CHAPTER 4
M
Y HOUSE WAS LOCATED ON REED STREET IN ONE OF THE
most exclusive neighborhoods in town. It was the only place in the world where I could get as comfortable as I wantedâmost of the time. The mortgage had been paid off years ago, so it was mine free and clear. I was in complete control. I could even lounge around naked like I was doing now. I had come a long way from the shabby, one-room shacks with no plumbing that I'd lived in as a child in Miami, Florida.
Next to my living room, my bedroom was the biggest room in the house, and it was in the best location. I could see most of the houses on my block from the large front window facing my king-sized bed. From the same window, I could reach out and pluck fruit from the apple tree and the cherry tree in my front yard when it was in season. The apple tree was bigger than the cherry tree. The apple tree provided a lot of shade in the summertime, and it was one of my favorite spots to relax in a lawn chair and enjoy a glass of iced tea. This residence had been my home since I was thirteen. Judge Lawson, who had employed my mother as a housekeeper for several years, had left the property to her when he died.
I had moved from the smaller bedroom at the end of the hall to this one after my mother remarried and moved out. I didn't even like to go into my old room anymore. It held so many painful memoriesâeverything from loneliness to rape. Even though there was not a single spot in my house where I allowed anybody to abuse or disrespect me now, my bedroom was especially sacred. I was not about to let a woman like Lizzie upset me too much on my turf. But that was exactly what she had done.
Friday was the least favorite day in the week for me. Just about everything unpleasant that had ever happened to me had happened on a Friday.
When I was just three years old, out of nowhere my father deserted my mother and me for another woman on a Friday. And it had been Friday the thirteenth at that. My life had gone downhill from there.
Before I even started elementary school, I had experienced everything from hurricanes and tornadoes to persistent bill collectors, and being harassed by the supremely dangerous Ku Klux Klan, all on Fridays.
Not long after Daddy had run off, my mother and I moved from Florida to Ohio on a Friday. I was sick with grief, and cried off and on during the whole two-day ride on that segregated train.
Mr. Boatwright, one of my mother's Bible-thumping male acquaintances who had rented a room in our house, raped me for the first time when I was seven, on a Friday.
When I was sixteen, I discovered that I was pregnant with Mr. Boatwright's baby on a Friday. That gloomy day also happened to be a Friday the thirteenth. My list of black Fridays seemed endless. Last year, my husband left me for Lizzie on a Friday.
Now here I was today, on another Friday, with more crap being rubbed in my face.
“Lizzie is pregnant!” I yelled into the telephone as soon as Rhoda O'Toole, my best friend of more than thirty years, answered on her end.
“By who?” she asked, sounding as stunned and disgusted as I was.
“By my husband, that's who!” I screamed. I was glad that I was home alone. My twelve-year-old daughter, Charlotte, was at my parents' house, but she could barge in at any time. The last thing I needed at the moment was for her to hear my end of the conversation. “What in the hell do I do now?” I was talking so loud and fast, I almost bit my tongue several times before I paused.
“Holy shit! How did you find out? Did Pee Wee tell you?”
“No, he didn't tell me. That heifer had the nerve to call my house a few minutes ago to tell me herself!”
“Damn! This is the last thing I expected to hear,” Rhoda said, suddenly sounding too relaxed for me. I wanted her to be as upset as I was. “How do you know she's tellin' the truth?”
“Why would she make up something like that?”
“Well, I can't answer that question. But sister-girl is our age. And the last time I checked, forty-seven was a little long in the tooth for a woman to be gettin' pregnant.”
“Are you forgetting that Sims woman from church? She was forty-nine when she had her last baby a few months ago,” I reminded Rhoda.
“Oh yeah,” Rhoda snorted. “Well, if Lizzie is pregnant, how do you know Pee Wee is the daddy? That sister has been gettin' around in the bedroom these past few months. She dumped Pee Wee and moved in with Peabo Boykin. Do you know
when
she got pregnant? When was her last period?”
“Girl, I wasn't taking notes when she called.”
“What does Pee Wee have to say about this mess?”
“He doesn't know yet! At least that's what she claims. She's been trying to catch up with him all week so she could tell him. He changed the phone number to his apartment and his cell phone,” I reported.
“So she calls your house and tells you before she tells him?”
“Yeah.”
“And I thought I had some monster problems,” Rhoda lamented.
“I can tell you one thing right now; this new development between Pee Wee and that wench is not going to be my problem! I do not want that woman in my life again! If Pee Wee and I do get back together, I'd have to deal with Lizzie and their child from now on! I don't thinkâI knowâI couldn't handle that, Rhoda. I'd go crazy!”
“Annette, calm downâ”
“Calm down? I can't calm down knowing my husband got some other woman pregnant! I can't wait to call up my attorney again so I can resume my divorce proceedings!”
“I wouldn't do that yet if I were you,” Rhoda told me. “Divorce is a very serious situation.”
“So is another woman having my husband's baby! As far as I am concerned now, divorce is probably the only solution to this!”
Rhoda was taking too long to respond, and it didn't take me long to figure out why. She didn't believe in divorce. When her husband, Otis, cheated on her more than twenty-five years ago, divorcing him didn't even enter her mind, even though she had a lover at the time herself (and
still
had that same lover ... ) .
There was another reason that divorce was such a sensitive issue to Rhoda. Her twenty-one-year-old daughter, Jade, had gone through a very nasty divorce this year, and it had practically destroyed her. Rhoda had taken it very hard, too, because Jade still lived with her. That girl was, and had always been, a very difficult person to deal with. Living with Jade, having to support her financially and tolerate her bad attitude, had to be hellish for Rhoda. Jade was a nasty piece of work in every sense of the word. She was spoiled, hostile, self-centered, vindictive, and more; the list was endless. Right now she was so depressed and upset about her divorce that she couldn't go out and get a job, or even clean up after herself. But being depressed didn't stop her from shopping up a storm several times a week with her parents' credit cards and partying with her friends at the bars, almost every night. I knew that Rhoda had her hands full already, so I wasn't too thrilled about bothering her with my problems. But this was something that I couldn't deal with on my own.
“Don't jump the gun, Annette. Get all of the facts first. Find out for sure if this baby really is Pee Wee's. And if it is, it's his problem, not yours.”
CHAPTER 5
“R
HODA, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME OR NOT
?
IF PEE WEE AND I
do get back together, he'll be bringing Lizzie's baby around! She might even be coming to my house herselfâwith that baby! And you know how I went off on her the last time she was brazen enough to bring her skanky self up in here!”
“No matter what happens, I'm goin' to be here for you. You knowâ”
“Hold on,” I said, cutting Rhoda off. “There is another call coming in. Let me call you back. We are going to have to get together for drinks. I'll call you when I get to work!” I clicked over to the call that was waiting for me. It was Pee Wee. He was the last man on the planet that I wanted to talk to at the moment.
“Hello, baby,” he began, doing a fairly good impression of Barry White. He could be real sexy when he tried, but his timing was way off. “I didn't mean to run off the way I did this mornin', but I promise I'll make it up to you.” I was just waiting for him to stop talking long enough so I could jump in and say what I had to say. “Listen, I'm goin' to get in touch with Lizzie today. I'm goin' to tell her to stop callin' your house.”
“You do that,” I said in a stiff voice.
“I don't like to see you as upset as you were when I was thereâand that's the only reason I left so abruptly. I just wish you had said somethin' sooner. Like when I first got to the house. I felt like a fool runnin' off the way I did right after we'd made love. But I had to be by myself so I could clear my head.”
“I hope your head is clear enough now,” I said, my voice still stiff.
“Oh yes, baby! Everything is real clear now, and I hope it stays this way. I can tell you one thing: after I talk to Lizzie, you won't have to worry about her pesterin' you no more. I am goin' to make sure she gets out of our lives for good. If she don't, I am goin' to file a harassment charge against her, hear?”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered. I decided to let Pee Wee say all of the sweet things that he wanted to say to me now while he still wanted to. I knew that after I told him what Lizzie had told me, things would never be the same between us again. “See, baby, I just wanted to let you know how wonderful you made me feel this mornin',” he continued, making kissing noises with his lips. “Oomph! I am so glad that things are workin' out so well between us. I know we agreed to take things real slow, but ...”
“But what?” I barked.
Pee Wee was so caught up in a state of rapture that he didn't even notice the anger and coldness in my voice. “Well, we've both made some mistakes, but nothin' we can't overcome. We can put the past behind us. I know we can move forward and resume our marriage. It'll be like neither one of us ever messed up at all.”
“We could probably forget that I ever had that affair with Louis Baines last year. He's long gone andâand he didn't leave me a souvenir like Lizzie did you!”
“Annette, you ain't makin' no sense. Lizzie didn't leave me no souvenir. The important thing is, she will never be part of our lives again. I am goin' to make sure she realizes that when I talk to her. And I hope I can catch up with her today.”
“I've got news for you. That slut will always be part of our lives now! Yours at least!”
“Say what? Part of my life? Uh-uh. Once Lizzie left me and moved in with Peabo, she was no longer part of my life. You should know that by now. I don't see, or talk to her. The last time I saw her walkin' down the street, I made a U-turn on a one-way street just so I could avoid her.” Pee Wee sounded exasperated, but he was not half as exasperated as I was.
“Pee Wee, you will be connected to that woman forever now,” I informed him, almost choking on each syllable. The words left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Whoa now! You just hold on right there! Annette, I got a feelin' you are tryin' to tell me somethin', but I have no idea what it is. Do you think I still have feelings for Lizzie? If you do, you are wrong. My relationship with that woman is over and done with. She wasn't even clean! You know how I am about that subject. That woman used to wear the same underwear for three days in a row!”
“You didn't know she was nasty before you screwed her?” I demanded.
“No! She kept herself clean until she took advantage of me!”
If I had not been as pissed off as I was, I would have laughed about what Pee Wee had just said. It was just as ridiculous as a rapist claiming his victim wanted to have sex as much as he did. I decided that it was better for me to pretend like I didn't even hear his last comment.
“Annette, I swear to God, even if that woman had not left me and moved in with Peabo, I would have kicked her to the curb anyway. Don't you trust me?”
“Brother, I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you,” I wailed.
The silence that followed for the next few moments was chilling. You would have thought that Pee Wee and I both had suddenly turned into mutes. I cleared my throat and was about to speak again, but he beat me to it.
“Wait a minute now. You sound more upset now than you were when I was there! You wasn't talkin' this crazy then. What the hell happened since I left you less than half an hour ago? I know you was mad about Lizzie callin', but you couldn't have been that mad if you waited until after we'd made love to mention it. Does your sudden mood change have anything to do with that comment you made about me makin' you feel like a prostitute? You was the one who brought that up. You know I don't ever go there because I know it's somethin' personal in your past that you don't like to discuss. Not even with me. Now, is that why you suddenly got such a big bee in your bonnet?”
“No, it's not. But I'm telling you now that you couldn't pay me enough to crawl back into bed again with your ashy black self.”
There was more silence. This time it was even more disturbing. I coughed to clear my throat some more. “If you are still on the line, say something,” I ordered.
“Maybe I should hang up and call again. Let's start all over. I don't know why in the hell you are talkin' so crazy. And the way you keep beatin' around the bush, I'll be on this phone all day tryin' to find out why. Now, if I did or said somethin' to upset you before I left you, I'm sorry. But I would like to know what it is that I did or said, so I'll know not to say or do it again. I ain't no mind reader.”
I could still hear Lizzie's shrill voice ringing in my ears. It was as painful as somebody batting my head with a baseball bat. I was so glad that she had called me up and not come to my house againâfor her sake as well as mine. If she ever came to my house again, she'd probably be carried out on a stretcher. I had seen her on the streets and walking through the mall a few times since the day she stuck a knife in my back. Each time I saw her, I had to leave the premises as fast as I could. Otherwise, I don't know what I would have done to her, whether she provoked me or not. But come to think of it, she didn't have to do or say anything to provoke me now. She'd already done that by befriending me and then stealing my husband.
“Lizzie drove by here this morning. She saw your car parked out front. She called me up again a few minutes after you left.”
“Oh. Well, now ... uh ... now I can understand why you seem so much more upset,” he sputtered, releasing a sigh of relief. “Uh, I'll try to reach her right now. The sooner I straighten her out, the sooner you can stop worryin' about her callin' you again.”
“You do that, Pee Wee. And when you talk to her, ask her what she's going to name
your
baby.”
He let out a gasp that was so profound, it sounded like it had come out of a geyser. I hung up before he could say another word.