Every Woman's Dream Page 13

  “That girl named Lula or Lola or some other countrified name like that keeps calling here for you. I keep telling her you can’t talk or spend time with her. I hope the rest of your friends don’t pester you like that,” Mother Riley told me as she hovered over my bed.

  I had stirred around too much since I’d come home from the hospital and now I was paying for it. My ankles were swollen and my lower back felt like somebody had been dancing on it. Last night I actually fell to the floor when I tried to get up from the living-room love seat too fast. It scared Reed so bad, he almost had a baby himself. He leaped up from his La-Z-Boy and shot across the floor like a bullet. His mother and father wobbled up from the couch and ran to me. With three frantic people attempting to assist me, I fell again. This time I hit my head on the edge of the coffee table. A bump rose on my forehead and I immediately developed a headache that wouldn’t quit. My doctor ordered me to stay off my feet for a while. I’d been lying in bed off and on for hours at a time.

  “Lola’s my best friend and I’d like to see her. When she calls or comes by again, let me know,” I said firmly. “If I’m asleep, wake me up.”

  Mother Riley snorted and gave me a guarded look. “Now, look—”

  “No, you look,” I said as I rose up into a sitting position. “This is my home and my rules. If you don’t like them, you don’t have to stick around.” I knew Reed’s parents, and most of his other family members, didn’t care for me and the feeling was mutual. When Lola told me how my mother-in-law spoke to her when she called and when she visited, it made me furious. When I told Mama I was going to tell Mother Riley off, she didn’t think it was a good idea.

  “Baby, you don’t want to create tension between you and Reed on account of his mama. Let that uppity heifer have her way when she’s here. As long as she don’t get too far out of line, ignore her,” she advised. “And if she do get too far out of line with you, baby, let me know and I’ll straighten her out.”

  I didn’t want a civil war on my hands so I decided to take my mother’s advice. I was glad that she and Reed’s mother were rarely with me at the same time. Despite all the attention I was getting from family, the one person I wanted to see the most was Lola.

  When she called me up that evening and updated me on Bertha’s antics, I laughed. I didn’t laugh long, though, and I didn’t say anything on the subject. I knew that Lola didn’t want to hear what I had to say about her stepmother again or how she needed to start working harder on being more in control of her own life. I kept my comments to myself, something I didn’t like but had learned to do well over the years because I didn’t want to upset my BFF.

  I called Lola the next day around five P.M. Even though I had talked to her the evening before, I was so glad to hear her voice again. “Hey, let’s go out this coming Friday evening,” I suggested. “I’ll check today’s newspaper to see what movies are playing.”

  “You?” she exclaimed. “Do you think you should be going out so soon?”

  “I’m doing just fine and I’ll be doing even better once I get back into the swing of things. I have so many telephone messages to return too. Hey! I heard you got asked to the prom by two different dudes. Humph. I’m jealous.”

  “Don’t be. I turned them both down.”

  I could hear the pain in Lola’s voice, which didn’t make sense. One of the many things she and I had talked about since middle school was going to our senior prom. I obviously was not going to make it, but I assumed she would.

  “What?”

  “It was two of the biggest assholes we know,” Lola hissed. “Clint Kirksey and Neil Dobbs.”

  “Girl, they’re two of the hottest dudes in our school. Clint is captain of the football team. What’s the matter with you? Do you think I would have turned either one of them down, had I not gotten myself into the mess I’m in?”

  “Before I could make up my mind which one to go with, Joy Rogers told me that her boyfriend told her Clint and Neil had been talking trash about me in the locker room about what an ‘easy piece of ass’ I was. They had a bet going. If the one I went to prom with ‘hit it’ afterward, he would win twenty bucks from the other one. They said that was the only reason they asked me to go. I haven’t slept with half as many boys as most of the girls who go to South Bay High.”

  “I wish I could say that,” I muttered. My scorecard had already run out of space by the time I got to Reed. I couldn’t count the number of times I wished I had kept my panties on more often, like Lola had done.

  “Anyway, I’m not going. If you’re not busy that night, and if Reed doesn’t mind, let’s go out for pizza.”

  My jaw dropped. “Are you telling me you’d pass up senior prom to go have a pizza with me?”

  “I sure would. You’re a much better friend to me than any of the boys I know. Besides, I know I’ll have a good time with you.”

  “O . . . kay. It’s a date. If you change your mind, I won’t be disappointed.”

  Chapter 22

  Lola

  A MONTH AND A HALF AFTER JOAN HAD GIVEN BIRTH, SHE AND I spent prom night in Angelina’s Pizzeria, sharing a large pepperoni pizza. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so relaxed. The cute boy behind the counter, who had graduated the year before, was one of Joan’s castoffs, but he still liked her. He was cool enough to slip us some beer in Pepsi containers.

  To my surprise, Libby and Marshall and their spouses attended my graduation ceremony the following week. Libby’s two-month-old son, Kevin, was with a babysitter. I prayed that since she was a mother now, she would be a nicer person. Her attendance and behavior today (so far) were hopeful signs and that made my big day even more special to me.

  It was an occasion I would never forget. Not only had Libby told me how nice I looked in my cap and gown, she had actually smiled most of the evening. And she was the first person to give me a hug after I received my diploma.

  “I hope you have plans for your future,” she told me, patting my shoulder.

  “Uh, I’m going to get a job and work for a year or two and then I’ll decide what I want to do about my future,” I responded. I ignored the worried look on Bertha’s face when I turned to accept a hug from her.

  We celebrated by having dinner at a French restaurant. No matter how “nice” Libby and Marshall acted to me, which was so rare, I got suspicious when they did. Tonight was no different. I kept expecting one of them to say something inappropriate to or about me. To my surprise, they didn’t. The evening actually ended on a good note.

  Five days after graduation, I landed a job as a cashier at Cottright’s, a mom-and-pop grocery store five blocks from Bertha’s house. It was within walking distance and I could purchase groceries and get a 20 percent employee discount. That pleased Bertha.

  I liked my job immediately and I was thrilled to death to know that I’d be getting a paycheck every other Friday. However, it saddened me to know that my lifelong dream to have a real career as a teacher or a nurse someday probably wasn’t going to come true anytime soon. For one thing, my senior year grades had not been quite good enough for me to get a scholarship. And Bertha didn’t know if she’d be able to afford helping me continue my education. Libby and Marshall had been putting the bite on her wallet so frequently, and for so long, I suspected she was probably close to being bankrupt. My only hope was to work for a few years and save some money, and then pray for the best. Either I’d continue my education and pay for it on my own, or I’d get married and let my husband help me do it. But the way things were going with my love life, landing a husband was as much of a dream as going to college. I had not met a man yet who stayed around more than a few weeks once he got to know Bertha.

  Eddie Burris, a bank teller I’d recently met, was the most recent one. On the last of his four visits, Bertha had sat like a sphinx on the seat across from us in the living room, staring and blinking at him. After being silent for about fifteen minutes, she abruptly told Eddie that she and I were a “package deal,” and where I
went, she went. He didn’t comment on that, but he looked from her to me with a confused expression on his face. He left ten minutes later, dashing out the door with me stumbling behind him. We stood on the front porch steps and chatted for a few moments. When I went back inside, Bertha was standing in the middle of the living room with her arms folded. She looked like she had just swallowed a canary.

  “That boy sure left here in a hurry,” she commented.

  “He won’t be coming back,” I said dryly.

  “Oh? What did you do to him?”

  “I didn’t do anything to him,” I said, struggling to keep my voice from showing my frustration. “He decided not to pursue a relationship with me because he didn’t think I’d be able to spend much time alone with him.” I expected Bertha to be apologetic or at least sympathetic. I was wrong.

  “‘Time’?” she shrieked. She put her hands on her hips and continued in a loud, angry voice. “Ha! That mole-faced so-and-so ought to be glad you even gave him the little ‘time’ you did! By the way, I heard that he treats his own mama like a dog, so there’s no telling how he’d have treated me. I’m glad he won’t be coming back.” Bertha’s eyes lit up and a crooked smile appeared on her face. She even had the nerve to clap her hands. “You’re too sweet for that Eddie, anyway!” After a long sigh, she added, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Lola. I’m so glad I can still count on you. You do spoil me! I love you as much as I love Libby and Marshall.” Then she gave me a bear hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  Even though Bertha continued to frustrate me with her clinging-vine behavior and her abusive attitude when it came to my male friends, I tolerated her because I felt so sorry for her. She was one miserable woman. Her relationship with her children was so messed up it broke my heart to be a witness to the way they mistreated her. And despite the fact that she got on my last nerve, she was still a good woman and I still cared about her.

  “Lola, I thank the good Lord every day for sending you to take care of me. I’m so glad you decided to take a job close to home. You need to be close in case I fall or something,” she told me a month after I’d started working at the grocery store.

  I had filled out applications all over the place, including several upscale stores at all of the local malls and a couple in San Jose. A few of the cool kids who had graduated with me had already secured jobs in some of the same stores. I thought it would be fun to ride on the commuter bus to and from work with them. But since I was so anxious to get out of the house during the day and have a paycheck, I had eagerly accepted the grocery store job offer when Mr. Cottright called me up the day after I had applied.

  Things could have been a lot worse, so I counted my blessings. I still had a lot more going for me than some of the kids I knew. But my life still had enough glitches in it to keep me on my toes. One thing I was determined to do was stay out of trouble. I went out of my way not to offend people or do anything else that would earn me a spot on their shit list. Now and then, something happened that made me think about the angry woman who had come to my house last year looking for Joan. Every time I saw a gray-haired, middle-aged woman in a pantsuit, it brought back memories of that incident and I panicked. I knew that I was just being paranoid, but I couldn’t help myself. I had more important things to think about than the angry wife of one of Joan’s former pen pals, or any other angry woman for that matter, coming to my house to have a showdown about her man. Incredibly, another angry woman did come to the house and this time it was for me. And it was the last woman in the world I expected: Libby!

  It happened on a Saturday afternoon in July, two weeks after I had attended another party at Jeffrey and Libby’s house to celebrate his thirtieth birthday.

  The only reason I had gone to that party was because Joan had canceled a movie date with me. We had gradually begun to resume our lengthy visits and telephone conversations. However, with a cranky baby in her arms most of the time, our visits were not nearly as much fun as they used to be. I couldn’t wait for Reed Junior to get older so he’d be less trouble. Until that happened, I had to find other ways to spend my time.

  I had not been too excited about going to another party at Libby’s house. And had it not been Jeffrey’s birthday, I would not have gone. Ted, the man I’d met at the party back in February, had also been invited. He had come alone, but he paid very little attention to me, not that I cared anymore. The way he had treated me at the previous party after he’d huddled with Bertha, I had written him off, anyway. Most of the other men had come with dates. Eventually a man I had never met before asked me to dance. But he was so drunk he could barely stand up, let alone dance. If Jeffrey had not danced several dances with me, I would have spent most of the night sitting on the couch alone.

  “I apologize for not inviting more single dudes,” Jeffrey told me during my fifth dance in a row with him. Under normal circumstances, I liked slow dancing, especially if it was with somebody I was attracted to. Slow dancing to one of Luther Vandross’s most romantic old-school tunes with Jeffrey was like dancing with a preacher. But being a normal, red-blooded young man, touching a woman’s lower body with his had the same effect on him that it had on every other man I’d ever slow danced with. His dick suddenly got as hard as a piece of steel. From the tight look on his face, I knew he was embarrassed, to say the least. I pulled back enough so that I couldn’t feel his hardness pressing against me. It didn’t bother me that Jeffrey’s face was so close to mine; but from the corner of my eye, I noticed a frown on Libby’s face.

  “I thought that Ted would pay more attention to you this time,” he told me with his cheek touching mine. “You’re the best-looking woman in the room.”

  Libby walked up just in time to hear his last remark. No woman in her right mind, especially one who thought she was as hot as Libby thought she was, appreciated hearing her man make such a bold statement to another female.

  “This is one of my favorite old songs,” she growled, thumping Jeffrey on his shoulder, but looking at me. If looks could kill, I would have dropped dead on the spot. “Lola, do you mind if I dance with my husband?”

  “Sure, Libby,” I replied with a forced smile. I eased out of Jeffrey’s arm and waded through the crowd. I was glad I had left my sweater on the back of the couch, so I didn’t look so conspicuous when I grabbed it and started inching my way to the door.

  I saw a few people glance in my direction, but the only one I was concerned about was Libby. I didn’t like the menacing look on her face, and I didn’t want to wait around to find out why it was there.

  When I saw her lead Jeffrey by the hand into the kitchen, I ducked out the front door. I jumped into the first cab that came along five minutes later.

  Since I had had such a miserable time at the party, Jeffrey had tried to make up for it. He took me to lunch the next day and for pizza and other snacks a few times after that.

  “I sure hope Libby doesn’t mind you spending so much time with me,” I said when he drove me home from our last dinner date.

  “Well, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. This will be our little secret,” he said in a conspiratorial manner. We both glanced up toward Bertha’s bedroom window. I was sure he was as pleased as I was to see that her light was still out. We had not left the house until she’d gone to bed.

  “Jeffrey, I appreciate everything you do for me, but you don’t have to keep spending time with me. And you certainly don’t have to invite me to every party you and Libby have. You have a wife and a little boy and I know they need you more than I do.”

  A sad look crossed his face. “Yeah, but sometimes that’s the reason I need to get out of the house.” He let out a dry laugh before we piled out of his Bronco. With his arm around my shoulder, he walked me to the door and gave me a long hug.

  I went to bed right away and got up early the next morning so I could take a long shower before I headed off to work. I only worked Monday through Friday, but I had eagerly agreed to work that Saturday because the woman wh
o normally worked on that day had been out for the past three days because of a nasty cold.

  But since this was the first weekend in the month when the people on public assistance received their benefits, it meant a busy and hectic day dealing with the EBT cards and other government vouchers. Some of the recipients were rude, hostile, and pushy. They wouldn’t hesitate to threaten or cuss out me and whoever was on the second cash register if we refused to let them purchase cigarettes, condoms, lottery tickets, alcohol, or any other unauthorized items with their EBT food card or WIC coupons. It didn’t matter how many times we explained to them that it was against the state’s rules.

  This particular day was even more hectic than usual. It was times like this that I wished I had held out for a better job. Two days after the Cottrights had already hired me, Macy’s offered me a job in the shoe department.

  “Get the hell up out of that grocery store and get your tail over to Macy’s! We can get a lot of mileage out of your employee discount,” Joan advised when I told her.

  “I’m staying right where I’m at. The Macy’s job might not work out and I feel a whole lot more secure working for the Cottrights. Since most of my pen pal money is gone now, I need something to fall back on in case I have to move out of Bertha’s house at the spur of the moment. You know how volatile Libby and Marshall are. Now that I am a little more independent, things might get even worse between them and me. Besides, I promised the Cottrights I’d stay at least a year,” I explained. “You, of all people, know I never go back on my promises.”

  “Tell me about it,” Joan snapped. I knew she was referring to the deathbed promise I had made to Daddy, even though she didn’t say it. I was glad that I was a person people could count on.