by Mary Monroe
Jade and I were having lunch at Mickey’s Pizza Parlor in the Melden Village Mall. “Now I don’t want you to think that I am trying to be funny or anything like that, but I can’t tell where your chin ends and where your neck begins,” Jade inserted. She was nibbling on a spinach salad, taking small, dainty bites. “I feel so sorry for you, Auntie.”
Her bold comments had taken me by surprise, but I refused to let her know that. I responded in a very casual manner. “I am used to being big. I’ve been this way all my life.” I let out a slight yawn before snapping another slice of the small pepperoni pizza in two with one bite.
“But don’t it make you mad?” Jade asked with a frown on her face.
I laughed. “It wouldn’t do me a bit of good to get mad about being fat. I’d be mad every day for the rest of my life because I know by now that I will be this big, if not bigger, until the day I die.” The last thing I wanted at this point in my life was to have somebody else feeling sorry for me. Despite my appearance, I was happy.
I didn’t know what all went on in Rhoda’s house when I wasn’t there. But whatever it was, it was enough for Jade to not want to be present. The reasons she didn’t like to be alone in the house with her parents came out a piece at a time, usually during lunch at the mall, like today.
“I like spending time with you, Auntie. Mama and Daddy don’t even sleep in the same bed anymore. And when they do talk, it’s just to fuss and cuss each other out.”
“Uh, that’s kind of personal, honey. You shouldn’t be exposing your family business like that. Not even to me.”
“But you are family to me. And when I am around you and Pee Wee, I don’t have to listen to a lot of cussing and fussing. Ever since Mama had that stroke, she’s been mad with Daddy. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear she blamed him for it.” Jade’s eyes rolled slightly to the side, and she stared off into space for a few moments with a distant and sad look on her face. It was obvious that her mind was on something now that was more disturbing to her than my weight.
I cleared my throat to get her attention back. “Jade, there are things going on with your parents that you don’t know about. But at your age, you should not try to figure it out. Your parents love you, and part of the reason they stay together is because of you.”
Jade returned her attention to me. She gave me a stony look, and then blinked so rapidly that I thought she had something foreign in both eyes. But I realized she was just trying to reorganize her thoughts. She seemed to be having a hard time getting her words out. “Auntie, I think my daddy’s fooling around on my mama,” she muttered with a hint of anger.
“Well, unless you know that for sure, you shouldn’t repeat that to anybody else. I don’t even need to hear stuff like that. False accusations can do a lot of harm to innocent people,” I said in a stern voice. “What makes you think your daddy is fooling around? Have you been snooping into things that don’t concern you again?”
Jade bowed her head and nodded. “Last week I found a telephone number on a napkin from that Red Rose Bar in my daddy’s pocket when I was looking for some loose change. I called the number and a lady answered. She had an accent.”
I shrugged. “Maybe she’s somebody from Jamaica that your daddy knows.”
“Uh-uh. I don’t think so. I know everybody he knows from Jamaica. The woman sounded kind of…uh…trashy. And a real snooty bitch, too, I might add.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. It could have been a friend or a co-worker. You don’t know all the facts, so you should not upset your mama with that information.”
Jade gave me a guarded look. “Last year when we went to Jamaica to visit Daddy’s folks…Uh…I saw my mama kissing a man on the beach.”
I stopped chewing. “So? That doesn’t mean anything either. I’ve kissed men other than my husband and it was all quite innocent.”
“Yeah, but you don’t look like my mama does in a bathing suit, and this man had been looking her up and down all day. That man…Uh, it was my uncle Bully, my daddy’s best friend from Jamaica. And when Uncle Bully kissed my mama, his hand was rubbing up and down her butt and squeezing on it, too.” Jade paused and a cold, hard look appeared on her face. “I couldn’t face my friends if my parents got divorced. That’s so…so…lower class. It’s not fair!”
I held up my hand, which was a useless attempt to calm Jade down. Her lips were trembling. Tears began to form in her eyes.
“Jade, life is not fair,” I said gently, more disturbed by what she had just said about me not looking like Rhoda in a bathing suit than I was about Rhoda’s indiscretion with that rakish Jamaican they called Bully. “Whatever you saw, I am sure it didn’t mean much to your mother.”
Jade sniffed and dabbed at her eyes and nose with a napkin. “That’s not all. I heard some of what they said.”
“What did you hear?”
“And let me tell you something else that I found out.” Jade paused and glanced around. “That baby that Mama had before I was born that died…Uncle Bully was that baby’s father.”
My face froze. As far as I knew, I was the only person who knew that Rhoda had had an affair with her husband’s best friend and had his baby.
“Who told you that?” I asked, with my eyes stretched wide open.
“Nobody told me. That’s part of the stuff I overheard Mama and Uncle Bully talking about that night on the beach in Jamaica. And that’s how I found out about that ugly woman that my daddy had an affair with before we moved here from Florida.”
“Jade, I don’t need to know all your family business. I will forget what you just told me, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell your mama what you just told me. Are you good at keeping secrets?”
Jade nodded but a strange look slid down on her face like a curtain. “Are you?”
“Am I what?” I asked, holding my breath.
“Good at keeping secrets?”
I shrugged. “I guess I am.” I added with a chuckle. “Is there something else you want to share with me?”
I had never seen Jade look as radiant as she did at this moment. “Auntie, I’m in love again. I am in love so hard it hurts. And it’s for real this time.”
I gave Jade a puzzled look as she rose from her seat. I didn’t realize she was crying until she wiped her eyes and nose with the tip of a napkin.
“Is it that bad?” I asked, wondering who Jade could be in love with so much that it reduced her to tears.
Jade shook her head. “I’m just so happy I can’t stand it. I never knew that true love could be so deep. I’ll be right back,” she sniffled before she trotted across the floor, leaving me more puzzled and confused than ever.
While Jade was in the ladies’ room I moseyed back up to the counter and ordered myself a medium-sized pepperoni pizza, thinking that I should have ordered a larger one in the first place. The same counter girl who had taken my original order waited on me again, giving me the same look of disdain that I usually received from fast-food counter workers. I expected it from the younger, slimmer ones. But this one was almost as large and old as me. I ignored the way she lifted her thick eyebrows when I ordered a large Diet Coke.
By the time Jade returned to the table, I had finished that pizza, too, and was quietly sipping on what was left of my drink.
“Now, where were we?” Jade asked, sitting down with caution, adjusting her low-cut sweater.
“You were telling me about your newest love,” I told her, clearing my throat.
“This is the real thing, Auntie. I really mean it,” Jade squealed.
I sniffed, wiped my nose and greasy lips with a napkin, and gave Jade a serious look. I could see that she was prepared to shift into a defensive mode by the way she pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes. I decided that I would not be too critical of her this time, not that it would have done any good.
“Well, even if you are in love for real this time, you better keep your legs closed. Babies and abortions are no fun. Some women get a
bortions, then later, when they really want to have children, they can’t,” I told Jade, speaking in a tone of voice that was both firm and gentle at the same time.
“I won’t have to worry about any of that,” Jade said with a smug look. One thing I could say about Jade was when she gave me this type of look, she usually had something to tell me that I didn’t want to hear.
“Oh? Is this the kind of boy who wants to save himself for his wedding night?”
Jade shifted her eyes. “I’m through with boys.”
“Oh? Well, I hope you are not involved with some forty-year-old fool who can’t get anybody but a young girl. Men like that usually end up making a fool out of young girls. Those men are not responsible because they never matured themselves in the first place. Your mama and your daddy would have a fit if you get involved with an older man, and I would, too!”
Jade was looking at me with her mouth hanging open and her eyes bugged out. “Auntie, what is the matter with you? Do you think I’m crazy?”
I gave Jade a puzzled look and a shrug.
“Me with an old man in his forties? Chicken skin! Yuck! My flesh crawls just thinking about it!” Jade said, with tears in her eyes.
“What, then?” I asked, getting impatient.
Jade folded her arms and placed them on the table with a dreamy look in her eyes now. For a brief moment she actually looked shy and demure.
“It’s not a forty-year-old man, Auntie. Jeez! I don’t even like to sit too close to people that old. All old things do for me is remind me that we have just so much time to do what we need to do. I don’t want to waste my time, ticktock, ticktock, with some dusty, musty, crusty, rusty old fossil. Anyway, they usually have some old, contagious disease or some musty smell.” Jade paused long enough to shudder. “I don’t even wear old clothes.”
“Uh-huh. Well, you might want to move to a table across the room to finish your lunch,” I smirked, kicking Jade’s foot under the table.
She gave a dismissive wave. “You know when I talk about old people I don’t mean you. You are special! Just like my mama and my daddy. And Pee Wee is an OK dude for an old man. You really lucked out when you reeled him in.”
“That’s good to know. And I’ll be sure and let Pee Wee know that, too,” I said, unable to hold back a rapid string of mild belches. That got me another look of pity from Jade. “So exactly what is it you are trying to tell me?” I glanced at my watch. As much as I liked spending time with Jade, I had other things that I needed to attend to.
“You got somewhere else to go?” she asked with a pout. “I thought you wanted to spend the day with me, Auntie.”
“Jade, I have a family and a big house to take care of. And I do have other places to be and other things to do. Saturday is the only day in the week that I can do all those things. Doing a little window shopping with you and us having lunch is one thing, but I didn’t say I’d spend the whole day with you. Now, if there is something you are trying to tell me, you need to tell me now.”
“I’m not trying to tell you anything. I am telling you, I am through with members of the opposite sex. They are boring and everybody knows how they like to use females. Even you.”
I gave Jade an impatient look and shook my head. “Well, believe it or not, I am still confused. If you have something to say, please just come on and say what it is.” I slid my tongue across my lips and glanced at my watch again to add some emphasis.
“There is this girl.” Jade reared back, scratched her chin, and then winked. She looked around before she continued, leaning forward now and speaking in a very low voice. “I’ve been looking for somebody like her all my life.” There was a faraway look in Jade’s eyes and a mysterious smile on her face. She bobbed her head and looked around again, like somebody just waking up from an erotic dream.
My diet drink suddenly tasted like turpentine. I slid the container to the side of the table, then I folded my arms and placed them on the table, like Jade. We were staring at each other, eyeball to eyeball.
“Pardon me?” I asked, refusing to take my eyes off Jade’s even though she attempted to look away. I looked at her like I was seeing her for the first time and in a way, I was. “Jade, are you…”
“Shh! Don’t talk too loud. I just saw Curtis Booker from my school walk by. He is the biggest-mouthed boy in the world.” Jade reared back again and sucked in her breath, a sparkle in her eye.
Ever since we sat down at the shiny white metal table near the counter, males of all ages slowed down when they walked by, grinning in our direction, nodding, tipping their hats. I knew that their attention was not aimed at me. I pretended like I didn’t see them, but Jade enjoyed being admired. Just like Rhoda. She tilted her head back and shook that pile of black hair on her head until she had all eyes on her, just like Rhoda always does. One unruly lock fell across her face, almost covering her eye. “I swear to God, men are all the same. I wish they would stop being so obvious,” Jade sighed, removing the hair off her face and tucking it behind her ear.
“I know what you mean,” I said, wiping a wet spot on the table with one of the soiled napkins.
“Anyway, don’t tell my mama I told you this,” Jade clucked. “She told me how she grew up thinking that Pee Wee was gay until he started fucking up a storm with women, so I know she’d be OK with me being a lesbian. She is real liberal when it comes to certain things, so she feels that gays are just as good as regular people, except for being gay.” Jade paused and without the aid of a mirror, she applied a fresh coat of lip gloss, pressing her lips together afterward to even it out. “But Daddy and his family wouldn’t be too happy about it. You know how the West Indians are. They are just like the Spanish. Too emotional. They get hysterical over the least little things. The way they carried on when my big brother came out of the closet was a scandal and a shame! You would have thought we were Spanish! I just want to ball up and cry when I think about poor Maria Cortez, this Dominican girl who sits behind me in English class. Her daddy had to go to the hospital when he found out she liked girls.”
I looked at Jade in a way that must have made her uncomfortable, and that was not easy to do. She crossed and then uncrossed her legs two times. She blinked hard a few times, and then tucked her bottom lip into her mouth.
“What?” she asked, twisting in her seat. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Girl, you are just full of surprises,” I said in a tone of voice that was sharper than I wanted it to be. Jade flinched and looked disappointed. I blew out my breath and gave her a concerned look. “Who is this girl you think you are in love with?”
“Auntie, she’s so smart and so pretty and so fly. She really is. I mean, she’s just like me!”
“So basically, you are telling me that you are in love with yourself?” I was teasing now.
“Something like that,” Jade said.
She was serious so I became serious again, too. I cleared my throat before I spoke. “You know, this could be a phase. I never told anybody, but once upon a time, I had a crush on a female. I got over it.” I saw no reason to tell Jade that her mother was the female I’d had “unnatural” urges for. “Kids your age are still confused about what they like.”
“Please promise me you won’t tell my mama? I know she likes gay people, especially since my brother is one and all, but I don’t know if I’m ready for her to know about me, too. All she talks about with my grandmothers and other folks is how she can’t wait for me to make her a grandmother. Can you imagine that?”
“No, but why are you telling me something this, uh, sensitive? I would think you’d want to keep this lesbian thing a secret. Unless you are planning to ‘come out,’ as they say.”
“Because Noelle, that’s my lady, and I need a place to meet. I really want to make a good impression on her, see? She’s got too many folks in her house and you know how gloomy it is at my house. Besides, Mama is always around.”
“My house is not a motel, Jade. I have a husband and a daughter, a
nd I don’t want them in the middle of something like this.”
Jade shrugged. “Oh well. Then when Noelle and I want to spend some time together, you can rent us a motel room. When we tried to get a room the other day, they asked for ID and a valid credit card. Like, how many sixteen-year-olds walk around with credit cards.” Jade gave me a disgusted look. “I swear to God, some adults can be so…so…dense. Don’t these motel people know that if we really want to get a room, we will find a way? They should just give us what we want in the first place. Just like the folks who sell alcohol. They know we are going to get what we want one way or the other! Like they didn’t do the same things when they were kids.”
I was no longer interested in Jade’s company. I had heard more than I wanted to hear about her love life.
“Jade, as an adult, I have to maintain a level of responsibility. A lot of adults feel the way I do. I already do things that I shouldn’t do on your behalf. Letting you receive questionable items at my address is one thing, but I am not going to rent motel rooms for you.”
“I’ll pay you back…if I have to,” Jade said, a desperate look on her face.
I held up my hand and shook my head. “It’s not about the money for a motel room. If you and this girl Noellen, Norelle, Noreen, or whatever her name is, want to be together, you are going to have to figure out how to do so by yourselves. I am not getting involved.” I was getting impatient. “Let me get you home right now before you drop another bomb on me.”
CHAPTER 35
Jade never mentioned her “alternative lifestyle” to me again. After a few weeks had passed I was convinced that she was over it. I guess that’s why I reacted the way I did when I came home one day a month after Jade’s true confessions and found her upstairs in my guestroom in the bed. And she was not alone.
As soon as I entered the room, I slammed the door shut. Then I stood there in a state of shock with my back against the door. About five different thoughts jumped to the front of my mind at the same time. The one that concerned me the most was the fact that my young daughter could have entered this unlocked room. Or anybody else. When Muh’Dear, Daddy, and Scary Mary visited my house, they roamed all over the place, being nosy. It would have been right up their alley to peep into my guest bedroom just to see if I was keeping it clean. Another thing I thought about was the fact that I didn’t know the girl Jade was with. What if she was some she-thug whose real motive was to come case my place so that she and her friends could come back later and commit a robbery?