by Mary Monroe
The doctor who treated him was his father’s cousin, so I knew he wouldn’t blab to the wrong people. “Just make sure he doesn’t have access to any more prescription sleeping pills,” Dr. Franklin told me with a dry look. “We don’t have that many black dentists in this town, so we can’t afford to lose Reed.”
Chapter 32
Joan
IT WAS AN HOUR BEFORE REED REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS. DURING that time, I remained by the side of his bed, biting my nails, cussing to myself and at him, and wondering how in the world I was going to tolerate him now!
Right after the doctor checked his vitals and left the room, Reed sat bolt upright. His lips were chapped and his eyes were bloodshot.
“You didn’t tell my folks, I hope,” he wheezed. “This would kill my poor mother. Nobody in my family has ever done anything like this before!”
I shook my head. “And I am not going to tell them or anybody else. But . . . my family knows. You know the Proctor family likes to share everything.”
We stared into each other’s eyes for a few uncomfortable seconds.
“Joan, were you with another man?” Reed didn’t give me time to answer. “If you’re cheating on me, I don’t want to know,” he choked out, his voice sounding much stronger. “If I am going to lose you . . . I don’t want to know that either.”
I sucked in some air and shook my head. “Don’t you think it’d be hard for me to leave you for another man and not let you know?”
“I . . . I don’t want to go on,” he whimpered with a tortured look on his face.
I glanced around the room just long enough to regroup my scattered thoughts. When I returned my attention back to Reed, he looked even more pathetic. “You have a lot to live for. You’ve got a successful practice, lots of friends, and a family who loves you.”
“None of that means much to me if I don’t have you!” he boomed. His tongue snapped brutally over each word as he continued. “I am not going to let you mistreat me and get away with it, Joan!”
“So you’d rather kill yourself, huh?”
“Well, you’ve got me acting like a fool!”
“If you’re acting like a fool, it’s because you are a fool!”
“Humph! Don’t put the blame for my, uh, accident all on me! You couldn’t be more responsible if you had shoved those pills down my throat yourself!” Reed lifted his chin and looked at me with so much raw contempt, I felt like stretching out in a hospital bed myself.
He frowned when I folded my arms, so I quickly unfolded them and put my hands on my hips instead. I didn’t want him to know just how upset I was, so I forced myself to keep my voice calm. “I know I lied about where I was going, but I was not with another man. I don’t know why you think I was. . . .”
“Where were you then? Several times in the past few months, I couldn’t locate you when you were supposed to be at home. And what’s the point of you having a cell phone when you rarely answer it when you’re not at home?”
“This time I was at the mall,” I said flatly. “I’m always forgetting to take my cell phone with me when I leave the house.”
“Mall, my ass! If I weren’t such a nonviolent gentleman, I’d jump up out of this bed and maul your head with my fist!” The frown on Reed’s face was even more severe now. I moved back a few steps, in case he overlooked the fact that he was “such a nonviolent gentleman” and jumped out of his bed and attacked me. “Joan, I’ve found matches from various hotels in your coat pocket—more than one time. I’ve even smelled another man on your body—more than one time! If you’re going to screw around, the least you could do is be clean about it. Wash the stink off your ass before you come home! There is nothing more irritating to a man than a woman’s funky-smelling body!” I couldn’t believe how harsh he sounded now, and I couldn’t believe that this stinky motherfucker—who often smelled so bad now, I had to rub my nostrils to keep them from stinging—had the nerve to be implying that I was unclean! He was not done with me yet; and the more he berated me, the more he pissed me off. “And rinse out your mouth. I don’t like to taste another man’s slimy dick on my wife’s lips when I kiss her like I have MORE THAN ONE TIME!”
I wasn’t going to waste my time telling Reed about all the times I’d endured his sweat and funk during moments of intimacy. It would only prolong his rant. I decided to play “nice” and remain civil.
“How come you never said anything before now?” I asked calmly with my eyelids fluttering. I was so busted, but I was not about to admit it.
“Because I thought that if I ignored the problem, it would go away. Having you tell me to my face that you’ve been with another man would kill me.”
“Reed, you’re imagining things.” He flinched when I patted his shoulder.
“Bull doo-doo! Don’t tell me you haven’t cheated on me!” he screeched.
“Can you prove it? So what if I had matches from hotels in my coat pocket? I go to buffets in a lot of different hotel restaurants with Lola, and every time I go, I pick up some matches! So there!” I shot back. I paused just long enough to catch my breath. “And another thing, how do you know the dick you tasted on my lips wasn’t yours? I know we don’t get busy like we used to, but the only dick I suck is yours. To tell you the truth, your last performance was such a letdown I didn’t bother to clean myself up afterward the way I usually do. I didn’t shower or rinse out my mouth until the next day.”
“Humph! So now you’re telling me you’re not as clean as I thought you were? How did I let a skank like you trap me into marriage?” he wailed. The more he ranted, the more desperate he looked. “I—I knew I should have married that Fisher girl like my mother and everybody else in my family wanted me to!”
“Pffft!” I spat, waving my arms. I was not just “hot” as in anger. I was hot as in hot. I could feel sweat forming on my face. “You’re coming up with all kinds of ridiculous shit! And you don’t have to stay in a marriage to a ‘skank’ like me if you don’t want to. I’m sure that if you still want Velline Fisher, she’d be glad to have you as soon as she gets out of prison. . . .”
The way Reed’s eyes popped out, you would have thought that I had just pulled out an Uzi. “I didn’t know Velline was in jail. What did she do?”
“Something about an armed robbery,” I reported. “She and that drug dealer she and her three kids—by three different men—were living with.”
“Oh.” Reed look embarrassed as he cleared his throat. “It’s a good thing I didn’t marry her, I guess. I’m glad I married you, and I married you for life. I don’t care what you do. I will have to just deal with it. I strongly suggest you forget about ever getting a divorce.”
“Then I ‘strongly suggest’ you stop talking about me cheating on you.”
“I’m tired,” he said, lying back down. That tortured look was back on his face. “Joan, I’m willing to forget everything I just said. I know you’re not perfect, but you’re perfect for me. I don’t want to lose you.”
I cussed under my breath and rubbed my neck, which felt like all the muscles in it had been stretched to the limit. “You get some rest,” I said, patting his shoulder again. I reluctantly gave him a quick peck on his sweat-covered forehead. “I hope you never try this again,” I whispered.
“That’s up to you. I was serious about not wanting to live without you. . . .”
“So you’re telling me, you’ll try to kill yourself again if I do leave you?”
The look in his eyes answered my question, but he confirmed it with a statement that made my skin crawl: “Like I said, I will not live without you.”
At his request, Reed was going to spend two or three nights in the hospital. I didn’t leave until he had gone to sleep about fifteen minutes later. As soon as I heard him snoring, I bolted. I needed to talk to Lola.
There were not many people in the hallway or in the waiting area, but I still decided to go outside to use my cell phone. My call went straight to her voice mail. I glanced at my watch and realized
it was almost ten P.M. I went home, but I didn’t sleep much. I called her again, around seven the next morning, hoping I’d catch her before she left for work.
Lola answered right away. “I am so glad to hear from you!” she hollered. “I called you yesterday and Derrick told me what happened. I left you some voice mail messages.”
“I know. Sorry I’m just now calling you back. I’ve been busy.”
“Derrick told me what he did! I am so sorry. Poor Reed. He was so full of life. Are you at the morgue?”
I gasped so hard that I almost choked on some air. “‘Morgue’? Lola, Reed is not dead. I found him in time. He’s in the hospital.”
“Thank God! Derrick had to hang up before I could find out everything. Is Reed going to be all right?”
“He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about him. He wasn’t really trying to kill himself. He was just trying to get my attention.”
“Well, overdosing on sleeping pills is a hell of a way to try and get somebody’s attention!” I hollered. “What was he thinking?”
“I don’t know what the hell that jackass was thinking. All I know is, he’s willing to do anything to get his way, and I don’t like it one damn bit!”
“I don’t like it either, Joan. But the important thing is, he’s still alive, and as long as he is, there is hope for you and him.”
“Pffft!”
“You don’t think there’s hope for your marriage?”
“Uh, yeah, whatever.” Joan snorted. “Listen, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this incident to Reed when you see him again. I want to put this behind us as soon as possible.”
“Oh, I won’t say a word to him about it. It’s none of my business, anyway. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“He won’t be coming home for a day or so. Can you call in sick and come spend the day with me?”
“I’d love to, but the Cottrights are going to be in Napa today to check out some new wineries they want to start buying their wine from. It’ll just be me and their nephew working the store. How about lunch?”
“Uh, I’m going back to the hospital to visit Reed this morning and I don’t know how long I’ll be there.”
“Can you call me whenever you get home from the hospital?”
“I’d rather talk to you in person. How about lunch tomorrow?”
“Well, if that works for you, it works for me. Is noon okay?”
“That’s fine. Don’t come to the house. You’d use up too much of your lunch hour. I’ll meet you at that deli across the street from your work.”
“That’ll do.”
“Lola, he thought I was with another man.”
“Were you?”
“I was. And because of how bad things are between us, I doubt if I can stop seeing other men—especially ones I don’t have to even leave home to find. Some days I feel so lonely and bored, I could scream. I walk around the house, wondering what to do with myself. With Junior being in school most of the day, I don’t have much to keep me occupied. And I am not about to settle for a life of watching talk shows and doing housework. You know I’m a woman who always likes to be involved in something . . . something fun. I’ve always been this way.”
“Tell me about it. Why don’t you go out and buy a cat? Having to clean up behind a pet will keep you so busy you won’t have to worry about being bored and lonely. And you should never mention the word ‘bored’ to me. That’s the reason we got caught up in that lonely hearts club thing back in high school.”
“There are times when I wish I still had those old pen pals to write to,” Joan admitted with a mournful sigh. “At least it was fun.”
“Look, if you do start writing corny love letters to a bunch of old men again, I don’t want to know about it!”
“Oh, you know I’ll never do anything as foolish as that again. But getting a pet is out of the question. Cleaning up behind Reed and Junior is enough. I’m not about to be cleaning out a litter box too. And the online clubs I am into now are nothing like that lonely hearts club. This is a whole different ballgame.”
“Then if you don’t want a pet, and if you don’t want to let that online shit go, why not join a book club? As much as you like to read, I’m surprised you haven’t joined one already. There are dozens of other hobbies that you can take up. If you find one that suits your needs, it might keep you from getting bored.”
“I did . . . and it’s men. Lola, dudes are all over that Internet looking for women like me. Most of them request married women so they can keep the hookups casual.”
“Listen, ‘Mrs. Desperate Housewife,’ you don’t have to tell me that. I watch TV. I read the newspapers and most of the magazines where they talk about this stuff. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, Joan. If you are going to keep having affairs, please be careful. Reed killing himself might not be the only thing you have to worry about.”
“Please don’t give me that warning about Internet serial killers and maniacs again. I’ve met some nice, good-looking men online and not a single one had a violent bone in his body. They were all very sweet men.”
“Most serial killers were ‘very sweet men,’ too, until they started killing innocent people.”
“Stop already! You’ve gone out with some pretty shady characters that you met the normal way. Remember that dude you went home with from the Blue Goose bar last year who tried to bite off your nipples?”
“Please do not remind me about that! I’ve learned my lesson about one-night stands. Yes, I make a lot of stupid choices too.”
“Then relax. You don’t need to beat me over the head. I get the point you’re trying to make,” I said.
“I’ll see you around noon tomorrow. And do me a favor when I see you, tell me something good.”
Chapter 33
Joan
REED WAS ASLEEP WHEN I GOT TO THE HOSPITAL A FEW MINUTES after ten that morning. I waited around two hours for him to wake up. “Joan, please leave me alone for today,” he told me as soon as he saw my face. “I’d like to pull myself back together before we talk some more.”
“I can wait,” I said, giving him a weak smile. I was happy to see that he didn’t look so tortured today. “Embarrassed” was the best way I could describe the look on his face now.
“No! I want to be by myself,” he insisted. “Go on home!”
Not only was I exhausted, I was not in the mood to argue. I needed to pull myself back together, as much as he did, so I left.
As much as I ignored it, I finally admitted to myself that I no longer loved my husband. I wasn’t even sure I ever really had! He had impressed me in the beginning of our relationship, and I thought that with all he had to offer, he could make me happy. I should have insisted on waiting until I got to know him much better before we got married! I was angry with him for putting me in the position he had put me in by attempting to kill himself. I realized now that he was a weak, miserable man and had probably been that way his whole life. It explained why he had targeted a girl my age. I couldn’t see a woman his age tolerating his behavior. Well, he could play his games as much as he wanted to. I was not about to let him use suicide to hold me hostage! I would play along with him, just enough to keep him “happy,” and do everything I could to please myself too. But there was no way that I could stay with Reed and please myself without seeing other men. . . .
I was sorry I didn’t have a date lined up for the evening. With Reed in the hospital, I would not have had to make up a story about where I was going. And spending a couple of hours with a man I was not committed to would certainly take my mind off the man that I was committed to.
Too Sweet had promised to pick up Junior from school and take him to Mama’s house until I picked him up, so I had a few hours to myself. I refreshed my makeup and drove around for about twenty minutes before I decided to get on the freeway. I had not planned to do anything in particular, but when I approached the exit to a mall, I decided to spend a couple of hours shopping before the stores clo
sed.
I picked out a few items for myself and for Junior; and just to make it look good, I purchased a new robe for Reed. I had a feeling he would not want to wear the one he’d been found in after his suicide attempt.
On the way home, I stopped at a Starbucks to have a cup of coffee. Someone had left a newspaper on the only available table; it featured a story on the front page about the three local young black women who had all turned up missing in less than a year. It was a disturbing article, but it was the pictures of the women that gave me a chill. They all resemble Lola, I thought. I folded the newspaper and stuffed it into my purse, wondering if she had seen it.
I was anxious to pick up my son from Mama’s house, so I finished my coffee and got back on the freeway
“Joan, how is poor Reed?” Mama asked as soon as I made it into the house. She was still in her ugly gray prison uniform.
I heaved a heavy sigh. “He’s fine. He’ll be home in a couple of days, but I don’t think he’ll want too much company for a while, so don’t come see him.”
“Well, none of us will come to see him until he feels up to it, but I’ll keep him in my prayers.” Mama reared back and looked me up and down, giving me a pitiful look. “You look terrible, baby. Come sit with me for a little while.” She led me by the hand to the living-room couch. “You’re just in time. Elmo made a pitcher of margaritas. And I hope you can stay for dinner. Elaine made gumbo.”
“I can’t stay for dinner. Before I left home, I put a steak in the sink to thaw out. Where’s Junior?”
“He’s next door visiting the Carter boy.” When we reached the couch, Mama stopped abruptly and gave me a wild-eyed look. “I hope you don’t tell Junior his daddy tried to commit suicide!”
