by Mary Monroe
I remained silent for a few awkward moments. “Is it over between us?”
“What we once had is over. You made sure of that.”
“Look, I’m not going to beg you to forgive me. If you want to try and work this out, I am more than ready to do so. If you don’t, well, what the hell. You can go your way, and I will go mine. But I want you to know that I’m really glad you’re going to be all right—health-wise, I mean. And, just so you’ll know, I told Rhoda only the basics about your condition. If you want her to know everything, you can tell her. After all, you were her boy before you were mine.”
I heard him sniff a few times and then clear his throat with a deep cough. But he didn’t say anything.
“Pee Wee, are you still on the line?”
“I’m still on the line,” he said flatly.
“Did you hear what I just said about you telling Rhoda about your condition?”
“You let me worry about Rhoda,” he said, his voice sounding like it was coming from beyond the grave. “I have to go. I will see you when I see you.” He hung up.
I didn’t see Pee Wee for a whole week. And when he did come home, it was only to pack more of his clothes. He didn’t acknowledge the fact that it was also my birthday. He floated through the house like a ghost, totally ignoring me. Muh’Dear, Daddy, and Charlotte called right after he left to wish me a happy birthday, but even that didn’t do much to help lift my spirits.
Muh’Dear called again on the Saturday before Labor Day to assure me that they’d be home in time for Charlotte to attend the first day of school, which fell in the first week of September. I had several telephone conversations with Rhoda during the time Pee Wee was away. It was always good to hear from her. Especially now that Jade was in Alabama, recovering from her so-called breakdown.
“Jade’s got a new boyfriend already,” Rhoda told me, laughing, during one of those conversations. “I just hope this relationship works out for her.”
“I’m glad to hear that somebody is doing well,” I said.
“And what about you? How are you doin’?”
“I’m fine, Rhoda.” I wasn’t. My marriage was a shambles, and now that I no longer sponsored Monday lunches at work, my workers were back to their old tricks. But I had another plan up my sleeve. I’d let my mother cater our lunches when she returned. Had I used her in the first place, that devil Louis would have never entered my life. And I believed that my marriage would still be somewhat intact.
Pee Wee moved back into the house a day after my last conversation with Rhoda. He slept in the living room that night and told me that if it was all right with me, that was where he’d be sleeping until further notice.
“This is still your home,” I told him as we passed each other going in opposite directions on the stairs leading to the second floor. I was in my nightgown and on my way to my bedroom. He was in his pajamas, and I knew he was on his way to that damn La-Z-Boy in the living room. “And I’m still your wife.”
“A wife that cheated.”
“A wife that cheated because she’s not perfect,” I pointed out.
He gave me a weak nod. Then he looked me up and down, like he was inspecting me. “I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ so, but you’ve gained back a little weight.” It didn’t sound like a malicious comment. It just sounded like a general observation. And since it was true, I didn’t get upset.
“I know,” I muttered shyly. “Those neck-bone casseroles will sneak up on a woman’s hips like a mugger.”
“It looks good on you,” he told me, stopping at the bottom of the steps.
I stopped at the top of the steps. “As long as I don’t get to be as big as I was, I’m all right with gaining some of that weight back. I don’t think I could ever be happy with the way I used to be.”
He shuffled his bare feet and gave me a thoughtful look. “You know something. I think I could be happy with you the way you used to be. Not the weight, I mean. Well, some, but not all of it. I was proud to have you as my wife.”
“I’m still the same woman, Pee Wee. Just a little frayed, that’s all. Like everybody else.” I started to walk toward my bedroom, but I stopped when I realized he had started to walk back up the steps.
“Annette, it’d be nice if we could sit down at the kitchen table and have a few drinks, like we used to. I guess it’s time for us to talk things through. We need to decide where we’re goin’ from here.”
“Oh? Oh,” I said dumbly, stumbling back down the steps. “Should my lawyer be present?”
He shook his head. “Well…not this time.” He pinched my arm and gave me a gentle sock on the cheek with his fist. “But the next time for sure. Next time…next time…aw shit. You still got a long-ass way to go to get yourself out of this mess, woman. And don’t think I am ever goin’ to let you forget it.”
“I know you won’t forget it. And I won’t, either,” I assured him as I escorted him to the kitchen.
I attempted to put my arm around his shoulder, but he prevented that by ducking. I didn’t like that, but I didn’t complain. I was just glad that we had made some progress on the rocky road that our marriage had ended up on.
“Are you home to stay?” I asked when we made it to the kitchen.
“I might stay, and I might not,” he responded with a shrug. He removed the large bottle of tequila that we kept in the cabinet above the stove and poured himself a shot glass full first. He wasted no time putting that glass up to his lips.
I chose the largest glass I had in the house and poured tequila in it to the brim. But I stopped drinking after just a couple of sips.
“What’s wrong now?” he asked. He had already finished his drink.
“I think this is one time that I really need to be sober, so I’ll know what I’m saying,” I answered. “I’ve said enough stupid shit for a while.” I poured the tequila in my glass back into the bottle. And then I pulled out a seat at the kitchen table and sat down. For a minute I thought he was going to pour himself another drink, but he didn’t. Instead, he gave me a dry look, and then he sat down across from me. “Let me tell you what I think I should do,” I began.
“Let’s get one thing straight right now,” he said, shaking a finger in my face. “It ain’t up to you to decide what we should do. If I can’t offer some input, too, we can stop this conversation right now.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I protested. “We need to work on things together if we want to repair this marriage.”
“That’s better. Now, woman, what the hell were you thinkin’? This wasn’t like you. Was this little ditty with Louis because of your midlife crisis, were you crazy, or were you just a horny bitch?”
“Maybe it was all three,” I mumbled. “I know now that I was wrong, and I swear to God, it will never happen again. I am going to do everything I can think of to make this up to you.” I cupped his hand with both of mine and squeezed. I was disappointed when he slapped my hands until I released his.
“You do that, Annette. You make this up to me. That’ll be a start.” He got up, with a groan, and walked slowly into the living room.
I drank a glass of water and turned off the kitchen light before I joined him. He had already plopped down in that La-Z-Boy and had a blanket covering him up to his neck. He didn’t even look at me as I walked past him to turn out the living-room light.
There was just enough light coming from the hallway upstairs for me to see my way up the steps. I took my time going to my bedroom, where I expected to sleep alone for a while.
Things had not changed much by Thanksgiving, but I had a lot to be thankful for, anyway. For one thing, Louis had left town. When Rhoda and I went snooping around his apartment building, one of his neighbors told us that he’d purchased Louis’s van and adopted Sadie. The neighbor also told us that Louis had left Richland a few weeks earlier with a pretty woman in a black station wagon with North Carolina license plates.
Some Asians were now running Off the Hook. And since Mr. Mizelle never
said anything to me about the company money that I had misused, I decided that Louis had not spilled the beans on me, after all. There was no way I could return that money to the company’s account without making somebody suspicious. Instead, I used it to treat my staff to a weekend retreat at a resort in Cleveland. My parents and my daughter had returned from the Bahamas in one piece and were planning to go again for Christmas.
Pee Wee approached me in the kitchen, where I was putting away the leftovers from our sad Thanksgiving dinner. We had not made love since the day before my confession. It was still difficult for us to look at each other, but we did when we had to. His eyes were positively indifferent as he looked at me now.
“Annette, your mama called a few minutes ago and wanted to know if we want to spend Christmas with them at that white woman’s beach house in the Bahamas.”
“Oh? Well, I’ll have to think about that,” I said. “Do you want to go?”
He nodded. “It might be good to get away for a few days,” he said with a heavy sigh. “But it’ll be hard for us to behave like everything is all right in front of your folks.”
My parents were the last people on the planet who needed to know about what I’d done. And Pee Wee and I had agreed that they didn’t even need to know about the medical condition he had endured.
“I know,” I admitted. “But if we go, we’ll have to act like everything is all right. Even though it’s not, and probably never will be again.”
“I thought you wanted to work on that,” he said, giving me a puzzled look.
“I did. I mean, I do. But like you said, this is not something that I can fix on my own. We both need to work on this.”
He let out a heavy breath and rubbed the side of his neck. “Let’s go with them. If we can’t mend things on a beach in the Bahamas, we can’t mend things nowhere.” He dipped his head and looked at me, with his eyebrows raised. “I just hope I can trust you down there around all them handsome young men….”
I was not surprised to hear Pee Wee say such a tacky thing, and it ruffled my feathers, to say the least. But these days he wasn’t making half as many crude references to my affair as he used to. “You don’t have to worry about that,” I insisted. “Not in the Bahamas, or anywhere else.”
I finished putting the leftover food away. We went upstairs at the same time to decide now what to pack to take to the Bahamas next month. It was going to be hard for us to act lovey-dovey while sharing the same beach house with my parents. But if he was willing to try, I was, too.
READING GROUP
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Annette had an affair because she thought her husband was no longer attracted to her. Do you think if Pee Wee had told her up front about his medical condition and its affect on his sex drive, that she would not have had the affair?
Annette’s dramatic weight loss and extreme makeover made her much more attractive and appealing. However, she did not encourage other men to pay more attention to her. Do you think that if Louis Baines had not pursued her so vigorously, she would have remained faithful to her husband?
Most con men don’t care what a woman looks like as long as she’s a cash cow that he can milk. But since Louis didn’t know that Annette had money until he got to know her, do you think that he had some feelings for her in the beginning?
Do you think that Louis would have initiated the affair a year earlier when Annette was still grossly overweight and plain?
Annette was reluctant to have an affair with Louis. Rhoda badgered her to do it until she did. Do you think Rhoda should have shared the blame for the mess that Annette got herself into?
When Jade returned home after flunking out of college were you surprised that she had not changed for the better? Were you surprised that she still had so much contempt for Annette?
Pee Wee was still angry with Jade for harassing Annette the year before and refused to have anything to do with her. After the way Jade taunted Annette at the mall, do you think that Annette was a fool for agreeing to attend Jade’s wedding?
Jade was the daughter from hell. But Rhoda still doted on her and bent over backwards to plan Jade’s unexpected wedding. It was important to Rhoda for Annette to be on the guest list. As soon as Jade saw that Annette was among the wedding guests, she greeted her with a few more insults. Do you think that it gave Annette some pleasure to be the one to drop the bombshell and inform Jade that her Mexican fiancé had run for the border an hour before the wedding?
Jade was so stunned to hear that she’d been jilted; she urinated on her beautiful wedding gown. Her meltdown was so severe she had to be hauled out of the house on a gurney and rushed to the hospital mental ward. Annette felt sorry for her. However, she also felt that Jade got what she had coming. Did you feel sorry for Jade?
Annette was devastated when she found out why Pee Wee had stopped being affectionate with her. But Pee Wee was more devastated when she told him that she was having an affair with Louis. If Louis had not tried to blackmail Annette when she severed their relationship, do you think that she still should have told Pee Wee about the affair?
Annette was furious when she overheard Louis talking about her like a dog on the telephone to his real girlfriend. If you were in a similar situation, would you leave quietly and with some dignity, or would you get loud and violent like Annette did?
Not only did Annette jeopardize her marriage, she risked losing her job. Embezzling money from her employer to give to Louis was way out of character for her. Did Annette’s behavior surprise you?
Do you think that Annette’s marriage can be restored? Do you think that she no longer deserves a good man like Pee Wee? Since Annette had accused Pee Wee of having an affair so many times before she got involved with Louis, would you blame him if he had an affair now?
DAFINA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2009 by Mary Monroe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2009928070
ISBN: 978-0-7582-6022-2
