Читать книгу Borrow Trouble - Mary Monroe - Страница 19

Inez stayed in Barbados for ten days. I received a postcard from her, letting me know that after she left that island, she was going to stop off in Jamaica for an additional few days. Unlike Inez, I didn’t like to run away from my problems. I liked to sit down with someone who cared about me and talk things over. Inez was the best listener I had ever known. There was not a psychiatrist, or a bartender, in town that I would rather tell my troubles to before Inez.

I was glad that I had made the decision on my own to try and get pregnant, but this was something that I wanted to discuss with my best friend. Not that I wanted her to give me any advice, but it would have been nice just to have her around to listen to me.

I enjoyed being married. I felt like a totally different woman. I looked and acted differently. And other people noticed, even some of my second-grade students. “Miss Beakes, why come you all the time smiling and humming stupid songs now?” asked Walter Marrell, the most obnoxious youngster in my class this year. Walter looked like a gnome, with his lopsided head, long ears, and round, flat nose. But he still liked to draw attention to himself. His small black eyes seemed to look right through me as he anxiously awaited my response.

“Walter, you must remember that I am Mrs. Webb now. No more Miss Beakes. I got married,” I said proudly. I stood in front of my class, with the latest Harry Potter book in my hand, preparing to read a few excerpts to them.

“Why did you get married, Miss Beakes?” the same boy asked, with a giggle, his two front teeth missing. “Now you got to sleep in the same bed with a strange man.” The whole class snickered.

“Walter, married people sleep together. Now if you don’t mind, let’s confine our attention to our good friend Harry Potter,” I said firmly, holding up the front of the book. I didn’t read much for my own pleasure, but when I did, it was usually a novel by a popular African American author, like Carl Weber or Mary B. Morrison. I’d already read most of the classics and more textbooks than I could remember, so Harry Potter was as much a treat for me as it was for my students.

But Walter seemed more interested in my story than Harry’s. He occupied a desk at the front of the classroom, right across from my cluttered desk, so he was hard to ignore. “My daddy makes all kinds of strange noises when he’s in the bed with my mama,” Walter announced, facing his classmates. Then he turned to me. “Miss Beakes, do you and your husband make a lot of strange noises in the bed?” This time the class roared with laughter.

The bell rang before either Walter or I could say another word. And the subject was never brought up again. At least not in my classroom. I wanted to share cute little stories like this one with Leon, but he didn’t have a lot of interest in what went on in an elementary school. I didn’t bother to tell him about little Walter’s comments. However, I told him about the time that Mindy Stargen came to school with a condom she’d found in her father’s pants pocket, blowing it up like a balloon during show-and-tell. Leon didn’t laugh or even comment about that incident, or any of the others that I shared with him, even though I gave him my undivided attention all the times he held me hostage for hours on end, repeating conversations he’d had with difficult taxpayers. Inez seemed to be the only one who was genuinely interested in my day-to-day life, and that’s why I spent so much time hanging around her nail shop.

The two sisters that Inez employed, Pat Jenkins and Shonda Jones, got sick of me coming into Soulful Nails while she was still out of the country, whining about how I needed to talk to Inez. Their impatience and exasperation showed on their faces each time they saw mine. But I didn’t let that stop me.

“She didn’t tell you what hotel she was going to be staying in?” I asked, looking from Pat to Shonda. Both of them had on more make-up than Ronald McDonald. Like Inez, they thought their shit didn’t stink, but in a good way. I was one woman who was not afraid to admit that I admired and envied confident women.

Impatient customers were lined up in chairs along the wall like convicts. Pat and Shonda were both frantically filing and buffing the fingernails and toenails of the two women who occupied the seats in front of them.

“Inez didn’t want nobody to know how to find her,” Shonda said, tossing her head back so that her blond weave flopped and fluttered like a scarf. She handled the nail drill like it was a Gatling gun, looking up from the customer in front of her just long enough to glance at my shabby nails and give me a disgusted look.

“If Inez calls, tell her to call me,” I ordered, curling my fingers into a fist to hide my raggedy nails.

Just when I was about ready to start climbing the walls, Inez came home four days after my last visit to the nail shop. It was Halloween night, so when I went to answer the doorbell, I carried a large bowl that I had filled with suckers and other goodies.

“Trick or treat!” I yelled as I snatched open my door, expecting to see the faces of some of the neighborhood kids grinning up at me. I was shocked to see Inez standing in my doorway, loaded down with gifts and souvenirs.

What was even more shocking was the fact that Leon was with her. “This handsome devil you married was sweet enough to pick me up and drive me home from the airport,” Inez squealed. She leaned toward me and air-kissed my cheeks.

“He what?” I mouthed, puzzled. The bowl suddenly felt twice as heavy in my hand.

“I tried to call you, and everybody else I know, to come pick me up. Leon was the only person I was able to reach,” Inez explained, with a sheepish look on her face. Over her shoulder, I saw Leon dragging his feet up our walkway. There was an odd expression on his face. He looked like the grinning jack-o’-lantern I had set on our front porch banister a few days ago. “Your honey was sweet enough to bring me by here first.” Inez said the word “honey” like it was painful. I looked from her to Leon and back to her, trying to figure them both out. They were not acting like two people who couldn’t stand one another.

I didn’t know what confused me more: the fact that Inez had suddenly returned and come straight to my house, or the fact that Leon—who had just referred to her as the poor man’s Paris Hilton the night before—had picked her up from the airport.

“Girl, I’ve been dying to talk to you!” I squealed, hugging Inez. I set the bowl of candy on the end table next to my sofa and threw my arms around her. She had lost a few pounds, which made her body look even more luscious. But with her hair hidden under a scarf and no make-up, she looked rather plain from the neck up.

“I want to hear all about Barbados and Jamaica,” I told Inez, smiling at Leon as he made his way into the living room.

“I’m going to fix myself a drink. Why don’t I fix you sisters something, too?” he suggested, his gaze darting back and forth from Inez to me.

I looked at Leon and blinked. There was a nervous smile on his face.

“I’d like a large cosmopolitan,” Inez said, flopping down on the sofa, dropping the shopping bags on the floor.

“A cosmo it is,” Leon sang. “And I’ll fill up the largest glass in the house,” he added, with a chuckle. He stepped forward a few feet, with his arms stretched open like he wanted to hug the world. This was one man who was full of surprises.

“And don’t be stingy with the vodka,” Inez warned Leon.

I was surprised but pleased to see my best friend and my husband speaking in such a friendly manner. It was a reason for me to celebrate.

“I’d like a margarita,” I chirped, smiling at Inez as I eased down on the other end of the sofa. As soon as Leon left the room, I turned to her, with both my eyebrows raised. “It takes thirty minutes to get here from the airport.”

“True,” Inez said, tilting her head to the side, an amused look on her face. She slid the scarf back off her face, revealing mild sunburn on her forehead. “And?”

“And what did you and Leon talk about for thirty minutes?” I wanted to know. I was so pleased to see Inez that I didn’t really care what she had discussed with my husband. It was enough for me to see that they had reached such a milestone in their “relationship.”

Inez shrugged. “Nothing much. I slept most of the way.” She rose, lifting one of the shopping bags. “I got you one of those straw purses you’ve always wanted.”

I sighed, suddenly slipping back into the slight and mysterious depression I’d been experiencing since my marriage. “Let’s do lunch tomorrow. I need a sounding board,” I told Inez.

She glanced toward the doorway leading to the kitchen, and then she gave me a concerned look. “If you promise not to yell and scream at me about sticking my nose in your business, I can. I’ll meet you at the deli across the street from my shop.”

“I just want you to listen to me.” I leaned toward her and squeezed her hand.

Inez gave me a bleak look, but she nodded. “Fine. We have a date.”

She turned all the way around and looked toward the doorway again. I didn’t like the look on her face when she returned her attention to me. “Have you seen what’s behind his mask yet?” she whispered, grabbing my hand.

I reared back, snatching my hand away from hers like I’d been burned. “What’s that supposed to mean? Look, Leon is my husband now. If he is the demon you sometimes make him out to be, you should have told me before I hooked up with him.”

“I tried to,” Inez wailed, with an exasperated sigh. “He is your husband now, and I do respect that. I can put up with him if he can put up with me, I guess. The fact that he offered to pick me up from the airport says a lot. Don’t you think so?”

“I love him and he loves me and that’s all that matters,” I insisted. A few moments later Leon entered the living room, with our drinks on a tray. He sported a smile that covered almost half of his face. “Baby, Inez was just saying how nice it was of you to pick her up from the airport,” I told him, taking a long swallow from my glass.

“It was no trouble at all,” Leon said, scratching the side of his head. He plopped down on the sofa, next to Inez, even though there was more than enough room closer to me. It was the first time that I’d ever seen my best friend and my husband within a foot of each other.

I felt better already, and the strong margarita had a lot to do with that. As a matter of fact, I decided that I didn’t need to meet Inez for lunch and cry on her shoulder, after all. I needed to be with my husband.