Читать книгу God Don't Play - Mary Monroe - Страница 12

“Auntie, are you all right?” Jade’s voice woke me up. She tapped on the dusty window on the driver’s side of my two-year-old Mazda.

After Rhoda had received her nice new SUV, I had dropped hints all over the place, hoping my mother, who now had more money than she could spend, would get me one, too. She ended up getting me the sofa instead and then reminded me about all the times when she and I had walked five miles each way to get to and from the Florida shacks we once occupied, and told me how I should be grateful that at least I had a vehicle, period. I still longed for one, but every time I saw Rhoda’s chic SUV I knew that if I really wanted something better I could get it myself. Gifts to myself from myself didn’t have the same effect as gifts I received from somebody else, though. It did a lot for me to know that other people cared about my feelings.

That was why it was no big deal for me to sit in my car in front of Rhoda’s house all that time waiting for her to come home so that I could talk to her again. Besides, I felt safer in my locked car on the street than I had felt in my locked house. I looked at my watch and trembled when I realized I’d been sitting in front of Rhoda’s house for over three hours, asleep for the last two.

“Auntie, what’s the matter? You look like you saw a ghost,” Jade said, squinting her eyes to see me better.

I rolled down the window and unlocked my door, happy to see Jade and Rhoda, even with the horrified looks on their faces.

“What is goin’ on, woman? How long have you been sittin’ out here?” Rhoda asked, opening my door.

I had not bothered to ring the bell on Rhoda’s front door, even though I knew her husband was in the house. His Thunderbird, along with several other vehicles, occupied the driveway.

Rhoda’s handsome Jamaican husband, Otis, was from a well-to-do family. He was my husband’s closest friend, and I’d known Otis almost as long as I’d known Rhoda and Pee Wee. But I’d always been careful of what I said to and around him. I had never gotten over the fact that he’d been the first and only male to come between me and Rhoda back when we were in high school, when I first realized how important Rhoda was to me. I used to be very possessive of her time, but over the years I had learned to compromise. I saw Rhoda when it was convenient for her. Even if it meant I had to sit in my car on the street for hours at a time.

“Uh, I just got here,” I lied. “I was so tired, but I didn’t mean to go to sleep. I just…just closed my eyes for a few minutes.” I yawned, then forced myself to smile. I had slept with my head against the steering wheel. Now my forehead was so numb it felt like I had lost the top part of my head. “I guess I was more exhausted than I thought.”

Rhoda had parked her SUV on the street in front of her house. She and Jade had shopping bags from some of the most expensive stores in Cleveland.

“Why didn’t you wait for us inside? Otis is home,” Rhoda said, a quick glance over her shoulder toward her house. She waved at her husband, who was now peeping out the living room window with both hands shading his eyes. She set one of her shopping bags on the ground and grabbed me by my wrist, practically pulling me out of my car. My feet felt heavy, like my body didn’t want them to move. I felt like I was rooted to the spot I stood in, like an old tree.

“I didn’t want to bother Otis and his company. I didn’t mind waiting outside,” I mumbled, with a wave of my hand. Rhoda and Jade looked at each other, then at me. “I…I…got a phone…phone call,” I stuttered. The voice coming out of my mouth sounded nothing like my own. I was beginning to feel like a visitor in my own body.

I didn’t feel like myself because I was still confused, and I was truly frightened now. I was mad, too. Mad as hell. I wasn’t the bravest person in the world, and I had only had to defend myself on a few occasions in my lifetime. But I was prepared to do whatever I had to do to protect myself.

I couldn’t think straight. There was an eerie sound buzzing in my ears and a storm of a headache pounding at my brain. I thought I was going crazy. I thought, at that time, that Rhoda was my best and only ally. “The same bitch who sent me that blacksnake and the note called me at my house.”

“How do you know it was the same person?” Jade asked, her eyes wide with anticipation.

She had two shopping bags in each hand and a shoe box under one arm. Her yellow backpack was dangling off her shoulder like a vine. And she had on a different shade of lipstick from the one she’d had on earlier, which told me that she’d had her makeup done, too. Rhoda had done the same thing. She even had on a pair of long, curly false eyelashes. It was no wonder they had been gone for so long!

As in awe as I was of beautiful women, I was glad that I was so low maintenance. After a five-minute shower, it took me ten minutes to do my makeup and hair, and then wiggle myself into one of my many muumuus. I didn’t own a single belt. There was no point, because I had no waistline. And the one pair of jeans that I’d had the nerve to buy ended up as the top part of a backyard tent that Jade and some of her friends made. I had a few suits that I wore to work and a few other fancy outfits that I wore to weddings and funerals, but floor-length dusters and muumuus suited me just fine most of the time. Rhoda and Jade took at least two hours to put themselves together each time before they left their house. Even just to go to the corner store! It frustrated me to no end to have to endure all that pussyfooting around, when I really needed to talk to Rhoda ASAP. But like I said, she was really the only person I could talk to about everything. Therefore, I had no choice but to wait for her to come home. She gave me her undivided attention as I spoke.

“Oh, it was the same person, all right. She told me so,” I said, giving the hood of my car a quick slap that was so sharp and hard it made the palm of my hand throb.

“Why, that bold bitch!” Rhoda roared, stomping her foot.

I let out a triumphant sniff, glad to see Rhoda so fired up. I knew that whatever it was I had to deal with, Rhoda would be with me all the way.

“This bitch knows where I live, where I work, and my phone number. I need to stop this and I need to stop it now before…before somebody gets hurt, real bad,” I whimpered. I didn’t have to worry about Pee Wee getting hurt. He had survived Vietnam, so I knew he could take care of himself. My main concern was my daughter. I could get over my tormentor terrorizing me, but there was nothing that I wouldn’t do when it came to protecting my child. I had to put a stop to this foolishness, and I had to put a stop to it now.

Or at least before Pee Wee and Charlotte got dragged into it.