by Mary Monroe
Pee Wee moved in with me that same day. Other than that, it was just another day. We went to visit Rhoda but she remained asleep the whole time. I was stunned but pleased when we went to Muh’Dear’s house to pick up Charlotte and discovered that Daddy had slept in the same room with Muh’Dear. He was still in bed when I walked into Muh’Dear’s bedroom.
“It ain’t what you think. I just needed him to keep my back warm,” Muh’Dear told me with a nervous grin.
“And I’m sure he did.” I hugged my mother and then I woke up my daddy so I could hug him, too.
I called up Lillimae when I got home and we chatted for over two hours.
“Annette, I love you and I am so happy for you,” Lillimae told me. “You finally got everything you wanted. Your mama and daddy are back together. You got a good man, a beautiful baby. What more could you ask for?”
“I am blessed,” I told my sister. I had received letters from both of my other siblings the same day. Yes, I was truly blessed. Even though I had lost my stepfather, P. and Jean, and possibly Rhoda, I still had a lot to be thankful for.
The next day Otis told me that a tour guide had tracked down Rhoda’s parents and delivered the message that he had wired about Rhoda’s condition.
It was another week before the doctor released Rhoda. I was already at Rhoda’s house, nursing a huge glass of wine, when Otis brought her home. I was glad that he and Jade left me alone with Rhoda.
“My parents are arrivin’ from Kenya tonight. I really need my mother,” Rhoda told me in a hoarse voice, lying on her back in her bed, propped up with three pillows. Even though she was able to talk, her mouth was still slightly twisted and from the grimace on her face, it looked like it was painful for her to talk. If that wasn’t enough of an indignation, she would have to drag her left foot when she walked for the rest of her life. I couldn’t imagine Rhoda having to give up all of her fancy high heels, prancing around like one of the Rockettes, skipping rope, roller skating with Jade, and dancing in front of the band at the Red Rose bar. The glamorous life that she had enjoyed for so many years was over. Her future as a hopeless cripple was far worse than her spending time in jail. Rhoda cleared her throat and spoke again with her lips quivering. “My Aunt Lola’s comin’ up from Alabama to stay with us for a while, too. She’s goin’ to help out until…until—” Rhoda was too weak to continue.
“Scary Mary said she could take care of Jade and I can cook and clean for you until your family arrives,” I offered, smoothing the covers on Rhoda’s bed.
Rhoda shook her head. Her hair, dry and tangled, dangled about her face like natty dreadlocks. “You’ve done enough for me.” It was a struggle for her to speak but she continued. “Besides, you should be with Pee Wee and Charlotte.”
“I think you need me more than they do right now,” I said firmly.
She sniffed and cracked a thin smile. “When’s the weddin’?”
“Last Saturday.”
“What?” Rhoda wailed weakly, her eyes bulging.
I shook my head. “We just went to city hall. I didn’t want to be waltzing down a church aisle with a bunch of people gawking at me anyway. I’m too old for that.” I laughed. “We’ll have a reception at my house when you get better. Pee Wee moved his things into my house and he’s going to rent his house to his cousin Steve and his family.”
“I wish you had waited. I wanted to be there for you,” Rhoda whined, sighing sadly.
“You were,” I said gently as I sat down on the foot of the bed, crossing my legs. I cleared my throat and steered the conversation back to Rhoda’s condition. “Did the doctor say why this happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“People our age don’t have strokes.”
“Well, I did.”
“But you were so healthy. Was it something in your diet? Was it something you did or didn’t do? I don’t understand how—”
A pensive look appeared on Rhoda’s face. She scratched her chin, frowning because it was covered in dried spit. “It was somethin’ I did.”
“But what in the world—”
In a steely voice she announced, “I did some things I shouldn’t have done. And you know what I’m talkin’ about.”
I gave her a puzzled look and shrugged.
“Bad karma.” Rhoda sighed and scraped her bottom lip with her teeth. I noticed that her left eye now looked larger than her right eye.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I knew damn well what she meant. I just didn’t want to be the one to bring it up. Especially at a time like this.
“The things I told you I did…”
I let out a groan as a sharp pain shot through my chest. “Do you think it was that shit you told me about killing four people that overloaded your mind and caused that stroke?”
“It could be. I’ve thought about it all a lot since I told you. Every day. And by the way, it’s five people, not four.”
I gasped so hard, I almost choked on my tongue. “What?”
“You know damn well old Uncle Carmine Antonosanti didn’t shoot Vinnie, girl. I was there.”
I nodded. “I thought so.” I looked in Rhoda’s unblinking eyes. “I’m not judging you this time. That’s between you and God.”
Rhoda nodded and sighed. Her tongue slid out of her mouth and licked her bottom lip, making a slurping noise. “So God’s takin’ me…a piece at a time. First my baby boy…then my,” she paused and patted her chest and added in a cracked voice, “now…this.”
“You stop talking all that foolishness,” I scolded, shaking my finger in her face.
Rhoda gave me a thoughtful look. “Annette, you said I was a good wife, a good mother, and I’ve tried to be a good friend.”
“And all of that’s true!” The words seemed to burst out of my mouth.
“But I guess all of that didn’t matter. God still don’t like ugly.” Rhoda’s eyes shifted and she added, “And I have a feelin’ that God ain’t through yet.”
“And He never will be,” I muttered. “But I’m still going to be your friend, Rhoda.”
At this point Rhoda sighed, nodded, and gave me a weary look before she wiped a huge tear from the corner of her eye. “I’m goin’ to be okay,” she rasped.
Before I could respond, Otis and Jade entered the room. Otis advised me to let Rhoda get some rest.
“You will come back tomorrow?” Otis asked. “You part of the family,” he added, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. I nodded and grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
Rhoda had already closed her eyes and curled herself up like a ball. I pulled the covers up to her neck and kissed her on the cheek. I was amazed that after all of the hundreds of egg facials I’d watched her give herself during our youth, her skin now felt like sandpaper.
“We’ll both be okay now,” I whispered in Rhoda’s ear, leaving so she could be with her husband and daughter.
I suddenly felt so warm all over that I had to fan my face. I let out a deep breath and I smiled.
And then I went home to be with my husband and my daughter.
The following is a sample chapter from
Mary Monroe’s eagerly anticipated upcoming novel
RED LIGHT WIVES.
It will be available in September 2004, wherever
hardcover books are sold.
ENJOY!
CHAPTER 1
LULA HAWKINS
S
ex was one thing I could always count on to cause trouble in my life.
The nightmare that led me from Barberton, Mississippi, to San Francisco began last April. In each city I had allowed the wrong man to control me with sex. I went from being a naive, lovesick country girl to a high-priced call girl.
Larry Holmes must have gotten his wife and me pregnant the same night because nine months later, she and I ended up in the same hospital on the same day to give birth to his babies. But that wasn’t bad enough. I didn’t even know that the man I’d been sleeping with for more than a year had a wife, u
ntil she coldcocked me in the parking lot at Jupiter’s Discount Department Store one afternoon five days ago.
Other than that vicious assault, there was nothing unusual about that day. It was a Friday, the chosen day of my workweek that I usually called in “sick,” so I could start my weekend early. I did this about every eight weeks. My high-maintenance relationship with Larry required a lot of my time. And even though I needed my mundane job at the Department of Motor Vehicles, I couldn’t let it interfere with my plans. It had taken me too long to find happiness and true love. Except for death, nothing was going to stand in my way. I was not just a woman in love; I was a fool in love.
But at thirty-three and still single, you would have thought that I was blind, too. Because, so far, I had refused to acknowledge the red flags that Larry frequently waved in my face. Like him never taking me to his apartment or even letting me know where he lived. And, he would only allow me to call him at work or on his cell phone.
Larry had me right where he wanted me: in the dark. I couldn’t see the light even though it was right in my face. It was a sad position to be in at my age. But like I said, I was a fool in love.
One of the reasons for my condition was Larry made me feel special. He’d missed a day’s work without pay to paint my apartment, he worked on my car for free, and he often accompanied me to movies I knew he would hate.
“Girl, we are the only Black folks sittin’ up in this theater,” he’d complained with a chuckle and a loud yawn, the night I dragged him to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
“We can sneak into that race car movie next door,” I said, pouting.
“Uh-uh, baby. This is the movie you wanted to see. All I care about is pleasin’ you. Just wake me up when it’s over.”
That’s the kind of talk he used to keep me in my place. And it worked.
It took a lot of energy to make a relationship work, and I was one hard-working woman. I figured that if I put a lot into it, I’d get a lot out of it. I didn’t even mind lending money to Larry because he always paid me back when he said he would. Even though he often borrowed the same amount of money the next day! I had girlfriends who did even more for their men, so I didn’t think that I was doing anything out of the ordinary.
Not long after I’d made the well-rehearsed call to my supervisor’s voice mail, complete with a weak voice and a hacking cough, Larry came by my apartment on his way to work for a “wake-up call.” Our sex life was so good we’d named it. I looked forward to our wake-up calls, which, by the way, sounded a lot better to me than the crude and overused term “booty call” that so many of the people I knew used. And I didn’t wait for Larry to approach me; I requested wake-up calls as often as he did.
Since Larry had stopped trying to talk me into getting an abortion, and was now helping me choose a name for our baby, I thought he was as happy as I was about me being pregnant. He didn’t care how bloated and lopsided my face was, or how swollen my ankles were as I splashed around naked in the shower with him that morning.
“Lula Mae, uh, I don’t know if I can make it back this evenin’ for dinner. My…uh…cousins from D.C. are still at the house, see,” Larry told me, tapping my navel and then rubbing the base of my belly with the palm of his hand. “They wanna go out to dinner again before they leave.”
Since Larry made so many sacrifices for me, I didn’t like to badger him too much. But when he disappointed me, I felt I had a right to let him know.
“Don’t you want me to go with y’all?” I whined. “I would like to meet some of your relatives.”
Larry tickled my chin and kissed my forehead. Then he spoke to me in the same slow, controlled way I’d heard him speak to foreigners who didn’t fully understand our language. “Now, baby, you better stay home and get some rest. Me and my cousins are drivin’ all the way to Biloxi, and you know how carsick you get these days. After you have the baby, I’ll take you up to D.C., honest to God.” I felt like a docile immigrant when he added, “Do I make myself clear?”
I gave Larry a weak nod, but with my bottom lip poked out. A slight grin decorated my face as I slid my hand between Larry’s hard, soapy thighs. I started giving him a hand job, something we often had to settle for lately. My backaches, cramps, spotting, and other discomforts associated with the advanced stages of pregnancy had temporarily stopped us from fucking like dogs.
“If you don’t want me to go, why don’t you bring your cousins over here? I got enough food to feed an army. And, like I said, I would like to meet some of your family,” I suggested, praying that Larry would at least offer to come back to my place after taking his cousins to dinner.
As much as Larry liked my cooking, I often ended up alone, eating elaborate meals that I had prepared to share with him. Those were the most miserable nights of my life. But I wouldn’t get mad at him; I’d just get drunk. Then I’d eat everything I’d cooked and sit by the telephone waiting like a lovesick tiger in a tree for him to call.
I never knew what was going on in Larry’s head, but marriage was on my mind after our first night together. It was a subject he avoided like the racist cops who got their kicks by harassing Black men for no reason at all. Whenever I brought up marriage, Larry wasted no time changing the subject, but not before giving me a list of excuses. Even though we had been together more than a year, he had decided that we didn’t know each other well enough, he couldn’t afford a wife, and he was not ready for a lifetime commitment.
I turned off the shower and repeated my last question with a slight variation.
“Can’t you bring your cousins over here for dinner to eat some of my mustard greens, gumbo, corn bread, and pork chops?” I held my breath and waited.
For a moment I thought I had him hooked, the way his eyes froze. Then he came out of his trance, shaking his head so hard his wet hair whipped the side of my face. The water from the shower and his sweat made his face look like it had been glazed. I wanted to lick him dry, but I didn’t because the red flag he waved this time was so big I could have used it for a towel.
“That’s all right!” Larry said, talking so fast he almost choked on his words. He stumbled away from me, forcing my hand to slide away from his crotch. “Uh, I don’t want you to go to all that trouble.” He started groping for a towel, his eyes on everything in my bathroom but me. His erection had disappeared within a matter of seconds.
“Well, if you change your mind, y’all can all come over anyway. And I’ll go ahead and cook this evenin’, after I get back from the mall. Just in case y’all do make it over here,” I decided. I was so disappointed, my head began to ache. But that didn’t stop me from arousing Larry again. I finished him with my tongue. He held my head in place with both hands, moaning like he was the one with the headache.
He was still moaning when I dried him off. “Lula Mae, I swear to God, you so good to me, girl,” he said, smacking his lips and patting my crotch. I followed him to my bedroom and watched him slide back into his work clothes. “You sure know how to make a man feel like a man. Mmph!”
“And I can be even better to you, if you’d let me,” I purred, grinning so hard my cheeks ached. “My daddy is scared to death he won’t live long enough to see me get married,” I confessed.
Larry sat down on the side of my bed, grunting as he wiggled his feet into his shoes. I squatted in front of him and tied his shoelaces. Except for the large beach towel draped around my shoulders that I had used to blot Larry dry, I was still naked. A cool breeze coming in from an open window in my bedroom made me shiver.
Larry’s warm body suddenly felt cold and rigid, but not from the breeze. His eyes stopped moving. It seemed like a very long time for a person not to even blink. Then he let out a deep breath and finally shifted his eyes, blinking so hard it almost made me dizzy. “Girl, how many times do I have to tell you, I ain’t ready for no family?” I had never seen him so upset.
“Well, the only difference between us and a married couple is we don’t live together,” I whined. “I do
n’t want to end up like my mama.” Larry stood from the side of my bed so fast, I almost fell. Stumbling up, I followed him to the mirror behind my bedroom door, watching him rake his fingers through his damp, curly brown hair. “And if we lived together, we’d save money on rent,” I added.
I couldn’t ignore the look of contempt on Larry’s face as he glared at me in the mirror. “Look, woman, I didn’t come over here this mornin’ for you to be naggin’ me like a fishwife,” he told me, still raking his hair. “Why you wanna spoil things by bringin’ up marriage all the time? Shit. All my married friends that ain’t already divorced, they miserable as hell.” He grunted, whirling around to face me. With his voice humming with rage, he went on. “I couldn’t love you no more, if we was married, than I do now. So let’s leave things the way they are. Besides, it’s more fun this way, ain’t it?”
I nodded, even though I didn’t agree.
Larry sighed and looked around the room. Then he sniffed and looked back at me with his eyebrows raised. The smile that usually brought me to my knees popped up on his face. “A cup of coffee sure would be nice,” he hinted in a soft voice, tickling my chin and kissing my forehead again.
I sniffed and trotted to the kitchen. Like an obedient servant, I returned a few minutes later and handed Larry a cup of coffee. It was black and strong, the way he liked his women. I didn’t feel so strong anymore. I plopped down on the bed next to him, lying on my side, looking like an overturned cement truck. My swollen belly was hanging off the side of the bed. Larry reached over and rubbed my stomach.
“Put on some clothes, woman,” he ordered. “I can’t have you catchin’ pneumonia while you carryin’ my baby.”