by Mary Monroe
“Would you please give me the names of the parties involved and the address?”
I gave the woman the information she requested and was about to hang up.
“And you are a friend of the child’s mother?”
“Huh? No, I didn’t say that. I don’t want to get involved—”
“You are involved—”
“Just send somebody out to that address to investigate, sister.” I hung up before the woman could say anything else, proud of myself for making it this far.
CHAPTER 39
A
fter the clumsy telephone call I had just made to the Child Protective Services, I was too wound-up to go home, so I went to the Buttercup. Muh’Dear was bustling around in the kitchen, barking orders at the dishwasher and one of the busboys.
“Muh’Dear, if you knew something somebody was doing, and it was something real bad, would you turn them in?” I asked in a low voice, glancing around.
“It depends on what it was that the somebody was doin’.” Muh’Dear started dicing celery. “I hate when them folks from the projects come in here. No matter what they order, they complain. Would you believe one of ’em sent back a rare steak because it wasn’t rare enough? If they want raw meat they should be eatin’ at a white restaurant. I don’t know why niggers start trippin’ once they get their hands on enough money to eat out. I wish they’d stick to eatin’ at rib joints and chicken shacks. But then, I know a lot of them folks don’t know no better. Bless their savage souls. Me and you used to be the same way.” Muh’Dear paused and wiped her hands on the tail of her apron. She offered me a broad smile. “I’m so glad me and you got class now.”
“Muh’Dear, what if somebody was doin’ somethin’ nasty to a child? Like kissing and feeling on their private parts. Maybe even…uh…raping them. Would you turn them in?”
“I wouldn’t have to. I’d beat the dog-shit out of ’em myself.” Muh’Dear grabbed a carrot and started dicing it, too. “I ain’t never had to worry about nothin’ like that, praise the Lord.” Muh’Dear patted the top of my head and stuck a carrot stick into my mouth.
I smiled weakly and left.
The next few days I made several bogus trips to the store, just so I could drive past Jean’s house to see if I noticed anything different. I didn’t.
Jean returned to work two days later, looking like a fishwife. Her face was bloated and red, her hair looked dirty, and her clothes looked like she had slept in them.
“I’ve decided to take P. out of the wedding,” she said, hardly looking at me. I was standing next to her desk as she moved stacks of files from one drawer to another.
“Oh, no. P. was really looking forward to being in my wedding. Did she change her mind? I know she’s shy, but—”
“Annette, that’s not it. Listen, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because I don’t want you to think of Vinnie as a racist.”
I gasped and rotated my neck. “Vinnie doesn’t want P. in my wedding because I’m Black?”
“Something like that. Now, you know Vinnie has Black friends, but he was raised by an old woman that never looked at things like race from a modern point of view. Vinnie believes that P. being in your wedding would be sending out the wrong kind of message. He doesn’t like to look like a jerk to his friends.”
I gagged and started gasping for air. When I composed myself, I asked, “How in the world is P. being in my wedding going to make Vinnie Gambiano look like a jerk? Which, by the way, he already is. None of Vinnie’s friends are coming to my wedding. How would they know about P. being my flower girl?” I wailed.
Jean’s eyes got big and she cocked her head to the side. She rotated her neck even more skillfully than I did. “Well, this is a small town and people do talk, honey. Vinnie and Pee Wee know some of the same people. You know, from hanging out at the Red Rose bar and all?” Jean sighed and set the last stack of files on top of her desk and gave me a mournful look. “I hope it’s not too late for you to get another little girl.”
“Jean, did something else happen in your house?” I asked quietly. I could see our supervisor peeping at us from around the copy machine across from Jean’s desk. I lowered my voice and leaned closer to Jean. “Did it, Jean?”
“Annette, I don’t know what you mean.” Jean bowed her head and narrowed her eyes. “Just what are you thinking, Annette? Who have you been talking to?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t been talking to anybody about Vinnie except you and little P. But this seems kind of sudden. Why did Vinnie wait all this time to pull P. out of my wedding? And why are you letting him decide that? He’s not her father.”
“He pays the cost to be the boss. You know how good he is to P. and me. I don’t want to move out of my house and if I upset Vinnie, that’s exactly what I’d have to do.” A wan smile crossed Jean’s face and she shrugged. “You know how unpredictable men are. Hey—how about lunch at Antonosanti’s? I feel like pizza today. My treat.”
I let out a deep, noisy breath and slapped my hands on my hips. “Well, are you and P. at least still coming to my wedding? Tell Vinnie he doesn’t have to come if he doesn’t want to. I won’t miss him and that’ll mean a lot more wine for us to drink.”
Jean slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand. “How could I forget to tell you! Vinnie’s got to go visit his uncle that moved to Toledo on that same day and he wants me to help him drive. You remember his Uncle Luigi who used to drive around in that cute little hearse? But guess what? After you and Jerome come back from your honeymoon cruise, let’s drive up to Cleveland for a nice lunch. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“It would be nice, Jean.” I sighed in defeat and went back to my workstation.
Vinnie picked Jean up from work that day. He rolled into the telephone company parking lot with snow chains on the wheels of Jean’s Thunderbird. A knitted cap covered his head. The cap had long flaps on the sides that covered his ears, making him look like a hound dog.
P., looking like a little bear in her brown snowsuit, with her smudged little face pressed against the window in the backseat, looked at me and waved. Even with that surly Vinnie glaring at me, I escorted Jean over to her car.
“Hi, Vinnie,” I said dryly, forcing myself to smile. I wanted to straighten out his crooked nose with my bare hands.
“What’s goin’ on?” he grumbled, his eyes shifting nervously. I could see grease on the neck of his natty sweater. “You better lay off them greens, that cornbread, and them fried chicken parts, lady. You about to bust right out of that pretty green dress,” he added, looking me up and down with a frown. He followed that with a low, throaty laugh.
I ignored Vinnie’s rude remark about my weight and motioned for P. to roll down her window. The wind was whistling in my ears, like it was taunting me, too.
“Annette, I can’t be your flower girl,” she pouted, blinking. I could see that she had already been crying, but she screwed up her face and started crying again. “Uncle Vinnie…says…says…I’ve been bad.” P. paused, sniffled, and glanced at Vinnie. Jean was still standing outside the car next to me with her eyes staring at the ground.
“Well, I am sorry you all won’t be at my wedding, P., honey,” I said, giving Vinnie the evil eye he deserved.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, too,” Vinnie snapped, gunning the motor. Like a trained puppy, Jean trotted around the car and climbed in. She kissed Vinnie on the cheek before she even closed her door.
As long as I live, I will never forget the sad expression on P.’s little face that dreary day. Even though we looked nothing alike, it was like I was looking at myself when I looked at her.
I didn’t know if an investigator had paid Jean a visit or not and I knew Jean would never tell me. I just had to wait and see what happened next.
CHAPTER 40
I
n a surprise move, Jerome decided that he didn’t want to get married in church. He wanted to get married in his mother’s house. Muh’Dear told me she didn’t care if I got
married in an outhouse as long as I was happy. And since all of Jerome’s siblings had been married in Marlene’s house, it seemed like the right thing to do so I went along with it. That way, he argued, we could save money for the Mexican cruise we planned to go on for our honeymoon. Even though Muh’Dear was paying for half.
“We could use that money for some new furniture,” Jerome insisted. “I don’t want us to start our life together with all that tired old junk we both have now.”
I agreed with Jerome that we needed new furniture, but I refused to go along with him about picking up wicker items from a flea market where he often shopped. When Muh’Dear offered to buy us new furniture, Jerome decided we had to have crushed velvet couches and a matching love seat. Like a docile lamb, I went along with that, too.
Since Muh’Dear owned the house on Reed Street, I lived rent-free. I had agreed to keep up the property taxes and the maintenance. And that was well within my budget. After paying rent on the apartment I’d had in Pennsylvania for ten years, this was a dream come true for me. I was so happy that things were finally going so well for me, that I often let it cloud my judgment. Jerome was taking advantage of me left and right, but I couldn’t see it then. He usually presented his schemes to me while I was in his arms.
After a tiresome five minutes of sex, I had also agreed with Jerome that he would move in with me after we were married. Shortly after Muh’Dear married Daddy King and moved in with him, I had moved into Muh’Dear’s old bedroom. I had recently moved back into mine. For some reason, I felt more comfortable there, after all. I refused to move from it again to the one that Mr. Boatwright had occupied, like Jerome suggested. I had already said no twice but that didn’t stop Jerome. It annoyed me when he badgered me about something, but he never gave up without a fight.
“That other bedroom has a better feel to it and a better view,” he insisted as he squeezed my breasts and tangled his legs around mine. Sadly, he was not arousing me, but he thought he was. “I’ll be a lot more passionate in a bedroom I’m happy in,” he added.
I was learning something new about Jerome all the time. Even though he showered me with attention, he was also his own biggest fan. He loved getting his way and I usually let him have it. But I wasn’t the girl I used to be. Standing up for myself was a new characteristic that I fully enjoyed. I had stopped growing physically, but my personality continued to expand in positive ways. My biggest regret was that I had not developed this new attitude sooner.
Irritated, I slapped Jerome’s hand and kicked his legs away. “You can just stop right now about that bedroom. If you want to sleep in that room, you go right ahead. I am not moving from the one I’ve been sleeping in all these years,” I told him. I had tried to compromise by suggesting that we move into the bedroom that Muh’Dear had slept in. “Muh’Dear’s old bedroom is nice, too. It even has a chifforobe built into the wall.”
“I don’t like that room. It has no view at all and it’s too small,” he exclaimed, kicking the bedcovers to the floor.
Sometimes Jerome made me feel like a plantation mammy. I had to scold him, advise him, and nurture him like one. When he behaved like a spoiled child, that’s the way I treated him.
“Jerome, like I said, if you want to sleep in that other bedroom that bad, you can sleep in it alone,” I said firmly. I got my way, but I knew that the subject would come up again later.
I didn’t care how much he begged and whined about us moving into Mr. Boatwright’s old room. I would never sleep there. It would have been like sleeping in a cemetery and I told him so.
“Exactly what happened in that room?” he asked, his eyes dancing with curiosity.
“Mr. Boatwright, the old man who used to live with us, he died in it,” I mumbled. My words sounded distant and hollow. Even after so many years, Mr. Boatwright was still a difficult subject for me.
“Oh. I didn’t know that. Your mama told me how close you were to that old brother. My daddy died at home, too. I couldn’t go in his bedroom for a year. We’ll stay in your room, baby. But we definitely need a new bed. We’ve just about fucked the hell out of the one you got now.”
Even though Pee Wee and I had not been lovers for years, on one hand, it saddened me when I heard from Scary Mary that he was seriously involved with a woman he had met at the Red Rose bar. On the other hand, it pleased me when Pee Wee confessed that he was not comfortable knowing that Jerome was going to be living right next door to him. I had assured Pee Wee that he would still be welcome to visit me every day if he chose to. However, I planned to tell him that he would have to stop entering my house without knocking and making himself at home by stretching out on my couch like he was now.
The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Pee Wee’s feelings. Next to Jerome and Daddy, Pee Wee was the most important man in my life and I didn’t ever want to lose his friendship. That’s why I didn’t bring up the fact that I’d seen Rhoda. If Jerome had not been in my life, I could have talked to Pee Wee right after my first sighting of her in the mall. But over the years, she was the one subject I’d purposely avoided talking to Pee Wee about. There was too much I wanted to say about her to Pee Wee. But, I couldn’t. At least not yet. With my wedding, wondering how my relationship with Daddy and Lillimae was going to develop, and my concerns about P., I already had enough to keep my mind working overtime.
“Old boy know about us?” Pee Wee asked, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “And…uh…do Jerome know about that…uh…thing we used to do?” Pee Wee made an obscene gesture with his fingers.
“No!” I snapped. “Nobody but you and I know about that thing we used to do. Let’s keep it that way,” I said, walking around, picking up the empty beer cans that Pee Wee had scattered about the living room. Jerome liked a clean house and I did, too. But living alone for so long, I had a habit of neglecting my housecleaning duties.
Pee Wee frowned and shook his head in disgust when I lifted one of Jerome’s jockstraps off the floor and stuffed it inside my bra.
“Annette, I know it ain’t my business, but I think you could have done a lot better,” Pee Wee said suddenly.
“Better than what?”
Pee Wee waved his hand dramatically, frowning even more. “Better than Jerome,” he snapped in a high-pitched voice.
“Didn’t you tell me that already?”
“Well, I’m tellin’ you again. How you goin’ to feel at all them family visits with that color-struck crew? How you goin’ to feel if you have dark-skinned babies?”
“I am beyond that color thing and I thought you were, too,” I hissed and gritted my teeth. “What would Black people talk about if we were all the same shade? That subject is so tired and old and I am sick of people bringing it up. Especially you.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing, Pee Wee.” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Look, you just don’t like Jerome or anything about him. Including his whole family.”
Pee Wee shook his head and gave me a thoughtful look. “Now don’t be comin’ at me like that. You got it all wrong. His sister Nadine’s cool. I was supposed to take her to our prom, but she got the measles. I was—” Pee Wee stopped talking abruptly and looked away.
I gasped. “What? You never told me that. So you only took me to the prom because Nadine Cunningham couldn’t go? I ought to slap the shit out of you,” I yelled, shaking an empty beer can at him. I sat down on the couch and stared at him with contempt.
Pee Wee guffawed and held up his hand. “Don’t be clownin’ me, girl.” He paused and got serious. “I was scared to ask you. You and that high-and-mighty Rhoda thought I was a fag. Oh, I know about all them times y’all hid from me. I couldn’t even get you to go to the movies with me—why would I think you’d go to the prom with a ‘fag-ass punk,’ as I overheard you and Rhoda’s brother Jock refer to me one afternoon. I just happened to be listening outside Rhoda’s bedroom door that day.”
“You know Jock was crazy and mean, even before he got injured in V
ietnam. I was just gossiping along with him so he wouldn’t get mad at me.” I lowered my head and bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Well, why did you invite me to the prom?”
“Because you was the girl I wanted to take. Besides, Nadine had asked me to go with her, I didn’t ask her. It took me a whole day to get up enough nerve to ask you. And even then I had to smoke a joint.”
I looked over at Pee Wee and blinked stupidly. “I know you don’t like Jerome. But, can’t you be happy for me? Life is too short and I’ve spent enough of mine being miserable.”
A sad look crossed Pee Wee’s face—a face that I noticed was getting better-looking each day….
“Did I ever make you miserable?” he asked.
“No, but you know what I mean. I want you to be happy for me,” I wailed.
“I am. I just don’t want to see you end up regrettin’ nothin’.”
“I’m thirty-five, Pee Wee. And, look at me. I am no Diana Ross. How many more chances will I get to marry?”
“Well, do you see Marvin Gaye, may he rest in peace, sittin’ up in here with you? Women ain’t standin’ in line waitin’ on me. Don’t I deserve a chance?”
I gasped. “A chance for what?”
“I want somebody to cook and clean for me and keep me warm at night when I crawl into the bed. Shit.” Pee Wee looked at me with an anxious look on his face. I had to say the most appropriate and noncommittal thing possible for his benefit, as well as mine.
I sighed. “Get a maid and some woolen pajamas.”
Pee Wee rolled his eyes, let out a groan, and offered me an easy smile that he promptly replaced with a moderate scowl. “I always thought that one day…you know. Oh, hell, girl. How come you ain’t marryin’ me?”
I laughed and waved my finger at Pee Wee. “Be serious. And stop spilling beer on my clean carpet!”
“Why won’t you marry me?” he whined. “I ain’t good enough for you?” A puppy-dog expression appeared on his face. “I know I’m a little on the dark side and my hair looks like Nap City, but I ain’t no bad dude to look at. And you know I can afford to support you in style. A woman like you deserves the best and I should be the one to give it to you. Not what’s-his-butt. Shit.”