by Mary Monroe
“This is her house, sugar. We got to respect her,” Adele said, giving me one of the most fake-looking smiles I’d ever seen.
Odell gave me a pitiful look and a real smile, but I was even suspicious of that. Even though he was fairly nice compared to the rest of his immediate family, this boy was too quiet for me. Quiet people made me nervous. That was one of the reasons I never liked being alone with my daddy.
Quiet people even disturbed elderly Miss Odessa. “Still waters run deep,” she told me. Her translation was: “Watch your back.” But my in-laws were as destructive to my face as they were to my back. I was not only going to watch my back, I was going to watch all the rest of my body parts as well. Speaking of body parts, Wade’s were definitely among the many thoughts swimming around in my head. I was glad I still had his cell phone number.
CHAPTER 50
Somehow I made it through the first week without committing a crime against my in-laws or going stark raving crazy.
“Baby, I know this is hard on you, but it won’t be but for a minute. You know, if it was your family, they would be just as welcome in our home,” Jesse Ray told me, speaking too casually for my tastes. My family? That was a joke, but I wasn’t laughing. Other than Mama and Daddy, I had no family. And, they were the last people in the world I expected to come to me for help of any kind. I visited my parents every now and then, but they had never even been to my new neighborhood, let alone my new house. Even though they declined every invitation I extended to them, I continued to invite them. “I can’t turn my back on my family,” he added, trying to show me some affection by squeezing my breast. All that did was piss me off even more. Sex didn’t distract me the way it used to. At least not with him.
This man had lost a lot of credibility with me. His lip service was bad enough, but his position in the bedroom had dropped from a B minus to a very low D. That made me think about Wade even more. I knew that my relationship with Wade, with his penniless self, had nowhere to go beyond a bed. And, with the situation in my house being what it was, I wanted more than sex. I wanted peace of mind even more.
I was glad I still had my relationship with Miss Odessa. But since I couldn’t get out of the house that often anymore, I couldn’t even visit my elderly friend as much as I wanted to. And, she was so hard of hearing now, trying to communicate with her by telephone was a waste of time.
My in-laws were just as rude to Jeanette and Nita as they were to me, so my girlfriends had practically stopped coming to the house. But every chance I got, I met one or both of them at a bar or a restaurant. This particular Saturday afternoon, I’d met Nita at Otto’s, a dark little bar on a side street a few blocks from my house. As soon as the waiter delivered our drinks, I guzzled up half of mine in record time. I needed it, but not to release the hold I’d had on my tongue. I would have said what I had to say with or without a rum and Coke.
“Those damned people are driving me up the motherfucking wall! If I don’t do something soon, I’m going to lose what’s left of my mind! That bitch Adele sat in the kitchen, filing her claws, while her daughter’s fat cat dragged a pork chop off the counter last night! One night I walked in my bathroom just in time to see Odell jacking off and shooting his black sperm into one of my best towels! One of my credit cards is missing! I’m going crazy up in that house!” I paused so I could catch my breath.
Nita sat in silence, sipping her drink and nibbling on some bread sticks and looking at me like I had already lost my mind. “Adele uses my make-up and perfume without asking! Odette used another one of my best towels to clean up a pile of shit her cat left in the middle of my living-room floor! And, they are supposed to be helping me take care of Miss Rosetta! Ha! When they are home and she shits herself, do they change her diaper? Hell, no! They wheel her into whatever room I’m in and tell me, ‘Grammy had a little accident,’” I said, imitating Odette’s whiny voice.
Nita looked around the bar, then back to me. “Are you finished? Do you feel better now?” she asked, squeezing my hand.
“I’m fine,” I muttered. “No,” I said, pausing to drink some more. “I am not fine!” I slammed my glass down so hard on the table, it shook. Our waiter was nearby, and I motioned for him to bring me another drink.
“Girl, you need a vacation,” Nita said in a calm voice, shaking her head.
“I need a lot more than that,” I mumbled, staring at the top of the table. As soon as the waiter set my second drink in front of me, I took a long swallow and let loose again. “Not only do I clean up behind everybody, cook most of the meals, and take care of Miss Rosetta, I get victimized in other ways. Two days ago some money disappeared from my wallet. I didn’t even bother to accuse anybody of stealing it, but I mentioned it to Jesse Ray. His theory was that I’d misplaced it. He said the same thing yesterday, when I told him one of my credit cards was missing.
“On another occasion, I caught Odette fucking on the living-room couch some little, narrow-ass boy that she’d sneaked in during the night. Adele gave her a mild scolding, then turned around and accused me of ‘spying’ on them. And, I finally found out why Odell is so quiet: the boy is an alcoholic and is often drunk as a skunk. One day I caught him drinking vodka straight out of the bottle! Because of the showdown with Adele about Odette and her little boyfriend glazing my sofa with their love juices, I didn’t even bother to expose Odell’s drinking habits.” I stopped ranting long enough to finish my drink.
“And, just as you would expect, people like Adele and her kids have the kinds of friends that you wouldn’t want to visit your house too often. I do what I can to keep that under control, and to my surprise, Jesse Ray backs me up. There are to be no visitors after nine at night, and no visitors are allowed to roam around the house unescorted. I had to impose a no smoking rule, using Miss Rosetta’s failing health as an excuse, which was more than a little valid. I even gathered up all the ashtrays and stored them in the garage. Even though nobody smokes in my presence now, the house still smells like smoke. And not just cigarette smoke. When I washed Odell’s clothes—yes, I do their laundry, too—I found half-smoked joints in his pockets and enough condoms for an army! Those things don’t disturb me that much. Odell is a typical teenage boy. But this morning I went to do his laundry and found a pair of my panties in one of his shirt pockets! I’m afraid that if I go off on a vacation, I won’t come back!” I told Nita, beckoning the waiter to bring me another drink.
“Girl, don’t you let those people run you away from your own home,” Nita said sternly, waving a finger in my face. “You can’t go on like this. Why don’t you call up that hunk Wade?”
“For what?” Just the mention of his name brought a smile to my face. “Should I?” I asked, leaning forward.
“What’s wrong with you, girl?” Nita snapped, rolling her eyes. “You need a tune-up, and he’s got the tool you need,” she said, with a chuckle.
“I’m married,” I said, snatching my third drink from the waiter, who was as cute and sexy as Wade. I didn’t realize I was still staring at his butt as he walked away until Nita cleared her throat and slapped the top of the table.
“So? That one little detail didn’t stop you before!”
“Yeah, well, that one time was a mistake. I’ve got enough problems. Like I said, I’m married.” I could feel myself getting wet between my thighs.
“That’s part of the problem. You are too married. You are trying so hard to keep your husband happy that you are neglecting your own feelings. If I was in your shoes, I’d either leave or get me some regular outside action.”
I gave Nita’s words some thought, but I didn’t comment. Instead, I went to the ladies’ room and grabbed a wad of paper towels. Then I pulled down my sticky panties and mopped up all the juice sliding down my thighs.
Nita and I had come to the bar in separate cars. I was thankful for that because I wasn’t ready to go home when Nita was. I drove around aimlessly for an hour, thinking about what Nita had suggested. I still had Wade’s phone numb
er, and I knew that as long as that was the case, there was a chance that I would call him.
But by the time I reached my street, I had talked myself out of hooking up with Wade again. I had convinced myself that he probably didn’t want to see me again, anyway. A man who had made several X-rated movies probably had women coming out of his ears. Besides all that, I didn’t even know if he was still in the Bay Area. It had been a month since our romp in his mama’s house. A month! It had also been a month that my in-laws had been under my roof. And, it didn’t look like they were leaving any time soon. Mel, Adele’s husband, had been coming to the house, trying to talk her into moving back home. That gave me a hopeful thought. But that thought went out the window as soon as I reached my house.
To my everlasting horror, Adele’s husband, Mel, was climbing out of his battered minivan, toting two of his suitcases. My mind refused to believe what my eyes were seeing: he was moving in, too!
CHAPTER 51
“J.R., I need to talk to you,” I yelled into my cellular phone, struggling to control my anger and frustration. But I was losing the struggle. I wanted to scream my head off. I couldn’t believe what was happening this time. I was still in my car, sitting in front of my house, watching Mel, Adele, and the twins haul more boxes from Mel’s van into my house.
“Baby, we are real busy right now,” Jesse Ray said in a nervous and weak voice. I had a feeling that he already knew why I was calling. “Can I call you back in a couple of hours? How about us having dinner at the Hometown Buffet?”
“Fuck the Hometown Buffet!” I shouted.
“Oh Lord, you are in one hell of a bad mood!”
“You’re just now noticing that! I’ve been in a bad mood ever since your savage family moved in! I’m beginning to feel like I landed on the Planet of the Apes!”
“I’ll call you back in a couple of hours, when you’re feeling better.”
“Feeling better? Why the fuck do you think I will be feeling better in a couple of hours?”
“We’ll talk then, anyway. Now will you let me get off this telephone?”
“Oh, hell, no! Fuck that fucking shit! Don’t you dare hang up this telephone! If you do, I am coming over there!” I roared, slapping the dashboard so hard with the palm of my hand that the windshield wipers came on. The irritating noise that they made scraping against the dry window made the situation even worse. My head was spinning like I’d just tumbled sideways off a merry-go-round. I thought that I was losing my mind for sure this time. I thought I was turning off the wipers, but I ended up turning on my lights. I fumbled around until I located the wiper switch, but I was still in such a wild state, I left the lights on.
“Christine, you know I don’t like to hear women cuss. And, you, you got way too much class to be acting like one of those heifers from the ’hood,” Jesse Ray said in a gentle voice. The fact that he could speak so calmly when it was obvious that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown compounded a situation that was already out of control.
“Fuck this shit! We need to talk, and we need to talk right now. I am sitting here in my car in front of the house, watching Adele and the twins help that punk-ass Mel carry boxes and bags into our house. Either Mel is moving in, too, or they’ve been on one hell of a shopping spree.”
“Mel couldn’t make his rent this month. He hit a jealous coworker and got fired,” Jesse Ray said, with a hopeless sigh.
“The man delivers pizzas for Domino’s. Who’d be jealous of that?” I screeched.
“I don’t get up in the brother’s business. I just know what he told me.” Jesse Ray stopped talking for a moment and cleared his throat. I think he did that because he had to pull his foot out of his mouth. But that pause didn’t do him much good, because he kept talking crazy. “Mel’s family, my only sister’s husband, and he needs my help, too. He just needs a place to stay until he can get himself another gig.”
“Well, that’s his problem. He’s got family everywhere except Mars, so why is he not moving in with them?”
“Now, baby, you know Mel doesn’t get along with his folks. And, he wants to be with his wife so they can work things out. It’ll only be for a little while, baby. I promise.”
“Your promises aren’t worth a counterfeit food stamp. You said the same thing about Adele and the twins. Exactly what do you call ‘a little while’?” I yelled. “Adele and the twins were supposed to be with us for ‘a little while,’ and they’ve been with us for over a month now.”
“What do you expect me to do, Christine? I am not going to stand by and let my family end up on the street. You know how I believe in family. If you can’t count on family, you can’t count on anybody. If you don’t do for your family, who will you do for?”
I didn’t like it when J.R., or anybody else for that matter, started talking about family this and family that. I couldn’t make that claim, so I would never really know what it was like to feel that family loyalty that some of the people I knew experienced. Nita and Jeanette both had relatives all over the place. Once Nita dragged me to a family reunion that involved over three hundred of her relatives. It saddened me to know that even though I still had my parents, the only other family I would have was J.R. and his. I had accepted the fact that I would not have any biological children, and the way things were going, I was glad that I only had to worry about myself. If worse came to worse and I had to run away, it would have been a lot harder to do if I’d had a baby to drag along with me.
“Besides, I believe in giving back,” he mumbled.
“What the fuck are you talking about, man? Giving back what and why? What has your sister done to deserve all you’ve given her? You paid her American Express card last month—over three thousand dollars. Her claim was that she’d only used the card for some emergencies. Well, I happened to see her bill from last month, and all of her emergency charges were made at Disneyland! The dates of the charges was that same weekend that she and the kids said they were going to L.A. to visit some old friends that she went to school with. They all went to Disneyland, and we ended up paying for it! Not just for Adele and the twins, but her friends, too. That makes no goddamn sense to me. What is it going to take, and how long is it going to take, for you to see that these people are milking us dry?”
“Us? Look, lady, you need to stop right now before you go too far. We need to get one thing straight right now. Nobody’s taking anything away from you.”
“It’s our money that’s paying for your sister and half of the Bay Area to live so large. We are the ones paying for it all.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said in a steely voice. This conversation was already on dangerous ground, and it seemed to be sinking fast.
“And just what do you mean?” I wanted to know. My head was still spinning, and now I was gritting my teeth and twisting around in my seat. I didn’t want to know what this mess was doing to my blood pressure.
“Correction. I am the one paying. You keep forgetting who is bringing home the money in this deal. You don’t have a damn thing to be complaining about, woman. You got it better than every other woman I know. You don’t even have to work. You don’t have to get up out of the bed until you feel good and ready. What more do you want?”
My mouth was hanging open so wide and I was sucking in so much air, I could barely breathe. “I don’t believe my ears. I spend my days and some of my nights feeding and bathing your mama. I can’t leave the house during the day unless I find somebody to come stay with your mama. I haven’t been able to sleep as late as I wanted since your mama had her stroke. And, if you think I don’t do any work, what do you call all the cleaning and cooking I do for your family?”
“Baby, please—”
“Please my ass! Do you think it’s easy for me to drag myself up and down the aisles at Safeway, buying groceries to feed a house full of people who are all too lazy to help me go get groceries and too stingy to contribute a nickel for all the junk they put on the grocery list? I never had to buy sunflower
seeds, licorice, and chicken gizzards until they moved in and started demanding them.”
“Christine, please calm down—”
“Calm down my ass! Your family complains about my cooking, yet they all but lick the plates clean after one of my meals. And, did you know that your nephew stole a pair of my panties one time? Did you know that I caught him peeping through the keyhole in our bathroom while I was taking a shower one night? And, don’t get me started on that sister of his—”
“Christine, like I said, I am really busy right now. You go in the house and have a big glass of wine. Go in the den or our bedroom, and watch one of your videos. Don’t let Adele and the kids and Mel bother you. We are going through this together.”
“Together? And that’s another thing. How can you say we are going through this together when ninety percent of the time you are not even in the house? I can’t take too much more of this,” I wailed. I felt like I was coming undone. No, I had already come undone. My head had stopped spinning, but now it felt like it was about to crack open. The back of my neck was itching, and my stomach felt like somebody with big-ass feet was inside it, stomping on my insides.
It took Jesse Ray a while to respond to my last comment. “Are you making plans that don’t include me?”
“What do you think?” I choked.
CHAPTER 52
“I love you to death, Christine. One day I will make all this up to you if you let me, baby.”
“Make me know it!” I snapped. “Try a little harder, and maybe we’ll get somewhere. Because, brother, I got news for you. What you are doing—or not doing, I should say—is not working.”
“Adele looked at an apartment in Oakland two days ago. She’s just waiting for the landlady to get back to her. If everything checks out, her job and credit, the place is hers.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it happen. But that’s just part of the problem, Jesse Ray. I love your mama just as much as I love my own mama. And, to be honest with you, I think I love Miss Rosetta even more, because she’s treated me more like a daughter than my own mama. But taking care of her …”
