by Mary Monroe
I gave him a hopeful look. It was the closest he had come to propositioning me in months.
“I can take the day off, too,” I told him. If this wasn’t the perfect opportunity for him to make a choice that would make me happy, I didn’t know what was. “We can spend the whole day doing some of the things we used to do.” I gave him a pleading look.
“Uh, that’s all right,” he said abruptly. “Listen, if you don’t see me for a couple of days, don’t worry about it. If them carps really is bitin’ as good as I was told, you might not see me for a while.” He grabbed his fishing pole and the rest of his fishing gear off the counter and practically ran out the back door.
I didn’t know what I had done for him to lose so much interest in me. But it seemed like every day he did something to push me farther and farther away. And Louis just happened to be moving closer and closer to my bruised heart.
CHAPTER 32
I couldn’t wait to dial Louis’s number! For one thing, I owed him an apology and an explanation as to why I had missed our date at Antonosanti’s last night. And I couldn’t wait to hear more of the sweet things that he liked to say to me that made me feel so good about myself.
But it was too early for me to call him. I wanted to chat with Rhoda, but with Jade in the house, that wasn’t so easy anymore. It was better for me to wait for Rhoda to call me, and she still did as often as she could.
Even though I was already dressed for work, I decided at the last minute to take the day off. I was already missing my parents and daughter, and they hadn’t even left for their summer vacation yet. I thought it would be nice to follow them to the airport in my car to see them off. But when I called, they had already left. With them gone, Pee Wee acting like a part-time husband, and Rhoda now having to devote some of her time to Jade and her boyfriend Marcelo, I knew it was going to be a long, hot, lonely summer for me. Then there was Rhoda’s in-house lover, Bully. He took up a lot of her time, too. That man was in and out of the country—and in and out of Rhoda—more than a drug runner. If things didn’t work out between me and Louis, I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself.
I looked at my watch every few minutes. I knew Louis opened for business at eight in the morning, but I didn’t want to call him too soon. Knowing what I knew about the restaurant business, thanks to Muh’Dear making me work with her from time to time at the Buttercup, I was certain that Louis was probably busy getting things ready for the day. He was so dedicated and ambitious. Some woman was going to be very lucky, but not until I turned him loose.
By ten I could no longer stand it. I called him up and didn’t mind waiting the ten minutes it took for him to come to the phone after one of his workers answered.
“I’m so sorry about last night,” I began. “Something came up that I couldn’t get out of.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re all right. I was worried sick when you didn’t show up. And I had to force myself not to drive around in my old jalopy, looking for you,” Louis said.
“Oh? Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” I told him.
“Are you at work? Maybe you can come by for lunch. The daily special is assorted seafood, with catfish stew at the top of my list. When you didn’t show up, I came back here and was up half the night mixing up batter so I could offer some hush puppies to go with today’s special.”
“I am taking today off,” I announced, tilting my head and pursing my lips as if I was vamping for Vogue magazine. Even though I knew he couldn’t see me, I felt good doing it, because when I did it in front of him, he told me how cute it made me look.
“That’s nice for you, but what’s in it for me?”
“It means my whole day is up for grabs,” I teased.
“Ooh, girl,” Louis said, swooning. “Oh, that’s perfect. I can sacrifice a day, too. That’s the best advantage to being the boss. Maybe we can spend today together to make up for last night?”
I had not expected him to propose another date so soon, but I was glad he did. The fact that he had presented it as a question made it easier for me to respond.
“I’d like that very much,” I quickly told him. “Just tell me where and what time.”
“Let me address a few things here first. I’ll call you back as soon as I’m done. Uh, that is, if it’s all right for me to call you at home. I don’t want your husband to walk in on you having a phone conversation with a strange man and wonder why.”
“You’re not a strange man, Louis,” I stated firmly. “You…we have a valid reason to be talking on the telephone. We do business together. Other vendors call me at home from time to time. You can call me at home when you have to.” I wasted no time giving Louis my home telephone number.
“It’s all good now. I’ll call you back soon, baby. I can’t wait to see you.”
“I…I can’t wait to see you, too,” I panted. “If you ever want to talk to me and don’t want to call here, call my girl Rhoda and have her get in touch with me.”
“And that’s another thing. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about one of your friends.”
“One of my friends? What about one of my friends?” I panicked. My first thought was that he had had a disturbing encounter with Jade. The last thing I needed was another situation involving that heifer and a man in my life. For one thing, she was the last person on the planet that I wanted to find out I was having an affair. I’d feel better if my husband found out before her! “Who?” I asked in a shaky voice.
“That elderly sister that runs what she calls a hospitality house. That old lady pimp. She said she helped raise you.” Louis let out a sharp laugh. I laughed, too, but mine was more like a nervous chuckle.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll tell you all about Scary Mary when I see you.” I chuckled again. “She’s a real piece of work.”
“Rhoda sent her to me, too. She’s planning some big shindig for her girls next month. She’s gwine to rent the special events room at Antonosanti’s and everything. She’s real picky and messy, so I know this is gwine to be a real challenge. But I don’t mind. Whores got to eat, too.”
I planned to tell Louis a G-rated version of my relationship with Scary Mary and her prostitutes. I saw no reason to reveal that I’d been one myself back in the day.
“Call me back when you can,” I told him before I got off the telephone.
I went up to my bedroom, humming all the way, stepped out of the snug linen dress, and returned it to my bedroom closest. It gave me a lot of satisfaction to stand there and look at all the new smaller clothes that I had been forced to buy to accommodate my newly streamlined body. But I didn’t get too carried away with that thought. To keep from getting too far out of touch with reality, I had retained at least half of my fat clothes. The flowered muumuus, maternity tops, bras with cups that looked like Big Dippers, and dresses that I could have used for bedsheets occupied the far end of the rack. I had no way of knowing whether or not my metamorphosis was permanent or not. Especially since my frame had always been used to hauling around a much larger load. I grabbed a cute sleeveless top off its hanger and a pair of beige running pants from my dresser drawer. After I’d re-dressed, I returned to the kitchen and awaited Louis’s call.
He didn’t call me back until eleven thirty.
“How much time can you spend with me today?” he asked, speaking in a low voice.
“My husband claimed that he was going on an overnight fishing trip.”
“Spending the night with you would be a dream come true. We can have dinner at Antonosanti’s since we missed it last night.”
“I’m so sorry about that. Let me make it up to you. This time dinner will be on me.”
“No, baby. I’ve never let a woman pay my way, and I am not about to start that shit now. Now, this is what we’re going to do….”
When I got off the telephone, I couldn’t even feel my feet on the ground. It was like the walk of a dead woman.
CHAPTER 33
“Speak of the she devil!” I h
ad just given Louis some background information on Scary Mary when she hobbled into Antonosanti’s, leaning slightly sideways on a cane that was so long, it could have passed as a staff. The way that old crone walked straight to the last booth, in a corner in the back of the elegant restaurant, you would have thought that somebody had told her I was sitting up in there with my lover. I had met Louis an hour ago, at five thirty. I was enjoying every moment of our time together, until I spotted Scary Mary.
Louis had enjoyed hearing about the meddlesome old madam who was still lying about her age, even though she now looked like something straight out of a mummy’s tomb. For some reason, she thought her claim to be “just eighty” was something to brag about. Scary Mary was ninety if she was a day. To this day, she had not revealed her full legal name or how many ex-husbands she had racked up.
I had told Louis how the slick old madam had meandered into my life and helped me and Muh’Dear relocate from Florida to Ohio when I was a child. From the looks on his face, he’d found my stories quite entertaining. It felt good to know that somebody other than Rhoda paid attention when I spoke.
“Annette, is that you?” Scary Mary asked when she stopped in front of our booth, shading her eyes to look at me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, with a sheepish grin.
“Girl, ever since you lost all that blubber, you just don’t know what to do with yourself, do you?” she said.
She wore a long black outfit, with a white collar so high, it looked like a priest’s frock. Her robe, or whatever it was supposed to be, touched the ground, so I couldn’t tell what she had on her feet. She always wore a lot of makeup, even slept with it on. But it didn’t hide the wall-to-wall wrinkles, the liver spots, and the long scar—from a fight with some straight razor–toting individual more than seventy years ago—on her face. And she had moles all over the place, even in the corners of her mouth. Since I had never seen any pictures of her as a young woman and she’d been in middle age when I met her, I couldn’t verify her claim that she’d once resembled Lena Horne.
She was a tall, big-boned woman who loved sopping up money more than the IRS. And with no relatives she liked enough to leave it to, she’d vowed that she wouldn’t die until she spent every last dime she’d stashed away. She was probably the oldest living resident in Richland and could still get around like a teenager. She purchased a brand-new van every year, which she drove herself. She always maintained a stable of five prostitutes, and she had powerful friends and clients in high places who worshipped the ground she walked on. With her connections, she was one sister you didn’t want to cross. They didn’t call her Scary Mary for nothing.
“How are you this evening, sister?” Louis asked in a voice so polite, I almost didn’t recognize it. He rose and gestured for her to sit. “Would you like to join us for a drink?”
Scary Mary declined, with a vigorous wave of her hand. Louis chuckled under his breath, eased back down in his seat, and bumped my knee with his.
“What’s wrong with you, boy? I’m here on official business. I ain’t got time to be socializin’,” she snarled, waving her cane threateningly in Louis’s direction. “I came down here to talk to these white folks about me rentin’ that dinin’ room, but I’m glad I run into you, Lucious.” She sucked in some air and offered a broad smile. “My daddy was named Lucious. That’s a nice name, ain’t it?”
“Yes, it is, ma’am. But my name is Louis.”
I had not had a chance to tell Louis that Scary Mary didn’t like to be corrected, no matter how wrong she was. But from the look on his face, I had a feeling he had got the message from the look she gave him. She pressed her lips together, glared at him, and then slapped one hand on her hip. She remained that way for about ten seconds. Then she shook her head and gave him another dismissive wave.
“You don’t look like no Louis,” she said. She tapped her cane on the floor and sucked in even more air. Then her eyes settled on his hair. “You got some good hair, but you need to go home and rake a comb through it. Part it, and then layer it to the side like Duke Ellington. That duck do you wearin’ now would do a lot for a all-white cracker like George Clooney. But the only thing it’s doin’ for you is makin’ you look like a fool. I noticed that the other day, when I came to your place, and I been meanin’ to mention it to you ever since.”
I heard Louis gulp. From what I knew about him, he didn’t strike me as the type to argue with an elder. That was good to know, because he would not have a chance with the one standing in front of us. Before she spoke again, Scary Mary gave us something that was either a sinister smile or a facial tick. Her lips curled up at the ends, and she gnashed her teeth.
“Anyway, I checked with my girls about the menu for our little hoedown next month. They want to go with them soul-food entrées.”
“That’s a great choice!” Louis said, excitement rising in his voice.
“It ain’t no great choice in my book! That’s a stupefied choice,” replied Scary Mary. “I tried to get them hussies to order steaks and twice-cooked taters. Them dummies! They can eat up greens and neck bones at my place every day! It’s a damn shame that you can take a ho out of the ho house, but you can’t take the ho house out of the ho.”
Poor Louis. There was an extremely uncomfortable look on his face. And the way he started to shift around in his seat, you would have thought that he was sitting on a tack. “Uh, we don’t get too many requests from black folks for some good old down-home cooking anymore,” Louis said in a gentle voice.
Just as I expected, Scary Mary changed her opinion and went in the opposite direction. A scowl crossed her face as she continued her rant. “That’s what I been tellin’ them dummies that work for me! Them heifers! Except for stiff dicks and long tongues, they don’t know what else is good for them! They are just like the rest of these uppity black folks in Richland that’s still tryin’ to be white. Our peoples should never forget that we will always be just one step from the jungle as far as the white man is concerned. The only thing our peoples is missin’ is some spears, loin cloths, and bones in our noses.” Scary Mary paused and slowly looked around, like she was looking for somebody else who could offer her more things to complain about. She let out a great sigh and returned her attention to Louis and me. That peculiar smile was back on her face.
I disagreed with everything I had just heard, and from the stunned look on Louis’s face, I was convinced that he disagreed, too.
“I hope you ain’t heavy handed with salt,” she said to Louis.
“If you have any special dietary needs, all you have to do is let me know. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure you are happy with my service,” he replied.
That made her smile even more. “I declare, you ain’t as stuck-up as you look, young man. You clean?”
“Ma’am?” There was a horrified look on Louis’s face now, and I could understand why. This old woman was more brazen than Charles Manson. Had Louis not been with me, I would have bolted long before now.
“I asked you if you was clean,” said Scary Mary. “Do you wash your hands every time after you masturbate or take a dump or pee pee? If I ever find out that you served me somethin’ with nasty hands, I’m gwine to report you to the board of health, if I don’t coldcock and lay you out first.”
I still had a lot of respect for the older people I knew, even if they were as obnoxious as the one in my presence now. How Louis managed to contain himself was a mystery to me. I felt him stiffen, and I heard him gulp again.
“Excuse me. I have to run to the gentlemen’s room,” he said with a fractured cough. He rolled his exasperated eyes at me before he rushed away, almost tripping over his feet while trying to get away so fast.
“You sure you don’t want to join us?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable because of the way Scary Mary was looking at me. I knew this woman well enough to recognize when she was up to something. “Uh, I met Louis here to go over some catering menu details,” I volunteered.
“Yeah, r
ight! And I’m here to suck one of them dago waiters’ peckers.”
I lowered my head. When I looked back up, she was still staring at me. “Louis needs, uh, all the business, uh, he can get if he’s going to succeed,” I said, fumbling over my words as if my tongue had been tied into a knot.
“Uh-huh,” Scary Mary replied, nodding and narrowing her eyes. Then she grunted under her breath like a hog and opened the large beaded purse hanging from her shoulder. She removed a white handkerchief with her initials on the bottom tip. I thought she was going to blow her nose. But she handed the handkerchief to me, winking like she had something caught in her eye.
“What’s this for?” I asked, giving her a puzzled look.
“You know damn well what it’s for!”
I shook my head.
Scary Mary leaned forward and shook her cane in my face. “When that boy get back from the toilet, you wipe your lipstick off his jaw,” she told me.
CHAPTER 34
“I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night,” Scary Mary informed me. “That boy got more of your lipstick on his jaw than you got on your lips.” There was a devilish twinkle in her fishlike eyes. “You and him came here just to go over caterin’ menus, my ass.” She looked at the table, then back at me. “I don’t see nary a menu. What y’all do? Eat ’em?”
“Oh,” was all I could say. I looked up at the old woman and just blinked. That was what I usually did when I knew the jig was up. “It’s not what you think,” I said in a very unconvincing voice.
“Girl, shet up. You ought to know by now that you can’t fool a fool,” she told me, shaking a gnarled finger in my burning face.
“That was nothing,” I continued, handing her the handkerchief back. I lifted myself up in my seat just high enough to look around her. I was glad to see Louis coming back. But when he got close enough to see that the old woman was still present, he stopped in his tracks. There was an exasperated look on his face as he stood there shaking his head.
