CHAPTER 10
“Y
OUR SISTER LILLIMAE SURE SEEMS LIKE A REAL NICE LADY.
Her Southern accent is almost as cute as your girl Rhoda's is. Now, your sister is
way
on the heavy side, but a lot of men like a woman with a set of nice healthy ham hocks below her waist. I didn't know you had folks still down in Florida,” Roscoe said with a curious look on his face. “She got out of that dangerous state just in time, huh? Down there the folks are getting shot up on the street in broad daylight, and by people that they don't even know.”
The world-famous fashion designer Gianni Versace had been gunned down a week ago. Each day since then, the TV and radio reported every new development. Today's news had announced that Versace's alleged assassin had taken the coward's way out and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on somebody's unoccupied houseboat. Lillimae had enjoyed a cup of coffee in the News Café where Versace had read his last newspaper and consumed his last cup of cappuccino. Tears formed in her eyes when she told me how he had eagerly autographed a napkin for her just as she was about to begin her mail delivery responsibilities on that fateful morning.
“Yes, my sister got out of that dangerous state in time,” I agreed. “It's a shame about Versace getting shot down like that in front of his own house,” I lamented.
“Well, that just goes to show you that death does not discriminate between the rich and the poor. That dago designer had more money than God, and it still didn't keep him from getting shot down in the street like a brother in the 'hood.”
Roscoe had arrived right on time, like he always did. His punctuality was one of the things that I liked about him. Within five minutes after I had introduced him to Lillimae, they started drinking wine and chatting like they'd known each other for years. “We could have brought your sister along with us,” Roscoe said as he backed his shiny black Camry out of my driveway. “I wouldn't have minded her company at all. But I didn't know you had white kinfolk.”
“She and I have the same father,” I explained. I was not in the mood to elaborate, but Roscoe was one of the nosiest men I knew, so he didn't let up until I had told him the whole story. When I told him that my parents had resumed their relationship after a thirty-year separation, he almost drove into a streetlight.
“Damn! Your mama must be one understanding woman to take back a man who left her for another woman, married her, and had kids with her.”
“I don't know if my mother is what most people would call âunderstanding,' ” I said with a chuckle.
“Shit! She must be. I know how you sisters can beâespecially sisters you and your mama's age. Y'all don't take no mess like a man making babies with another woman too lightly. I mean, take you for instance.”
“For instance what?” The conversation was making me uncomfortable, but I knew that the only way to get it out of the way was to ride it out.
“For instance, you didn't waste any time kicking Pee Wee to the curb when he shit all over you to be with that Lizzie woman. In the first place, I can't imagine what was going through that brother's head for him to choose a woman with a defect like Lizzie got, that shriveled-up leg. I bet she can't even walk a straight line! Why a man like Pee Wee would leave a normal-legged woman like you for one with legs two different sizes is beyond my scope.”
“Lizzie had polio when she was a child. She can't help having a leg that's slightly thinner than the other,” I said.
“Oh well. That just goes to show you that to some men, tail is tail,” Roscoe chortled. “But you are still a woman with a lot to offer a man. You kept your head up high and kept on stepping. You didn't have a breakdown or slash the tires on Pee Wee's car like my boy Ernest Porter's wife did to him. You've got real good self-control for a black woman. That kind of discipline is hard for a woman to maintain. Especially one that must be as lonesome as you must get on some of these long nights when I'm not with you! That's what I like about you. You didn't drop down like a dying horse and wallow in self-pity. You didn't roll over and take Pee Wee back like your mama did with your daddyâand I hope you don't. Continue to be like your mama, girl. Strong! Women like y'all can put up with any and everything, and still land on your feet.”
My being like my mother was a scary thought.
I didn't feel like telling Roscoe again that it had taken my mother over thirty years to forgive my father enough to allow him back into her life. But I had to remind him that I was not my mother. “I refuse to put up with any and everything. I'm not like my mother.”
“Ha! Yes, you are! You might not realize it, but I do! A woman like your mama is the kind of woman a man like me can appreciate.” Roscoe glanced at me. The way his jaw started twitching, I thought he was gearing up to say something else that I really didn't want to hear. I was right. “Uh, I ... I have to ask you something,” he stammered.
I looked at the side of his head as he maneuvered his car down the street at such a cautious crawl that you would have thought he was leading a funeral procession. He was holding on to the steering wheel with both hands. He glanced at me again, but promptly returned his attention to the road.
“What do you want to ask me, Roscoe?”
“Seriously, is there a chance that you and Pee Wee might get back together? Not that I got anything against him, but I was hoping I'd have a future with you, Annette. I've been looking for a woman like you all my life.” Roscoe had begun to sound like a lovesick schoolboy.
“I don't know what's going to happen between Pee Wee and me. And if you don't mind, he's one subject that I'd rather not discuss tonight.”
“No problem. I'm cool with that.” Roscoe didn't seem too cool with that to me. He sounded like a disappointed child. The pout on his face confirmed my opinion. “That's fine with me. I understand,” he replied, lifting one hand off the steering wheel. “I was just hoping that I could find out exactly where I stand with you now, that's all.”
“I enjoy your company, Roscoe. You know I do. But I don't want to get too serious too soon.” I gave him a big smile as I squeezed the side of his arm. That seemed to please him for the time being.
“I see.” He caressed the side of my face. A few seconds later when he stopped for a red light, he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Then he added, “I guess I can live with that for the time being.”
We rode in silence for the next five minutes. Suddenly, he began to yip yap like a magpie about things of no importance to meâsports, his job, the grout in his bathroom, and his mama's health.
Roscoe sometimes seemed like he had a mild split personality disorder. There were times when I correctly predicted what he was going to say or do, and there were times when he surprised me and did something that I didn't expect. Tonight was one of the nights that he surprised me.
Without a word, he cruised past the restaurant where he had reserved a booth with a candlelit table for us to have a quiet dinner. I promptly brought that to his attention. He promptly told me that he had decided to take me to his house instead. “I didn't think you'd mind if I canceled our reservation.”
“No, not really. But it would have been nice for you to let me know before now,” I mouthed.
Roscoe lived alone on the outskirts of town, across the street from the city park and two blocks from the steel mill where Rhoda's husband, Otis, worked. “I'm kind of in the mood for a quiet evening at home,” he grinned, not even bothering to ask if the change of plans was all right with me.
Since I liked the big white house that Roscoe had recently remodeled and because it was in such a nice scenic location, I didn't protest. “That's fine with me.” I smiled.
“Good! I figured you'd say that,” he gushed. “See, that's what I'm talking about. You are the kind of low-maintenance woman that a real man can appreciate, on account of you are so easy to please.”
I was somewhat disappointed that he'd changed our plans without consulting me, but I decided that I'd get something out of it anyway. I didn't want to admit to him that I was glad we were not going to be around a mob of people in a busy restaurant. After the day that I had endured, I needed to be somewhere with some peace and quiet. That was one thing. Another thing was that Roscoe had a large garden in his backyard. It contained a variety of fruit and vegetables that he often sold at the farmers' market on weekends during the summer and fall. I could load up on strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, yams, or cucumbers; maybe all of them. And if I got a little sex, too, that would be an additional bonus. That made me smile, but not for long. Sex with Roscoe was rare to say the least. Very rare. In the three months that we had been together, we had made love only three times. Actually, it was two-and-a-half times. During the middle of the second time, we had to stop so I could go use the bathroom. When I returned to his bedroom five minutes later, he had put his pajamas back on and was snoring like a moose.
“I hate to bring this subject up, but my lumbago's been bothering me all week. I can't get too romantic tonight,” he told me, casting a few nervous glances my way. “I hope that's all right with you.” I couldn't figure out why Roscoe even bothered to be apologetic anymore. Now that I knew what I knew about him, the one thing that I didn't expect to do with him when we got together was have sex. “Sex is not all that it's cracked up to be anyway, huh?”
“No, it's not,” I agreed, my smile fading. It was moments like this that I missed Pee Wee the most.
CHAPTER 11
I
ASSUMED THAT ROSCOE WAS GOING TO HAVE SOME TAKEOUT
items delivered. He surprised me again when we entered his house. As soon as he clicked on the living room light, he led me straight to the kitchen.
“I hope you like smothered chops and gravy over garlic mashed potatoes,” he told me with excitement in his voice. Roscoe was a good cook for a man, and surprisingly fit for one who liked to indulge himself with all of the foods that liked to stick to a person's body. “I thought that a home-cooked meal would be more enjoyable than us going to a restaurant. I just plucked those red skin potatoes out of my garden this evening,” he told me, removing his brown corduroy jacket, which was too heavy for the warm summer night. It had been somewhat chilly most of the day, but now the temperature had risen to the mid-eighties.
“Tell me what I can do to help,” I suggested, squinting at a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. “I should probably wash those dishes.”
“I'm glad you brought that up on your own! I was just about to tell you to do just that! And after you finish washing the dishes, go out in the garden and pick us a bowl of strawberries for our dessert.”
I had to keep reminding myself that Roscoe was a harmless distraction. And right now I needed a distraction more than I needed a lover. Especially one whose bedroom skills were still at the level of a teenage boy anyway.
Other than my estranged husband, Pee Wee, whose real name was Jerry Davis, Roscoe was one of the other two men that I was currently dating. He had lost his wife, Joyce, to breast cancer a year ago. They'd been married for thirty years, so he was having a hard time adjusting to single life again. When it came to looks, Roscoe was no Denzel Washington, but he was no creature from the black lagoon either. He had thick, silky black and gray hair, and smooth, cinnamon-colored skin. Except for a nose that looked something like a boomerang, his facial features were fairly pleasant to look at. He had been doing heavy construction work for more than twenty years, so he had a fairly nice body for a man in his early fifties.
One of the first things that Roscoe had told me at the beginning of our relationship was that sex was not, and had never been, that high on his list of priorities for years. Then he told me one of the strangest stories that I had ever heard. According to him, when he was sixteen and still a virgin, his stepfather took him to a prostitute to “break him in.” The insensitive hooker had made fun of his clumsy performance, and it had depressed him for months. His next few times with other females had been just as traumatic. At that point, he put sex on the back burner. He didn't attempt to do it again until his wedding night, several years later. By then, his sex drive had practically disappeared.
Since Pee Wee's sex drive had once slowed down because of a medical condition, I felt a lot of sympathy for Roscoe. I told myself that if I could survive without sex from Pee Wee for a whole year, I could survive without it from Roscoe for as long as necessary.
During the drought that I had suffered through with Pee Wee, I'd turned to another man for intimate comfort, but I had done it behind closed doors. But now with Pee Wee and me being separated, I didn't have to sneak around with other men. And just so I wouldn't get myself into any embarrassing situations, I always made sure each man in my life knew that I was dating others.
Even without much sex, I liked Roscoe enough to stay in the relationship anyway.
After we'd devoured our dinner and settled onto the crushed velvet couch in his neat living room with a bottle of wine on the coffee table and Miles Davis on the cassette player, he turned to me and gave me a pitiful look.
“Annette, please don't get mad, but I need to discuss something important with you,” he said in a shy voice. “I can't put it off any longer.”
I blinked a few times and shook my head. I was glad that I had already filled up a bowl with some strawberries to take home, in case Roscoe said something that might make me mad enough to leave in a huff. “I won't get mad,” I told him.
First, he cleared his throat, scratched the side of his head, rotated his neck, and moved a few inches away from me. He also took a long drink from his wineglass. These were not good signs.
Roscoe began to speak like he was reading from a cue card. “I know that you have a lot of feelings for me, but ...” he paused and scratched his chin.
“If you are trying to tell me that you want to date other women, that's fine with me,” I assured him. “I told you from the beginning that I was going to continue to see other men.”
“Yeah, you sure did, but I don't want to see any woman but you. I've been looking for a woman like you all my life.”
“I see. Well, if you are trying to tell me that you want me to date only youâ”
“Oh no! I am not going to ask you to stop seeing other men! Not yet anyway.” Roscoe paused and poured himself another drink. He took a long swallow before he returned his attention to me. “Oh shit! I ... I'm having a hard time saying what I want to say.”
“Maybe this is something we should discuss at another time,” I suggested. “We don't want to ruin our evening.”
Roscoe shook his head. “Now is as good a time as any, I guess. Look, baby. I didn't want to tell you this, but I was happy to hear from Carl Hopper who works at the gas station on Morgan Street that Pee Wee got Lizzie Stovall pregnant. If you do divorce him now, I'd be happy to marry you. You are a good cook and you do real good household chores. Even better than that trifling cleaning woman I just firedâand I was paying her.”
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. For one thing, I had no desire to jump into another marriage, especially since I was still in one that seemed to be flying out the window at breakneck speed. And as much as I liked Roscoe, being married to him didn't sound too appealing.
He needed a housekeeper more than he needed a wife. A couple of hours ago, while he was still cooking our dinner, he had asked me to run the Dirt Devil over his new carpet. One reason that I did domestic favors for Roscoe was because he usually spent a lot of money on me when we did go out for a night on the town. Since our sex life was practically nonexistent, I figured that a few housekeeping chores for him was the least I could do.
“You already know that I am no sex maniac like a lot of these men around here. If you were my wife, I wouldn't pester you every night in the bedroom like I know Pee Wee probably did.”
I looked at Roscoe and blinked some more.
“I am flattered that you care enough about me to want me to be your wife. But there is too much going on in my life right now for me to even think about a long-term relationship with another man,” I said, my voice cracking.
He gave me a blank look. I couldn't decide if he was desperate, confused, or what. And that made me feel sorry for him. I was fond of him, but he was probably the last man in the world that I wanted to be married to.
“Annette, I'll say it again; I've been looking for a woman like you all my life.”
“If you don't mind, let's discuss this subject at another time,” I suggested, glancing at my watch. “And I think I should be getting back home.”
Roscoe drove me home a few minutes later.
As soon as his car stopped in front of my house, my porch light came on. Muh'Dear's face immediately appeared in the living room window. She didn't even try to hide behind the curtains and peep out like a normal nosy person was supposed to. She stood there in plain sight with her hand shading her eyes, looking at me like I was something good to eat.