by Mary Monroe
“What? What do you mean, you ain’t got nothin’ to say?” Muh’Dear screamed, following me into my living room with Daddy close behind her. “You better have somethin’ to say after puttin’ us through this mess.”
“We didn’t know what had happened to you,” Daddy wheezed, falling onto the sofa next to Pee Wee.
Pee Wee looked ten years older than he’d looked the last time I saw him. Which was the day I pummeled him with my fists at his cousin’s house.
“You all right?” Pee Wee asked, rising.
Charlotte wasted no time leaping into his arms. “Daddy, we rode on some airplanes!” she yelled, like we had just returned from the adventure of a lifetime.
“Charlotte, go to your room,” I said gently, easing down on the other end of the sofa.
Pee Wee seemed so submissive it scared me. All I could think about was him and Jade being together. The thought was so painful, I almost passed out just looking at him and picturing him on top of her, making passionate love to her perfect little body.
“Again? How come I all the time have to go to my room when I didn’t do nothing bad?” Charlotte complained, stomping across the floor.
“You need to get some rest,” I said, even more gently. “You’ve had a very long day.”
“Nuh-uh! I don’t need no rest!”
“Girl, get up them steps to your room before I get a switch,” Daddy said, sounding so weak and hoarse he could barely be heard.
Charlotte shot up the stairs, stomping all the way to her room. Daddy didn’t need to take a switch to her, but the way she was howling you would have thought that he had. As soon as I heard her slam the door to her room, I looked from Pee Wee to Muh’Dear to Daddy. All eyes were on me.
“Muh’Dear, Daddy, if you two don’t mind, I need to talk to my husband.”
Muh’Dear and Daddy frowned and looked at each other and then back to me.
“We ain’t gwine no place until you tell us what’s wrong with you. I don’t care how grown you get, you still a child to me,” Daddy said gruffly, sounding much stronger now.
“And another thing, Pee Wee is your husband true enough, but we done had you a lot longer than he has.” Muh’Dear paused and gave Pee Wee a smug look.
He didn’t even react. All he did was stare along the side of the wall. As a matter of fact, he didn’t seem to be reacting much at all since I’d walked in the door.
Before anybody could say another word, somebody started pounding on my front door like they were trying to break the door down. Muh’Dear went to answer it. My first thought was that it was Rhoda. The knocking was so hard and insistent, my mind told me that if it was Rhoda, she was knocking that way because she was just that mad. But I didn’t even want to think about what it was that had made her so mad: me running away or something Jade had told her.
For the first time in years, I was glad to see Scary Mary at my door. She was trying to get in the house so fast that she almost knocked Muh’Dear down.
“Annette, girl, folks runnin’ around here sayin’ you done left Pee Wee for another man,” Scary Mary said, almost choking. I didn’t know if she was choking on her own breath or if her false teeth had slipped loose like they often did when she got excited.
“I declare!” Muh’Dear exclaimed with a stunned look on her face.
“What happened? That man didn’t want you after all?” Scary Mary scoffed, placing her hands on her lumpy hips. “You ought to know by now that Pee Wee is the best you’ll ever do.”
“I did not run off with another man,” I said. “Now can I be alone with my husband?” I asked calmly, looking at nobody in particular. I didn’t have to look around to see what I already knew. I could feel all the anger around me.
“We ain’t gwine no place!” Muh’Dear roared. Daddy and Scary Mary nodded.
“Not until we find out what’s done got into you,” Scary Mary added.
She was just as annoying as my parents were. However, her intrusion gave me the courage I needed to stand my ground. “Fine. Stay here,” I said, turning to Pee Wee. “Can I see you in the kitchen for a few minutes?”
He let out a deep sigh and nodded.
I shot a warning glance at everybody else. “Y’all can stay here as long as you want to. But I am not saying anything until I talk to my husband alone,” I said, firmly. “Then I’ll tell y’all everything you want to know.”
“Is you fin to divorce Pee Wee?” Scary Mary yelled, taking a few steps in my direction. She seemed to be enjoying this drama. Her lips were trembling, her eyes were wide, and a smile was threatening to take over her face.
Pee Wee struggled up off the sofa and followed me into the kitchen with his head bowed.
“Should I have a drink first?” he asked, a stony look on his face. “I know before all this is over with, I am goin’ to need a few.”
“I am sure you do need a few drinks. I know I do. But I want us both to be sober until after we talk.”
“So. You want to start from the beginning and tell me everything that’s been goin’ on? What made you run off, Annette? Is there another man?”
I gave Pee Wee a guarded look and shook my head. The truth was, I didn’t know where to start. For one thing, I was glad to find out the identity of my tormentor. But knowing who it was was one thing, knowing it was someone so close to me was almost as unbearable as the abusive telephone calls and nasty notes. I was really beginning to wonder if I was crazy.
One minute I was glad that I had found out what I now knew. The next minute, I wished that she had remained anonymous. I couldn’t decide if I was better off knowing, or not knowing.
CHAPTER 66
“I just want to know one thing. Did you fuck Jade?” I blurted out, watching Pee Wee’s eyes. He was not a good liar. His eyes usually gave him away. His eyes blinked a lot and shifted from side to side when he was lying. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d caught him in a lie. “And don’t bother lying to me. She told me everything…”
Pee Wee’s face froze. His skin was as dark as mine. I don’t know if I imagined it or not, but for about five seconds, he was as white as a sheet. When he regained his normal color, he scratched the side of his head and looked at me through narrowed eyes. I was confused because he didn’t blink but his eyes did dart from side to side. “Woman, are you standin’ here askin’ me if I touched my best friend’s teenage daughter?”
“That’s right. Did you?”
“If I didn’t know no better, I would swear that I was losin’ my mind. I can’t believe my ears!” Pee Wee moved toward me, I moved back until I bumped into the refrigerator. “First you accused me of Betty Jean and that was bad enough. But Jade? What in the hell makes you think I touched that child?”
“She was the one who was sending me those notes and all the rest of that shit. She was the one who was calling me up. She was…she was the woman who wanted to take you away from me.”
Pee Wee’s mouth dropped open and he stumbled a few more steps forward in my direction. For a moment I thought he was going to fall flat on his face.
“Jade?” He said her name, frowning like it was an obscenity. “Jade was the one stirrin’ up all that shit with them notes and packages and phone calls?” Pee Wee paused and gave me the most incredulous look he’d ever given to me. “When—how could Jade do somethin’ like that to you—and to me?” He stopped and rubbed his head, then his stomach. “This is enough to make me sick!” he yelled, stumbling backward this time. “What in the world was she thinkin’?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. I treated her like my own child,” I sniffed. I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore. “I guess her relationship with you meant more to her than her relationship with me.”
“What? Well, I didn’t put her up to it!”
“Maybe you didn’t, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t fuck her.”
“Woman, if you don’t get some professional help, I am goin’ to have you committed! This done gone on long enough, and I ain
’t havin’ no more of this crazy-ass shit!” Pee Wee was waving his arms like a windmill.
“What’s goin’ on in that kitchen?” Daddy yelled from the living room. “What’s all that racket in there?”
“It’s all right, Daddy,” I yelled back. I continued speaking in a much lower voice. Even though it was Pee Wee who was the one talking loud enough to be heard outside of the kitchen. “She sent me a pair of your shorts,” I said to Pee Wee, almost in a whisper. “Your funky, raggedy-ass drawers!”
“Well, the girl did always make herself at home here—and you encouraged her to do it! She slept and ate here two, three times a week. And I know you think I don’t know about it, but I seen more than one piece of shit mailed to this address with her name on it. Just last week that nosy-ass mailman, Moshay, had me sign for a package from that porno shop on Sawburg that was addressed to Jade. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I opened that package! Shit, this is my address and she had no right to be havin’ her shit sent here. You know what it was? Some fruit-flavored condoms! I threw that shit in the trash where it belonged!” Pee Wee stopped long enough to catch his breath. It was cool in our kitchen, but beads of sweat had formed all over his face. “She could have walked up in here any time she wanted to and took whatever she wanted—and that’s just what she did. If I was stupid enough to be fuckin’ around, do you think I’d be stupid enough to leave a pair of my funky drawers lyin’ around so somebody could get a hold of ’em? Don’t you know me well enough by now to know I ain’t that stupid?”
“I figured she was lying,” I said in a weak voice with my head bowed. “I just had to hear it from you.”
“If you figured she was lyin’, why did you come at me the way you did? Let’s get one thing straight right now. I love you and I love my daughter. I done lost my mama and my daddy, so you and Charlotte the most important people in my life. I work my fingers to the bone tryin’ to take care of you and her. Do you think I would risk losin’ all that for Jade, or any other woman, for that matter?”
“What about Rhoda?” I barely managed. I couldn’t imagine how Rhoda was going to react when she heard what Jade had done.
“What about Rhoda?”
“I will have to tell her something. She and Otis will need to know all of this.”
“Jade is their problem. Let them deal with her the best way they can. I am through with this mess.” Pee Wee snapped his fingers, like he was dismissing the whole ugly conversation. He was, because he started walking toward the door.
“Wait!” I yelled. He stopped and glared at me. “Did you bring your things home?”
“I did. But I can pack ’em up and get up out of here again. And let me tell you right here and now, if I do leave again I ain’t comin’ back. I can take only so much of this foolishness.”
“I want you to stay home because that’s where you belong.”
Pee Wee started walking toward the door again but he stopped to answer the telephone. A deep frown appeared on his face right away. He handed me the telephone and left.
It was Rhoda.
CHAPTER 67
“Annette, I’m on my way over there,” Rhoda said in a distant voice.
I could still hear the telephone ringing in my ears. I didn’t know if I was experiencing some kind of delayed reaction or what. But hearing Rhoda’s voice had an affect on me: I felt somewhat relieved. At least she wanted to hear what I had to say.
“I don’t know if now is a good time, Rhoda. I got a crowd here, and it won’t be easy to speak in private,” I told her.
“So? I don’t have anything to say that your company can’t hear,” Rhoda said evenly.
“But I do,” I let her know. “I have a lot of stuff to say that…even you might not want to hear.”
I didn’t wait for Rhoda to reply. I just hung up the telephone and slumped down into a chair at my kitchen table. I didn’t know what Pee Wee had said to Muh’Dear, Daddy, and Scary Mary to keep them out of the kitchen. But I was glad that they were still in place when Rhoda arrived ten minutes later.
“Annette, what the hell did you do to my baby girl?” Rhoda hissed as soon as she roared into my kitchen with a jacket on over her white terry-cloth bathrobe.
She had left her house in such a hurry, she had on two different shoes.
“Before I say anything, you need to tell me what Jade told you,” I said, rising.
“I got the whole story from her when I told her I was on my way to see you.”
“You got her story. I can’t imagine what her story was,” I smirked.
“Look, I know you are havin’ some emotional problems, and that is as good an excuse as any. You are not responsible for your actions and I can understand why. But I will be damned if I stand by and let this madness you’ve been goin’ through be blamed on my child!”
“Hold on,” I said, holding up my hand. “What was it that I was supposed to have blamed on Jade?” I left my hand up in the air right in Rhoda’s face.
“You accused her of sendin’ you those notes! You accused her of makin’ those telephone calls!” Rhoda let out a maniacal laugh. “And in the state you are in, I am surprised you didn’t accuse me!”
“Jade denies doing that shit?”
“Of course she denies it!” Rhoda said through clenched teeth. “Why wouldn’t she? She didn’t do any of that shit, and I know she didn’t!”
“And you believed her before even hearing from me?”
“Look, I know my child. I know she would never pull some shit like that.”
I gave Rhoda a look that made her face drop. “Rhoda, you don’t know Jade like I do.”
Rhoda was already angry and she looked it. But now she looked puzzled, too. “What are you tryin’ to say?”
“I know your daughter better than you do, and what I know is not nice. That’s why I didn’t want to face you.”
“No, you didn’t want the truth. That’s what you didn’t want to face! And the truth is, you need professional help. But rather than admit that you’ve lost your mind, you think you can use my baby as a scapegoat! I won’t stand for it!”
“Listen to me, Rhoda.” I had to breathe through my mouth to keep from having a panic attack, but it felt like I was having one anyway. I was surprised that I was still able to talk. “Rhoda, you don’t know your own daughter half as well as you think you do. As savvy as you are, and have always been, you have the nerve to walk around thinking Jade is still a virgin! How naive can you get?”
Rhoda gasped so hard she almost lost her breath. “How would you know…”
“Because I was with her for the two abortions she had!”
Rhoda gasped again, and this time she almost collapsed. With her hands shaking, she pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’ll bet it was that Hawkins boy who took advantage of Jade…or that Ralston boy.”
“Rhoda, listen to me. Jade got around like a record. Just about anybody could have made her pregnant.” It hurt me to say those words, so I knew that it had to be extremely painful for Rhoda to hear them.
“Jade would never go that far on her own. It had to be…They had to get her drunk or rape her or somethin’!”
“Rhoda, I wasn’t there when it happened, so I don’t know. But I can tell you one thing, your daughter is not that innocent.”
“She made a couple of mistakes. I will talk to her and get the truth. Then I will talk to those boys’ families. Both of them are over twenty-one, so I intend to prosecute them!”
“Rhoda, your innocent daughter licked another girl’s pussy right in my house in my guest bedroom. I saw her with my own eyes, and it didn’t look like she was being taken advantage of.”
Rhoda made a noise that sounded like the cries of a wounded animal. Before I knew what was happening, she leaped up from her chair, and was all over me, beating me with both hands at the same time.
CHAPTER 68
Rhoda pummeled me for a few seconds with her fists. Then she started bombarding me with items she snatched off the c
ounter next to my refrigerator. An empty plate cracked in two as it slammed against the side of my head. A pan whizzed past my head, missing me only because I ducked. I was on the floor, lying on my side like a seal, twisting and turning, trying to get up and away.
“How dare you! You lyin’ bitch!” Rhoda screamed.
Even though I was being beaten to a bloody pulp, I was still concerned about other people more than I was myself. I didn’t yell or cry out for help because I didn’t want to disturb Muh’Dear or any of the rest of the folks in my living room. The more Rhoda beat me, the more I pressed my lips together so that I could keep my cries down to a low, kittenlike whimper.
“Don’t you know who you are fuckin’ with?” She snatched a wet dishrag off the side of the sink and started swinging that at me, too. It cracked against the sides of my face like a whip.
I was the kind of person who would run away from a fight. Everybody who knew me knew that. I had defended myself only those two times along the way, and I had been totally justified. I loved Rhoda. She had been my best friend for many, many years. She had killed for me. But I had to draw the line somewhere.
Just as she was about to come at me, wielding a long-handled fork, I managed to wobble up from the floor, holding the tail of my muumuu, which was smeared with blood from my busted lip and scratches on my face. When I grabbed Rhoda by her wrists and shook the fork to the floor, she gasped and looked totally surprised. There was at least one advantage to being a big woman: I was as strong as a mule.
As hard as she struggled, Rhoda could not get loose from my grip. I shook her for a few moments. She felt and looked like a rag doll in my massive hands. There was a look on her face that I will remember until the day I die. She looked surprised, frightened, and sad all at the same time. When I got tired of shaking her, I pinned both of her arms behind her back and held her there, looking her straight in the eyes. I held on to her wrists the same way that Pee Wee had held on to mine when I’d attacked him in his cousin’s house.