God Ain't Through Yet (21 page)

A
s angry as I was, I knew it was not going to be easy for me to find a new lover and initiate a romance while I was still in love with my husband. But that was just what I was going to do. And I was not going to waste any time doing it. Well, I didn't have any time to lose.

I didn't expect to be rescued and wooed by a Prince Charming on a white horse. I didn't expect too many men in my age group, who had a lot of younger and prettier women to choose from, to choose me. Things just didn't happen that way in real life. If there was another available man out there for me, he was going to have a lot to live up to because I didn't want just any old body off the street. Even before I got married, and went for months at a time without a date, I had high standards. I didn't care how lonely or horny I got, I wasn't going to settle for too little.

But I was not naïve enough to think that it was going to be easy,
or even possible
, for me to find love again.

After all, I was a forty-seven-year-old woman who had been out of the dating game for more than ten years. I wasn't sure my affair with Louis Baines counted. Even if it did, I still didn't have any time to waste if I wanted to save my own face. There were still some good men out there, but there were still a lot of desperate women out there competing with each other for those men.

I had to laugh when I thought about all of the women who had coveted my man! It seemed so ironic that none of those women had pursued him (as far as I knew), and that the woman who I least expected to be a threat turned out to be my downfall. I was thankful that I had other things in my life to fall back on. In most situations, that was Rhoda.

“Can you meet me at the Red Rose tonight around nine? That band from Cleveland is playing tonight,” I said to Rhoda, practically yelling into the telephone.

“I'd love to, but I promised Bully I'd go out and have a drink with him tonight.”

“Oh. I thought he was in London.” After all these years, I still got disappointed when Rhoda's lover interfered with my plans. I liked Bully, whose real name was Ian Bullard, and he liked me. But I wasn't always in the mood to socialize with him.

“He got back from London last night. Didn't I tell you he would be back this week?”

“You probably did. Well, maybe some other time,” I said, knowing I sounded like a petulant two-year-old.

“If you don't mind his company, I can meet you this evenin'. You sound like you need to talk.”

“Rhoda, I do need to talk and I don't care if Bully, his dog, and his grandfather comes with you.”

“Uh-oh, this sounds pretty serious.”

“It is. I had a real tense conversation with that man.”

“That man you married I presume?”

“That man. He's not coming back.”

“Well, didn't you already know that? He took most of his stuff, and he rented a new place. That sounds pretty serious to me. Did you think he was coming back?”

“I don't know what I thought! I thought I knew him. I thought I knew what kind of man he was.”

“Annette, give this some time. If you love your husband and want him back, there is always a chance that that will happen. You can make it happen, or you can move on. Now it's up to you. I just want you to know that no matter what you do, I am behind you all the way.”

“Bully won't mind us sitting there talking about my problems? His wife dumped him, so he will be able to relate, too.” I didn't wait for Rhoda to respond. “We can send him to the bar for drinks a few times, long enough for us to chat. So can you meet me there?”

“I can and I will,” Rhoda told me. “It's been a tense day for me, too, so I need to get out of the house myself. See you there.”

My mother had called my office six times during the day, and each time I'd lied and told her that I was on my way to a meeting. When she offered to come to my office and catch me between meetings, I told her I was going home early. “I need to talk to you,” she told me. “I need to make sure you doin' all right.”

“I'm doing just fine, Muh'Dear. Please don't worry about me.” My voice wobbled and I hung up before she could hear me sobbing, which is what I did in my office for the next ten minutes.

One thing that amazed and pleased me was the fact that as far as my employees were concerned, I didn't have a care in the world. But when I left my office to go into the break room for some ice, Brian, a short blond with beady blue eyes, put his hand on my shoulder. “Annette, is everything all right? You look like you've been crying,” he said in a gentle voice. Brian was as gay as a picnic basket, and he was also the biggest gossip in the office. He was the last person in the building that I wanted to know my business.

“Oh, I'm fine!” I quickly replied. As hard as I tried to hold it back, a single hiccup slipped past my quivering lips. “I spilled some ink on my hand when I was changing the toner in my printer, and then I rubbed my eyes before washing my hands.”

“Oh. Well, I'm glad to hear that that's all it is. Of all the people I know, you are the only one who is not shackled with problems and ailments.”

I spent the next ten minutes listening to a detailed account of Brian's high blood pressure problems, his shabby nerves, his bad back, his insomnia, a mysterious gum condition his dentist couldn't identify, and a variety of other afflictions. I was surprised that he was still alive. By the time he got through with me, I did feel somewhat better. I was glad that at least I still had my health.

When I got home, I found Muh'Dear had left six messages on my answering machine. She was the last person I wanted to talk to, so I didn't even bother to call her back and ask if I could drop Charlotte off so I could go out. I arranged to send Charlotte across the street for a sleepover with one of her neighborhood friends.

“Whew! I was scared you was going to send me to Grandma's house, and I'd have to eat cabbage greens and cornbread!” she informed me on her way out the door with her sleeping bag and backpack.

“Well, whatever the Turners are having for dinner, don't you overdo it,” I warned. I watched until she made it across the street to the Turner house where her little friend was waiting for her on the front porch steps.

I wore to the Red Rose the same red blouse and black pants that I had worn to work. As soon as I walked in the front door, I almost fainted. There was Rhoda sitting at our usual booth near the back. But she had company, and it was not Bully.

Her husband, Otis, was with her, his long arm wrapped around her like a newlywed, but it wasn't his presence that made my flesh crawl. Jade and Vernie were also with her, and that made my stomach churn. I slunk quietly back out of the door like a shy burglar. As I was sprinting back to my car where I had parked it on the street a block away, I heard footsteps. I kept running, but I turned around to see who it was, expecting to see either Rhoda or Otis. It was neither one of them. It was somebody from my past. I stopped in my tracks under a street light, so relieved I wanted to dance a jig. And he could not have timed our “reunion” better.

“Jacob Brewster,” I swooned, holding my arms out to him. “I haven't seen you in years!”

“Girl, when I saw you come through that door, I didn't know who you were until the bartender told me! You've lost a ton of weight!” Jacob yelled, looking me up and down. He was obviously pleased to see me, and pleased to see how good I looked.

“I don't think it was
that
much weight, Jacob,” I said with a chuckle as we embraced.

“How come you didn't come on in?” he asked, spinning me around so he could see my new frame better. You would have thought that I was posing for the cover of
Vogue
magazine the way I was showing off.

“Uh, I was, but I changed my mind,” I mumbled.

“I'm out alone, and your girl Rhoda is in there,” he added, beckoning toward the bar with his head. “She told me that she was supposed to be meeting you there.”

“Yeah, she was,” I said, feeling more relaxed. “I haven't seen you since you took me to that party about twelve or thirteen years ago. I always wondered what happened to you.”

“Well, I thought you had flown the coup, given up on the north, and was sitting on a front porch down south somewhere!”

My jaw dropped. “As you can see, I am still here and I plan on staying here,” I said proudly. “I did hear that you had married one of the Fisher girls.”

“I did. I married one of the Hampton girls, too. And one of the Mason girls.” A sad look appeared on Jacob's face. “I guess sooner or later one of my marriages will take.”

“I hope so….”

“I heard about you and Pee Wee busting up. You got you a new shoe yet?”

“No, not yet. But I…I mean, I am dating again, but nothing serious yet.”

“You know, of all the women I dated, you were the only one who treated me like a real man. I kicked myself in the butt for years over how stupid I behaved at that party I took you to. You ended up hooking up with that punk-ass Cunningham brother that night.”

“I was going to marry him, but that didn't work out,” I said quickly. As far as I knew, Jerome Cunningham had not told anybody that he had dumped me because his uncle blabbed to him that I'd worked as a prostitute and that he'd been one of my tricks. If the Richland gossipmongers ever did hear it, it wouldn't be from me. “I didn't make it to your mama's funeral last year because I didn't hear about it in time,” I said, gently touching his shoulder.

“She was a good woman and I miss her,” Jacob mumbled in a low, sad voice. He blinked and let out a prolonged moan. But then his voice perked up like a shotgun blast. “Listen, if you don't have to rush off somewhere, come on back in and have a drink with me. I don't know about you, but I'd sure like to get reacquainted.”

M
y previous relationship with Jacob had not lasted long enough for me to really get to know him that well. That was why he reacted the way he did when I suddenly wrapped my arms around his neck and planted a juicy kiss on his lips. His lips were dry and his breath was as foul as it ever was. As a matter of fact, his bad breath was legendary. When I was dating him, my friends rarely referred to him by his name when he came up in a conversation. Instead, they usually referred to him as “that brother with the foul breath.”

I didn't care about Jacob's bad breath, or anything else, right now. The way I had embraced him, my stomach pressed up against his like a suit of armor, it looked like I was giving him the Heimlich maneuver. When I released him, he gasped. Then he let out a sharp laugh.

“Have mercy,” he panted. “It sure enough is good for a woman to pay me this kind of attention.” We were directly under the street light. A moth came out of nowhere and circled Jacob's head. I fanned it away, thumping the side of his head like a melon. That made us both laugh. His eyes looked into mine with so much intensity it was like he was trying to see my soul. I could tell that he was ripe for the picking. “Something told me to drag my tail on over to this bar tonight!”

What Jacob didn't know was that a few seconds earlier, I had spotted my husband cruising down the street out of the corner of my eye. The kiss had been for his benefit. I wanted that sucker to know that I wasn't sitting at home pining my life away over him.

Just as Pee Wee drove near the street light and spotted me, he jerked his head around so hard and fast, he almost ran up on the sidewalk. There was a slack-jawed look on his face. Behind and above Pee Wee's car was a large silver moon. It looked like a yo-yo suspended on an invisible string. Lizzie was with him, sitting so close to him it looked like she was on his lap. And that was not easy to do in a car with bucket seats! There was a stupefied look on her face, like I was doing something that she didn't approve of. I was suddenly attacked by a siege of indigestion. I was afraid that the Chinese chicken salad I'd eaten for lunch was going to rise up out of my stomach and squirt out of my mouth. Suddenly, I had trouble breathing. I felt like I was being smothered by a large pillow that had been cruelly placed over my face. Jacob said something, but I couldn't make out what it was. I was too busy trying to breathe and get the image of Pee Wee and Lizzie out of my mind. Somehow, I managed to contain myself.

“Annette, are you all right?” I barely heard Jacob ask in a concerned voice.

“I'm…I'm fine,” I croaked. “What were we talking about now?” I cleared my throat and glanced at the moon again. It still looked like a yo-yo. I blinked and returned my attention to Jacob. “I haven't been feeling well,” I said, hoping that would explain my odd behavior to his satisfaction. “It is so good to see you again,” I squealed.

I kept my arms around Jacob's neck until Pee Wee's car was out of sight. It was only then that I was able to breathe again.

“Um, I am so glad I ran into you tonight. We've got a whole lot of catching up to do, huh?” Jacob said, looking so eager and excited I thought he was going to bite me. He grabbed my hand and led me back into the bar.

Rhoda gave me a helpless look as we joined her and her family in their booth. I was glad that the only two seats available were on the side next to Otis and Rhoda. Jade was on the opposite side, scowling like a convict posing for a mug shot.

I didn't notice the small birthday cake on the table until Jacob and I sat down.

“My baby girl angel is de grand ole twenty-one today!” Otis exclaimed, pounding a fist on the table. “And she's never had an unhappy moment since de day she was born!”

I had no idea how Otis could sit there and tell such a bald-faced lie with a straight face. I figured he was one of those kinds of parents who saw only what he wanted to see. Maybe Jade was an angel in his eyes. But from the way she was scowling and rolling her eyes at me, I was still convinced that she was the exact opposite. I gave Otis such an incredulous look, Rhoda kicked my foot under the table.

“Happy birthday, Jade,” I said in the most pleasant tone of voice I could manage.

“Ugh,” she replied, speaking out of the side of her mouth as she eyed me with undisguised suspicion. “Mama, can I have another margarita?” she said, turning to Rhoda with a pleading look on her face.

“Aye yi yi,” Otis yelled, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand so hard his dreadlocks slapped the side of his head. He grinned, kissed Jade's cheek, and summoned the waiter.

“Jade, you've had
four
drinks already,” Rhoda said sternly. “Drinkin' is one thing you have to handle with care, unless you want to get slaphappy and act like a fool.”

“And that's not a pretty sight for a woman,” Vernie muttered.

“
You
shet up!” Jade snarled, shaking a finger in Vernie's direction.

“Now, Jade, you be nice,” Rhoda advised with a frustrated look on her face. “You promised you would be.”

“All right, Mommy,” Jade cooed. She leaned over and kissed Vernie on his cheek. That must have made him happy because he offered a broad smile. Jade turned her attention to me with a pug-ugly expression on her face, like she had been sucking on a lemon. “Uh, Annette, I heard your husband finally left you. Is that true?”

“It's true,” I told her. I didn't even remove my jacket. I knew that as long as Jade was present, my departure could occur at any minute, and it would not be soon enough as far as I was concerned.

Jade let out a loud breath, which really sounded more like a grunt of disgust. “Oh well. That's a damn shame.
Everybody
needs somebody. Even worms deserve mates….” The lighting was dimin the bar, but not so dim that Jade had to shade her eyes so she could see Jacob better, but she shaded her eyes anyway. “Jacob? Jacob Brewster? Why—I thought you were dead!”

I was the only one at the table who didn't laugh.

“Sometimes I feel like it,” Jacob said, laughing some more. He turned on a smile that was so bright it made his face glow.

“And what's that knot on your forehead? Cancer?”

“Oh no, it's nothing like that,” Jacob answered quickly, rubbing a peanut-size pimple on the side of his forehead that I had not noticed until Jade pointed it out. “Just some allergy I've been dealing with the past couple of weeks.” Jacob covered his mouth and coughed. “It's nothing serious.”

That information didn't appease Jade. She looked at Jacob like he had just announced that he had leprosy. “Well, it looks contagious to me, so if you don't mind, please don't cough in my direction.” She turned to Vernie. “Groom, trade seats with me.” Like a well-trained puppy, Vernie complied.

I was already anxious to leave. I wanted to go home, slide into my bathrobe, and curl up on my living room couch with a good book. As soon as the waiter took our orders, I asked Rhoda to accompany me to the ladies' room.

“What in the hell is going on?” I asked before we even shut the ladies' room door. “I thought you said it was just going to be Bully and us.”

“It was, but Bully was so tired from that long flight from London, he fell asleep on the couch before I knew it. We had planned to celebrate Jade's birthday at home, but all of a sudden she decided she wanted to have her first alcoholic drink in public.”

“Her first alcoholic drink?” I asked with both my eyebrows raised and a cackle lurking in my lump-infested throat.

Rhoda gave me an impatient look. “Yes, her
first
alcoholic drink,” she snapped defensively with a hand on her hip.

Jade had had her first alcoholic drink in my house—before I could stop her—more than five years ago. As a matter of fact, she had probably started way before then. It was one thing for Otis to be so naïve where Jade was concerned. But it was hard to believe that Rhoda thought that Jade was drinking for the first time tonight. Rhoda didn't know her daughter as well as she thought she did. Back when Jade was in her teens, Rhoda was concerned about Jade's first sexual experience, convinced that she was still a virgin. I knew for a fact that not only had Jade been fucking for years already by then, she'd also had two abortions. I knew from experience that, in some cases, it was better for me to mind my own business—unless I wanted to open a can of worms that might crawl all over everything and everybody. Even though I didn't like it, I totally understood why Rhoda had not told me about Pee Wee and Lizzie as soon as she found out. Nobody liked the thought of worms crawling out of a can. I decided that I would never tell Rhoda that Jade had already had her first drink.

“Before I could even tell Jade that I was going to meet you, she suggested this family night out on the town.”

“I'm surprised that she didn't change her mind when she found out I was going to be here,” I said, turning to the mirror to check my makeup. I had smeared my lipstick when I kissed Jacob, but all it took to repair it was for me to blot a few spots with a wet paper towel. “I would have understood.”

“It's no big deal. I think that we are all civilized enough to get through tonight without a scene. Now…” Rhoda paused and sniffed, and widened her eyes. “What's up with you and Jacob?” She put her hands on her hips and stood closer to me, checking out her own makeup in the same mirror.

“I don't know yet.” I turned to face Rhoda, giving her a thoughtful look. “He just might be what I need right now. And right on time.” I told her about the scene that I'd performed under the streetlight outside for Pee Wee's benefit.

I didn't like the pitiful look she gave me. My first thought was that she didn't approve of what I had just confessed. I suddenly wished that I had not told her.

“Go ahead and say it! I know Pee Wee's your boy, and you love him to death, but he's my husband and he's betrayed me in the worst way. What do you expect me to do, Rhoda?”

The look on her face softened. She cleared her throat and nodded. “Good for you, girl! I'm glad Pee Wee saw you kissin' Jacob out in the open.” Her response made me relax a little more.

“You don't think it was a tacky thing for me to do? I mean, I am still technically married, but I was glad to see Jacob.”

“What you did is no more tacky than what Pee Wee's doin' out in the open. As far as I'm concerned, you should be doin' a lot more.”

“What do you mean by that? Is there something else going on that I don't know about?”

“Well, Pee Wee's not bein' discreet, you know?”

“Can you make a little more sense? If you are trying to tell me something, just tell me.”

Rhoda took a deep breath and gave me a sorry look. When she clapped me on my back and started rubbing like she was trying to rid me of a demon, I knew then that she was about to reveal something else that I was not going to like. I was right. “Since Pee Wee takes Lizzie to dinner at Antonosanti's some nights after they close up the barbershop—struttin' like a peacock with his arm curled around her shoulder like a bodyguard—you can kiss whomever you want to kiss out in the open.”