and pulled out my wallet. “How much is my portion?”

  He gasped and slapped my hand so hard I dropped my wallet. “What’s wrong with you, girl? Put that wallet back in your purse. Don’t be making me look like no fool up in here,” he scolded.

  “Oh. I didn’t know you were treating me,” I muttered. “I’ve been here and to other restaurants with men and almost every time I had to pay for my meal. I didn’t think this date would be any different.” Odell tickled the palm of my hand before he squeezed it again. And then he gave me the kind of look no other man had ever given me. He gazed into my eyes for about five seconds. Then he gave me such a warm smile, I thought I was going to melt.