Authors: Mary Monroe
“And just to show you that I mean business, I will give you a key to my place. That way you can drop in anytime you want to,” he told me, his voice full of emotion. If this was not a declaration of sincerity, I didn’t know what was. No man in his right mind would give a woman, especially a married woman, the key to his residence unless he meant business. “If I give you my address, will you meet me at my place? Or would you like to ride with me? My building doesn’t have a garage, and I don’t want you to worry about parking on the street or in our parking lot and somebody you know seeing your car.”
“I can park a block from your building,” I offered. I had a valid reason for wanting to drive myself to meet Louis. As long as I had my own transportation, I would have better control over my depar-ture. The last thing I wanted to happen was for me to get bored with him and want to leave early and not be able to. Or for something unexpected to happen that would require me to leave in a hurry.
46
Mary Monroe
“Then you will come?”
“I think I can do that.” After I hung up with Louis, I clicked back to Rhoda. “I’m sorry I took so long with that call.”
“That’s all right. I had to take one myself.”
“That was him,” I said, swooning.
“Him who?”
“Louis. He wants to cook dinner for me tonight after we leave the Red Rose.”
“I see. Do you want to reschedule our date? That way you can spend the whole evenin’ with him.”
“Now, you know I’m not the kind of woman who cancels plans with my female friends so I can be with a man, so you stop that!” I scolded.
Rhoda laughed before she spoke again. “But I am,” she told me.
“Bully, the only lover I’ll ever need, just called me from the gym, with a major hard-on, and I’m feelin’ right frisky myself. I need to take care of some business with him this evenin’, so to speak. We haven’t had a chance to do it since he got back from London yesterday.”
“Just say it, Rhoda. You need to get laid.”
“I need to get laid,” she told me, speaking loud and clear.
“All right. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
I called my husband at his work to let him know that I’d be home even later. Bobby Jones, one of the young barbers who worked for him, answered the telephone.
“Hi, Bobby. Is Pee Wee available?”
“Um, no. He had a doctor’s appointment.”
“A doctor’s appointment? Are you sure?” My husband was the kind of man who’d use every home remedy in the book before he’d go to a doctor.
“I’m sure. He’s been going every other Friday for almost a year now. Well, now it’s every Friday since last month. If you want to come by, me and Lester got everything under control until he gets back.”
“He told you he’s been seeing a doctor?”
“Yes, ma’am. You didn’t know that?”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Yes, he did tell me. Look, don’t tell him I called, Bobby. If you do, don’t tell him you told me about his GOD AIN’ T BLIND
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doctor visits. He told me not to worry about him, and I promised him that I wouldn’t bring it up unless he did. Bobby, please promise me you won’t tell him I called.”
“I won’t tell him. Do you want me to have him call you when he gets back, Miss . . . ?” Bobby paused for a brief moment. “Uh, who is this, anyway?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Bobby was a little on the slow side, so he did not recognize my voice. I was glad that I had not identified myself. “Oh . . . this is Sister Holmes.” I was sure that there was a woman or two in Richland by that name, but this Sister Holmes was a figment of my imagination. My husband had so many regular customers that he wouldn’t have been able to keep up with all their names, anyway. “Pee Wee is the only barber that my little grandson will let cut his hair, and I was hoping that he’d be able to squeeze him in today. You know how two-year-olds can be.”
“I heard that. My baby mama got my son so spoiled, he won’t let nobody but me cut them naps on his big head.” Bobby laughed.
“I’m sure enough sorry, lady, but I need to get off this phone. We got heads lined up neck to neck for the next two hours. You want me to have Pee Wee call you back, Sister Holmes?”
“No. You don’t have to tell him I called. I’ll call again tomorrow.”
“Yes ma’am.”
I hung up and sat there, trying to digest what I had just heard, and I couldn’t do it on my own. I immediately dialed Rhoda’s number. This was one time that I couldn’t wait for her to call me. I was glad when she picked up the phone on the first ring.
“Girl, you are not going to believe what I just found out!” I didn’t give her a chance to respond to my outburst. “Pee Wee is having an affair!” I yelled.
C H A P T E R 1 0
“Excuse me, sir?”
My breath caught in my throat. I had to cough a few times before I could find my voice again. “I said . . . Uh, is this Rhoda I’m speaking with?” I was already angry, so it didn’t really bother me that much when I realized it was Rhoda’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Jade, who had answered the phone. This girl hated my guts because I was one of the few people who saw through her. I was able to do that because the girl was soulless.
It was so hard to believe that this was the same girl that I used to hug and kiss and treat like a princess, up until last year. That was when she tried to drive me crazy and take my husband. She was such a bad seed that it would be a big surprise to me if her children didn’t come into the world with hooves, fangs, and scales.
Jade took her good ole time responding, which was just another way she liked to annoy me when she answered my calls to Rhoda’s house. She never wanted me to forget how much of a peon she considered me to be. “No, this is not Rhoda you’re speaking with,”
she replied in a voice that was so nasty, I could almost smell it. “Is that you, Reverend Upshaw? Are you all right? You sound like you’ve got a frog in your throat. . . .”
This girl didn’t know when to quit. I sounded nothing like Rev-GOD AIN’ T BLIND
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erend Upshaw, or any other man. The sad thing about people like Jade was that they were too stupid to see how stupid they really were.
I cleared my throat. “No, this is not Reverend Upshaw. This is Annette.” I was proud to identify myself in this case. One thing I wanted Jade to know was that I was not going to run for cover from her ever again. I avoided her as much as I could, but when I couldn’t, I dealt with her head-on.
“Oh. I should have known this was
you
! You always did call this house at a bad time!” she roared.
“Yes, it’s me, Jade. Now if your mother is there, would you please put her on the phone?”
Instead of a response, there was complete silence, then a dial tone. I spat out a few choice words and dialed Rhoda’s number again.
“Hello,” Jade said.
“May . . . I . . . speak . . . to . . . Rhoda?” I asked through clenched teeth. I didn’t even try to hide the anger in my voice, even though I knew that it didn’t faze her.
Jade did not respond. About ten seconds later, I heard muffled voices in the background on Rhoda’s end. I was just about to hang up when Rhoda came on the line.
“Annette, I’m sorry. That heifer is so fuckin’ rude and crude, it’s a shame. I will deal with her later.”
“That’s all right. This sounds like a bad time. But can you call me back at my office when you get a chance? I’d like to talk to you before I go home today, if possible.”
“We can talk now.”
“No, that’s all right. Later would be fine. It sounds like you’ve got enough to deal with right now.”
“This is my house, and I am the one in control,” Rhoda assured me. “But since you mentioned it, this is a bad time. Bully just walked in the door and can’t keep his hands off me. I’m havin’ a hard time holdin’ him off until we can get out of the house and into a hotel room. As if that isn’t bad enough, that nosy-ass, bigmouthed Wyrita walked into the kitchen with two of the children and saw me in Bully’s arms earlier today. She’s good helpin’ me with the children, but she’s also a mild pain in the booty.”
50
Mary Monroe
“Oh. Well, Rhoda, you should stop getting too friendly with Bully in your house. You know how Lizel and Wyrita like to spread gossip, and it doesn’t matter to them that they work for you. Not to mention Jade. She’s the last person who needs to know about you and Bully.”
“I’m more worried about the children seein’ me with Bully than I am Lizel, Wyrita, or Jade. I don’t think Wyrita is goin’ to shoot off her mouth about this. Not as long as I’m the one signin’ her paycheck. Now, what’s up with you? I guess I can spare a minute or two.”
I let out a deep, loud breath before I told her. “Pee Wee’s having an affair.” Just saying the words again gave me a bad taste in my mouth. This was not something that I would have ever in my lifetime shared with Jade, but I had just done so by mistaking her for Rhoda when she answered the phone. There was just no telling what was going through that girl’s sick mind about me and my husband now. But this was one time that I didn’t give a damn.
“What did you say?”
“Pee Wee is having an affair,” I said for the third time, my voice firm and cold. I silently prayed that she’d heard me this time, because this was one thing that I didn’t want to hear myself say again on the same day.
“What makes you think that?” Rhoda paused, and I heard her slam a door. That made me feel somewhat better. It sounded like she was in her bedroom. Lizel and Wyrita usually stayed in the back room with the eight preschool children that Rhoda was in charge of, but their ears and mouths were almost as big as Jade’s. I knew that if those two magpies overheard Rhoda talking to me about Pee Wee’s suspected infidelity, they’d be in gossip heaven, despite the fact that Rhoda signed their paychecks. And with everything else that was going on in my marriage at the moment, I didn’t want this piece of information being discussed all over town. “I thought you said he had lost his sex drive.”
“He did lose his sex drive, but just with me! How could I have been so stupid! How could I not have realized that he was involved with another woman? No wonder Pee Wee has been playing a game with me since last year. That devil! Well, I’ve got news for him. I can play the same game, and I can beat him at it, too. I should have GOD AIN’ T BLIND
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known that another woman was what he was up to. And all this time he had me walking around thinking that I had lost my sex appeal. Oh! I can’t wait to get my hands on Louis tonight!”
“Pee Wee’s havin’ an affair? Shit, girl! I didn’t know he had it in him! Do you know who she is?”
“Huh? Oh! No, I don’t know who the bitch is yet. And to tell you the truth, I am not going to waste my time trying to find out. I will be damned if I go through some shit like that again, like I did last year.”
“But last year was a witch hunt. Pee Wee was not fuckin’ another woman,” Rhoda reminded me.
“Bah! That was then. This is now!” I hollered.
“What makes you so sure he’s doin’ it this time? Did somebody see him? What’s the smokin’ gun?”
“He’s having an affair, Rhoda. I feel it in my bones. It all makes sense now,” I insisted, speaking so fast, the words shot out of my mouth like cannonballs.
“Annette, please calm down and speak more slowly. You sound like you are about ready to explode.”
“I am about to explode!” I told her, my lips trembling and my teeth grinding so hard, I almost bit my tongue. “That man had no reason to go outside his marriage.”
“Annette, if that’s the case, you didn’t, either,” Rhoda said calmly.
“Even if Pee Wee is involved with another woman, I don’t understand why you are takin’ it so hard. You’ve still got Louis to fall back on.”
“This is not about me. Pee Wee was up to no good long before I met Louis.”
“All right then. Just tell me what makes you so sure this time.
How did you find out Pee Wee was foolin’ around?”
“Well, the fact that he hasn’t touched me in all these months was my first clue. It never occurred to me that he’d be doing his dirt during the day, when he’s supposed to be at work! According to Bobby, he’s been going to visit a doctor every Friday! Doctor, my ass! When was the last time he went to a doctor?”
“Shit, I don’t even remember,” Rhoda told me. “Every Friday, huh?
He’s been spendin’ some time with ‘somebody’ every Friday?”
52
Mary Monroe
“Since last year! That and the fact that he no longer makes love to me confirm it. Maybe not to you, but they do in my book.”
“Hmm. Well, he is a man, and men do have affairs. Especially around his age, when that thing between his legs realizes how close it is to retirement. Nature plays the cruelest jokes. A man reaches his prime before he’s twenty-one. Us, we don’t reach ours until we’re almost ready for the boneyard. And that’s a damn shame.”
“Rhoda, do you mind if we stay on the subject?”
“We are still on the subject. I just wanted to remind you of the cruel facts of life.”
“So you agree with me now?”
“I didn’t say that, but I won’t say that I don’t agree with you, either. I will go so far as to say that he
probably
is sleepin’ with another woman. A young heifer at that. We are looong in the tooth, honey. We don’t have a chance in hell anymore with all the young pussy out there up for grabs, and every middle-aged man and his brother standin’ in line, waitin’ to stick his dipstick in it. They want something that will remind them of their long-gone youth, not douche bags and Maalox. We don’t have to worry about tryin’ to fight the war, because we don’t have the right weapons to arm ourselves with anymore. If an affair is the case, let me give you the uni-versal sister-girl advice. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Praise the Lord that there’s still
somebody
out there who can still appreciate a well-used but grateful piece of pussy. Pee Wee’s got his thing on the side. Now you’ve got yours. Enjoy it while you can.”
“I will!” I snapped.
C H A P T E R 1 1
I kept my office door closed and locked for the rest of the day.
This was what I usually did when I had to make phone calls to people whose bills had been submitted to us for collection.