Authors: Mary Monroe
CHAPTER 43
M
y husband had changed so much over the years that a lot of people who had known him as a teenager would not have recognized him as a man of forty-five. He was no longer the thin, effeminate teenage gossipmonger who everybody had thought was gay. Even Rhoda and I. We used to sit around making jokes about Pee Wee. It was hard to believe that we had once referred to this hunk as “Miss Pee Wee.”
Then, to everybody’s surprise, that same sissified frog-prince went to Vietnam right after we all graduated from Richland High. I didn’t recognize Pee Wee when I saw him again five years later, when he came to visit me during the years that I lived in Erie. His looks were not the only thing that had changed about him. He didn’t run from house to house delivering and sopping up gossip anymore. As a matter of fact, nowadays Pee Wee would leave the room if I even acted like I wanted to gossip. Especially if the gossip involved him.
When I got home from the beauty shop, I lit into him like a wild woman. “I heard something about you this evening. And I don’t like it one bit,” I said, hands on my hips. I stood in the kitchen doorway, so hot I felt like I was on fire. I jerked my jacket off and sailed it across the room like a Frisbee, where it landed on the back of a chair at the kitchen table where Pee Wee sat in a chair facing the door. Charlotte was in the chair facing him.
Charlotte let out a yelp and rose with a confused look on her face. “Mama, what’s the matter?” she yelled, attempting to move in my direction.
Pee Wee looked from me to Charlotte, grabbing her arm. “Char, go upstairs to your room and stay there until I tell you to come back down,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.
“Why come?” she hollered, kicking the table leg so hard the table trembled.
“Girl, I advise you to leave the premises right now,” I said, shaking an angry finger at Charlotte.
“Dang! How come I gotta go to my room so much these days?” Charlotte complained. “I don’t get to do nothin’ no more!” she sobbed.
I was sorry that my only child was caught in the middle of my nightmare. But if nothing else, I could keep her from knowing all the details. She would have to face her own obstacles soon enough. Unlike Jade, Charlotte was not mature enough to handle what was happening to me.
“Get to your room and stay there until I tell you to come out,” I ordered, clapping my hands so hard my palms stung.
“But I wanna watch TV now,” Charlotte whined, shaking her head so hard her long braids flapped.
“Watch it in your room and finish up your homework so you can be prepared when you go back to school Monday mornin’,” Pee Wee said gently, scratching the side of his neck.
From the look on his face I could tell that he was not looking forward to another confrontation with me. And I was sorry that it had come to this. But I knew of no other way to sop up this mess that had seeped into my life like a cancer.
“But that TV don’t have cable and it ain’t in color,” Charlotte sniffed, moving slowly toward the stairs. She stomped her feet and mumbled under her breath until she was out of earshot.
Pee Wee let out a sigh that was so strong he almost lost his breath.
“You still on that same trip?” he asked me, rolling his eyes as he gasped for air.
There was a weary look about him. His eyes looked tired, his shoulders drooped. He looked pretty bad but I didn’t want to waste any of my pity on him. I wanted to use it all up on myself. I felt that I was the victim in this sorry drama. And if he was as guilty as I thought he was, he didn’t deserve any pity from me or anybody else.
“Everybody in the beauty shop was talking about you,” I stated, moving closer to him. “You and that Betty Jean Spool.”
“What about me and Betty Jean?” he asked, sounding profoundly annoyed just hearing her name. “Is she still one of the biggest whores in town?”
I had learned enough about men over the years to know that this reaction was typical for a guilty man. He seemed a little too calm, which was a classic giveaway. He couldn’t even look in my eyes.
“You fucking her, or what?”
“Shit!” Pee Wee sprang from his seat like a frog, walking toward me with a horrified look on his face, his eyes flashing as he looked in mine. The sudden change in his attitude came as such a surprise, I had to move back a step. I had not expected him to shift gears so fast. “Woman, don’t you come up in this house gettin’ in my face with none of that beauty-parlor gossip! I done told you a thousand times I don’t want you bringin’ none of that shit up in this house! Don’t them damn women at that beauty shop have nothin’ better to do with their time? And why
me
of all people? Was it because you went up in there and stirred up a bunch of shit about them damn phone calls you been gettin’?”
“That’s just it,” I replied, my head bobbing like a chicken. “I know who the bitch is who’s been calling me now! And I know why she’s calling me!”
“Oh? And would you mind telling me who the bitch is and why she is callin’ you?”
“You know who it is, goddammit! You never stopped fucking Betty Jean!” I wagged my finger so hard in his face, my finger got numb.
“What? I’m going back out to the Red Rose and get drunk,” Pee Wee shouted, throwing up his hands. “I am not goin’ to sit here and listen to this shit. And let me tell you one thing right now! This is the last time I want you gettin’ in my face with this shit! I swear to God, a Black man can’t win for losin’!” Pee Wee dismissed me with a wave of his hand and then he slapped the side of his head.
I faced him now with my hands on my hips. “Uh-huh, that’s right. You can’t wait to get over to the Red Rose where that bitch is tending bar today. I guess that’s the best way you can warn her that I know everything now, huh?”
“Where are my car keys?” Pee Wee said to himself, ignoring me.
I followed him into the living room where he searched around for his keys. He found them right where they were supposed to be, on one of the end tables by the sofa. I ran up to him and snatched the keys out of his hand.
“Don’t you leave this house until we settle this shit!” I ordered, shaking the keys in Pee Wee’s angry face. I got so close to him that the tip of my nose touched his.
“What did them bitches say about me in that beauty shop?” He snatched his padded jacket off the arm of the sofa and struggled to get it on.
“You never stopped seeing Betty Jean!” I threw his keys at him, hitting him in the face.
He rubbed the spot where the keys had hit him, then he picked them up off the floor and kept talking. “See her? Yeah, I see Betty Jean all the time. She gets her hair cut in my shop. I run into her at the mall from time to time. The last time you dragged me to church, I seen her there. Yeah, I do still see Betty Jean. She happens to tend the bar at the only waterin’ hole I go to when I want a few drinks. But that’s all I do when I’m up in there. Drink!”
“The hell you do. She wants me out of the picture so she can move in with you. But I tell you one damn thing, that low-down wench will burn in hell before I let her take everything I’ve worked for.”
“Who told you this shit? Which one of them bitches! If my daddy hadn’t raised me right, I would go over to that beauty parlor and tell every last one of them heifers what I think about ’em. I am surprised that somebody them bitches done trashed ain’t burned that bitch-ass beauty shop down to the ground! If I thought I could get away with it, I’d do it! Beauty parlors and Black women is a bad combination! It ain’t nothin’ but a recipe for disaster. Well, to hell with them heifers. What the hell do they know?”
Pee Wee stopped ranting and raving, but his mouth was still open and his jaw was twitching, like somebody having a mild seizure. I don’t remember ever seeing him this pissed off, but he had cooked his own goose as far as I was concerned.
“Every woman at the shop was talking about how Betty Jean’s been running all over town talking about how ‘fine’ you are and how good you fucked her, with her nasty self,” I whimpered.
“So?” Pee Wee rolled his eyes. “That was in the past.”
“Three different women told me tonight how Betty Jean said she’s going to end up owning half of your barbershop. And, listen to this part, she wants to have one more baby before it’s too late—by you. If that isn’t proof I don’t know what is.”
“Proof of what? The only thing all that boopity-boop talk proves is that Betty Jean, them bitches at that beauty shop, and you are all crazy as hell!”
With that, Pee Wee pushed me aside. He ran out of the house like he was on fire.
CHAPTER 44
I
stood on my front porch until Pee Wee started up his Jeep and roared off down the street, almost hitting a cat that was strolling across the street like it didn’t have a care in the world. I waited until Pee Wee was out of my sight before I returned to my living room and called up Rhoda.
“He denied it,” I said tiredly, rubbing my forehead as I dropped down on my sofa. It felt like somebody was beating on some drums inside my head. Sweat had covered my face like a wet veil. I had soaked up three paper towels in less than a minute.
“Of course he did. What did you expect him to do?” Rhoda asked. “Hold on, Annette,” Rhoda said. I heard some shuffling-around noise in the background on her end. “Jade, go peep in your daddy’s room and make sure he’s not eavesdropping at the door.” Another moment passed before Rhoda returned. “These men.” Rhoda sucked in her breath. “For a dollar and a dime I’d leave this baboon I’m stuck with, and go find me some real romance.”
“Now don’t you start talking about having an affair, too,” I said. I wanted to ask Rhoda if she was already having another affair with Bully. But I knew better. If I ever found out what that was all about, Rhoda would tell me when she was good and ready.
“How did Pee Wee react when you told him what you’d heard?”
“Like I said, he denied it. And to be honest with you, he sounded pretty convincing,” I said thoughtfully, running my fingers through my hair. I was glad Rhoda couldn’t see the uncertainty on my face. “Pee Wee usually doesn’t lie…unless he has to,” I admitted.
“That’s just it. He lied because he
had
to. Shit. I know how men’s minds work. They don’t have
two
heads for nothin’. And it’s that one between their legs that controls them most of the time.”
“Do you really think that he lied to me about Betty Jean?” I whimpered, silently praying that Rhoda would say something that would give me some hope. The last thing I wanted to do was end my marriage.
“Of course he lied! Did you honestly expect that man to stand there and admit that he’s fuckin’ his used-to-be whore again? When I found out about Otis and his whore, do you think he admitted he was fuckin’ her? Hell, no! I had to snoop around long enough and catch his black ass in the act. Sneakin’ out of that wench’s apartment when he was supposed to be at work, buyin’ groceries for that butt-breathed heifer, and if all that wasn’t enough, that black-ass nigger I married helped her pay her bills! That was the straw that broke the camel’s back!”
“But what about that thing you did?”
Rhoda hesitated for a moment. “That was different. I needed to get laid.”
“I don’t like where this conversation is going,” I admitted.
“And I don’t either,” Rhoda said with a burp. “We need to stay focused. What I did is in the past and I’ve moved on. And, for the record, my man pushed me into havin’ that affair with Bully. He should not have ignored me all those weeks just because I’d temporarily lost my shape. But we are talkin’ about Pee Wee and his nasty self now.”
“I…I don’t know what to do now,” I stuttered.
“You need to pay that whore a visit! That’s what you need to do now!” Rhoda yelled. “Like I did that horse-faced heifer who fucked my man.” It amazed me how easily Rhoda could condemn men for their alleged actions, then in the next breath make excuses for her own extramarital affair. I had to wonder if the whole world was going crazy.
“I am not going to fight over a man. All I will do is let him, and her, know what I think of them. If my man wants to be with Betty Jean, the queen of England, or any other woman, he can go,” I said tiredly. “All I can say for the woman is, she’s getting nothing but a man who cheats on his woman. And my leftovers.”
“Girl, what’s wrong with you? Did you turn in your Black woman’s membership card? You givin’ us sisters a bad name. We don’t give up our men without a fight! I never told you, but my own daddy had him a lady friend on the side a few years ago.”
“Your daddy, the undertaker, had an affair?”
“Girl, please. My daddy was the best-lookin’ man his age this town had ever seen,” Rhoda said emphatically. “The only women who didn’t come on to my daddy were the dead ones he dressed for burial. But most of them did before they ended up on that slab in my daddy’s mortuary. My mama, sick as she always was, she nipped that shit in the bud as soon as she found out about it. My aunt Lola told me all about how she and Mama went to pay Daddy’s slut a visit.”
“Rhoda, my daddy had an affair and he even left us for the other woman, but my mama didn’t go confront the woman. The women in my family haven’t ever done that kind of shit. When my half sister’s husband started running around, she packed up his clothes and took them to the other woman’s house and dropped off everything on her front porch.”
“Well, is that what you plan to do? If you need a ride let me know,” Rhoda said, the sarcasm in her voice so thick you could have stirred it with a spoon.
I gave her words some thought. “I am not going to let Betty Jean or any other woman ruin the life I’ve worked so hard for.” A sad smile crossed my face as I tilted my head. “I can still be happy,” I said in a weak voice. “I can be happy without a man in my life.” I paused and thought about what I was saying. “I got along without Pee Wee before I married him, I could get along without him now. If that other woman wants him and he wants her, they can have each other. But I won’t fight her over him.” I didn’t feel like smiling now. “What I don’t appreciate is her sending me that shit in the mail and calling me on the telephone! If I pay her a visit, it’ll be to straighten her out about that shit, not taking my man. But I don’t want to talk to her about this in the beauty shop.”
“Her husband threw her out on her ear, and I know where she just moved to,” Rhoda said in a voice so cold it made me shiver.
“We’ll go in your SUV Monday after I get off work. I am sure that Betty Jean knows my car, and I don’t want her to see me coming,” I said, trying to hide how tired I was of this whole mess. At this point, all I wanted now was my peace of mind.