“We have to pray for Robert, Rochelle. He can’t help it. Remember, this negro is retarded enough to believe that he is a real player. Veronica told me that Tracey sent Robert an e-mail note to their joint e-mail by accident. Said Stewie was going on and on about how much she luuuuuvvvveeddd that negro, and then went on to write some crazy mess like, You make me feel so … so … free, so much like a woman, a vixen, a sex kitten, the ultimate hottie.”
Rochelle was dying with laughter. She said, “That skank is crazy. The only real hottie that I know of is Hottie from the first season of Flavor of Love.”
Yvonne started to cheer up thinking about her crazy sister. She turned on the radio to hear Cy Young cutting up, and then being on point, when he played “What’s My Name” by Brian McKnight.
She bobbed her head around and got in the groove of Mr. McKnight’s ultra-smooth and sexy voice as he put a hurting on singing, “what’s my name, say it, say it, say it, what’s my name.”
Her cell buzzed. She picked it up off the seat and realized that there were four missed calls—all from Rochelle. She flipped the phone open right before it clicked off.
“If you’d get a Bluetooth, you’d be able to answer that daggone phone,” Rochelle fussed.
“Hello to you, too,” Yvonne said, and put the cell on speakerphone.
“Where are you? Are you all right? I just got off the phone with Trina. She said that y’all negroes were getting ready to throw down up in the Athletic Center. And did Kordell Bivens really have the nerve to get all up in your face, Yvonne?”
“Kordell Bivens did what?” Yvonne heard Elaine saying in the background. “I hope they kicked his How-the-Grinch-Stole- Christmas-looking-lips-self behind. I can’t stand that man, with those old thick cornhusker-looking legs.”
“Yes,” Yvonne said, “Kordell tried to get cute with me but Maurice and Curtis nipped it in the bud.”
“Oh. Coach was there?”
“Rochelle, the meeting was about basketball players, why wouldn’t he be there?”
“Oh, yeah … good point. So, what did Coach do?”
“He jumped up in Kordell’s face and told him he’d mess him up bad if he ever did anything like that to me again.”
“Coach did that for you, Yvonne?” Elaine hollered out.
“Tell her yeah,” Yvonne said.
“She heard you because we have you on speakerphone, too.”
“How far are you from the shop, Yvonne?”
“Twenty minutes or less, Elaine. Will that cause a problem for you?”
“No. Miss Hattie Lee Booth is on her way. I’ll get her going while we are waiting on you. Right now, it’s just Rochelle and me in the shop, waiting on you.”
“Is that the same Miss Hattie Lee who cooks all of that good food at Rumpshakers?”
“One and the same.”
“Elaine,” Yvonne began tentatively. She had wanted to ask somebody who could hold their counsel this question for a long time.
“Yeah, sweetie, what you need?”
“Did Miss Hattie Lee ever do any kind of … you know … dancing? And I don’t mean just going to a dance and dancing.”
“She used to be a stripper back in the day at the Lucky Lady Club down in the Bottom. Folks say that she was the baddest thing on two legs.”
“But has she turned in her pole?”
“Yvonne, you are a nut,” Elaine said laughing. “But to answer your question, the answer is no. Miss Hattie is still on the pole. And from what I’ve heard, she be working it over there at Rumpshakers, too. Put some of those young dancers to shame. And I shouldn’t be surprised since she is Sweet Red’s and Lil’ Too Too’s grandmother.”
“Who told you that? Somebody you know has seen her dance?”
“Mr. Tommy at you all’s church.”
Yvonne could hear Rochelle hollering with laughter in the background.
“Y’all know that Mr. Tommy don’t miss a thing,” Elaine went on. “If something is going down, Mr. Tommy is going to be there, looking over those glasses and making sure he is getting the skinny on everything and everybody.”
“What he say, Elaine,” Rochelle said. “You know I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Mr. Tommy is watching Miss Hattie Lee do all of that dancing.”
“I don’t know if I want to see all of that, Rochelle,” Yvonne said.
“Mr. Tommy said that Miss Hattie Lee dropped it like it was hot for him one time, and it liked to run his pressure straight through the roof. He said that she made him feel like he was in his prime again,” Elaine told them. “He said that he loved how after she got through dancing like that for him, she pulled out pictures of her grandbabies and great-grandbabies. Said looking at those pictures and talking about the grandbabies while Miss Hattie Lee was still in that outfit was almost as good as the dance itself.”
“Mr. Tommy knows he needs to stop,” Yvonne said. She slowed down. “Elaine, will it be okay if it’s more than twenty minutes? I just ran into some roadwork.”
“Take your time. I only have two customers coming in this morning—you and Miss Hattie Lee.”
FIFTEEN
Your sister will not be here for about thirty minutes,” Elaine said.
“You think she is going to back out again?” Rochelle asked.
“Nope. But she is scared to death about going through with this makeover. She wants it and knows she needs it. You know this will be the complete end of who she thought she used to be.”
“You’re right,” Rochelle said and went and pulled out one of Elaine’s DVDs. “I didn’t know you watched Apostle Grady Grey’s Half an Hour of Holy Ghost Power.”
“Girl, I love that show—try to catch it whenever it’s on.”
“Lawd knows I love me some Grady Grey’s Half an Hour of Holy Ghost Power, too,” Rochelle said.
The door opened and Miss Hattie Lee Booth walked in smiling and carrying a plastic container of huge homemade coconut, chocolate chip, raisin, and pecan cookies. Rochelle followed the delicious smell of those baked goods, hoping Miss Hattie Lee had brought them for the people at the shop.
“Here, baby,” she said to Elaine, just grinning. “I made these for you and your customers. Get one and taste it.”
“Let me wash this stuff off of my hands. You gone have me big as a house with these cookies, Miss Hattie Lee,” Elaine said.
“You want one, baby?” Miss Hattie Lee asked as she turned toward Rochelle and held the container of cookies out toward her.
“Yes, ma’am,” Rochelle said and took one of those big fat cookies. She bit into it and closed her eyes. It was chewy and so good.
“Are you getting your color touched up, Miss Hattie Lee?”
“Yeah, Elaine. The gray is beginning to show and I need to have it looking better now that I have a new man.”
Rochelle gave Miss Hattie Lee a sly once-over. She was really pretty with that blonde hair, pale reddish-brown skin, shapely figure, and a smile that could light up an entire room.
No wonder Mr. Tommy loves going to see her dance, Rochelle thought. I’d bet some good money that girlfriend can put it on a brother.
“Yeah, I heard about you and this new man,” Elaine told her as she took a cookie and bit into it. “Oooh, this cookie is so good.”
“Well, baby, it’s about time I got myself a new man. You know it’s been four years since Booth passed. Girl, I loved that man. Had thirteen babies by him. And Lawd, if Booth didn’t have some good loving. That man put it on me almost until the day he died. Sweet man, too.”
Rochelle started blushing and Miss Hattie Lee just laughed and then said, “You know something, Elaine. I didn’t think that I would ever want to be all cozy with another man after Booth passed. But then I got to know Tommy and it’s like I’ve been given a new lease on life. And Tommy sweet, just like Booth—neither one of them got issues with my dancing.”
Whew, Rochelle thought. Old people know they be getting busy. Stripping and getting a blonde touch-up ’cause you
have a new man. And Mr. Tommy at church? She knew Mr. Tommy, who was a widower, still had a playah’s card tucked away somewhere in his usher suit. But now it appeared as if he’d closed down shop on account of Miss Hattie Lee Booth—one of the hottest old ladies in Durham County.
“Come on, Miss Hattie Lee. Rochelle’s sister is stuck in some traffic and running late. I’ll have you colored up by the time she gets here.”
Miss Hattie Lee sat down in the first comfortable chair she saw.
“Not there, Miss Hattie Lee. Come on over to the bowl.”
Elaine washed and rinsed out Miss Hattie Lee’s short and very stylishly cut hair. She dried her hair and mixed up some color—dark gold with just a touch of reddish brown in it.
“This is some pretty color, Miss Hattie Lee,” Elaine told her. “Mr. Tommy is going to love how this looks. And knowing that booger, he might snatch you up and try to run off to the nearest hotel with you.”
“Well, if I’m at work, won’t be no need for all of that. There are plenty of hanky-panky rooms at Rumpshakers if you really need one,” she answered with a wink.
“What kind of rooms?” Rochelle asked.
“Hanky-panky.”
“What goes on in a hanky-panky room, Miss Hattie Lee?”
“Why, hanky-panky, baby. That’s what goes on in a hanky-panky room. I thought that you would know that.”
“But isn’t that illegal?” Rochelle asked her carefully, wondering how Charles managed to do such a bang-up job getting around the law like that.
“No money changes hands. It’s just hanky-panky. It ain’t right, baby, but that is what goes on. Only a handful of high rollers with special membership perks have those privileges. Charles is something else. But that boy ain’t never been stupid about anything that he does. And he sho’ ain’t trying to get in trouble with the law.
“There some men who would love to get up in a hanky-panky room and cut up. But they ain’t going there. Charles barely letting them through the front door of Rumpshakers as it is.”
“I bet Rico Sneed is one,” Rochelle said.
Miss Hattie Lee’s lips curled up at the mere thought of Julia Sneed’s son Rico. She had been sent to dance for him and his boys simply to get rid of them. But Rico had been cheap, and he talked ugly to her and the rest of the girls in that harsh and mean voice of his.
She said, “Yeah, Rico is one of the men who’ll never find out the location of one of those hanky-panky rooms. That boy walks around like he thinks he’s God’s gift to women. But he ain’t worth a dried-up piece of dog doo-doo.”
“You have a point” was all Rochelle said, nodding her head.
“Rochelle,” Elaine said as she brushed the color into Miss Hattie Lee’s hair. “Get that DVD case off the shelf and look for a recent airing of Grady Grey’s program. We need something refreshing to think about after all of that talk about Julia Sneed’s son.”
Rochelle reached down to the bottom shelf of the TV stand and pulled out a stack of DVDs in a clear case with GRADY GREY marked on it in a red permanent marker.
“You know,” Rochelle said, “Grady Grey was in school with Yvonne at Hillside. But that was before he became an apostle. Remember when he used to run that hot office supply store out of the shed in his grandmother’s backyard?”
“Girl, yeah,” Elaine said with a chuckle. “Don’t you know that a whole bunch of black folk in Durham shopped in that shed? ’Cause Grady Grey had the hookup. His stuff was better than what you could get at the regular office supply store—and a whole lot cheaper, too.”
“And did you know that you could put your stuff on layaway? That boy would just charge you a small rental fee for storing your merchandise until it was paid off. Because you know Grady Grey didn’t take checks or credit cards, and a lot of the people shopping in that shed didn’t have enough money to pay their bill in full and up front.”
“How do you know about this, Miss Hattie Lee?” Elaine asked as she rinsed the excess color out of her hair.
“How do you think I know that?” Miss Hattie Lee answered her. “I used to be a dancer at the Lucky Lady Club. I still do a little bit of dancing, and I’m almost seventy years old. Do you really think I had problems putting anything on layaway in Grady Grey’s Office Max shed?”
Elaine smiled, dried off the excess water in Miss Hattie Lee’s head, and put a plastic cap on her head.
“I see your point. Come on. Let me get you under the dryer for a few minutes to bake this pretty color into your hair.”
“But I wanted to watch the DVD with you babies.”
“Okay,” Elaine said, took the plastic cap off, picked up a bottle of water, spritzed Miss Hattie Lee’s head, and put the cap back on. “I don’t want your hair to get too dry before you get up under that dryer. Mr. Tommy’s not coming over to my shop getting on me about you and this hair.”
“What made Grady Grey stop his business and get into preaching?” Rochelle asked as she looked through the DVDs, trying to find the best, most recent episode.
“His baby mama, Linda, got mad at Grady when she found out that he was sleeping around with a very young Prudence Baylor when Linda was pregnant with Sherron—the one playing ball for Coach Parker up at the college,” Miss Hattie Lee told her. “That Linda saw the two of them going into the motel that used to be behind the Lucky Lady Club.”
“What? The Good Sleep Inn?” Elaine asked.
“Thhhhaaattt’s the one,” Miss Hattie Lee said, and then started laughing. “I bet a quarter of Durham’s black population born before 1990, when the motel and the strip club finally closed down, can thank the Good Sleep Inn for helping them get into the world.”
“Yes, Lawd,” echoed Elaine. “There was some stuff going on up in that motel but I can’t really say it was about sleep.”
“You all are crazy,” Rochelle told them. She remembered the Good Sleep Inn when she was at Hillside. She and her friends used to go to the confectionery across the street from the hotel after school and watch who went in and out of that building.
“Well, I can tell you that Linda Grey followed Grady to the Good Sleep Inn. She sat in that parking lot for a good twenty minutes, and then she walked herself right into that little dinky lobby, asked to use the phone, and reported every single thing Grady Grey was doing to the police. They shut Grady down, and then put him in jail when he couldn’t ‘rightly ’member’ who any of his suppliers were.”
“You know,” Elaine added, “I remember running into Linda while Grady was in jail, and her telling me that he had gotten saved and turned his life around. With the exception of his Jheri curl, Grady came out of jail a changed man who was determined to marry his baby mama and live right. Linda’s mama said that as wild and crazy as Grady can be, he has been a model husband since the day they said ‘I do.’”
“Well you know they started out at Jubilee Temple Holiness Church in North Durham,” Miss Hattie Lee told them. “And they would have stayed there if the pastor had not asked Grady to start Jubilee Temple Holiness Church II over near Hoover Road.”
“You mean that church over near that hotel with who knows what going on in it is Grady Grey’s church?” Elaine said.
“Yep. The first Jubilee Temple has some members who used to hang out at that hotel before they got saved. They begged the pastor to put a church over there. Said there were a lot of lost souls who needed to find Jesus. And a whole lot of those people were not going to come all the way to North Durham—many of them didn’t even have decent transportation.”
“So where is the TV show taped?” Rochelle asked.
“At Grady’s church,” Miss Hattie Lee answered.
“How do you know so much about that church, Miss Hattie Lee?”
“I go there when I go to church because Grady Grey and his staff is real understanding about the struggles of people like me,” she told Rochelle. “He’s been getting on me about joining and turning my life over to the Lord but I’ve got cold feet. I know I’ll have to stop the danc
ing and stop wearing my costumes. And that’s just about impossible for me to do right now.”
Rochelle thought about a Bible-study series her first lady, Lena Quincey, had taught the Women’s Ministry on spiritual strongholds. Miss Hattie Lee was encased in a spiritual stronghold that had come from doing striptease dancing for all of those years. Sometimes, her heart ached when she thought about all of the seemingly innocuous ways the enemy used to get strongholds erected around people. And stripping was an open doorway for the Devil to come into your life—she didn’t care what folks said to the contrary.
“Miss Hattie Lee,” Rochelle said, “nothing is impossible with God—not even blessing you with the ability to stop the dancing and wanting to wear those costumes.”
Elaine could feel the warring tension going through Miss Hattie Lee. Rochelle was right. But Miss Hattie Lee was stubborn and didn’t want to give in to what the Lord had been calling her to do for many years. Elaine diffused some of the tension when she said, “Then that explains the interesting set. ’Cause I swear they must be taping that thang out of Mr. Mobley’s old cleaners. You know the one that was off of Miami Boulevard.”
“That is exactly where the show is taped,” Miss Hattie Lee said, her heart feeling the sting of the double-edged sword of God’s Word. She hoped she sounded more light and carefree than she felt.
“Grady bought the cleaners from Mr. Mobley and has started building a brand-new church on the old parking lot and land out back.”
“Rochelle, have you picked out a show yet?”
“Naw, Elaine. The titles all look so good until I’m not sure which one to choose.”
“Get the one where Grady Grey’s old cellmate, Huge Hotsy, was a guest.”
“Big Dotsy, Miss Hattie Lee,” Elaine said as she checked the color and moisture in her hair underneath that plastic cap. She raised it up and spritzed a few times.
“Have you seen that one, Rochelle?”
“Uh-huh. But I want to see it again. Girl, that thang was so good until I had to sign up as a yearlong partner with Apostle Grady Grey Ministries.”
Up at the College Page 19