God Ain't Blind Page 8

  Somehow, Rhoda and I managed to work through the mess that Jade had created, and things between Pee Wee and me returned to normal. Those things didn’t stay normal long. About a month after Jade’s confession, Pee Wee started to withdraw. It was a gradual change, but by the end of that month, he had stopped making love to me. When I tried to initiate intimacy, he responded like a cold fish. Not long after that, he was more like a dead fish. I got the message, so I stopped trying. I had a lot of other things going on in my life that I could focus on, and that was just what I did.

  One of the things I got more involved in was work. I had a job that a lot of people wouldn’t have wanted if it had been handed to them on a silver platter, but there were still some people who were jealous of me because of my job.

  Gloria Watson was one of my bill collectors. She had been with the company longer than I had. She had kissed more upper-management butts than a politician, and it had done her no good. I had been promoted from a low-level position as a caller to the coveted manager’s position.

  Managing thirteen people was not easy. Most of them had chips on both of their shoulders and attitudes that the Devil must have been proud of. During my first two weeks as manager, two of my people threatened me with lawsuits for “harassing” them after I docked their pay because they’d come to work two hours late. I compromised by letting them make up the time on a weekend. I had more trouble with the women than the men. The sisters did so much eyeball rolling and neck rotating in my presence that eventually I started doing it. Those were things that I had specifically avoided doing all my years as a black woman because I didn’t want people to stereotype me. The sisters on the daytime talk shows were already doing enough damage to our image.

  I had to be very careful about what I said and how I disciplined my female employees. Not just the black women, since the white, Asian, and Hispanic women were just as aloof and mildly hostile toward me. One white woman threatened to go to some affirmative action watchdogs and file a complaint against me, claiming that I was a racist because I had asked her to remove the Confederate flag that she had hanging from a coat hook in her cubicle. I let that go when it was brought to my attention that one of my black male employees had a menacing poster of Huey Newton displayed on a wall in his cubicle. Aside from all that, I enjoyed my work.

  “You should try to make that place more sociable,” Rhoda told me one day, when she met me for lunch. “I felt like I’d stepped into a walk-in freezer when I walked in today.”

  “I think it’s too late for that. These folks barely speak to me, so what could I possibly do to make the place more sociable?” I asked. I was glad that Rhoda and I had decided to have lunch in my office that day. She had picked up some french fries and salads at Off the Hook, the new restaurant that had just opened up a few blocks away.

  “Well, bein’ the boss, you can do certain things that might help. Like I did.”

  “Rhoda, you run a child-care center in your house. The two women who work for you do most of the work. How many times do I have to remind you of that?” I said, rolling my eyes and rotating my neck. I cleared my throat and took a drink from the tall cup of iced tea that Rhoda had bought, and then I laughed.

  “And not only do my people adore and respect me, but they never complain.” She was right. Lizel Hunter and her cousin Wyrita Hayes, both in their late twenties, adored Rhoda. They had quit their backbreaking jobs at the steel mill where Rhoda’s husband worked on the same day to come work for her.

  “Well, you must be paying those sisters well, or they are bigger fools than I thought.”

  “I do pay them more than they were makin’ at that damn mill. But I do more than that. Me, I believe in the incentive factor. If there is incentive, there is process improvement and job satisfaction. You know how most folks hate Mondays? Well, every Monday I treat Lizel and Wyrita and myself to a nice catered lunch. And I always let them pick out what they want the week before. Neither one has missed a Monday in weeks.”

  I looked at Rhoda and blinked.

  “They are so motivated and eager to please that I’m more of a figurehead than I am their boss. I love takin’ care of children, but I rarely have to lift a finger. Food is the answer to all of life’s problems.” Rhoda nodded toward the french fries left on her plate. “A good meal is the American dream and the only thing that could give sex a run for its money. And food could give money itself a hearty run, too, for that matter.”

  “I’m sure a lot of people would argue with you about that. But I won’t go there myself right now. Yes, food is a great pacifier. To some of us, it’s too much of a pacifier.” I paused when Rhoda gave me an amused look. “But I don’t think that a catered lunch is what I need in my life right now. You, of all people, know about the war I’ve been fighting with the scale most of my life. I’ve made some real progress, but I’m still trying to lose a little more weight,” I told her, sucking in my stomach.

  The one good thing that had come out of that fiasco with Jade was the fact that the stress of it had altered my appetite. I had been wrestling with my weight since I was a toddler. I had tried every diet in the book. Once, I’d even fasted on nothing but water for four days straight and had gained five more pounds. Nothing had ever worked for me, until Jade’s betrayal.

  “So?”

  “So, I don’t want a lot of temptations around me anymore if I can help it.”

  “Then don’t participate. This is for your workers. But since you’ve been so disciplined lately, I don’t see any reason why you can’t participate in moderation. Shit. Just because there’s a slab of ribs starin’ you in the face, that doesn’t mean you have to eat the whole damn thing.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, giving Rhoda a thoughtful look.

  CHAPTER 14

  The more I thought about Rhoda’s suggestion about the catered lunches, the more I liked it. But I still had some concerns about my relationship with food. I could never forget that it had once been my best friend and my worst enemy at the same time. However, my eating habits had changed dramatically since last year. It was the only thing that I had Rhoda’s daughter to thank for, even though her antics had almost cost me my sanity.

  I hadn’t run into the arms of Reverend Upshaw and fellow church members to get comfort and guidance from them when Jade was on my case. I certainly could have used their support during that living nightmare.

  One reason I hadn’t run to the church was that I was too ashamed to let the world know how naive and stupid I’d been to let a teenager pull so much wool over my eyes. Another reason was that I knew every member of the congregation would have tried to convince me that I needed to “forget and forgive” what had happened.

  Even though Rhoda was my best friend, I knew in my heart that I could never forget and forgive what her daughter had done to me. There had been a few hellish events in my life that I had been able to forget and forgive, but not this one. It was unspeakable.

  As far as I was concerned, Jade’s “apology” after she’d been exposed, had done no good. Her remorse had been so weak and insincere, a blind man could have seen through it. She had fooled her mother, but she had not fooled me.

  I had not even opened the ninety-nine-cent Christmas card that she had had the nerve to send to me last year. It had been postmarked a week after Christmas and had postage due, and she’d misspelled my name in the address. As far as I was concerned, it was a subtle way for her to let me know that she could still torment me.

  I wanted to keep that shit fresh and at the front of my mind as a reminder and a warning so that I could remain alert. I knew that even that wouldn’t be enough for me to avoid another betrayal. But if and when it happened again, at least I’d be better prepared.

  In addition to my always being on high alert now, I could no longer even eat some of the food items that Jade used to supply me with. The sight of them made me sick now. Like the Big Macs she used to deliver to me at home and at my office—three at a time—and the whole slabs of
ribs that she used to bring to me, because it amused her to watch me eat them. Then there were the banana splits that she used to make, which were so huge, she had to put them on a platter. As much as I had enjoyed stuffing myself with all that crap, I was glad that those days were over. Looking back on all that now, I realized Jade had tried to kill me with food by making me eat myself to death.

  I never would have guessed that it would take something that extreme and bizarre for me to get down to a more healthy weight. I was still a full-figured woman, but a size sixteen was a lot more attractive on me than the size twenty-four that I’d become so accustomed to.

  For the first time in my life, I felt good about my body. But I didn’t give all the credit to Jade. The fact that my husband had changed so much had also affected my eating habits. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d crawled into bed with a family-size pizza and eaten it all by myself. Since the scale had been my enemy for so many years, I rarely weighed myself. But when I went shopping now, the clerks led me away from the muumuus, the shapeless blouses, and the elastic-waist pants with legs so wide you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

  Last week I entered a clothing store that I had not been near since high school. For one thing, it was for petite women. They didn’t have any large women working there and didn’t even want them on the premises! The last time I’d entered Little Bits with Rhoda, during our senior year in high school, a rude clerk had promptly informed me that they didn’t carry my size, but that there was a Tiger’s Den across the street, a run-down warehouse of a store, with an elephant in a tutu on its logo, that catered to the “big-boned” women. I had never felt so humiliated in my life. I went home and ate a whole baked chicken that day. My life was so different now, and I wanted to keep it that way. With the exception of my shaky marriage, I was a happy woman.

  Rhoda and I had almost finished our lunch. I was glad, because I was ready for her to leave. I didn’t like all the thoughtful looks she kept giving me and some of the things she was saying.

  “You are at a fairly acceptable size now, Annette. But you’ve lost a lot of weight in a short period of time, and that can’t be too good for a woman your age. But you can still eat most of the things you like as long as you know when to push your plate away. It can’t be that hard.” Rhoda speared a slice of cucumber from her salad. More than half of her french fry order was still sitting in front of her, getting cold. Leaving that much food uneaten was something that I rarely did. Even now. But the difference now was, I didn’t overload my plate. Therefore, when I did leave half of my food uneaten, it wasn’t that much. “I know how you feel.” Rhoda had on a Bob Marley T-shirt and a pair of jeans that I probably couldn’t have squeezed one of my legs into.

  “You are a goddamn liar. You can sit here, with your size three–wearing self, and talk all that shit and still not know how I feel. You’ve never had to walk in my shoes.” I stabbed a sliver of carrot with my fork, then started to nibble on it like a rabbit. “It is not easy to resist good food. Sometimes it’s still a struggle for me to eat only when I’m hungry.”

  Rhoda gave me a dismissive wave and shook her head. “Well, it must be comforting to know that most men love women with more meat on their bones.”

  “And that’s another thing. That’s one of the worst clichés in the English language. That’s something fat women say to make themselves feel better. No man has ever told me that.”

  Rhoda gave me an exasperated look before she popped a bouquet of french fries into her mouth. That gesture evoked a memory that brought tears to my eyes. The first conversation that I’d had the nerve to initiate with Rhoda, in the school cafeteria in eighth grade, was about me eating the leftover french fries on her tray. We’d been best friends ever since. Despite the fact that Jade used to shower me with french fries, too, it was the one thing that she had not ruined my taste for.

  “That catered lunch really sounds like a good deal. But I don’t know if my budget will allow me to treat my employees to a weekly feast,” I said. “I’ll call up my boss before I leave work today and run it by him.”

  I knew that Mr. Mizelle, one of the nicest bosses in town, would probably let me do just about anything I wanted to do. It was no secret that he was basically our boss in name only. I had been running the show single-handedly for years. And, as a matter of fact, he had also encouraged me to be more sociable with the people I supervised. He hosted regular potlucks and a few catered affairs at the main office downtown, where he occupied a huge office on the top floor of one of Richland’s biggest office buildings.

  Rhoda must have been reading my mind. “That old goat you work for loves you and would make a budget for treats if you asked him to. If you work out a contract or an informal agreement, if you’re more comfortable with that, Louis Baines will give you a really good deal. Off the Hook is the kind of place that has potential. It could be a huge success. But we have to help make that happen.”

  “You have a contract with this Louis Baines?”

  Rhoda nodded. “No offense to your mama and all the good old down-home treats she offers at the Buttercup, but newcomers like Louis need our support more.”

  I had cruised by the new restaurant in question a few times and had been meaning to check it out. I guessed I had no choice but to do so now.

  “My mother would have a fit if she found out I was using somebody else’s catering services instead of hers,” I groaned.

  “That’s true. But what your mama doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Rhoda responded. “Please do yourself a favor and give Louis a chance.”

  “I’ll think about it. But if I do and he disappoints me, your name will be mud in my book.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Thanks to my generous late stepfather, my mother had inherited the restaurant that he’d opened and had worked it into a huge success. The Buttercup, which would eventually be mine, was the most exclusive black-owned restaurant in town. Even though Richland was an hour away from Cleveland, and just a fraction of its size, people came from as far away as Cleveland to feast at the Buttercup.

  “Your mother doesn’t have to know,” said Rhoda. “And besides, that woman can’t handle all the jobs she gets now! Have you forgotten how my bowlin’ team had to get on a waitin’ list last month, when we tried to use your mama’s caterin’ services to celebrate our anniversary?”

  “Yeah. But my mother had to turn down a lot of jobs last month because of that strawberry farmers’ convention,” I said. “She got paid big-time to feed them.”

  “Just think about it,” Rhoda suggested, rising. The jeans she wore looked like they belonged on a doll. Her long jet-black hair was in a single braid, which touched the middle of her back. It seemed like the older she got, the more beautiful she got. And her dark brown skin was as smooth as a baby’s behind. Her eyes were as large, clear, and green, as they’d been the first time I laid eyes on her, at thirteen. But now there was often an unbearable look of sadness in those beautiful eyes.

  When it came to looks, Rhoda and I were an odd couple—in high school we were referred to as Beauty and the Beast—but like me, she had had her share of traumas. Not only had she lost a brother and a son, she’d lost part of herself. Cancer had robbed her of her breasts, and a mild stroke had disrupted her life and temporarily disabled her about ten years ago. I was glad that even though she had endured so much pain, she still had an optimistic outlook on life. As my best friend, she had enriched my life in so many ways.

  “By the way, I am glad to see you wearin’ makeup on a regular basis now,” Rhoda said, smiling. Her eyes rolled up to the top of my head. “And keep the braids,” she advised, with a wink.

  I wobbled up from my seat and walked her out of my office. As soon as we reached the main floor, everybody stopped talking and tried to act like they didn’t see me. That was what they always did when I approached their work area, and I didn’t like it one bit. It made me feel like an outsider.

  I let out a loud sigh. “You se
e what I mean,” I said in a low voice as Rhoda and I headed to the nearest exit. I was glad that our company was on the ground floor of the midsize gray building, which we shared with several other businesses.

  “The first time you cater an event with Louis Baines, you get a ten percent discount,” Rhoda mentioned. “And free beverages.”

  We stopped as soon as we got outside.

  “You sure are trying hard to get me to work with this guy. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that there was something in it for you,” I teased.

  “There is. I get an event catered for free each time I send him a new client.”

  I gave Rhoda a pensive look. “Let me think about it. But before I do anything, I’d like to sample what this dude has to offer. Maybe you and I can have lunch there one day soon so I can check him out,” I suggested. “Personally, I am always interested in sampling somebody else’s down-home cooking. But you do know that I don’t have just black folks and whites working for me. I don’t know if my Hispanic and Asian employees like greens and fried chicken.”

  “That’s another thing,” Rhoda chirped, waving a finger in my face. “Even though Off the Hook is a black-owned restaurant, they offer a variety of cuisines. Tacos, spaghetti, and fried rice to die for, just to name a few.” Rhoda pursed her lips and shook her head. I shook my head, too, because this conversation was bringing back too many memories. The items she had just mentioned used to be music to my ears. “Just tryin’ to help, girl.”

  “And I appreciate that. I’ll call you,” I said, giving Rhoda a hug before I turned to go back inside.

  Before I went back to my office, I strolled over to Gloria Watson’s cubicle, which was located across the hall from the ladies’ room. I cleared my throat to get her attention.