Deliver Me From Evil (29 page)

A
n hour after Nita left, Jesse Ray called me up on the new cellular phone he'd purchased for me two days earlier.

“Christine, what the hell are you doing? I called the house to invite you to lunch, and Daisy tells me you've moved back in with your folks? How in the hell are we going to work things out with you over there and me over here?” he asked in a frantic voice. “I'm on my way over there!”

“And the only way you'll get in is if you break in,” I warned. “I don't want to see you.”

“What are you saying? Are you telling me that after all that's happened—my spending another fortune to get you a new vehicle, too—you are leaving me,
anyway?
”

“I need some time to myself,” I explained. “I can't think straight in your house.”

“
My
house? It's your house just as much as it is mine.”

“Now it is. All those times when I tried to talk to you about the way things were going, you kept reminding me that everything was yours,” I said.

“Look, you are talking foolishness. Now let me get off this telephone so I can come over there and talk to you face-to-face.”

“I don't want to see your face,” I revealed. “I just told you, I need to be by myself. I need to work on my relationship with my parents.”

“But you don't need to work on your relationship with your husband? Is that how it's going to be?”

“J.R., I still love you, but I don't think … I don't think I'm
in love
with you anymore,” I admitted.

“What do you want to do, Christine? Do you want a divorce?”

“The only thing I know that I want right now is to be away from you so I can think.”

“When will I see you again?”

“I don't know.”

“Can I call you in a few days?”

“Yes.” I hung up so he couldn't say anything else.

That evening I sat down to dinner with my parents, but they were just as uncomfortable as I was. But they were trying to piece our fractured relationship together, and so was I. The day before, Daddy had confided in me how much he was looking forward to retiring. That didn't mean much to me until he told me that one of the things his retirement would mean was that he could spend more time with me.

And, no matter who I talked to, or what we talked about, the conversations always got around to Wade's mother. I had not paid Miss Louise the visit that I had been meaning to pay her, but it was always good to hear about her. I was glad to hear that she was in good health and still working. She had gotten through her grief intact.

A month after I left Jesse Ray, he called me up one day and caught me in a good mood. I had just enjoyed dinner with my parents at Giovanni's for the first time. Daddy had shared some of the few pleasant things that he could remember about his childhood. He'd raised a goat by himself. He'd taught himself how to swim when he was just five years old. Mama had seemed as fascinated by Daddy's stories as I did. In fact, she had regaled me with a few of her own, laughing like a schoolgirl when she told me about the time a chicken chased her into the woods and pecked her on her legs.

Jesse Ray's telephone call couldn't have come at a better time, because I honestly did want to see him.

“Christine, can we get together tomorrow for a few drinks?” he asked, sounding as shy and meek as a schoolboy. I could hear the desperation in his voice. Other than visiting a few bars with Jeanette and Nita, I had done no socializing. And, getting back into the dating game was the furthest thing from my mind. After Wade and Jesse Ray, I wasn't sure I ever wanted to make love to another man again. But I knew that was an unrealistic notion. When Jesse Ray called, I felt that I was ready to go back in that direction, but one step at a time.

“Okay,” I said, with a sigh. “You can pick me up tomorrow around noon.”

Even with Jesse Ray, the conversation often ended up being about Miss Louise. After we'd chitchatted about Miss Rosetta's health, which was no better, and about the rest of his family ignoring him, Jesse Ray's tone took a disturbing turn. “Miss Louise is finally living the life she always wanted,” he started, toying with the stirrer in his rum and Coke. We were seated at a corner table in a secluded little bar in downtown San Francisco.

“I guess she's finally gotten over what happened to her son,” I volunteered.

“She just bought a new condo, and she's driving around in a brand-new Cadillac,” Jesse Ray reported.

I gave him a thoughtful look and blinked as I considered this piece of information. “Miss Louise always lived beyond her means,” I reminded. “She finally stopped borrowing from Daddy. As a matter of fact, she paid him back all she owed him, with interest. I guess she must have had a real good insurance policy on Wade.”

Jesse Ray shook his head. “Not a dime. That's the problem with so many black folks. They don't plan for the important things, like funeral costs.”

“How would you know?”

“Baby, I didn't want you to ever know this, but Mel told me that Miss Louise got some church to raise money to bury Wade. Even I pitched in a few bucks anonymously,” Jesse Ray said, looking embarrassed. His words seemed to float above my head. I almost swallowed my tongue just thinking about what he'd just told me. Not only had my lover beat my husband out of a million dollars, but my husband helped pay for him to be laid to rest. It was too incredible to believe. If I'd seen this drama in a movie, I'd have walked out.

“That still doesn't mean she didn't have insurance on Wade. Maybe the insurance company didn't pay off right away, and that's why she had to get help with his funeral expenses. She came into some money somehow. She's paying people back that she's been owing for years. She just bought a new condo, a new car, new designer clothes. She must have won the lottery or … or …” I couldn't finish my sentence.

“I doubt that. That bigmouthed woman would have told everybody on the planet.” Jesse Ray leaned across the table and started talking in a low voice. “Rumors are floating around town that Wade must have had some drug money stashed away in Miss Louise's house, which she stumbled across when she started cleaning out Wade's room. And, it had to be quite a pile for her to be spending the way she's been spending.”

Like a million dollars!
That was the only other explanation! Miss Louise had somehow gotten her greedy hands on the million-dollar ransom that Jesse Ray had paid Wade to get me back. That woman had to be in hog heaven now—even though she'd lost her precious only child. That explained why the police never found any money. Now it all made sense. After Wade had double-crossed me, Jason had attempted to double-cross him. But Wade had hidden the money, and that had to be why Jason had shot him.

As far as Wade having tapes of my conversations with him, he had never proved that to me. That hadn't made sense when he told it to me, and it didn't make any sense now. Wade had no reason to tape our conversations at the time. How could he have known in advance that I'd strike up a telephone conversation with him about him helping me plan a phony kidnapping? Wade had never been that clever. Yes, he had taken a few Polaroids of me in the Marriott Hotel, but all that proved was that we'd had a relationship. And everybody already knew about that. The pictures didn't reveal a date, so I could have posed for Wade's camera long before I married Jesse Ray. Wade had said himself how young I looked in the pictures.

“Does that big smile on your face mean yes?” Jesse Ray asked, squeezing my hand. My mind had been so far away that I had not heard what he'd asked.

“Yes for what?” I suddenly felt warm all over because now I had some answers. I had no proof, but I finally had some peace of mind.

“I just asked you if we could try to work on things. I want you to come on back home, baby,” Jesse Ray said, squeezing my hand again. “We'll move anywhere you want to move. I think that would help.”

“I don't want to leave Berkeley,” I said. “My parents are getting old, and they are going to need me now more than ever. I want to be here for them.”

“Oh. I guess that means you won't be coming home with me today? We won't be starting over? We can even start over from scratch. A few innocent dates, just like when we first got together. I didn't pressure you for anything more then, and I won't do it this time.”

I shook my head. “I won't be coming home with you today.” I looked around the bar because for the first time I wanted everybody in it to see the glow on my face. Then I looked at Jesse Ray. “But maybe we can start over …
from scratch
.” It was a new beginning for me, my parents, and Jesse Ray.

“I'd like that, Christine,” he said, getting teary-eyed.

I had just as many tears in my eyes. “I'd like that, too,” I told him. And I meant it.

Don't miss Mary Monroe's latest novel in the God series …

God Ain't Through Yet

Available now from Dafina Books

 

 

 

 

Here's an excerpt from
God Ain't Through Yet
…

Richland, Ohio, 1997

M
y husband was the
last
man in town that the people in our close-knit circle of friends expected to have an affair. Why he didn't cheat was as much of a mystery to me as it was to them. When I mentioned to one of my female friends that I was married to a man who didn't cheat, her only question was, “What's wrong with him?”

It saddened me to hear that some people thought that there was something wrong with a man who didn't cheat on his wife.

“There is nothing wrong with my husband. He's as normal as any other man,” I told that friend.

“Ha! If that's the case, he's
not
normal,” that friend told me.

Maybe she was right. If it was normal for a man to cheat, then Pee Wee was not normal.

Despite the fact that I had cheated on my husband just a few months ago (yes,
I'd
cheated, but I'll get to that later) and had accused him of being unfaithful on numerous occasions, I knew in my heart that he had not slept with another woman since he married me. However, one of my concerns was the other women who were dying to get their hands on him.

“If you ever break up with Pee Wee, send him to me,” another female friend had jokingly suggested. “He's perfect.”

When I told my mother what my friend had said, she told me, “Girl, as brazen and desperate as women are these days, I'd be worried if I were you.”

Even after my mother's comment, I didn't worry or complain because I felt secure and comfortable. Looking back on it now, I realize I was too comfortable. That was my first mistake. I had a ringside seat in the eye of a major hurricane, but I was so comfortable I didn't realize that until it was too late.

The day that Pee Wee, my “perfect” husband, abruptly and cruelly left me for another woman had started out like any other day. It was the middle of March, and still a little too cold for my tastes. I'd been a resident of Ohio for over forty years by this time, and I still hadn't adjusted to the weather. When I was a child growing up in Florida, I used to run around naked in our front yard in March. Kids doing such a thing in Ohio, in March, was unheard of.

I had crawled out of bed during the night and turned up the thermostat. When the weather was nice enough, Pee Wee slept in the nude, and I usually slept in something very skimpy. Right after dinner the night before, he had slid into a pair of flannel pajamas. I'd wiggled into a pair of purple thong panties, a matching Wonder-bra, and a snug cotton nightgown. I'd slid my freshly pedicured feet into a pair of nylon socks. Large pink sponge rollers covered every inch of my head, individually wrapped around my thick, recently dyed black hair. A rose-scented, wrinkle-busting, white gel, one of the many weapons that I used to fight Father Time, covered my face. We looked like we were made up for a Halloween party, but it had been a night of raw passion. I had peeled off my socks and that snug gown like a stripper. He'd helped me remove everything else. Within minutes I had his handprints on parts of my body that hadn't been touched since my last physical exam. And I had assumed positions that I hadn't been in since I gave birth to my daughter. Afterward, I fell asleep in his arms. But when I opened my eyes the next morning, I was in bed alone.

Pee Wee had already left the house by the time I got up and made it downstairs to the kitchen. That was odd, but it wasn't that big of a deal because he didn't do it that often. He usually waited for me to fix his favorite breakfast: grits, biscuits, scrambled eggs with green bell peppers mixed in, and beef bacon. And when I didn't get up in time to cook, he strapped on an apron and did it. The last time he had prepared breakfast, he had served it to me in bed.

For some reason, Pee Wee had not made breakfast this particular morning. He'd left the small clock radio on the kitchen counter on to some rap station (how many people listened to rap music this early in the morning?) and a mess on the kitchen table, which included the morning newspaper folded with the pages out of order, his empty coffee cup, a Krispy Kreme donut box, and an ashtray with the remnants of a thick marijuana cigarette piled up in it. I made a mental note to scold him about leaving a roach in plain view. It was hard enough trying to hide certain things and activities from our inquisitive eleven-year-old daughter, Charlotte, not to mention nosy relatives and friends who dropped in at the most inconvenient times. One day my mother went snooping through my bedroom closet and stumbled across an XXX-rated VHS tape that I often watched with Pee Wee when our sex life needed a shot in the arm. She took me aside and quoted Scripture nonstop for twenty minutes. By the time she got through with me, I felt like I knew every harlot in the Bible personally. She'd “excused” Pee Wee and “reminded” me that men were too weak, stupid, and horny to know better.

Pee Wee and I had shared a good laugh over that. Our life together was so idyllic at times that my meddlesome mother's antics and crude comments didn't bother us. I had the best of both worlds. He was not just my husband; he was also my best friend.

In spite of all my shortcomings and flaws, I looked at matters of the heart from a realistic point of view. I knew that no man, or woman, was perfect, and that anybody could make a mistake. Me jumping into bed with that low-down, funky, black devil that I got involved with last year was one of the biggest mistakes I'd ever made in my entire life. It had been such an intense and passionate affair that it had me acting like a fool. I had done things for him that I had never done to please a man. I'd told lies to be with him. And I'd given him money. It had begun gradually, but when I realized I was “paying” for some dick, I got real concerned because that went against everything I believed in. When I refused to continue paying for my pleasure, the relationship ended in a violent confrontation. Luckily, I had escaped uninjured—at least physically. But I had “paid” a very high price for my mistake. I was so disgusted with myself that for a long time it was hard for me to look in a mirror without flinching.

My husband had reluctantly forgiven me, and we had moved on. “Annette, you ain't the first woman to cheat, and you won't be the last. I'll get over what you done … I guess,” he told me, cracking a weak smile to hide some of the pain that I'd caused.

I could not have been more repentant and humble if they'd revised the Bible and included a psalm in my honor. “Honey, I swear to God, something like this will never happen again,” I assured him, with reconstructive ideas about how I was going to repair my marriage swimming around in my head.

Once that was behind us, I began to focus on the only intimate relationship that mattered to me now. But I was no fool. I knew that if
I
could fall into the deep black hole of infidelity, anybody could. However, since it was usually the man who acted a fool and got involved in an affair, it was more important for me to focus on what my husband might or might not do. I believed that if he ever did cheat on me, I had to look at the situation from an overall point of view: Would I be better off without this man? Does he no longer love me? Is he worth fighting for? Is this marriage dead? Has he become such a slimy devil that he is no longer good enough for me anyway?

Had any of that been the case, the bombshell that my husband dropped in my lap this morning wouldn't have caused so much damage. Because when he informed me that he was having an affair, I could not have been more stunned if somebody had told me that the Easter Bunny was a pimp.

He had committed the granddaddy of indiscretions: a torrid, ongoing, “I'd rather be with her than you,” sexual relationship with a woman whom I had called my friend. To me, that was the worst kind of affair. If I couldn't trust my husband and a woman I called my friend, who could I trust?

To make matters even worse, I was probably the last person in our circle to hear about his affair!