A Day Late and a Dollar Short (11 page)

The only time I see all of 'em at one time is when somebody die, get married, or we have a so-called family reunion-which we ain't had since '91. I ain't been out to visit nobody going on seven yean, but that's only 'cause my cash flow's been tied up in these Laundromats and I had to remodel the kitchen. It seem like it's always something going on around here that slurps up all my time, and we don't even wanna mention money.

Which is something we could use a lot more of. This is one reason why
I'm investigating certain mail-order businesses. There's thousands of low- cost start-up opportunities out here, all you gotta do is take a little time, do your homework, and figure out how to get one going. It ain't no reason why we gotta settle for being middle-class when we can move into a whole 'nother income bracket if we just picked up the pace. But I got more energy in my big toe than A1 got in his whole body, except of course when it come to sex. Most of the time he's downright sluggish when it come to getting off his ass and thinking fast on his feet. He don't miss work, I'll give him that much credit. But I done told him a million times: I'm not gon' be living in this imitation house when I retire. No sirree. We can do better than this. Much better than this.

The portable phone is just there, staring at me. On one hand, I feel bad for not calling Mama before now. Yeah, it was me who slammed the phone down in her face, but she was yelling at me like I was somebody in the street.

And so what if I didn't go to college. Janelle and Lewis never finished neither. I'm the only one who ain't been divorced. I ain't never slept with nobody's husband. I didn't marry no low-life pretending to be no lawyer. I ain't never done no kinda drugs and don't have no bad habits worth mentioning. I ain't never had to call her collect or ask her for no money-for nothing, really-except maybe to watch the kids when they was little, and even then, I paid her.

I've done everything in my power to prove to Mama that I'm just as smart and just as capable as Paris, but she just gotta put her on a pedestal, like her shit don't stink. Paris ain't no saint. And she ain't hardly perfect. Yeah, she can cook. But so what? I can burn, too. She ain't the only one in this family who can read a damn recipe. The only reason she in the position she in is 'cause she know people who know people. These the ones I heard buy her fancy food. But, hell, anybody can start a catering business. If I just wanted to, I could, too. But food don't mean all that much to me.

Now, Janelle is the one Mama should be handing out advice to by the plateful, 'cause she's the one with no damn sense, no scruples, and no major ambitions whatsoever. They got books out about women like her, being codependent and shit. She screwed her way to middle-class. She sent me p ictures of where she live. Didn't look like nobody even lived in the damn house. It looked like one of those model homes, only Janelle got weird taste. No class. No taste. No pizzazz.

But let's face it, Lewis is the real victim in this family. He got some emotional problems. It would help if he stopped drinking so much of that crack-in-a-bottle otherwise known as Schlitz Malt Liquor or Old English. Lewis is a alcoholic, but he seem to be the only one who don't know it. If he could get some help, maybe he'd be able to help Donnetta pay for his damn son.

And speaking of kids. Mama ain't never got nothing nice to say about mine, except maybe Trevor, but then she went and accused him of being gay. Janelle told me she said it. Well, my son ain't nobody's faggot. I know this for a fact. He's girl-shy, and he'll grow out of it. Every time I look around I gotta hear about Dingus did this or Shanice did that in the two- hundred meter and how many books she read a month and even Lewis's son, Jamil, who's around Tiffany's age, and who don't nobody even hardly see no more, made that all-star soccer team that travel all over (she done sent me the newspaper clippings three years in a row) and broke her neck telling me all the details of how he got accepted to the junior ROTC program and that he been skipped a grade. Shit, Monique can play the flute like ain't no tomorrow and she the leading rebounder on her basketball team, but all Mama seem to remember is that she got ADD-like they don't have it out there in Vegas. And so what if Tiffany can't grasp math or science? She write poetry as good as Maya Angelou, but have Mama ever bragged about her? It's common knowledge that both my daughters got good sense, they just going through growing pains-waiting for their periods to get here- and things should turn around and quiet down in this house once they do. Trevor's my bright star. He gets damn near straight A's, but do I ever hear about Mama bragging on him?

Shit. Here I go again. I need to stop this before the kids see me getting all worked up. I take a sip of my Asti Spumanti and push the lever on the re- cliner so it go back as far as it'll go. I'm sick of this blue shag. It shows when you spill anything. And I'm getting rid of this plaid couch and get one of those leather sectionals, since leather's supposed to be so "in." I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. Why do I always have to cry when I think about Mama? Probably 'cause I know that, no matter what I do, it ain't never good enough. Sometimes, when I really think about my family, it feel like we ain't got nothing in common except blood.

The girls is out there in the backyard playing in the last of the snow. The wall clock says it's 5:46. That means it's almost four o'clock in Vegas. She probably taking a nap. Mama always nod off after her stories go off. I hear A1 coming from the garage. I ain't speaking to him either.

He got a lotta nerve. Last night, right after we did it, he says, "Oh, baby, I forgot to tell you. Me and Smitty going ice fishing for three days. I took a vacation day. We leave Friday." And that was it. I pushed him all the way over to the edge of the bed and put a pillow in between us in case he didn't get the point. He told me 1 was being childish. "You can go to hell," was all I said, and this morning, when he did not get his grits and eggs and bacon and wasn't no coffee waiting for him, he knew what the deal was. And now he's home, and, like always, he probably in there making hisself a gin and tonic, then he'll take it upstairs and sip on it while he take his shower. I sit here and pat my feet till I hear the water come on, and then, before I know it, I'm standing up in that bathroom, watching him undress.

"If I came home from work one day and just told you I was taking a few days off to go gallivanting with one of my girlfriends, can you stand there and tell me you wouldn't be mad?"

"First of all, Charlotte, you don't have no girlfriends," he says, getting out of his clothes. He don't know what he talking about.

"I do have some girlfriends. But that ain't the point. Why you gotta go ice fishing with Smitty all of a sudden? Why's it so important?"

"First of all, it ain't that it's important, Charlotte. I wanna go. It don't hurt to do something with your friends every now and then. Smitty s wife ain't mad. And I can't for the life of me see why you making such a big to-do about this."

At first, I don't say a word. I know he just trying to make me feel guilty. Well, just fuck you, Al, I'm thinking as I look at his long hard body through the shower door. His skin is the color of straw, his eyes a piercing gray- green, his lips thick, he's got good hair-thick and wavy-and a quarter- inch gap between his two front teeth. He's still pretty, a luscious Louisiana Bayou man, and sometimes I wish to hell I didn't love him as much as I do, which is exactly why I don't want nobody else to have no part of him. "How do I know you going with Smitty and not meeting some woman at a motel for three days?"

"You really ought to quit it. Right now. I'm going fishing. When I get back I should have some fish. If I really wanted to go off with some other woman I think I could come up with a much better lie. So stop it, would you? Could we just not have the melodrama for once?"

"Why didn't you ask me to go?"

"I just told you! It's a man thing. As a matter of fact, it's a whole group of us going. Union guys. And since you already mad, I might as well tell you, next month we going hunting, so get it all out your system now."

"You got a lot of nerve, Albert Toussaint. A whole lotta nerve."

"You the one being selfish and foolish. Now, if you don't mind, could I take my shower in peace?" He stands there wet and naked, all six feet of him, with his hands gripping both sides of his waist. I wish I could drown him for a few minutes, but I just slam the bathroom door in his face. I don't really care about him going fishing. It's the way he did it. He just told me he was going. He didn't ask if I minded and didn't bother to ask if I wanted to go with him. We do everything together. I can't remember us ever going somewhere without the other. And, plus, deep down inside, I don't trust Al. No man can be trusted. Period. Given a opportunity to get some free coochie, they'll take it every single time.

I got my reasons for feeling this way, and he know it. A few years ago- but I guess it was more like ten-I was cleaning out the garage and, like a fool, tried to lift his toolbox to put it back on the workbench, but I dropped it. Screwdrivers, pliers, hammers, nails, and nuts-everything-fell out and clanged against the cement floor. I started putting the stuff back in and came across a dirty piece of crumpled-up notebook paper. I flattened it out and noticed it had writing on it, and then, as soon as I started reading, realized it was a love letter to A1 from some woman who didn't sign it. She was telling him how tired she was of doing this. That it's been going on too long and it's clear he ain't getting no divorce. And then, "I love you too much but I love myself more. Call me when you've made your move."

Call me when you've made your move? I threw every single tool, including that toolbox, at his Thunderbird, 'cause I couldn't believe this shit. I wasn't hurt. I felt betrayed. Double-crossed. Deceived. And as much as I loved Al, and as good as he was in bed and all the freaky shit we did together, and he's fucking somebody else? He always swore I was the best piece he ever had. He lied. And what else did he lie about? That can't nobody out- cook me. Can't nobody starch and iron his shirts the way I do. Can't nobody cut his corns without making him bleed the way I do. Hell, I should have at least a hundred gold medals for all the things I'm so damn good at. And what else did I do to please Mr. Man? Made sure I looked good all the time. One thing he claimed he loved about me most was looking at me: how black and smooth and tender my skin was, and how he loved it that men was always trying to hit on me and everybody thought my hair was a weave or a wig and nobody ever thought I was thirty-four-five-six-or-seven years old and had had three kids. Shit, back then I still wore a ten, and Al always told me how proud he was to have me for his wife. How proud. And here he was fucking somebody else? He was obviously confused, so I packed a bag and took the kids over to Aunt Suzie Mae's house for three days. Al was frantic when he came home and we was gone. And as soon as he found out that I found out, he was worried sick I would leave him. But I had left him. That's why I was over to Aunt Suzie s. I was trying to figure out my next move. But he just had to come over there. Wanted to talk.

"It's not what you think it is, Charlotte."

"Oh, so I must just be crazy. I didn't really read no letter from no woman talking about how much she love you, and by the way, did you want a divorce, Al? 'Cause, according to her letter, you been promising to get one. Where's the papers? Bring 'em over here and I'll sign the goddamn things right now! Or, better yet, I'll get my own!"

"I don't want no divorce. This was a mistake I made, and it was so long ago I had forgot all about it."

"A mistake? And you forgot about it?"

"It was more than five years ago, Charlotte. When you was pregnant with Monique. You was having a rough time those last four months, remember?"

"So. If every husband went off and had a affair 'cause his wife is having a hard pregnancy, where would that leave us? This is so tacky, AJ, I swear it is."

"I'm sorry, Charlotte. I'm very, very sorry. It wasn't about nothing. I was just feeling lonely, and I broke it off right after Monique was born, 'cause I got the woman I married back. I don't even know what happened to her. I'm sorry."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Because I'm telling you the truth. I love you, Charlotte, and if I wasn't happy, I wouldn't be here. I'da been gone."

"Oh, really. How decent of you. I need to stop by the house and get the kids some clothes. Please don't be there when I get there. They wanna come home, and I'd appreciate it if you would make arrangements to find yourself someplace to live."

"Don't do this, Charlotte," he pleaded, but I slammed the door in his face. Right afterwards, I couldn't believe that my marriage was over. Just like that. That it could end with a few words in a few seconds. I was messed up. I told Aunt Suzie Mae everything. "Sit down, baby," she said to me, tapping the top of the kitchen counter with her fingers. Thank goodness, this was before she lost her scruples. "And let me tell you something."

"I don't wanna hear it. Aunt Suzie."

"You gon' hear it," she said, and adjusted her wig. She looked just like a older black version of Roseanne Barr. She was standing in front of the stove, adding tomato paste to a giant pot of chili. "You acting foolish. Now, I know you hurt and everythang, and this ain't something a wife likes to go through, but at some point all men cheat. Most of the time, if they good, they don't get caught, which makes it easier on everybody. But when they do, and they act truly pitiful and say they sorry, sometimes they mean it. If you still love that man, drop your pride and give him another chance. God asks us to learn to forgive."

"But how can I ever trust him again, knowing he did something like this to me?"

"He didn't do it to you, baby. He did it for hisself. It wasn't meant to hurt you. That's why he snuck and did it. But you can't pretend it don't hurt. You won't forget this business either. But what you can do is put it in a corner of your mind you can do without and get on with your lives. Women do it every day."

"But what if he do it again, Aunt Suzie?"