by Mary Monroe
“That wench just called me again.”
“Betty Jean?”
“I think so. She was whispering, but it could have been her,” I said with extreme uncertainty. The only reason I had some doubts was the fact that I knew Betty Jean was not the type to play games. If she wanted something, she didn’t care who knew about it. But then I had to admit that most people changed their MOs as they got older. One minute I truly believed it was her, the next minute I didn’t know what to believe!
“What did she say?”
“The same old nasty shit as before. Listen, I told her I knew who she was.”
“Well, did she deny it?” Rhoda wanted to know.
“She hung up right after I told her that.”
“Annette, you really need to talk to the phone company. There must be somethin’ they can do to help catch this bitch. They have all kinds of ways of tracin’ phone calls now.”
“Rhoda, I told you already that I’ve thought about that. And I also told you that a telephone tap and caller ID would be a waste of my time. I don’t even think that adding *69 to my service would do any good. This woman is not stupid enough to call me from a number that can be traced or called back if I hit *69. A fool would know that she’s calling me from pay phones.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“And if it is Betty Jean, I know she would have thought about something like that already. I just know it’s her. It’s got to be her, Rhoda.”
“You still want to pay her a visit this evening? I got a large can of mace you can use.”
“Rhoda, I don’t plan to do anything violent. I just want to talk to her. I just want her to stop calling me and sending me shit. That’s all I want.”
“What about Pee Wee?”
“What about him?”
“If he’s the reason she’s doing this shit, you need to talk to him, too.”
“I tried to talk to him about her last night and he ran. He didn’t come home and I don’t even know where he is.” I paused and glanced toward the door. The last thing I wanted now was for Charlotte to know that I didn’t even know where her daddy was.
“He could be with that cow right now as we speak, for all we know,” Rhoda suggested.
Her words made me seethe. “If he’s still with her when we get over there this evening, that’s exactly where I plan to leave his black ass,” I said, the words oozing out of my mouth like bad breath.
CHAPTER 46
I tried to keep my mind off my problems during my drive to work shortly after I got off the telephone with Rhoda. I tried to concentrate on the things that were still pleasant in my life. It was a nice, warm day and there were a lot of things outside of my car that made me feel good. Like all the cute little kids running to get to school on time, the traffic lights that only stayed red for a few seconds, and birds chirping out a concerto. Even the trees, which showed patches of yellow and brown streaked with green, made a positive difference in my mood.
By the time I got to work, I felt more relaxed. It was a bonus to see that Jade had already arrived at the office. She looked so sophisticated and focused, sitting at her neatly arranged desk. I couldn’t figure out how she found the time to go out and buy fresh flowers for her desk every workday. With all of her youthful faults, I was still proud of her.
“There’s a fresh pot of strong coffee in the break room. I made it myself,” Jade said, greeting me at the door. “I am sure you could use it.”
“That and something even stronger,” I managed, stumbling to my office. I had to pass Gloria’s cubicle and for once it didn’t bother me to see her annoying scowl. “Good morning, Gloria,” I greeted.
She gave me a surprised look. As a matter of fact, she looked downright startled. She was the only person in the office that I didn’t speak to unless she spoke first. The chip on her shoulder was so huge, even a simple greeting could set her off. She hesitated before she returned my greeting.
“Uh…Good mornin’, Annette. That’s a nice muumuu you got on today.”
“It has been for years,” I sighed. I went to my office and shut the door so fast and hard that I had to hop forward to keep from catching the tail of my dress in it. Jade appeared in my office less than two minutes later with a large mug of coffee.
“I am going with you and Mama this evening,” Jade announced, looming over my desk like a warden.
My lip brushed the lip of my coffee mug, but I pulled it away without drinking. “Jade, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I don’t want you to get involved in this mess any more than you already are. I don’t know what to expect.” I sucked in my breath and took a long swallow of my black coffee. “You know how rough some of those Spool family members are. Things could get ugly.”
I didn’t have to remind Jade about all the violence that some of Betty Jean’s relatives had been involved in. Not only was her oldest brother, Lester, a drug dealer, she had other family members who had been involved in just about every other criminal activity you could think of. Her alcoholic daddy had run off twenty years ago with his male lover. Her youngest brother was in prison for killing his girlfriend. Everybody in Richland was familiar with the bad side of the Spool family. But the Spools were one of the oddest set of people I had ever met. Half of them were thugs, the other half were pleasant, law-abiding citizens that I was proud to know. One of Betty Jean’s brothers was a Boy Scout leader and another one was a teacher who worked with kids who had learning disabilities. Both of her younger sisters were nice, quiet women leading respectable lives. One was a nurse, the other one owned and operated a pet shop. The matriarch of the clan, Betty Jean’s mother, was a tiny, soft-spoken woman who went to church every Sunday and spent her spare time doing volunteer work at the homeless shelter right along with my mother and Scary Mary. But Betty Jean’s maternal grandmother was a sour-faced old crone who carried a gun, and was currently in jail for shooting at her landlord when he’d attempted to collect three months’ back rent.
I wondered how things would have worked out if it had been one of Betty Jean’s dignified sisters who had been involved with Pee Wee. It was a thought that had crossed my mind more than once. And it was a much easier thought to deal with than what I had to deal with now.
“I went to school with one of those she-devil Spool cousins,” Jade said in a gruff voice, interrupting my thoughts. “The bad Spools didn’t scare me then, they don’t scare me now,” Jade said in a slow, controlled voice.
She sucked in her breath and stuck her chest out, a menacing look took over her face. Jade was so much like Rhoda. It was hard to believe that petite women like them were so fearless. But I had figured out that when you snuck up on your enemies the way Rhoda did, size didn’t matter. I knew that old Mr. Boatwright would have put up one hell of a fight, had he been awake when Rhoda entered his bedroom to smother him with that pillow, that night so long ago.
“Mama said I can go, so I’m going.” Jade stomped her foot, then turned around and sailed out of my office, switching her shapely butt like she had a stick up her crack.
I made sure my office door was locked before I called my house, expecting Pee Wee to answer the telephone. He didn’t, so I called his barbershop and he answered on the first ring.
“It’s me,” I said stiffly.
“I figured that,” he grunted.
“I’m at work. You need to pick Charlotte up from school and keep her with you until I get home this evening.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I said so.”
“No problem.”
Every other married couple I knew had their share of arguments and a few had some knock-down, drag-out fights. My own father and mother still did—and they were both approaching eighty! But it took a lot to get a rise out of Pee Wee. And Lord knows I had been pushing him to the edge a lot lately. That man had more self-control than a monk.
A long moment passed before either of us spoke again.
“You still there?” I asked.
&
nbsp; “I’m here. Is that all you wanted?”
“Where did you sleep last night?” I asked. “And don’t bother lying to me, because I will know. And that will only make things worse,” I warned.
Pee Wee kept a radio, a CD player, and a portable television set in his barbershop. I could hear voices and soft jazz playing in the background. I didn’t visit the barbershop that often, but next to our house it was one of the coziest places we had access to. There was a daybed with a goose-down comforter on it in the small back room that Pee Wee also used as an office and a retreat for Charlotte. Facing the daybed was another small television set, and a small refrigerator that was always stocked with snacks and beverages.
“I slept at the shop. Why?”
“I wanted to know.”
“And I slept alone, in case you want to know that, too.”
“You do whatever you want to do.”
Pee Wee let out an exasperated groan. He was still pissed off and I was glad. If I had to be miserable, I wanted him to be miserable, too. Had it not been for him I wouldn’t be dealing with the mess I was dealing with in the first place! I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be this upset with the only man I had ever really loved.
“What time will you be home?” His voice sounded hoarse and uncertain.
“I don’t know. I’ll get there when I get there!” I snapped.
“Then I will see you when I see you.”
It bothered me that he didn’t try to find out why I wasn’t coming straight home. Especially after the things I had said to him the night before. As far as I was concerned, if he was innocent, he should have stayed home and defended himself. At least, that’s the way I thought he should have behaved. If he was guilty, he still should have stayed and defended himself. Even if he had to do it with more lies. What confused me was the fact that he was not acting like an innocent man or a guilty man. I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
CHAPTER 47
Based on the evidence I had, even though beauty shop gossip is about as reliable as the mess you read in the tabloids, I was half-convinced that that Spool woman was the one tormenting me and trying to take my husband. However, in the back of my mind I wasn’t so sure. I had known Betty Jean most of my life. She was a man-eating, hard-drinking, hell-raising floozy, true enough, but sending neatly typed notes and making strange calls didn’t seem to fit her personality.
She told me once, “I’m from Texas and down there, when somebody fucks with us, we hang ’em high.” Betty Jean’s threatening comment, though it had not been directed at me at the time, still rang in my ears.
Pee Wee cleared his throat. “You still on the phone?” he asked.
“Uh, let me call you back. I might be home at my usual time after all. I have to go. I just remembered something,” I told Pee Wee.
I hung up before he could respond. What I had just remembered was that a woman like Betty Jean Spool might end up beating me within an inch of my life. Especially if I approached her in a way that she considered hostile.
Even though I outweighed Betty Jean by at least a hundred pounds, the last thing I wanted to do was get into a physical confrontation with a woman like her. It would be just like her to have a switchblade in her bra or some kind of gun in her purse. Going to another woman’s home to get in her face, whether she was normal or a pit bull like Betty Jean, was a bold move. And even though I didn’t want to fight Betty Jean, just my showing up at her place might be reason enough for her to attack me.
As much as I loved my husband, and as much as I wanted to stop this woman from harassing me, I had to slow down and give this situation a little more thought. I called Rhoda up.
“Rhoda, I don’t know about going to Betty Jean’s house this evening. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” I said as soon as Rhoda answered.
“Hold on,” Rhoda said. A few seconds later she was back. “Sorry. I had to grab my tea from the counter.” She paused again and slurped on her tea. “Are you tellin’ me that you are goin’ to let this woman continue doin’ what she’s been doin’ do you?”
“She can do whatever she wants to do. If she wants to send me shit in the mail or call me up, I can’t stop her. When I get home this evening, I will have a long talk with Pee Wee. He will have to decide what he wants to do.”
“Are you telling me you are not going to fight for your marriage? I can’t believe that you are goin’ to let this bitch ruin your life. Like I told you, you need to do the same thing that I did to that cow who messed with my man.”
“I am not you, Rhoda,” I said flatly. The story that Rhoda had shared with me about how she’d paid her husband’s mistress an unexpected visit with a stick in her hand still amused and disturbed me.
“I won’t argue with that. But I thought you’d learned a few things from me after all these years.”
“I have to hang up and get some work done before I lose my job, too. I just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to meet me after work,” I said, blowing out a breath so hard the papers on my desk fluttered and slid to the edge. It was then that I noticed the small box on the edge of my desk next to my in-box. “I’ll call you later,” I said, reaching for the box. I glanced at my name that had been neatly typed on a white address label and stuck to the center of the box. I didn’t recognize the return name or address.
I ripped open the box and almost fell out of my seat. Inside of the box was a pair of men’s boxer shorts. They had been neatly folded. At first glance, I thought they were new. I removed them with the tip of a letter opener and held them up in the air. Not only were they used, the musky smell and a small tear in the crotch told me that. But I had seen them before. On my husband! I flung the shorts back into the box and dialed Rhoda’s number again.
“That bitch! That BITCH!” I roared with so much vigor I almost choked on some air that went down the wrong wind-pipe. But as soon as I was able to speak again, I let out an outburst that rocked my brain. “That no good, man-eating bitch!”
“What is it?” Rhoda hollered so loud it sounded like she was coming through the telephone. “Girl, what is the matter? Did that motherfuckin’ bitch call you again?” she huffed.
“She sent me a pair of his funky-ass shorts! How in the hell did she get his shorts?”
“Hold on now! Whose shorts? What are you talkin’ about?”
“I just opened a package that somebody had set on my desk. It’s got a postmark on it so it had to be mailed here. Our mail guy left it on my desk, I guess. She said she had something to prove she’s been with Pee Wee and she did. She sent me a pair of his shorts!”
“Shit! I will pick you up right after you get off work.”
“You do that,” I said. “And don’t be late.”
I lifted the shorts with my letter opener again and I dropped them into the wastepaper basket under my desk. You would have thought that I was disposing of a scorpion instead of a pair of my husband’s underwear.
“That low-down, no-good wench,” I said in a low voice, trying to control my anger. But I was past being just angry. Jade was right: I was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown. “That cow!” I screamed, slamming my fist down on the top of my desk.
My coffee cup fell over and spilled coffee on some correspondence that I had been neglecting for the past few days. That increased my anger. I wasn’t going to let one more day go by without taking a stand. I was going to have a showdown with Betty Jean and I didn’t care what the consequences were.
I was being forced to take some serious action. I realized that that might mean I’d have to do or say things that I ordinarily wouldn’t.
But as long as I restored my peace of mind, I didn’t care anymore.
CHAPTER 48
Being an office supervisor had its advantages. I worked when I felt like it. When I didn’t feel like doing any work, I delegated some of it. I could pretty much come and go as I pleased, within reason. I knew how far to push the envelope. The supervisor that I had replaced had
been fired for taking too much advantage of the company. Being AWOL on a regular basis was one. That woman used to disappear without notice for days at a time. But the worst thing she’d done, that we knew about, was to have frequent trysts with her lover on her desk in the same office I now occupied.
I liked to seclude myself in my office with the door shut. It was usually because I needed a little time to perform some duties that required my undivided attention. But every now and then I just needed a quiet break. Like today. I buzzed Jade first before I put myself in a do-not-disturb mode.
“Are you all right?” Jade asked, standing in the doorway. “You want some more coffee?”
She looked like a living doll standing there in her baby-blue pantsuit, with matching earrings and headband. I just sat there staring at Jade like I had suddenly become mute.
“Auntie, talk to me.”
“I’m fine,” I croaked. “And no, everything is not all right.” I stared past Jade at the wall, speaking in a low, nervous voice. “Everything is all…all wrong,” I stammered.
“Is there anything I can do? I can’t stand to see you like this.”
I offered a reluctant nod. “Hold all of my calls and don’t let anybody into my office until I tell you to,” I said with my eyes burning. I waved Jade out of my office. Then I immediately placed my head on the top of my desk.
I didn’t pay any attention to the time, but I must have stayed that way for at least an hour. All kinds of things were dancing around in my head. One minute I wanted to confront Betty Jean. The next minute I wanted to divorce my husband. I even had a wild notion to pack my bags and run off somewhere. I was in a fever of anticipation. I don’t know how I was able to doze off with all the things I had on my mind.
A loud knock on my door woke me up. I wobbled up from my seat, wiping drool from the side of my chin. I took a quick glance in the mirror on the wall next to my door. It was only then that I realized I had left home without putting on my makeup. The dark circles around my eyes were so profound I looked like a panda. I was surprised that Jade had not commented on my wretched appearance. She usually did.
