by Mary Monroe
“I still can’t believe you got involved with a sad sack like Floyd. I hope you doing better with the men these days,” Glodine told me before she closed her door. Despite Glodine’s odd reception I was glad to be back on Baylor Street.
Living with Valerie and Moanin’ Lisa was not as bad as I thought it would be. They pretty much went their way and I went mine. We all worked various shifts, and even when we were not working, we were rarely in the house at the same time. Other than the backyard, the kitchen was the last place I wanted to be associated with in that house. When I had no choice but to go into the kitchen, I went out of my way to avoid that spot where Mr. Zeke had died. But one morning when I dropped a fork and had to squat down to pick it up, I saw specks of dried blood on the floor! I didn’t go into the kitchen for a whole week after that. And when I did, I walked on my tiptoes like I was trying to avoid a land mine.
When I was in the house alone, I turned on every single light and I kept the front door unlocked and slightly ajar, in case I had to get out in a hurry. Moanin’ Lisa had mentioned hearing strange noises and smelling a foul odor, all coming from the direction of the kitchen. “And if that’s not enough to give me chills and fever, every time I go out on the back porch I feel a cold breeze—even in ninety degree weather! I must be working too hard. . . .” she complained. I agreed with her, but I didn’t tell her that I had experienced the same things.
I had to force myself not to think about what I had witnessed on prom night too often. In addition to the fact that Mr. Zeke’s body was still on the premises, there were other things to remind us about what had happened to him. The room that he had shared with Miss Naomi was off limits—way off limits. It was the biggest of the four bedrooms, and the one with the best view. It was now used for storing things. Valerie kept it locked, and she was the only one with a key. I was glad that it was at the end of the hall so I didn’t have to pass it to get to and from my room at the top of the stairs.
Another reminder, and a much more potent one, was the backyard. It was even more off limits to everybody, except Valerie. She had put two padlocks on the fence gate so that nobody but her could open or close it. She got rid of the barbeque grill that had occupied a spot by the edge of the porch so there could be no backyard cookouts. She purchased a large wooden picnic table that she had the delivery men set right on top of Mr. Zeke’s grave. I assumed that that was her way of making sure nobody disturbed that spot.
Valerie was a typical bartender. She stayed in her customer’s business. She liked to listen, but she also liked to dole out advice. And that was why I decided not to tell her about my monthly visits to Floyd. But each time I saw him, she was one of the few people he asked about. That was because I’d told him that Valerie had given me such a great deal on my rent so that I could have more money to help him out with commissary needs and such. “Valerie’s a good friend so you need to do whatever you have to do to keep her in your corner,” he told me. “It makes a brother feel good to know that there are still some good sisters out there like you and Valerie that can always be counted on. . . .”
Valerie wasn’t the only person who I didn’t tell all my business. Nobody else knew that I was still involved with Floyd. As far as I was concerned, there was no reason for Valerie or anybody else to know. Floyd would never see the light of day again, so I didn’t have to worry about him coming between Valerie and me in any way. And the way she liked to gossip, I didn’t want all my business in the streets. I had already told myself that I was a fool for standing by a man in prison for life. I didn’t need to hear it from anybody else.
I told Floyd only what I wanted him to know, and even then I could tell from the expressions on his face that he didn’t always like what he heard. He rolled his eyes whenever I told him I went out for drinks with somebody. And when I told him that I’d spent a weekend in Vegas with some friends, he looked so exasperated I thought he was going to faint. I didn’t see any reason to tell him that I’d been promoted at work. Now instead of spending my days at a desk in a stuffy office, I was working as an assistant to the ship’s events coordinator. My work station was the ship Encantadora itself.
My new supervisor was the ideal boss. Candace Petersdorf had survived five husbands, breast cancer, and two face-lifts. She was the first woman in her fifties I’d ever met who still had enough nerve to wear a string bikini to the beach. “My motto is: Fuck life, before life fucks you,” Candace had told me two minutes into my job interview with her. And she lived by her words. She hid her gray hair with dye and wigs, but she didn’t hide her young lovers and her passion for tequila.
Not only was I making even more money as Candace’s assistant, but I spent four days a week three times a month floating around on the deep blue sea on a beautiful cruise ship. In addition to a spacious office that I shared with my supervisor, I had my own cabin. As part of my job, I experienced some fantastic shipboard events that the passengers had to pay through the nose to attend. I had grown up watching reruns of that television series The Love Boat. I had envied the character Julie McCoy, because she’d arranged all the ship’s social events, which was what I helped do now. The first event I helped coordinate, after enjoying a lobster dinner at the captain’s table, was a sixties-style dance. It was a huge success. People were still doing the twist after the band had stopped playing. Although my job was not as romantic and as exciting as Julie’s, compared to my old job at Dr. Oglethorpe’s office, this was heaven.
“Girl, you got a job that I would kill for,” Valerie said every time I came home from a working cruise. “And that boss of yours sounds like my kind of woman.”
“I hope you don’t get drunk and fall off that ship,” Moanin’ Lisa said, a sour look on her face.
“I know how to swim,” I quipped.
“Yeah, but you can’t outswim a shark,” she said with a smirk.
“I limit myself to one glass of wine when I’m working,” I told her, rolling my eyes. Valerie rolled hers, too. “I want to be sober around all those handsome men on board.” I laughed.
“Well, I hope some jealous bitch, or some dude you flirted with then rejected, don’t knock you out and throw you overboard,” Moanin’ Lisa said with a nod and a severe frown. “And you better be careful with that boss of yours. I don’t care how nice white people treat us, we can’t trust a single one of them. They like to set us up to fail, and that’s what that Candace woman is plotting, I bet.”
“I know,” I said dryly, rolling my eyes even more. I had begun to roll my eyes so much since I’d met Moanin’ Lisa, sometimes they rolled on their own.
Valerie cleared her throat. “Uh, on the cruise that I went on, the captain performed a wedding,” she squealed. “It was so romantic.”
Before I could get a word in edgewise, Moanin’ Lisa dampened the conversation even more. “Hmmph! I bet it wasn’t even legal or religious.”
I couldn’t think of anything more exciting and romantic than getting married on a cruise ship. But marriage was one thing I didn’t allow myself to even think about. I no longer had the option to spend the rest of my life with the only man I ever truly loved. I dated and I slept with more men than I cared to admit, but I had accepted the fact that I’d spend my life alone. That was one of the few things that made Floyd smile. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve such a do-right woman like you. But if you ever do want a real relationship with another man . . . uh . . . I’ll understand. Just promise me we’ll still be friends,” he told me, looking at me with a face that belonged on a puppy dog.
“I don’t care about other men, Floyd. You know that,” I said weakly. I didn’t even sound convincing to myself, but from the look on Floyd’s face, I’d convinced him.
I gave myself a mild makeover. I improved my makeup and wardrobe, and I smiled a lot more. Before I knew it, men started to notice me in a very big way, and it could not be ignored. It seemed like they were coming at me from every direction—in clubs, parking lots, on the streets, the grocery store. The
more I resisted the temptations, the more they came after me. And since there were so many, I could pick and choose. I felt it was safe to date passengers who booked our cruises (even though management discouraged it) because it was unlikely that I would see them afterward. And that worked for a while. As a matter of fact, Valerie hopped on to a few weekend cruises herself just to indulge in a few more fly-by-night flings. Moanin’ Lisa came along with her one weekend but didn’t like the men who’d approached her, so she vowed she’d never again set foot on the cruise ship I worked for, or any other ship.
Even Candace, who was the most upbeat person I knew, couldn’t deal with Moanin’ Lisa. “Is your friend always this gloomy?” she whispered to me during dinner on the last night of that cruise, after Moanin’ Lisa had refused to dance with Captain Stewart. She was the only woman who had ever turned him down.
“Every day,” I whispered back.
Valerie enjoyed her weekend cruises with me for a while but, as usual, she couldn’t keep a man’s interest for too long. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m pretty and I’ve got everything in the world going for me. My own house. My own business. What’s wrong with these men I meet?” she asked me.
“You just haven’t met the right man, that’s all,” I told her. “You just have to be patient.”
“That’s easy for you to say. I don’t know what you say or do, but you always manage to get second and third dates with the same dudes. If I wasn’t such a good friend, I’d be jealous,” she teased.
“Well, you don’t have to be jealous of my relationships. At the rate I’m going I won’t meet anybody I want to spend too much time with any time soon, and that’s fine with me. Men are too complicated anyway. . . .” I had to eat my words a month later when I met Paul Dunne.
CHAPTER 33
If Paul had not joined me on the Lido deck during a breezy afternoon on our way back from a shipboard Fourth of July celebration in Puerto Vallarta, I would not have given him a second thought. I’d seen him a few times during the past four days, but he always seemed more interested in his male buddies than in me.
“I was hoping to catch you alone before we made it back to the port in Long Beach,” he said, standing so close to me I could smell the beer on his breath. “LoReese is an interesting and exotic name,” he continued, reading my name tag. “Where are you from? Belize? The Caribbean? Mozambique? Casablanca?” He paused and gave me a dry look. “Am I close?”
I giggled and shook my head. “You’re not even on the same planet. I’m from L.A. Not far from South Central.”
The handsome stranger reared back on his legs and gasped. He was so taken aback by what I’d just told him, his jaw dropped open so fast it looked as if somebody had let the air out of his cheeks. “Oh!” He was disappointed, but I couldn’t help that. I was not ashamed of where I’d come from. Finally, my admirer told me his name and gave my limp hand a vigorous shake, and then a squeeze. I felt kind of silly standing there in a baseball cap, tennis shoes, baggy shorts, and matching T-shirt all with the American flag design. I must have looked like the most patriotic crew member on board because none of my co-workers, or any of the intoxicated passengers, displayed our country’s colors in such a prominent way.
“It’s actually Dolores. My friends call me Lo sometimes,” I told him, moving back. “My last name is Reese.”
“Would it be Miss or Mrs.?”
“I’m not married,” I said with a sigh, looking at his fingers. He grinned and held up all ten and waved them in my face. Then as quickly as I could, I looked him up and down. He was just a few inches taller than me with an average-looking body and short curly brown hair. I usually didn’t like hair on a man’s face, but his goatee was so neat, trim, and attractive it almost made me wish I had one. He had slanted brown eyes to die for and a smile that wouldn’t quit. And those lips! All I wanted to do was cover those juicy, brown, Cupid’s bow-shaped lips with mine. Within five minutes I knew more about him than the last three men I’d been with put together. He was a twenty-seven-year-old bachelor who earned a good living as a corporate trainer for a computer company. He helped management employees on all levels develop and improve their managerial skills. This cruise was a celebration for a series of management effectiveness seminars he had just received an award for.
There were several things that I immediately liked about Paul, things that really caught my attention, because these were things we had in common. Like me, he lived in L.A., loved jazz, the Lakers, Eddie Murphy movies, and Chinese food. I had a brief concern when he confessed with a frown that he couldn’t stand turnip greens, my favorite dish, or any of the other so-called soul food dishes. I liked the fact that he admitted that his mother called him Sweet P. and that it was fine if that’s what I wanted to call him, too. I preferred Paul, and he seemed pleased to hear that.
“LoReese, I hope you don’t think I’m too forward, but I’d like to get your phone number.”
“O . . . K,” I said slowly, trying not to sound or look too eager. But I was eager and I couldn’t hide it. I almost twisted my wrist trying to get my hand inside my purse so fast to get a pen to write my telephone number on a napkin.
And the timing couldn’t have been better. I had reached a point where I was ready to move forward with my love life. As long as Floyd wanted to keep me in his life on some level, I would be there for him. But the reality was we had gone as far as we could go! What was I supposed to do? Floyd couldn’t have been more out of reach had he been sent to another planet. The two of us remaining in a relationship at our age with no physical contact whatsoever was harder than I thought it would be. And unless he broke out of prison, that would never change. It had been a while since I’d been with a man I liked as much as I liked Paul. Just from the things he’d said, I could tell that he was going to be a real challenge.
I was ready to jump into a relationship with Paul, feet first. Three times a month I spent four days straight on board the Encantadora and then three days off. The rest of the days in the month were off days for me. I had a whole week to myself coming up. For the first time since I’d “lost” Floyd to the system, I had met a man who I was so attracted to, I wanted to give him as much attention and time as I possibly could.
Unfortunately, Paul obviously didn’t feel the same way about me. He didn’t call me when the cruise was over like he said he would. I couldn’t figure out what I’d said, or done, to turn him off. My imagination ran wild. I decided that he’d lost interest because of my weakness for turnip greens and rib sandwiches. Then there was the fact that I had not attended college. He frowned when I’d told him that, too. But he’d frowned even more when I’d told him I had no family and that I’d been raised in foster care.
After three days had gone by, I gave up and was trying to come up with some names nasty enough to call him. In the meantime, I put his name at the top of my shit list. Then I turned his name over to my wrathful female friends. They roasted him good that Saturday night over dinner.
Moanin’ Lisa talked about Paul so bad it brought tears to my eyes. “He’s a low-down, funky black ass-wipe and you don’t need that!” For once, I agreed with her.
“Fuck him! Get yourself a vibrator like the rest of us!” Valerie hollered, chewing on a piece of cornbread. That I wasn’t ready for. I wanted a whole man, not a substitute for just part of one.
“I should have known not to trust a man with a goatee. Every picture I’ve ever seen of Satan, he had a goatee,” I complained, tapping my fork against the side of my plate. Valerie stopped chewing and shot me a mysterious look. Her dead stepfather Mr. Zeke had occasionally worn a goatee. I had inadvertently touched upon an extremely sensitive subject. Normally, I would go out of my way to avoid making references to anything associated with Mr. Zeke, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped.
“You should have listened to me, LoReese. I tried to tell you that that hound-from-hell was probably just feeding you some bullshit. At least you wasn’t fool enough to fuck him,” Mo
anin’ Lisa told me with a grimace, spooning mashed potatoes on my plate. I was glad that Moanin’ Lisa had diverted Valerie’s attention away from Mr. Zeke.
When we did eat together, it was always in the living room at a large card table near the front window, never at the table in the kitchen. As a matter of fact, Valerie used the top of the kitchen table for an ironing board now. Several area rugs covered the side of the floor where Mr. Zeke had died. Since a lot of my time was spent on the ship, Valerie’s peculiar house rules didn’t bother me.
Since it was so rare that the three of us were ever home at the same time on a Saturday night, I was enjoying our evening. However, I would have preferred Paul’s company. I sighed as the attack on his character continued. My roommates seemed to be having such a good time trashing Paul, I didn’t have the heart to change the subject. “That slimy devil. That punk. He was probably drunk anyway and thought you were somebody else. Pass the gravy, please. Valerie, I guess you’ll be the next one to stumble upon some creep! I just had that little fling with that asshole that helped me pick out my truck. I hope you do better than Lo and I did,” Moanin’ Lisa snarled.
“I hope I do, too,” Valerie mumbled. There was not much conviction in her voice and I was not surprised. Valerie knew more men than any woman I knew, and I knew that she was more than ready to settle down with one. Unfortunately, in her case, knowing a lot of men only meant that she knew a lot of men who didn’t want her. She never talked much about what all happened during her stay in Memphis, but as far as I knew, she had not had much luck with the men back there, either.