by Mary Monroe
“Rhoda, you know I’m a clean woman,” I clucked, adjusting the seat belt.
“Say what?”
“I’m a clean woman. You didn’t have to put this plastic shit on your seat.” I pouted, my head bowed submissively.
“What is your problem? I put that plastic on the seat because I didn’t want you to drip barbecue sauce on it again, like you did the other night, when we picked up ribs for Pee Wee after we left the movies. And if you look down, you will see that I also put some plastic on the floor so you wouldn’t drip sauce on it, either.”
“Oh,” I mumbled, looking down and straightening the plastic on the floor with my shoe.
“Look, if you’re goin’ to be this fuckin’ paranoid, I advise you to stop this shit before it gets too deep. Or leave me out of it. I am your friend—your best friend—and I would never do somethin’ that damn tacky to you or anybody else that I invite into my SUV. What made you think that I put plastic on my seat on account of what you did with your body?”
“I don’t know,” I said, with a mighty shrug. “I’ve never done this before.”
“I know that. I know your black ass better than you know yourself.” Rhoda gave me an affectionate pat on my thigh. “Now answer my question and tell me. How was it?”
“Okay, I guess,” I told her, shifting myself into a more comfortable position. I was glad that I had mentioned the plastic on Rhoda’s seat. She was the kind of person who liked to deal with negativity right away, and I admired her for that.
I felt better now, but the insides of my thighs were so sore, I had to sit with my legs spread a few inches apart. Other intimate parts of my body were also sore. My breasts felt like I’d been nursing a very hungry baby, and in a way, that was exactly what I had done. My butt felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t wait to get home so I could take a long, hot bath with some Epsom salts and a very thorough douche. I had douched before I left the house, per Rhoda’s instructions, and Louis had used a condom. But douching with hot water helped ease the soreness after having prolonged and rough sex. I had learned this during my brief stint as a prostitute in my youth. “How was bowling? Did we win or lose? I need to know in case my husband asks me. Or did anything happen that I need to know about?”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
“What?” I asked dumbly.
Rhoda snorted and turned off her motor. She nodded toward the motel. Since Louis had paid for the room, he had decided to spend the night there, and I couldn’t blame him. As tacky as that room was, with its ugly brown plaid furniture and plastic curtains, it was still a step up from his apartment. I smiled just thinking about him roaming around in that room, still naked. There was no doubt in my mind that if I had stayed the night with him, we would have made love all night.
“Well, he still had a hard-on when I left.” I paused and chuckled. “He’s a little countrified, though. A Southern homeboy to the bone.”
“Aren’t we all? Last time I checked, you were still from the South, too. And I know you worked on gettin’ rid of your Southern drawl when you moved north, but I worked on keepin’ mine. I want the world to know that I’m from what the Yankees call Bigfoot country. Besides, I get compliments all the time about how cute and quaint my accent is….”
I shrugged. “He’s from Greensboro, North Carolina, but you can hardly hear a trace of an accent. I guess he’s not as dedicated to that Southern twang as you are. And, frankly, I don’t give a damn, Miss Scarlett.”
Rhoda gave me an amused look and rolled her eyes. That was what she always did when I compared her to the incomparable Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind. “Then how is he countrified? Does he eat with his fingers, wear high-water pants and suspenders, or does he pick his teeth with a straw from a broom?”
“All of the above, and then some. He says ‘gwine’ for going and ‘rightcheer’ for right here.” I laughed. “But I thought I’d die when he referred to the cover on the motel bed as a kivver. My mama and daddy don’t even use that word anymore.”
Rhoda guffawed. “I haven’t heard a cover called a kivver since I was a young’un growin’ up in Alabama. But gwine is my favorite. Now tell me, was he worth it?”
I nodded. “He was. He’s got a good head on him, if you know what I mean.”
Rhoda gave me a look of envy. “He sounds like my kind of man,” she squealed. “Are you, uh, gwine to see him again?”
I shrugged and giggled for a few seconds. “I don’t know what I’m gwine to do,” I replied. “It depends on a few things.”
“Annette, if you don’t want to talk about this, just say so.”
I shuddered and let out a loud sigh. “Rhoda, he made me feel like a teenager again. He made me feel like a beauty queen. He…he was like dope. And I couldn’t get enough….” I turned to Rhoda, with a concerned look on my face. “This scares the hell out of me,” I admitted. “How have you managed to do your thing with Bully for all these years and not lose your mind?”
“Let me put it this way. Had I not started my affair with Bully, I would have lost my mind a long time ago.” Rhoda started the motor again and eased out into the street, looking straight ahead. “And by the way, we won the tournament tonight.”
“Excuse me?”
“Girl, you joined my bowlin’ team so you could have a cloak to cover this thing you started with Louis. Now if you don’t get your shit together, you will never be able to pull this off. I am your alibi for tonight, and any other night or day that you want to hook up with your baby boy.”
I cringed. The reference she’d made to Louis was true but disturbing. It was a painful reminder that there was a very wide gap between our ages. “Don’t call him that,” I pleaded. “That makes me feel like one of those aging celebrities known for fooling around with youngsters.”
“Well, he is a little on the youthful side, Cher,” Rhoda teased.
“I can see that, so you don’t have to remind me,” I snarled. “His age was the one thing that made me hold off this long. I had to tell him to stop saying ‘Yes, ma’am’ to me, because it made me feel my age.” I gave Rhoda a guarded look. From the blank expression on her face, I got the feeling that she didn’t know what to say next. I decided to steer the conversation in a less painful direction. “Now, going back to that countrified thing, he says ‘nome’ for no, ma’am.”
“Nome? Now you are goin’ real far up into the backwoods, Andy Griffith–Beverly Hillbillies country with that one,” Rhoda howled.
“He dozed off for a few minutes and snored so loud, the manager called from the office and said that the people in the rooms on both sides of us had called to complain.” We both laughed, cackling like hens.
“That’s hysterical, but let’s get back to his age. He’s at least as young as twenty-five, if he’s a day.”
“He’s thirty,” I said, nodding. “Had you and I not aborted my first child, he or she would be thirty. The truth is, I’m old enough…I…I’m old enough to be Louis’s mother.”
“Uh-huh. That’s a fact. But if it doesn’t bother him, it shouldn’t bother you. And I meant what I just said. If you don’t want to talk about him, I understand.”
“No, maybe we should talk about him. If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have prepared myself better for, uh, certain things. Like losing my appeal to my husband. I was beginning to think that the fun part of my life was over. But I’m not ready for a rocking chair,” I declared.
“If you think that forty-six is old, the fun part of your life is over. I’m a few months older than you, and I sure as hell don’t think my fun is over. My kids are grown, my house is paid for, I’ve got my husband and my lover under control, and I look damn good for a woman my age. Girl, these are the best years of our lives. You’d better enjoy them while you still can. Life is shorter than you think. Do you want to stop off at that rib place and pick up a plate for Pee Wee before I drop you off? You usually do.”
“Yeah. That man would choke my tongue out i
f I came home without a rib dinner for him,” I said with a forced chuckle.
“Husbands! Bah! After a while they are as hard to keep in shape as a pair of cheap panty hose. My husband has become so fuckin’ irritatin’ that whenever I get constipated, all I have to do is look at him for a few minutes. He’s the best laxative in the world. My bowels never had it so good.”
“Rhoda, that’s one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard you say! Otis is your husband. If he’s that bad, why are you still with him?”
“For the same reason I keep those old house shoes I’ve had since I gave birth to my last child. He’s comfortable, familiar, and convenient—and he used to be good and sexy. Just like that old shoe you married.” I didn’t like the smug look on Rhoda’s face, but it was one I was used to seeing. “Here we go,” Rhoda said, sucking on her teeth as we stopped in front of Al’s rib joint. “I think I could go for some hot links myself.”
CHAPTER 5
My husband, Jerry, whom we all called Pee Wee, was in the same position in his shabby blue La-Z-Boy recliner in our living room that he was in when I left the house more than four hours earlier.
“I’m home,” I said, coughing at the same time to clear my throat.
I used to look forward to coming home. But that was back in the day when my husband greeted me with my housecoat and slippers, a cold drink, and a mind-boggling French kiss. And when I got home before he did, I would greet him the same way. Things had changed, and not for the better. Coming home nowadays was like visiting a relative I didn’t like. Every time I heard that old song by the Supremes called “Where Did Our Love Go?” it reminded me of my marriage. There had once been so much affection in my home that I thought it would never fizzle out. Well, it did. I didn’t know how to resurrect it, either. I was thankful that I now had another man to focus on. Like a lot of women my age, I still had a lot of love to give, and I still needed a lot of love myself.
“You bring them ribs?” Pee Wee asked. At the same time, he released a silent fart. Even though I didn’t hear it, the stench was so unholy, it made my eyes water and the insides of my nostrils burn. “Excuse me. I had chili for lunch, and I’ve been payin’ my gas bill ever since,” he drawled. He didn’t even turn around to face me as I stood in the doorway.
I held my breath and fanned my face with my hand, but it didn’t do much good. The closer I got to him, the more my eyes watered from his gas.
I was disgusted, to say the least, and glad that I had not brought company home with me. Without a word, I set the Styrofoam container, which contained a large order of ribs, three chicken wings, two slices of wheat bread, some coleslaw, and baked beans, on the coffee table in front of him. And, without a word, he flipped open the container and started eating, gnawing on one of the wings like a beaver.
Pee Wee spent more time with that old chair of his than he did with me. He looked like an old man stretched out in it, with his graying hair and his bony, reptilian-like bare feet. His belly was so bloated and low, it looked like he was about to give birth. Had I known that the “worse” of the “for better or worse” part of our vows was going to be this bad, I would have deleted or rewritten that outdated, unrealistic shit myself. It was a damn shame that my once near-perfect marriage had become so unbearably dull. I was now the wife of a caricature.
I sat down gently on the arm of the sofa, facing him, and cleared my throat to get his attention. That didn’t work. “Did you make Charlotte take a bath before she went to bed?” I asked, looking around my spacious living room, admiring the new beige shag carpet and the gold velvet sofa and love seat that I had purchased two months ago. I was glad to see that he had not made too much of a mess. The only things I could see worth complaining about were the four empty beer bottles on top of my red oak coffee table; a limp switch in his lap, which he must have used on Charlotte to make her behave; and some toenail clippings on the floor in front of him. I made a mental note to scold him about all that later. As tired as I was, the last thing I felt like doing was arguing with him. “Pee Wee, I am talking to you.”
He grunted and gave me a surprised look, like he had just noticed me sitting in front of him, with my suede purse still in my hands and the yellow cashmere sweater he’d given me last Christmas still draped around my shoulders. “Did you say something?” he asked, with his mouth full of food. When I didn’t respond right away, he gave me an annoyed look, and then he dismissed me with a wave of his hand.
I didn’t know what I had done to make my husband treat me like a nuisance. This behavior had been going on for several weeks now, and it was beginning to get on my last nerve. I didn’t like to brag, but if anybody had asked me, I would have told them that I was a wife and a half. I was attractive, I kept a clean house, I brought home half of the mighty big piece of the bacon that it took to make us comfortable, and I was a good mother to our only child. No man in his right mind could ignore that. Apparently, that was no longer enough for my husband. But that was his problem. If he didn’t appreciate me, I’d find somebody who did. And tonight was a good start.
“I asked you if you made Charlotte take a bath before she went to bed.”
“Uh-huh,” he replied, chewing so hard, his ears wiggled. I was beginning to feel like I was trying to pull his teeth. That was how hard it had become for me to make him talk. Barbecue sauce had saturated his goatee. But instead of using one of the napkins that had come with his order, he kept right on chewing. It disgusted me, but that didn’t seem to bother him a bit. Then he started to smack so loudly, it made me want to help him eat. You would have thought that he was gobbling from a platter at the Last Supper.
“You had to whup her?” I asked, nodding toward the switch in his lap. I had received more than my share of whuppings during my childhood, but I didn’t approve of hitting kids. However, every now and then, it took a few whacks across Charlotte’s butt to get her attention.
“She had it comin’,” he managed.
“Well, don’t do it again unless I’m here,” I said. “You men get too heavy-handed when it comes to whupping a child.”
He rolled his eyes, broke the switch in two with one hand, and dropped the pieces to the floor, next to his toenail clippings.
“Did anybody call for me?” I asked, with an exasperated sigh, rising from my seat. I dropped my purse and sweater onto the sofa, and then I slid out of my shoes and kicked them to the side.
“Naw.” He chewed and smacked some more. Then he swallowed so hard, he had to tilt his head back and lift his butt a few inches off his seat. “Damn,” he complained, with his face contorted. My husband had become one of those people who made eating look like a sporting event. He punched himself in the chest with his fist, and then he expelled a grunt and a mild belch. “This grub is so screamin’ good, I want to put my whole face in it. You didn’t get yourself nothin’ from Al’s?”
“We had pizza and beer at the bowling alley,” I replied. “Uh, I really enjoyed bowling tonight. I’m glad I joined Rhoda’s bowling team so I can do this every Thursday night….” I paused and held my breath, anxious to hear what he had to say.
“That’s nice. I hope you do. You need to get out of this house more, anyway. If you don’t do somethin’ for yourself, ain’t no tellin’ how soon you’ll get old before your time.”
His last comment made my ears ring.
“Pee Wee, I wish you would tell me what is wrong. We can’t go on like this.” I held my breath again as I awaited his response.
He stopped chewing and smacking for a moment and gave me a surprised look. There was a large wad of food in the left side of his mouth. He didn’t even bother to swallow it before he spoke again. “What the hell are you talkin’ about, woman? Who said somethin’ was wrong?” he replied, with a shrug. He swallowed the food, and now his face had a slack-jawed appearance.
“Something is definitely wrong,” I insisted.
“Not with me!” he yelled, looking even more surprised. “I’m not the one goin’ through
the change.” His words felt like a stab.
“This has nothing to do with menopause! Whether you will admit it or not, you are the one with the problem!” I hollered.
“Well, if you are so smart, why don’t you tell me what my problem is?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me. You…you’re not the man you used to be,” I wailed.
The food on his plate was good, but it couldn’t have been that good. He blinked and stuffed another wad of coleslaw into his jaw. I was glad he swallowed it before he responded to my last comment.
“Well, since you brought it up, you ain’t the woman you used to be, neither,” he told me, with a pinched look on his face. “But like old blue-eyed Mr. Frank Sinatra sung in one of his songs, that’s life. Don’t nothin’ stay the same forever. What’s your point?”
He finally lifted one of the napkins and wiped his mouth, releasing another mild belch. Now he looked so calm, it was frightening. I had not seen him look this satisfied since the last time we made love, last year. He yawned and stretched his arms high above his head, letting me know that he was about to end his participation in this tense conversation.
“I know that nothing stays the same forever, but you’ve changed so much I hardly know you anymore.” I walked over to the large front window and continued to talk, with my back to him. “We used to talk about so many different things. We used to do so many things together. We were so busy, we needed a pie chart to keep up with all our activities. And…and now our bedroom seems more like a morgue. We had one of the best marriages in town. If you don’t love me anymore and want to…want to move on, just tell me, and I won’t stand in your way.” A few moments passed before I spoke again. “Did you hear what I just said, Pee Wee?”
