Every Woman's Dream (15 page)

Chapter 26

Lola

T
HE THE DAY AFTER MY LAST DATE WITH
M
AURICE
, J
OAN AND
I
DECIDED
to give up the storage unit, where we had stashed most of the expensive items we'd purchased with the money from our pen pals. She had access, where she and Reed lived, to a unit of the same size in the garage. He never used it, so we decided it made no sense for us to keep paying rent on one when we could use his for free.

Just as we were about to leave Joan's place to go remove our belongings and load them onto the truck she had borrowed from one of her cousins, we got one hell of a surprise. The storage facility manager called and told her that thieves had broken in the night before and looted several of the units. The only things the crooks had not taken from ours were two dozen unread hardback mystery, romance, and street lit novels, and a large, framed velvet picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hugging a baby. Nobody had ever stolen anything from me before, so this really bothered me, especially since the items had been purchased with “stolen” money, so to speak.

There were other things related to the lonely hearts club money that also bothered me. A cell phone I had purchased with money I'd received from a ninety-year-old man in D.C., and a stereo Joan had purchased with money from her sugar daddy in New York, had conked out beyond repair
on the same day
two months ago. A week after that, I dropped and broke a bottle of some very expensive Versace perfume. Other peculiar things had happened with some of the other items we had purchased with that money, which I now thought of as tainted. What really spooked me was last week I lost my wallet, which contained five hundred dollars of the last grand I had left.

Joan agreed with me when I told her that maybe karma was kicking us in the ass for being so deceitful and greedy. Now that she had Reed's income and I had a job, we could pay for some of the things we wanted. By this time, she had spent all of her pen pal money, anyway. Since I couldn't return any of the money that I had left to my elderly “boyfriends”—and most of them had probably died of old age by now, anyway—on the same day of the theft, I donated my last five hundred dollars to an organization doing research for Alzheimer's disease. A few hours later, we carted the items that the thieves had left behind to the nearest Salvation Army facility. I no longer wanted to associate with
anything
that I'd obtained in such a deceitful manner. I felt good about my decision. There had been numerous times during our pen pal scam when it had seemed like I was leading a double life. I'd even felt like half a person on some days. Now, because all of that was behind me and I'd repented, I felt
whole
again.

The next day, I made arrangements with the director of the Happy Meadows nursing home to spend a few hours, a couple of times a month, doing things for the residents, like reading to them or running errands. Joan agreed to come with me when she was available and do whatever she could to try and make up for what we'd done to those old men. We were going to do whatever the nursing home supervisors asked us to do for
free.
We felt better because we knew we were doing the right thing. We also felt redeemed. If the karma theory was fair, there were better things in store for both of us.

Right now one of the better things in my life was Maurice.

 

A week after the storage unit theft, I told Bertha that he wanted me to meet his family. She and I were having breakfast that Friday. I immediately regretted mentioning him while she had food in her mouth.

She coughed so hard, a piece of Canadian bacon shot out of her mouth and landed back on her plate. “Meet his family?” she gulped, swallowing the rest of her food. There was a distraught look on her face. “Why?”

“Well, in case things get more serious between us,” I answered. I shrugged as if what I'd just said was no big deal. And it wasn't to me. But I knew it was to Bertha. The sooner I told her something she didn't want to hear, the easier it was to deal with it and move on.

“Serious? You mean serious like
married
?” The way she started blinking and biting her bottom lip, you would have thought that I'd just told her I had a terminal disease.

“That's a possibility. I know I haven't known him that long, but I really care about him and he cares about me.”

“Hmmm. Well, if you're going to marry anybody, he's probably your best bet. He's got a good head on his shoulders, a secure future with the military, and he's rather cute—even with that meatball nose propped up on his face. There is no telling what his kids are going to look like. I feel sorry for them already.. . .”

“Well, if I marry Maurice and our kids have his big nose, I'd still love them,” I stated. “And I'd like to start my family right after I get married to whoever, and whenever that is.”

“Oh, I'm sure you would, Lola. That's a good thing.” Bertha bit a huge plug out of her wheat toast and chewed and swallowed it within seconds. “I'm sure Libby and Marshall won't mind. . . .”

“‘Won't mind' what?” I asked dumbly. I knew what she was talking about.

“There's plenty of room here, so Maurice—or whoever you marry—can just move in with us and you can start working on the first baby lickety-split. It'll be nice to have some kids in the house again. Marshall's old room would make a nice nursery. As a matter of fact, I still have the crib he slept in when he was a baby. Libby took hers when she found out she was pregnant with Kevin.”

“Uh, there's one more thing about Maurice that you need to know.”

Bertha reared back in her seat and gave me a bug-eyed look. “What?” she asked, her voice cracking. Steam was rising from her coffee cup. And I could have sworn that steam was coming out of her nostrils too. She looked like she was angry enough to cuss out the whole world.

I had to clear my throat before I could answer. I wanted to make sure I got the right words out so Bertha would have no doubt about what I'd said. “He's going to be stationed in Germany. If things get serious enough for us to marry, I'll eventually have to go where he goes.” It was too soon to be thinking about Maurice and me getting married, but I wanted to put the idea in Bertha's head, anyway. If I was going to have to wean her, now was a good time to start.

“Germany?” She spat out the word like she was spitting out vomit. The way her lips quivered, it must have tasted like vomit to her too. “After the way that racist-ass Hitler destroyed so many millions of Jews, not to mention the way he reacted when black athletes were over there for the Olympics, I don't understand why any black person would agree to move to such a hellish country.”

“Hitler was a long time ago, and for your information, there are a lot of black folks and Jews in Germany these days and they are doing just fine.”

“But you don't speak German!”

“I'm not worried about the language. I won't be interacting with the Germans that much, anyway,” I said quickly. I stopped talking long enough to reorganize my jumbled thoughts. “If Maurice does get shipped off to Germany and I go with him, or join him later, you won't be able to come with us. We'll be living on a military base. But I am sure you can visit us from time to time, though. Or we can come visit you.” I couldn't believe we were having this conversation. Especially since Maurice had not even asked me to marry him yet!

I massaged my chest and took a long, deep breath. Bertha looked like she was about to take her last breath. “Uh, I don't feel too well. I think I'll go up to my room and lie down,” she mumbled. Sometimes when she got upset, she seemed to age temporarily before my eyes. Right now she looked as old as Methuselah.

“Are you all right? Do you want me to get you an aspirin?” I got up and walked around the table and attempted to wrap my arms around her shoulders. She pushed me away with both hands.

“I'll be okay, I guess,” she said with a loud sniff. “I don't want you to lose your job, so don't even think about taking the day off to stay home with me. . . .” As if on cue, Bertha let out a loud, hacking cough and, with a moan, even rubbed her chest, which was meant for my benefit. I knew what she was up to.

“I'm going to call in sick and stay home with you,” I said, moving toward the telephone. I dialed my work number to let my coworkers know that I needed to take the day off so I could take care of a personal matter. It was the first time I'd taken a day off, so my bosses didn't have a fit the way they did when one of the other cashiers couldn't come to work. When I told Bertha I'd be spending the day with her, she perked up for a few seconds. Then she hoisted herself up out of her chair and shuffled up the staircase to her room.

After I made sure she was comfortable in her bed, I did some housework, answered a lengthy e-mail from a girl I'd graduated with, who had moved to Atlanta, fixed Bertha some lunch at noon, and then I watched a few game shows on the living-room TV. When the last show ended a few minutes before five, I decided to check on her again. I usually knocked before I entered her room. This time I just pushed open the door and walked in.

“Bertha, I just wanted to see how you were feeling now,” I began.

“I don't feel too well, but don't you worry about it,” she muttered.

“Maurice called a little while ago and invited me to go see a movie and have dinner with him this evening. I wanted to make sure you didn't need anything before I left,” I said, moving slowly toward the bed. Bertha lay on her side propped up on four pillows. She was on top of the covers in her black-and-white nightgown. She looked like a penguin.

“I . . . I don't need anything, I guess,” she said in a weak voice, slowly focusing her eyes on me. “I'm just feeling a little blah.”

I was surprised she didn't cough again or do anything else to make herself seem “sicker.” Her “feeling a little blah” was not reason enough for me to cancel my date. Besides, I'd been cooped up in the house all day and I needed to get out and get some fresh air if nothing else.

“After we leave the theater, we'll be at Jeanette's Steakhouse in case you need me.” I gave Bertha a strong hug and promptly left the room.

 

Lately I had been putting my cell phone on vibrate when I left the house. Ten minutes into my dinner with Maurice, I excused myself to go to the restroom to check my messages. I was surprised to see that I had
eight.
I'd only been gone a little over three hours. I was even more surprised to see that Bertha had not been the person who had called me eight times. She'd left only four messages—each one a whiny complaint about being in the house alone—all within an hour after I'd left the house.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw that Marshall had left all of the other messages. All he'd said was “call me back ASAP,” so I had no idea
why
he had called. “Shit!” I hissed. He was the last person in the world I wanted to talk to. My stomach turned and bile rose in my throat. That sucker had never called me on my cell phone before; so whatever he had called about, it had to be serious. I immediately dialed his cell phone number, cussing until he answered on the fifth ring.

“Where the hell are you? I've been calling and calling!” he bellowed.

“I'm out,” I snapped. “Why did you call me?”

“I'm at City Hospital with my mama, that's why I called you!” he boomed, choking on a sob.

My head felt like it had been kicked by somebody wearing steel-toed boots. “The hospital? Oh, my God! What happened? Is Bertha all right?”

Marshall sniffled and choked on a few more sobs for several moments before he was able to speak clearly again. “I haven't talked to the doctor yet, but we think she had a heart attack.”

“Oh no! She told me she wasn't feeling too well before I left the house.”

Marshall gasped so hard, it sounded like somebody was choking him. “Well, if you knew that, why did you leave my mama alone? Why didn't you call me or Libby so we could have come over there and looked after her, so you could go gallivanting all over town? What's the matter with you, Lola? Don't you ever think about anybody other than yourself?”

That last sentence stunned and angered me. I could not believe my ears. I didn't know of anyone who thought more about themselves than Marshall and his sister. Normally, I would have lit into him with a few choice words of my own. One reason I didn't was because I knew I'd get that opportunity again real soon.

“Exactly where the fuck are you, girl?” he yelled.

“I'm out with Maurice,” I said firmly.

“Who the hell is Maurice?”

I couldn't respond fast enough. “The man I'm currently dating—”

“No wonder you didn't take any of my calls earlier,” he interrupted. “I should have known! You've got some nerve taking your
hot
ass out with one of your studs and leaving my mama in such a bad way, all by herself!” Marshall was yelling at such a high volume, I could have tossed my phone across the room and still been able to hear him.

I ignored his crude comments. For Bertha's sake, I didn't want to waste any more time on a verbal confrontation with him. “Is she really that bad?”

“Hell yeah, she's ‘really that bad.'”

My mouth dropped open. The thought that Bertha might have already died made my head swim. “She's not . . . she's not—”

“She's not dead, if that's what you're trying to say. But from the way she's moaning and groaning and the way she looks, she's probably close to it. She keeps asking for you.”