Authors: Mary Monroe
CHAPTER 41
P
ee Wee started walking, circling me like a predator. “Oh, that’s real brilliant,” he snapped, blocking my path. “Just because I’m a man, you believe I can’t keep my hands off other women.”
I tried to walk around him, but he moved every time I moved. He was determined to keep me in place.
“I didn’t say other ‘women,’” I snarled. “It’s just this one in particular…as far as I know.”
He shrugged. “Well, do you want to tell me who this woman is, or do I have to take a wild guess?”
“Betty Jean Spool never got over you…”
“Betty Jean?” He threw back his head and let out a raw laugh that almost brought down the house.
That bothered me. As far as I was concerned, this was not a laughing matter.
“Laugh all you want. She’s still got a thing for you!” I announced.
“That’s her problem. I got over her a long time ago. Shit, I wouldn’t fuck
that
woman again with a staff.”
I stared long and hard at Pee Wee, hoping he would break down and confess his affair. But he didn’t. He gave me a look of pity and concern. I leaned away when he attempted to kiss me, not because his breath was foul, which it was, but because I didn’t want him to touch me again until everything was out in the open. And even then if it was something I couldn’t deal with, he would have a long way to go before he could kiss me again.
“Annette, I go to work and back. That’s where I am most of the time, when I am not in the house with you and our child. I go to the Red Rose for a drink with my boys now and then. I go fishin’ with Otis, and I even spend time with your mama and your daddy, whether you are with me or not. Them things take up all of my time, and then some. When would I have time to be with another woman?” he asked through clenched teeth, pronouncing each word like he was reading from a speech that he had prepared ahead of time.
“I know how men do their thing. If they want to fool around with another woman, they will find the time. Even the president. Remember all that stuff Kennedy did? Before he died, he had women coming in and out of the White House, left and right. He had a beautiful wife, kids, and a whole country to run. He still found time to do the wild thing! Don’t you stand there and tell me you can’t have an affair, because you don’t have the
time
. That’s bullshit, and you know it!”
“Oh, shit. Now you are really talkin’ crazy. How did we get from talkin’ about me to what John Kennedy done? This is about me and you. And I am tellin’ you, I don’t have no time in my schedule to spend time with another woman.”
“My daddy worked from sun up to sun down, but he still found time to be with another woman.”
“So that’s what this is all about? Your old man ran around on your mama, so you think all men do it.”
“
All
of the men in my life. Look at old Mr. Boatwright and how deceitful he was. There he was fucking the living hell out of me and he always had him a few lady friends. Come to find out, my own mama was one of them! If men will stoop low enough to fuck a woman and her daughter at the same time, what will you bastards
not
do? Nothing is off limits! Mr. Boatwright taught me that much.”
The look on Pee Wee’s face told me that I had gone too far. One of the few things that we rarely discussed was the abuse I had suffered at the hands of the late Mr. Boatwright. This was the second time I’d mentioned it in the same conversation. Though I had finally told Muh’Dear and a few other people about the abuse a few years ago, Pee Wee and Lillimae were the only two people I’d ever told about Rhoda’s role in Mr. Boatwright’s death. It was such a grim subject that Pee Wee and I rarely discussed that one either.
“Look, woman. I’m tired. And I can see we ain’t gettin’ nowhere with this conversation. You can believe what you want to believe. If you want to leave me, I ain’t goin’ to try and stop you.”
“I don’t want to leave you!” I wailed, moving toward him. My foot got tangled up in my jacket on the floor. I had to lift my foot and shake the jacket off, almost falling on my face. “I don’t want to leave you. Not yet! Not until I know all the facts.”
“When you find out all the facts, will you let me know ’em, too? Because I don’t know shit, and I ain’t havin’ no affair. So don’t you bother me with this shit no more!”
“Don’t you care about what I’m going through? I can’t sleep. I’m afraid to open the mailbox or answer the telephone. She’s even called me at work.”
“I don’t know what else to say, Annette. I done told you the truth and you can believe whatever you want.” Pee Wee got up and headed toward the door, stomping so hard across the floor every lamp in the room rattled.
I didn’t hear him come to bed. I managed to fall asleep somehow about an hour later, making sure I stayed on the edge of the bed so we wouldn’t touch.
When I woke up the next morning he was gone. I was glad that it was Saturday. I didn’t have to go to work, and I didn’t have to get Charlotte ready for school. Rhoda called just as I was about to have my second cup of coffee.
“Can your daddy have company? I’d like to drop by and visit him for a little while this morning before I go to get my nails done,” Rhoda said, sounding cheerful but tired.
Whenever I detected fatigue in her voice or demeanor I felt sorry for her. Even though she was still somewhat spry and energetic, the stroke had robbed her of the amazing resilience she’d once possessed. I didn’t like it when I burdened Rhoda with my problems, and I only continued to do so because I knew that she really wanted to know when something was bothering me.
“He’ll be glad to see you. Just don’t stay too long,” I told her. “Uh, before Muh’Dear tells you, I’d better tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Yesterday when I was at Muh’Dear’s house, that woman called me.”
“What woman?” Rhoda asked dumbly.
“Well, it wasn’t the Avon Lady,” I snapped. “Who do you think I’m talking about?”
“Shit. That…that bitch!” Rhoda said under her breath. “She called your mama’s house?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What did she say?”
“She hung up before I got to the telephone. Muh’Dear answered and got her ears full. Rhoda, I tried to talk to Pee Wee about this last night. I had tried to talk to him when I got home that night from the beauty shop, but we had to rush to the hospital to see Daddy. I have been putting off confronting him ever since.”
“What did Pee Wee say last night?”
“He claims he’s not involved with this psycho woman and has no idea who she is.”
“Shit. Well, somebody knows somethin’ about this mess. Look, let’s get together so we can talk face-to-face. Are we still on for Miss Rachel’s this evenin’? My hair feels like barbed wire.”
“If Betty Jean’s the one doing this shit, I don’t want to see her again until we get straightened out,” I said in a tired voice.
“Betty Jean won’t be workin’ at Miss Rachel’s today. She’s tendin’ bar at the Red Rose all day today and most of tonight,” Rhoda informed me. “But you know how Claudette and everybody else at that beauty shop is: they know just about everything about everybody. Maybe Betty Jean has let something slip out of her mouth in front of them since we were last over there. The women at the beauty shop do suspect that Betty Jean is involved with Pee Wee again.”
But so far, Claudette and the other women at Miss Rachel’s had not been able to provide any hard evidence that would prove that Pee Wee and Betty Jean were involved. As a matter of fact, so far they had only
suggested
that something was going on, but they only thought that after I had suggested it. However, the things that Betty Jean had said to me at Miss Rachel’s the night that Daddy had his heart attack had been enough to send me home in a rage to confront Pee Wee. I was glad that I had not told Claudette and the other women about the notes and telephone calls. In case one of
them
was the culprit.
It didn’t take me long to make up my mind. “I’ll pick you up right after I drop Charlotte off at my mother’s house,” I said, trying to hide the excitement in my voice.
CHAPTER 42
I
had been looking forward to spending the day with Rhoda. I was hoping that after we left the beauty shop, we’d go have a few drinks. As long as it was in any bar except for the Red Rose, so I wouldn’t have to face Betty Jean.
Since Jade had decided to tag along, going to a bar was out of the question. However, there was enough room for a compromise. We could do lunch at a restaurant near the beauty shop, where they served wine, at least. But I had to wait and see how I’d be feeling after our visit to the beauty shop.
I didn’t know what I expected to hear from the blabbermouths at Miss Rachel’s. All I could hope for was that on my next visit, they would be able to tell me something that I didn’t already know.
I had gotten used to tagging along with Rhoda and Jade to Miss Rachel’s, even though I didn’t look or feel any different after one of my visits. But that didn’t stop me from going.
Next to the numerous Black churches in town, the beauty shop was the best place to meet up with the local gossips to hear who was doing what. You could walk by the place and hear the women inside chitchatting like magpies, even with the door closed. As soon as Rhoda, Jade, and I entered, every person in Miss Rachel’s temporarily turned mute.
“Y’all early this evenin’,” Claudette said. The nervous look on her face made me suspect that before we had entered the establishment she and her associates had been discussing either my business, or Rhoda’s, or both.
“And that means we’ll be leavin’ early, so you can start back to yip-yappin’ about us,” Rhoda teased, swatting Claudette with her red silk scarf.
“Girl, you know I ain’t never said nothin’ about you or Annette that wasn’t true,” Claudette said with a severely embarrassed look on her face.
“Y’all got any
good
chat to share with me and the sisters this evening?”
There was a fine line between good gossip and bad gossip. At Miss Rachel’s you couldn’t tell one from the other.
“There’s nothin’ goin’ on in my life worth sharin’,” Rhoda said with a shrug. “Listen, I want you to leave the conditioner on my hair at least ten minutes longer this time. I swear to God, I must be premenopausal or something with all these split ends I have to deal with these days.”
Claudette ignored Rhoda and turned to me. “Annette, you look like somebody done stole your pocketbook. I ain’t never seen you with such a puppy-dog face. I bet your man worryin’ you left and right, ain’t he?” Claudette paused and looked at every other face in the room before she returned her attention to me. “But that’s the price you have to pay for havin’ such a hunky man in your bed. I bet you don’t need no blankets or no other covers to warm him up. Did you know that Betty Jean had his name tattooed on her butt? Girl, I feel so sorry for you. Ain’t havin’ a man hard work?”
The other beauty operator—a long-faced woman named Hazel something who claimed that she was still a virgin at twenty-six—along with two customers snickered and stared at me with bated breath. I purposely disappointed them by not bothering to respond to Claudette’s last comment.
“I wish I could say all I had worrying me left and right was my husband,” I said, plopping down in the nearest chair. Every other chair in the shop was occupied. A sad blues song was playing again on that boxy radio that Claudette couldn’t seem to part with. There was a large silver tray with some cheese and crackers on it on the counter next to the cash register. I snatched a can of Diet Pepsi out of a large Styrofoam container on the floor in front by the door.
“Do tell? We like family around here. If you can’t cry on our shoulders, you can’t cry on nobody’s,” said a woman I recognized from church. Her entire head was covered in a pink concoction as Hazel furiously massaged her scalp.
“Some woman’s been stalking Annette!” Jade blurted. She left her spot by the door and pranced over to the tray, plucking a wedge of cheese and one cracker, holding on to her backpack like she was afraid that somebody was going to snatch it and run.
“Jade!” Rhoda and I said at the same time.
“It’s true. Some crazy woman’s been calling my auntie saying all kinds of nasty sh—stuff!” Jade blurted. She gave me a sharp, sorrowful, apologetic glance, but she still continued. “This crazy woman even sent some real nasty notes in the mail!” It was obvious to me that Jade was glad to have some attention focused on her now. “My auntie is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”
I was horrified and embarrassed. If I had been half as ghetto as some of the women looking at me right now, I would have jumped up and slapped Jade in the mouth. But I would never do that, and Jade knew I wouldn’t.
“What in the world is this child talkin’ about?” Claudette asked, with a hungry look in her eyes.
“Anouk, you come from Haiti. You people are into all kinds of crazy stuff. Like snakes and stuff,” Jade said in an even more excited voice.
She was addressing a stout, light-skinned woman in her forties with long brown hair on a head shaped like an eggplant. I knew it would have done me no good to try to silence Jade. She was on a roll, and her audience was too riled up for me to interfere, even though I was the subject.
“What you goin’ on about, m’dear?” Anouk asked, leaning sideways in the chair she occupied next to the container with the sodas.
Three empty Diet Pepsi cans lay at her feet. Other than the fact that she was Haitian and had left the island after she’d poisoned her husband, I didn’t know much about this woman. For all I knew,
she
could have been the one harassing me! I dismissed that thought right away. Because now I was pretty convinced that Betty Jean was the culprit.
“What does it mean when somebody sends you a blacksnake in the mail?” Jade asked.
“Aiyeeee!” Anouk shrieked. “It can mean many things, none of them too good. Tell us who had such a misfortune to receive such a thing so we can pray for her. Tell us now,” the Haitian woman said, popping open another can of Diet Pepsi.
Jade looked at me and nodded.
“Sakes alive, woman! I’m scared of you!” Anouk said to me, making a cross with her thick, ashy fingers. She took a long drink, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and looked at me long and hard. “Annette, I suggest—no, I insist—that you find out this woman, go to her, and do what you have to do to get her out of your life as soon as you can, or you will truly regret it.” Anouk paused and shook her head and her finger at me. “Beat some senses into her. We would all do the same thing if we was wearing your shoes.”
Claudette, along with Hazel—the other beauty operator—and every other customer on the premises, then agreed with the Haitian woman.
“I know I would,” Jade said with a vigorous nod as she stood in front of me munching on her crackers and cheese.