by Mary Monroe
When he continued, the rest of his words burned through my ears like acid. “Baby, if my plan works, I can be up out of this hick town and back in Greensboro by Labor Day. We can get married on Thanksgiving weekend, like we planned. No, baby, not a single bank in this town will come through for me with a loan. But that greasy black bitch Annette is much better. God is so good to me! He led her to me in the nick of time! After I finalize the sale for that pooh-butt restaurant, I’ll put the bite on her for another three thousand. Then I’ll be on my merry way, with that three grand and the money she thought she was giving me to replace my oven, which there is nothing wrong with.
“I don’t have to worry about paying her back like I would have with the bank! I don’t want to be greedy, like I was with that suspicious sow that I hooked up with before the Lord sent Annette into my place that evening, so I’ll stop with the six thousand. I’d feel real bad if I put her into too big of a financial hole, like I used to do when some hag forced herself on me. See, baby, I’m slowly but surely becoming righteous.
“After we get married, I won’t even sniff in another woman’s direction when I need financial assistance. I will work for it! That’s the least I can do. If you can get out of that escorting business with those old dudes, I can get out of this. We’ve socked away more than enough money to get a toehold on the future we deserve. We’ll get back into the church and get saved and baptized before we get married. Yippee-ki-yay! Stop laughing, honey! Baby, I better get off this phone in case Annette’s trying to get through. I will call you again tomorrow. I love you, too, sweetie….”
CHAPTER 53
To this day I didn’t know how I was able to stand in the middle of Louis’s floor as silent and stiff as a statue. Of all the betrayals that I had experienced, this had to be the absolute worst. I wanted to shoot across that floor and beat the dog shit out of him. No, I wanted to do a lot more than that. I wanted to kill him dead. But I was so paralyzed that I couldn’t move or make a sound. For a split second, I thought that maybe I had died from the shock of what I’d just heard, and that that was the reason I couldn’t move or speak.
After Louis hung the telephone up, he continued to sit in front of his window, with his back still to me. Sadie trotted over to him and jumped into his lap. He started to stroke Sadie’s back, whistling like a man who not only had the world in the palm of his hand, but one who didn’t have a care in the world. He was a happy man. Well, he wouldn’t be for long!
Finally, I managed to clear my throat, loud enough for him to hear me. As soon as I did that, his body stiffened. But it was several seconds before he turned around. From the way his jaw dropped when he saw me standing there, you would have thought that he’d seen the angel of death. Sadie sensed something was wrong, so she leaped off his lap and ran into the bathroom.
“Annette? What…when…how long have you…been standing there?” he said in a high-pitched voice. I could see his hands shaking as he gripped the back of his chair. He rose and stood ramrod straight, looking like the condemned man he was.
My jaws were clenched together so tightly, I didn’t know how I managed to open them wide enough to speak, but I did. “I’ve been standing here long enough to hear enough. You low-down, funky, double-crossing, lying, meat loaf–and chicken wing–cooking bastard!”
“Now, you hold on there, dammit!” he ordered, raising both hands in the air like I’d just aimed a gun at him. Then he started shaking his finger at me. “Let’s get one thing straight right now. You do not come up into my home unannounced and start bad-mouthing me like that,” he told me, one hand still in the air. “I can explain everything.” He went from looking like a condemned man to looking like a deer caught in somebody’s headlights.
“And you want to know something, I’d like to hear your explanation,” I responded. “Who were you just talking to?” I moved toward him, with my hands on my hips. His key was still in my hand. I knew that I would no longer need it, so I let it fall to the floor.
“Huh? Just a friend! I…I was just talking to a friend. And…and…and that was a private conversation, so it’s really none of your business who I was just talking to!”
“Is that what you think? Brother, I’ve got news for you. Since I was the subject of your conversation, it is my business! I hope that that bitch is not as stupid and gullible as I was. You really had me fooled! But I’m glad I got your number before you made an even bigger fool out of me. Our business relationship is over as of this minute. I’d rather treat my employees to wolf manure for lunch than allow your Yankee-pot-roasting ass to serve them another one of your meals! Thank God I wasn’t stupid enough to let you lock me into some long-term agreement! And as far as our personal relationship is concerned, I never want to see your slimy dick—or duck—again as long as I live!” I turned to leave, but he trotted across the floor and jumped in front of the door.
“You are not going no place, bitch. Our business relationship is not over yet. On Monday, my people and I will be there to deliver and serve. And for the record, it’ll be Yankee pot roast, like you requested.”
“Let me tell you what you can do with that shit and every damn thing else you cook up. Stick it up your ass and rotate on it! I am through with you! Now get the hell out of my way!” I screeched, attempting to walk around him. He refused to move.
“Like I said, we are still doing business, and we will be until I decide to end our arrangement,” he said, glaring at me as if I was the culprit and he was the injured party.
“Ha! Do you think for one minute that I’d let you continue to cater my affairs? Do you think I’d ever eat anything else you prepared? So you can spit in it, then laugh at me even more behind my back? Hell no! Now if you know what’s good for you, you will get out of my way.”
“This relationship is not over until I get paid,” he told me in a frighteningly calm voice.
It already felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Now I also felt like I’d been dragged and stomped on. “Get paid? Get paid for what? I don’t owe you a damn dime at the moment. I personally made sure that all your bills got paid on time. My account with you is up to date to the very minute! The only way you will ever get another cent from me is if you rob me at gunpoint. Now move out of my way! Move on!”
He grabbed my arm when I raised it to try and make him move. His grip was so tight, I didn’t have a chance. Cursing under his breath, he forced me to the sofa and pushed me down so hard that my neck almost snapped, and the sofa’s front legs rocked up off the floor and back down, with a violent thud. Then he stood over me, with his hands on his hips.
“I will move on, but, like I just said, not until I get paid.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I could not believe that this was the same man that I had wallowed around in bed with so many times and risked losing my husband over. I could not believe how smug and evil he looked. Had I not seen this side of him with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed that he was capable of such unspeakable behavior. What was this world coming to?
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way. Honest to God, I am. You’ve been real nice to me, and I appreciate that. But, no offense, you and I are from two different planets.” His words felt like bricks going upside my head.
Despite all of the rock-hard evidence in front of me, I still had the nerve to ask him one of the stupidest questions that I had ever asked anybody. “You never cared about me?”
For a moment, he looked like he wanted to laugh. I was glad he didn’t, because I would have really lost my composure, and there was just no telling what I might have done to him. “Look, lady, I care about everybody that’s nice to me. There is no use in me lying about that. I cared about you, but not the way you think.”
“Well, that’s news to me. Then tell me the way it was. I know I am not the smartest person in the world, but what was all that wooing about? Why did you come on to me in the first place?” I asked, shaking my head in stunned disbelief.
“Look, I c
ared about you because you struck me as a nice woman from day one. That’s all there was to that. If you had been hostile and loud like some of the other sisters that come into my place, you would not have appealed to me the way you did. I like women with some class. It’s just that, well, that was not enough in your case. You’re fun, in bed and out, but I need more than that in a woman. I’ve got real high standards.” His last comment hurt me so much that I could not even address it.
“So I was nice? Is that all it took for you to pursue me the way you did? What about the other women that you so graciously referred to in your telephone conversation? Did you hook up with them, too, because they were nice? Do you try and con money and pussy from all the nice women you meet?”
“Look, you horny bitch, I…I don’t have to stand here and explain—”
“You sure as hell don’t! No matter what you say now, it would not change what I just heard. Can I leave now?” I sprang up from the sofa like a weed.
“I am sorry if I hurt you. But I…um…still need one last favor from you. I know you might not want to do it, but for your own good, I hope you will. For old time’s sake and the good times we did have.”
“Oh, you are sicker than I thought! You are one sick-ass puppy!” I hollered. He pushed me back down on the sofa.
“You are not leaving here until we get our negotiations in order. I need another three grand, and I need it by next weekend. Any questions?”
“Don’t count on it! You can kiss my ass and then bark at my hole!”
“I already did, remember?” He leered at me. “I did all of that and more….” Louis paused and wiggled his nose like a rabbit. I didn’t know if he was stalling for time, or what. I couldn’t imagine what else he had to say. “Let me tell you something. Let me offer a little inducement that might help you get busy.” He reared back and looked down at me. The sneer on his face made him look like the devil. “What if I tell your husband about how you’ve been playing footsie with me all summer?”
“You don’t have to. As soon as I get home, I will tell him myself.” I wobbled up from the sofa again. I was so angry and hurt, I suddenly felt superhuman. I didn’t bother to ask Louis to remove himself from my path again. I gave him such a mighty shove that he had no choice.
He stumbled around until he fell against the wall and then to the floor. With a bloodcurdling yelp, he landed on his back like a turtle. He got up and strode back over to me, seething with anger. His eyes looked so evil. The rest of his face was so twisted, it looked like he had had a stroke. “Let me ask you something. How long do you think you’ll have that job when I tell your boss how you dummied up an invoice to pay me for some services I didn’t deliver?”
I had my hand on the door and was about to open it. I whirled around and looked at him, with my mouth hanging open. “After all I’ve done for you, you’d do that to me, Louis?” I roared, giving him my most horrified look. The volume of my voice dropped to a whimper. “You played me like a fiddle, and now you want to make me lose my job, too?”
He nodded and gave me a weak shrug. “Not if you help me out one more time.”
I saw red. I saw stars. I saw the face of every single person who had ever done me wrong or hurt me in some way. Louis represented them all. Like that possessed man in the Bible, he represented a legion of demons. Well, I slapped as much of the devil out of him as I could when I went upside his face with my purse. He fell to the floor again. I gave him a mighty kick in his side before I stepped over his vile body, flung open that door, and ran. I didn’t stop running until I got to my car.
I drove like a bat out of hell all the way to my house. Then I tumbled out of my car and staggered into my house like I was drunk. I paced back and forth in my living room for so long, I was surprised I didn’t wear a hole in my beautiful carpet.
It was almost impossible for me to absorb what had happened at Louis’s apartment. And I knew that if I didn’t talk to somebody about it soon, I was going to lose my mind. And like every other time I got myself into a mess, there was only one person I could turn to.
Rhoda answered her telephone, with a dry, anxious voice. “Annette, I’m so glad you called. I’ve been wantin’ to talk to you again.” She was talking so fast, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. In a way I was glad. It gave me a little more time to organize my thoughts. “Jade’s decided that a change of scenery would do her good. I agree, and so do her daddy and Dr. Long.”
“Oh? Is she going back to Louisiana?” I asked, trying to keep my voice under control. I had eased down into a chair at my kitchen table. I had to cross my legs to keep them from shaking.
“I wish. I had wanted to send her to Jamaica to let the folks on her daddy’s side deal with her foolishness for a change.” Rhoda paused and muttered under her breath. “They screamed. Anyway, Aunt Lola, Uncle Johnny, and my son Julian told me to send her down South to them, and they’ll all keep an eye on her. She’ll have her own place in Julian’s buildin’, and he and Uncle Johnny and Aunt Lola will pay her livin’ expenses until she gets a job and can fend for herself.”
“That’s nice, Rhoda. I’m so glad to hear that,” I managed. I was happy to hear that things were working out well for somebody on such a bleak day in my life. Especially Jade. She was in a much worse place than I was in, but that didn’t make me feel any better.
“She’s leavin’ tonight. By the way, did you talk to Louis about you and him joinin’ Bully and me for a weekend at the bed-and-breakfast?”
My face froze like a sheet of dry ice. It took me a few seconds to thaw myself out enough to respond. “No,” I mumbled with a sniff.
“Annette, you don’t sound too good. Is everything all right?”
I took my time answering. “No, Rhoda. Everything is not all right. As a matter of fact, everything is all wrong.” I lost it right then and there. The next thing I knew, I was howling like a big dog.
CHAPTER 54
“Annette, stop cryin’, and tell me what is goin’ on now. Please tell me what…omigod! Did Pee Wee find out about you and Louis?”
Somehow I managed to stop crying. “No, but he’s going to. I’m going to tell him everything as soon as he gets home this evening. The whole story.” I sniffled and blew my nose into a napkin.
“Look, I do not want to sit here and play games. You tell me the whole story,” Rhoda ordered. “And you tell me right now.”
I had to take several deep breaths first. Then I started talking in a low, detached tone of voice. “I left work a little early and went to Louis’s apartment to talk to him about us going away for the weekend with you and Bully. I let myself into his apartment and…I overheard a telephone conversation he was having with…his fiancée.”
“His what?”
“His fiancée.”
“I didn’t know he had a fiancée.”
“Neither did I. But he does, and he’s probably had her from the get-go. Rhoda, he never cared about me. All that sweet talk and over-the-top attention were just an act. He had a long-range plan to get some sucker to help get him out of the financial hole that he had dug himself into by taking over his late uncle’s business. And that sucker turned out to be me.” I had to stop for a few seconds to catch my breath. “He even lied to his bitch and made it sound like I was some horny, desperate older woman who had seduced him, and like his interest in me was about finance, not romance.”
“Hold on. Let me go into the bedroom so I can have more privacy. I don’t want anybody else in this house to hear what I’m talkin’ about.” Rhoda picked up the phone in her bedroom about a minute later. “I’m back,” she said, speaking in a low voice. “Go on.”
I suddenly got so light-headed, I dropped the telephone. It landed on my toe, but if it hurt, I didn’t even feel it. I leaned down to pick it up, almost toppling over on my face. I was moaning as I returned the telephone to my ear. “When he finished his call, he turned around and saw me standing there.”
“Oh shit!”
“Oh shit is right.”
“Are you all right? Do you want me to come over?”
“I’m going to be fine, Rhoda. You know, for a woman who’s been through some of the shit I’ve been through, you would think that I’d have stopped letting my guard down. How could I still be stupid enough to trust people the way I do? What’s wrong with me, Rhoda?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Why can’t I stop making so many damn stupid-ass mistakes?”
“There is nothin’ wrong with you. You’re human, and you will be makin’ stupid mistakes until the day you die. Don’t beat yourself up over this. It could have happened to any other woman. Shit, that nigger was so slick, he could have pulled the wool over my eyes just as quick as he did yours. What was his reaction when he saw you standin’ there?”
“He was so busted, he couldn’t stand it. We had a showdown, and he made it clear that if I didn’t give him three thousand more dollars, he’d go to Pee Wee and tell him about us, and he’d go to my boss and tell him about the phony invoice I used so I could issue him a check for an event that never took place. Uh, that was the money I gave him to get his oven replaced—which was another one of his lies!”
“Oh, hell no! No, he didn’t! Girl, I hope you kicked his ass to kingdom come!”
“I gave him a mild coldcocking. If I hadn’t left his place when I did, I probably would have killed him,” I admitted. My big toe was still throbbing from the kick I’d given Louis as he lay on the floor.
“Are you at home now? Do you want me to be there when you tell Pee Wee?”
“No, that’s all right. You need to concentrate on getting Jade on her way to Alabama,” I said. “Besides, things might get real ugly up in this house this evening. I’ll call you as soon as I can to let you know how he took it.”
