by Mary Monroe
“Do you want me to pay Louis a visit? I could be dressed and out of here in five minutes.”
“Oh, God no! There’s no telling what he might do to you!”
Rhoda took her time responding. “Do you think for one minute that I’m worried about what he might do to me? If anything, you should be worried about what I might do to his punk ass. I know a way to straighten him out…for good.”
This time I took my time responding. “I know all that, Rhoda. You’ve…we’ve been lucky all these years that nobody ever found out about some of the things you’ve done to people. But I think this can be settled without any bloodshed…or something worse.”
“That bastard! All this time…all this time, he was plannin’ to bushwhack you.”
“I guess so. It sure enough looks that way. He was just using me, and I was too stupid to see that—all this time! But, Rhoda, he didn’t do anything to make me think he wasn’t for real! Look how long he was overly affectionate and puppy-dog eager to be with me every chance he could. He never asked me for any type of financial help. How could he have been with me for that long without me seeing that side of him? And…and what if I had not caught him talking about me? I wonder how long he would have kept stringing me along, performing a role.”
“You don’t need to know now. Just be glad you got his number before it was too late.”
“Too late? Rhoda, the minute he threatened to tell Pee Wee about us, and my boss about me misappropriating company funds, it was too late.”
“This is some crazy shit, girl,” Rhoda snarled. “Since you won’t let me straighten out this mess, what do you plan to do?”
“Well, he won’t get another fucking dime from me. I’d rather lose my husband and my job than let him win.”
“Annette, if you lose your husband or your job, Louis wins. He might not walk away with any of your money, but you’ll be the one losin’ the most. Don’t you want to give this a little more thought?”
“More thought for what? Are you suggesting I pay him off? If I do, how do I know he won’t come back for more?”
“You don’t. But we could turn the tables on him and tell his customers what he’s tryin’ to do to you. Scary Mary is practically payin’ his rent. So are a couple of other regular clients I know of. And don’t forget about me.”
“What about you?” I asked in a raspy tone.
“I’ve been linin’ his pockets quite nicely—which I won’t be doin’ anymore after today! Even if he got three thousand more from you, he’d be losin’ a hell of a lot more if we put a major dent in his business.”
“It won’t matter. From what I heard him say on the telephone, he’s planning to go back to his hometown, anyway. He claims he’s already got a deal to sell his business.” I wiped tears off my face with the back of my hand. “When Pee Wee told me about his medical situation and assured me that everything is going to be all right, I was so happy. I thought that things couldn’t get any better for me. Now this!” I slammed the top of my kitchen table with my fist. “If only I had not been stupid enough to get involved with this man!”
“Don’t beat yourself up any more than you already have. You’re human, so you are goin’ to make mistakes. I want—”
“Oh shit!” I hollered, cutting Rhoda off. “I have to go! I just heard Pee Wee come in the front door.”
Before she could respond, I hung up and rose from my chair. Pee Wee entered the kitchen, holding the largest bouquet of red roses that I’d ever seen before in my life. I looked at him and burst into tears again.
“Aw, now, don’t go gettin’ all emotional on me. I know I should have been bringin’ you roses more often,” he told me in the sweetest, most caring voice that he had ever used with me. He laid the flowers on the counter and rushed over to me. His strong embrace kept me from falling to the floor. “Everything is goin’ to be all right now. I promise you that. There won’t be no more secrets between us. No matter what the issue is, we can work through it as long as we do it together.”
Right after his last comment, I stopped crying and looked up to face him. “I hope you mean that,” I said, sniffling so hard that the insides of my nostrils felt like somebody had lined them with lye soap.
“I mean it,” he said, patting me on my back.
“Because…because I’ve done the worst thing a woman can do,” I began. I stopped talking because as soon as I said that, his body stiffened, and I heard him groan under his breath.
“Annette, what have you done?” he asked, the tenderness gone from his voice. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”
“I’ve been sleeping with another man all summer….”
CHAPTER 55
I held my breath and was about to get into a defensive mode, by covering my head with my arms. I had known my husband since we were thirteen, and I had never known him to hit another person. Not even during the times in junior high school when he was getting his brains beaten out by the vicious bullies that we’d shared.
Last year, when I thought he was fooling around with another woman, I had tried to beat his brains out. He didn’t even hit me then. But after what I’d just told him, I honestly expected to get slapped, at the very least. I had it coming, and I would not have hit him back. I deserved the harshest punishment that he could administer, like a good old down-home whupping. But I didn’t get that from him. He just released me and said, “Oh, is that right?” I had never in my life seen such a hurt look on his face, or on any other face, for that matter. It was painful to me to know that I had caused this much anguish. After he blinked at me a few times, he shook his head, waved his hands in frustration, and walked to the kitchen door.
He went out onto the back porch and sat on the banister, with his head in his hands. He didn’t even look up at me when I sat down next to him and attempted to rub his shoulder. He gently pushed my hand away as if it was a serpent, so I stood back up.
“I know just how you must be feeling,” I told him.
“I…I doubt that,” he stammered, his head still in his hands.
“We need to talk about this,” I told him. “You need to hear everything.”
He looked up and glared at me, with an expression on his face that could have scorched a rock. “Just tell me one thing. Is it somebody I know?” he asked. I bobbed my head like a cork, and that made him look even more upset. “Who is he?”
“Louis,” I mumbled, sucking in my stomach and tightening every muscle that I could. I did that because I didn’t know what else to do with my body.
Pee Wee gave me a puzzled look. “Louis? Louis who? The only Louis I know is that—that caterer!”
I bobbed my head again. By now my head felt like it was hanging from a thread.
There was such an extreme look of surprise on his face, for a moment I thought that he was going to burst into laughter. “I know damn well you didn’t cheat on me with that sissified motherfucker!” he roared. “Do you mean to look me in the eye and tell me to my face that you sank that low?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“Annette, I know I ain’t no Casanova. But do you know what it does to my ego to hear that you chose a punk like Louis over me?” He gave me another disgusted look. “I’m through.” He started to walk off the porch, but I grabbed his arm.
“There’s more,” I told him, holding on to his arm so tight, he couldn’t move. “There’s a lot more that I need to tell you.”
“Oh, he wasn’t the only one?”
“He was the only one. Look, it was a setup all along. He was using me.” I let go of Pee Wee’s arm and moved back a few steps.
“Did he force himself on you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Pee Wee, I was with Louis only because I thought you were having an affair, and I wanted to get back at you.”
“I see,” he said, his voice cracking. “He was usin’ you, but you were usin’ him, too!” He started to walk off the porch again. This time I grabbed him by both arms.
“You need to come back
into the house so we can finish this conversation.”
“I just told you that I was through! Turn me loose!” He rapidly slapped my hands and pinched my fingers, but I still didn’t release him.
“I’m not through. This is a lot more serious than you think.”
“You want a divorce so you can be with Louis? Is that it? Well, you won’t get one. If you think for one minute that I will step aside so you can move that bastard up in here to be around my daughter, you got another thing coming! Now get the fuck out of my way!” he shrieked, again trying to pry my hands from his arms, this time with his teeth. That didn’t work, either.
“Pee Wee, will you please let me finish!”
“Finish? You want me to let you finish? Well, I got news for you. You are finished. We are finished!” He gave me such a mighty shove, I fell back against the porch wall, and then I tumbled to the ground. Before I could get up, he had disappeared around the side of the house. I brushed myself off and went back into the kitchen. As soon as I sat down, he came back in, too. He shot me such a hot look as he crossed the floor, I almost fainted.
“He threatened me. I thought you should know that,” I yelled as he was about to leave the kitchen and enter the living room. “He said if I didn’t pay him off, he’d get me fired.”
Pee Wee stopped and whirled back around. “This story gets stranger and stranger. What the hell kind of shit did you get yourself mixed up in, woman?”
I licked my lips and pressed them together. It seemed like my mouth didn’t want to continue this walk of shame with me. “I overheard him talking to another woman, and when he saw that I’d heard what he said, he told me that if I didn’t pay him off, he’d tell you about us, and then he’d go to my boss.”
“What’s your boss got to do with this shit? You fuckin’ him, too?”
“I told you that Louis was the only one. He needed some money to get the oven in his restaurant fixed. I didn’t want to take it from our bank account, so I used some of my company’s money. There was nothing wrong with his oven.” The words tumbled out of my mouth so fast and so close together, it sounded like one very long word.
“So in addition to committing adultery, you stole money from your job?”
“Well, not exactly. I plan to pay the money back. But now Louis wants another three thousand so he can haul ass back to North Carolina to…to be with that other woman.”
Pee Wee looked at me with an expression on his face that was way more than just plain contempt. I had never seen such a look on another human’s face. “I can’t believe my ears. I can’t believe that you of all people could be so fuckin’ ignorant! You dumb-ass hoochie whore bitch!”
I gasped and almost lost my breath. “That’s the most ghetto-sounding bullshit you ever said to me!”
“Ghetto? Who are you callin’ ghetto? I ain’t nowhere near bein’ ghetto!”
“Look, you’ve made your point. I’ve fucked up in a big way.” I sniffed, blinked, and groped for more words. I started talking out of the side of my mouth. “Pee Wee, I’m going to start going to church more often,” I mumbled.
“Church?” He threw his head back and laughed long and loud. When he returned his attention to me, he had tears in his eyes. “Do you think that goin’ back to church is goin’ to get you off this hook? Huh?”
I tried to answer, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
“Sister, I got news for you. It ain’t goin’ to be that easy. Do you mean to stand here and tell me that you think you can do all the shit you want to do and run back to the church, and that will make everything right again? You know your Bible, so you know that Jezebel didn’t get off that easy, either!”
“I just thought—”
“You thought shit! You done made a fool out of me and our marriage, not to mention yourself. But you can’t make no fool out of God. Shit, God ain’t blind. Every time you crawled your nappy-headed ass into bed with that punk, God had his eye on you, woman.”
“You didn’t have to go there! This is not Judgment Day,” I had the nerve to say. “What…what do you want me to do, Pee Wee?”
He let out a great sigh, and then he gave me a pitiful look. I hadn’t known he was capable of making so many different faces in such a short period of time. “Annette, why can’t you be more like Rhoda?”
Those words almost made me laugh. “What did you just say?”
“If you was more like Rhoda, we wouldn’t be standin’ here havin’ this conversation.”
“Brother, if I was more like Rhoda, you probably would have been dead a long time ago.”
He gave me such an incredulous look that I knew he had no idea what I was talking about. Years ago I had told him about the people Rhoda had murdered. He didn’t believe me then, and I was sure he still didn’t.
“Rhoda is the most straight-up sister I know. She was a virgin when she met Otis, and he’s the only man she’s ever been with. She told me that to my face, out of her own mouth.”
“Is that right?”
“Damn straight! And, for the record, I know about that little fling Otis had with that woman some years ago. Rhoda told me, but he came to his senses. Bein’ faithful is the one thing that me and Rhoda have in common.”
“I…don’t know what to say, Pee Wee.” My mouth was so dry; I didn’t think it would ever feel normal again. What he’d just said about Rhoda was still ringing in my ears. “This is not about Rhoda, so let’s stay on track. This thing with Louis just happened.”
“Sister, a one-night stand just happens. A drawn-out affair don’t just happen. It takes plannin’, and it involves lies on top of lies. You wanted to do it.”
“But I told you why I did it!” I wailed.
“That ain’t a good enough reason!” he roared.
“It is as far as I am concerned!”
“Where can I find that punk? Where does he live?”
“Why?”
“’Cause I want to know!”
“He lives in that apartment building on the corner of Pike and Bleecker streets. Why do you need to know that?”
“Either you sleep someplace else tonight, or I will.” Pee Wee turned on his heels and literally ran out the kitchen door. I remained in my seat until I heard him drive away.
I was still sitting in the same spot when he returned about an hour later. There was a cut above his eye, his shirt was torn, and there was a bruise on his cheek.
“What happened to you?” I asked, slowly rising from my chair. I stumbled up to him and tried to put my arms around him, but he jumped out of my reach.
“You don’t have to worry about Louis no more,” he told me, breathing through his mouth. I looked down and saw that the knuckles on both his hands were bruised and bleeding.
“Pee Wee, what did you do to that man?”
“You got his address! Why don’t you go over there and see?” He stomped out of the kitchen, with me close behind. I stopped when we made it to the living room. He gave me a dirty look, and then he ran upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.
I plopped down on the sofa and started to twiddle my thumbs. I wanted to run upstairs and try and talk to him. But I didn’t know what else I could say to make things better.
Fifteen minutes later, he ran back downstairs, with a suitcase. I didn’t say anything or try to stop him from leaving. Had I been in his shoes, I would have done the same thing.
As curious as I was about what Pee Wee had done to Louis, I was not brave enough to go back to Louis’s apartment. But I was brave enough to call him.
He answered immediately. “Yeah.” His voice sounded so weak and raspy, I pictured him stretched out on the floor again.
“It’s Annette.”
“What the fuck do you want!” he hollered.
“In case you still want to drag this on, I just wanted to let you know that I plan to tell my boss everything tomorrow.” I didn’t intend to tell my boss anything if I didn’t have to. “My husband is probably going to divorce me, so nothing else y
ou can do to me matters, anyhow….”
“Look, bitch, I don’t want to see or hear from your skanky ass ever again. You, that jackass you married, that Jew you work for, y’all can all kiss my ass! I don’t need you. I don’t need your money. But let me tell you one thing. If that black-ass nigger of yours ever comes near me again, I won’t be responsible for my actions!” Louis slammed the phone down so hard, my ears rang for two whole minutes.
CHAPTER 56
I got about three hours’ sleep that night. I was such a wreck, I couldn’t even drag myself out of bed the next morning, let alone go to work. I called in sick.
I had no idea where my husband had spent the night, and when I had not heard from him by noon, I called his barbershop. I hung up when he answered. A few seconds later, he called me back.
“You forget I have caller ID now?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” I muttered. “Uh, when do you want to talk?”
“About what?”
“Pee Wee, we need to discuss what we plan to do. I know I was wrong for what I did, and I am more than ready to accept the consequences. I just need to know what they are.”
“Was Rhoda in on this?”
“Huh?”
“You heard me, woman. I want to know if Rhoda knew about you and that sucker.”
“Uh, what difference would it make? I’m your wife, not Rhoda.”
“Did Rhoda know about this?”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“I’m askin’ you!”
“Pee Wee, you and Rhoda were best friends when I met you and her. I love you both, and I don’t want to be the one responsible for ruining your relationship with her, too. Let’s leave her out of this. I am the only one responsible for this.”
“All right then. If you want to be a bitch about this to the bitter end, you go right ahead. I just want you to do me a favor. If Rhoda was in on this, I don’t ever want to know. I’ve known her a lot longer than I’ve known you. She’s always had my back, but if that’s no longer true…well, I don’t want to know.”
