by Mary Monroe
She stood in front of one of the mirrors in the ladies’ room with water running in the sink. She was applying lipstick with one hand and clutching her cellular phone in the other. I let the door slam on purpose so she would know she was not alone, but that didn’t stop her from yelling at whoever was on the other end of the telephone. “Look, I know what I get paid to do! I’ve been doing this for you long enough to know all the rules.” I approached the stall farthest away from Ann, gently opening the door as she continued to yell into her phone. “No! I don’t want to come down to the islands! What? How dare you call me that! I’m not one of your shoeless island girls—” Ann finally realized she was not alone when she saw my reflection in the mirror. She whirled around and faced me, with her mouth hanging open and a frightened look on her face. She let out a loud sigh and clicked her telephone off, folding it and clutching it like it was trying to get away from her. “Trudy, how long have you been in here?” she asked with a forced smile, shutting off the water in the sink. I could see that she was nervous.
“I just walked in,” I muttered, blinking at the telephone in her hand.
“Girl, I’ve been on this phone all day trying to get a good deal on a headstone for my sister’s grave,” she stammered, waving her cell phone like it was a rock that she wanted to throw at the wall.
“Did you get one?” I asked lamely.
“I’m working on it,” Ann stammered. She left the ladies’ room in such a hurry, I had to jump out of the way to keep from getting mowed down.
When I returned to my desk, I looked at the telephone and noticed that Ann was on her private line. If Wendy and Pam had been paying more attention to me, I would not have picked up that line again. I held my breath and pressed the receiver close to my face with my hand covering the mouthpiece. Just as I had suspected, Ann was talking to that same Jamaican man I’d eavesdropped on before. It didn’t sound like he was masturbating this time.
“So you want to challenge me? Is that what you have on your agenda?” the man asked, talking loud. “I warned you when we first became close, I will not tolerate such behavior. Especially from a woman!”
“Well, I won’t tolerate your threats. You need me more than I need you. And please don’t forget one thing—I know all of your business!” Ann yelled. I sucked in my breath and held the telephone away from my face, staring at it like I was seeing it for the first time. I cut a glance in Pam’s direction. She was too involved in her own telephone conversation to notice me. I placed my hand back over the phone and scooted down in my seat, turning my head so Pam wouldn’t be able to see much of what I was doing.
The Jamaican snorted and mumbled some gibberish under his breath. He cleared his throat before he spoke again. “Yes, lady. You do know where the bodies are buried. But must I remind you, there’s always space for you in the same place.” If that was not a serious threat I didn’t know what was. I had heard enough.
I hung up the telephone and made a promise to myself that I would not listen in on any more of Ann’s conversations. I also promised myself that I would not share any of the information I had heard so far. Since I had only heard bits and pieces of the conversations I had no idea what it was I had stumbled into. It would be just like Freddie to blab to LoBo if I told her. And the way people talked, how was I to know that it wouldn’t get back to Ann? Not to mention that scary Jamaican man. I had already placed myself into a shaky position by including Freddie and LoBo in my credit card scams.
I put Ann out of my mind for the time being and I called up Freddie at her job. “Girl, Ann looked right at me when she arrived this morning and ignored me completely. I let that slide. I figured because of her sister’s tragedy she was too preoccupied to notice me—even though she did speak to Pam. But when I went to the break room a little while ago, she was all over the place thanking Lupe and Dennis for sending flowers to her sister’s funeral. She looked right at me and didn’t thank me for sending flowers. And when she got mugged, I sent her flowers then, too,” I said with a pout. “She didn’t thank me that time either.”
“Yeah, but you paid for them with her credit card,” Freddie reminded.
“She doesn’t know that,” I hissed, glancing up to make sure Pam was not listening to my conversation. “But I did pay for the flowers for her sister’s funeral with my own money.” I tapped my fingers on the top of my desk. “Maybe I should have been the one to say something,” I said, propping my elbow up next to my computer keyboard. “I still feel sorry for her.”
“Trudy, how can you be feeling so sorry for that woman. I mean, yeah, even I feel sorry about her getting mugged and losing her sister. But she’s still acting like a bitch and treating you like shit.”
“The woman can’t help herself, Freddie,” I snarled.
“And you can’t either, I guess. I know what you need to do. You need to use one of those credit cards to pay for some therapy.” Freddie yelled, talking fast because she was on her cellular phone in a stairwell at her work.
“You sure are in a foul mood this morning. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up before Freddie could get in another word. I was in a fairly good mood and I wanted to keep it that way.
I was glad that I was finally beyond being bothered too much by some of the hurtful things that Freddie or Wendy said to me. However, I could not say the same thing about Ann. No matter how nice she treated me from time to time, she continued to annoy and frustrate me even more.
Ann and I shared more than looks, ethnicity, and the same name on some credit cards. There were times when I had to stop myself from imitating her walk or the way she waved her hand back and forth when she spoke. There were times during my most extravagant shopping sprees when I had to remind myself that I was not the real Ann Oliver. I was not the Black American Princess that I posed as. Instead, I was the Cinderella version, who was living a lie that was so big it could no longer be measured. And the sad part about it all was I was enjoying every minute of my masquerade. The only time I felt like myself was when Ann was around.
I was sorry that Ann had returned to work. And I was sorry for feeling that way. I decided to do whatever I had to do to keep things in the proper perspective no matter how painful it was. It took just as much energy to be positive as it took to be negative. At least it did in my case. I would treat her the way I wanted her to treat me: with dignity and respect. She had no use for me, but I still had a vested interest in her.
The colorful posters and large, healthy-looking green plants decorating the lobby and administrative area of Bon Voyage didn’t do much to liven up the mood in the office. Everybody was dragging along in a sorry mood with a long face. Every now and then somebody muttered something about how important it was for us to cheer up “poor Ann.”
As often as I could I waited until Ann was safely out of her office before I delivered her mail. But whether she was present or not I never felt comfortable in her space. Today was no different.
Just before my lunch hour I decided to deliver the mail and telephone messages to the reps. I stepped out of the elevator and almost fainted from a sweet aroma that was so potent it made my eyes burn. I didn’t even have to guess where it was coming from. There were floral arrangements of every kind on Ann’s desk, on her floor, even on top of her file cabinet. There were roses of every color, as well as types of flowers that I’d never seen before. A stack of sympathy cards half a foot high, and a small music box with its mouth cracked open playing “You Light Up My Life,” sat on the desk on top of Ann’s twenty-one-inch computer monitor.
After setting a stack of telephone messages on top of her neatly arranged desk and the Wall Street Journal, I padded to the file cabinet in the corner by the window. The same file cabinet I’d purchased for Ann from Office Depot a couple of weeks ago.
Unlike the offices of the other reps, Ann’s didn’t have a CD player or a cute little radio sitting on a credenza playing easy listening music. Except for the loud ticktock coming from an L-shaped clock on her desk, her space w
as unbearably quiet. The smell of flowers and the unnatural silence reminded me of a funeral parlor. If that wasn’t disturbing enough, it suddenly felt like the room was closing in on me. I shuddered and started moving toward the door.
I hurried out of Ann’s office as fast as my numb legs could carry me. I deliberately kept my eyes on the floor in case I ran into one of the other reps before I could escape back to my workstation. I didn’t like to stand around talking to my coworkers unless I had to. Their conversations, which were usually centered on them, bored me. It was bad enough when one of them called me Ann, even though it had only happened a few times during my first couple of weeks. My being called Ann was ironic considering the circumstances. But I didn’t like being called “Judy” instead of Trudy, either. And a few times I’d even been called the names of former African American employees.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I made it to the ladies’ room without getting ambushed by Lupe, Dennis, Joy, or Mr. Rydell. The handicapped stall was occupied, and embarrassingly noisy.
As I stood over the sink washing my hands, the handicapped stall door swung open and Pam stumbled out. There was a severe frown on her face, which was as purple as a plum. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. “Hmph!” she muttered, with a tortured look spreading across her face. She let out a deep breath and patted her chest as she stopped in front of me and shook her head. “I never know how my body is going to react to Chinese food,” was all she said as she pressed her bloated belly with both hands.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I am now,” Pam mumbled, massaging her neck with a wet paper towel, then fanning her face with it. “You can have the rest of my fried rice if you want it,” she offered.
“Thanks, Pam. But I had my mind on steak and French fries for lunch.”
Pam shrugged. “If you change your mind, stop by my desk and get it before it gets too dried out.” Still frowning and fanning, Pam left the ladies’ room without washing her hands.
CHAPTER 46
As hungry as I was, there was no way I was going to eat Pam’s leftover lunch. There was no telling what I’d pick up from her unwashed hands.
I’d also declined another free lunch from Wendy. She had attempted to woo me with the promise of a pizza if I’d escort her to her doctor’s office, located in the tall building at the corner by my bus stop. To my horror and disbelief, Wendy was already trying to get pregnant by her new lover. She’d thrown up two mornings in a row and had dreamt about a fish. To her that was reason enough to start looking at baby clothes and see her doctor even though she’d only been with her new man a couple of weeks. I didn’t want to mention it to her, but I realized that if she was already pregnant, there was a chance that Daryl was the father.
I was not in the mood to spend time feeding the homeless people in the nearby park. They had all but adopted me, and therefore expected me to dole out food and money every time they saw me. There was also the danger of my being accosted by another Daryl in the park, or even Daryl himself.
I ended up grabbing a meatball sandwich from a restaurant across the street and the latest issue of Essence magazine from the corner newsstand, and returned to the office within ten minutes.
“If you change your mind about the rice, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll take it home to Boo Boo and Too Sweet. Cats are like men, they will eat anything.” Pam gave me a wink and a knowing look so I assumed her last comment had something to do with sex. “I put a coffee cake on the table in the break room. I made it last night. If you want a piece, you better hurry on up there. You know how greedy the folks around here are,” Pam told me, pausing in front of my desk to take a sip from a Starbucks cup. “Last week I caught two of those creeps from the insurance company on the second floor slicing up that pound cake I made—before any of us could even get a piece!”
“Thanks, Pam,” I said. “I think I’ll pass this time,” I added with a smile. Pam looked like a clean woman. But Osama bin Laden looked like a nice man. Looking clean, or nice, didn’t mean a thing. I’d seen Pam, with my own eyes, stroll out of a stall and leave the ladies’ room without splashing a drop of soap and water on the very hands that had caressed and, I hoped, wiped her behind.
I’d never been to her apartment but I knew she got very affectionate with her two cats, Boo Boo and Too Sweet. She had shown me pictures of her kissing them on the lips. And cat hair often draped her clothes, not to mention an occasional flea.
After that session with Pam in the ladies’ room, I knew that I would never again eat anything that she brought from home. Mainly because of a big news story in California a couple of years ago. A woman had died right after eating in a Mexican restaurant near San Francisco. An autopsy revealed feces in her system. The woman had literally eaten shit. After a bunch of other patrons who had also eaten in the same restaurant had to be rushed to the hospital, there was a big investigation. As hard as it was to believe, the investigators found traces of feces in other dishes at the same restaurant. One of the kitchen employees admitted that he had rarely washed his hands when he used the restroom. The scandal had almost caused the restaurant to close, but it remained open because people were still stupid enough to keep eating there. Recalling that detail made me wonder if it would do any good for me to tell anybody about Pam’s nasty self.
The minute I walked into the break room and saw Ann standing over the counter with a knife slicing into Pam’s coffee cake I reacted the way a responsible person should have.
“Ann, wait!” I yelled, holding up my hand. “Please don’t eat any of that cake!”
Ann Oliver was one of the best-looking Black women I had ever seen in person. But for her to be such a pretty woman she sure knew how to make some ugly faces. She screwed up her face and looked at me like I was speaking Gaelic.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, placing the hand with the knife on her hip.
“Remember that big newspaper story a while back about that Bay Area woman who died after eating in that Mexican restaurant?”
Ann gave my words some consideration. “I was in Rome when that happened, but I heard all about it when I got back,” she said, an inquisitive look on her face. “So what?”
I glanced at the door before I inched toward her. I stopped with my face just inches away from hers. “Pam’s not the cleanest person in the world,” I said in a voice just above a whisper.
Ann gave me a bewildered look and a mild shrug. “And you know this for a fact?”
“I do,” I said, with a vigorous nod, my eyes on the floor. “And take my word for it; you don’t want to know the details. You don’t want to eat anything Pam Bennett cooked.”
A slight smile appeared on Ann’s face and she tilted her head to the side, staring at me out of the corner of one eye. “Are you just saying this so there’d be more cake for you?”
Her unexpected smile made me feel more comfortable. “I don’t want any,” I replied.
“Oh, well, that’s that.” Ann dropped the knife back onto the counter. “I don’t have much of an appetite these days anyway.” She backed to the nearest of the bright blue plastic tables decorating the break room and slid into a matching chair.
As I was about to leave, I took a deep breath and faced Ann. “I am really sorry about your sister. If there is anything I can do, just let me know.” Before I could make it out of the door Ann released a tortured moan. I turned sharply to face her again. Tears had already filled her eyes, but she managed to hold them back by blinking hard and fast.
“I am really going to miss my baby sister,” she told me. I took this as an invitation to stay.
“Ann, your sister is out of her pain,” I said gently, giving her hand a light squeeze. Her response almost gave me a heart attack.
“Trudy, I don’t know of an easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it.” Ann paused and shifted in her seat, looking me straight in the eyes. “I know you’re trying to be me,” she announced.
The words hit me like a Mack
truck. I froze and stopped breathing.
CHAPTER 47
“What ... what do you mean?” I managed. I developed an acute case of tunnel vision. For a quick moment I couldn’t see anything in the room except Ann’s face. There seemed to be darkness all around me.
“That didn’t come out the way I wanted it to.” Ann cleared her throat and beckoned me with her hand. “Have a seat, Trudy.”
Like a zombie, I moved to the table and tumbled into the seat across from her.
“You remind me of my sister and a lot of other women. Women who all want to be like me. Limitations have kept you from experiencing a lot of the things that life has to offer. I am where you want to be. I can tell that much by the way you look at me. My sister had that same look in her eyes every time I saw her. Some people call it envy, I call it ambition. With more education and experience, you could really go places, too.” Ann gave me a triumphant smile and snapped her fingers. “I am the woman whom women like you and my dear baby sister—may she rest in peace until I get there—want to be. I am proud to say that because I’ve paid my dues and worked hard, I deserve every damn thing I have. Sure I can be a ball-breaking bitch, but it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the oil.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Uh-huh,” I mumbled.
“My sister tried to dress like me. She tried to act, talk, and walk like me. But she had too many limitations ! I used to tell her all the time to just be herself. Life is so much easier that way. Do you understand what I am saying?”
I nodded hard, and smiled even harder. “Oh, I understand. I understand completely.”
Ann gave me a pensive look, then without warning she threw her head back and laughed. I laughed, too. Even though I didn’t know what we were laughing about. Ann wet her lips before continuing. “Let me share a funny, but cute, little story with you. When my sister was a baby she got attached to one of my daddy’s relatives. Cousin Bett was in her forties. She’d had polio for years so she dragged her left leg when she walked. My sister was just learning to walk at the time. For the first few weeks, she walked just like Cousin Bett, dragging her leg behind her.”
