by Mary Monroe
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Well, do you want to have a drink or not? You sure look like you could use one,” Rhoda said, not trying to hide her impatience.
I had been drinking a lot lately. But I’d been doing it in secret. In my case that was a lot more dangerous. I didn’t care if I made a fool of myself when I was alone. However, I wanted to be more in control of my actions when drinking with a partner, which meant I couldn’t overdo it.
“I guess I could use a small glass of wine,” I told Rhoda. I felt like a crippled woman and I must have looked like one, too. I limped along as Rhoda led me by my arm to her SUV.
The small glass of wine that I had at the Red Rose Bar didn’t really help me that much. It made me so paranoid I didn’t even want to discuss the situation that had sent me to the bar in the first place. Rhoda slurped up two piña coladas.
“Well, if you don’t want to talk about this shit, there’s no need for us to stay up in here. One more drink and I’ll be blind drunk anyway,” Rhoda decided, glancing quickly at her watch. “Come on. We can do better than this.” She dropped a few bills on the table and waved me out the door.
We walked the two blocks from the bar to a nail shop near Miss Rachel’s beauty shop and got our nails done. Instead of going home after we left the nail shop, I went with Rhoda to Miss Rachel’s for her to get her hair washed and blown dry.
There were only two other beauty shops in town that catered to Black women. For many years Miss Rachel’s had been the only one, so it was still the most successful. Most of the clients were the old-school regulars like Rhoda and me. When Miss Rachel died nine years ago, her daughter, Claudette, took over the business. And she depended on some of her mother’s most loyal customers to keep her in business. With so many Black woman wanting braids, weaves, or perms, there was a lot of business. But there was a lot of competition, too. The other two beauty shops were located in the Melden Village Mall, located one exit off the freeway from my house. They stayed in business because that’s where a lot of the younger women went to get beautiful. But not Jade. Miss Rachel’s was the only beauty shop that Jade thought was good enough for her.
I had never been to any other beauty shop myself because I enjoyed visiting Miss Rachel’s. Claudette was a charming person, but I couldn’t say that for some of her friends. Like Betty Jean Spool, one of the two beauticians who worked for Claudette.
Everybody knew that Betty Jean had dated Pee Wee before he married me. And everybody had expected him to marry her.
Betty Jean and I got along as well as one might expect under the circumstances, but I wasn’t stupid enough to let her touch my hair. I wasn’t as superstitious as I used to be, but I still had strong ties to the South. That was where I’d heard a lot of stories, while sitting on somebody’s front porch, about the things that people could do to harm a person if they got some of their hair.
Voodoo gobbledygook was not as common among the folks in Ohio. But the few spooky stories that I did hear from time to time involved members of Betty Jean’s wild clan. She had a one-eyed cousin who’d slowly poisoned her husband to death, and a great-aunt who had tossed a dead chicken through somebody’s window. There were other stories, but I tried not to think about them unless I had to. It seemed like evil took a special interest in me. Before my marriage I’d been through hell on earth. I had been happy and trauma-free now for more than ten years. But I was not going to make it easy for Betty Jean, Gloria, or anybody else who wanted to turn my life upside down.
Whenever I made an appointment to get my hair done at Miss Rachel’s, I insisted on having Claudette.
The minute Rhoda and I entered the beauty shop and I looked into Betty Jean’s eyes as she stood over an old bat named Mabel Brisbane curling her limp gray hair, I immediately suspected that Betty Jean was the one who was harassing me. The way she looked at me made my flesh crawl. It seemed like she was trying to let me know with just a look that she was the one after me. And it made a whole lot more sense for it to be her than it did for it to be Gloria Watson. Well, at least now I knew for sure that it was not Gloria. I made up my mind within seconds, while Betty Jean was still giving me the evil eye.
Now I needed to find out why. I had a hard time believing that this was all about a man, but it was not that far-fetched. Therefore, I had to keep that in the front of my mind. I knew that Betty Jean was not jealous of my job, like Gloria was. Had my tormentor been Gloria, she would not have gained much by getting rid of me. Even if I dropped dead, Mr. Mizelle wouldn’t give my job to an oaf like Gloria. He had even told her as much. Betty Jean wanted something from me that meant a whole lot more to her than a job did. She could get any job she wanted. And any man.
Everybody knew that she still had some feelings for Pee Wee. It hit me like a ton of bricks: she wanted Pee Wee back. This was really about a man! My man! And the only way she could get him was to get rid of me.
Unless I was dealing with some sick stranger who had chosen me at random, Betty Jean had to be the bitch who was trying to destroy me!
CHAPTER 28
One thing about a small town is that if you know everybody else’s business, everybody else knows your business. But only if you put your business out there.
Betty Jean Spool’s older brother, Lester, was a violent drug dealer who double-crossed everybody he came in contact with: the people who supplied him with drugs as well as the people who bought drugs from him. Everybody felt that it was just a matter of time before he ended up dead or behind bars. Betty Jean was very close to her brother and was all up in his drug business, helping him spend the money. We all expected her to follow him when he went to jail.
She was the one woman that Pee Wee didn’t like to discuss in my presence. He didn’t like to admit that he’d been involved with a woman with such a shady background. After she’d broken up with Pee Wee, she married a construction worker from Sandusky. She divorced him within a year and then she married another man five months later.
Betty Jean and I had a harmless, unofficial feud going on, ever since Pee Wee had married me. She used to tease me with playful threats about how she was eventually going to get him back. Betty Jean would always laugh when she said it, and I would laugh right along with her because I never took her seriously. A few times when I got mad at Pee Wee, I’d go into the beauty shop and ask her to come get him. It was all a joke. I knew that I had nothing to worry about as for that woman taking my man. But knowing her history with men, I had always kept one eye on her, and one eye on Pee Wee. I didn’t think of it as a joke now.
“Annette, girl, looks like you didn’t get here a minute too soon,” Betty Jean said with a smirk. She had a soft, high-pitched voice. Back in high school when we had talent shows, she used to do a good impression of Diana Ross. “I could see them naps risin’ up on your neck as soon as you stepped in this door.”
“She doesn’t have an appointment today. She’s with me,” Rhoda clarified, dropping down onto the first vacant seat she came to. I eased down onto the green vinyl love seat near the door. A lot of women hated Rhoda because of her long, thick black hair and Rhoda loved to flaunt her beautiful hair in front of those women. In addition to Claudette and Betty Jean, there were three other women in the shop. They all seemed to be interested in every move that Rhoda made, giving her that look that jealous women give to beautiful women. To me that look resembled a cross between a smirk and a scowl.
All eyes were on Rhoda as she leaned back and shook her hair, running her fingers through it the way White girls do. “I can’t do a thing with all this mess on my head,” Rhoda remarked, with a grimace on her face that couldn’t fool a fool. “If it wasn’t for my man, I’d cut it all off…”
“Well, you know we’ll hook you up,” Claudette said, breaking the tension that had suddenly covered the room like a fog.
Even though Betty Jean was attractive, she needed a lot of props. In school she had padded her bra with socks and told everybody who would list
en that she was saving her babysitting money so that someday she could get her breasts enlarged.
When her drug-dealing brother gave her five thousand dollars for a graduation gift she gathered all of the girls in a circle in the girls’ locker room and yelled, “Now I can go get me them titties!”
In addition to her surgically enhanced breasts, she wore a natural-looking hair weave. She worked out regularly at a nearby gym so the rest of her body looked nice, too. I couldn’t even begin to compete with a woman like Betty Jean.
If she really wanted to repossess Pee Wee, it would have been easier for me to just hand him over to her on a platter. But I loved my husband. I didn’t want to turn him over to a woman who would no doubt chew him up and then spit him out as soon as she saw somebody she liked better. She had had her chance with him.
My eyes burned every time I looked across the room at Betty Jean. When I couldn’t stand to feel the pain in my eyes any longer, I focused my attention on other things around me. She looked away every time I tried to look in her eyes.
The beauty shop had gotten rather shabby over the years. The floors were gummy, the light from the two gooseneck lamps was dim, music from a tired blues station in Cleveland was the only station the radio could get, the furniture didn’t match, and some of the equipment was outdated. But like I said, it had always been the most popular beauty establishment in Richland because Miss Rachel had been a good businesswoman and a down-home girl to the bone. And she had always provided free beverages and snacks, not to mention credit.
Miss Rachel’s customers as well as their offspring remained loyal to her memory. Claudette had promised her mother on her deathbed that she would not update the shop as long as she owned it. With the attitude she had, Claudette would never have to worry about her clients deserting her for the newer shops.
“Oh? If you ask me, Annette, it’s a damn shame you don’t have an appointment today,” Betty Jean said with a wink. “I guess Pee Wee ain’t as particular as he used to be.”
“I would say he’s more particular now than he was when you knew him,” I said. Betty Jean laughed, I did not. I could see that I was making her nervous, and that gave me a little more gumption. “How have you been?” I asked.
“Fine,” Betty Jean said sharply, looking around the room.
“Uh, Annette’s not feelin’ well,” Rhoda explained, nodding in my direction.
“I can see that,” Betty Jean sneered, adjusting the light-bulb in one of the lamps.
Even though my eyes still burned when I looked at Betty Jean, I stared at her so long and hard that everybody in the shop noticed it. I could see that I was making her nervous; I was making myself nervous, too. Confrontations did that to me.
“Annette, you actin’ mighty strange. Even for you,” Betty Jean said. “Now, if you got something to say to me, why don’t you just go on and say it? You been looking at me like I got two horns and a tail ever since you walked in that door.” Betty Jean had a tuft of Mrs. Brisbane’s hair in one hand, her other hand on her hip.
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” I said, rising. “I don’t have anything to say, period.” I didn’t know what else to do after my outburst but run. Rhoda followed me outside.
Rhoda caught up with me and spun me around by my arm. “Annette, please get a grip on yourself. I know you are upset, but you can’t be takin’ it out on any of these women. They are all worse off than you.”
“That’s just it. They want what I have. At least Betty Jean does. You remember how hot and heavy she and Pee Wee were at one time?”
“Of course I remember. It was no secret. But that was a long time ago. He married you. He loves you. And from what I hear, she’s with the man she wants to be with.” Rhoda rolled her eyes. “He’s somebody else’s man, but that’s beside the point.”
“Well, if it’s not Betty Jean who is tormenting me, who else could it be?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“I don’t know. That’s what I am goin’ to try and help you find out. You thought it was that Gloria Watson, and then you found out today that it wasn’t her.”
I looked at the ground as I spoke. As luck would have it, I was standing in some dog shit. I scraped the soles of my shoes across the ground and moved to the side. “The caller said something today that I didn’t want to tell you. She wants my husband. That’s what she said on the phone today.”
“What?”
I nodded and blinked at Rhoda to hold back my tears. I was a strong woman, but I wasn’t Superwoman. I had to do whatever I could to hold myself together. I knew that if I broke down I would probably never recover. “That’s what this is all about.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. This could still be a prank.”
“I want to go home. I know now that I can’t keep this from Pee Wee any longer. Not if it involves him. If he’s involved with another woman, I am going to make him tell me.”
CHAPTER 29
It was a little past eight when Rhoda parked in front of my house after we left the beauty shop. A mild wind was blowing dust and dead leaves all around, but the weather was still nice enough for people to be sitting on their front porches. My street was busy. There were whole families occupying almost every front porch on my block. Little kids of all different colors and sizes, some naked to the world, were running up and down the street screaming and tossing balls. I saw one little boy waving a stick, terrorizing that same stray dog that liked to piss on my rosebush.
The good-looking White couple that lived down the street stopped next to Rhoda’s SUV so she could admire that homely baby that they liked to parade around town in his squeaky stroller.
“Oochie coo,” Rhoda cooed, tickling the baby’s thick neck as the mother held the baby up to the window on Rhoda’s side. “What I wouldn’t do to have another baby to raise,” Rhoda said longingly. She kissed the baby’s bloated pink cheek before the couple left. “Well, here we are. I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said, turning to me. I was still strapped in my seat, staring at the neighbors with envy. They all looked like they didn’t have a care in the world.
It didn’t dawn on me until then that I had not called Pee Wee to let him know my whereabouts. Even on the days that Rhoda and I typically got together after I got off work for drinks or whatever, I still called him to remind him to pick up Charlotte from school and to take care of dinner. It had been our routine for years.
“Shit, I forgot to call Pee Wee! He’s probably wondering where I was all this time,” I hollered before I climbed out of Rhoda’s SUV.
“I got your back,” Rhoda said with a wave of her hand and a look of confidence. “You know how I do things. I called him at his barbershop before I even picked you up from your work. He knows where you were,” Rhoda smiled.
See? That’s what I meant. Rhoda had me covered.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, girl,” I said, opening the door on my side. The only thing I didn’t like about SUVs was that they were so high off the ground. And as clumsy as I was, I had to move as slow as a snail getting in and getting out. My nails had dried hours ago but I still held my hands up at an angle so I wouldn’t scrape off my fresh nail polish. It took me longer than it usually did to unhook the seat belt and slide my legs to the side. “Rhoda, I’m so sorry to be such a deadweight,” I huffed.
“Annette, don’t look at yourself that way. I don’t. You take all the time you need,” Rhoda said gently, giving me a playful tap along the side of my head.
I hit the ground with the kind of thud that you might expect a piano to make. Then I rushed across the sidewalk that led to my front yard. I was glad to see that Pee Wee had cut the grass. He had also removed some of Charlotte’s old broken toys off the porch. Rhoda waited until I had made it up to my front door before she blew her horn, waved, and drove off.
I stopped and looked at my mailbox like it was a tumor. Even the good Lord knew that I was afraid to look inside. But it was something that I had to do, whether I wanted to or not. With f
ear gripping me like a bear trap, I stared at the top of a long brown envelope peeking out over the top of my mailbox. Like most husbands, Pee Wee couldn’t be bothered with certain aspects of domesticity. I had to threaten him just to get him to let the water out of the bathtub after his baths. Unless he was expecting a check or a letter from his hometown, he ignored the mailbox. Last year I went to New York for three days with Rhoda and Jade to do our Christmas shopping. When I returned home our mailbox had three days’ worth of mail in it.
I sucked in my breath and plucked out the contents of the mailbox. The dim porch light, provided by a forty-watt light-bulb with a yellow glow, was surrounded by moths and gnats. I flipped through the mail. There was a credit card bill, a flyer asking for a donation from some charity that I had never heard of, another Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue for Jade, a flyer from that adult sex-toy shop on Sawburg advertising a half-off sale, and a coupon for a free massage from a massage parlor in Cleveland. That was addressed to Jade, too. I shook my head, surprised and glad that I was still able to laugh over Jade’s antics after the rough day I had had.
I had only been standing in the same spot on my front porch for a few minutes, but in my neighborhood that was a few minutes too long. My neighbors knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t the type to stand on my front porch by myself unless I had a damn good reason.
On any given day or night, on both sides of us and across the street, nosy neighbors peeped out of their windows every time they saw or heard somebody coming or going. Like some of them on their front porches were doing right now, all probably wondering why I hadn’t gone inside my house yet.
Before I opened my front door, Betty Jean’s leering face flashed across my mind. So did the face of Gloria Watson. I looked at the mail in my hand and wondered if I would have to add another name to the list I had already compiled.
Pee Wee had turned on the front porch light and his Jeep was in the driveway, so I knew he was in the house. He had not put on the light in the living room. I flipped the switch as soon as I stepped in the door, expecting to find him slumped in a chair in front of the television with a beer in his hand. The television was on but the living room was empty.
