Authors: Mary Monroe
I didn’t know why, but for some reason, that bogus invoice entered my mind a few seconds later. It was the first time I wished I had not done something for Louis. And I didn’t feel too comfortable doling out another large sum of money on his account so soon—even though he knew nothing about the bed-and-breakfast weekend yet.
I promised myself that if Louis agreed to spend a weekend at a bed-and-breakfast in Cleveland, it would be the
only
time that I would finance such a venture. I was happy spending time with him at that cheap-ass Do Drop Inn motel or his apartment, and he had told me time and time again that that was good enough for him, too.
C H A P T E R 5 2
Louis was not at his place of business when I called him an hour after I returned to my office after my lunch with Rhoda. His assis-tant day cook told me that he had left work for the day and was probably at his apartment.
I went out on the floor to see if there were any issues I needed to address. I was glad when Gloria assured me that everything was under control. After I signed some documents that she had shoved into my hand, authorizing one of our process servers to pay a visit to one of our most defiant debtors, I returned to my office and closed the door.
I called Louis’s apartment every half hour for the next two and a half hours, and all I got was a busy signal. I looked at the clock on my wall and realized that three forty-five was close enough to quitting time that I could just leave for the day. Since I had not been able to reach Louis by phone, I decided to try and catch him at home.
Since Louis had given me a key to his apartment, I didn’t think it would matter if he knew I was coming or not. Nevertheless, I didn’t like to make surprise visits to people, because I never knew what I would stumble into. One time I let myself into my parents’ house unannounced and walked in on my mother and father making love on the kitchen table. It was not a pretty sight. I prayed that I 264
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would never again see a man and a woman in their seventies having sex as long as I lived.
Before I left my office, I called Pee Wee at his barbershop just to hear his voice. I knew that I had to do my part to help restore our marriage, and every little thing helped as long as it was something positive. He was glad to hear from me.
“Baby, I can’t wait to get home so I can get my hands on you again,” he told me, whispering like an obscene caller. Then he did something he had not done in years: he made kissing noises. That brought tears to my eyes. “I’ve said it before, but I will say it again.
God was showin’ off when he made you. And if He made a woman better than you, he kept her for Himself.” This was the man that I had known and loved most of my life. I was glad to have him back.
And, I was tired of deceiving him. . . .
During the ride to Louis’s apartment, something attacked me that I had been denying, dodging, and fending off for a long time: regret. I could not ignore it, because it hit me like a sledgehammer. I truly regretted getting involved with Louis Baines. I knew right then and there that I had to end my affair soon.
By the time I got to Louis’s street, I had decided that immediately after the weekend at the bed-and-breakfast, I would sever our relationship. I had to. There was no excuse for it now. It was going to hurt me as much as it hurt him, but it was time for me to do the right thing. Besides, I was tired of all the sneaking around and all the lying. How Rhoda and other women managed to have affairs for years and years was a mystery to me. I’d only been at it for a couple of months, and it had almost driven me crazy.
Now, I had to admit that it had been fun, but everything I believed in had convinced me that all good things had to end at some point. I was glad that I chose to end the relationship while it was still exciting. I would never forget Louis, and I knew that he’d never forget me. I’d walked on the wild side, gobbled up some for-bidden fruit, and nobody had gotten hurt. A weekend rendezvous at a bed-and-breakfast would be bittersweet. But it would be the perfect way to end a whirlwind romance. It was all good. Life was good. I was a happy woman. Yankee pot roast, his specialty, would never be the same in my eyes again.
When I didn’t see Louis’s van in the parking stall in front of his GOD AIN’ T BLIND
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apartment building, I decided to go home and attempt to reach him by phone again later. But before I drove back out to the street, I changed my mind and decided to let myself in and leave him a note. I didn’t think he’d have a problem with me being in his residence in his absence, or he wouldn’t have given me a key in the first place. And he had told me that I was welcome to visit anytime I wanted to.
My pulse started to race as I approached his apartment. I could hear him inside, laughing, before I even knocked on the door, and that made me smile. He sounded so cute. I was glad he was in a good mood. Had things worked out differently between Pee Wee and me and had we parted company, I sincerely believed that Louis and I could have had a serious chance for a real future together—
in spite of the differences in our ages and backgrounds. We enjoyed each other’s company, and we were both ambitious. However, I didn’t know any woman, especially a woman in my position, who would marry a man who was broke as often as Louis was. It was a struggle for him to pay for our motel rooms and the expensive meals that we enjoyed at Antonosanti’s.
When he couldn’t afford to take me to that fancy restaurant, he relied on coupons that he cut out of the newspaper for “buy one, get one free” meals at other restaurants. One night, when the motel declined his credit card, we made love in the back of his van. I couldn’t bring myself to do it in my car or on that sofa in his apartment. I had sunk pretty low, but I didn’t see things that way. All I could see was that I was having fun. Because of Louis’s ambition, and the fact that the young brother could “burn” any meal as well as my mother, if not better, I knew that one day his business would be much more successful. And that I would reap the benefits—if we were still together.
I knocked gently on the door at first, but there was no response.
I looked around and waved to one of the white boys who lived in the apartment next door. Even though I knew Louis was home, I started to leave. I stopped when the boy spoke from his opened window.
“Yo,” he said with a sly grin. He was so blond and fair skinned, he almost looked like an albino.
“Yo,” I said back, giving him a casual wave.
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“You looking for L. B?”
“Excuse me?”
“You looking for Louis Baines?”
I nodded.
“Well, his van broke down on Liberty Street today, and he’s depressed about it. He could probably use some cheering up.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, then headed back toward Louis’s apartment.
I didn’t knock this time. Instead, I took a deep breath and let myself in. I saw right away that Louis was talking to somebody on the telephone, and he was still laughing. He was kicked back in a low-back, metal folding chair in front of the larger of his two rear windows. His bare back, still displaying some scratches that I had given him, was to me. He stopped laughing and listened, nodding, to whatever the party on the other end was saying to him. His bare feet were propped up on a hassock.
I gently closed the door and stood a few feet in front of it. Sadie let out a meow and rolled her crossed eyes at me as she padded across the floor to a bowl near the door with some fried chicken wings. I was glad to see that Louis had removed some of the meat from the bones before filling Sadie’s bowl. I had advised him to do that so that Sadie would have less trouble eating her meals.
Since I didn’t want Louis to turn around and think that I was trying to eavesdrop on him, I thought that it would be smart for me to make my presence known. I was just about to cough or clear my throat to get his attention. But I didn’t get a chance to do either one.
He suddenly laughed some more and then resumed his conversation, spitting out the words “that funky, old, fat woman.” I widened my eyes, shuddered, and forced myself not to laugh. I felt sorry for the target of his roast. But what he had just said, and the shrill, concise way in which he had said it, was downright comical. However, since I’d often been somebody’s target myself, I was not one to make fun of people. I didn’t approve of it when other people did, either.
My desire to laugh disappeared as soon as I heard him mention
my
name. “Annette is the one you should be thanking for making our dreams come true. God bless her! I never would have thought GOD AIN’ T BLIND
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that a
bill collector
would be the one to save my ass after all the ones I had to dodge back home. That’s what makes this so sweet!” He placed so much emphasis on his words, they seemed to hang in the air. He paused and guffawed so long and hard, he started to choke on some air.
As soon as Louis composed himself, he continued. “Sweetheart, this is turning out way better than we planned! I . . . huh? Did I . . .
Uh-huh, I did. Well, baby, I can’t lie to you. There was just that
one
time that I slept with her. You know how women like her are!” He paused for a few moments, and for a split second, I thought he had felt my presence and would turn around and explain himself. But he didn’t.
He resumed his conversation with vigor. “That heifer! She wouldn’t take no for an answer. I . . . What did you say? Did I enjoy it? Hell no, I didn’t enjoy touching that woman! Fucking her was like stick-ing my dick in a piano! A nasty-ass piano that smelled like catfish stew at that! I had to soak my poker in Epsom salts and warm water after I got rid of her that night.” He paused for about a minute and a half. Whatever the party on the other end was saying must have bothered him, because he let out several loud sighs, gasps, and gulps, and he waved his fist in the air a few times before he spoke again.
“Sweetheart, I know I promised you that I wouldn’t, but she practically raped me, and I had been drinking a lot. I have a feeling that she even slipped something into my drink to reduce me to such a weakened condition! You know how big-boned women like that can be, and this one came after me with a bag full of tricks. She didn’t stop until she had put me in that trick bag! I didn’t want to piss her off. I knew that a hefty woman like that could stomp my place into the ground like Godzilla did Tokyo if I made her mad enough.” He paused and laughed some more, slapping his knee and stomping his foot on the hassock so hard, he almost fell off his chair.
When he continued, the rest of his words burned through my ears like acid.
“Baby, if my plan works, I can be up out of this hick town
and back in Greensboro by Labor Day. We can get married on Thanksgiving
weekend, like we planned. No, baby, not a single bank in this town will
come through for me with a loan. But that greasy black bitch Annette is
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much better. God is so good to me! He led her to me in the nick of time! After
I finalize the sale for that pooh-butt restaurant, I’ll put the bite on her for
another three thousand. Then I’ll be on my merry way, with that three
grand and the money she thought she was giving me to replace my oven,
which there is nothing wrong with.
“I don’t have to worry about paying her back like I would have with the
bank! I don’t want to be greedy, like I was with that suspicious sow that I
hooked up with before the Lord sent Annette into my place that evening, so
I’ll stop with the six thousand. I’d feel real bad if I put her into too big of a
financial hole, like I used to do when some hag forced herself on me. See,
baby, I’m slowly but surely becoming righteous.
“After we get married, I won’t even sniff in another woman’s direction
when I need financial assistance. I will work for it! That’s the least I can
do. If you can get out of that escorting business with those old dudes, I can
get out of this. We’ve socked away more than enough money to get a toehold
on the future we deserve. We’ll get back into the church and get saved and
baptized before we get married. Yippee-ki-yay! Stop laughing, honey! Baby,
I better get off this phone in case Annette’s trying to get through. I will call
you again tomorrow. I love you, too, sweetie. . . .”
C H A P T E R 5 3
To this day I didn’t know how I was able to stand in the middle of Louis’s floor as silent and stiff as a statue. Of all the betrayals that I had experienced, this had to be the absolute worst. I wanted to shoot across that floor and beat the dog shit out of him. No, I wanted to do a lot more than that. I wanted to kill him dead. But I was so paralyzed that I couldn’t move or make a sound. For a split second, I thought that maybe I had died from the shock of what I’d just heard, and that that was the reason I couldn’t move or speak.
After Louis hung the telephone up, he continued to sit in front of his window, with his back still to me. Sadie trotted over to him and jumped into his lap. He started to stroke Sadie’s back, whistling like a man who not only had the world in the palm of his hand, but one who didn’t have a care in the world. He was a happy man.
Well, he wouldn’t be for long!
Finally, I managed to clear my throat, loud enough for him to hear me. As soon as I did that, his body stiffened. But it was several seconds before he turned around. From the way his jaw dropped when he saw me standing there, you would have thought that he’d seen the angel of death. Sadie sensed something was wrong, so she leaped off his lap and ran into the bathroom.
“Annette? What . . . when . . . how long have you . . . been stand-270
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ing there?” he said in a high-pitched voice. I could see his hands shaking as he gripped the back of his chair. He rose and stood ramrod straight, looking like the condemned man he was.