by Mary Monroe
When Ann was not putting on her show, Wendy, Pam, and I had to sit for a whole hour listening to Mr. Rydell and the reps yip yap about new hotels, new ad campaigns to attract more business, and ways that Bon Voyage could get even more discounts on their tour packages.
To my everlasting horror, somebody always had to suggest a potluck. The one planned for the coming Tuesday was to celebrate Ann’s landing a huge contract with Mechtel Construction and Engineering Company. They planned to send engineers to Iraq to help rebuild the mess that the war had caused. America’s current state of affairs was another reason we had our staff meetings.
When the conversation turned to politics at our latest meeting, I tuned out. Apparently, I made a gesture that drew attention to myself.
“Trudy, did you have a comment?” Dennis Klein asked, adjusting his glasses. His eyes were wide with anticipation. He had smoothed things over with his mistress after a weekend in Vegas so now he walked around grinning all of the time. Even over nothing. The flowery notes that his lover sent to him at the office were coming three and four at the same time now. “You’ve been awful quiet lately.” Poor Dennis. He was looking more and more like Harry Potter every day. When people told him that, which somebody did almost every day, he did all he could to enhance the illusion. He wore more dark clothes than before and he went so far as to tack a Harry Potter poster on the wall in his office facing his desk. He had given his nephew the whole series of Harry Potter books at his bar mitzvah, but Dennis kept the books on a shelf in his office. I saw myself in Dennis. We were both imitating people we could never be.
“Uh, no comment,” I mumbled, blinking at Ann who was looking at me with a look I could not interpret. She had been cordial to me since our meeting in her office. She’d even sent me out for coffee a few times, like nothing had ever happened.
“As you all know, Ann and Lupe will be heading off to Jamaica this weekend. Let’s keep them in our prayers,” Mr. Rydell said before dismissing us all.
Hearing that Ann was going to be out of the office for a while was the only thing that had come out of our latest meeting that meant anything to me.
“I think she’s got a lover down in Jamaica,” Wendy whispered to Pam and me on our way back to the reception area.
“Who? Who has a lover down in Jamaica?” I asked, like I didn’t already know the answer.
“You know that sexy dude who calls here for her sometimes?” Pam said, rubbing her nose with her finger then wiping it on the side of her skirt.
“I don’t know anything about any sexy dude,” I said, trying not to sound too interested. I couldn’t imagine how Pam and Wendy would react if I told them what I did know about Ann’s personal life. She received more calls than all of the other reps put together. I had recently taken a few messages from a man who identified himself as a Mr. Giles. He had a nice, pleasant tone of voice and a deep Jamaican accent. Although I was not sure of it, I suspected that Mr. Giles was the same Jamaican who had called for Ann the times I’d eavesdropped on her telephone calls. The same man who had upset her so much. I knew for a fact that she had had some kind of an intimate relationship with the Jamaican. Especially after that time I heard her having phone sex with him that day she had him masturbating so hard. “Ann doesn’t discuss her love life with me,” I said, holding back a sheepish grin.
“Oh, you’d be surprised at what you can hear while sitting in a bathroom stall when she and Lupe are standing around running off at the mouth.” Pam grinned as I plopped down into my chair behind my desk. Then she and Wendy hovered over me like magpies.
As attractive, stylish, and sophisticated as Ann was, because of her aloof behavior around me, I rarely looked at her from a social point of view. Common sense told me that she probably had a good man (more than likely, she had several good men) stashed away somewhere. I had assumed that much from her bragging about how men all over the world tried to seduce her. Women like her always kept a supply of wellheeled, generous male fools in line waiting their turn to be used. It would explain her extravagant lifestyle.
“Ann’s got a man in every city in the world. Some Frenchman followed her back to the States last year when she went to Paris,” Wendy said, leaning over my desk. “You should have seen the funny way she walked when she came back to work.” Wendy and Pam guffawed.
“I bet he’s the one who paid for her new BMW,” Wendy whispered. “You will never catch her tooling around town in a Altima like me.”
“I figured Ann used a broom to get around on,” I said, laughing. Like a bad headache, Ann came out of nowhere and pranced over to my desk. As if on cue, Wendy and Pam scrambled to their workstations.
“Trudy, may I ask you to do me a favor while I’m in Jamaica next week?” Ann asked sweetly. She displayed a smile so thin I could see through it.
“Of course,” I replied with a shrug. I was beginning to feel like one of the robotlike women in the movie The Stepford Wives.
Ann beckoned for me to follow her back to her office.
“Uh, if you receive any calls from a Mr. Giles, don’t tell him that I’m in Jamaica,” she said, closing the door so fast she almost caught my foot in the doorjamb. She mumbled an apology. “Even if he doesn’t leave his name, you’ll know him. He has a very thick Jamaican accent and he’s very charming.”
“Okay,” I mumbled, standing in front of her desk as she slid into her chair. “But isn’t he already in Jamaica?” I asked, rubbing my injured ankle with the toe of my other foot.
“Yes, he is. But I don’t want him to know I’m down there, too. It’s very important. If he insists on knowing where I am, tell him I’m in Paris with my fiancé. Michel Moreau is my fiancé’s name, in case Mr. Giles asks.”
I had been working with this woman for months and I’d found out more about her love life in the last few minutes than I’d learned in all that time. I was puzzled because Ann was obviously nervous. So much that her hands started to shake.
“And do me a favor and not discuss this with anyone else,” she said, rising.
“All right,” I mumbled.
“Thanks, Trudy. I owe you one,” she said, patting my shoulder and opening the door.
I was curious but I knew not to ask any more than she’d told me. It didn’t matter anyway. I was just glad that I wouldn’t have to see her for a week.
There was a message from LoBo on my voice mail when I returned to my desk. “I’ll have the stuff you requested by next week,” he said.
I smiled and started flipping through brochures advertising weekend package deals to Mexico.
CHAPTER 55
I had not been to church on a regular basis in years. Before Mama died, we used to go all the time. But not to one of the loud, foot-stomping, all-Black Baptist churches like the one Freddie and most of the other Black people I knew went to. That was the kind of church that Daddy had attended before he hooked up with my mother.
As a bona fide hippie back in the day, Mama had had some strange notions when it came to religion. That was what I’d been told by my Black relatives. Mama had encouraged Daddy to desert the church he had been attending for years. One day, he slid into a dashiki and some sandals and accompanied Mama to the New Hope Temple, a nondenominational place behind a warehouse in south San Jose. People of all races congregated there to listen to a short, chubby White woman preach the gospel. It was the kind of place where you could “come as you are,” so to speak. Mama would even let me wear pants or shorts if I wanted to. She and Daddy both drew the line the time I wanted to go to church in my one-piece bathing suit when I was eight.
I was just a toddler when Jim Jones led his flock on a suicide mission in the jungles of Jonestown, and I had heard a lot about it growing up. Daddy used to socialize with some of the relatives of the victims in San Francisco. Some people were convinced that the New Hope Temple and their short, chubby female preacher was an offshoot of Jim Jones and his mess.
When Mama died, Daddy began to lose faith in religion. He’d stomp around t
he house complaining about one thing after another that God had let happen.
Uncle Pete, who had been one of the biggest devils in town, had the nerve to be a church deacon and I used to eavesdrop on him praying to God to let him win the lottery or to keep the cops off his back.
“God helps them who help themselves,” Uncle Pete told me once. That was right after he had stumbled across a duffel bag full of money that had fallen off a Brinks armored truck in Oakland. That was the only time I ever knew about something that really did fall off a truck. Unfortunately, my uncle blabbed to his friends and even trusted one of his shady women friends to hide the money in her bedroom closet. When she blabbed to the wrong person the investigators came knocking at her door and hauled her off to jail. Uncle Pete hid out in L.A. until things cooled off. As soon as he returned to South Bay City he started looking for new ways to get rich quick.
James and his mother went to church every Sunday and every now and then they dragged me along with them. I had been avoiding James and his mama lately. Not because I didn’t want to go to church with them but because I honestly didn’t want to see them as much while I had so many other things to sort out
We had a Bible in the house but all it was doing was collecting dust on a shelf in our kitchen closet. When my brother and Uncle Pete died, Daddy gave up on God and religion forever. Or so he said. On more than one occasion I’d overheard Daddy praying in his room. The same night of my ordeal with the robber in the liquor store, I’d passed by Daddy’s bedroom after we’d both gone to bed. With a sob in his voice, he had thanked God for sparing me and he’d asked that no harm come to me in the future.
I sincerely believed that God was looking out for me. Especially since He’d already let me down by taking my mama and my brother. God owed me. That’s why I went to the ladies’ room at the airport and prayed to God that I wouldn’t get caught trying to sneak into Mexico with a fake passport that Friday night after work. My disastrous meeting with Ann was so fresh and potent on my mind that I wanted to get as much mileage out of my anger as possible. I couldn’t think of a better way to do that than to use one of the new credit cards I’d just received in her name to treat myself to a first class tropical weekend with all the trimmings.
Since I had never been to Mexico I didn’t know what to expect. The June weather in Puerto Vallarta was brutally hot and there was an unpleasant odor in the air. I almost fainted as soon as I stepped off the plane and stumbled across the airfield into the airport behind a crowd of rowdy vacationers. Some of them had taken full advantage of the complimentary drinks during the flight and were already pitifully drunk. One blondhaired passenger was hauled directly from the plane into a police car by the Mexican authorities after he’d threatened one of the flight attendants. I had been too nervous to have even one drink. Even though alcohol gave me a false sense of courage, I wanted to have a clear mind in case the customs people asked me something complicated.
“Hello, señorita. Welcome to Mexico,” the cute Customs clerk at the airport entrance counter said with a broad smile as he stamped my passport. He didn’t even look that closely at the picture. He just blinked at it. My passport could have contained a picture of Godzilla and it would not have made a difference. Instead, the clerk’s eyes roamed up and down the low cut blouse I had on. He winked at me and sniffed real hard, causing his thick black mustache to wiggle. “Aaah . . . very nice perfume, señorita,” he said.
I blushed and clutched the handle of my suitcase, which was filled to capacity with expensive new sexy lingerie and cute beach wear. “Muchos gracias, señor,” I replied, rushing away from the counter and out to the curb where a line of dull yellow cabs sat as if they were all waiting for me.
CHAPTER 56
The foul smell in the air seemed to be everywhere but I liked Mexico already. I had never traveled so far away from home by myself, and something told me that I was not going to regret my decision to finally do so. It already seemed like an adventure.
Most of the airport security guards, some armed with long rifles, stood around chatting and flirting with every woman in sight. One guard, his weapon propped up against a wall, was piled up in a lumpy foam chair sleeping and snoring like a bear. Stout, bowlegged women with Indian features, some with skin as dark as mine, roamed around the airport hawking everything from T-shirts to beads. It pleased me to see a lot of the local women with their hair in cornrows. Since so many of the Black women I knew wore cornrows from time to time, it made me feel right at home. Something told me that this wouldn’t be the last time I slid south of the border.
A sweaty man dressed in dingy white shorts and a dingy white shirt followed me out of the airport trying to sell me a time-share. When I told him I was not interested, he tried to make a date with me instead.
My middle-aged cab driver, who wore a T-shirt that said AMERICANS GO HOME AND TAKE ME WITH YOU, sped through the narrow, tree-lined streets, on the way to the Sheraton hotel, grinning all the way. He had to dodge frisky chickens and humpbacked old people leading donkeys and dragging goats down the middle of the road. He talked nonstop about any- and everything. “Ju like to dance, go to the Club Bonita. Tonight is lady night,” he told me. I was pleased to see that so many Mexicans spoke English.
“Is it far from the hotel where I’ll be staying?” I asked in a loud voice so I could be heard over the cab’s loud, rumbling motor.
“No, not far. Ju tell me what time, I come for to pick ju up tonight. Ju okay with that? Oh—I am Carlos.” Carlos looked in the rearview mirror and leered at me with his toothy grin. When I grinned back, he whirled around. “If ju want me to, I go with ju, morena,” he said with a suggestive gleam in his eye. “Ay Carumba . . .”
“Oh, no, thank you, Carlos. I can go alone,” I replied quickly and firmly. “Pick me up at nine.”
The same night that LoBo had given me the fake passport, I’d decided to make plans to travel to Mexico. I told Daddy and James that I had another work-related retreat coming up.
Daddy’s off-and-on lady friend, Miss Sadie, had been having more trouble with her grandsons lately so he had a lot on his mind. He just grunted and waved me out of the room when I told him. He came to my room later that night to inform me that Miss Sadie’s two older grandsons had been convicted again and promptly sent to Corcoran, the most hellish prison in the state of California. It made San Quentin look like the Holiday Inn. And the guards were even more brutal and corrupt than the inmates. They entertained themselves by beating and killing the prisoners and putting them in situations where they would beat and kill one another. I could understand why Daddy was so preoccupied. I just didn’t like him being dumped on so much by that woman. It was one of the main reasons I chose not to associate with Miss Sadie. “Now, where you say you was gwine, baby girl?” Daddy asked. “Sadie and them young’ns ’bout to worry me half to death. I can’t remember nothin’ you told me tonight. You did say somethin’ about gwine away for the weekend, didn’t you?”
“I’m going down to Mexico on business for a couple of days, Daddy,” I said, holding my breath as I awaited his response.
“Okay, baby. Have a nice trip,” he muttered. I didn’t like the fact that Daddy had allowed other peoples’ problems to crowd his mind. But in a way I was glad that he had something else to fret about instead of me.
I didn’t tell James to his face. I was not about to let an interrogation spoil my vacation. And I certainly was not going to have James insist on going with me. I left him a message on his answering machine. I didn’t return his call when he called me back ten minutes later.
Freddie’s parents backed out of the babysitting commitment when she told them that LoBo was going to Mexico with us. Therefore, she and LoBo had to pass up a free trip. It upset Freddie and I promised her that I’d cheer her up with a trip to Hawaii soon. “I love my folks but I don’t know what I’d do without you, Trudy,” Freddie told me. Freddie’s family couldn’t figure out what she saw in LoBo, a man who hauled trash for a living and had
no ambition to do anything else. But the worst thing about LoBo as far as Freddie’s family was concerned was the fact that he was as “crooked as a hillbilly’s teeth.” None of that went over too well with Freddie’s father, who was an accountant. I wouldn’t have wanted LoBo to be my man, but he had some qualities that I did admire. He truly looked out for the people he cared about. A month before his high school graduation, his grandfather passed away. LoBo canceled a date with his girl at the time and took his griefstricken grandmother to the prom. Teachers were still talking about it when I got to high school a few years later. I felt blessed to have LoBo as a replacement for my deceased brother. He always looked out for me.
“Girl, you best be careful down there in Margaritaville. Them folks down there make a habit out of gettin’ loose. Don’t drink out of no glass you let get out of your sight. Dudes are puttin’ all kinds of crazy shit in women’s drinks these days. And that date-rape shit dudes be usin’, they sell over the counter in half of the drugstores in Mexico! And, girl, whatever you do, don’t let nobody talk you into bringin’ no package, not even no book, back to the States with you. If you was to get caught with some dope that somebody tricked you into mulin’, your goose is cooked to a crispy critter,” LoBo warned. With LoBo encouraging me and helping me pull off my credit card scam, his concern for my well-being in Mexico seemed contradictory.
I had two fresh new MasterCards in my possession that had been issued the same day I’d applied online. The banks were so anxious for me to start using the cards they offered to send them to me by overnight express mail. After I’d picked up the cards from my private mailbox, I immediately called a rival travel agency from my cell phone in my bedroom to make my travel plans. “Ann Oliver! Is it really you? I haven’t seen you in ages,” squealed the agent on the other end. I hung up so fast I dropped the telephone.
