by Mary Monroe
And there was only one way that I knew of.
Staying on at Bon Voyage was going to be a real challenge. The last thing I wanted to do was give in too soon. I was proud of the fact that I had hurled a little bit of anger in Ann’s direction during my meeting with her. I’d surprised the hell out of her. I wondered which one of us would give in first. She would win the battle if she succeeded in getting me fired. And, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what satisfaction she’d get out of that. But then, there was no rhyme or reason involved when people went off the deep end. I was proof of that.
My mind wandered off in so many directions, I had a hard time keeping up with reality. Somehow I managed to make some sense out of my actions. If I managed to hold onto my job, it would do wonders for my morale and self-esteem. Life had beaten me down enough so I had to grab happiness where I could find it. Since I had managed to remain intact after the assault I’d endured in the liquor store, there was no way I was going to let a woman like Ann get my goat.
“After the mess she just went through with her sister, I felt so sorry for her, I threw away all that shit you got for me. I even cut up the credit cards I already had!”
LoBo gasped. “Why you do some stupid shit like that for? I went to a lot of trouble to hook you up.”
I nodded. “I know you did, brother, and I appreciate it. But I am going to need you to hook me up again.”
“That wouldn’t be no problem. No problem at all. But it’s goin’ to cost you more this time . . .”
“I don’t care what it costs me. I can afford it. You got a passport?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“As a bonus for the new documents you get for me, I’m going to treat you and Freddie to a weekend in Mexico. First class,” I said.
CHAPTER 52
When I arrived at Harvey’s an hour after my meeting with LoBo, Freddie, and Sarah and Lisa Wright were all loud and tipsy. They stumbled around on the small dance floor, dancing in a circle with their arms around one another. I stood by the exit until they wobbled to a booth next to the bar. The other few patrons paid no attention to Freddie and her crew, or me.
The way I staggered across the floor you would have thought that I was drunk, too. But the beers that I had consumed with LoBo had only sharpened my senses. I joined Freddie and the other two women as soon as they sat down.
“Trudy, Freddie told us all about that boot-licking-Uncle-Tom–house-nigger-bitch you work for,” Sarah yelled, flashing her waist-length dreadlocks. “You want me to kick her ass?” Sarah was a size two but as rough and tough as they come. I had seen her lock horns with women and a few men twice her size and walk away unscathed. She’d deballed a former boyfriend by biting into his genital area when he made her perform oral sex on him after he had already dumped her. He was too embarrassed to press charges, but everybody in the ’hood knew about it. The rumor was that he could no longer produce children, and he would have to use a big cumbersome pump-like thing to help him get an erection from now on. He was a lonely man these days. I had always wanted to be more like Sarah. Had I been, the day that that sucker made me suck his dick in Daddy’s liquor store, there would be at least one more man walking around with a pair of useless balls.
Lisa was Sarah’s mother but a lot of people didn’t know that. There was only a thirteen year age difference. They co-owned the beauty shop where we all got our hair permed, braided, weaved, or whatever. I admired strong successful women like Lisa and Sarah, but they were more Freddie’s friends than mine. However, they always made me feel welcome when I was around them. I also chatted on the telephone and went shopping with one or the other from time to time. I felt comfortable sharing information about my personal life with Lisa and Sarah because I knew that no matter what, these were the kinds of women who took a lot of pride in the fact that they supported other sisters that they considered their homegirls. But it was a different story when it was a sister who didn’t know how to behave like one.
“That Ann Oliver sure don’t sound like nobody I know, but fighting never solved anything,” Lisa insisted, adjusting the San Francisco Giants baseball cap hiding her short Afro. “The Latina girl who rents the apartment below me, she got her face all cut up when she tangled with a knife-toting, just-arrived-from-Tijuana chola heifer in Berkeley last year.” Lisa was like a lot of pretty women I knew. The last thing she wanted was for somebody to disfigure her heart-shaped baby face. She sniffed and fiddled with one of her false eyelashes. “I say you should quit that damn job.”
“Uh-uh. Don’t you let that bitch run you off, girl,” Sarah blurted, glaring at her mother. “It sounds like you just being there gets on her nerves. Stay there and make her suffer. Sneak into her office and delete some of her files. Send her anonymous threatening letters. Piss in her trash can. Mix up some Drano and water and pour it in her plants. Find out who her man is and fuck the hell out of him.” We all laughed.
“Naw, that’s all too tame. I got a better idea,” Lisa said with a snort. “I can get you some dangerous shit that you can slip in her purse before she leaves for her next overseas trip. Then drop a dime and make an anonymous call to customs before she gets back. Tell them she’s muling drugs,” Lisa suggested, slurring her words. I gave her an exasperated look. She rotated her neck and gave me an exasperated look back.
“I could never do something like that to Ann, or anybody else,” I admitted. I was proud of the fact that I still had some feelings of morality left.
“Oh, girl, you know I am just bullshitting you. I wouldn’t do anything that deep to another woman either. But I would still give her a mild whupping,” Lisa said with a great burp. She closed her eyes and gave her head a vigorous shake. “Y’all, I am not drinking anything else this week!” she declared with a raised fist.
Sarah cleared her throat to get some attention. “Trudy, while that Ann’s off somewhere basking her black ass in the sun, call up and cancel her credit cards,” Sarah advised.
Freddie looked at me with an amused look on her face. I shook my head and gave her a threatening look. The last thing I wanted was for the discussion to include anything about credit cards. Freddie must have read my mind. “Leave that job, Trudy. You don’t have to put up with that shit when there are a lot of other places where you can work. Why you want to work anywhere in the first place when you don’t have to is beyond me anyway. By the way, how is James?”
I was glad Freddie had steered the conversation away from credit cards. I didn’t want Lisa and Sarah to know too much of my business. “James is fine,” I said, sounding and feeling a lot calmer now that I was in the presence of a powerful support group. “He wants to go look at some property.”
“Well, if I had a man like James, that’s what I’d really be concentrating on instead of that bitch you work with. Men like him are so hard to come by,” Sarah said with a tired voice, looking at her watch. At twenty-nine, Sarah had already been married and divorced twice. “I gots to run, ladies. My babysitter will have a cow if I make her miss another date. Little Mama, you going to give me a ride home?”
“Sure, baby. I need to get up out of here, too,” Lisa replied. She looked toward the door, leering at a gorgeous man in jeans leaning against the wall. He waved to Lisa and tapped his watch. “Looks like I got a date,” she announced, grinning and snapping her fingers.
Lisa and Sarah rose at the same time.
“Let’s all hook up this weekend,” Freddie yelled as the two women rushed away from the booth. As soon as Lisa and Sarah made it out the door, with the handsome man in jeans holding Lisa by the arm, Freddie slid across the vinyl seat closer to me. “Girl, what is going on with you and that crazy bitch?”
I made her wait until I picked up a round of drinks from the bar. Then I told her the same thing I’d told LoBo. She shook her head and gave me a pitiful look. She surprised me with some comments that didn’t support my mood. “You have to feel sorry for the woman. She got mugged, she lost her sister. Once she’s over all that maybe
she’ll treat you better. After all, she is a sister.”
“Sister my ass!” I shouted. “Ann Oliver couldn’t care less about a sisterhood. All she cares about is herself. You just wait. As soon as LoBo gets me another ID, I’m going to get me a new car and a ton of new credit cards!”
“And what is that going to prove? You’ll be the one paying for all that shit you charge up in Ann’s name.”
I responded in a lower voice because people around us had started to look at us and listen. “I don’t care. I did it before, I can do it again. She won’t know about it, but I will. And you didn’t have a problem helping me enjoy all that stuff I did with her credit cards,” I reminded. “Don’t go getting moral on me.”
“I appreciate everything you did treat me to. And I don’t really give a shit about Ann. But I just don’t want you to get yourself into something you can’t get out of. That’s all. You have been damn lucky so far. You are still paying on those other credit cards, right?”
I nodded. “Through the teeth.”
“Quit while you’re ahead.”
“I still have that mailbox,” I told Freddie, with a gleam burning in my eye.
“So?”
“I can get more cards and when I get tired of paying on them, I can cancel that mailbox and the cards. And I won’t pay a dime on them. You told me yourself how your bank writes bad debts off when they can’t find people.”
“Trudy, you’re using the Social Security number and name of a real person!” Freddie hollered, giving me a disturbing look. “Girl, it won’t take the banks no time to track the real Ann down.”
“How can they prove that I’m the one who stole her identity?”
“If you’re smart and don’t blab to the wrong person, they probably won’t.”
“Exactly.”
“But it won’t be that easy if you get a car in her name. It would leave too much of a paper trail. Insurance, registration, fees. I thought you knew all of this shit already. I do remember discussing cars with you and telling you how risky that was.”
I gave this piece of information some thought. “Then I won’t get a car.”
Freddie was surprised but she didn’t resist when I paid our tab with the one credit card I still had in Ann’s name: the one from work that I used to purchase office supplies.
“This charge won’t show up on the statement?” she asked, giving me a worried look.
“Didn’t I tell you that nobody sees the statements but me?” I reminded. “Now, let’s go to that expensive Thai restaurant on Bancroft before it closes. You want some lobster?”
Even though Freddie tried to encourage me, very mildly, not to masquerade as Ann Oliver, she never turned down anything I offered. I knew that she didn’t really approve of what I was doing, but she was the one who had led me in this direction in the first place! I had to keep reminding myself that all I had planned to do that day in the hamburger joint with Ann Oliver’s credit card was pay for our lunch, just that one time. In a way this mess was all Freddie’s fault, but I didn’t have the nerve to tell her that.
“I . . . I guess so,” Freddie said. “Will you cover a cab to take me home from the restaurant?”
“Uh-huh. No problem at all,” I said, glad to see a broad smile light up Freddie’s face. “What the hell.”
CHAPTER 53
I was more than a little drunk when I got home. Daddy and Spider, the biker from next door, were in the living room mumbling about something. They both turned around and stared at me when I bumped into the wall.
Daddy had about as much in common with the Hell’s Angels as I did. Other than drinking and watching television I couldn’t figure out what he and Spider had to talk about so much. But Spider was in our living room almost every evening. He never said much to me other than a muffled greeting.
“Yo, princess,” Spider greeted from a chair facing Daddy on the couch. Despite all of the bad press that bikers received, the ones I’d met had treated me with nothing but respect. It pleased me to have Spider around to keep Daddy occupied. It took some of the pressure off me.
Daddy and James didn’t smoke, but most of Daddy’s friends did. Spider smoked cigarettes and cigars, and I suspected something illegal. None of that bothered me. But the mess that smokers made did. Even with an ashtray as wide as a pie pan on the coffee table, there were at least a dozen burns on the table’s top. Daddy didn’t like for me to buy things for the house unless we absolutely needed it, but I made a mental note to get us a new coffee table on my very next shopping expedition.
“Yo,” I said back, waving to Spider. “Hi, Daddy.”
“I cooked some lima beans and cornbread, and me and Spider done et up everything but the plates,” Daddy said with a chuckle, looking me up and down. “That’s what you get for takin’ your time gettin’ home. Spider, you lucky you ain’t got to worry about stuff like this with your girl. You got a real good daughter . . .” I saw Daddy wink at Spider out of the corner of my eye. I ignored the comment anyway. Rising with a groan and a frown, Daddy followed me to the kitchen where I dropped my purse onto the floor, spilling most of its contents.
“I had a late staff meeting to attend, Daddy.”
“Uh-huh. Y’all drinkin’ on the job?” he said, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Why do you ask?” I asked, holding my breath.
“Girl, alcohol is my business. I can smell it a mile away.”
“Yeah, we had dinner and some wine delivered to the office. My boss treated us all.”
“And who is Ann Oliver?” Daddy asked, following me on my heels to my room. I made such a sharp fast turn I almost fell. “That your boss?”
I stared at Daddy for so long in slack-jawed amazement that he waved his hand in front of my eyes. “Hello?” he said with a sneer. “You still with me?”
It took another few seconds and a lot of effort on my part for me to tune-up my mouth and speak again. “I’m sorry, Daddy, uh, I just had a sharp pain,” I muttered, rubbing an imaginary discomfort in my chest.
“Well, that must run in the family. Next time you make another appointment for me with Dr. Scruggs, you better make one for yourself, too,” Daddy said with his hands on his hips.
“Daddy, how do you know about Ann Oliver?” I asked with a huge lump forming in my throat.
He handed me the credit card receipt from the Thai restaurant I’d taken Freddie to. “This fell out of your purse.”
“Oh,” I said, snatching the piece of paper. “She’s my boss.”
“I thought your boss was a man. A Mr. Rydell.”
“Huh? He is. Mr. Rydell is the main boss. Ann Oliver is his assistant. She helps him supervise things.”
Daddy rolled his eyes and scratched the side of his face. “What you doin’ with a credit card receipt with her name on it?” he asked, scratching the gray stubble on his chin.
“Uh, she was the one who paid for the dinner,” I offered with a heavy tongue. I couldn’t believe all the physical discomforts I experienced when I got stressed.
Daddy narrowed his eyes and gave me a hard look. “I thought y’all had food brought to the office this evenin’ .”
“We did! But a few of us stopped off at a restaurant for dessert after we left the office. Ann Oliver was a little tipsy and forgot to pick up her receipt. I’ll give it to her tomorrow,” I said over my shoulder, walking toward my bedroom with Daddy on my heels mumbling under his breath all the way. I gave Daddy a broad smile before I picked up the telephone on my nightstand and started dialing James’s number, hoping Daddy would take the hint and return to his company.
“You might want to tell her to be more careful. If an itty-bitty piece of paper like this get in the wrong hands with her credit card number on it, that Ann woman’ll be gettin’ a big surprise when she get her bill.” The credit card receipt felt like a hand grenade in my hand. Daddy looked at it, then at my face. “Why is your hand shakin’ so hard, girl?”
“Huh? I got a chill from the night air.” I folded
the receipt into the size of a stamp and balled my hand, praying that James would answer his telephone.
“See there. That’s what you get for tryin’ to be cute and not wear enough clothes!” Daddy scolded, waving his hand in the air like a conductor. “Sound like you just as careless with your own business as that Ann woman is with her credit card paperwork. Remember that time somebody got ahold of my American Express number and charged some car repairs to me?”
“Yes, I remember that, Daddy.” I sighed. I clutched the receipt and the telephone in my hand so hard my fingers got numb.
James didn’t answer his phone but I pretended he did. “Hi, baby, did you make that appointment with the realtor?” I said into his answering machine.
A pleased look appeared on Daddy’s face. He smiled and gently shut my door on his way out of my room.
CHAPTER 54
I arrived an hour early for our next weekly Friday morning staff meeting. Why Mr. Rydell wanted the clerical employees to sit in on these boring dog and pony shows was a mystery to me.
When Ann was in town, the staff meeting was nothing more than an opportunity for her to grandstand. She loved to be the center of attention, so in a crowd she was a very animated person. She liked to tilt her head and wave her hands when she spoke. When she really wanted to bring the house down, she got so melodramatic she shed a tear or two. She enjoyed regaling her listeners with stories even I found interesting for the most part. Once during one of her visits to Rome, she’d had drinks with a blind prostitute. In Paris a dog had followed her down a street and peed on her foot. And no matter where in the world she went, she had to beat the men off with a stick. Everybody predicted that eventually one of her dapper admirers would permanently sweep her off her feet.
