Bad Blood (26 page)

Chapter 50

Rachel

A
S SOON AS
I
SAW MY FAMILY'S HOUSE,
I
BURST INTO TEARS.
M
AMA
stood in the doorway, with a thick black hairnet covering the stocking cap on her head. It was past noon, and she was still in one of her loose-fitting terry-cloth bathrobes. She shaded her eyes to look at me as I parked the rental car in her driveway.

“Rachel, is that you? How come you didn't let us know you were coming?” she hollered.

I got out and ran up to the porch. “I wanted to surprise you all,” I managed to say, still crying as I wrapped my arms around her waist.

“Oh, you surprised me, all right!” Mama said, patting my back. “You still as thin as a rail, girl. But I'll take care of that. I just put the turkey in the oven, and I'm fixing to make some dressing.”

“That's good, Mama. I haven't had a decent meal since the last time I was down here.” We both laughed. I looked over Mama's shoulder and saw Ernest peeping out one window and Janet peeping out another. I let out a sigh and turned back to face Mama. “How is everybody doing?”

“About the same,” she replied with a heavy sigh. “Your aunt Hattie just left yesterday on a three-week cruise to Mexico with her bingo club members.”

“Oh? That's nice. I'm glad to hear she's getting out more, and I wish you would do things like that from time to time.”

“I wish I could. But I can't leave Ernest and Janet for more than a few hours at a time. Lately, they get into all kinds of mischief when I ain't around. I'm scared to death that one day I'm going to come home and see they done burned down the house.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, Mama. Why didn't you let me know?”

“For what? If I told you
everything
them two got into, I'd be so frazzled, you'd be trying to put me in one of them homes. Now, you stop fretting about your brother and sister and come on in this house and get comfortable.”

I removed my suitcase from the backseat of the rental car and followed Mama into the house.

“You should have seen the look on Bernice Hayes's pig face when I told her about your latest raise.” Mama laughed. “You make more money in a week than her daughter makes in a month working at the turpentine mill!”

“Mama, you always told me not to brag,” I reminded, setting my suitcase on the living room floor. Despite the December chill, I felt overheated. I sat down on the couch, facing a huge Christmas tree with at least a dozen gift-wrapped boxes under it. “Did you receive the gifts I sent last week?”

Mama nodded. “I had them all up under the tree until last night.”

“What happened last night?”

“Janet got a notion in her to open hers. She didn't like that sweater you sent or that perfume. Ernest ain't interested one way or the other in that eel-skin wallet and them socks you sent him.” Mama shook her head. “My poor babies. They don't know if they coming or going.”

“Mama, I told you they could come to California and stay with me for a while, if you want them to. I have an extra bedroom, and my living room couch lets out into a bed. A change of scenery might do them a world of good.”

“Who is going to look after them while you at work? And what about your own life? A young woman like you needs to be trying to find a husband. Especially after what that jackass Seth done to you!”

“Don't mention matrimony to me,” I groaned. “You said something about Janet being in love in your last letter. What was that about?”

“Well, the more I thought about it, the more worried I got about telling you the whole story. And I wasn't going to bring it up again unless I had to. Since you just brought it up, I'll get it off my chest and be done with it.”

There was a pitiful look on Mama's face as she continued. “Two months ago, Letty Cross from next door came up to me. She's young and foolish, but she means well, or so I thought. Anyway, she offered to treat Janet to a concert in Miami for her birthday. Letty had just got her first car and was anxious to put some mileage on it, so they gassed it up and took off to Miami. Letty's cousin was one of the ushers at the concert hall that night, so he was able to get her and Janet backstage to meet the stars. They was from Atlanta and real popular with the females, I heard.” At this point, Mama gave me a serious look. “I read about them musicians in the
Enquirer,
so I know they get girls doped up and pregnant in every city they do a show in.”

I narrowed my eyes and looked at Mama with my mouth hanging open. “Please don't tell me some musician took advantage of Janet!”

“I wish that was all that happened. Letty, who ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer, even though she graduated from school with all As, she got caught up with one of them singers. Janet got caught up with one of the others. And, as you know, your sister ain't never even seen a man's pecker before in her life, unless you count that time she walked in the bathroom while your brother was taking a bath.”

“Oh, Mama. How did you find out about what happened in Miami?”

“Janet told me out of her own mouth.”

“Now, Mama, don't jump the gun. You know you can't believe everything Janet says. She hears voices and has delusions, so she thinks things are happening that are only in her head.”

“Girl, you still walking around thinking that she didn't hear Seth telling somebody he couldn't marry you, because he didn't want to have no crazy kids?”

“That was different. I found out she was telling the truth, after all. A woman who used to work for Seth told me the same thing Janet told you.”

“Well, then. Give Janet some credit for not being as crazy as people think she is. Anyway, a month after that concert, she told me she had had what she called ‘relations' with that musician. I carried her straightaway to Dr. Porter's office and had him check her out. Thank God she wasn't pregnant and didn't have no deadly disease!”

“I'm glad to hear that. There is no telling what kind of trouble Janet could have gotten herself into in Miami. Thank God she's all right . . . this time.”

“I ain't finish.” Mama snorted. “Last week, when she got her SSI check in the mail, she took off.”

“What?”

“I come home from choir practice, and she was gone. Ernest didn't know nothing, so I called the police. Them fools is about as useless as a worm when it comes to locating black people, even ones with mental problems. To make a long story short, Janet had took off on a Greyhound bus. She had hightailed it to Atlanta to look up that nasty buzzard that took advantage of her in Miami. She called me from a pay phone as soon as she got there. I tried to tell her that she didn't mean nothing to that fool, that them devils got a different woman for every day of the month. But she didn't want to hear none of that.”

“Did you call the police back and tell them that? With Janet being the way she is, you could probably have that man arrested for statutory rape.”

“No, I didn't call the police. I called Reverend Dixon, and he got a prayer chain going that same night. Praise the Lord, God was listening. Janet called me from a pay phone again three days later and told me to come get her. She had spent every night sleeping on a bench in a park. Reverend Dixon and his grandson drove over there to get her. That girl was so glad to get back home, she kissed the living room floor when she got in the house.”

“Mama, who was the singer?”

“One of them rappers, just another one of Satan's offspring.”

“What was his name?”

“Girl, them cornrow-wearing, gold-toothed fools all look and sound alike to me! I wouldn't know one from the other!”

“I'm going to find out his name, and then I'm going to call the police myself before I leave here,” I said, looking toward the door. I was surprised to see Janet standing in the doorway, staring at me with a glazed expression on her face. “Janet, who was the man you were with?” I asked, rising.

“What man?” She shrugged. “I don't know nothing about no man.”

“The man you went to see at that concert in Miami,” Mama said with a heavy sigh and a serious frown on her face.

“What concert?” Janet glanced from me to Mama and shook her head. “I ain't never been to Miami or no concert before in my life.” Then she turned around and went back to her room.

“Drop it, Rachel. Trying to get that man to be held accountable for what he done would be a waste of time and energy, and I ain't got too much of neither one left no more,” Mama said. The grim expression on my mother's face suddenly disappeared. She began to speak in a very cheerful tone of voice. “Now, set back down and tell me what you been up to yourself.”

I returned to the couch and began to tell my mother about a few of the things that I'd been up to. As I talked, her face went back and forth from frowns to looks of total disbelief. She could not understand why I paid money to go to a gym just to exercise when I could walk or run up and down any street for free. My weight loss didn't impress her. If anything, it gave her something else to worry about, like maybe I had “a cancer” or “a touch of AIDS” or something even worse. She was pleased to hear that I was dating again. So was I, for that matter. It was a distraction, and it helped me pass the time.

However, I had no desire to get involved in a serious relationship with another man as long as Seth was still causing me to lose sleep....

Chapter 51

Seth

O
NE OF THE MANY THINGS
I
LIKED ABOUT THE
B
AY AREA WAS
that I could go for months or years without running into somebody I didn't want to see. After our breakup I had not seen Rachel until that July day in the Creole restaurant last year. But I often ran into some of her associates. So far none of them had given me a hard time. Until today.

It was the first week in January. I'd made a New Year's resolution that I was not going to let too many trivial things upset me, the way they had the previous year. Just before Christmas, Father had been the victim of an attempted robbery on the street. During the chaos, his attacker had given him one of the most horrific black eyes I'd ever seen. I was glad that my father had not been seriously hurt and that the thug had not succeeded in taking his wallet. He had kept Mother from having another heart attack by telling her that he had hit his eye with his car door when he'd opened it too abruptly. I had tried to get my father to file a police report, but he had refused to do so.

“Son, I wouldn't be able to identify the perpetrator, and he didn't get anything from me, so I'm not going to waste my time with the cops. I refuse to let trivial matters bother me, and I don't want you to, either,” he had told me.

“I won't. It will be my first New Year's resolution,” I had assured him.

That resolution went out the window as soon as I saw Lucy, the nosy, fuck-faced, fat-assed bitch who had introduced me to Rachel. Had I stumbled into the lair of a demon, I could not have been more distressed.

I had just come out of the Babies“R”Us store with two huge bags of new clothes and toys for my daughter when I bumped into Miss Piggy. She was on her way in. It was a Wednesday evening. As usual, she had a smirk on her miserable face. How she managed to attract men was a mystery to me.

“Seth! I thought that was your car I just saw in the parking lot,” Lucy squealed, looking me up and down like I was something good to eat. “I haven't been to church in months, so I haven't seen much of you and your family lately. Do you still go?”

“Not that often,” I admitted. I had been back to church only three or four times since Lucy had introduced me to Rachel there almost five and a half years ago.

“I've been reading my Bible, though,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“So have I.” I couldn't remember the last time I'd picked up a Bible.

“I'm glad to see that you're looking well.”

“You're looking well, too,” I lied. As usual, she was dressed like she was about to attend a fashion show for plus-size women. Why in the world designers made certain outfits, like the tight purple dress she wore today, in her size was a mystery to me. She looked like a giant eggplant, which was the only vegetable I refused to eat, because when I did, it turned my stomach. Seeing Lucy turned my stomach. I would have continued walking to my car, but her yard-wide hips were blocking my path.

She looked me over some more, as if sizing me up. I was so uncomfortable, I couldn't wait to get away from her. “I heard about your new baby girl!” she hollered. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you, Lucy.” I looked her up and down, focusing on her belly. “When is your baby due?” I knew she was not pregnant. Had she been, she would have shouted it from a rooftop for everybody in the state to hear. I also knew she was sensitive about her weight. I enjoyed the hurt look on her face.

“I'm . . . I'm not pregnant. I got carried away during the holidays and gained a few pounds. I came here to get something for my godchild, Sharise. I do hope to have children someday, though,” she mumbled. “I've spent a fortune on gifts for other folks' babies, and I'd like to spend some of my hard-earned money on a child of my own soon.”

“I hope you will do just that one of these days,” I said with a snort.

“What's your little girl's name?”

“Gayle Marie. We named her after my mother's late mother.”

“That's a nice name. I remember your grandma. I was only eight, but she was my Sunday school teacher until she had that stroke that killed her. She was good looking for a woman her age. Even with all those moles and the hair on her chin. Anyway, I'm sure your daughter is just as beautiful as your grand-mama was.”

“Actually, Gayle looks more like my wife. She's beautiful, too.”

“I figured that. As long as I've known you, I never knew you to tolerate an ugly woman.”

It took all my strength for me to remain civil to the ugly woman in front of me. “Now, I hate to run, but my wife is waiting for me.”

That fat-assed heifer didn't even budge. From the way she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and folded her arms, I got the impression that she was just getting warmed up. I was right.

“I can't wait to tell Rachel I saw you. By the way, she's doing real well. She just bought herself a new car, she's down to a size six, and she's looking better than ever! She's dating up a storm and beating the men off with a stick.”

“That's nice to hear. She was a good woman.”

“Was?”

“Oh, you know what I mean. When she and I were together, she was a good woman to me.” I stopped talking, because even I realized how ridiculous and hypocritical that statement sounded. No man in his right mind let a “good woman” go, unless . . . well, unless he had a damn good reason. Which I still believed I had.

Lucy's face was only a few inches away from mine. When she let out a loud breath, I not only heard it, but felt it and smelled it, too. There was no telling what she had eaten for lunch, because her breath stank like manure. I had to get away from this woman as soon as possible, before she made me sick.

“It was nice to see you again, Lucy,” I said in the sweetest voice I could manage. “When you see Rachel, tell her hello for me, please. I hope she enjoyed the holidays.”

“She's in Alabama, but when I talk to her again, I'll tell her what you said.”

“Oh?” Now, this piece of information piqued my interest. “She's in Alabama? Hmmm. Did she move back home?” I was hoping to hear that she had. I honestly didn't know what I'd say to her if I ran into her again. And I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what she'd say to me. But Rachel being the kind of woman she was, she had probably forgotten all about me. Especially if she was “dating up a storm” and “beating the men off with a stick,” like Lucy claimed.

“No, she just went back home for a holiday visit and to check up on her family. She was supposed to be back here right after Christmas, but she decided to stay a few more days. As you know, Rachel's mama is getting on in years, and her brother and sister have some issues. . . .”

“I know. I hope they are doing well, too.” I no longer cared about being nice. I rudely walked around Lucy, making her stumble. I heard her gasp, but I didn't even bother to turn around. “Have a nice day,” I said, over my shoulder.

 

“You look flustered,” Darla told me when I got home.

“Uh, I ran into somebody I despise,” I admitted, dropping my packages onto the couch. I gave Darla a hopeless look and said through clenched teeth, “A bitch from hell.”

Darla stood stock-still. The disgusted look on her face told me what she was thinking. “Not that Rachel, I hope.”

“Not quite, but just as disgusting. It was her girl Lucy.”

“Isn't she the woman who badgered you to go out with Rachel in the first place?”

I nodded. “She's the one.”

“Oomph! You ought to be just as mad at her as you are at that Rachel. Had it not been for Lucy, you wouldn't have gone through that trauma with her crazy-ass bitch friend!”

“Well, that crazy-ass bitch is in the past, so I don't have to worry about her anymore. She's in Alabama right now, Lucy claims.”

“If she was on the moon, that still wouldn't be far enough away! I hope she stays in Alabama!”

“Unfortunately, she's only visiting. She'll be back here soon.”

Darla let out an angry breath and continued with her brow furrowed. “Do you . . . do you ever think about her?”

“Only when somebody else mentions her name,” I said. “Lucy also told me that Rachel's dating a lot of guys right now.”

“From what you've told me, I'm not surprised. The way she dressed when I saw her at the gym, she looked like she was advertising. How that woman can keep a bunch of men interested in that loathsome pussy you told me she had is a mystery to me. I don't know how in the world you managed to stick your dick into such a sloppy cow for as long as you did!”

“It wasn't easy, honey. But since she was sometimes so nice to me, I did it out of gratitude. Rachel was a sex addict. I couldn't keep her satisfied—which is why I know she was seeing other men behind my back.” The more I bashed Rachel, the better I felt. Even though almost every bad thing I said about her was not true, it still helped ease my guilt.

“And as horny as you told me she was all the time, there had to be a hell of a lot of gratitude involved on your part.”

“There was. But you've more than made up for that hellish nightmare. Let's hurry up and eat dinner so we can work on getting that baby boy you promised me!”