God Ain't Through Yet (2 page)

P
ee Wee was self-employed, and he took advantage of his position. He usually moseyed on over to the barbershop he owned, which was located a couple of miles from our house, whenever he felt like it. Some days he didn't go in at all. He had dependable people working for him, so it wasn't necessary for him to be on the premises all the time.

He spent his time away from work fishing in some of the many lakes and rivers in the northern Ohio area or just hanging around the house enjoying the lifestyle of a successful, self-made man. Lately, he'd been taking off days so that he could do special things for me. One day last week he took off so he could shampoo our carpets and prepare dinner. Now that might not sound so romantic to most people, but when he did that, it was because he wanted me to be extra nice to him. That was one of my easiest jobs. Pee Wee didn't have to do much to get me to be nice to him. I never told him that, but it was a win-win situation. The more he pampered me, the more I pampered him.

I didn't think anything about him going in early that Friday morning and then coming back home about an hour later, until I heard the red Firebird he drove pull up and stop in our driveway. I knew it was his car without even looking out the window. He had done one of those stupid things that men do to the motors of their cars so that it now had such a distinctive sound I'd know that Firebird was in the vicinity immediately, even without seeing it.

Right away I assumed he had forgotten something, or that maybe he had decided to take the day off so he could do something special for me. Since we had been trying to repair the damage to our marriage that my affair had caused, he initiated sexy little activities like calling me at my job and ordering me to meet him at a nearby motel for a quickie.

One day last month he'd sent a stretch limo to my job to bring me to a romantic hotel suite that he'd reserved for the night. By the time I got there, he had already ordered a candlelit filet mignon dinner and a dozen red roses. The last time he'd called me at work—interrupting my weekly staff meeting—it was to tell me to meet him in an alley behind the Grab and Go convenience store so I could give him a blow job in his car.

I was the one who had cheated, but he was the one who was bending over backward to keep our marriage alive. That was the kind of man he was.

Just thinking about my passionate relationship with my husband generated a wicked smile that spread across my face like a knife wound. There was just no telling what he had up his sleeves, or in his pants, for me this time.

I turned off the radio. Now I was so turned on, I practically collapsed back into my seat at the table, settling into it like a jaybird claiming its nest. I spread my legs open as I waited for Pee Wee to come in the house. It got so hot between my legs I had to spread my thighs so I could cool off my crotch.

I was anxious and curious to see what he was up to. I hoped that it was something that we could do quickly, because I had a lot of work on my desk at the office and I wanted to get there at a reasonable hour, hopefully before noon. That was mainly because I had plans to do lunch with a sister friend from the Baptist church that I attended from time to time. That poor woman—she had just found out that her husband was fucking his ex, so she needed some advice. Advice on what, I didn't know. I was surprised that a woman with a cheating husband would want advice from a woman with a man like mine. What in the world did she think I could tell her? I certainly could not tell her what to do to keep her man from cheating. It was too late for that. But I was also known as a good listener, and I had two very nice shoulders for people to cry on. I was pretty sure that those were some of the things that made me so appealing to my husband.

My office hours were from nine to five; but as a senior manager for Mizelle's Collection Agency, I had a lot of flexibility. Some days I went in an hour or so earlier than I was supposed to, some days I stayed an hour or so late, and some days I worked from home. I didn't even have to get out of bed or my nightgown on those days. I just propped up a few pillows in my bed, kicked back with my legs crossed at the ankles, and perused a few files. I even enjoyed a few glasses of wine while doing it. It seemed like I was literally getting paid to “kick back.” What more could I ask for? But since I loved my job and I loved getting out of the house, I preferred going to work to staying home.

Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was a few minutes past eight. I was already dressed and my office was only a short drive from my house. I figured I'd get there early enough to finish most of the work on my desk and address any issues that required my attention before I went to lunch with Sister Scruggs. Since it was casual Friday, I wore a fairly short denim skirt and a yellow Bob Marley T-shirt. It was a “youthful” outfit, but I was a youthful middle-aged woman. It was also one of my favorite outfits. I had been a fool for Bob Nesta Marley since his “I Shot the Sheriff” days. Before my recent 100-pound weight loss, wearing T-shirts or skirts or dresses with hems above my ankles was something that I could do only in my dreams.

The bathroom scale was still my worst enemy. When I stepped on it this morning, it claimed I had gained eight pounds back, and here I was smacking on my third Krispy Kreme glazed donut in the last twenty minutes! I laughed out loud; then I glared at the donut, hating it for what it represented. Just thinking about all the compliments I received about my drastic weight loss, and the proud way my husband looked when we went out in public, brought me back down to earth. I put the rest of that third donut back into the box and brushed the crumbs off my hands. “Now,” I said with a mighty belch, proud that I still had some self-control and discipline.

I had sent my daughter off to Reed Street Elementary School, which was only a few blocks away. I still had time to have a couple of cups of coffee before I left the house. And if Pee Wee had something else in mind for me to do, there was time for that, too.

Despite all the problems that we had encountered in our eleven-year marriage, Pee Wee and I still had it good.

Life was so good to me.

I was happy. My husband was happy. I had everything I wanted. My proverbial cup was not just running over, it was falling over.

I never would have guessed in a million years that I was about to lose that cup and everything in it.

I looked at my watch again. I listened and waited. The longer I listened and waited, the more anxious I felt. The wind was howling like a wounded animal. Normally, it was one of the sorriest sounds in the world as far as I was concerned. It didn't bother me much this time, though. The wind was also blowing hard. It made the tree branches on the cherry tree that leaned toward the side of my kitchen rattle the window above my sink like a clumsy burglar. It seemed to be taking a long time for Pee Wee to get out of the car and into the house. But then he was not as spry as he used to be. Like with me and most of our friends, intruders such as arthritis, gout, excessive gas, incontinence, and other ailments associated with age had become some of his most frequent visitors. He was still in good shape for a man his age, but he had slowed down considerably over the years. However, he wasn't
that
slow. Several minutes had passed since he pulled up in our driveway!

I rose from my seat at the table and was about to trot over to the window above the sink so I could look out into our driveway on the side of our house. I wanted to check and make sure he had not stumbled on a rock, or stepped on a pop top and landed faceup on the ground like old man Kelsy next door did from time to time. Before I could reach the window, I heard his car door slam. A second later, I heard a second car door slam. That was odd, but I didn't go to the window to investigate. I scrambled back to the table and sat back down, trying not to look too excited.

As soon as Pee Wee opened our back door and entered the kitchen, I knew that something serious was about to unravel.

E
ven though I read Pee Wee like a book, there were times when I had no idea what was on his mind. He kept secrets from me, but that didn't bother me because I kept a few secrets from him, too. But I could usually tell when something was wrong. This was one of those times. Something was definitely wrong. For one thing, he didn't look directly at me, and he was not alone. Elizabeth Stovall, the manicurist who worked in his barbershop, was with him.

“Annette, we all need to talk. We need to talk right now. It's real important,” Pee Wee blurted, his eyes darting around the room as he shuffled across the floor. He stopped in front of the table and finally looked at me. His face was so stiff it looked like he had turned to stone. When he coughed to clear his throat, his lips didn't even move. Then he glanced at the Krispy Kreme donut box, frowning at it like it was a dirty diaper. He was the one who had coaxed me into eating those damn things on a regular basis. But by the way he was wringing his hands and glaring at the box, you would have thought that he was looking at a hand grenade. He nudged Lizzie with his elbow.

“Uh, yeah, we all need to talk,” Lizzie said.

Now, this was an interesting turn of events. I had told Pee Wee just yesterday to tell Lizzie that I wanted her to help us plan our next backyard cookout. I decided that she must have been anxious to share some ideas with me for her to come to the house so soon.

I liked Elizabeth. We had all attended junior and high school together, and I had been one of the few classmates who had not teased or made fun of her. And even though she liked me, too, back then we didn't have enough in common for me to consider cultivating a friendship with her. But she was a friend now because I had handpicked her to work for my husband when she lost her job. One reason that I'd encouraged Pee Wee to hire her was because I pitied her. Poor woman. She was so socially isolated and awkward. She was the kind of wallflower whom other wallflowers felt sorry for. I knew that for a fact, because all through my teens I'd been a wallflower and I'd felt sorry for her. She was also so shy and withdrawn that she didn't have a lot of friends other than her staid parents and the elderly people at her church whom she played bingo with one night every week.
Bingo!
And on the most popular night in the week: Saturday. If that was not the last refuge for the truly desperate, I didn't know what was.

It was my nature to do things for other people that I thought would make them happy. However, my willingness to do “good deeds” sometimes backfired. I'd been betrayed and abused by more than one person over the years. But I had survived my trials and tribulations intact, and learned a few important lessons because of them.

At the end of the day, I felt blessed. However, I was now more alert, and not as trustworthy. I was so busy trying to avoid all of the wolves with sheep's clothing in their closets that I didn't even consider the fact that there were a lot of sheep who owned a few wolf outfits as well.

In the meantime, it was refreshing to have a friend like Lizzie in my life now. Life had not been too kind to her either.

Unfortunately, because of a bout with polio, one of Elizabeth's legs was noticeably thinner than the other. People called her Little Leg Lizzie. She admitted that she liked her cute nickname, and she encouraged people to call her that. She said it made her feel “special.” But she didn't like it when people stared at her leg or made fun of her because of it. “It makes me feel like a freak,” she had complained to me one day in Miss Krayling's gym class in tenth grade. Feeling like a freak was one of the things that she and I had in common all through school. That and the fact that none of our male classmates wanted to date us.

She had come such a long way. Now here she was in my kitchen for the first time (that I knew of), with my husband.

Why?

Pee Wee moved a few steps closer to me. Lizzie walked behind him, dragging the foot on her skinny leg like she was dragging a mop. This was the first time I'd seen her in running shoes. She was very fair skinned and she had sharp European features. As a matter of fact, people who didn't know her thought she was a full-blooded white woman because she had not inherited any of her black Jamaican father's features. Her straight, jet black hair was covered under a black scarf. She wore a yellow and brown tweed dress with the hem halfway down her legs and a long beige trench coat with a thin belt around the waist. And it must have been colder outside than I thought because her ears and nose were red.

I glanced at Lizzie's leg, the thinner one. I gave it, and her, a confused look. What I didn't understand about Lizzie's handicap was that it was not always that noticeable. When she wore pants or long skirts, you couldn't see the difference in her legs, and she didn't walk like there was a difference. However, I did notice that she walked with a mild limp when she got upset or nervous. Well, whatever it was now, she had entered my house walking like she had two club feet. And her eyes were on the floor.

“I hope you don't take things the wrong way,” Pee Wee told me, blinking so hard his nostrils flared.

“I hope you don't either,” Lizzie added, talking to me but looking at him.

I suddenly got the feeling that they had not come to talk to me about a backyard cookout. They didn't look too happy or comfortable to be in the same room with me. And what they had just said sounded ominous. My eyes darted back and forth from him to her. Then I fixed my gaze on my husband's face. He couldn't look me in the eyes. The way his eyes rolled up, he was looking more at the top of my head than he was my face.

“Pee Wee, talk to me,” I ordered. “Look at me!” I hollered. He did, but he took his time doing it.

It felt like the air had been sucked out of my lungs by a gigantic vacuum cleaner. My left leg was shaking so hard against the table leg, the top of my pantyhose suddenly split open with a run that reached from my knee to my ankle. “What's going on?” I asked, finally rising. I had to grab the back of the chair to steady myself so I wouldn't fall. “Pee Wee, Lizzie, what's going on?” I asked again. I looked from his face to hers some more. He looked at her; then they both looked at me. My words stuck in my throat like a fish bone. I had to clear my throat before I could speak again. Bile and a large lump had begun to rise from somewhere within the pit of my insides. “What…is…wrong?” I demanded, sweat forming on my face.

“Wrong? Um, nothin' is
wrong
,” Pee Wee managed, looking like a condemned man.

“The hell it isn't! Why else are you both standing here looking like pallbearers?” I hollered.

Something was definitely wrong. I could tell that just by the way my husband and my friend looked. If Pee Wee's face got any longer, it would be on the floor. There was sweat on his face, too. He was obviously nervous about something.

Lizzie looked guilty.

But guilty of what?