by Mary Monroe
“It’s true!” he boomed. “And the sooner you put that fool out of your mind, the better off we’ll be. You need a husband who deserves you.”
“Jacob, let’s get something straight right now. We don’t know where our relationship is going. I told you in the beginning that I am not looking for another husband anytime soon. And I am not looking to get too seriously involved with another man yet either.”
“Well, let me tell you something right now, too. We are already seriously involved, sister.”
I cringed when he kissed me. And I asked myself, What have I gotten myself into now?
CHAPTER 50
Two days later, Jacob was at my door again, knocking so hard I thought he was trying to knock down the door. “I don’t believe this shit!” I hollered out loud. “Does this man not listen, or does he not understand plain English?” I felt a little foolish standing in my living room having a conversation with myself. But I was at the end of my rope with Jacob’s bad habits.
Since I had not invited him over, and he had not called to let me know that he was coming, I didn’t answer the door. By now I had decided that the only way I was going to tolerate him was to be as crude and rude as he was. Well, maybe not that bad. But I wasn’t going to make it easy for him to run our relationship in a way that suited him but not me.
I parted my living room window curtains just enough so I could see him. I waited and watched until he walked off the porch and back to his car. Then I went back into the kitchen and continued mixing the cornbread to go with the cabbage greens that I had planned to serve for dinner.
A couple of minutes went by and the next thing I knew, Jacob came prancing into the kitchen, grinning like one of those door-to-door salesmen. My daughter was right behind him. “Mama, didn’t you hear Jacob knocking?” she asked, giving Jacob a sympathetic glance.
“Oh, was that you, Jacob? I thought I heard something,” I muttered, wiping my hands on the tail of my apron.
“I just about came through that door. And the knuckles on my hand are still aching from all that knocking I did. You must be deaf,” he complained.
“I didn’t hear you,” I said, forcing myself not to sound angry. I didn’t like to get involved in confrontations when Charlotte was present—not with Pee Wee, and especially not with Jacob. I had no trouble admitting to myself that my generation was setting some pretty bad examples for Charlotte’s generation. More than half of her friends lived in broken homes. But since I had no control over my situation with Pee Wee and I was stuck with Jacob, I tried to make the best of it. And that meant I couldn’t let my guard down and act a fool by telling Jacob off in front of Charlotte but still letting him come to the house. That was one mixed message I didn’t want to convey.
Charlotte had an anxious look on her face. She stared at me for a few seconds; then she turned to Jacob. “What you bring me? What you bring me?” she asked, already reaching for a small white bag he held in his hand.
“Just some mangoes,” he responded.
I could tell from the look on her face that Jacob’s latest gift didn’t impress her at all. “Oh.” She shrugged, looking from him to me. “Mama, what’s a mango?”
“It’s a fruit,” I told her, taking the bag out of her hand and placing it on the counter. Somehow I managed to look at Jacob without scowling. “Have a seat,” I mumbled, waving him to the table. I gave Charlotte the most exasperated look I could come up with, but she had no idea why. One thing I didn’t want to do was involve her in my plan to gently ease Jacob out of my life. For one thing, I wasn’t sure that that was what I wanted to do. I liked Jacob, and I was more than willing to continue the relationship as long as we kept it on a level that was comfortable for me.
“Do I smell cabbage greens?” he asked, sniffing and looking toward the stove where a pot of greens sat simmering.
“OH NO! NOT AGAIN!” Charlotte roared, stomping her foot on the floor so hard some empty pans on the counter rattled. “This house is turning into a chamber of horrors! If it’s not one kind of greens for dinner, it’s another. Yesterday, it was turnip greens. The day before that it was collard greens. The day before that it was collard greens and turnip greens—cooked up together in the same pot! I don’t know what’s wrong with the African American family these days! With all of the greens black people eat, one day we are going to turn into plant people!” She paused long enough to give me a pleading look. “Mama, why do you keep doing this to me?”
“I’ve been cooking the same meals for you for eleven years, and as long as you live in this house, I will continue to choose the meals here. When you get a job and can afford to feed yourself, you can cook what you want to cook.”
“See, I told you,” Charlotte said to Jacob. Then she did something that I didn’t like. She leaned over and whispered something in his ear.
“Don’t do that,” I ordered. Charlotte and Jacob whirled around and looked at me at the same time. One looked just as startled as the other. “Whispering is rude,” I said.
Jacob laughed and pulled Charlotte into his arms. “Little sister, you better be glad you didn’t grow up in my house. We had greens and beans together every day, seven days a week.”
“And she’d better be glad that she’s not a member of some family in China or Somalia, where they are lucky to get anything to eat every day,” I said, sitting down in the chair facing Jacob.
“Get me a beer out of the ice box, sugar,” he said to Charlotte, slapping her on the butt as he released her from his embrace.
“What time are you taking me to the movies this Saturday afternoon, Jacob?” she asked, prancing back to the table with a can of Coors Light in her hand.
“What movie?” I asked quickly, looking from Jacob to Charlotte. I didn’t like that he had made plans to do something with my child without my permission or knowledge. And I didn’t like the fact that my daughter had gotten friendly enough with Jacob to be contemplating spending a Saturday afternoon with him at the movies. But what I really didn’t like was that the two of them had become so close so soon. “I don’t recall anybody asking me about a movie?”
“What’s the big deal? Jacob took me to the movies last Saturday,” Charlotte reported.
“Oh? How come I didn’t know about it?” I had to think back to the previous Saturday afternoon. All I could remember was Charlotte mumbling something to me about going to the mall with a friend and asking if it was all right. After I’d given her some spending money and told her to be home before dark, I’d waved her out the door. She came home before dark, told me she’d enjoyed the movie, we ate dinner, and that was it. She had said nothing to me about Jacob being the “friend” whom she’d gone to the movies with. And I had no reason to ask.
“I was at Jacob’s house and we got bored,” she told me. The more she revealed, the more concerned I became.
“Charlotte, can you go into the living room so I can talk with Jacob?” As soon as she left, I turned to Jacob. “Jacob, don’t do anything else with my daughter unless I know about it.”
He blinked like an owl. “I understand. But I didn’t see any harm in letting her into my house when she went to the trouble of riding her bicycle all the way over to Willow Street. And I didn’t see any harm in taking her to the movies that afternoon.”
“I didn’t even know she knew where you lived! And she knows I warned her about talking to…uh…I’ve just warned her to be careful. We’re living in a world gone mad.”
I had endured one of the most painful childhoods imaginable. Old Mr. Boatwright had tainted my precious little body with the scourge of sexual abuse, and that was not going to happen to my daughter if I could help it.
“Look, you listen,” Jacob said, a hand in the air, a finger wagging in my face. “Your child couldn’t be safer with nobody more than she would with me. I love kids. You know how much I miss my own child. So don’t you worry about Charlotte.”
“No, you listen, brother. Charlotte is not your child, she’s mine. I will be the on
e to worry about her safety. I am responsible for her. I don’t want you, or anybody else, to interfere with the way I’m raising my daughter. Now, if you want to remain friends with me, that’s the one thing you will stay out of. Do I make myself clear?”
“I understand. But don’t you think it’s going to confuse her if she can’t be friends with me and here I am over here spending time with you, taking you out, and eating dinner with you and her? And I hope you don’t think for one minute that she doesn’t know what’s going on behind closed doors. I mean, the last time I spent the night and made love to you, you screamed so loud she came running to your room. I can assure you that she didn’t think you were in your room screaming because I was scaring you with a spider or stepping on your toe. Kids know more than we do these days.”
“Jacob, I don’t want to sit here all night discussing this subject. I just want us to be on the same page. Charlotte is my daughter. You can be her friend; but when it comes to her activities, that’s my job. If you want to take her to the movies, or anywhere else, you check with me first. That’s all I ask.”
“That’s fine with me. This is your house and I’m just a guest. I will behave as such from now on….”
I excused myself to go to the bathroom and when I returned, Jacob was kicked back on my living room sofa, barefooted, shirtless, and with a plate of my greens on his lap. But what was more disturbing was the fact that Charlotte was sitting next to him with her arm around his neck.
CHAPTER 51
“Don’t you think that you’re jumping to conclusions too fast?” Rhoda said when I called her up and told her about how affectionate Charlotte was with Jacob. “He’s not crazy enough to do anything inappropriate.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do you know I’m not right?”
“I’d be willing to bet a month’s salary that anybody who knew Mr. Boatwright would have said the same thing about him. Even you.”
“Well, Buttwright was a different story.”
“Every story on this subject is different. But the end results are always the same. After what I went through, if I let something happen to my daughter, I’d never forgive myself.”
“Annette, has Jacob done anything for you to be concerned about?”
“He’s a grown man and he should not be encouraging a young girl to get too close to him. That’s inappropriate, if you ask me.”
“If you’re so concerned about it, dump him. And don’t even think about gettin’ involved with anybody else. You’ll run into the same problem with the next man, and it might be even worse.”
“Let’s change the subject,” I suggested, blowing out a loud groan.
“That’s fine with me. But you’re the one who brought it up.”
I got off the phone with Rhoda and did a few chores around the house for the next half hour. I would have continued doing that, but somebody knocked on my front door. I moved quietly from the kitchen to the living room; the broom I had been using to sweep my kitchen floor was still in my hand. I looked toward the stairs and around the room to make sure Charlotte was not lurking about. The last thing I wanted her to do was answer the door without my knowledge like she’d done the day before.
I looked through the peephole. But since I had not turned on the porch light, it was too dark for me to see who it was. I didn’t see Jacob’s car on the street, but that didn’t mean anything. He could have walked or had somebody drop him off. I held my breath and placed my ear against the door until I heard the visitor walking away. I ran to the window and cracked open the curtains. Whoever it was had on some kind of hooded windbreaker. He had the hood on his head, and it covered the top part of his face, so I still couldn’t tell who it was. He spotted me in the window, gave me a little wave, and lowered the hood so I could see his face. I was stunned to see Vernie. I snatched open the door.
“Vernie! Vernie, come on in,” I yelled. I propped the broom up in the corner by the door and beckoned for Jade’s husband to enter.
“Hi, Miss Davis,” he mumbled, dragging his feet as I led him into my living room.
“Please call me Annette,” I told him. I waved him to the couch and I sat on the love seat facing him. “I didn’t know you knew where I lived. It’s nice to see you.”
“Uh, I hope you don’t mind me coming by like this. I got your address out of Rhoda’s address book. She…Jade…nobody knows I’m over here. And I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell them that I came by here. I needed to talk to somebody. I don’t know anybody else up here that well yet, but since you’re a friend of the family I thought it’d be all right if I talked with you.”
“I see,” I said carefully, wondering what I was about to get myself involved in this time. “Vernie, would you like something to drink first?”
“Yes, ma’am. I think I need one. And the stronger the better.”
I padded to the cabinet where I kept my liquor, then poured him a shot of scotch and myself a glass of white wine.
“Now, what’s the problem?” I asked, returning to my seat and crossing my legs.
He had to take a sip from his glass first. Then he looked at me with tears in his eyes. “I need to talk to you about my wife.” His hands were shaking so hard he spilled a few drops of his drink on the top of my coffee table. When he realized that, he set the glass down on a coaster; then he started wringing his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come over here and make a mess.”
“Don’t worry about that. Talk to me,” I told him.
“Like I just said, I need to talk to you about my wife.” His hands started shaking even harder. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was nervous, angry, or frightened. I had a feeling it was probably all three. “That woman is driving me stone crazy!” he sputtered, balling one hand into a fist. “She is! She is driving me crazy!” He shook his fist in the air.
“I figured that,” I told him in a calm voice, looking him straight in the eye.
“Now, I know all about the bad blood between you and her. She told me her side of the story. She told me how you got jealous of her as soon as she got into her teens because she was so pretty and so slim, and you were, um, real fat and real plain back then. She told me how you used to talk trash about her, and call her names behind her back with people from the ’hood and stuff. She told me how you upset her so bad that one time that she had a mild breakdown and had to be hospitalized. She told me how she had to leave town to get you off her back. And when she came back, you started trash talking her again. That’s why she doesn’t want me to get to know you.”
As soon as Vernie stopped talking, I started. “Vernie, Jade told you her side of the story. Let me tell you my side.” I uncrossed my legs. “I treated Jade like she was my own child. She, like a lot of young girls, developed a crush on my husband. She started sending me anonymous hate mail, she harassed me by phone, thinking it was going to run me out of town so she could be with my husband. To make a long story short, her plan backfired. She didn’t get rid of me, and she didn’t get my husband. All she got for her troubles was a stint in the hospital after she suffered a mild ‘breakdown’ and ‘amnesia.’ Her parents sent her to New Orleans. She flunked out of college, drove her grandparents crazy; then she ran off to Cancún on spring break and got loose with a Mexican. She returned to Ohio with the Mexican. She drove him crazy, so he left here running, leaving her at the altar. That’s when she had another one of her breakdowns. Then she fled to Alabama. Now she’s back here and you…well, you married her. But by now, you must have an idea of what kind of girl she is.”
“Annette, I met Jade in a club one night. All I did was ask her to dance. From that point on, she decided I was ‘the one’ for her. Next thing I know, I’m standing in front of a preacher getting married to her!”
“Why did you go through with it?”
“She started cooking my goose the day she met me! She kept me drunk and sexed up, so half of the time I didn’t know my butt from a hole in the ground. I didn’t realize
she was cooking up a wedding! It happened so fast! And I didn’t see it coming!” Vernie paused and finished his drink. He raised his glass, indicating that he wanted a refill. I returned from the cabinet with the bottle, filled his glass again, and set the bottle on the coffee table in case he needed more. He wasted no time drinking his second glass of scotch. “I love the girl, but I wasn’t ready for all this! Here I am, twenty-two and stuck with a wife and she’s trying to get pregnant! All I wanted to do when I met her was have some fun. Now look at me!”
“Vernie, what are you going to do now? Do you plan to stay here and put up with Jade’s mess, or do you plan to go back to Alabama? What about your family?”
“It’s just my mama and my three sisters. They stopped speaking to me after Jade cussed ’em out and told them not to call up here. I do call home from payphones to check on my mama when I can. I don’t want to worry or upset her or my sisters, so I don’t let them talk to Jade. I’m the man in the family, and when my daddy died when I was sixteen, I promised them that I’d take care of them. Well, Jade got me going in so many different directions, I don’t know which way is up. Her daddy hired me and pays me well, but she controls my paycheck. I can’t send my mama anything like I had planned on doing. Jade goes with me to the bank, takes the bulk of my pay, goes shopping, gets her nails, hair, and face done, and then she gives me the change! I can’t live like this!”
“What do you plan to do? What can I do to help you?”
“I just needed to talk to somebody. I was going crazy sitting in that house. The only place I go without Jade is to work.”
“Where does she think you’re at now?” I asked, giving him a worried look.
“She went out drinking with some of her girlfriends. Otis is working late, and Rhoda went off somewhere with Bully. I was in the house by myself,” he said, looking at his watch. “I’ll be back home before any of them.” He rose.
