God Still Don’t Like Ugly

by Mary Monroe

  I stared at Pee Wee with my mouth hanging open, giving him one of the most exasperated looks I could come up with. I didn’t appreciate him joking with me about something as serious as marriage. But the days of us being alone in my house were numbered so I decided to humor him. “And just why in the world would you want to marry me now? I’ve known you most of my life.”

  Pee Wee shrugged and chuckled. “Looks like I’m goin’ to be stuck with you the rest of my life anyway. I ain’t movin’ from my house, you ain’t movin’. We’ll probably be livin’ next door to one another from now on anyway.” Pee Wee paused and clapped his hands together, then started rubbing his palms together. “Just think of all the money we’d save if I moved in with you or if you moved in with me.”

  “Now you sound like Jerome.” I laughed.

  “I ain’t Jerome.”

  “Look, let’s pop open another beer before Jerome gets here.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I think I’ll go over to the poolroom for a while.” Pee Wee rose and stretched. I walked him to the door, my arm around his waist. I was disappointed when he pulled away from me. “You know I was just jokin’ about us gettin’ married, don’t you?”

  “I know you were,” I said. “You always could make me laugh, even when I didn’t want to.”

  CHAPTER 41

  I

  looked around my living room to make sure that I had not overlooked any empty beer cans or other trash. This was going to be an important night for Jerome and me so I wanted everything to be perfect, or as close to it as possible. He was coming by later to pick me up for a dinner at his mother’s house, where I would be presented to some of his other relatives.

  I promptly forgot about the clumsy conversation I had just had with Pee Wee. I laughed when I thought of him marrying me. It was a bizarre joke. But after thinking about it some more, it didn’t seem so funny.

  And the thought of having to clean up behind Pee Wee made me howl. In all the years I’d known him, I’d only been inside his house a dozen times. Even before his daddy moved away back to Pennsylvania, every room in Pee Wee’s house looked like a crime scene.

  There was so much junk piled up in his three bedrooms, he couldn’t even shut the doors. His kitchen sink was usually full of dirty dishes. The last time I’d visited him, I had to sit on the floor because there had been no room on any of his seats. If Pee Wee and I ever did get married, which was highly unlikely, I would have my work cut out for me every day.

  But the same was true of Jerome, in a way.

  I didn’t think about it a lot, but I knew that Jerome’s stinginess was going to cause problems in our future. He got tears in his eyes one night when I told him I wanted to enroll all the children we planned to have in private schools. Whenever Jerome didn’t want to argue with me, he lured me to bed where I ended up purring like a kitten. After a few perfunctory thrusts, he stood up in my bed naked and told me, “I’d rather teach my kids at home before paying somebody to teach them.”

  I was truly going to miss the great sex I had shared with Pee Wee. I was sorry that we had not gotten together “one last time” before my wedding. But it was too late now. Looking on the bright side, there was always a chance that Jerome’s bedroom techniques would improve over the next forty or fifty years, if we lived that long and remained faithful to one another. It was a depressing thought, but it was all I had to go on.

  Jerome got stuck in traffic going to and coming from the airport in Akron to pick up his Uncle Willie from Columbus. He called me from a pay phone on his way back.

  In one long breath, he told me, “Baby, put on your best dress. That yellow one, because it makes you look like a sunflower. I want you to look your best for Uncle Willie. He can’t wait to meet you. The way I’ve been bragging about you, he said you got a lot to live up to. Mama’s running around in the kitchen right now, cooking up a storm. My sister Nadine’s making a pound cake. Aunt Minnie’s driving over all the way from Sandusky in her brand-new Ford. She just got a face-lift so tell her how good she looks. We’ll pick you up and by the time we get to Mama’s house, dinner will be ready. I love you, baby.”

  “I love you, too, Jerome.”

  Jerome had a key to my house so he let himself in while I was still getting dressed. He raced upstairs and into my room. He stopped dead in his tracks and let out a long, low wolf whistle as he rubbed his palms together.

  “Girl, I am scared of you.” He tilted his head, folded his arms, and smacked his lips. “Every time I look at you, I tell myself I’m the luckiest man alive.”

  I grinned demurely as Jerome rushed over to zip up my dress. I had to pry his arms from around my waist so I could get my shoes out of the closet.

  “Hurry up, baby. Uncle Willie’s in the car and we need to stop by the liquor store to pick up some champagne. Uncle Willie is springing for the best.” Jerome whistled and rubbed his hands together again. “Girl, I can’t wait to get you back here to myself. I won’t eat much at Mama’s house because I’m going to feed on you later on tonight.”

  “You stop that,” I snapped, slapping Jerome’s hand as he massaged my butt.

  I let out a deep breath as I wiggled my feet into the black pumps I had fished out of the closet. “I don’t like these frequent gatherings, Jerome. I’m nervous enough around your family as it is.”

  Jerome waved his hands above his head. “You don’t have anything to be nervous about around my folks. Now come on. Uncle Willie’s been complaining about his butt getting numb from sitting so long, all the way from the airport. I know what he needs. He needs him a juicy-butt woman to get his blood circulating. He almost got whiplash trying to look at this big-legged sister standing in front of the Red Rose. I tease him all the time about him fucking my aunt to death. She died while he was on top of her. What a sight that was. It took three of us to lift that big sister out of that bed.”

  I gave Jerome a serious look. “Do all of the men in your family prefer big-boned women?”

  “I already told you we did. Uncle Willie, with his hot-natured self, loves him some big women! I’m going to have to keep my eye on him around you. I have to warn you, Uncle Willie is quite a ladies’ man. Even though there is enough of you for both of us, you are all mine. Now let me warn you about my uncle. Uh, he didn’t finish high school, so he’s not that sophisticated. He talks rough sometimes and he acts even rougher. But he’s a proud man and he deserves the highest respect.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. I can handle your uncle,” I said, patting my hair. To look less ethnic, I had removed my braids. I had to agree with Jerome that I looked better with my hair in a French twist and bangs. Even though this particular “do” made me look my age.

  Jerome kissed me on my neck and gave me another squeeze around my waist. “Girl, you just wait ’til I get you back to this house to myself. I’m going to have you screaming like somebody scalded you.”

  I groaned and made a mental note to come up with a mysterious, fictitious, untreatable pelvic condition so I wouldn’t have to have sex with Jerome too often in the future. I already had him thinking that my periods lasted twice as long as they really did. Like Mr. Boatwright, Jerome was a man who couldn’t stand to get too cozy with a bloody woman.

  “Let’s go, baby,” I said, running out the door behind him.

  I saw Pee Wee peeping out of his living window with a disgusted look on his face as I sashayed out to Jerome’s car with my coat in one hand and a sweet potato pie in the other. Jerome was carrying my purse.

  The huge, red-faced man sitting in the front passenger’s seat of Jerome’s car looked at me and did a double take. His eyes got big as saucers as his face froze with his mouth hanging open like a trapdoor. I stopped dead in my tracks, almost choking on my own tongue.

  With my mind a whirl of confusion and fear, I thought back to a night seventeen years ago. Not having the insight back then to know that my actions might someday come back to haunt me, I had sold my body to every man willing to p
ay. Jerome’s Uncle Willie had been one of those men. The last one. He was the same night watchman who had used me and treated me so rudely afterward. It was like I got tunnel vision all of a sudden for just a few seconds. All I could see was that man sitting there glaring at me. My legs almost buckled. I shook my head and blinked my eyes a few times.

  I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I wanted to drop dead on the spot from shame. I wanted Pee Wee to get out of his window and come out and rescue me.

  “What’s wrong, baby? You look like you just saw Caesar’s ghost.” Jerome opened the back door of his car and pulled my arm, guiding me like I was a blind person. But I remained in the same spot, shaking like a sumac leaf. My feet felt as heavy as cement blocks.

  “I don’t feel well,” I mumbled. There was a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach. I couldn’t tell which one felt worse. “Maybe I should stay home.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the man in the car and he couldn’t take his eyes off me. I stumbled back a few steps.

  “Stop acting crazy. Don’t you want to make a good impression on Uncle Willie? He’s paying for the other half of that cruise you’re so determined for us to go on,” Jerome said impatiently. His fingers dug into my flesh as he pulled me toward the car again.

  I don’t know how I did it, but somehow I managed to get into the car, folding myself onto the backseat like a sack of sand. Jerome briefly introduced me to his uncle and was gracious enough to keep the conversation going all the way to his mother’s house. I said less than five words as Jerome bragged about what a beautiful, decent, hard-working, clean, generous, and sexy woman I was.

  “Uncle Willie, ain’t this woman something else? I can’t wait for you to get to know her as well as I do,” Jerome said, talking so fast he had to cough to catch his breath.

  Mr. Willie turned around and gave me a sharp look, shaking his head as he spoke. “I can’t wait,” he growled, his lips snapping brutally over each word. “She sure enough is somethin’ else.” He glared at me some more, shook his head, and turned back around.

  CHAPTER 42

  A

  s usual, most of Jerome’s female relatives ignored me. Even though I was practically a member of the family now. However, his sister Nadine was her usual cordial self to me. She always attempted to pull me into a conversation no matter what the subject was.

  “Annette, I can certainly tell you’re a woman in love. Your face is just glowing,” Nadine told me in her nasal voice.

  I had not secured another close Black female friend after Rhoda. I hoped that one day soon, Nadine would fill that position. Nadine and I had already spent several Saturday afternoons shopping in Cleveland, getting our nails and hair done and going to lunch together. I looked forward to the day I could introduce her to my newly found sister, Lillimae.

  Nadine and Lillimae made me realize how wonderful it was to have females to bond with. But it saddened me to know that I could never replace Rhoda. As much as I loved Lillimae and Nadine, I could never feel as free with them the way I had felt with Rhoda. But like Mr. Boatwright, Rhoda was part of my past and I had accepted that.

  “I am in love,” I muttered, watching as Mr. Willie glared at me and shook his head. The scowl on his face was so severe, it looked like he was in pain. I didn’t need a psychic to tell me that he was going to be trouble.

  Jerome’s mother, Marlene, wearing a pink chiffon dress, had already set the table and was prancing around on four-inch heels ordering everybody around the dining room like a drill sergeant. “Annette, didn’t I tell you to sit between Jerome and Willie? You and Nadine act like a couple of schoolgirls.” Marlene reminded me of Muh’Dear because cooking and cracking the whip were her strongest points. Waving a napkin, she continued, “Jerome, you don’t have to sit so close to Annette. You’re stuck with her for the rest of your life, so give yourself some space tonight. You’ll have plenty of time to snuggle up to her.” As much as Jerome and I loved the bright yellow dress I had on, Marlene looked me up and down and frowned. “Annette, I guess you want to get as much mileage as you can out of that frock.” She turned sharply away from me and snapped her fingers. Then she opened her mouth to bark again. First, she sneezed and turned back to me. “I was hoping you wouldn’t splash on none of that Giorgio, Annette. Cheap perfume is bad for my sinuses. And what did you do—swim in it? My goodness!” She waved the white napkin at me and started talking with her other hand covering her nose. “Annette, you better sit at the end of the table after all.” Marlene waved me to another chair. “No, wait. That’s still too close to me.” Instead of allowing me to sit at the table with the rest of the adults, Marlene seated me at a card table that they had dragged into the dining room for Jerome’s two young nephews and niece. I was pleased when Jerome got up from the table and sat with the kids and me.

  I was even more pleased when Nadine took the seat next to Jerome. “I’m wearing Giorgio, too,” Nadine said with a wink.

  As uppity as Jerome’s mother was, she was a fairly decent cook. She had roasted a duck and stir-fried all the vegetables. With a smirk she yelled across the room, “Annette, you might recognize these dinner rolls. I picked them up from your mama’s restaurant. I hope you’re half as good a cook as she is. I want my boy to be well taken care of.”

  “Mama, you don’t have a thing to worry about. Being with Annette is just like being with you,” Jerome said, not noticing the snickers from his siblings. Nadine shook her head and tapped my foot with hers under the table. “Uncle Willie told me when I was a little bitty boy that a smart man always marries a woman like his mama.”

  “Mrs. Cunningham, Jerome is just playing with you. I could never be the woman you are,” I said distantly. Knowing that my goose was probably already cooked, thanks to Mr. Willie, I was not too particular about what I said now. I had nothing else to lose, so I kept talking. “I just hope that I make Jerome as happy as you have, anyway.”

  Marlene glared at me with her mouth hanging open. Like Nadine, Jerome’s mother was not as pretty up close as she was from a distance. Marlene’s small, beady black eyes were too close together, her nose was crooked, and one of her cheekbones was higher than the other, making her face lopsided. I wondered if a woman who looked like Marlene would have thought so highly of herself if she’d been born with skin as dark as mine.

  Jerome’s Aunt Minnie from Sandusky cleared her throat. “Annette, the key to keeping your man happy is to always look good for him. No matter what you have to do. It’s such a shame my husband Clarence had to up and die on me so soon.” Miss Minnie lifted her chin and patted her cheek. I didn’t comment on her recent face-lift because she still had a few wrinkles and folds.

  As hard as I tried not to look at Mr. Willie, every time I turned my head in his direction, his eyes were on me. There was no mistaking his contempt.

  “So, now what do you do for a livin’, Annette?” Even though Mr. Willie said it nicely, there was still a fierce scowl on his face as he addressed me. These were the first words he had spoken to me since the ride from my house.

  “She’s a switchboard operator,” Jerome said proudly.

  “And she was the smartest girl in my algebra class,” Nadine added.

  “Mmm-huh,” Willie nodded. “When I was your age they only gave jobs like operators to those squeaky-voiced white girls. Black girls had to do some of everything to make a buck.”

  “That’s for sure. My mama cleaned houses and cooked for most of her life. When I was little, I remember a job she had spreading manure on some politician’s farm. I used to help her,” I said evenly. I didn’t particularly care for duck, but I managed to take a few bites.

  “Spreading manure? Yegods.” Marlene clucked and shook her head. “I’d do anything to get out of doing something that ghoulish.” She sighed and looked around the room from Jerome to her other two sons. “Boys, just being a woman in this world is a mighty cross to bear. Some of us have to do some of the most unspeakable things so we can take care of our loved ones. I’ve been telling N
adine that all her life.” Marlene turned to me with a rare smile and said, “Well, be thankful you had a mama willing to do whatever she had to do. Just look where she’s at now.”

  “She owns the Buttercup restaurant now,” I announced proudly.

  “I know. I used to go by there a few times before I moved away from Richland. I didn’t know Gussie Mae was your mama,” Mr. Willie grunted, waving a tall flute of wine in front of his pink-and-brown lips.

  “Oh, Miss Gussie’s a sweet woman. Goes to church every Sunday,” Clifford, Nadine’s sharp-featured husband, said. He occupied the seat next to Marlene. “She cooks and serves free food to the homeless on a regular basis.”

  I smiled proudly. I didn’t want to brag about the fact that my mother had also started giving cash donations to the homeless, too. I didn’t care what anybody thought or said about me now, I was proud of the person I had become. I was so bold as to now believe that the people in my life should consider themselves lucky to know me. I just hoped that Jerome was one of those people.

  Marlene patted Clifford’s shoulder and grunted. “It’s a crying shame Annette’s mother associates with wenches like that Scary Mary,” Marlene said with disgust, shaking her head and waving her fork high in the air. “That woman gives the rest of us a bad name. If Annette’s mother and Annette could shovel shit to survive, Scary Mary could have, too! A Black woman running one of those…those…houses. Shame, shame, shame. I didn’t even know snake pits like that still existed in America. That whole business is so…so third world.”

  I was surprised when one of Jerome’s brothers defended Scary Mary. “Scary Mary’s cool. It’s because of her generous donations that they can keep that youth center open. Lord knows, Black kids need all the help they can get to keep them out of trouble.”