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.
CHAPTER 8
Rhoda glanced toward her house again, clearly getting impatient with me. “Do you want to come inside and talk about it?” she wanted to know.
I nodded. “I tried to call Pee Wee but he had already left. I don’t know if he’s coming straight home and I don’t want to be in the house by myself. Not now,” I said. “I don’t know what this person wants from me. I don’t know what this person is capable of doing, and I don’t want to find out, until I know what kind of maniac I’m dealing with,” I snapped.
“That’s it! That’s it!” Jade said through clenched teeth. “I’m going to go inside and call the cops! We are not going to let this heifer do this to you, Auntie!” Jade yelled, her bottom lip trembling. “Are we, Mama?” Jade lowered her head and gave Rhoda a tentative look.
Rhoda pressed her lips together so hard that it looked like one had disappeared. There was a faraway look in her eyes before she blinked. Then she and Jade stared into one another’s eyes, like each was reading the other’s mind. That was one time that I was glad I didn’t have that ability myself. I didn’t really want to know what was going on in those two heads.
“What?” Rhoda spoke and shook her head like she was just coming out of a trance, and in a way I think she was.
“We’re not going to let this sorry skank keep this up. Are we, Mama?” Jade asked, rotating her neck so hard her hair fluttered.
“No, we won’t,” Rhoda said in a calm, easy manner followed by a quick smile. Rhoda’s smile disappeared when she looked at me and saw the exasperated expression on my face. “Don’t worry.” She tapped my foot with hers and offered another smile. Then her voice got deep, her eyes more intense as she glanced up and down the street.
“If this bitch is crazy enough to step onto my property, I’m crazy enough to straighten out this mess myself.” Even though I weighed more than Jade and Rhoda put together, literally, I felt safer with them than I would have with anybody else I knew.
One thing I could say about Rhoda was she would stop at nothing to handle her business. I had learned that early in our relationship. It had a lot to do with how important she was to me. She took no prisoners and didn’t have to because she had a shoot-to-kill attitude. I didn’t condone that attitude but I did feel that a person had to do what a person had to do, when he or she felt threatened.
When I couldn’t face one of my battles on my own, I always knew that Rhoda would face it with me. I was not proud of the fact that I was so dependent on her, but had she not been such a powerful crutch for me to lean on, I wouldn’t have made it this far. I didn’t know what I expected Rhoda to do about my present situation. But it meant a lot to me just to have her emotional support. And since I didn’t even know who or where my tormentor was, confronting her face-to-face was not an option. At least not yet.
I held up my hand, looking away from Rhoda to Jade. There was no smile on Jade’s face. She looked as grim as I felt. “I don’t think this is a police matter, Jade. I don’t have all the evidence anymore and I can’t even prove that this person called me up and threatened me,” I said, trying to sound strong. The truth of the matter was, I felt as weak as a kitten.
“She threatened you?” Jade and Rhoda yelled at the same time. Rhoda replaced her smile with a look of horror.
I nodded so hard my neck ached.
“Come on. Let’s get you inside and have a few stiff drinks,” Rhoda said. “I’ve been waitin’ for an excuse to pop open a bottle of the brandy my mother-in-law sent me for my birthday.” She picked up her shopping bags and beckoned me to follow her and Jade, but my feet still felt so heavy that I couldn’t move right away. Rhoda and Jade started to inch toward their house, the sharp heels of their boots click-clacking on the concrete sidewalk.
“Can I spend the night? Or will one of you come spend the night with me?” I begged, dragging my feet, with my flip-flops sliding every which way, as I moved toward Rhoda and Jade.
“Well,” Rhoda began, giving me some of the same looks of pity that I received from my mother. “My husband’s friend from London is still here and he’s straight-up nosy. If you don’t mind him askin’ you all of your business, you’re welcome.” Rhoda leaned toward me and rubbed the side of my arm. “You remember Ian Bullard?”
I nodded. “The one we call Bully,” I said, wiggling my nose because the man in question was also Rhoda’s former lover and had fathered one of her children. It had been years since Rhoda and I had