God Ain't Through Yet (11 page)

L
izzie seemed like such a sweet person. She seemed like the kind of woman who would go out of her way to please a man—if she had one. She reminded me of myself in that respect; always willing to accommodate somebody else. However, I was hoping that she was more interested in employment than romance right now. Despite what I'd just said to her about her finding her soul mate, I didn't think she'd be writhing in ecstasy in any man's arms anytime soon.

“Are you interested in anyone right now, Lizzie?” I asked. “I hope I am not being too personal, and I don't want you to think I'm asking you this because I'm nosy,” I said with my hand in the air. “The only reason I'm asking is because my husband doesn't want to hire someone, then have her up and run off to get married and leave him in a lurch.”

Lizzie shook her head vigorously and sighed. “I'm still looking for Mr. Right.” Then she gave me a sad, brief smile. “I am very picky. I have high standards. I refuse to settle for just any man who comes along. I don't care how long I live and how lonely I get, I would never up and marry somebody just for the sake of it. And it doesn't bother me that people laugh at me behind my back because they
think
I'm
still
a virgin. That's one of the things I am most proud of—the fact that I don't sleep around. There are some women who stay virgins all their lives. Besides, people have been laughing at me behind my back since I was a baby because of my leg. But I'm happier than most people, so I don't let any of that bother me.”

“Whether you're still a virgin or not is your business.” Despite what I'd just said, I was dying of curiosity.

The more Lizzie revealed about herself, the more I wanted to get to know her better. She was a dark horse, but she had a very bright outlook on life. With her positive attitude she was going to make it through life with a smile on her face, whether she landed a husband, and a good job, or not. She knew it, too, because there was a confident twinkle in her eyes. I hoped that if things did work out between her and Pee Wee, she would not be just another employee. It would be nice to have her as our friend as well.

“And guess what, Annette? My car is paid for, and it drives as good now as it did when I bought it off that used car lot in Akron four years ago.” Right after she finished her last sentence, she leaned back in her seat and gave me a broad smile, revealing some of the healthiest looking and whitest teeth I'd ever seen. You would have thought that she'd just shared a naughty little secret with me about a tryst with Mr. Right, not a used Ford station wagon.

“Would you have a problem working with only male coworkers? My husband's barbershop caters mainly to men. However, he gets a few women in there to get their hair trimmed from time to time.”

Lizzie shook her head again. “Not at all! When I worked at a barbershop in Cleveland a few years ago, all of my coworkers were men. That didn't bother me. Besides, the shop I just got fired from catered to women, but it was because of a situation with a man that I got let go. I am real flexible. I can adapt to just about anything. Being surrounded by males is not a problem for me. And another thing, I was the only girl in Mr. Hand's shop class back in eleventh grade.”

Her last statement led us back to discussing the “good old days” at Richland High. That was all we talked about for the next few minutes. I didn't realize how much time had passed until our waitress asked us if we'd be ordering lunch.

“Oh!” I looked at my watch. “Uh, Lizzie, I didn't mean to take up this much of your time,” I said, giving her and our waitress an apologetic look. “If you don't have any other appointments, or any other place to go this morning, I would love to treat you to a nice lunch.”

“I'd like a Caesar salad and a diet Coke,” Lizzie told the waitress.

“Make that two,” I added.

We started poking at our salads as soon as they arrived and ordered more coffee. “Annette, I don't know how many folks you've already interviewed, or how many more you plan to talk to, but I want you to know right now that I want this job. I'm good at what I do, I am dependable, and I never complain.”

I nodded. “I think you'd be good for the job, but I'd like to give it a little more thought before I make a decision.”

“Oh.” Her face dropped.

“I just need a little more time to make a final decision,” I said quickly.

“Uh, will that be soon? They didn't give me any notice at my other job, so I'm going to be in a financial pickle this month if I don't find another job in time. Our water heater just broke, we need to have the wiring redone before the house catches afire and burns to the ground, my stepfather needs a new walker, and my mother needs me to help pay for her train ticket to go to Cleveland next week to visit my uncle Dennis in that veteran's hospital.”

Before I could respond to Lizzie's overblown tale of financial woe, a deep male voice interrupted my thoughts. “Annette, is that
you
?”

I looked up into the face of Henry Boykin, the ex-drug dealer from the south side of town, and my husband's rival.

“Hello, Henry. Good to see you,” I responded with a grunt.

“Sister, what happened to you?” he yelled, looking me over like he was doing an appraisal. “Damn, woman! I almost didn't recognize you!” Henry was talking so loud everybody in the café looked in my direction. I suddenly felt like a used car with a for sale sign on my face.

“I lost some weight,” I muttered with a forced smile.

“You sure did! I ain't seen you since Jack Brown's funeral! Praise God, you finally lost most of that blubber! You look almost as good as a government check now! The last time I seen you, I said to myself, ‘Please tell me that ain't Annette's butt followin' behind her.'” Henry paused and turned sharply to look down at my ass, which was twitching in my seat like I was sitting on a tack. “Yes, ma'am. You finally got it goin' on! Umph! You oldsters are really givin' them young girls a run for the money these days! If you get any hotter, I'm gonna have to call a fire truck!”

“When did you get out?” I chided. I knew Henry had been out of prison for at least a year.

He laughed. “Girl, I been out long enough to get myself on the right track. I guess you know I took over that barbershop across from the skatin' rink?” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “And I'm hittin' it real good! I'm makin' as much money as I did when I was involved in…uh, the pharmaceutical business. And I plan to stay on the straight and narrow! Jail ain't no place for a man with my talents.” He looked at Lizzie, smiling like a snake-oil salesman. “Ain't you the lady that works in one of them white folks' nail shop?”

“I used to be,” Lizzie replied. I didn't like the way she was smiling back at him, but it was good to know that she could be friendly in the company of a low-life like Henry.

“Hmmm. Well, this is a dog-eat-dog world. You gotta do what you gotta do to make it. Me, I always find me a good hustle.” With his long, greasy cornrows, his whiplash of a mustache, a tattoo of a dragon on his neck, and his loud-colored windbreaker, he still looked like the kind of person you'd expect to see involved in something shady. “How come you ain't workin' for the man no more?” he asked Lizzie as he blinked his shifty eyes.

“Uh, it was because of a conflict-of-interest issue,” she answered.

“Is that all? That ain't a good reason to let a employee go—if they good!”

“I was very good at my job, Henry. I was at that shop for years. And if anybody tells you I wasn't good, they are a damn liar, and you can tell them I said so. Like I said, there was a conflict-of-interest issue, so they had to let me go.” Lizzie kept surprising me. I was stunned and impressed by the way she stood up to Henry. “And I'll tell you the reason behind the ‘conflict-of-interest' issue before you hear it from somebody else: My boss's brother tried to hit on me.”

Henry tilted his head back and looked so surprised I thought he was going to laugh. “I'm a man,” he announced, looking from me to Lizzie like we didn't already know what he was. “We do some stupid shit when it comes to poontang and our manly urges. Some of us don't care who we stick our dicks in.”

Lizzie didn't flinch, but what Henry had just said bothered me. It took a lot of willpower for me not to say what was on my mind. But I wasn't about to let an ignoramus like Henry spoil the good mood I was in.

“Well, look here, Lizzie. I'm all for givin' back to the community. I make it a point of helpin' whoever I can. My mama used to go to the bingo hall with your mama. And for years, your mama loaned my mama money when she needed it, so I feel a little kinship toward you. If you don't find another job soon, come by my place. I just might have somethin' for you to do. My aunt Marie could use some part-time help keepin' the place clean. Sweepin' up hair, dustin' off the equipment, keepin' everything neat and organized. And once she go in for her hip surgery next month, I will need somebody full time.”

Lizzie perked up, obviously interested in another job opportunity.

“Uh, Henry, you got here just a few minutes too late. Lizzie is, uh, going to work for my husband,” I sputtered. Lizzie looked as surprised as I was by what I'd just said. I reached across the table and patted her hand. “Pee Wee's going to be offering manicures in his barbershop now and Lizzie is going to be doing them.” I meant to sniff, but it ended up coming out sounding more like a snort. I shifted in my seat; then I sat up straighter, hoping that that made me look more poised and confident. “Lizzie, I was just about to tell you that the salary is negotiable, but I can assure you that you'll be pleased with whatever we decide to settle on.” I winked at Lizzie. You would have thought that she'd just won a lottery jackpot. She looked just that happy. I assumed it didn't take much to make a woman happy whose main interests included bingo and taking Sunday drives in her used station wagon.

“Hmmm. Is that right?” Henry mouthed, caressing his lopsided chin. “Well, you tell Pee Wee I said hello, Annette. And tell him a few people have been askin' about him on the basketball court at the Y. But I understand, see. I know he's gettin' on in years, so I can understand him slowin' down a bit.”

“I'll tell him what you said, Henry,” I responded. “Now you have a blessed day,” I added, giving him a dismissive wave.

As soon as he left, strolling across the floor like he was some proper British gentleman, Lizzie gasped and leaned across the table.

“You're going to give me that job?” she asked, with her eyes stretched open so wide it looked like her eyelids had disappeared into her forehead.

I looked toward the exit. Henry was still in the doorway, hugging on a cute Hispanic woman in her mid-twenties, which was around his age.

“If you still want it,” I said, turning to Lizzie. “I think you'll make my husband very happy.”

A
fter Lizzie and I finished eating our lunch, we spent a few more minutes reminiscing about high school. She brought up things that had happened to me that had been so painful I had forgotten them.

“Remember that time JoAnn Springer and Judy Sharpe jumped on you in the girls' bathroom and tried to make you eat dog food?” she asked with a pinched look on her face.

It took me a few moments to recall that incident. And when I did, it made my stomach turn. “Uh-huh. JoAnn's on death row in Texas for killing her husband. And Judy got killed while trying to rob a bank in Cincinnati to get money to buy heroin,” I reported, feeling a sense of triumph. Almost every other person who had bullied or abused me at some point was now either dead or in prison.

Lizzie shook her head, but she didn't look like she felt sorry about what had happened to our former classmates. “That just goes to show that God don't like ugly. You always get what you have coming to you.”

I was pleased to see that there was a philosophical side to her. I knew that if I really made an effort to get to know her better, it would benefit us both. I'd have somebody to fall back on when Rhoda wasn't available, and Lizzie would have somebody to talk to and do things with other than her parents, her cross-eyed cousin, and that bingo-playing crowd.

We reluctantly ended our meeting, but on a high note. Lizzie admired the black leather boots I had on and squealed with delight when I told her that they were still available at half price at a boutique just two blocks from where she lived. Once she stood up, I got a chance to see what she had on her feet. It was not a pretty sight. She had on a pair of round-toed, black vinyl shoes with snaps in the place of shoestrings. I didn't know enough about her leg to know if she had some special requirements when it came to foot-wear. But if that was the case, why did she want to know where to buy a pair of boots? I didn't have to wonder about that long.

“I wear these shoes because of the ice on the ground. But I also like to wear heels and boots. People don't realize that my affliction, if you want to call it that, is with my leg, not my foot. I could even wear stiletto heels if I wanted to.”

“I'm glad to hear that because I always know where the good shoe sales are,” I said. Lizzie squealed with delight again. “Well, I'll be in touch,” I added as we exited the café. She limped down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. I watched until she was out of sight. Suddenly, a great sadness came over me. And I wasn't sure why. Lizzie was obviously a well-adjusted person. She didn't need my pity.

But she did need a job.

I didn't like calling Pee Wee at work right after the lunch hour because that was when the men who worked night shifts came by to get haircuts and shaves. It was a busy time in the shop and very hard for Pee Wee to carry on telephone conversations, especially personal calls. But this time was an exception. I called him as soon as I got back to my office. I was anxious to tell him about my interview with Lizzie and how she had impressed me.

I wanted to promptly wrap up the situation with her, in case she ran into Henry again. He was the type of person who would do things just to piss off his competition. When he was dealing drugs from the front yard of the house that he lived in with his mama, he used to barbeque ribs at the same time. If somebody didn't come by looking to purchase drugs, they almost always ended up buying a rib sandwich. And from what I'd heard, everybody who purchased barbeque from Henry eventually ended up buying some drugs, too.

Henry had customers streaming in and out of his front yard like ants. And it wasn't just the ghetto folks from the armpits of Richland. His customers included rich yuppies and buppies from the suburbs. That drove the other local drug dealers crazy, especially the veterans and the OGs, who had opened the doors to the drug trade in the first place for the newcomers. Henry had been physically attacked a few times, and one night somebody riddled the front of his mother's house with bullets from an assault rifle.

If somebody had not ratted Henry out to the cops, he probably would not have lived much longer. I didn't wish for anything bad to happen to anybody, but I didn't want Henry in my life in any way. I didn't like the idea that a man like him was now one of my husband's biggest worries. Now that he knew Pee Wee was interested in hiring Lizzie, he might pull a fast one and hire her first, just to get back at Pee Wee. I didn't know if she was desperate enough to accept a job as a cleaning woman in Henry's shop, but I didn't want to take that chance.

“Annette, are you crazy?” Pee Wee screamed as soon as I told him why I was calling. “Hold on, baby!” He left me hanging on the telephone for several minutes. I could hear him fussing at somebody in the background about a steamed towel being too hot. “I can't be settin' myself up for no lawsuit!” Then he dropped the phone on something hard before he spoke again. “I'm sorry for leavin' you on hold so long, baby. This place is a madhouse today! Everybody wants to look good for that charity banquet comin' up at the country club in a few days. I swear to God, people just don't take pride in their work no more. Bobby just slapped a towel around Deacon Carter's face that was hot enough to steam a lobster.”

“Why don't I call you back later today when things are not as hectic,” I suggested.

“Things will be hectic the rest of this day. We had a power outage a couple of hours ago, so we are a little behind. I swear to God, with all the money the utility company charges us, you would think that they'd have their act together so we wouldn't be havin' no power outages at all in this day and age.” I waited for him to take a few deep breaths. I was going to conclude the call and talk to him about Lizzie later that evening at home, but before I could do that he spoke again. “Now back to what you just told me—are you crazy?”

“No, I'm not crazy, Pee Wee.”

“Well, you must be! You want me to hire a retarded woman?” He laughed. A moment later, I heard him mumbling something to somebody in the background; then they laughed with him.

“I wish you'd be more serious. I am trying to help you. We've discussed this and I thought this was what you wanted,” I complained.

“Look, baby. If this is your idea of a joke, it ain't nowhere near funny. I got politicians and pimps—that'll get real ugly if I don't please them—comin' here to get shaves and haircuts, and they might want a manicure. I can't have no retarded woman choppin' up their nails. What's wrong with you, Annette? Can you see Mayor Banks sittin' in my shop with
that woman
buffin' his nails and droolin' all over his Italian-made shoes? Now go do somethin' constructive today. Go shoppin', go get a facial, or go get that mammogram you been puttin' off, and let me get back to work. Shit.” He snickered. “You got some nerve callin' me up to tell me you offered
that woman
a job in my shop.”

“Look,
that woman
is named Lizzie. And she is not retarded,” I said, speaking through clenched teeth.

He muttered something under his breath; then he laughed some more.

“And I don't appreciate you making fun of my efforts. I am only trying to help you.” I paused and let out a disgusted sigh for his benefit. “Well, if you're not interested, she can go work for Henry….”

I heard him release a muffled growl. “I doubt that. That nasty young punk wouldn't have nobody like Lizzie workin' in his shop. You know what a snob he is.”

“Suit yourself. I think you're making a mistake by not hiring Lizzie, so I'll set up a few more interviews. Maybe I'll have them meet me in your shop so you can sit in on the interviews.”

“I already told you that I ain't got time to be interviewin' nobody. You volunteered to do it for me, and I hope you find somebody soon. I heard this mornin' that two more of my regulars been seen comin' out of Henry's place.”

“Don't worry, honey. I'll keep looking for you, and I will find somebody soon. The way I'm doing it is not working out, though. I ran that ad in the paper, but I think it would have been better for me to call one of those employment agencies. That's what I'll do next.”

“Good! Get on it,” Pee Wee advised.

“I'd better call Lizzie and tell her to go ahead and accept that job with Henry that he offered her today….”

Pee Wee's silence told me I had pushed the right button. “Oh? Henry Boykin offered Lizzie Stovall a job doin' manicures in his shop?”

“Yep, he offered her a job in his barbershop.” I was telling half of the truth. If Pee Wee ever found out that the job Henry offered to Lizzie was a cleaning position, he wouldn't hear it from me if I could help it.

“You know, now that I think about it, wasn't she in one of them special ed classes back in school? She wasn't really retarded, was she?”

“Pee Wee, you and I attended a regular school. There were some special classes for the kids who were a little slow, but there were no retarded kids in our school.”

“So she's more like a Forrest Gump type? Like the slow dude that my man Tom Hanks played in the movie. Like him, she's slow, but she's too smart to be called retarded?”

“You're the only one who is calling her retarded,” I snapped. “And I don't know why you are doing that, because it's not true.”

“If I am goin' to hire somebody to work for me, I need to know if I got to be worried about them burnin' my place down, or havin' some kind of fit or somethin'. Now, didn't this Lizzie woman ride in that short orange school bus with that flat-headed boy who used to spit on kids?”

As Pee Wee talked on about Lizzie, my heart sank because the more I thought about her, the more I wanted to help her.

“I don't know anything about all that,” I said sharply. “All I know is Lizzie Stovall does good work and she's available. And when I talked to her this morning, she didn't seem retarded or even slightly slow to me. As a matter of fact, she seemed real smart. She came to the interview with a copy of the
Wall Street Journal
sticking out of her purse. Does that sound like a retarded person to you?”

“She could have been usin' that newpaper as a fan. That's all I use it for. Or she might have been usin' it to make a paper hat for all you know. You didn't see her readin' it, did you?”

“Look, Muh'Dear swears by her. The way she and Daddy went on and on about Lizzie, you would have thought that she'd worked in the White House. I've interviewed a few people. So far Lizzie is the best candidate. And she's the only one who said she's willing to work for minimum wage and tips only. The others wanted that, plus two weeks' vacation every year, starting with the first year. They wanted bonuses, employee discounts for their relatives, and one even had the nerve to say that she wanted you to provide all of her equipment and supplies.”

“Well, I can't say I don't blame them. They want the best they can get, and so do I.”

“Then take my advice. Listen to me,” I insisted.

“I am listenin',” Pee Wee said, his impatience coming through loud and clear.

“Let Lizzie Stovall come work for you. Now that Henry knows you are upgrading your shop, he'll find another way to try and upstage you. I know you'll be glad you hired Lizzie.”