God Don't Make No Mistakes

by Mary Monroe

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she said. “I never thought of you as a skanky-ass prostitute.”

  “Well, that’s what I was. But that just goes to show you that anybody can make a bad choice. And I don’t know if what I’m about to say next will make you feel any better, but it’s because of the bad things that I went through that made me the woman I am today. Looking back on it now, I think that my being a teenage prostitute made me see firsthand just how ugly that lifestyle, or anything close to it, can be. I’m a stronger woman because of it, and I am proud of myself.”

  “Well, you should be. I’m proud of you, too, girl.” Rhoda cleared her throat. “Annette, you don’t have to call to check on me every day, or visit with me. I’ll be fine. You get on with your life. I know things are movin’ real slow between you and Pee Wee, but you’ve still got Ronald and Roscoe to keep you busy. Enjoy them both while you still can.”

  “I will,” I chuckled. I planned to do just that.

  However, something told me that things between Pee Wee and me would soon speed up. I knew that it was just a matter of time before we ended up back in bed. I knew that grooming another man to be a possible replacement for Pee Wee was not going to be easy. I had not met another man I liked in months.

  As much as I liked Roscoe, I had almost reached my breaking point with him. Last week when I refused to wash a basket of clothes for him, he went to the Laundromat on his own. But he still had the nerve to bring that same basket of clothes to my house for me to iron. And I had refused.

  I was proud of the fact that the last couple of times I went to his house, I refused to wash his dishes or “hit a few spots” in his living room with a dust rag and his Dirt Devil.

  I really missed being intimate with Pee Wee. I saw Ronald a few times in the interim, but knowing that I was never going to have a real relationship with him made me miss my husband even more. But it was impossible for me not to miss him. We had known one another for over thirty-five years. We had had a great relationship at one time. He had been a good childhood playmate first and then a good husband. And I had been a good wife, until a smooth operator derailed my common sense and talked me into his bed.

  As hard as I tried, especially lately, I still couldn’t see myself being married to another man. From the looks of things, if Pee Wee and I didn’t resume our marriage, I was going to grow old alone after all.

  I was surprised when Ronald called me up an hour after I got home from work that dreary Monday after my lunch with Rhoda. Christmas was still three weeks away, but Lillimae had already begun to cook up a storm. Today, she prepared turkey wings, green beans, and cornbread stuffing. After she and I and Charlotte ate dinner, I went to my bedroom. I was tired and my plan was to turn in early. It was only eight o’clock, and I was about to get into my nightgown when the phone rang.

  “Hey, beautiful. I’ve been thinking about you all day. Can you get out of the house for a little while?” Ronald didn’t beat around the bush when he wanted something. That was one of the things that I liked about him.

  “Uh, I guess I could,” I said, twirling the telephone cord around my finger. The truth of the matter was, I didn’t want to go back out. All I really wanted to do was crawl into my bed. But I hadn’t been intimate with a man since my last tryst with Ronald. Since it was hard enough to hook up with him anyway, I had to see him when I could. “What about your cousin Nola and her kids from Detroit?”

  “They are at that church tent revival that’s been going on off and on for months. Can you meet me at the Come On Inn?”

  “If your relatives are at the revival, why can’t we get together at your place?”

  “Because I don’t like surprises. You know that. At least at a motel or the hot tubs, we don’t have to worry about unexpected company disturbing us—like that time your mama caught us in the act in your bed. Now, can you meet me at the Come On Inn or not?”

  Ronald had become a little too aggressive for my tastes lately, and I didn’t like that at all. For the first time, I began to seriously consider breaking off my relationship with him. As much as I enjoyed his body, I couldn’t tolerate his attitude as much as I used to. “Do you mind if I think about it for a little while? I was doing a few things around the house,” I lied.

  “That’s fine with me, but if you can’t spare some time for me tonight, I don’t know when I’ll be able to see you again.” Ronald stopped talking, but I didn’t respond soon enough. “I am going to start working a different shift, so it might be months before I can see you again,” he added.

  I still didn’t respond soon enough. “Annette, I really need to see you tonight. Don’t you want to see me more than you want to do a few things around the house?” he whined in a voice that sounded like it belonged to a child.

  “All right. I’ll meet you in about half an hour,” I agreed. I gave in because the way things were going, my days with Ronald were numbered anyway. What harm could it do to me for me to see him at least one more time?

  CHAPTER 38

  I DID A LOT OF THINGS WITH AND FOR MEN THAT I WAS NOT proud of. One of the things that I wasn’t proud of was the fact that I had given money to Louis Baines, the man I’d cheated with. Another thing in my past that I was not proud of was that I had agreed to marry Jerome Cunningham, a man I did not love. For one thing, he was so cheap, he used to cruise restaurants just to steal condiments. When I met him, he showed me enough packets of sugar, salt, and pepper stacked up in his kitchen pantry to last him for years. And his family had hated me on sight. They made a lot of snide remarks implying that I was too “dark” to be with Jerome, who was almost light enough to pass for white. I was glad when we broke up, because the only reason I was going to go through with the marriage in the first place was because I wanted to show everybody that I could land a good-looking man.

  I had struck a gold mine when I landed Pee Wee, and had botched that relationship big time. In the meantime, I was somewhat happy to be involved in a sexual relationship with Ronald. He was a good backup for Roscoe. As a matter of fact, he was more than just a backup. He was handsome, which made me proud to be seen with him in the out-of-way public places he took me to—even though the only people who ever saw us together were strangers. But he was more “laid-back” than any man I had ever known. He admitted that he didn’t like to do anything that he didn’t want to do, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that he was always getting reprimanded and put on probation at his job. I called that being lazy. He was usually too lazy to come pick me up when he wanted to get together. I tolerated his behavior because I enjoyed his company, and because he was so temporary that I expected the relationship to end at any moment. As long as I was having fun, I saw no reason not to see him when I could.

  That was why I was on my way to see him now.

  Ohio was having one of its worst winters in decades. Even though one of the neighborhood teenage boys had shoveled mounds of snow off my walkway and driveway a few hours earlier, fresh snow that was still coming down covered the ground like a white blanket. I had to drive as slow as possible to get to a street that the city workers had cleared some of the snow off of and sprinkled some kind of salt to melt the ice.

  My gas tank was almost empty, so I had to stop at a gas station along the way. It was just my luck that the meddlesome cousins Wyrita and Lizel had also stopped to get gas at the same time.

  “Annette, where you off to?” Wyrita yelled, walking up to my car with her hands on her hips with Lizel marching next to her. Wyrita had on a knitted brown wool cap with matching mittens, ear muffs, and boots.

  “You usually don’t get out by yourself much these days,” Lizel added. She was even more bundled up than Wyrita. A red muffler was around her neck, chin, and the lower part of her cheeks. There was a goofy-looking cap on her head that was pulled down so far on her face, it looked like she had on a ski mask.

  Wyrita and Lizel were nice women and young enough to be my daughters. And even though they we
re both bright and attractive, they had just as many man troubles as the rest of us. But that still didn’t stop them from getting in everybody else’s business.

  “You don’t look as bad as I expected you to look after finding out about Pee Wee and that baby,” Lizel commented. “I expected you to be prostrate with grief. I would have bet money on it.”

  “Me too,” Wyrita said, adjusting her cap and muffler so I could see more of her face.

  “I’m sorry I disappointed you, but I don’t have time to be sitting around feeling sorry for myself. I’ve got things to do, places to go,” I quipped. From the looks on the cousins’ faces, I got the impression that they were disappointed to hear what I’d just said. Yes, I was still in distress somewhat, but Pee Wee and Lizzie were not the only things going on in my life.

  “What do you think about that Jade?” Wyrita asked. “She really cooked her own goose this time, huh?”

  “That’s really none of my business,” I answered. “But I do hope that things between her and Rhoda work out somehow.”

  “You got enough problems of your own anyway,” Lizel sniffed. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, or Rhoda’s. By the way, I ran into Lizzie last night. She looks like hell. Her face is all bloated and pale, and her hair is as limp as a wet dishrag. She’s got enough gray strands to cover a pillow.”

  “I saw her too.” Wyrita paused, sucked on her teeth, and shook her head in pity. “It’s a damn shame she let herself go this quick. And imagine a woman her age getting herself pregnant! That’s asking for trouble. Our Aunt LuAnne had a change-of-life baby, and it came here with a hole in his heart and water on his brain,” Wyrita clucked.

  “Well, Lizzie’s baby is none of my business. But I do hope her child is healthy,” I allowed. “You two have a nice night.”

  I finished pumping my gas, put my credit card away, and jumped back into my car.

  Somehow I took a wrong turn and ended up back on the street where the gas station was. Lizel and Wyrita were just leaving and ended up right behind me in Lizel’s aging Toyota. I didn’t know if they were following me on purpose or not, but they stayed right on my tail for the next four blocks. When I got to the motel, I drove right past it and pulled into the Grab and Go parking lot. Another thing about Ronald was that he often forgot to bring condoms with him. And because of all that was going on, the last thing I needed was to get pregnant at my age. Even though the store was as crowded as it usually was, by the time I got up to the cashier to pay for a package of condoms, Lizel and Wyrita had stumbled in and caught me in the act. The way that they were looking at my purchase, you would have thought that I was buying illegal drugs.

  “I hope he’s worth it,” Lizel teased, jabbing me in my side with her elbow. “Whoever he is.” She cleared her throat and gave me a conspiratorial look. Then added with a wink, “If you need them king-size raincoats, he is worth it.”

  “I wish I had a reason to buy them in that size,” Wyrita snickered, and so did Lizel, the cashier, and a few people in line behind me.

  Even though my face was burning, I managed to maintain my composure. “I hope you two ladies have something fun planned for tonight too,” I said, turning to leave.

  “Me and that fool I was with broke up, and I haven’t had a date in two weeks,” Lizel whined. “You know any single men you can introduce us to?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said as I slunk back out the door, praying that they wouldn’t follow me again. I sprinted to my car and jumped in, speeding out of the parking lot with my lights still off. I didn’t realize that until an ongoing car blinked its lights at me.

  It seemed like fate was against me meeting up with Ronald at that motel. Two cars had collided in front of the motel’s entrance, so I had to drive to a parking lot a block away and walk back to the motel. By the time I rounded the corner, another ten minutes had passed. When I arrived at the motel, Ronald was standing in the parking lot with his arms folded and an impatient look on his face.

  “I was just about to give up on you, girl. You were supposed to be here half an hour ago,” he told me, pulling me along by the arm.

  I told him the reason for my delay, but he continued to complain about my tardiness anyway. He didn’t even stop when I reminded him about the times he’d been late to a rendezvous with me. Between him and Roscoe, if I had to settle with one for a husband, as hard as it was to believe, I would choose Roscoe. Being in a sexless marriage with him wouldn’t kill me. I didn’t know at what age people generally stopped having sex, but I’d already had more than my share in my forty-eight years, so I could live with abstinence if I had to.

  I dismissed the thought of Roscoe and being married to him as fast as I could. Like Lillimae had told me to do, I was going to have my fun while I still could.

  Ronald was a considerate lover most of the time. As soon as I made it inside the motel room at the end of the building, he practically threw me down on the bed, mounted me like I was a mule, and snatched off my clothes. It was over before I could even get wet.

  “Mmmm, that sure was good,” Ronald rasped with a cigarette already dangling from his lip. Then he lifted his head off the pillow and gave me a puzzled look. “You gaining weight?”

  “I’ve put on a few pounds lately. My sister likes to cook up a storm every day.” Ronald had moved to Richland from Columbus just a few months ago. He was so easy on the eyes. If I had to describe him, I would say that he was an older version of the late Tupac Shakur: shaved head, cocky attitude, hot-as-hell body and all. He didn’t know that I used to walk around wearing size twenty-four muumuus. And I didn’t see any reason to tell him that I’d lost over a hundred pounds in the last couple of years.

  “That extra meat looks good on you.” He slid his hand across the top of his shiny scalp and smiled. Then he looked at me with the interest of a cannibal. “I got a few more minutes to spare. Don’t put your clothes back on yet. I’d like to do a little nibbling... .”

  A little nibbling was all Ronald did for the next two minutes. Just as I was getting excited, his cell phone rang. He answered it, told whoever was calling “yes” once, and that he would “be there soon.” He told me that he had an emergency to go take care of. He got up, got dressed, and was out the door within minutes. I felt soiled and cheap by the time I left the motel, which was as soon as I put my clothes back on. And the worst part of this little liaison was that I had not enjoyed it. I was just as horny when I got back home as I was when I went to the motel.

  Pee Wee had left a voice mail message and since it was still fairly early, I called him back.

  “I was wonderin’ if I could take you out to dinner tomorrow evenin’? You and Charlotte,” he said.

  Because of that unsatisfactory little episode with Ronald, my guard was down. I was in a weakened state, so Pee Wee could not have called at a better time. Not only that, but it had been months since Pee Wee, Charlotte, and I had gone out together. I missed that.

  “I’d like that,” I said, hoping he didn’t detect the eagerness in my voice. “I’m glad you asked.”

  CHAPTER 39

  THERE WERE TIMES WHEN I REGRETTED LIVING IN A CITY AS small as Richland. Especially with the kind of folks who liked to stay in other folks’ business. And it seemed like all of the black folks in Richland did that in three shifts. One night somebody I didn’t even see saw me coming out of a restaurant with a white man. Before I made it home, which had taken only ten minutes, Scary Mary had left me a voice mail message asking if I was dating white men now. My “date” was one of the process servers my collection agency worked with. He had treated me to dinner to show his gratitude for all the work I sent his way.

  The next evening after my conversation with Pee Wee, while I was upstairs trying to decide what to wear out to my dinner with him, Scary Mary barged into my bedroom. She startled me as I stood in front of my mirror wearing only my underwear. She wore one of her many brocade dusters and was leaning on her cane. I was glad to see that she had on a new and better-look
ing wig: a short gray bob with bangs covering the many lines in her forehead. Despite the fact that it was an improvement compared to the other wigs she wore, it didn’t complement her mulish face. I didn’t even know she was in the house. That was another thing I didn’t like about small-town life. People showed up unannounced, uninvited, and usually unwelcome on a regular basis. This kind of behavior was something that I’d known all my life, even when we lived in Florida, but I was still not used to it.

  “I didn’t know you were here,” I gasped, grabbing my bathrobe off the bed and quickly slipping it on.

  “Well, you know I’m here now,” Scary Mary crowed, looking around my cluttered room. “You look like you just seen a ghost. I ain’t gwine to bite you, girl, so get that spooked look off your face.” Scary Mary was the kind of woman who said whatever was on her mind. And nobody was exempt from her sharp tongue. You couldn’t embarrass or intimidate her no matter how hard you tried. She lived by her own rules. But the main thing about her was, she had always helped Muh’Dear and me when we really needed it. It was for that reason that I put up with things from her that I wouldn’t have put up with from anybody else.

  “It’s just that you scared me,” I told her.

  “That’s why folks call me Scary Mary, girl,” she chortled, looking me up and down as I rolled and pinned my hair into a French twist. “You done finally come to your senses and realized that Pee Wee is about the best you ever gwine to do with a man?”