Every Woman's Dream (5 page)

“Look, as long as you're under your stepmother's thumb, you won't be doing much of anything the normal way. Now, hand me that book of stamps off the dresser.”

“Do you really think I could connect with somebody real interesting? Somebody who's not too old, sick, and ugly?”

“Like I said, there's only one way to find out. As long as we're careful and don't get too carried away, we have nothing to lose except the few dollars we'd spend on stamps, envelopes, and paper. But we have a lot to gain.”

I handed Joan the stamps and lifted another one of the magazines from a previous month. Most of the men on the list for that month sounded even more interesting—and wealthier and more desperate—than the ones I'd already checked out. And they all sounded so cultured and polished.

Even though I was paranoid and apprehensive, I told myself that maybe this was a way I could break up the monotony in my life....

“Uh, I think I'll write a short letter to the dude with the beach house in Aruba and the yacht, just to introduce myself,” I said sheepishly.

Chapter 8

Joan

I
WAS GLAD
I
HAD GROWN UP IN A FAMILY THAT HAD A “TAKE NO PRISONERS”
type of attitude. I had a great relationship with Mama and my stepfather, Elmo. Mama was a guard in a women's detention center; Elmo was a mechanic. They worked hard for their money, obeyed the law, paid their taxes on time, and treated everybody with respect. They punished me when I got out of line, but I didn't do that too often. But I was such a free spirit . . . I was still willing to take a few risks to get what I wanted. And now what I wanted was to have some serious fun and make some money at the same time, something I had never done before. When I thought about all the pussy I'd already given away for free, it made me angry. I would never even consider being a prostitute. But I didn't see anything wrong with making money in other ways that were indirectly related to love and sex: write sweet letters to love-struck old men who had indicated in magazine ads, for anybody in the world to see, that they were looking for a beautiful young woman to be nice to them so they could be nice to her.

A lot of people told me I was cute because of my round face, full lips, and big brown eyes. I always wore my jet-black hair short because it made me look a little like Halle Berry. Even though I was seventeen and had the ID to prove it, I looked more like a fourteen-year-old. I looked even younger in my photographs, so there was no way I was going to send pictures of myself to my new pen pals. Lola also looked younger than seventeen. With her cinnamon-brown skin, almond-shaped brown eyes, full lips, and shoulder-length black hair, she was even cuter than I was. (I'd never admit that to her!) We were both five feet five, with just enough meat in all the right places.

 

Bertha was feeling much better, so Lola came back to my house the following Saturday evening. After Mama had grilled her for a few minutes about what was happening with Bertha, she sent her up to my room, where I was about to take some pictures of Elaine.

My sister was happy to pose for a few pictures. She was the best-looking female in our immediate family and she knew it. She loved being in front of a camera. It was no wonder that she had once worked as a swimsuit model.

“Just don't photograph my left side,” she advised, tossing her head back and showing off her pearly white teeth like she had just been crowned Miss America. She sat in a chair in the middle of the floor with her legs crossed. “And head shots only now. If you want some full body shots, you'll have to wait until I lose a few pounds. Right now my hips look as wide as Texas. That's why I can't get me a
Playboy
centerfold deal.”

“Elaine, just be still and smile,” I said, giving Lola a wink. She stood by the door in my bedroom, looking like a scared mouse. Even though she had agreed to let me use her address and had agreed to write to a few lonely old men herself, she still looked like she wanted to jump out of her skin. She padded across the floor and stretched out on my bed as I fiddled around with the cheap throwaway camera we had purchased at Walgreens an hour ago. It had twenty-seven shots, but I had wasted the first one trying to figure out how to use the damn thing. I took a picture of Lola lying on my bed on her back, pretending to be asleep. A few minutes later, the real photo session began.

“I can't wait to get these developed so I can send some to Daddy,” I said, smiling at Elaine as I snapped away. The smile on her face was so obviously forced, it was a shame. But most men wouldn't notice a minor detail like that.

A second after I'd clicked the first photograph, Elaine's fake smile faded, her shoulders drooped, and she held up her hand. “Wait a minute, Joan. I thought you said you wanted some recent pictures of me so you could send them to Lenny.”

“Uh, that too,” I said quickly. I had become such a frequent and careless liar I couldn't keep up with everything I'd told people. Yes, I had told Elaine that I wanted to send some recent photos of her and other family members to our brother Lenny, who was in the navy. And as far as our daddy was concerned, none of us had communicated with him in months. Elaine was a dingbat. It was easy to get over on her by telling her another lie. “I ran into Daddy's wife's cousin last week. She told me he told her he'd like to get some recent pictures of his kids. I'm going to send him my school pictures.”

“Well, when you get in touch with him, you tell him I said I'd like to get some of that back child support he still owes Mama for us,” Elaine snapped. “I'm having a hard time getting by on alimony payments from that hound from hell I divorced.”

“Hold still. This won't take long,” I told Elaine.

“Hurry up so I can go get ready for my date,” she said, looking at her watch. She was impatient, but the fake smile was back on her face. I had her pose in different ways as I snapped away: ten shots in all—hips included in spite of her protests. I knew enough about men to know that they liked a meaty woman. Especially elderly men. When Elaine pranced out of my room ten minutes later, Lola and I headed to the same Walgreens where we had purchased the camera.

We couldn't wait for the photos to get developed, which would take a few hours, not one hour like we had thought. “I'll pick them up tomorrow when I come to get Bertha's prescription filled,” Lola volunteered.

We both sent letters to six men each the same night, anyway.

Two weeks went by and only two had responded, both to Lola. It was a real letdown to us both. I was disappointed because nobody had written back to me. And Lola didn't think that the men she'd heard from sounded interesting enough to write to again. Each man complained about all the ailments he had; everything from gout to grippe. Each man said how he would love to have a nice young woman to share his bed with and take care of him. Had I not seen the two different names and two different return addresses, I would have sworn that the same man had sent both letters.

A few days later, I received a letter from a retired farmer in Plano, Texas. He apologized for not responding sooner. He was still recovering from a stroke he'd had last month and had just regained the use of his writing hand. Just like the two men Lola had received letters from, this lonely heart was also looking for a lover and a caretaker. “I don't think it's going to be worth it to write letters to these sick puppies, after all,” I told Lola. “The way these dudes sound, they're too weak and sick to even get out of bed to go shopping to buy stuff for us.”

“Yeah, you're probably right. I'm sorry I wasted my money and stamps. I could have used it to get my legs waxed.”

“Let's not give up too soon. I'll come over to your house after school tomorrow and we can pick out a few more to write to out of a different edition of the magazine. Last night Too Sweet finished reading the one that came this month, so she won't miss it.”

 

A week after we had written letters to several more new pen pals, which included pictures of Elaine, Lola came running up to me in the hallway at school as soon as I got to my locker that Monday morning.

“Girl, didn't you get the message I left for you Saturday? I told that brain-dead Too Sweet to tell you to call me,” Lola gushed. I only saw her in such a giddy mood like the one she was in now when there was a cute boy involved. “I couldn't come over because I had a lot of housework to do and I had promised to wash and set Bertha's hair this weekend.”

“Too Sweet didn't tell me you called for me last Saturday night. You, of all people, ought to know how forgetful old people can be, and I keep telling you to call me on my cell phone now. If I don't answer, leave a voice mail. That way, your mama won't know how often we talk. So, what's up, anyway? Why is that goofy look on your face?”

Lola looked around first. Then she opened her backpack and pulled out a stack of envelopes.

“What's all—” I stopped and my jaw dropped. “We got letters from those old dudes?”

“Every single one of those new ones we wrote to responded. Three of the letters came in Friday's mail. The rest came on Saturday. Twelve in all!” Lola said, nodding. “Only one of mine sent me something real nice. The other five said they would if I was sure I wanted to start up something with them.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope, I'm not kidding you. Maybe you got something nice too.”

“What—what did you get?” I said as she handed me the six envelopes addressed to me.

“I'll show you in a minute! Just open yours.”

I was so anxious and curious that I ripped open the first one right away. I was flabbergasted. I couldn't believe my eyes. A cashier's check for five hundred dollars was attached to the letter! I was so busy admiring the check, Lola had to poke me in the side with her elbow to get me to read the letter. I looked around first to make sure none of our classmates and teachers were lurking nearby. I shifted my backpack from my back to my shoulder; then I leaned against my locker and stared at the letter. It was neat, but the writing was so small and written in such a light shade of blue ink, I had to squint my eyes to read it. I read it out loud so Lola could hear:

I struggled not to laugh as I folded the letter and slid it back into its envelope. I looked at Lola and swallowed hard. I didn't know what to say next. But after a few seconds, the words flowed out of my mouth like lava. “Damn, this was as easy as taking candy from a baby. This old dude is already sprung! It's a damn shame he's not better-looking,” I said with a shudder.

I had never in my life seen such a homely man; and from the grimace on Lola's face when I showed the picture to her, she probably hadn't either. On top of Mr. Byrd's huge snout of a nose, he had a lazy eye. There was a wool cap on his globelike head, so I couldn't tell what his hair looked like, or even if he still had some left.

“Oh, he's a beast, all right. But wait until you see the
recent
pictures of the ones I got letters from. Their letters are just as corny as Mr. Byrd's. One looks like some swamp creature that ought to be swimming in a black lagoon,” Lola said. “The others look even worse. Mr. Royster in Baltimore, the ugliest one of all, sent me a check too. Three hundred dollars.”

I was beside myself. Nothing I'd ever done before had been this easy. I opened the five other letters addressed to me and scanned each one for a few seconds while Lola watched. Each man talked about how happy he was that I'd written to him and how sorry he was to hear that my mother was at death's door and in need of a serious operation. The ones who had not sent any money told me to let them know as soon as I could how much I needed and they would send it. I could not believe that in this day and age, suckers of this magnitude still existed! On any given day, the media did stories about scams. I didn't like to hear about people scamming anybody, especially elderly people. Every time I read about some elderly man or woman falling for one of those Internet scams, or a Ponzi scheme, I got mad. A couple of months ago, an eighty-two-year old widow who lived on our street lost most of her life savings to some Nigerian “prince.” Somehow he got her telephone number and started calling her on a regular basis. He talked her into transferring money from her bank into his Swiss bank account. By the time the woman's children realized what was happening, it was too late. The bogus prince was a con man of epic proportions, and had been dodging the authorities in eight different countries for two years. As far as I was concerned, people like my elderly neighbor and people like the lonely hearts club members—who were screaming for somebody to take something from them—were from two different planets. Yes, I was getting over on a few old men, but they were taking advantage of me just as much as I was taking advantage of them. And another thing, my time was valuable. With that in mind, time was money. One thing that really jumped into my mind as another justification was the fact that these men had probably been paying for their fun long before they joined Aunt Martha's Friendship Association. One disturbing thought suddenly blew into my mind, and it hit me with such a jolt, I shuddered. That thought was: how would I feel if some greedy con artist was scamming one of my elderly relatives?