by Mary Monroe
“Annette, you still there?”
“I was a little taken aback by what you just said,” I told her. “I don’t know if I want my child to be out of the country for that long.”
What I meant was I didn’t feel comfortable with my only child gallivanting around in a foreign country with two senior citizens who sometimes didn’t know if they were coming or going. My mother was still in reasonably good physical and mental condition. I knew that I could trust her to take good care of Charlotte. But since Daddy was in the mix, I had a few concerns. He had occasional memory lapses and lost things left and right. One day last year, he had come to my house, wearing two different shoes, couldn’t remember where he’d parked his truck, and couldn’t remember where he’d just come from. I didn’t know that he’d left my mother stranded at the beauty parlor until she came to my house with a police escort.
“Muh’Dear, I have to think about this. I have to discuss this with Pee Wee,” I said, one hand on my hip.
“He already said it was all right with him.”
“Oh? When did you talk to him about this?”
“This mornin’, before he left to go fishin’. Didn’t he tell you?”
CHAPTER 26
“No, Pee Wee didn’t tell me,” I said, grinding my teeth. “He has not said anything to me about you, Daddy, and Charlotte planning to spend the summer in the Bahamas.”
“Humph! Gal, I don’t know what’s wrong with your marriage, but whatever it is, you better fix it, and you better fix it quick. Time ain’t on your side. You can’t afford to lose that good man, which the good Lord done blessed you with. I know you think that since you lost all that weight, you’re cute, and that’s true. But your booty still stinks when you don’t wash it, just like everybody else’s. It’s true that Pee Wee ain’t no Prince Charmin’. But at your age, who else would want you but Pee Wee, with your ashy self? I hope you been usin’ that lotion on your neck that I got for you at that candle shop when I went to Cincinnati last month!”
Who else would want me, with my ashy self? Louis’s handsome face and long, thick dick flashed through my mind. I had to bite my lip to keep from responding to my mother’s last insensitive comment. I knew it would have blown her mind if I had told her who else wanted me, with my ashy self. I swooned to myself when I recalled how Louis had made love to me in that sleazy motel room, and how he had made me feel about myself—and my ashy body parts. Yes, I still used the lotion that Muh’Dear had supplied me with, but I couldn’t see any difference. She was the only person who thought that my skin was ashy in the first place, so it didn’t matter if I used that lotion or not, unless I was in her presence. And it had a foul taste to it. I found that out when Louis licked my neck and complained about how bitter it tasted.
“Yes, I’m still using the lotion you gave me,” I told her with a smirk.
“Good! I gave you enough to get you through the summer, so you don’t have to worry about that until I get back. You just worry about that mess of a marriage you got on your hands.”
“Muh’Dear, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me worry about my marriage. I don’t need your advice.”
“Don’t you sass me, girl. I’m your mama, and I will be your mama till the day I die. If a mama ain’t got no right to give her own young’un some advice, who does?”
I wanted to conclude this conversation as soon as possible. “I’m sure Pee Wee just forgot to tell me that you talked to him about Charlotte going with you,” I stated, trying to sound nonchalant.
“And Charlotte can’t wait to go! She’s been runnin’ around the house, singin’ “Day-O” better than Harry Belafonte ever sung it.” My mother laughed.
Right after she finished laughing, I heard my daughter and my daddy in the background, singing off-key the line from that old Belafonte song, which the whole world seemed to associate with any part of the Caribbean. “Daylight come and me wanna go home….”
I heard some muffled voices next, and then Charlotte was on the telephone. “Hi, Mom! I’m going to the islands with Granny and Grandpa.”
“I don’t know about that, Charlotte,” I said gently.
“What! I…you…Ayee!” What do you mean you don’t know about that? Granny said I could go!” my daughter wailed.
“I am your mother, girl,” I reminded her firmly.
“Dang! You spoil everything! You always act crazy when I want to do something, Mama!”
“I advise you to shut up while you still can, young lady. If you don’t watch your step, you won’t be going to the Bahamas, or anywhere else this summer but this house. Do you hear me, Charlotte?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she mumbled, sounding like she had a mouth full of food.
“That’s better.”
“Mama, can I please go to the islands?” Charlotte sounded so cute and humble and contrite now, I wanted to take her to the Bahamas myself on my back.
“I’ll have to think about it,” I insisted.
“What? When? We have to leave tomorrow morning!” she whined. “I already got a new bathing suit!”
“You went to the Bahamas last summer,” I reminded her.
“That was just for one week! I got that rash from that eel I caught on the second day and had to spend the rest of the week in the room, wearing that smelly salve on my legs and arms! Please, Mama! I have already told all my friends that I was going. I even made a list of things they want me to bring them back. Mama, I can’t let my friends down. I have to go!”
“And the year before, you went to Jamaica with Rhoda and Jade.”
“But, Mama, that was just for two weeks!”
“Annette, what’s wrong with you, girl?” Speaking now was my father. His deep voice was loud, not because he was hard of hearing, but because he got loud whenever he got angry or upset. “You done upset your mama and now your baby. With a disposition like you got, Lord knows what you puttin’ your poor husband through.”
I didn’t even respond to my daddy’s last comment. I had no idea where it had come from. Other than Rhoda, and now Louis, nobody knew how dismal my marriage had become. I certainly had not said anything to my parents about it. When they came around, Pee Wee and I acted no differently than we’d ever acted in their presence.
I closed my eyes and rubbed them with the ball of my thumb. When I opened them, things were blurred for a few seconds, just like my life had become.
“How many times will your daughter get to spend a summer in the Bahamas, in a beachfront house, for free?”
“All right, Daddy,” I said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll go pack her things right away.”
“Good! We’ll slide through there either this evenin’ or around eight tomorrow mornin’ to pick up her luggage, so be there.”
“What about a ride to the airport? Do I need to get you all there?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about how we gettin’ to the airport. You need to be worryin’ about yourself and your husband. We’ll just swing by there, grab this child’s stuff, hug y’all, and be on our way. Now let me get off this phone. My bladder is about to let me down.” Daddy wasted no time hanging up.
I sat in the kitchen, looking out the window, for ten minutes before I went to pack Charlotte’s things. I needed to talk to somebody. I figured that Rhoda was probably still at church with Jade, which was a story within itself. Jade was the biggest devil I knew, but she spent more time in church than the Pope. And Rhoda had told me that everywhere Jade went, she took along that Mexican that she had dragged home with her from Cancún. Even to the nail shop!
I had not seen or heard from Jade since her return, and that was fine with me. I had not met her young Mexican yet, but according to Rhoda, he seemed like a nice enough guy. However, Rhoda had also told me in no uncertain terms that the poor man had seemed thoroughly confused and uncomfortable since he’d entered her house. And only God knew what that man saw in a whippersnapper like Jade. I couldn’t see a Chihuahua following her home from Mexico, let alone a man.
I had a few other friends that I could have called, but I was not close enough to them to discuss the things that were on my mind now. I even thought about calling up Louis, but I dismissed that idea right away. I had already burdened him with a lot of my problems. If he dumped me, I didn’t want it to be because he got sick of hearing my tales of woe.
Shopping! As soon as the word popped into my mind, I leaped up from my chair. “I’ll spend a few hours at the mall,” I said aloud, blinking as I looked around my neat, sweet-smelling kitchen. There was nothing I needed for the house. Charlotte and Pee Wee had everything they needed, so I could focus on myself. Since I no longer had to buy so many generic muumuus and girdles, shopping had become one of my most enjoyable adventures.
I packed Charlotte’s three Barbie suitcases and left them sitting in the living room, on the floor by the front door, in case my parents came by while I was at the mall. And then I made a beeline to the Melden Village Mall, armed with three credit cards and several hundred dollars in cash.
I wandered into a few stores and meandered up and down the aisles for about half an hour, but I didn’t see anything I wanted. But as soon as I approached the front entrance to my favorite boutique, I got the shock of my life. Strutting out like a vain ostrich, with a “when God made me, he was showing off” look on her face, was the bride of Satan herself: Jade.
CHAPTER 27
That Jade. She was the kind of offspring that would make most mothers wish that birth control was retroactive. Before she even opened her mouth, she looked at me like I had just vomited on her shiny black satin shoes. I looked over her shoulder and behind her, hoping to see Rhoda so that she could help diffuse the situation. No such luck.
I had known that I would eventually run into Jade again. With her being Rhoda’s daughter, there was no way it could be avoided. And even though I had prepared myself for an inevitable encounter with her, I was as unprepared as I could be now. The girl was such a pig in a poke, I had no idea how she’d react when she saw me again. But one thing in my favor was the fact that she no longer intimidated me.
I had hardly noticed the tall, young Hispanic man standing next to Jade. He wore skintight jeans and a T-shirt that said in bold black letters across his chest IF BO DEREK IS A 10, MY WOMAN IS A 40! Jade and her companion had large shopping bags in each hand; the man also had a smaller bag underneath his arm. With the exception of the smaller bag, every bag was from a women’s store.
“Hello, Annette,” Jade said, with that same smug look on her face that I had come to hate over the years. She was as dazzling as Rhoda. Nature was so unfair. It made no sense to reward two women in the same family with so much beauty. They both looked like Naomi Campbell, the ultimate black supermodel.
Jade’s long jet-black hair was parted down the middle. It hung past her shoulders like a silk shawl. She wore more makeup than she needed. She had on a bloodred dress that was so short and tight, it looked like it had been spray painted on. She had obviously had her breasts surgically enlarged. Those puppies were rising over the top of her dress like two full moons. The black stilettos on her narrow, tiny feet made her almost as tall as her companion. They made a striking couple. He had firm, sharp Spanish features. His skin was just a few shades lighter than mine and Jade’s. His thick black hair resembled a stallion’s mane. He was good-looking, yet he was not classically handsome, like I had expected. But he could definitely give Antonio Banderas a run for his money. Despite all that the man had going for him, there was a blank expression on his face.
“Hello, Jade,” I said, sucking in my breath. It tasted pretty foul because of the sudden bad taste in my mouth.
“Honey, this is Annette. She’s that great, big, fat woman in the pictures with Mama in the photo album I showed you the other day,” she said to the Mexican. They both snickered. “Annette, tell me something good.” She looked at me with contempt.
“What would you like to hear?” I asked in a casual tone of voice. It was taking every ounce of strength I had to keep myself from slapping her face. I knew what she was up to, and I braced myself for the insults that I knew she was about to hurl my way.
She ignored my question. Instead, she set some of her bags down, leaned toward me, and sniffed like a dog. “That’s an interesting fragrance you’re wearing. You’re still picking up your smell goods from places like the drugstores and discount stores, huh? And knockoffs at that…” She leaned back and gave me a shark’s grin.
“Your mama gave me this one,” I told her. “It’s the same one she sent to you last Christmas.”
“Oh. I thought I recognized that stench. I called up my mama and told her she knew better than to send a girl like me something that tacky and ghetto. You can have the rest of mine if you want it.”
“That’s mighty generous of you. But I’ll pass,” I said with a stiff upper lip.
Jade put her hand on my shoulder before she continued. “My goodness. Let’s forget about that, and let’s talk about you! I am tickled to death to run into you at this mall, with all these expensive stores.”
“Jade, this is the same place where I’ve always shopped. I used to bring you here, remember?”
“Oh. I forgot.” She sniffed and cleared her throat. “By the way, you look hella good for a woman your age. And I had heard that you’d lost a lot of weight.” She removed her hand from my shoulder, snapped her fingers a few times, and looked me up and down again.
“It took me long enough,” I said with a chuckle. “As you know, I have been trying to lose weight off and on for most of my life. I tried almost every diet in the book, and none of them worked for me.”
“Well, something finally worked.” Jade paused and gave me a look of pity. “Was it because of some disease or something? I bet it was some kind of cancer, huh?”
She got that right.
According to Reverend Upshaw, cancer came in many forms. And Jade was the disease that had almost destroyed me. But her plan had backfired. I was stronger, confident, and more attractive than ever. And I was brave. There was no way in the world that I was ever going to let a little fool like Jade, or any other fool, walk all over me.
“Something like that,” I said. I could tell from the way her face froze that she was wondering why I flashed a smile right after I finished my sentence. “But I’m fine now,” I added, still smiling.
“Fat is so gruesome and unhealthy,” Jade said with a sour look on her face. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I quipped. “I agree with you.”
“Thank God you had the good sense to do something about yours.” Jade’s face looked so tight when she smiled, I was surprised it didn’t crack open.
We stared at each other for a few excruciating moments.
“I hope you are still on that diet, or whatever it was, because you’re still a little husky.”
“I’m comfortable with this size.”
“Oh?” she asked with a frown. “And if you don’t mind my asking, what size is that?”
“I’m a size sixteen now,” I revealed with a proud sniff.
You would have thought that I had just swung a dead skunk at Jade, the way she reacted.
“A size sixteen! Good God!” she roared. Then, as if she was imitating Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, she turned to her boyfriend and fell dramatically against him, almost knocking him to the ground. She set the rest of her bags down to fish a handkerchief out of her purse and to wipe her face. “Marcelo, if I ever get that humongous, would you please cut my head off with a dull sword?” Jade whimpered like a puppy for a few seconds. Then she stuffed her handkerchief back into her purse.
“Sí!” Marcelo hollered with a vigorous nod.
She let out a long, deep breath before she picked up her shopping bags. I ignored the horrified look she gave me. “A size sixteen. Hummph, hummph, hummph!”
It seemed like she was shooting her words at me from a Gatling gun, because each one hit me like a bullet. But I did not waver. I stood strong and proud, and I k
new she didn’t like that. She shook her head and then mumbled something to her boyfriend in Spanish. He mumbled something back. They looked at me at the same time and guffawed like hyenas.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. This is not anything to laugh about,” Jade said, then sucked on her teeth.
“I agree with you, Jade. That’s why I am not laughing,” I snarled. This was one conversation that was shitty enough to be in a toilet, and that was where it seemed to be going.
Despite what Jade had just said, she snickered some more. This time so hard, tears filled her eyes. “Oh my God! Annette, I know I didn’t hear you right, did I?” she asked, shaking her head like she had water in her ear.
“You heard right. I am a size sixteen,” I said proudly. I reared back on my still slightly thick legs like a proud stallion. And, I didn’t even suck in my stomach, which I still did around certain people. “I am a size sixteen,” I said again, this time with more emphasis on my words. “Any questions?”
Now that I knew what an evil person Jade was, nothing she said surprised me. She had already hurt me emotionally as much as she possibly could, so there was no more room for that. Now she just annoyed me. Like the horsefly that had buzzed around my head in my kitchen earlier that morning until I swatted its ass.
At the rate Jade was going, she was going to destroy herself. She didn’t need my help or anybody else’s to get to that point. That made me sad. I had once had feelings for this girl, and I still had feelings for the rest of her family. The pain that she habitually caused them affected me to some degree.
“Well, since you asked, what were you before, Annette?” Jade had not called me by my name since she was in elementary school. Until I’d trapped her in her own spider’s web of deceit last year, she had affectionately addressed me as Auntie.
“Uh, I was a pretty big woman,” I admitted, rolling my eyes.
“Absolutely!” she agreed with a vigorous nod and a grimace. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but were you like a size twenty or a size thirty?” The smug look had returned to her face. She was the embodiment of evil. The smug looks that she liked to plaster on her face only made her look even more sinister.
