Down On My Knees (20 page)

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Authors: Victor McGlothin

BOOK: Down On My Knees
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“Sure, that was all right, I guess, but I do need to speak with Miss Pearl a minute.”
“Ma, whose tight Jag is that out there?” André asked, looking past her.
“Don't you worry about that, just get your things so I can get you to bed,” she demanded.
“Okay, okay. That's tight, huh Sky?” Skyler had joined him at the doorway and was every bit as curious until he recognizedthe fancy vehicle.
“Yeah, it's tight all right,” Skyler answered with a calm resolve. “C'mon Dré, I got something to tell you.” They departedto Skyler's bedroom, then closed the door behind them.
“Miss Pearl,” Grace called out toward the woman's bedroom.“It's Gracie.”
“Chile, I know who it was the minute I saw you out in that car, sliding out of your panty hose.”
Grace thought she was going to die. “You saw that?”
“Girl, yeah,” Miss Pearl snickered. “You think you're the first mother who went to extra measures making sure her son didn't know she was still a woman?”
“Miss Pearl, it wasn't like that,” Grace argued, very embarrassed.
“I'm sure it wasn't, or you'd have had 'em put away in your purse a lot sooner. Don't fret none of that. The boys are fine. They're all a roar after riding in that ballplayer's big, expensivecar. He took 'em for burgers and everything.” Miss Pearl grinned as she pictured all the fun they'd had. “Probablythe best night of their lives, I'd say.”
“Yes, ma'am, I'd say you're right about that. Thanks again for watching Dré. See you at work bright and early Monday morning?”
“Naw, but I'll get there at ten like I'm supposed to,” the old woman corrected her. “Don't go crawfishing on me now. Bright and early ain't part of the deal.”
“Yes, ma'am. We did say ten o'clock, didn't we?”
“Sho' did, and tell that Mr. Peters I said hello when you get back to the car.” Grace wanted to hide her befuddled expressionbut couldn't. Talk about all of her business being exposed for public scrutiny. “And tell him I understand what he's aiming to do with Skyler, too. He needs to know that I don't hold nothing against him.”
Again Grace was confused but thought it better to play along. “I will,” she agreed before hugging Miss Pearl tightly. “I'll see you on Monday.”
When André met Grace at the front door, he was checkingher like a grown man. She offered him an open opportunityto say what was on his mind, but he let it pass until they were out onto the cement porch. “So, you're dating Mr. Peters?”he asked like a man twice his age.
“No, he's just helping me out. I couldn't get to my car fast enough when you called me. Wallace was at the fund-raiser too, and he didn't mind bringing me. Is that okay?”
“Huh, it's works for me if it works for you. Mr. Peters is okay. All the women teachers seem to dig him, too. If you want to see what he's about, I'm with it,” André added, his head cocked to the side like he had thought it over and given his blessings. “You could do a lot worse than him, I guess.”
Grace was taken aback by his mature sincerity. “I'll try to remember that if Mr. Peters decides to ask me out, now that I know it works for you.” She looked at Wallace taking it all in. She thought about letting him sweat it, but felt that would have been unfair so she tossed him an expression conveying that all was well.
André sat in the backseat and spoke to his favorite teacher as if the lift home wasn't out of the ordinary in the least. He relived the basketball game, the burgers, the discussion afterward,and the chance to ride in a hundred-thousand-dollar car with chrome spinning rims. André had fallen asleep by the time they reached home. Grace woke him up and helped him stagger to the door. She waved good-bye to Wallace and spent half the night wondering why Edward had decided to reenter her child's life after such a long absence. She also lent some time to what Miss Pearl had said regarding Wallace's efforts to help Skyler, and not holding anything against him because of it. There were so many questions without the answersto make sense of them. Answers are what Grace wanted, almost as much as the good night's sleep she needed.
21
Reflections in Blue
T
he next morning, Grace rolled around in bed until she couldn't stand lying there any longer. She tussled with a pillow that blocked her view from the alarm clock on her nightstand. “Ten o'clock already,” she moaned. Grace figuredthat André must have helped himself to cold cereal becausehe hadn't bothered to disturb her for their normal Saturday flapjacks, bacon, and cheese grits breakfast. Before she could swing both legs over the side of the bed, she heard the doorbell chime. Her cell phone began to vibrate simultaneously.“André!” she yelled. “Dré, please get the door for me!” Her caller ID flashed Linda's name. “Linda, what's up?” she said into the flip phone.
“Obviously not you,” Linda answered with a rise in her voice. “Get your butt out of that bed, girl, and let me in.”
“Huh? I'll call you back, Linda. Someone's at the door.” Grace yawned, rubbed her hand across her face, eased into a silk robe and strolled into the den. “Dré!” she hollered a secondtime, stumbling across the note he'd left for her: “Mama, I'm gone to the rec center to hoop. I've got some money. See you later. André.” When the doorbell chimed again, Grace remembered why she'd walked into the den in the first place. “Coming,” she said, much too softly for anyoneon the other side of the door to hear. She looked out of the window and saw Linda's car, a tiny yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Grace opened the door, then turned around and started off in the other direction without as much as a hello.
“Well, good morning to you too, Grinch,” Linda joked, following closely behind Grace. “You got a man shacked up in here, and is he still naked?”
“No and no, although that wouldn't be such a bad idea considering how messed up my life is right now.” Grace waved at the refrigerator and shuffled off toward her bedroom.“Whatever you find in there you can keep.”
“Uh-uh, I'm taking you to breakfast so you can tell me
all
about last night. Then, after the juicy details, I'll drop you by the hotel to pick up your car.”
“Oh, I've forgotten about being stressed and stranded. Be back in a sec.”
“Hurry up, Shelia's supposed to meet us at Nookie's.”
Grace stopped and slung her head around as if it weighed a ton. “Nookie's?”
“Yeah, you know, that charming little breakfast nook off the Knox-Henderson exit.”
“Oh, yeah,” Grace remembered. “That's the place with the fruit crepes, the good ones.”
Linda was thumbing through the latest issue of
Essence
when Grace finally pulled herself together. “Whew, it's about time.” Linda closed the magazine and tucked it under her arm. “I hope Nookie's serves lunch,” she teased sarcastically.
“Cut me a break, I got my feelings beat on last night,” Grace complained, strapping on the darkest sunshades she could find.
“That's what I'm talking about. What else of yours got beat on last night?”
Grace cut her eyes at Linda over the top of her shades. “Believe me, that was enough,” she informed her inquisitive friend.
“Well, depends on who you ask. Shelia spent all night putting in work for her new Icemaker Deluxe with a lettuce crisper.”
“She went home with that guy?”
“Think she didn't? Then they went shopping this morning.Wanna guess where to?”
“Appliance World,” Grace said, knowingly. “Gotta hand it to Shelia. She never loses her focus on the resources of romance.”
“She always says it's better for a sistah to give when she can receive something that comes with a receipt and a warranty.”
“Okayyy,” Grace chuckled. “The only thing I've ever gottenfor my troubles is a thirteen-year-old who's starting to look too much like his father. Edward Swenson is going to be the death of me.”
Linda followed Grace out to the car, pondering each step of the way. Once they were en route to the restaurant, she had to inquire about the night before to see if it had anything to do with Grace bringing up an old name that represented nothing but old news and nonsense. “Edward Swenson,” Linda sighed, as if his name was tied to her miseries as well. “That's a name I haven't heard in a long while. Does he still send checks for André?”
“Yeah, he's been paying into Dré's college fund. I haven't cashed one of those checks in thirteen years. I couldn't bring myself to, no matter how hard times were when André was little and I was working on my master's. Pride, girl, it's alwaysbeen the witch I couldn't seem to ditch.”
After allowing Grace's words to sink in, Linda was no closer to the story she was trying to get her hands around without coming right out and asking. She and Grace were friends, true enough but Grace was changing, into who she didn't know. “If the money is coming in on time, why are you sitting over there looking like the color blue?”
“That's funny, because that's exactly how I feel.” Grace leaned her head back against the headrest to settle into the seat as well as into the conversation. “If confusion were a color, I'd be wearing that one too.”
“You and me both,” Linda suggested, as she still had no clue what had transpired to ruin Grace's night and left her with one heck of a heartache hangover. “It's killing me not to ask why the finest schoolteacher I've ever laid eyes on was packing you off into the darkness, and how your panty hose ended up in your purse the morning after.”
Grace cocked her head at Linda. “And how would you know that?”
“I saw them when you dug out your house keys to lock up. Like I wasn't supposed to notice two feet of nylon hangingout of a three-hundred-dollar purse. What? Now, you may as well go on, and tell me all about it.”
Grace nestled back into her seat again, brooding over the details she didn't mind sharing with Linda. “I wish there was a sexy scenario to paint for you, but it didn't go down like that. Not even close. I was in such a hurry to see about André that I must've walked right past Edward and didn't even notice him. But as soon as I heard his voice calling my name, I knew it was nothing but trouble.”
Linda's eyes widened with surprise. “Edward was at the fundraiser last night?”
“Yeah, he was probably hiding in the bushes and waiting on a good time to strike. I shouldn't have let it get next to me, but after he started tripping about how he wanted to be a better father and questioning my decision to keep him out of my son's life, it got out of hand, I got out of hand, and the only thing that stopped me from giving him a suede slingbackenema was Wallace stepping in to calm me down.” The smile that tickled at Grace's lips when she said his name caused Linda to ask more about him.
“Hmm, this Wallace you're getting all happy faced about, is he the reason you can't get yourself to trash a certain set of women's unmentionables?”
“Huh, everybody and their mama has seen my unmentionablessince I took them off, but no, not really,” Grace told her, with the smile intact. “I was a wreck after having it out with Edward. Ooh, I wanted to get all up in him. I snatched off my shoes and was heading back inside to get in a few good licks. He's bigger than me, but I had rage on my side. Wallace didn't want André to see me with my hose all jacked after that and get the wrong idea. He's very thoughtful,you know,” Grace added, reliving the incidents she wouldn't soon forget.
“No, I didn't know that about him,” Linda remarked to goad Grace on.
Grace blushed as she thought about Wallace taking over after she'd lost control. “He
rescued
me,” she giggled, before realizing how adolescent it sounded. “I mean, he showed up when I needed a strong shoulder to lean on. I wished he'd have used it to knock Edward flat on his behind.”
Linda picked up on something and speculated whether Grace was aware of it or not. When they were escorted to a booth near the window, she stared at Grace until she could no longer put off inquiring about it further. “Grace, do you really like this Wallace, this dashing blackjack-dealing-old-English-recitingsexy superhero?”
Grace's eyes gleamed before she turned them away from Linda's. “I don't know why you'd say that. I just met the brotha.” Grace looked at Linda to see if she'd bought it. She didn't.
“If you'd have been listening to yourself on the way over, you might have a different perspective from the one you're trying to pawn off on me.” Linda picked up Grace's shades from off the table and put them on her face. “Wallace is so thoughtful,” she mocked, bobbing her head like a lovesick debutante. “He rescued me. I wish he'd use those big strong shoulders to knock that Edward flat on his mean old behind.” Linda broke out laughing when she observed Grace's mortifiedexpression.
“Oh, Lin, was I that bad?”
“Worse,” Linda verified quickly. “I left out the cute little giggle you do whenever you mention his name.”
“I do not giggle when I mention Wallace's name.” Grace wanted to scream when she started giggling on cue.
Linda nodded her head and pointed across the table at Grace. “See, I told you.”
“What am I going to do now?” Grace asked. A bad case of panic spread across her face. “I can't be trying to date and
. . . and get down like that with my son's teacher. That's ... that's nasty!” “Only if y'all get down,” was Linda's heady response.
“You never know, Grace, it could be the best kinda nasty you ever had the pleasure of getting down with, seeing as how thoughtful and strong he is. After you're done, then you could get him to beat up Edward.”
Grace choked on a sip of ice water. “Uh, now you're speaking my language.”
“It sounds like music to my ears.” Linda began snapping her fingers to the beat of an oldie but goodie. “Happy feelings,”she crooned. “Where's Frankie Beverly when you need him?”
“I'm sayin'.” Grace bobbed her head to the rhythm going on inside it. “Thanks so much Linda, you didn't have to get out of your warm bed to drag me out of mine.”
“That's what you think. How else was I going to find out if you got some last night? Shelia called me twice already asking if I'd heard anything yet. Wait until she gets wind of your baby-daddy drama and Mister Super Sexy convincing you to jump out of your drawze in the front seat of his car.”
“Bump that, those were not my panties,” Grace objected. “Uh-uh. No.”
“Did you wear panties with that dress last night?” When Grace didn't answer Linda got what she was looking for. “All right then, the panty hose may as well have been your drawze. Either way you chalk it up, that man had you all up in his vehicle, with ... what? Yo booty ... out.”
Both Linda and Grace were doubled over and gasping for breath when Shelia arrived and hopped into the booth with them. “Okay, what I miss?” She rattled off. It was difficult to make out Linda's abbreviated version amid the unbridled hooting and hollering going on. “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” Shelia uttered, listening intently but only catching about every fourth word. “Wait,
who
had their booty out?”

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