God Still Don't Like Ugly (14 page)

“No, you won’t have to worry about that,” I said. I don’t know why Pee Wee’s face entered my mind, but it did and that saddened me. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said firmly. I wasn’t sure how to categorize my relationship with Pee Wee and I didn’t want to give him up. But Pee Wee dated other women so I had every right to date other men.

Somebody dimmed the lights when the deejay announced that he was going to play some old Motown favorites.

“Now I
can
slow dance,” Jerome told me, gently pulling me up. I didn’t want to dance, until I spotted Jacob stumbling across the floor toward me with his hand held out.

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“Me, too,” I said quickly, letting Jerome lead me to the dance floor.

With Smokey Robinson singing “The Tracks of My Tears” in the background, I fell in love for the first time in my thirty-something years. As soon as the dance ended, Jacob came over to me while I was still on the dance floor in Jerome’s arms.

“I’m ready to go! These crackers don’t know how to party. Let’s go over to the Red Rose,” Jacob snapped, clutching my wrist. “My brother playin’ in the band over there tonight. And, I heard they servin’ free Cajun popcorn. I’m ’bout to starve up in here tryin’ to eat this dog food Mark ’nem whupped up.”

Then I did a bold thing. I turned to Jerome. “You sure you don’t mind giving me a ride home?”

An amused look appeared on his face, but he seemed pleased. “I don’t mind at all,” he told me.

“Jacob, do you mind if I catch a ride home with Jerome?” I asked sweetly, smiling at Jacob even though he had a scowl on his face that made him look even more ridiculous. He had screwed his face up so tight, it looked like he had one eyebrow.

“What? Do I mind? Hell, yeah, I mind! I spent three dollars on gas to bring you out here!” Jacob howled, slurring his words. His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of the sockets.

I gasped when Jerome quickly reached into his pocket and fished out a wad of bills. “That should take care of your gas,” he told Jacob, folding a few bills into Jacob’s shirt pocket.

I didn’t even look back as Jerome led me out the door, but I could hear Jacob snorting like a bull.

I didn’t get to enjoy any passion with Jerome that night. In fact, he didn’t even want to come in when we got to my house.

“I have to get up early to take my mama to church in the morning,”

he explained. “But, I will be seeing you again,
and again
, if you want me to.” There was a pleading look on his face. It made him look a lot younger than the thirty-six years he claimed to be. “I like you already, Annette.”

“I like you, too,” I said, smiling demurely.

Jerome didn’t even have to write down my telephone number. He memorized it on the spot. Then he surprised me with the longest, most passionate kiss any man had ever laid on me. I was so taken aback, I didn’t even close my eyes. I was sorry I didn’t. I was facing Pee GOD STILL DON’T LIKE UGLY

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Wee’s house. It was too dark for me to see him in his bedroom window upstairs, but I knew he was up there watching. Pee Wee didn’t smoke cigarettes, but he loved him some weed. He was smoking a joint in his darkened room and I could tell because when he sucked on it, I saw a tiny, bright-red flash.

CHAPTER 28

Even though Jerome had made a good first impression on me, the next time I saw him, a week after we’d met, he behaved more like an oaf. But that didn’t bother me. I was not about to let his behavior change my opinion. I figured he was my last chance at a lasting relationship. So, like he was a football, I took him and ran.

My first date with Jerome was a date from hell. He arrived at my house smelling like beer, his hair askew, with a pair of brown slacks and a white shirt in a paper bag that I had to iron for him to wear. On our way to the movies, his Mercury ran out of gas. There was a gas station two blocks away but we walked six blocks, in the snow, to another one because it was cheaper. During the walk back to his car, he slid on some ice and spilled gas on the leg of my slacks, so I smelled like gaso-line the rest of the night.

Once we got to the theater, five minutes into the movie, he complained about the French movie I had suggested.

“Why any moviemaker would choose to make a movie with subtitles is beyond me. Any movie worth being dubbed in English should have been made in English in the first place.”

“Well, you didn’t want to see that teenage slasher movie at the Strand,” I reminded, reaching for the one small box of popcorn he GOD STILL DON’T LIKE UGLY

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had purchased. He complained that the popcorn was too dry for him, yet he held onto the box like it was full of gold nuggets.

To keep from paying for parking, Jerome had parked in an alley six blocks from the theater. He had only saved a dollar, because that’s all the parking lot charged after five. During the walk from the theater to his car, he slipped on some ice and sprained his ankle.

Jerome was a vegetarian so suggesting a rib joint or a chicken shack for dinner after the movie was out of the question. He didn’t want to eat at the Buttercup because his ex-girlfriend had broken up with him there.

“What about dinner at Antonosanti’s?” I suggested. “They serve some dynamite steamed veggies and pasta.” Antonosanti’s was the most expensive restaurant in town. It was owned by the Antonosantis, a shady Italian family that owned a lot of other property in Richland.

Jerome gasped and gave me a horrified look as we walked down the street with him limping and holding on to me. “Woman, have you lost your mind? That dago restaurant is the most expensive place in town.

I’d go to the A&P and spend a dollar on some macaroni and a can of green beans myself before I’d go to Antonosanti’s—and I bet that’s all they do. Besides, from what I’ve seen and heard, those people aren’t even clean. Our principal, old man Martinelli, he uses the toilet and leaves without washing his hands.”

We ended up in a soup kitchen where Jerome purchased our dinner with a “buy one, get one free” coupon. The French bread was free, so he filled a doggie bag to take home. When he paid with his credit card, it got declined and I ended up paying the check.

Then his car wouldn’t start when we left. Too cheap to spring for a cab, he escorted me home on the bus where an unruly drunk man threw up on the seat across from us.

From that point on, our dates were usually at his apartment, above a converted funeral parlor, sitting in front of his nineteen-inch, black-and-white television drinking generic beer. I didn’t know what kind of money Jerome made, but I assumed he made a decent living. But he was so tightfisted with his money that he bought his clothes from con-signment shops and dollar stores. Since I could pay my own way, I didn’t really have a problem with Jerome’s miserly habits. I was generous enough for both of us.

Jerome was a comfort to me. He was a good listener. He held me in 110

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his arms like a baby when I told him about the hard times Muh’Dear and I had endured since moving to Ohio. He almost cried along with me when I told him about the times I had nothing to eat but lime Jell-O. “One week I ate so much of that shit, my pee came out green,” I told him, glad to see him laugh at that. One thing that really touched my heart was his understanding my need to reunite with my father. “I would
never
turn my back on my children,” he vowed, adding with a passionate embrace, “or you.” I had been looking for a man like Jerome all my life and I was going to do whatever I had to do to keep him.

Now when Pee Wee came over, he loved making jokes about how cheap Jerome was.

“I never took you to no ‘all you can eat for five dollars place’ and I wouldn’t never haul a woman like you around on a bus at night,” Pee Wee said evenly. “You could do a whole lot better than Jerome Cunningham.”

“I’m glad you think that,” I shot back.

“Huh? What you mean by that?”

“Why don’t you tell me? You seem to know what I need,” I teased.

Now that I was seriously involved with another man, Pee Wee and I had stopped sleeping together. But he was still the closest friend I had and I enjoyed his company. He was one of the most stable things in my life.

“If things don’t work out with you and your dime-store-shoppin’

Romeo, let me know,” Pee Wee told me. I knew then that no matter what happened to me next, I could always fall back on Pee Wee for anything I needed. Especially sex.

Sex with Jerome was another fiasco. Not counting Mr. Boatwright, I had had enough experience by now to know the difference between good sex and bad sex. Jerome was in a league of his own. He had problems maintaining an erection and even when he did, he often had an orgasm before I even got in the bed!

“I just get so excited when I’m with you, I can’t help myself,” he explained, laughing and shaking his limp dick at me. Juice dripping from it formed a tiny puddle on my new sheet. He played with my titties for ten minutes, thinking that would satisfy me. It didn’t, but I pretended it did. I reminded myself that sex wasn’t everything. Some women got along fine without it. There was a woman at my church GOD STILL DON’T LIKE UGLY

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who was jubilant because her husband had become impotent after an automobile accident.

I overlooked my frustration and concentrated on Jerome’s exotic looks. With all of his shortcomings, I was still proud to be seen with such a handsome man. My new mission was to keep Jerome Cunningham happy and that’s exactly what I planned to do.

CHAPTER 29

“At least you’ll have some pretty babies if y’all ever get married,”

Muh’Dear chirped after she met Jerome. She had grinned and beamed like a lighthouse all through the dinner she had prepared for Jerome and me. They had really hit it off. Jerome had complimented Muh’Dear’s cooking excessively and that paid off for him. She had sent him home with a Crock-Pot full of collard greens, a fresh pan of cornbread, and bowls of other delicious items in a shopping bag. He wouldn’t have to buy food for a week. “I’ll be proud to have a man like Jerome as my son-in-law.”

Muh’Dear didn’t have to go into detail, but I knew what she meant.

By Jerome being so light-skinned and having all that curly hair on his head, there was a good chance he’d produce kids who looked like him. In my opinion, Black folks had come a long way by the 1980’s, but light skin and straight or curly hair still carried a lot of weight. I tried not to let that bother me, especially since I considered myself beyond things that shallow. Rhoda Nelson, who was as dark as I was and the most beautiful Black woman Richland had ever seen, had in-fluenced my perceptions to the point where I would never covet light skin and straight hair again.

Yet and still, I was glad to be seen with a man who looked like Jerome. However, I would have considered him gorgeous no matter what shade he was. Despite what I thought of myself, he thought I was GOD STILL DON’T LIKE UGLY

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beautiful, too. And he was proud of me. I realized that when he took me to a barbecue at his mother’s house six months after our first date.

It was the Memorial Day weekend.

Ordinarily, I would have spent the day with Muh’Dear and Daddy King, like I did every other holiday. But gatherings at my mother’s house always included Scary Mary, who worked at being a busybody in three shifts and Pee Wee—if he was between girlfriends. The last thing I needed was to have Scary Mary clown me about Jerome in front of Pee Wee. I had eagerly accepted Jerome’s invitation to his mother’s barbecue.

Almost every woman at the gathering at Jerome’s mother’s house was just as big as I was, if not bigger. When too many of us walked through the living room at the same time, the pictures on the wall shook and everybody thought that was funny. I did, too. It was like these women celebrated being large and I considered that a good thing. It made me feel better about myself. I held my own head just a little bit higher that day.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was the only dark-skinned woman present and I was the only one wearing my hair in braids. I had always hated my short, brittle hair. The best thing I could do for it was to hide it. I didn’t like wigs, so having my hairdresser add extensions to my hair and braid it seemed like the next best thing.

Besides, braids made me look younger. And at my age, every year I could conceal counted. Looking younger made me feel like I had just that much more time left to work with.

Jerome’s two older brothers, both even lighter than Jerome, had wives who were one shade away from being white. Jerome’s younger sister Nadine and his mother Marlene were both about the same shade as Jerome. It didn’t take me long to start feeling uncomfortable. Jerome’s sister Nadine had been in a lot of my classes at Richland High, but we’d never really associated with one another back then. However, today she was the only one of the females present who really seemed to enjoy my presence.

“I hope you have a good time, Annette. My brother is crazy about you and he couldn’t wait to bring you over to meet the family,”

Nadine told me. She laughed and shook her head. Looking at her up close for the first time, I realized she wasn’t as pretty as I thought. For one thing, one of her eyes twitched and the eyeball inadvertently rolled to the side every few seconds. That crawling eye was bad 114

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enough, but there was a purple birthmark as big as a quarter on the side of her mouth. Her lips were so thin, there was more lipstick on her teeth than there was on her lips. Her reddish-brown hair was thin-ner than mine. In fact, I saw several bald spots that she had tried to hide with a black headband. In her case, having light skin was a blessing. She had been popular in school because of that alone. “Some of the family members are pretty remote.” Nadine sighed, rolling both eyes, but each one in a different direction.

I smiled. “That’s okay. I’m pretty remote myself,” I said. I liked Nadine and I planned to cultivate a friendship with her. It would be nice to have a close female friend. It was time for me to step out of the darkness of solitude that I’d been in since my Rhoda days.