God Ain't Through Yet (9 page)

R
hoda's daughter, Jade, who was going to turn twenty-one this year, had caused almost as much pain and destruction to the people in her orbit as a hurricane.

I was no exception. I had experienced the full force of her wrath.

The year before last, she had tried to take my husband from me by harassing me with threatening phone calls and obscene letters. When that scheme blew up in her face, she moved to Louisiana to live with Rhoda's parents and to attend college. But Jade cared as much about education as a mule did. She fought with her professors, other girls, her boyfriends, and everybody in between. She promptly flunked out of college and ran off to Cancún, Mexico, with some of her friends on spring break. Down there, that girl had gone hog-happy wild.

Rhoda had never told me the whole story about Jade's visit to Mexico, but it had to be one for the books. What she shared with me had come out in bits and pieces, and it had given me chicken skin shivers. Jade's south of the border jaunt had generated a chilling, middle of the night telephone call from the Mexican authorities to Rhoda's father. He had immediately hopped on a chartered plane and flown down there to rescue Jade, and to straighten out whatever mess she had gotten herself into. Whatever kind of mess he had to bail her out of, it had cost him thousands of dollars and several meetings with an official from the consulate. Jade was never allowed to set foot on Mexican ground again for the rest of her life. Those were all of the details that Rhoda had shared with me, and that was only because I told her I didn't want to know any more than that. I was still recovering from my own emotional wounds from my showdown with Jade. She returned to Richland straight from Mexico with twelve pieces of designer luggage and her Mexican fiancé, Marcelo.

Jade was without a doubt the “ugliest” beautiful female I knew. Despite her good looks, she was an offshoot of Godzilla—mean, violent, and mainly concerned about her needs way before anybody else's. And it didn't take her fiancé long to figure that out. He'd left her at the altar last year, and to save face, she'd promptly fled to Alabama. According to Rhoda's regular updates, the girl had driven almost everybody in Alabama crazy with her antics, which included smoking weed, cussing out people in public, a smack-down that involved the wife of one of her new lovers, and even a night in jail for slapping a cab driver because he wouldn't carry her lazy, doped-up ass from his cab to her doorway after a wild party. Oh, there were some lovely stories about this child.

“What did Jade do now?” I asked, my hand clutching the telephone.

“She's come back home,” Rhoda said with a heavy sigh.

“When?” I had just talked to Rhoda a couple of hours ago and she had not even mentioned Jade.

There was a short pause before Rhoda responded. “She just stumbled in the front door a few minutes ago.” Rhoda paused again. “With twelve pieces of luggage again. She had to hire two cabs to bring her and all of her shit from the airport.”

“Lord. Well, I guess I won't be seeing you today, huh?” I was more than a little disappointed. My heart skipped a few beats. Then it started thumping around inside my chest so hard I had to hold my breath and massage the throbbing space below my breasts to ease the discomfort.

“Maybe later. I hope you understand.” Rhoda lowered her voice to a whisper. “It sounds like Jade is back there tearin' down the house.”

“I do understand.” I let out such a deep and heavy sigh, I felt it all the way to my armpits. “Lord knows you've got a mess on your hands now. How long do you think she's going to stay this time?”

“Only God knows. She had a major falling out with my son the other night, which is what prompted her to hop on a plane and come back here. She claims one of his boyfriends insulted her. He claims she started the mess, and that anything the boyfriend said to her, it was because she had it coming.” I didn't have to see Rhoda's face to know that she was thoroughly disgusted. I could hear it in her voice. “Jade resents the fact that her big brother is gay, you know? She always has. You and I know how some black people are when it comes to homosexuality.”

“Tell me about it. Pee Wee told me in no uncertain terms not to interview any men for that manicurist position he wants to fill.”

“I know at least two male manicurists, and neither one of them is gay. You know Beanie Ross, that white boy who works at the mall where we get our nails done sometimes?” Rhoda's tone took a sharp detour. “He's one of the biggest womanizers in town.” She seemed relieved to be discussing something other than Jade, and so was I.

“I've already talked to Beanie. He didn't say it in so many words, but what he did say told me enough. He's afraid to work for a black man in a black neighborhood. He got mugged coming out of Antonosanti's last month.”

“Antonosanti's is in the most exclusive white neighborhood in Richland!” Rhoda declared.

“Yeah, I know. But it was a black man who mugged Beanie.”

“Oh well.”

“I've got two prospects lined up for today and a maybe for tomorrow.”

“I hope you took my advice.”

“I did. They are both straight-up homely.” I managed a quick laugh and under the circumstances, it felt good. “Marlene, the older one, who also happens to be a retired schoolteacher, she must be God's homeliest creation since the rhinoceros.”

“Hmmm. That sounds a bit extreme. We don't want Pee Wee's customers to take one look at her and run, now do we?”

Rhoda laughed this time and I laughed again some more, too. The more I laughed, the better I felt. But I knew that my euphoria was not going to last long. With Pee Wee's mess on my hands and now Jade, well, I knew that I wouldn't be laughing much after I got off of the telephone. As far as Jade was concerned, she was the kind of problem with no easy solution. She was more like an ongoing disease; a person just had to learn to tolerate her. I didn't like the fact that my mind kept wandering back to Jade while Rhoda and I were discussing a manicurist for Pee Wee.

I redirected my thoughts back to the manicurist position. “Marlene's not that bad,” I admitted with a chuckle. “And I think she'd make a good employee for Pee Wee. Anyway, you are the one who said it would be too dangerous to hire a pretty woman.”

“And I meant that, too. But I didn't mean for you to go overboard. However, even if you hired a woman who looks like Moms Mabley, it would be better than you hirin' a Janet Jackson look-alike. If you hire one of these cute little wenches runnin' around Richland, you will have trouble from day one. Men and boys will be in and out of that barbershop tryin' to set up dates so they could get some pussy. Their women will get jealous and might make their men change barbers.”

I was still reeling from the news about Jade, so I could offer Rhoda only a weak sigh before I resumed my end of the conversation. “Well, if I am going to hire anybody, I'd better get a move on now if I want to make it back to my office in time for the interview that I have set up. Where's Jade now?”

Rhoda moaned first. Then she took a deep, loud breath. “She's about to take one of her two-hour-long bubble baths,” Rhoda replied, surprising me with a chuckle. “Poor thing. That Alabama sun wreaked havoc on her beautiful complexion. The first thing I noticed when she walked in the door was those dark splotches on her chin. I guess I'll have to run over to the Grab and Go and get her some Noxzema.”

The fact that Rhoda was rambling off the top of her head concerned me. I knew that I could avoid Jade, but she couldn't. If it made her feel better to ramble on and on about that soulless daughter of hers like she was some helpless Little Miss Muffet, the least I could do was listen.

“I know my daughter is a real piece of work, but she's done some good things, wouldn't you say?” Rhoda inquired. “Even for you.”

I had to clear my throat and smile first, because as odd as it sounded, what Rhoda had just said was true. I could not ignore the fact that had Jade not tormented me on such a brutal level that it had drastically altered my eating habits,
I would not be looking so good right now!
I'd still be wearing a size 24 and digging my grave with a fork and spoon. I patted my firm waist and said, “That's true…”

R
hoda was trying to paint such a rosy picture of Jade that I had to interrupt because I was getting sick to my stomach. “I'm sure Jade is still as pretty as ever, though,” I offered. It gave me a bad taste in my mouth to say something complimentary about Jade.

“Oh, and with those lips, those eyes, that nose—she is still such a livin' doll! Now she looks more like Naomi Campbell than ever before. Just like me.” Rhoda paused and sucked on her teeth. There was a dreamy tone to her voice, and I could almost see the wheels in her head spinning out of control, trying to convince herself that Jade was not the monster she really was. “It's a damn shame she's not tall enough to model. If she had a few more inches, I'd take her to New York myself and march her into Eileen Ford's office, where I know they'd beg her to sign a contract. Don't you agree?”

“I agree,” I muttered. “Jade is too gorgeous to ignore. She should take advantage of her beauty while she still has time.” Now I was the one rambling.

“I don't know how many more times I have to tell her that if she wants to look like me when she's our age, she's goin' to have to take better care of herself. The first thing she did when she arrived home was to grab a Snickers bar out of the candy dish. The only difference between stickin' a loaded gun in the mouth and a candy bar is, the candy bar will do more damage to her waistline!”

Other than the miserable conversation that I'd had with Pee Wee about his “boredom,” this conversation was one of the worst I'd had in years. I couldn't wait for it to end. But the last thing I would ever do to Rhoda was brush her off. She was always there for me when I needed her, and as long as I could, I would do the same for her.

“Well, at least she didn't drag home another fiancé with her like she did when she came back from Mexico. You can be thankful for that,” I stated, almost biting the tip of my tongue because this conversation had become so awkward for me. Rhoda was taking a long time to answer and that made me curious. “Or did she?”

“No, she didn't bring home a fiancé this time. She brought home a husband.” Rhoda chuckled for a few seconds; then she mumbled a slew of profanities under her breath.

I was speechless. The last time I had asked Rhoda about Jade's love life, which was just last month, she told me that the girl was between boyfriends. Now here she was telling me that she'd found a new boyfriend and married him in less than a month!

For the first time, Pee Wee's idea about us packing up and moving to another state sounded somewhat attractive. There was no way I was going to be able to avoid regular confrontations with Rhoda's daughter. Ever since our falling out, Jade went out of her way to antagonize me—even when she was not even in town. Last Christmas, she'd sent me a dime-store greeting card from New Orleans with my name misspelled in the address and postage due.

“Who you talkin' to, gal?” Daddy asked, walking toward me with his hands on his hips.

“Uh, I'll talk to you later,” I told Rhoda, abruptly hanging up the telephone.

“Your mama done already told you your food is gettin' cold,” Daddy said, nodding toward the booth near the kitchen where Muh'Dear was still seated, looking at me with a cross look on her face.

“Put it in a box and I will pick it up later. I have to get back to my office now,” I said. Hazel had not left her spot behind the counter, but she had stopped wiping it. Now she was wiping and rearranging glasses. I assumed she still thought that she was going to hear me say something that she could get some gossip mileage out of.

“Your mama told me to tell you that she might have a good person for that nail whatnot thing job Pee Wee got open,” Daddy announced, his arm around my shoulder as we walked back to the booth.

Before I could ask who, Muh'Dear answered that question.

“You remember Lizzie, that gal who does my nails? She works in that salon down the street from here.”

“Lizzie who?”

“Elizabeth Stovall.”

I shrugged. “Do I know her?”

“I thought you did. Y'all the same age and she asks about you every time she does my nails.” Muh'Dear paused and leaned back in her seat like she was about to attack somebody. In a way, she did. “Her mama is a
white
woman!”

My mother had a lot of white friends and a lot of white folks ate at her restaurant. Her lead cook was a white woman, and next to Scary Mary, she was Muh'Dear's closest female friend, so I knew my mother was not prejudiced. I could not understand why she still held some animosity toward white women. Daddy was not the first black man to desert his family for a white woman, and he wouldn't be the last. Another thing I couldn't understand was, if Muh'Dear could forgive him enough to take him back, why did she still resent those women? I was glad that Daddy had not left us for a black woman….

“Oh, yes. That Lizzie. I went to school with her,” I said, suddenly interested. “She was the girl with that leg.”

“That leg? You make her sound like a car part.”

“Well, I didn't mean to. You know I never make fun of people's handicaps. Lizzie had polio, or something, when she was real young. One of her legs is a little thinner than the other one. But she was a really nice girl,” I said with eager anticipation. For once, Muh'Dear had aroused my interest.

Muh'Dear nodded. “Little Leg Lizzie. Last week she told me how she was ready for a change. She'd been passin', you know. Like that half sister of yours that Frank had with
his
white woman.”

At this point, Daddy bowed his head and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Even though my mother had “forgiven” him for leaving her to marry a white woman, she would never let him forget it. Muh'Dear's voice slid down to a sinister tone. “Once them white folks found out she had a black daddy, they stopped lettin' her do their nails. I guess they thought they'd catch some kind of blackitis disease or somethin'. Some white folks is so strange. We done raised their kids, cooked their food, and some of us done had their babies, and they still think we some kind of subhuman race. If we ever wanted to strike them down with some kind of affliction, don't they think we would have done it by now? Where I come from, some of them sisters in my generation know enough voodoo to bring the whole white race to its knees.”

One thing about my mother was, if you didn't want her to hold you hostage for hours on end, you didn't encourage her to elaborate on any of her off-the-wall comments. “Do you have Lizzie's phone number?” I asked, looking at my watch. “I really have to be on my way,” I said firmly.

By the way she pursed and stuck her bottom lip out, Muh'Dear was clearly disappointed that I was about to depart. She reached in her bra and fumbled around in it for at least two minutes before she fished out a folded piece of paper. “Here. Here's Lizzie's number. Now she is a little on the homely side, so it might take some of them customers a while to take a shine to her. And with that shrunk-up polio leg, she won't be posin' for no pictures in
Jet
magazine or
Playboy
no time soon, so she'll be stable. She ain't never had no man, so you ain't got to worry about her runnin' off gettin' married and leavin' Pee Wee in a lurch neither.” Muh'Dear gave me a look that I couldn't interpret. All I knew was that it made me nervous. “But a woman that ain't never, uh, had her fruit plucked ain't normal, so you might be gettin' some kind of pig-in-poke….”

I knew that if I didn't leave soon, Muh'Dear's comments and remarks would wear me down to a frazzle. At the rate she was going, she had almost convinced me
not
to interview Elizabeth or anybody else to work for my husband. I felt like I was on a treadmill. I had Rhoda telling me to hire a plain woman, but not too plain. Muh'Dear was telling me to hire Lizzie, but since Lizzie wasn't “normal” she might not work out.

“I really do need to get out of here,” I insisted.
“Now.”

Daddy plopped back down in his seat and took up the conversation where Muh'Dear had left off. “What Gussie is tryin' to say is, Little Leg Lizzie ain't perfect, but she might be perfect for Pee Wee. As slow as she is mental wise, she still know how to do some nails. Hold up your hands, Gussie Mae.” Daddy grabbed Muh'Dear's right hand and held it up to my face, the front of her French-tipped nails facing me. Muh'Dear proudly displayed her left hand, waving it in my face like she was trying to hypnotize me. Lizzie's handiwork was good, but it was no better or different from any of the other manicurists' work I'd seen.

“Nice work,” I agreed with a nod. “I'll call Lizzie and see if she's interested. Pee Wee is getting impatient.”

“He ain't got to be impatient for long. Not if you get to Lizzie before some other nail person snatches her up. Like I said, she can change Pee Wee's life.” Daddy released Muh'Dear's hand and turned to me again. “He'll be a changed man in no time,” he told me with a nod.

“I sure hope so,” I said.