God Ain't Through Yet (19 page)

I
t was so quiet it was scary. You would have thought that I was the last person left alive on my block. But it didn't stay quiet for long. A few minutes later, my house became like a scene out of some horror movie. The last three individuals I wanted to see invaded my space like those sinister pods did in the old movie
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. I was the body that was about to be violated.

They didn't even bother to knock. And I didn't even hear my front door open, but my parents and Scary Mary made their presence known immediately. Even with the thick carpets in my living room, I could hear them galloping across the floor like a herd of buffalo.

I was surprised and amazed that people their ages could move so fast through my house without running into a wall or two, or knocking over a piece of furniture.

As soon as my mother entered the kitchen, she screamed: “Annette, what did you do to that man to make him run off with a white woman! Addie Powell called me up a little while ago and told me that they moved into her buildin' this mornin'!”

I just stood there in the middle of the floor, blinking.

“And an ugly white woman at that!” Scary Mary added, shaking her gnarled fist at me.

“I told y'all that Pee Wee was cookin' up somethin' with that woman when I seen 'em all cozy and happy comin' out of the Red Rose the other night,” Daddy tossed his words into the rant like a rock, looking nervous and uncertain at the same time.

“I see that news still travels fast around here,” I began. “Would anybody like something to drink? I can make some iced tea.” I was not surprised that they all ignored my offer.

I knew that there was no way I was going to get out of discussing my situation with this self-appointed committee. I let out a loud breath and twisted my face up the way that I thought they expected a woman in my position to do. I didn't start speaking until I was reasonably sure that I looked mean and scorned enough to suit them.

“You look like hell, baby,” Muh'Dear said, rubbing my back. “Why don't you pack a bag and come stay with me and Frank for a few weeks.”

I whirled around to face her. “I am not about to leave my house,” I shouted.

“You damn right you ain't leavin'
your
house! If you did, that low-down funky black dog would move that woman up in here before you could say Jack Robinson,” Scary Mary insisted.

“I don't think so. He's not
that
crazy,” I protested. I was not trying to defend Pee Wee, that was for sure! But I didn't want my parents or anybody else to think that he would do something as bold as moving that woman into my house.

“Honey child, don't let this kill you. You can let it all out while we here to pick you up off the floor. Come on now…let it all out,” Scary Mary told me, giving me a pitiful look. She hobbled over and stood next to Muh'Dear; then she started rubbing my back, too.

It took all of my strength for me to remain calm. But the truth of the matter was, I was falling apart inside. My guts felt like they were coiled up like a bedspring. And I knew that once I was alone, I probably would hit the floor.

“Speak, baby,” Daddy urged.

I sniffed and they misinterpreted that. Muh'Dear whipped a starched handkerchief out of her bamboo purse and started blotting my nose.

“I'm all right,” I told her, pushing her hand away. I looked from one concerned face to another. From the looks on those faces, you would have thought that they were looking at my corpse. “What I want to know is, why nobody told me until now?” I asked calmly. “I heard you let them use a room in your house,” I said, looking directly at Scary Mary.

“Girl, you know I'm a businesswoman first. I need to get paid. I'd rent a room to the devil,” the old madam said, giving me a stern look. Then she softened and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “But, baby, I did try to tell you there was a fox in the hen house. You didn't want to listen to me when I called you up that night.”

“Sit down before you fall down,” Muh'Dear suggested, attempting to guide me to a chair at the table. Daddy had already fished a bottle of beer out of my refrigerator and dropped into a chair at the kitchen table.

“I don't want to sit down,” I insisted, pushing her hand away. “I need to figure out what I'm going to do.”

“Well, the first thing you need to do is whup that strumpet's ass,” Muh'Dear roared. “Had I got my hands on that bitch that Frank run off with, I'd probably just be comin' up for parole.”

“Me, too! Seven of my eight husbands cheated on me!” Scary Mary reported. “And the eighth one cheated on his wife with
me
!”

“Now, Gussie Mae, you be nice. Don't you be bringin' up the past,” Daddy said in a low voice, looking at my mother. From the strained look on his face, I could tell that he was not where he wanted to be. I couldn't imagine how uncomfortable it was for him to be in the presence of three scorned women. “Uh, you want me to go and talk some sense into Pee Wee's head? He might listen to another man.”

“And what good would that do?” Scary Mary boomed, glaring at my daddy like he had just slapped her face. “You just as triflin' as he is! With your white woman–lovin' self!”

“Lizzie ain't all white,” he reminded. “I seen that tar baby daddy of hers.”

“You all can stay here if you want, but I'm going to work,” I said evenly. I snatched the coffee cup that I'd been drinking from off the table and set it in the sink. Then I grabbed the damp dishrag and wiped the counter.

“One of my best clients is that divorce lawyer over on Mahoning Street. Max Rosenberg. Pee Wee will be as naked as a jaybird by the time that smart-ass Jew gets through with his black ass.” Scary Mary struck the front of my stove with her cane. “Let me get on that phone so I can call him up right now.” Scary Mary headed toward the phone on the wall, but I blocked her way.

“I can take care of my own business, thank you,” I insisted. “I know what I need to do.”

“Is that right? Well, whatever it is, you better do it and you better do it quick!” Muh'Dear warned. “You too good of a woman for Pee Wee to be runnin' off like he done! If he smart, he'll bring his happy ass on back home before another man snatches you up.”

The only reason my visitors left was because they thought I was about to leave for work. But I didn't go to work that day. I called in sick.

And I was.

I crawled into my bed, buried my face in my pillow, and cried and babbled like a baby. I remained that way off and on all day. Rhoda called every hour to check on me. She volunteered to pick my daughter up from school. I agreed to that, but I told her to take her to my parents' house. I needed some time alone, and I didn't want my daughter to see my swollen face and red eyes.

“Just make sure Daddy and Muh'Dear don't tell her about her daddy. I need to be the one to do that,” I told Rhoda.

But I was too late. As soon as Rhoda dropped Charlotte off at my parents' house, Charlotte called me up herself. “Mama, why did Daddy leave you for Little Leg Lizzie? What did you do to him?” she asked.

“I didn't do anything to him.”

“Then why did he leave?”

I sighed. “I don't know, Charlotte. I honestly don't know.” And I didn't. I didn't know if he had left because he was still in pain over my affair and was trying to pay me back, or if he'd found Lizzie too hard to resist.

“Mama, it's going to be all right,” my daughter told me, sounding more mature than she had ever sounded before in her life.

“I know,” I managed. I was glad to see that Charlotte was not taking this nightmare as hard as I was.

As soon as I got off the telephone with her, I crawled back into my bed and stayed there for the next two days.

“A
nnette, you get your ass up out of that bed. You are givin' black women a bad name! You know we
real
sisters don't let a little thing like a man drag us down. You need to eat, and you need to pull yourself together.” Rhoda had let herself into my house the following Sunday evening. I had not seen or heard from Pee Wee since he'd left with Lizzie.

She opened the curtains in my bedroom, then marched over to my bed and snatched off the covers. “You're not the first woman to lose her husband, and you won't be the last.”

The radio on my nightstand was on to a news program, reporting mostly bad news, such as rapper Biggie Smalls getting shot and killed in L.A. last night. I had enough bad news of my own to deal with right now so I turned off the radio.

“Poor Biggie,” Rhoda sniffed, shaking her head. “I hope he didn't get killed over a woman. No woman, or man, is worth gettin' killed over, or goin' crazy over like you seem to be doin'.”

“Rhoda, I'm fine. I'd never go crazy over a man. You don't have to treat me like a baby,” I moaned, struggling to sit up in my bed. My head was spinning like a top, my insides were dancing around in my stomach, and other parts on my body felt like they had been run over by a train. My poor legs felt like a steamroller had flattened them. Even the soles of my feet were in pain. They felt like I'd stomped out a bonfire with my bare feet.

For a moment, I couldn't remember what I had done the night before. But a glimpse at my nightstand told me at least one thing: I'd drunk until I passed out. A wine bottle, a vodka bottle, and two beer bottles sat on that nightstand—all were empty. I didn't see any glasses, so I must have drunk straight out of the bottles.

“Well, stop actin' like a baby if you don't want me to treat you like one,” she snapped. She leaned forward and sniffed a few times. “And from the way you smell, you need a long, hot bath. Eww! Get up!” Rhoda clapped her hands together, looking at me with the same stern expression that she used when she was chastising that unruly Jade or those preschool kids she took care of at her daycare center.

“I feel like shit,” I managed.

“And you look like shit, too. I am not goin' to let you ruin yourself because of that man. He's gone, and the best thing that you can do is get over it.”

I shot Rhoda a hot look; then I offered her some choice words. “That's easy for you to say! He wasn't the man you loved. He wasn't your husband! He left me for another woman, and it's not going to be that easy for me to ‘get over it,' and you should know better, Rhoda.”

“I'm sorry. I'm out of line. It's just that I don't want to sit back and watch you go down the tubes. You're a strong woman, Annette. You've survived all kinds of shit. You can survive this, too.”

“I know I've survived all kinds of shit, Rhoda,” I said in a gentle voice, rising off the bed. I didn't realize I was naked until I looked down at myself. I plopped back down on the bed and covered myself with two pillows. Rhoda didn't even react to the fact that I was naked. She still had the same pitiful look on her face that had been there when she first stormed my room. “But this just might be the one thing that I can't survive,” I told her, my voice cracking. “I never thought he'd do something like this to me. I thought he loved me.”

“I'm sure he still does love you. But there is more to it than that. Men do some of the craziest shit for the craziest reasons. Maybe he just needs some time away from you. This could be his midlife crisis. After all, we've been through ours. His was just a longer time coming.” Rhoda gave me a hopeful look.

“What the hell are you talking about? When did you or I go through a midlife crisis?” I asked, sitting up so straight one of the pillows slid to the floor.

“That thing you did last year with Louis was probably because of your midlife crisis.” Rhoda blinked and leaned forward like she was waiting for me to respond. But the only thing that I could do was blink myself. “And me, well, I've been in a midlife crisis since I had Jade. How else can I justify my ongoin' affair with my husband's best friend?”

“Maybe you really love Bully,” I said, knowing that I didn't care one way or the other about Rhoda and her lover. But talking about them eased my pain a little. No matter what else I thought about or said, what Pee Wee had done to me was at the front of my mind.

“I should go over there and shoot the shit out of both of those motherfuckers!” I roared. I hated the fact that violence kept entering my mind. I still considered myself to be a nonviolent person. However, it made me feel somewhat better knowing that the few times I had gotten violent, I had been adequately provoked. I pounded the mattress with my fist and stomped my foot on the floor.

“But you're not goin' to shoot anybody. At least not today. Now, you get dressed and come on downstairs so we can talk about this.”

Rhoda waited downstairs while I took the first bath I'd taken since Pee Wee's departure. I was glad that my mother had insisted on keeping my daughter with her for a few days. But I had declined her offer for me to move in with her for a while, too.

“I just made a fresh pot of coffee,” Rhoda said as I joined her in my kitchen. I had not been in the kitchen since that morning Pee Wee and Lizzie had infected it with the news of their affair. But I had left dishes in the sink, and a Krispy Kreme box with a few donuts in it and a half-empty coffee cup on the table. The rolling pin that I had bounced off Lizzie's face was still on the counter. Rhoda had washed my dishes and put everything else back in its place.

“Thanks,” I muttered, plopping down with a groan into a seat at the table directly across from Rhoda. Most of the swelling around my eyes had gone down. I had cried so much that they had been almost swollen shut. And my hand had stopped throbbing from that monster punch I'd delivered to the side of Pee Wee's face. I looked at the floor and was glad to see that Rhoda had removed the tooth that I'd knocked out of his mouth.

“What did you hit him with?” she asked with an amused look on her face.

I didn't even bother to lie or act like I didn't know what she was talking about. “Just my fist,” I admitted. “And I let that bitch have it with my rolling pin,” I said proudly through clenched teeth, looking around the room. “They were both lucky I didn't have a few bricks lying around.” The tip of my nose was itching so I rubbed it before I drank a few sips of the strong coffee Rhoda had made.

“Atta girl!” Rhoda said, giving me a vigorous black power salute with her raised fist.

“You know I am not the kind of woman to be fighting,” I said, clearing my throat. “It wasn't worth it anyway.”

“But you are glad you did it, right?”

I nodded. “I guess. I feel a little bit better knowing that I let them know just how pissed off I was.” I exhaled a deep breath. “I need to get out of this house soon. It feels like these walls are closing in on me. That dog lied to me. He was supposed to come get the rest of his things and talk to me about what we are going to do next. And he was supposed to discuss this with his daughter.”

“What do you want to do next? Are you goin' to fight to get him back?”

I gave Rhoda an incredulous look. “Hell no! I don't know what I'm going to do next, but I do know what I am not going to do. I'm not going to chase after him or beg him to come home. If he doesn't want to be here, I don't want him here.”

 

That Monday, I lumbered into my office a few minutes before noon. I was glad to see that all of my workers were busy. As soon as I got myself a cup of coffee from the break room, I locked myself in my office and did more work in the next two hours than I normally did in a day.

I didn't even stop to eat lunch. I had not had much of an appetite since Pee Wee left. As a matter of fact, I hadn't even eaten anything since that morning! I must have dropped a few more pounds, because the navy blue pants I had on felt a size too big. I was happy with my current weight and didn't really want to lose any more. But I knew that if I didn't start back to taking care of myself, my weight wasn't the only thing I'd have to worry about losing. I didn't want to lose my grip on reality. One of my mother's employees had suffered a severe nervous breakdown last year when her husband left her. Sister Hawkins had been in the state hospital ever since, talking to herself and rubbing her own shit in her hair. The last thing I wanted was for some man to take credit for me losing my mind.

It was after six by the time I opened my office door and strolled out onto the main floor. Except for the janitor, everybody had left for the day. I stopped when I got to the cubicle that Michael Dench had occupied during his short stay. Even though it had been a while since he'd committed suicide, I still thought about him from time to time. As sad as it was to stand in the same spot that he had occupied, it offered me a brief distraction. The more I focused on other things, the less I had to deal with my own situation.

I finally ate something when I got home; some strawberry yogurt straight out of its container, as I stood in front of the refrigerator with the door open. As soon as I entered my bedroom, I knew that something was different. The closet door was ajar, and it looked like somebody had been sitting on the bed. I checked the closet and saw that Pee Wee had removed all of the clothes that he had left behind. I shuffled into the bathroom and saw that he'd also taken all of his toiletries.

The only messages on my answering machine were from my mother, Rhoda, Scary Mary, and my daughter. Just as I was about to fix myself a very stiff drink, the front door flew open and my daughter flew in like a bat out of hell.

“Hi, Mama! Grandma just dropped me off,” she sang, dropping her backpack onto the living room sofa as she dashed toward the steps leading upstairs. “I gotta do my hair!”

I had not talked to her much about her daddy's departure. When she came back downstairs about twenty minutes later, I brought it up.

“Charlotte, I don't want you to think bad things about your daddy. He's still a good man,” I started, joining her at the kitchen table where she sat rolling up the end of her ponytail with some pink sponge rollers. “Uh, he's going to let me know when we can sit down with you and explain what is happening.”

“Why?” Charlotte asked, giving me a puzzled look. “I already know what's happening between you and him. I got eyes. I got ears. I know how crazy you old people are.” Her eyes seemed to see clean through me, like she knew more than I did. “What I don't understand is why any of y'all old people are still having sex in the first place.”