Chapter 30
Lola
I
WAS ELATED TO HEAR THAT THINGS HAD GOTTEN EVEN BETTER FOR
Shirelle since I'd run into her at that convenience store thirteen years ago. At the same time, I felt sad for myself. It seemed like everybody else had moved on with their lives while I stayed stuck in the same place.
“You know, Mariel, some women always get what they want. Some of us don't.” I hoped that what I'd just said didn't make me sound jealous. That was not the case. I truly was happy for Shirelle. “I'm happy to hear that my other mother is doing so well,” I admitted. “I guess her joining that dating site was the best thing she ever did. Apparently, finding a husband online worked out for her.”
Mariel mumbled something unintelligible under her breath.
“What? I didn't understand what you just said,” I let her know.
“Oh, it was nothing. It's just that I am surprised Aunt Shirelle told you how she met her husband.”
“Uh, yeah. Maybe I shouldn't have opened my big mouth. . . .”
I wanted to bite off my tongue. Then I reminded myself that Shirelle had eagerly shared her online experience with me. She had not said anything to me about keeping that information to myself.
“Oh, honey, don't worry about it. It's no secret anymore. Aunt Shirelle was the one who convinced me to join a dating site. And thank God I did.”
I didn't think there was anything else Mariel could say that would surprise me. But what she'd just said almost knocked the wind out of me. “You too?” I exclaimed. “How did it work out for you?”
“Great! That's how I met my drop-dead gorgeous husband, Christopher,” Mariel answered, sounding like she was swooning. “He's an architect, like Aunt Shirelle's husband, and owns his own company. I had to kiss a lot of frogs before I met my prince, but I had a lot of fun along the way.” She paused and remained silent for a few seconds. Then in a patronizing manner, she said, “Other than that grocery store job, what else are you doing for yourself? I thought you'd at least be married by now.”
“Oh . . . well, I'm sure I'll find my, uh, Mr. Right soon.”
Mariel wasted no time jumping on my clumsy statement. “Well, you'd better look harder! We are the same age, so I advise you not to take too much longer. Thirty is not old, but a lot of my husband's unmarried friends are looking for girls no older than twenty. The strange thing is, when I was that age, hardly any man worth looking at wanted me. And they didn't get interested until I got online and skipped all that bullshit a woman goes through in bars and every other meeting place. The Internet is where people cut to the chase.”
“So I keep hearing,” I muttered. I knew that when I told Joan about Mariel's Internet experience, she'd use it as leverage the next time she tried to convince me to join a dating site.
We chatted a few minutes more, discussing everything from my parents' passing to my situation with Bertha. Mariel didn't have much to say about her, but what she did say didn't surprise me. “Lola, you always did go out of your way to please people, whether they deserved it or not. Sometimes you're too good for your own good. That's positive, but it could turn on a dime into something negative. It could cause some serious emotional problems for you if you don't keep it under control. Sooner or later, you're going to snap and do something totally out of character for you. Maybe even something violent. Remember that meek man who went berserk at that dairy farm when we were in middle school?”
“The one people described as a âvery nice man'?”
“That âvery nice man' snapped one day when he got passed over for a promotion. He went home, got his gun, and went back to work and shot and killed everybody in sight.”
I recalled that grisly incident with a shudder. I was disappointed that our conversation had taken such a grim turn. “You don't have to worry about me. I wouldn't hurt a fly.” I forced myself to laugh. “Life is too precious to me.”
“Speaking of life, did they ever find that young black woman who disappeared on her way home from work?” Mariel asked in a stiff tone of voice.
“What young black woman? When? With all the crime in California, it's hard to keep up with it all.”
“Oh, that happened several months ago, maybe even last year. She was a nurse and she lived in South Bay City, just four blocks away from that house you lived in with your parents before they died.”
“Oh, yes. I vaguely remember reading about her. The newspaper said she worked at City Hospital. Did you know her?”
“No, I didn't know the poor woman. Her mysterious disappearance was a big story up here because she was from Seattle and her family still lives here.”
“I don't read the paper every day or catch the TV news, but far as I know, they haven't found her yet.”
“Brrrr! Just thinking about it gives me chills. Whoever that maniac is that kidnapped her, I hope they catch him soon.”
“âKidnapped'? How do you know that's what happened to her?” I asked. “Just because somebody disappears doesn't mean some maniac snatched them. A few months ago, another local young black woman disappeared. She worked as a secretary for some big law firm. There were so many rumors that her ex had done something to her, the police got all over him like a cheap suit. There was no evidence that he'd done anything to her and he had a solid alibi, but that poor man lost his job because of those rumors. A week later, they found the woman's car with her body in it at the bottom of the Berkeley Marina. She had had a few too many drinks at an office party and lost control of her car on her way home.”
“Well, as far as I'm concerned, drowning is as bad as some maniac chopping you up into a dozen pieces. Dead is dead.” The conversation had taken a turn that was downright ghoulish to me, but Mariel kept running with it. “If I ever get in a life-and-death situation, I hope it's over quickly. I hope I'm already dead if my killer decides to dismember my body. And I hope somebody finds what's left of me before I turn to dust. At least my family could give me a proper burial, and they'd have some closure. Can you imagine the pain that the missing nurse's family must be in, not knowing where she is or if she's even still alive?”
“I can't imagine their pain,” I said with a mournful sigh. This conversation had begun to depress me. I
had
to lighten it up a few shades. “Uh, I still plan to get a degree someday, either teaching or nursing.”
“I certainly hope so! I can't imagine you working in a grocery store for the rest of your life! Jeez! And I am hella surprised to hear that you still live at home with your stepmother. For goodness' sake!”
I saw no reason to tell Mariel the complete details of my situation with Bertha. Like her aunt Shirelle, she was so opinionated I knew she'd say something that would upset me if I told her
why
I was still living with my stepmother and how I allowed her to manipulate me.
As much as I enjoyed chatting with Mariel, I was glad when she had to end our conversation to go break up a fight between her sons. We agreed to talk again soon, but I wasn't sure I wanted to hear too much more about her “perfect life.” It would have done more for my morale if she had told me she had a few problems in her marriage, like Joan and other couples.
Â
After I hung up, I decided to give Joan a call. I thought that if I shared the news that Mariel was so happy, it might give her some hope. A male voice I didn't recognize answered her phone.
“Joan ain't here,” the deep voice informed me. “Who's calling?”
I cleared my throat and said firmly, “I'm Lola, a close friend of hers. And you are?”
“You probably don't remember me on account of I don't come around that much. I'm Derrick Foster, Reed's cousin. I was the one you were dancing with at Joan and Reed's wedding reception when her cousin Too Sweet had one too many drinks and fell into the preacher's lap.”
“Oh, yes, I do remember you, Derrick. Uh, do you know when Joan will be home?”
Derrick took his time answering my question. “To tell you the truth, that's hard to say. She's still at City Hospital. I'm hanging out at the condo to keep an eye on things until things get back to normal. . . .”
My first thought was that Reed had hurt Joan. She had confided in me that the last time she mentioned divorce, he had threatened to beat some sense into her.
I gasped. “She's in the hospital? Oh, my God! What happened to her? Is she all right?”
“Naw, she ain't all right. She's in pretty bad shape. She's a train wreck, if you ask me.”
I could feel my heart pounding inside my chest as I braced myself for more bad news. “What did Reed do to her?” I asked angrily, balling my hand into a fist at the same time.
“He didn't do a damn thing to her. That dude would never hit a woman. Joan ain't the one the ambulance hauled away. It was Reed.”
“
She
hurt
him
?” Joan had been rough and tough as far back as I could remember. She had had a lot of fights in school and with various members of her rambunctious family. But she had become less volatile over the years. Or had she? “What happened?”
“Well, she got up in his face and started talking that trash about leaving him again. I guess he finally got tired of hearing it so that damn fool swallowed a bunch of sleeping pills! Suicide ain't never the way to fix a problem!”
The next word shot out of my mouth like a torpedo.
“âSuicide'?”
“Uh-huh! I read somewhere that one of the highest suicide rates in the country is among the dentists. For some reason, they like to end it all by jumping out windows, blowing their brains out or swallowing a bunch of sleeping pills. Iâsomebody's at the door, Lola, so I have to get off this phone.”
Derrick hung up before I could say another word. I was stunned! I couldn't sit or stand still. I began to pace the floor like a panther. If I didn't find out soon exactly what had happened, I'd go out of my mind. I immediately dialed Joan's cell phone number, but she didn't answer. In the next hour, I left her three messages, so now all I could do was wait until she called me back.
Chapter 31
Joan
I
COULD NOT BELIEVE HOW MUCH MY LIFE HAD UNRAVELED SINCE
the day I married Reed, especially in the last couple of years. It seemed like just yesterday that I was a superfly, intelligent, fun-loving, ambitious young girl with my whole life ahead of me. Now I was a desperate, sexually frustrated housewife with a future as bleak as a rainy day. But I was an awesome momâthere was no doubt about that. I would not hesitate to die for my son. He was crazy about his father so no matter how much Reed got on my nerves, I didn't want anything bad to happen to him. Oh, he'd made me mad enough to want to slap the shit out of him and send him to the emergency room on numerous occasions, but I had always managed to control myself.
Now, of all things, that jackass was lying in a hospital bed half dead, anyway! If somebody had told me that Reed was capable of taking his own life, I would have called them a big fat liar. Yes, he had told me several times in the past that he would not want to live if I left him. But he had never even hinted that he would commit suicide!
It happened on a Monday evening while I was out on one of my random dates. I had called Reed at his office earlier that rainy afternoon and told him that I was going to go visit my family. Elmo was recovering from hip replacement surgery and was down in the dumps, so I wanted to go over and cheer him up. The weather had played a part in the way I was feeling that day. I had always hated rain, black clouds, and any other form of gloom associated with bad weather.
When I was six, while visiting one of my aunties in Alabama, there was a tornado that had destroyed almost everything in its path, including my auntie's houseâwith us in it. Somehow we had managed to survive with only a few minor injuries. I couldn't get my butt back to California fast enough. I had nightmares for months about being swept up in a tornado and dumped off in some faraway place where nobody could find me. My fear was so severe, in fact, I could no longer stand to watch
The Wizard of Oz,
and it had been one of my favorite old movies.
Anyway, this particular day had me so antsy I had to get out of the house, even if it meant I had to be outside during the rainstorm. I wanted to be somewhere that would make me feel safe and relaxed. Nothing relaxed me more than some
good
old-fashioned sex.
Having a husband didn't mean automatic sex. Even if Reed had been in the house with me that day, I would not have wanted to have sex with him, anyway. Making love with him had become unpleasant and felt more like a punishment. He was too quick, too unromantic, and sometimes funky as hell. There was nothing more disgusting to me than having sex with Reed when he needed a shower. The last time he climbed on top of me, after working out at the gym for two hours and not taking a shower, I almost gagged. I couldn't believe he was the same man who nagged me about keeping the condo clean.
I had not had sex with him in over a month, so I was “hotter than a six-shooter,” a phrase I'd heard my sisters use when they were horny. My family still had no idea that Reed and I were having problems in our marriage. They still thought he was the best thing that had ever happened to me or to our family, for that matter. Having a successful dentist in the clan was a huge feather in my mother's cap. I got sick of her spending hours at a time on the telephone with some of her friends, or leaning over the bannister of her front porch, bragging to neighbors about how well I had turned out. “We thought the girl would marry some dreadlocked creature with a mouth full of gold teeth,” she said one day.
While I was holed up in a Sheraton hotel with an Italian stallion from the Bronx, who was in town for a management-training program, Reed was snooping around trying to find me. He left four messages on my cell phone. We had been so out of tune with each other for so long, I ignored the fact that it was my birthday. He had left his office early so he could come home and do something special with me. I told my mother and the rest of the folks in the house that if he called, they were to tell him I was out shopping with Elaine. She used me as a cover when she fooled around on her current lover, so she owed me. The problem was, I had not been able to reach her before I left to go on my date, so I couldn't brief her. And nobody told her in time what I'd told them to say in case Reed checked up on me. When he went to Mama's house looking for me a couple of hours after I'd left for my afternoon tryst, Elaine blew it. She told him that she hadn't even seen me in a week and that I was the last person she'd go shopping with.
If that was not bad enough, my clueless stepfather told him he'd overheard me on the phone talking to somebody about how I couldn't wait to see him, blah, blah, blah. Well, Reed put two and two together and assumed I was with another man. He had assumed right. I had had a fantastic time with my date. So fantastic that I drank one glass of wine too many, dozed off, and stayed way longer than I'd meant to. Had I stayed a few minutes longer, it probably would have been too late.
I got home just in time to find Reed unconscious. I was horrified when I saw him stretched out on the floor in the bathroom connected to our bedroom. Luckily, the sleeping pills he had swallowed were not as strong as he thought they were. A brief, unsigned note and the empty sleeping-pill bottle were on the floor next to him. He had typed the note on the same computer that I used to find lovers online. All it said, in bold, upper-case letters, was: I TOLD YOU I COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOU. PLEASE TAKE CARE OF MY SON.
I was fit to be tied! I couldn't believe that he was inconsiderate enough to pull a stunt that could have hurt so many people! I decided right away not to mention this to anyone except my family. Now I thought it was important for them to know just how far Reed would go to keep me. One thing I gave my family credit for was that if they were told not to blab our business to anybody outside of the family, they didn't. Lola was the exception. I had told her almost every little one of my relatives' secrets.
Right after I had called for an ambulance for Reed, I ripped up the note and flushed the pieces down the toilet. My story to paramedics was that my husband had “accidentally” taken too many sleeping pills. We didn't need to have the cops or newspaper busybodies nosing around. A suicide attempt could have cost Reed his practice. I was convinced that at the very least, most of his patients would desert him if they knew what he'd done.
The doctor who treated him was his father's cousin, so I knew he wouldn't blab to the wrong people. “Just make sure he doesn't have access to any more prescription sleeping pills,” Dr. Franklin told me with a dry look. “We don't have that many black dentists in this town, so we can't afford to lose Reed.”