by Mary Monroe
“Jade, are you sleeping with my husband?” I asked again.
In all the years that I’d known Jade, I had never seen such an extreme look of contempt on her face like I did now. The girl I was facing was not the busybody, feisty, but lovable, young woman whom I had loved like a daughter. This beautiful young woman, my best friend’s daughter, was now my worst nightmare. Just like she had told me in the first note.
I had pretty much gotten over what Mr. Boatwright had put me through. But not even the rapes and mental abuse that I had endured had prepared me for this level of pain. I don’t remember who said it, but I had heard someone say that “your best friend can also be your worst enemy.” That’s just about how I felt at this moment. I knew that whatever involved Jade directly involved Rhoda. But this, this was something I did not know how I was going to deal with.
“Are you going to answer my question?” I asked.
“Pee Wee needs a woman like me,” Jade said, lifting her nose in the air. “He deserves so much more than what you have to offer!”
“Is that a yes or a no?” I asked calmly. “Are you sleeping with my husband, girl?”
Instead of confirming or denying my charge, Jade just glared at me.
“You were not supposed to find out,” she whimpered, stomping her foot again.
“What about?” I had to pause and cough to clear my throat. It felt like a huge ball of fire had risen up from my stomach and was trying to get out through my mouth. My tongue felt like it was on fire. “What about that time you answered my phone and…it was that…person? Who was that?”
Jade gave me an exasperated look. “It was some telemarketer.”
“But you…It was you who made all the other calls? You sent that male prostitute to my house? You called up all those other women and told them I was sleeping with their husbands? You, you, you?”
Again, Jade gave me an exasperated look. She nodded. “I guess I must have disguised my voice pretty well, huh?”
“You disguised a lot of things, Jade!” I snapped. “And you honestly thought you’d run me out of town and you’d move in with Pee Wee, right? Did you think that it would be easy, girl?”
Jade replaced her exasperated look with one of extreme contempt and impatience. “Something like that! I thought if I got rid of you, eventually I could come out in the open with Pee Wee. I was hoping you’d go away and marry somebody else and wouldn’t care. I…I know people who end up marrying people their relatives and friends dumped. It didn’t bother them!”
“You are a child, Jade,” I wailed, refusing to let her see the tears I was struggling to hold back.
“Pee Wee doesn’t think so!”
“So, you are sleeping with my husband?” I asked, lifting my chin and sticking my chest out defiantly.
“I gotta get out of here!” Jade shot across the floor and stuffed her belongings back into her backpack. Then, grabbing her raincoat, she ran—so fast that she fell trying to get out my front door.
I ran behind her, tears pouring from my eyes. “I can’t deal with this, Jade! I could have dealt with it being anybody but you,” I sobbed, wiping my eyes and nose with the back of my hand. “Do you know what this means? Your mother and I have been best friends for so many years, but now—”
“Look, I am sorry you had to find out this way. I am sorry you had to find out, period. But you are just as much to blame for this as I am.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, grabbing her arm.
“Let me go!” She pried my grip away and moved back a few steps until she was out the door on my front porch, with me following. “You didn’t know how to treat a man like Pee Wee. You, with your fancy job and your running around with my mom trying to make yourself look important! You are nothing but a big, chunkified-butt wannabe! And you don’t even know how to dress! Just…just look at you! A big fat rag doll is what you are and all you will ever be. You and your…your tacky muumuus! You don’t deserve a man like Pee Wee!”
“Jade, what are you saying to me?” I yelled. By now we were both on the porch steps. “I loved you like a daughter. I love your mom as much as I love my own flesh and blood. I…I…” I had to stop talking and sit down on my porch steps. I held my breath and swallowed hard to keep from throwing up the sour liquid that had filled my mouth. My chest felt like it was going to explode and for a moment I thought I was having a heart attack. I gasped until I caught my breath.
Jade disappeared into the night like a thief.
It was dark and even though it had stopped raining, it was too cool and windy for me to be sitting on my porch steps for very long. I was shivering as I wobbled up and went back inside.
There was only one thing left for me to do. I packed my other two suitcases. This time with some of my clothes and some of my daughter’s. Charlotte was half-asleep as I dressed her but she was wide awake by the time we climbed into a cab.
“Where are we going, Mama?” she asked, looking out the back window of the cab as we drove off.
“We’re going to pay your aunt Lillimae a surprise visit in Miami,” I said with a cough.
“Oh. When are we coming back home? Jade said she’d take me to the park next Sunday.”
“I don’t know, child,” I admitted.
I didn’t know what my future held now. The one thing I did know was that as far as Jade was concerned, things would never be the same again.
I thought that at that point the unraveling of my life was now complete.
But the worst was yet to come.
CHAPTER 60
Muh’Dear once said that if she didn’t make it to heaven when she died, she’d settle for the Bahamas. She had visited her favorite place on earth on a regular basis for years. One year she invited me, Pee Wee, Charlotte, and Rhoda and her family to accompany her and Daddy to the Bahamas to spend Christmas with her and Daddy and some of the many Bahamian friends that she had made over the years. We were all going to be traveling first class, at Muh’Dear’s expense.
My late stepfather, Albert King, had owned the Buttercup, the most popular soul food restaurant in town. When he died, Muh’Dear inherited the restaurant. She sold it five years ago, after making more money than she could ever spend in her lifetime. After all of the poverty that she and I had survived in Florida after Daddy’s desertion, Muh’Dear was determined to live like a queen for the rest of her days. She shopped at the finest stores in town, lived in and owned several houses, including the one I occupied, and she traveled to the Bahamas at least once a year. She was excited about us all joining her on her latest jaunt to the Bahamas that particular year.
A few days before our departure, I came down with the flu and had to cancel my participation. Pee Wee wanted to stay home with me, but I made him go. It had been a rough week at work, and even though I appreciated Muh’Dear’s generous invitation, I didn’t really want to go out of town for Christmas. I had already seen all I wanted to see in the Bahamas and this year, I just wanted to stay home and relax.
Well, Jade decided she didn’t want to go either if I wasn’t going. There was no arguing with her. She was only ten at the time, but already used to getting her way.
Rhoda had left a closetful of new toys for Jade that I was to place under my Christmas tree. Just before midnight that Christmas Eve, after I had put Jade to bed, I played Santa Claus. Just as I was placing the last of four new dolls for Jade under the tree, Jade padded down the steps and into the living room, wide awake.
“Auntie!” she yelled, running across the floor waving her arms, almost tripping on the tail of her floor-length Cookie Monster nightgown. “Auntie, are you really the Santa Claus?” she asked. She was so excited, she jumped up and down, clapping her hands like a toddler.
“Well, yes, I guess,” I confessed. “I am Santa Claus. But this is something you weren’t supposed to find out until you got a little older, young lady,” I said, shaking a finger in Jade’s face.
Jade lunged for the biggest of the dolls, a beautif
ul black doll in African attire. Caressing the doll, Jade turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. “Auntie, how do you get into other kids’ houses?”
“Huh?”
“How do you get into the other kids’ houses to leave their Christmas presents?”
It was my turn to look puzzled. “What do you mean, baby?”
“You just said you were really Santa Claus. I know you are because I caught you putting my toys under the tree! You live here in this house, but how do you get into the other kids’ houses?”
“Uh, when I put on my red suit, it gives me magic powers,” I said.
“Is it the magic red suit that makes you look like a white man with a long white beard, too?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Auntie, I promise I won’t tell anybody else who you really are. I love you and one day I’m going to be just like you,” Jade said.
“Mama, why are you crying?” Charlotte asked, her voice bringing me back to the present moment.
“Oh, I got something in my eyes,” I sniffed, rubbing my eye. I looked around and blinked. I had almost forgotten that we were sitting in the Akron-Canton Airport along with dozens of other weary travelers, waiting to get on a plane that would take us to Miami. It was the only place that I could run to. I didn’t know anybody else in any other state well enough to drop in on them unannounced. But it would have been nice if I’d known somebody in Alaska, because I wanted to get as far away as possible from Richland, Ohio.
“How much longer do we have to wait to get to Miami, Mama?”
I looked at my watch. I had been so preoccupied that I had lost track of the time. It had been more than four hours since Jade had destroyed my world.
“Not too much longer,” I replied, with a detached voice.
“I called Jade to tell her where we were going,” Charlotte said proudly.
My head felt like somebody had dropped a cement block on top of it.
“You what? When did you call that, girl?” My face got hot, and I had a hard time breathing.
A look of surprise swept across Charlotte’s face. “When you went to sleep a little while ago. I took some money from your pocketbook and I went to that pay phone over there,” Charlotte said, pointing to a bank of phones facing us.
“Why did you call Jade?” I managed. “Why?” I hollered, fanning my face with both hands.
“Because I didn’t know the number to call Daddy.” Charlotte rubbed her nose and shrugged.
“But why did you call Jade? I didn’t tell you to call anybody.”
“You didn’t tell me not to,” Charlotte pouted. “Jade always told me that whenever I felt scared I could always call her. And she said if anybody messes with me she would beat ’em up.”
“Oh, shit!” I let out an exasperated sigh and glared at my daughter.
“I want to go home! I want to see my daddy!” Charlotte yelled, swinging her feet back and forth in her seat, drawing unwanted attention. I gave a toothy smile to the strangers looking in our direction.
“Listen, baby. Uh, I have a little problem right now, and I really need to get away for a while. We’ll go back home when I work out my little problem.”
“What problem?” Charlotte wanted to know. She leaped off of her seat and stood in front of me, holding one of my hands in hers.
“I really don’t want to talk about it right now. You wouldn’t understand it anyway. Now you just be good and no matter what you do, don’t you ever call Rhoda’s house again without me knowing it. I…I don’t ever want you to talk to Jade.” I almost choked on the words. I had to suck in a deep breath and rub my chest. My heart felt like it was about to pop out of my chest.
Charlotte’s mouth dropped open, her eyes bugged out. What I had just said must have been the most shocking thing she had ever heard come out of my mouth. It was.
“Why?” Charlotte wailed, her eyes still bugged out. “Jade is…Uh…Jade is…Jade. Why can’t I talk to her no more?”
It took me a few moments to come up with a response. “Because I said so.” I couldn’t think of anything better to say at the time.
I couldn’t imagine what Jade had told Rhoda about our showdown. I wanted to put off knowing for as long as I possibly could. What I had found out about Jade tonight was so overwhelming it hadn’t really sunk in all the way, yet.
I didn’t know how I was going to react when it did.
CHAPTER 61
We had to wait one more hour for the next flight to Miami. By the time we got on the plane and crawled into our seats, I was so disoriented and upset I couldn’t even sleep. I was glad that Charlotte was able to doze off right away, though. She slept all the way while I sweated and cried. I looked so distraught when we landed that a flight attendant offered to get me a wheelchair.
I stumbled through the airport like a zombie. I don’t even remember getting in the cab that took us to Lillimae’s house in Miami’s predominantly Black Liberty City.
With Charlotte stepping on my heels, I stumbled up on Lillimae’s porch that afternoon. I started pounding on her front door so hard that a woman in the house next door ran out on her front porch waving a whisk broom at me like a sword.
“Lillimae ain’t home!” The scowling woman shouted.
Lillimae had told me more than once that I was welcome to visit her anytime I felt like it. She was one of the few people I believed who said that and really meant it. However, dropping in on anybody unannounced was never a wise thing to do. I could have called her before I left my house, or from either one of the airports. But I didn’t think do to so. I had so much on my mind that I didn’t know if I was coming or going.
“I’m her sister,” I said meekly, bowing my head. “Do you know where she is and when she’ll be back?”
The woman moved closer to the edge of her porch, grabbed her glasses, which were hanging from a chain around her neck, and held them up to her face, which made her look like a pie with a nose. Shading her eyes with one hand, she looked me up and down before responding. “You and Lillimae is sisters?”
“Uh-huh. It surprises a lot of people, until I tell them we are half sisters,” I explained.
Even though Lillimae and I looked a lot alike, I was Black. Technically, she was too, but she could pass for White. I had visited Lillimae several times over the years. We had just met ten years ago after Daddy had pestered me until I visited him in Florida.
“She at work at the post office. She usually get home around six,” the woman said, her voice much softer now. The scowl was gone from her face, but her face still looked like a pie. “She usually goes for happy hour with some of the post office folks after work, though. Almost every day. I guess workin’ at the post office’ll make you want to drink.”
“Oh.” I looked around. The cab was too far away for me to summon him back. “Well,” I said, looking at my watch, “I’ll just wait for her.”
The woman shook her head and went back into her house.
“What do we do now?” Charlotte asked.
“Sit down,” I sighed, waving her to the glider on one side of the porch.
“For what?”
“We’ll wait here for your auntie,” I said, my voice cracking.
And that’s just what we did. For three hours we sat on that porch awaiting my sister’s return. I felt that I had no other place to go.
Charlotte got fidgety and angry real quick, and I could understand her feeling that way. I encouraged her to go play in Lillimae’s front yard. She found a piece of chalk on the ground and had been playing hopscotch for about ten minutes when Lillimae’s noisy old Ford crawled down the street. It was just beginning to get dark. I was disappointed to see that Lillimae’s battered old car still had only one headlight. With all the noise her old car made and the one headlight, anybody else would have thought that she was riding up on a motorcycle.
“Annette, what in the world is goin’ on?” Lillimae yelled as soon as she parked in her driveway. She slid out of her car like a seal, with her m
uumuu flapping around her body like a parachute. She had told me once that she always changed out of her postal worker uniform before she came home, choosing to get back in a comfortable muumuu as soon as she could each workday. I was glad that I didn’t have to wear uniforms to work. I had more muumuus in my wardrobe than anything else.
I was disappointed to see that Lillimae had gained a few more pounds since the last time I’d seen her. She was now dangerously larger than I was.
Lillimae waddled up the walk and stumbled up the steps. I was so tired and weak, I couldn’t move from my seat on the glider. I just sat there blinking. Charlotte ran back up on the porch and hugged Lillimae.
“We ran away from home!” Charlotte hollered eagerly.
“So I heard,” Lillimae said, looking at me. “I called my answering machine from the Black Oak Saloon to find out that I had nine messages. Your husband called a few times, your mama, and your girl Rhoda. What in the world is goin’ on, Annette? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
I rose. “They all called?”
“Yes, they all called, and you better get on that telephone and call every one of them back. What in the world has happened?” Lillimae fumbled in her large denim purse for her keys. We followed her into her neat little living room. “Your husband thinks you might be havin’ a nervous breakdown. And Rhoda was beside herself with worry.”
“Did Rhoda say anything else?”
“Like what? She wanted to know if you was here. She said her daughter told her Charlotte called her from a pay phone and told her y’all was on the way to visit with me.”
“Is that all she said?”
Lillimae shrugged and eased down on her sofa, pulling Charlotte down next to her. Our luggage sat on the floor in front of Lillimae’s feet.
“She’s worried half to death! I wouldn’t be surprised if she came down here with your husband,” Lillimae exclaimed, fanning her face with her hand.
