by Mary Monroe
Rhoda thought it was cute that her daughter was so enthusiastic about her first real job. “My baby. My baby girl is growin’ up! It seems like it was just yesterday that I was escorting her to kindergarten,” Rhoda said, almost sobbing. As soon as I told Jade I would hire her, she and Rhoda stormed the mall and many other expensive stores along the way. “I want my baby to look as good as the rest of those young women office workers.”
“It’s a small-time collection agency office, not Wall Street. I am the supervisor, and even I don’t go to work dressed like my life depended on it,” I chided Rhoda.
“I doubt if I could talk Jade into wearing muumuus to work like you do,” Rhoda said with a sharp sniff.
“For your information, I do have a few suits and other business attire. But at my work, we encourage people to dress more for comfort as opposed to style and fashion. The owner from the main office even wears jeans and plaid shirts when he comes to visit our branch.”
Rhoda gave me a horrified look and shook her head. But even hearing that didn’t stop her from spending thousands of dollars on a new work wardrobe for her baby.
Rhoda was the one who had bought Jade the expensive leather briefcase with her initials on the handle. Jade carried her briefcase like it contained some of the most important documents in the world. A week after she’d started working for me, she confessed that all her briefcase contained was a can of hair spray, a jar of Noxzema, a few issues of Essence magazine, and an extra pair of panty hose. It was her yellow backpack that contained her most important props, like her wallet, her diet pills, her makeup, some romance novels, and anything she didn’t want her parents to see.
As I sat there thinking about Jade’s yellow backpack, I had to wonder if it still contained that Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue that she had stuffed in it on Saturday, the day I’d received that nasty note.
I glanced at my watch and didn’t realize that I’d been sitting in my office reminiscing for more than an hour. All of the lights were on now, and I could hear people buzzing in the cubicles outside my office. I had a lot of work to do, so I planned to stay in my office with the door closed for as much of the day as I possibly could.
Our office area was fairly small. Other than my corner office and the ladies’ room, there were not many places where I could hide when I needed to be alone. The break room was like Grand Central Station throughout the day. I knew how stressful it was for the folks I had on the phones making the telephone calls. That was why I didn’t complain when most of them had to run into the break room for water to either drink or splash on their faces, after being on the telephone with some of our more difficult debtors.
I had thought that it would be easier for me to be at the office instead of in my own home. I changed my mind the minute Gloria Watson rolled into the office, half an hour late, with rollers still in her hair. Even though I had advised her not to come to work looking so slovenly, she still did so. It had been easy to fire her niece. But firing Gloria was a different story. For one thing, she was known for filing frivolous lawsuits. She had gone after the city bus company because she felt that they always arrived in her neighborhood late, if at all, because they didn’t like Black folks. With Gloria, when something didn’t go her way, she blamed it on racism. She had also filed discrimination claims against an airline, several department stores, and the restaurant where we’d had last year’s Christmas party luncheon. Her latest target was Mizelle’s. She felt that they routinely tried to collect from more Black and Hispanic folks than they did White folks because they were racist. I didn’t even bother to remind her that it wasn’t the collection agency who selected the people we went after, but the stores and banks.
Of all of the lawsuits that Gloria had instigated, she had been lucky with only one. And even that one had been settled out of court. It had been more of a nuisance payoff. A fried-chicken place had given her a few thousand dollars to appease her when she complained that they served reheated chicken to minority customers.
Mr. Mizelle was a kindhearted, fair-minded old man with a face like a lobster and thin hair the color of mud. He and his wife had adopted four Black children and one of his own daughters was married to a Puerto Rican. He didn’t have a racist bone in his body. Even though he’d hired a lot of minorities, whom nobody other than the farms would hire, Gloria was still a concern of his.
And mine.
I realized just how much a thorn in my side Gloria was when she entered my office that morning without knocking.
“Hey there,” she mumbled, with the same tight look on her face that usually indicated severe constipation. It had been a while since she’d greeted me with a simple hello. “Um, I got a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. I have to leave right after lunch.”
I sniffed and rose from my seat, hoping she couldn’t tell how frazzled I was.
“No problem. But since you came in late, again, this morning, you can make up that time, and the time for this afternoon, by working through lunch today. Otherwise, we’ll have to dock your pay.”
“Can’t I come in this weekend to make up the time? You know I can’t afford to have y’all messin’ with my paycheck.” Surprisingly, Gloria spoke in a gentle, low voice. “You bein’ a sister, I am sure you can relate to that.” Gloria lifted her chin and looked at me with her eyes narrowed into slits. “You know how we got to look out for one another. I don’t care how nice these peckerwoods seem around here, they still want to see us down and out.” I looked at Gloria, trying to read the mysterious expression on her face.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Gloria. Except for getting cussed out by some of the people I call, all of my experiences here have been positive,” I said firmly.
“Well, don’t let that fool you. You and me about the same age. We can’t just up and run off and get hired anywhere we want no more. Most people want to hire them cute young girls like Jade. My cousin Florene, she smaller than me, and she can’t get a decent job nowhere. Last place she applied at, that trendy clothing store at the mall, they said her size would be a concern. Not only were they concerned about her for safety reasons, they didn’t think it would be the right image for the people who come up in there to buy them youthful clothes. A big she-bull like her ought to have known better. I know you know what I mean,” Gloria concluded with a sneer.
I nodded. “Give me a list of your calls. If you decide to make up the time this weekend, just let me know so I can leave that information with the security guard.”
As soon as Gloria left my office, I shut the door and locked it. I called Rhoda.
“I think Gloria is the one,” I said.
“The one what?”
“The one who sent me that shit in the mail. The one who called my house yesterday when Jade answered the telephone.”
“Well, did you confront her about it?”
“No, not yet. I need more evidence first. If what I think is true, I am firing the bitch. She can sue me to kingdom come. I am not putting up with that kind of shit from her or anybody else.”
“I hear you, girl. But I do wish you’d share this with Pee Wee.”
“I will,” I said weakly, knowing that I would hold off on that for as long as I possibly could.
CHAPTER 20
It felt like I was on needles and pins every day for the next two weeks. One morning I woke up moaning, with my arms covered in scratches. Throughout the night I had dreamt of long, slimy blacksnakes crawling all over me, and then biting me with their fangs and wrapping their coiled bodies around my neck.
Every time the telephone rang, I almost jumped out of my skin. Most of the time I let the answering machine screen my calls and if the caller happened to be somebody I didn’t feel like talking to, I let the machine record a message. It disturbed me even more when the machine recorded a few hang-ups. And once I received a two-minute recording of some heavy breathing!
The mailbox on my front porch had become just as much of a nightmare as the telephone. I held my breath each
time I went to retrieve the mail. I sweated so much when I chose to answer the telephone or check the mailbox that I had ruined three of my best silk blouses. And because of all the sweat clogging the pores on my head, my hair had taken on a life of its own. It was in a state of shock and it did what it wanted to do, not what I wanted it to do. I could keep my pink sponge rollers in my hair for two days in a row and my hair still wouldn’t curl. And unfortunately, I made more trips to the liquor store than I should have. I felt like a stranger in my own body.
I became abrupt with some people, snapping at them for some of the most insignificant reasons. I’d yelled so loud and with so much contempt in my voice at a young teller at my bank for not moving fast enough that their armed security guard had approached me with his hand on his weapon. I was coming undone and I didn’t know how to stop it.
Things that had always annoyed me seemed to annoy me even more. Like the leaky faucet in my kitchen sink, the stoplight at the corner that seemed to stay red for five minutes, bubble bath that didn’t bubble enough, and even something as minor as the squeaky springs on my bed.
“Pee Wee, if you don’t fix that sink and get us a new bed, I’ll find somebody who will!” I barked at Pee Wee, as I trotted out of the kitchen before he had time to reply. He fixed our leaky sink the very next day, and by the weekend we had a brand new bed.
“Happy?” he asked.
All I could do was nod and look for something else to complain about.
I felt bad about taking out my frustrations on Pee Wee. But apparently my sudden and odd behavior didn’t bother him that much, because he didn’t comment on it. At least, not at first.
When three weeks had passed without a note or a telephone call from my antagonist, I relaxed. I felt like I had just been released from a dungeon. As far as I was concerned things were back to normal. One thing I was really glad about was the fact that Pee Wee and I were making love again, and I’d been the one to initiate that. During my previous weeks of despair I had wanted to have sex about as much as I wanted to have shingles. Every time Pee Wee had looked at me, my flesh crawled and knots formed in my stomach. It didn’t do him a damn bit of good to strut around naked dangling his dick in front of me like it was a carrot, or to play with my titties. I just could not get excited.
As mysterious and complicated as the female body was to most men—not that a man who didn’t have a medical background would know the difference anyway—I took advantage of Pee Wee’s ignorance, and decided that I would milk that cow until it couldn’t be milked any more. I feigned every malady I could come up with. I held Pee Wee off with fake headaches, backaches, stomachaches, constipation, bladder infections, a yeast infection, vaginitis, and toothaches. Some nights I’d claimed two or three of the discomforts on my list at the same time.
When he suggested that my ailments were probably due to the beginning of menopause, I fell back on that excuse, too. I had had a few hot flashes, sprouted a few stray hairs on my chin, and skipped a few periods, so I wasn’t that far from the truth. But that fact of life gave me something else to be down in the dumps about: I was getting old.
I was no longer a young woman, anybody could see that. But my memory was still sharp enough for me to remember most of my life, which had started in a small town outside Miami. Daddy had run off with a White woman when I was a toddler. My mother had dragged me from Florida onto a segregated train that carried us to Ohio. For a long time the only person we could count on was Scary Mary. Of course Mr. Boatwright had always come through for us—if you didn’t count his nasty ways.
I don’t know what I would have done if Rhoda had not helped me abort old Mr. Boatwright’s baby when I was sixteen. But the most important question I couldn’t answer was what would have eventually become of me if Rhoda had not smothered Mr. Boatwright to death that night so many years ago.
Mr. Boatwright’s murder was the most difficult secret that Rhoda had asked me to keep. But he had been only one of her victims! If everything she had told me was true, her list of victims included her troublesome grandmother, an ex-cop who had shot and killed one of her brothers, a pregnant White girl who had threatened her other brother with a rape charge, and a child molester who had raped and killed the young daughter of one of our friends.
I didn’t condone murder or violence, but there had been times when I’d been forced to protect myself. I was glad that I had never done anything as extreme as Rhoda had done to the people who’d provoked her.
Besides, I was way too humble to play God.
CHAPTER 21
Time had brought a lot of changes in my life and the people around me. About ten years ago, after a thirty-year separation, my mother had allowed my daddy back into her bed. People new in their lives had a hard time believing that they had ever been separated. They seemed that natural together. And that was exactly how they had been before Daddy had run off.
The White woman that my daddy had left us for eventually deserted him and their three biracial children. After being in an interracial relationship in the South at a time when it was still segregated and sizzling with racial unrest, the White woman had decided that she wanted to enjoy all the advantages of being White after all. She not only turned her back on Daddy, she also turned her back on the three kids that the ill-fated relationship had produced.
“Like I tell you, girl, and everybody else, time and time again, ‘God don’t like ugly,’” Muh’Dear said with a laugh when she heard the news about the woman leaving Daddy.
And if that sweet revenge was not enough, the White woman’s death in an automobile accident years later brought another caustic comment from my mother. “See there? That home-wreckin’ hussy had it comin,’ and now she won’t be bustin’ up nobody else’s marriage.”
I was glad that Muh’Dear’s bitterness and anger had not rubbed off on me. I had felt bad for everybody involved, even the White woman who had broken up the happy home I’d once known. But I had not been the only innocent young victim. There were three other young people with the same blood I had, who had to piece their lives back together, too.
Two of my half siblings had careers with the military and lived in Germany. I didn’t communicate with them that often, but I spoke to my half sister Lillimae in Florida on a regular basis.
Other than Rhoda, Lillimae was the only other female I felt I could confide in. I had chatted with her several times in the last few weeks. I guess I must not have sounded like my old self to her, because she’d asked me several times if something was wrong.
“Big sister, you don’t sound like yourself lately,” Lillimae had told me the last time I had called her, a week after I’d received the nasty note in my mailbox. “Whatever it is, you know you can talk to me about it. And if you need to get away from it all, you are always welcome to come down here for a few days.”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Lillimae what was on my mind. It was enough to have Rhoda and Jade in on it. I don’t know what I would have done had they not been there for me.
Jade liked to bat around town in her cute little Tercel. Two or three times a week she insisted on picking me up in the morning and taking me to the office and back home at the end of the day.
“Auntie, I am glad to see you smiling like your old self again,” Jade said to me. She had picked me up for work five minutes earlier that Monday morning in September.
“I just hope I can keep smiling,” I said, with a smile that stretched across my face like a river. I let out a loud sigh. Not a sigh of sadness, but one of relief. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so frisky. I was even thinking about sneaking away from work later that morning and going to the barbershop to seduce my husband. If he had customers, I’d wait. But then I’d have to call work and make up a good enough lie that it would get me out of work for as long as it took me to take care of my business. I wasn’t just smiling now. There was a wicked grin on my face. “I’m just glad that whoever sent me that shit and called my house found something better to do with th
eir time.”
Jade had her eyes on the road in front of her, but she still ran a red light. “Maybe they are harassing somebody else now,” Jade suggested. There were no other cars in sight so I didn’t react to Jade’s careless driving.
“I don’t give a shit what they are doing or who they are doing it to. That trifling bitch didn’t know who she was fucking with when she started that mess with me,” I said, my lips snapping so brutally that spit flew out of my mouth. “I wouldn’t want people to know I didn’t have anything better to do with my time. You have to be pretty sorry and pitiful to stoop that low.”
Jade glanced at me as she leaned forward and gripped the steering wheel, driving with so much determination and skill now you would have thought that she was driving an ambulance.
A few moments passed before Jade spoke again. “Did you ever find out who it was?”
I had closed my eyes and leaned my head back. It was just a little past eight in the morning, but the sun had already turned on its autumn heat, which was just as warm as it had been in August. The only difference was it was a lot more muggy. I didn’t know why people in our part of the country called this time of year Indian summer, but it sounded exotic. It was a better time to have picnics and cookouts because some of the annoying bugs and grasshoppers had already disappeared to wherever they go to this time of the year.
My mind was a million miles away but I could still hear Jade’s voice. It took me a while to respond to her last question.
“No, I don’t know who she is and I don’t care. A sorry bitch like that doesn’t deserve any more of my time. I just wish she had kept that shit up long enough for me to find out who she was, so I could have straightened her ass out.” It was rare for me to display anger, but when I did it scared me. I must have scared Jade, too, because I noticed her bottom lip trembling. “Sugar, don’t mind me acting like this. I wish you hadn’t got dragged into my mess. I know how much that telephone call upset you that time. You are like a daughter to me, and I wouldn’t want to see you upset any more than I would my own daughter.”
