by Mary Monroe
We were exhausted by the time we made it back to Lola’s house. She was just as surprised as I was to see Bertha standing in the doorway with a frantic look on her face and the telephone in her hand. “Lola, I was just about to call the police and have them come here so I could give them one of your blouses,” she wailed.
“Why would you give the cops one of my blouses?” Lola asked as she brushed past Bertha, with me close behind.
“For the dogs to sniff and help find your body, that’s why. I didn’t know if a sex maniac had grabbed you and Joan off the street or what. You didn’t tell me where you were going when you left, so I didn’t know what to think.”
“Um, you were in the bathroom and we didn’t want to disturb you. We went to get something to eat and w-we, um, lost track of time,” Lola stammered.
“There’s a kitchen full of food in this house,” Bertha pointed out.
“It was my fault. I wanted a Big Mac, so we had to go to McDonald’s,” I explained. I could tell a storm was brewing and I’d been in too many storms already. “I guess I’d better get on back home before Mama has the police out looking for me.” I excused myself and rushed back out the door before Bertha could do or say anything other than suck on her gums and give me an annoyed look.
Lola and I held our breath for the next couple of weeks. Most of the old men, and the Lee woman in Miami, didn’t respond to our Dear John letters. But a few, ironically the ones who had sent the least amount of money, continued to send letters, but no more money. They begged us to reconsider our decisions to “move to Canada” with our new boyfriends. It was so pathetic and I felt so bad about the misery I had caused some innocent old people. But we did what we had to do. To make sure no more letters addressed to me came to Lola’s address, I filled out a change-of-address form. My “new address” was actually an empty warehouse several miles across town, next to a vacant lot. Lola didn’t want to fill out the same form because she thought that if we both did it, and one or more of those old men filed a complaint, it would look mighty suspicious to the postal authorities. So a few more letters addressed to her trickled in.
By the end of October, all of Lola’s pen pals had stopped writing to her. And that woman who wanted to beat me up never returned. Now I was totally convinced that she was the wife of Mr. Blake in Reno because he never wrote to me again and I hadn’t even sent him a Dear John letter. I promised Lola, and myself, that I’d do my best to walk the straight and narrow for the rest of my life.
I was about to become a wife and mother and it was time for me to grow up and behave more responsibly. I just hoped that would be enough to keep me from losing my way again.
Chapter 16
Joan
I WAS NOT READY TO BE A MOTHER, BUT I WAS READY TO ACCEPT THE consequences of my actions. Had it not been for the support of my family, Lola, and Reed, I don’t know what I would have done.
Reed and I decided not to wait for me to graduate in June, but I was going to put off getting married as long as I could because I wanted to enjoy my freedom just a little longer. After all, I planned to spend the next forty or fifty years with him, so there were lots of things I wouldn’t be able to do when I got married. But remaining footloose and fancy-free was not so easy.
From the day I told Reed that I was having his baby, he became a frequent visitor. When he was not sitting in our living room drinking scotch with Elmo or in the kitchen with Mama eating pig ears or whatever was on the table that particular day, he was on the telephone, asking me all kinds of dumb questions. His favorite one was “Are you eating right and taking the pills the doctor gave you?” He also wanted to know if I was still seeing other men and he needed to know my whereabouts at all times. Almost every time I saw or spoke to him on the phone, he wanted to know if I really loved him. He began to show up at my school unannounced to have lunch with me or to give me a ride home. No matter what the reason was for him to be keeping such close tabs on me, the attention made me feel special. I was flattered to know that I had a man who loved me so much he wanted me all to himself.
I decided to go ahead and marry him before my graduation to keep him from spending so much money on my greedy relatives. To them, he had become the goose that laid golden eggs. Every time he called, different ones started whooping and hollering and asking what time he was coming over and what he was bringing. Reed often showed up with expensive liquor for Elmo and flowers and candy for Mama and Too Sweet, and a variety of miscellaneous goodies for everybody else. One evening he treated everybody who happened to be in the house when he arrived—nine of us—to dinner in a very expensive restaurant. Three days after that, while I was having dinner with Lola, Reed came to the house and took seven more of my relatives to another expensive restaurant. I knew that it was just a matter of time before they started hitting him up for “loans,” the way Libby and Marshall did with Bertha.
We decided to exchange vows on the second Saturday in February, 2000, at three in the afternoon. The ceremony was scheduled to take place in my mother’s living room. The night before, I had spotted what I thought was a roach crawling up the wall and I went ballistic. For one thing, we had never had a problem with roaches or any other creature. “Girl, you imagining things. That was probably just a baby gnat you seen,” Too Sweet insisted. I had made such a fuss, my stepfather rushed to the hardware store and returned with enough odorless roach paste to coat every wall in the house. He applied it only to areas where nobody would see it. That made me feel better, but our house still couldn’t compete with the upscale twenty-five-floor building I’d be moving into with Reed. It was located in one of the most exclusive, gated neighborhoods in town, within walking distance of the country club. His condo was on the eighth floor. His immediate neighbors included a pilot for a major airline and a stockbroker. Most of my family had been to Reed’s place a few times; and every chance one of them got, they told me that I was “moving on up” and that I’d “hit the mother lode.” Mama was brazen enough to tell me—in front of Reed—that no matter what he did to me after we got married, I’d be a “straight-up fool” if I didn’t stay with him until one of us died. That last comment had given me an ominous feeling and I’d immediately pushed it out of my mind. As far as I was concerned, two healthy young people like Reed and me didn’t have to worry about dying anytime soon.
We invited forty-five people to the wedding and informed each one that they could bring one guest. Since we knew so many folks who were never on time for anything, we didn’t tell them that the ceremony was scheduled to start at three P.M. We told them that it would start at one P.M. I had told Lola the actual time and I was glad when she arrived at exactly three P.M. with Perry Washington, a frat boy she had just started dating a week ago. Almost every other guest showed up an hour late, anyway, descending like locusts in groups of four and five. A few stragglers, Bertha included, didn’t show up until after the reception had started. Libby, Marshall, and their spouses were the last to arrive—two hours late. Only two dozen people bothered to bring wedding gifts.
My family spared no expense when it came to food and alcohol. My cousin Clifford was the deejay and his wife, Vivian, and her two sisters had prepared most of the food. The honey stung fried chicken wings and the potato salad were both so delicious, Reverend Bailey insisted on fixing a huge plate to take home. I even saw a couple of bold females slip food into their purses. Such behavior was so typical at our events, acknowledging it was never even considered.
Reed’s side of the guest list had almost nothing in common with mine. His crew stood off in bunches of two and three discussing politics, the economy, and world events. My crew stood around discussing Tyler Perry movies, how much they hated their jobs, and who was making love to someone other than their mate. Even as happy as I was, I couldn’t wait for the day to end!
“Joan, you look so good in that green silk dress. I’m glad the designers are making maternity outfits look more stylish these days,” Libby chirped as she gave me a clumsy one-armed hug
. A weary look crossed her face when she looked over my shoulder and saw the numerous bottles of alcohol on the table in the middle of the room. She was pregnant with her first child, too. She was eight months along, I was seven, so neither one of us could drink any alcohol. “Girl, I’d give anything in the world if I could have me a few Cadillac margaritas,” she muttered.
“I feel you,” I told her with a wink.
Marshall came up to me next with his arms outstretched. Hugging him was like hugging a barrel. “Joan, I can’t believe you’re getting married! I remember when you was a little girl how you and Lola used to throw rocks at me.” I wanted to throw a rock at him now, but Marshall was a guest and this was a very special day for me, so I remained cordial. I even kissed him on his bloated cheek. “I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to bring something, but if you run out of food, I can run out and pick up a sweet potato pie,” he said. At the same time, his eyes were roaming from one woman to another, even though his wife was on his arm. He and my cousin Arthur played cards now and then. That was the only “social” connection I had to this fool. If Mama had not run all around the neighborhood bragging about me marrying “a successful young dentist” and telling everybody about the reception, I would have insisted on going to a restaurant with just a few relatives and close friends.
Reed was all over the place. One reason he was trying so hard to get in good with my family was because my uncle Grady had told Reed he was not happy about him getting his baby sister’s baby girl pregnant, and that if Reed ever mistreated me, he was going to suffer. Other than Uncle Grady’s ominous threat, nobody else in my family had said one mean word to or about Reed.
His parents lived in Monterey. His daddy was recovering from knee surgery and his mother had to stay home to look after him, but Elmo had taped the wedding for them. Reed’s favorite cousin, Laura, a mannish-looking woman in her thirties, had driven over from her home in Berkeley with her dull husband. It was obvious that they were not party people. They didn’t drink or eat anything and stayed only an hour.
The first chance I got to speak privately to Lola, I steered her into a corner away from as many people as possible. “You look good in pink,” I told her. “You should wear it more often.”
“I will,” she said with a raised eyebrow. Then she gave me a misty-eyed look. “Joan, I am so happy for you. You must be the happiest girl in the world.”
“I’d be even happier if I could have a few drinks,” I pouted.
“Well, you can forget about that until you have that baby.” Lola wagged her finger in my face before she took a sip of her rum and Coke.
I scanned the room and saw Bertha in a corner with Perry. Her lips were moving about a mile a minute. The way she had his path blocked and from the tight expression on his face, he looked more like a hostage than a wedding guest. “Perry seems like a nice dude. I hope Bertha Butt doesn’t run him off, like all your other boyfriends,” I snickered.
Lola gazed at them, but she was not amused. She let out a heavy sigh and a groan at the same time. “I hope she doesn’t either,” she said with the most hopeless look I’d ever seen on her face. “Bertha told me before I left the house that if a girl like you could land a dentist, there’s no telling what kind of man I could get.”
“A girl like me? What am I, a one-eyed Cyclops?”
We both laughed.
“She thinks you’re a little too fast,” Lola told me.
“She thinks I’m a ‘little too fast.’ Now, that’s funny. For the record, she didn’t waste any time latching onto your father when your mother died.” We laughed again. “And now she realizes you will get married someday?” I added in a serious tone of voice with my head cocked to the side and my hand on my hip.
“There was never any doubt about that. The only thing is, she still thinks that when I get married, she’s going to live with me and my husband.”
“What do you say to that? I’ve told you more than once that I’m sure your father didn’t mean for you to take your commitment to such an extreme.”
“I know what he meant,” Lola snapped. “I will look after her, but I will have a life of my own.”
Chapter 17
Lola
I HAD NEVER SEEN JOAN LOOK AS BLISSFUL AS SHE LOOKED ON THE day she got married. She was so beautiful in her bright green silk maternity dress as she stood next to Reed in his black tuxedo in front of Reverend Bailey. I was almost as happy as she was and I didn’t have a husband in sight. I was barely holding on to my latest boyfriend.
Nobody would believe that Joan was the same girl who had concocted that lonely hearts club swindle that had almost got us both hurt, maybe even killed—not to mention the mess that her unsuspecting sister, Elaine, could have ended up in because of us.
Now that our scheming days were over, I thought back on everything from day one and admitted to myself that I’d been a fool—and a crook! My mother had raised me to be a respectable and honest person, especially if I expected to be blessed and go to heaven when I died. I thought if I became even more devoted to Bertha, God would cut me some slack.
Joan made arrangements to stay current with her schoolwork by doing it from home. I agreed to bring it to her. She would only come to school when she had to take a test or meet with one of her teachers. Thanks to the big mouths in her family, almost all of our classmates knew she was pregnant. Some were brazen enough to point and whisper about her when she showed up on school grounds. Joan was aware of it, but it didn’t even faze her. Now that she was married, the level she was on was too high for something as small as gossip to bring her down. I was even more impressed. Except for her pregnancy, I still fantasized about trading places with her; to me, it seemed like she was in complete control of her life.
It pleased me to know that my girl was determined to get her diploma. So far, no member of her immediate family had not completed their high-school education, and two of her brothers and one of her sisters had gone to college. To make sure Joan didn’t ruin the family’s high-school completion record, her mother had told her in front of me and several other people, “You’re going to get your diploma if I have to hold my gun to your head.” Joan vowed that she would graduate on time, but her diploma would be mailed to her, or she’d have to pick it up.
The newlyweds went to Aruba for a two-week honeymoon. It was one of the loneliest periods of time in my life. The first week was unbearable. Since the day I had become best friends with her in second grade, we had rarely gone more than a couple of days without communicating. Now that she was married, a new fear was brewing in me. Despite her claim that our relationship was not going to change, I was still afraid that I would have to find myself a new BFF. It had taken me a long time to groom Joan, and I knew she felt the same way about me. But it was what it was, and all I could do now was go with the flow.
I had no idea that a new friend would enter my life while Joan was on her honeymoon. That person turned out to be Libby’s husband, Jeffrey. He was a firefighter, so he enjoyed helping people. Everybody adored him. He had always been nice to me, but he was about to get even nicer and do things to help make my life more enjoyable.
A week after Joan’s wedding, Jeffrey came to the house to do some maintenance work that Marshall had been putting off for months. I was in the living room reading the newspaper when he called me into the kitchen, where he was gathering the tools he had used to repair a leak in the sink.
“What’s up?” I asked as I stood in the doorway with the newspaper still in my hand.
“One of my old air force buddies is coming to the house tonight,” he began, speaking with his back to me. “I’m throwing a little get-together in his honor. We were in the same platoon. He reenlisted after I got discharged. When he got his discharge papers last month, he couldn’t get back to civilian life fast enough.” Jeffrey turned to look at me with his light brown eyes sparkling. There were beads of sweat on his square-jawed, cocoa-colored face. It was hard to believe that a good-looking, nicely built man like
Jeffrey had married a plump plain Jane like Libby. “I thought of something nice that you may be interested in.”
“O . . . kay,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t know why Jeffrey was bothering to tell me about one of his “get-togethers.” Especially at the last minute. He knew I didn’t like Libby and she didn’t like me. The last person I wanted to socialize with on a Saturday evening, or any other evening, was her. “What is this ‘something nice’?” Libby was due to give birth to her first child in a few weeks. She’d been sick a lot lately, and I felt sorry for her. I’d even taken her some chicken soup and picked up her prescriptions a couple of times, but she was still as mean as ever to me. I was hoping that the “something nice” that Jeffrey was going to tell me was that Libby was too sick to attend the party.
“Mark’s younger brother just moved here from San Diego and he’s coming too. I thought it would be nice to have a young woman around his age for him to hang out with. Mark told me last night about him wanting to join us tonight. Otherwise, I would have mentioned it to you before now.”
“Uh . . . oh,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What’s wrong with this ‘younger brother’?” I rarely went on blind dates and the few I had experienced had been disastrous. I was tired of people pawning off a homely or oddball relative or friend on me. But since it was Jeffrey, I was willing to consider it again.
“There’s nothing wrong with the dude,” Jeffrey said with a laugh. “He’s smart and not bad-looking. But he’s kind of shy, so he hasn’t made many friends here yet.”
