by Mary Monroe
“He does, but a woman cleans for him a couple of times a week.”
“Hmmm. Well, no man is perfect. That’s the one thing we have to keep in mind. We can’t live with them, and we can’t live without them, right?”
“That’s one question I can’t answer. But I will admit that I’d rather spend my time with Jacob than alone. He’s good company. At least until…”
“Until Pee Wee comes back?”
“That’s not what I was going to say!” I said quickly.
“Then what were you goin’ to say?”
“Just that I’m going to cancel my divorce for now. Now that I know Pee Wee’s not ready for it.”
“But shouldn’t you be more concerned about what you’re ready for? He left you and he just might not come back. You need to get things in writing before somethin’ happens to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bein’ apart but not divorced is like havin’ a sword hangin’ over your head.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Find out where you stand in regards to the financial position. What if he drops dead tomorrow and you find out his life insurance goes to that bitch or one of his relatives? What about that car he paid cash for?”
“You of all people know that I am about as financially secure as I can be. I can get along just fine without his insurance if he drops dead tomorrow.”
“That’s not the point. I know it’s easy for you to say that now, but it’d be a different story if it happened. And what about Charlotte? Do you want Lizzie to end up with somethin’ that should go to your child? Look, even if you don’t go through with a divorce, you need to get some legal advice anyway. Change your will. Because as much as I hate to bring it up, that sword hangin’ over your head cuts both ways.”
“Stop talking like one of Joan Crawford’s movie characters and say what you mean the first time,” I ordered with a heavy groan. “You’re giving me a headache.”
“Annette, if something happens to you, Lizzie might end up raisin’ your daughter, in the house that your mama left to you and you alone. I know you’ve got a couple of bucks in the bank, too. You need to make sure it all goes into some kind of trust fund for Charlotte until she’s of legal age. Have you thought about that?”
“No…”
“Then you’d better. And the next time you see or talk to Jacob, tell him I said hello.”
“I don’t plan on seeing him for a while. I am beginning to feel smothered, and I need some space right now. I’m going to spend less time with him.”
CHAPTER 48
The very next day, Jacob parked in front of my house and ran up to my front door with a bouquet of roses in his hand. “Baby, I hope you’re ready,” he said when I opened the door.
“Ready for what?” I asked, taking the flowers he waved in my face.
“I thought we were going out to dinner. Didn’t you get my message?” he said with an anxious look on his face.
I stood there with my head cocked to the side, giving him a guarded look. “What message?”
He strolled in, slamming the door shut behind him. “Didn’t that dingbat secretary tell you that I called? I told her to ask you if you wanted to go to Lomax’s Steak House this evening. I told her to tell you that if I didn’t hear back from you, I would assume you were going, and that I would make a reservation for seven o’clock. We could have a few drinks at the bar, listen to that soulful country western band, then enjoy a nice steak dinner with all the trimmings. I didn’t hear back from you, so here I am.” Jacob gave me a gummy smile as he spread his arms out like he was expecting me to fall into them and swoon.
I sighed and placed the roses, which were already in a nice vase, on the coffee table. “I didn’t get the message. And in the future, don’t leave messages and assume I’ll get them.”
“You need to talk to your girl at your office. She told me point-blank that she would make sure you got my message.”
“That’s not the point, Jacob. If you want to see me, you need to talk to me, not my dingbat secretary. Don’t leave messages and assume that’s all you need to do before you show up. I would appreciate your confirming things with me. That’s just common courtesy.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I’ll go on back home,” he pouted, heading back toward the door. “Tell Charlotte I asked about her.”
“Charlotte is spending the night with her grandparents. And wait—you don’t have to leave. Since you’re already here, we might as well keep that reservation you made.”
Despite the fact that Jacob was beginning to look like a first-class oaf, I still enjoyed his company. And he had selected a nice place for dinner. Lomax’s was one of my favorite restaurants. As a matter of fact, some of the waiters still remembered me from the days I used to come in and eat enough for three people.
Jacob had instructed me to order whatever I wanted on the menu, and since I had not eaten lobster in a while, that was what I ordered. It was not a cheap place, and when the waiter placed the $190 check on our table, my eyes watered.
“Baby, can you go warm up the car while I take care of the bill?” Jacob asked, rising.
Jacob was not the kind of man to do gallant things, like helping me put on my coat or opening my car door. I rose and wrestled myself into the black spring coat that I’d worn over my light blue pantsuit. “The waiter will take the check and payment to the cashier. I’ll wait for you,” I told him. “Make sure you give him a good tip,” I said in a low voice. “I am a regular here.”
“No, no, you go on and warm up the car,” he insisted, handing me the keys to his Lexus.
I shrugged, took the keys, and headed toward the door. I noticed our waiter looking at me with a puzzled expression on his face, but I kept walking. I didn’t stop until I reached Jacob’s car.
Just as I seated myself in the driver’s seat and started the motor, Jacob came sprinting out of the restaurant with three waiters on his tail. “Let’s go!” he yelled as he flung open the door on the passenger side and hopped in. “Drive like hell!”
I didn’t have time to ask questions or react. I just drove. I drove like a bat out of hell, turning the first corner on two wheels. Finally, I asked, “What the hell is going on?”
Jacob didn’t answer my question, but I answered it for him. “You ran out on the bill, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. And do you want to know why?”
“Yes, I would like to know why. I have never done anything like this before in my life! Don’t you know we could get arrested for doing shit like this?”
“Well, they have to catch us first.” Jacob giggled like the Joker.
“If you didn’t have enough money, you should have told me. I would have been glad to pay the bill.”
“Naw, naw. This wasn’t about me not having enough money to pay the bill.”
“Don’t tell me you do shit like this just for the thrill of it?” I yelled.
“It’s a lot more serious than that. See, just before my mama died, I brought her to this restaurant for Mother’s Day. When she complained about the way they had cooked her steak, instead of them cooking another one for her, they politely told her that if she didn’t like the way they cooked, she should eat her steaks someplace else. My mother was a dignified woman, see. Everybody liked her. She didn’t deserve to be treated like that. I called up the restaurant the next day and demanded to speak to the manager. When I tried to speak my mind, he hung up on me! This was the only way I could get back at them.”
“By not paying your check? And why did you have to drag me into it?” I had to stop for a red light. I looked in the rearview mirror, glad not to see a police cruiser behind us. “What if they got your license plate number?”
“I thought about that. Now, you know I am no angel, never have been. I’m the kind of brother who will do what I have to do when necessary. I switched my real plates for this car with the stolen plates that my thug cousin Georgie uses when he needs to take care of some street
business. The plates belong on the car of a little old white retired schoolteacher from Sandusky.”
I was angry, but there was nothing I could do about what had happened. “Just promise me that the next time you have a point to make, don’t involve me.”
Things were too tense, so Jacob didn’t attempt to come in once we got back to my house. He didn’t kiss me or even walk me to the front door. “I’ll see you soon,” he yelled as I ran up on my porch.
And I knew he would.
When I spoke to Rhoda the next morning, I told her I’d had dinner with Jacob the night before. However, I didn’t tell her about the scam he’d pulled. She would have never let me live that down.
“It sounds like he’s tryin’ so hard to please you,” she told me. “I know he’s kind of crude, but he sounds like he’s the best man for you right now.”
“The best man? That’s funny. Is there such a thing anymore? Has there ever been such a thing on this planet?”
“The best man? Probably not. But there are men a lot worse than Jacob.”
“That’s for sure,” I muttered. “Jacob’s all right. He’ll do for now, I guess.”
“He’ll do for now? That doesn’t sound very hopeful. And I hope no man ever says somethin’ that generic and indifferent about me.” Rhoda laughed. “By the way, have you talked to your lawyer lately?”
“No, but I will. And I’m telling you now that if Jacob is the best I can do, I might cancel my divorce for good.”
“So that means you think there is a chance for you and Pee Wee to reconcile? Is that why you might cancel the divorce?”
“I don’t think I really need a divorce. I don’t need one so I could rush into another marriage.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“For one thing, there are too many Jacobs out there waiting to jump into the lives of women like me. I am going to make sure that all of my assets are protected, so a divorce is not a priority right now. I don’t know if divorce is always the answer when a marriage goes sour. I know marriage is a partnership, but in America, most of the burden of keeping it together is on the woman’s shoulders.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Look at me.”
CHAPTER 49
That following Wednesday morning, I went to see my lawyer so I could put my divorce on hold and revise my will. Rhoda was the only person who knew about my plans.
My mother, my father, and Scary Mary advised me daily to “straighten” out my life because they didn’t want me to “suffer” or “be stupid enough to grow old alone.” Each one had a different interpretation of what I needed to do to get out of the mess I was in. My mother assured me that no matter what man I ended up with, he’d still be a dog or a devil. To her, the three were interchangeable. It didn’t matter how good or bad that man was, when it came to men, it was a one-size-fits-all situation. It was up to a woman to make the best of a relationship; men didn’t have enough sense to do so. Scary Mary offered to share some voodoo secrets with me that would “take care of Pee Wee and that wench” he’d left me for. Daddy told me that whatever I wanted to do, it was my business. But he also told me that if I wanted him to help me find a new man, and I didn’t have a problem with age, he had a lot of widowed friends that he could introduce me to.
I was nervous sitting in the lobby of David Weinstein’s office with four other women, all younger than me. And each one was barking like a dog about one thing or another. I overheard one woman complain to one of the other women that her husband had left her because she’d gained seventy pounds. Another one told somebody that she was conversing with on her cellular phone that she was sorry she’d let herself go. I could see why. Her bright red hair looked like a well-used mop, she was as big as I once was, and her nose looked like a meatball. Another one, a dwarf who couldn’t have stood more than three and a half feet tall, said she was going to beat up the woman her husband had left her for. I found that hard to believe. With her squeaky voice and abbreviated height, this woman looked about as menacing as Winnie the Pooh. I decided to keep my business to myself.
And I was glad that I had not let my physical appearance go to the dogs. Not only was I the most well-groomed woman waiting to see Mr. Weinstein, I noticed that I was the only woman in the room with a neck. But I was still in the same boat with these other four no-neck women: I couldn’t hold on to my husband.
My lawyer agreed with everything Rhoda had told me: I had to protect my assets in case Pee Wee got greedy. After we’d revised my will, my lawyer complimented me on how nice I looked. I had worn a stylish black pantsuit with a yellow silk blouse. I had just come from the beauty shop, so my hair, nails, and face were all looking good. By the time I left, I was feeling so much better.
My euphoria didn’t last long, though.
A stout black man about my age, wearing a blue suit at least two sizes too small, got in the elevator with me on the fourteenth floor. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he had a pleasant-looking face. He nodded at me, I nodded at him. Then he looked at me and did a double take. “These white folks! I been tryin’ to settle a claim with the unemployment folks for two years, and I ain’t no farther along than I was two years ago. Ain’t white folks a mess?”
“I know what you mean,” I said with a weak nod.
“It’s a good thing I got me a side thing goin’. I’m gettin’ paid under the table so I don’t really need that pooh butt pocket change the unemployment crooks dole out anyway. But I want it ’cause I earned it! Know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean.”
“I look at it this way, anytime we can pull somethin’ over on the man, it’s just part of that money they owe us for all that free labor our folks done for them as slaves. Know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I agreed.
The man suddenly gave me a critical look. “Excuse me, sister, but you look like somebody I used to work with when I worked for the phone company. And them dogs was about as racist as could be. They fired me for no reason! I was late a few times when my car wouldn’t start and I didn’t get along with my supervisor; but other than that, I was a damn good employee. I done what they paid me to do, so that should have been enough. Anyway, there was this sister there that they all liked. They bent over backward to keep her happy, like she was their pet monkey. And in a way she was! Of course, she was one of them butt-kissin’ mammies that the white folks love to death. A woman named Annette.”
Damn! I must have been looking better than I thought if people didn’t recognize me. Even though I didn’t like what the man had just said about me being a butt-kissing mammy, I gave him one of my broadest smiles, and he smiled back.
“You know a sister named Annette Davis?” he asked, a puzzled look on his face.
I nodded. “Uh-huh,” I said shyly, the smile still on my face.
“People ever tell you that you look a lot like her?”
I nodded again.
“Don’t it make you mad?”
“Excuse me?” The smile left my face so fast my teeth ached.
“I mean, if people tell you that you look like Diana Ross, that’s one thing. If people tell you that you look like somebody like that Annette—not that you ugly or nothing, that’s another thing. But she sure wouldn’t have won no first-prize blue ribbons for her looks. You look enough like her, but you look WAY better than her! Take me and my older brother, Pookie. We look enough alike people can tell we are related. But he’s ugly, whereas I inherited all the good looks.”
“No, it doesn’t make me mad when people tell me I look like Annette Davis.”
“Hmmm. You must be a real strong woman. What you say your name was?”
“Annette.” I sniffed. “Annette Davis.”
If I had slapped this man with a dead skunk, he could not have looked more startled.
“You do look a whole lot better than you used to look,” he amended. “At least you got that goin’ for you. What did you do to yourself? Get liposuction, or what?”
Before I could answer, the elevator stopped on the third floor and he bolted, even though he had punched the ground floor.
I remained mildly depressed for a couple of hours. But when Jacob showed up at my house unannounced that night and told me that he’d been thinking about me all day, I felt so much better. “Annette, this time I am going to do everything in the world to hold on to you.”
Charlotte was with Pee Wee for only a few hours, so Jacob and I couldn’t get too cozy.
We had just started on our first pitcher of lemonade when Pee Wee showed up with Charlotte in tow, hugging the new black-and-white backpack that he’d bought for her the day before.
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Jacob,” she greeted before dashing up to her room.
Normally, when Pee Wee dropped Charlotte off, he didn’t stay. But as soon as he realized I had a man in the living room, he made himself comfortable on the love seat that faced Jacob. I sat on the arm of the couch close to Jacob.
“What’s up, dude?” Pee Wee grumbled, looking at Jacob with his eyes narrowed into slits.
“Hey!” Jacob jumped up from his seat and attempted to shake Pee Wee’s hand. Pee Wee looked at Jacob’s hand with a severe frown and ignored it. Then he looked at Jacob’s bare feet. I didn’t know Jacob had removed his shoes.
“I’m glad to see you and my ex seem to be gettin’ so close so soon,” Pee Wee sneered.
“Well, brother, let me put it like this. One man’s shit is another man’s fertilizer,” Jacob announced with a smug look and a wink.
Pee Wee jumped up so fast he almost fell. Both his fists were clenched. I rose, too.
“I think you should leave,” I said to Pee Wee, both my arms outstretched.
“I think I should, too!” he snapped.
I didn’t say anything to Jacob until I heard Pee Wee’s car roar out onto the street.
“That was a tacky thing for you to say,” I scolded, shaking my finger in his face.
