Borrow Trouble (10 page)

I
never told Inez or anybody else, but from time to time, I felt extremely guilty about the way I'd cheated on Robbie and then broke off our engagement so that I could marry Leon. It was one of the few things I would admit to myself that I was ashamed of. In the back of my mind, I wondered if fate was going to pay me back some day. It was not easy, but I forced myself to not think about it that much. I had other unpleasant things on my mind that needed my attention more. Like what Mama had said about Leon and Inez.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't get Mama's words out of my mind. Leon was not perfect, and he loved women. It would have been naïve of me to ignore that important fact of life. So I decided that when Leon returned from driving Inez home, I would come out and ask him if he was having an affair with her. It was painful just rolling the words around in my head. I couldn't imagine how much more it was going to hurt to say them. But I had to if I wanted to get this shit out of my system.

“Leon, are you fooling around?”

“What? Hell, no! I have not been with another woman since I married you!” Leon roared, glaring at me. I'd waited for him to come upstairs when he got back home. I was already in bed for the night, feeling stronger than I had in days. He turned his back to me and started undressing. I could tell that he was pissed off by the way he flung his shirt across the room, letting it land on the floor. He struggled to remove his shoes, kicking them off like they suddenly hurt his feet.

“Are you telling me the truth?” I whimpered. “Are you telling me that you and Inez are not fooling around?”

He whirled around so fast to face me that he stumbled. For the first time, to me, he did look like he had on a mask. Just like Inez had told me so many times before. His eyeballs looked like they were about to pop out of the sockets. His nostrils were twitching, and his mouth was hanging open like a dipper. It was not a pretty sight. This was not the man I'd married. I had to ask myself if I really did know
who
I'd married.

“Inez? I don't believe my ears!” Leon quickly looked at the important numbers that I had taped to the base of the phone on the nightstand. Then, he let out what sounded like a growl. He glared at me again and then trotted over to the phone. He hit the speed dial and got Inez right away. “Hey, it's Leon. No, nothing's wrong…uh-huh…She's fine,” he said calmly, one hand in the air, motioning for me to be still. “Listen, I know you are not going to believe this, because I don't.” I didn't give him the chance to continue. I leaped off of the bed and snatched the phone out of his hand.

“Inez, it's nothing. I will talk to you tomorrow,” I said, hoping I'd diffused a potentially messy situation.

“What the hell is going on?” Inez asked. “Why did Leon call me? Are you sure you are all right?”

“I swear it's nothing. Now let me get back to bed. I'll talk to you tomorrow,” I promised. I hung up and returned to bed. Leon stood in the middle of the floor, in his underwear. There was a puzzled, slack-jawed look on his face as he stared at me.

“Of all the women on this planet for me to cheat with, what makes you think I'd touch that bitch?” he asked.

I was so confused that I didn't know what I wanted now. I wasn't happy when he was calling my best friend nasty names, and I wasn't happy when he spent hours at a time alone with her.

“Most men would go out of their way not to spend time with some bitch,” I snapped. “You didn't hesitate to chauffeur her from the airport or fix her car.”

“She's your friend. I'm trying to make you happy by being nice to her. That's the only reason! Do you think I'd even bother with that woman if she wasn't your friend? I thought you wanted me to get along with her.”

“There's a big difference between you getting along with her and you fucking her,” I snarled.

“I'll be glad when you drop that load. I know pregnant women act like a fool until they deliver, but you take the cake, woman.” Leon flopped onto the bed, on his back. He gave me an impatient look before he reached over and turned off the lamp.

The darkened room and the heat from Leon's body did something to me. I reached over and patted his crotch. I was glad that I got an immediate reaction.

“Leon, this is just the beginning of our lives together. We'll be together for another forty or fifty years, I hope. If we can't be honest with each other now, what do we have to look forward to?”

“I am being honest with you,” he said.

I couldn't tell if he was still upset or not, but he was getting more and more turned on as I massaged him. When I got up and turned the light back on and got naked, he decided he was too tired to do anything.

As soon as Leon left for work the next morning, I called Inez.

“What's up?” she asked as soon as she answered the phone in her nail shop. “Why did Leon call me last night?”

“Inez, you are the most straight-up person I know. I can ask you anything, right?”

“True. What do you need to ask me?”

“And you won't get mad?”

“I am going to get mad if you don't get to the point. Shit.”

“Well, I just need to know if you are fucking my husband,” I blurted out, my heart beating a mile a minute.

The long moment of silence that followed made me more nervous than I already was.

“What did Leon tell you?” she asked in a suspiciously distant voice. I ignored the fact that Inez didn't seem surprised by what I'd just asked her. She'd been asked the same question by other women, so it was no wonder it didn't faze her. But I thought that coming from me, it would have made a difference. She was as cool as a block of ice. “Did he tell you I was fucking him?” she asked in a flat tone of voice. This woman had so much control, it was scary.

“He claims he hasn't been with another woman since we got married,” I replied, making sure my voice remained firm.

“Then that should answer your question,” Inez told me in a voice that I almost didn't recognize.

I let out a sigh of relief. “That's all I wanted to know,” I managed.

“Don't you hang up this phone yet, woman. What the hell made you ask me a question like that? I got enough on my plate. I don't need, or want, Leon.” Inez laughed.

“Well, he's getting it somewhere.”

“He's not getting it from me,” she hissed, speaking slowly. Like she wanted to make sure I understood every word she said. “Why do you think he's getting his cookies somewhere else?”

“That man loves to fuck. We haven't done it in months! I can't turn him on with a pair of pliers. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that somebody had slipped him some of that saltpeter shit you told me about.”

I could tell that Inez was getting impatient by the loud breaths she kept letting out. “Are you busy today?”

“No more than usual. I thought I'd take the bus over to the school to say hi to some of my students and have lunch in the school cafeteria with some of the other teachers so I can catch up on my gossip. Why?”

“Cancel that. Let me take you to lunch.”

Inez picked me up a few minutes before noon. However, we didn't make it to the deli on Meyer Street like we'd planned. I went into labor right after we'd stopped at a red light at the corner near my house. Inez sped through that red light, and several more, to get me to the hospital.

Giving birth to the first child was a once-in-a-lifetime event for every mother. It was not something that I wanted to go through alone. Mama had told me that as soon as I felt the first contraction, to let her know so that she could be by my side until it was over. Leon had reluctantly promised that he would be in the delivery room with me, too. But bad timing on nature's part had prevented Mama and Leon from being with me on such an important occasion in my life.

My daughter, Cheryl, slid out of me twenty minutes after Inez got me to the hospital. And like in so many of my other dramas, Inez was the only one there for me. Except when she was off on one of her globe-trotting excursions, Inez
always
seemed to be there when I needed her the most.

M
y life was finally complete. Each week, month, and year was better than the last. During the next five years, Leon and I refurnished the whole house and added a recreation room so that his older daughter, Collette, had a place to entertain her friends when she came to visit.

Leon and Inez got along most of the time. One of the things that did cause friction between them involved my daughter, Cheryl. Inez spoiled her to death. She never came to the house without something for Cheryl. That was enough to set Leon off.

“I don't want my daughter to end up as spoiled as Inez's girls. She'll grow up thinking that the world owes her something just because she's here,” he complained, rooting around in the refrigerator we'd just bought for a beer while I prepared dinner. Cheryl, who was the image of her father, stood right next to him, gnawing on a carrot. She was excited because in addition to being in kindergarten, she now spent her afternoons in a child care center with her little friends across the street from our house, instead of with Mama, in Mama's stuffy old house.

“Inez knows when to quit,” I told Leon, water up to my wrists as I stood over the sink, washing some green beans. “That sister just likes to spend money,” I added, with a chuckle, admiring the diamond studs Inez had just delivered for Cheryl's newly pierced ears.

“The few Black women who are lucky enough to have a lot of money to spend should spend it more wisely. Not on a lot of unnecessary foolishness. And please tell your girl that I said we don't need her charity. I can take care of my family by myself.” Leon paused and tickled Cheryl's cheek.

“What's charity, Daddy?” Cheryl asked, still munching on her carrot.

“Something that people with money give to poor people,” Leon replied, with a painful look on his face.

“Cool! I like being poor!” Cheryl hollered, with an eager look on her face as she looked from me to her daddy. I let out a gasp that almost strangled me. Leon stood there with his mouth hanging open, looking at Cheryl like she had just recited the Lord's Prayer in rap form.

“See what I mean?” Leon shouted, waving his bottle of beer. “Inez is a bad influence!”

“We are not poor, baby,” I assured my daughter, giving her a serious look.

“Then how come Inez gives us so many things?” Cheryl asked, looking confused.

“Because she loves us,” I promptly replied.

I didn't even bother to tell Inez what Leon said about us not needing “charity” from her. And it was a good thing that I didn't. Because when she offered to pay my way to go on a Caribbean vacation once school was out, I jumped at the chance. But I waited until July before I mentioned it to Leon. He and I were celebrating the Fourth of July in our backyard. Frankie had taken Cheryl to see a fireworks event in the park across from Mama's house.

“No, I don't want you going off on a trip without me. Especially to a place like the Caribbean. I know too many brothers from Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and everywhere else down there, so I know what those men are like!” Leon snapped, his fork stabbing at the ribs on his plate.

I sucked in my stomach, and shoved another dollop of potato salad into my mouth, promising myself that I would jog around our block before I went to bed that night. “What about Paris?” I asked, talking and chewing at the same time.

“What about Paris?”

“Inez told me that she'll treat me to a trip to Paris if we can't get a good deal on a Caribbean package.”

“That's even worse! The whole world knows that even the homeliest Frenchman can talk his way into any woman's panties he gets a hard-on for. And you Black women are too uppity and loose to be traveling without male escorts. Uh-uh! You are not going to any of those places unless I go with you. Case closed.”

I wasn't too upset about Leon not wanting me to go away with Inez. I was happy just spending my time at home with my little family. But the more Leon protested, the more my attitude changed. After thinking about it for a few days, I decided that I did want to go on vacation with Inez. I offered Leon a compromise: I wouldn't go to any of the places he didn't approve of.

“How about Paraíso?” Inez suggested over lunch the next day, after my latest argument with Leon.

“Where is that? I've never heard of it,” I said, holding my salad fork in the air.

“It's in the Caribbean, not far from Jamaica,” Inez told me, sipping from a tall glass of iced tea.

“Have you been there? What's it like?”

She nodded. “Twice. It's a lot like some of the other islands. The Spanish settled there when they were still taking over other parts of the world. The British joined the party and eventually took over. The locals speak Spanish and English. The African slaves gave the island some color.”

“Hmmm. Let me think about it,” I told Inez, giving her a thoughtful look. I didn't want to seem too anxious, but this sounded like the trip that I'd been dreaming about all my life.

I couldn't wait to approach Leon with my latest vacation proposal. When I did, his reaction did not surprise me.

“Where the hell is Paraíso?” he asked in a gruff voice, not even looking up from
Fear Factor
, a show he hated but watched every week.

“It's a little rock somewhere in the Caribbean,” I said, with a shrug, frowning because the contestants on the screen were eating live bugs.

“Never heard of it,” Leon quipped, his back still to me.

“Neither had I until Inez told me about it. It's just some lazy little island country where the people do a lot of fishing and lying around on the beach. Inez is going to pay most of my expenses,” I said, sitting on the arm of the sofa. “I'll just have to spend a few dollars out of my own pocket for souvenirs and other miscellaneous things, like postcards, stamps, and stuff.”

“You'll do no such thing,” Leon yelled, turning to face me. “We need every dime we can get our hands on to get the roof fixed.” Leon gave me a guarded look. “And in case you forgot, property taxes are due in a few months.”

“Then I won't buy anything,” I offered, rising. “The bottom line is, I am going to Paraíso whether you want me to go or not. You are not my daddy. And besides, I don't tell you where to go.”

An amused expression appeared on Leon's face. Then he gave me a thoughtful look and a shrug.

“Well, excuse me! I am scared of you!” he said, with a grin.

“Don't tease me. I am serious. I am going on that vacation, and you are not going to stop me,” I insisted.

“Oh, all right. I guess you can't get into too much trouble in some little poo-butt place that I have never even heard of before. If you want to go, go. All I ask is that you
behave
yourself and bring me back anything but a T-shirt!” With that, Leon turned back to his program.

I had already told Inez that I was going to Paraíso with her, no matter what, so I didn't call her right way. I called Mama up because I would need her to help Leon take care of Cheryl.

“You are going to Para what?” Mama hollered right after I'd told her my plans.

“Paraíso. It's an obscure little island in the Caribbean,” I explained.

“Ain't that where that little White girl on a vacation with her school friends disappeared from last year? That Natalee Holloway,” Mama said, with a heavy voice. “Pretty little thing. Every time I see that poor little gal's mama on the television, I want to reach in that screen and hug her.” Mama sniffed.

“That girl disappeared in Aruba,” I told her.

At this point, my sister, Frankie, who was now a sassy eighteen-year-old, picked up the extension. “Wherever you go, I hope you bring me back something nice,” she ordered, with excitement in her squeaky voice.

“I seen a movie on the Lifetime channel about folks snatching females off the streets in foreign countries and then selling them to the sex slave people. I would never get over it if somebody grabbed you and Inez and sold y'all,” Mama said, her voice even heavier.

“Renee and Inez?” Frankie guffawed. “Women their ages ain't got nothing to worry about, Mama. The folks involved in the sex slave trade wouldn't pay a food stamp for a couple of broke-down crones like Inez and Renee. They only snatch real young girls. And even if Renee and Inez were young, those folks ain't going to waste their time and money on no Black females. It's mostly real young blondes that they want. There ain't nobody in the world that want
us
for any kind of slave now bad enough to pay cash money,” Frankie jeered in a know-it-all way that had been annoying me for years. I rarely let Frankie's off-the-wall comments bother me. No matter how obnoxious and insensitive my baby sister was, she did a lot for me. Like baby-sitting for free and running errands. But I still had to be firm with her when she talked trash.

“Thank you for your input, baby sister,” I snarled, forcing myself not to laugh, because I knew that what she was saying was true. I knew that Inez didn't feel the way I felt, but with us being in our thirties now, I thought our “femme fatale” days were over. The competition was too stiff. But I did hope that someone would find us attractive enough to dance with if we visited the clubs when we got to Paraíso.

“Renee, I wish I was you. You're going to have the time of your life,” Frankie decided, speaking in a soft voice that I rarely heard. Coming from her, these were some very potent and positive words.

And like my little sister predicted, I was going to have the time of my life.