God Ain't Through Yet (3 page)

“A
nnette, I want you to know that you are the last woman in the world I ever wanted to hurt,” Lizzie mumbled, choking on a sob. “You've always been good to me….” She removed a wrinkled white handkerchief from the small denim purse in her hand. She honked into her handkerchief; then she blinked real hard a few times. The next thing I knew, she grabbed my husband's arm—which was shaking like one of those branches outside on my cherry tree—with both of her hands. “I was glad when we all became friends.”

Friend?

She didn't look like a friend of mine now. And the way she was holding on to my husband's arm, she looked more like his nurse than his friend. What she said next stung my ears like a wasp. “Baby, you tell her.”

Baby?
Had all of that sugar from those Krispy Kreme donuts dulled my mind to where I couldn't hear right? Had I just heard this woman address my husband as “baby” right in front of me? Yes, that was exactly how this woman had addressed my husband.

When I cleared my throat it sounded more like I was growling. “Well,
baby
, you or
somebody
better tell me something before I turn this damn house inside out!” I yelled. My voice was loud, dark, and deep, like thunder rolling out of a black hole in the sky. I had to press my lips together to keep the bile from oozing out.

“I'm gettin' to that,” Pee Wee replied in a shaky voice with a shaky hand in the air. There was so much sweat on his face now that it looked like he'd just climbed out of the shower.

“Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on here? And you'd better tell me
now
!” I ordered, fists clenched. “What the fuck have you done to hurt me?” I looked so hard at Lizzie's hands on my husband that she released him. But the look that suddenly appeared on her face angered me even more. She looked like she had just swallowed Big Bird.

“I'm in love,” Lizzie announced, dabbing at her eyes with the same handkerchief that she'd just used to blow her nose.

I don't remember what my first thought was when I heard that bitch croak that line because several thoughts danced around inside my head at the same time. In addition to those thoughts, there was a buzzing noise going back and forth, gnawing on my brain like a shark's teeth. The bile in my throat and mouth had turned into the worst kind of slush. I wanted to vomit, and the only reason I didn't was because I didn't want to soil my favorite T-shirt. But something told me that there was going to be a lot more than bile for me to deal with.

Lizzie had once been the plainest Jane in town. But after a recent extreme makeover—that I had encouraged—she'd been transformed into a more glamorous version of Betty Boop. However, she didn't look like Betty Boop to me right now. She looked more like one of those cheesy blow-up dolls that they propped up in the windows in adult sex product stores. No, that description of her was too mild. She looked like the devil. She had eased her wretched ass into my life, my husband's bed, and now my home.

Like with a terminal illness, when dealing with the devil, a person didn't know what all to expect. I sure didn't. If my husband and his she-devil had told me that Pee Wee's barbershop, which provided the lion's share of our impressive income, had burned to the ground or that they had been robbed, it would have been less painful than what they had just told me.

“You're in love, Lizzie? In love with who?” I asked, my eyes burning, my ears ringing. “I know you are not standing here telling me …you and my husband…” I couldn't even finish my sentence because I could not believe my ears. Even though I knew in my heart that what I'd just heard was true, I still managed to laugh.

I was the only one laughing.

I stopped laughing because my throat suddenly felt like I had a rock stuck in it. I had to cough hard, so hard I almost choked on some air, to clear my throat before I could speak again. “Come on, you two. What is this really about?” I asked. I almost didn't recognize my own voice. It was so hoarse and husky I sounded like a man. I shook my head, rubbed my ear, and blinked. “What is really going on here?” I demanded. The words felt like rocks in my mouth, but I laughed again anyway. “Who are you in love with, Lizzie? Did Pee Wee finally hook you up with one of his friends?”

My mind felt as raggedy as a bowl of sauerkraut. I was talking out of my head. It made no sense for Lizzie to be telling me that she didn't want to hurt me if the person she was in love with was one of Pee Wee's friends. But what was becoming more and more obvious to me didn't make any sense either.

“Annette, maybe you should sit back down,” Pee Wee suggested, nodding toward the chair I had risen from. “You might take this better sitting down.”

“Sit down my ass!” I screamed, my lips trembling. I kicked the chair over and slammed my fist on the top of the table so hard that the newspaper and everything else on it fell to the floor, even that Krispy Kreme donut box. “Talk to me, dammit!”

Pee Wee's hand was in the air again and it was still shaking. “Hold on now! You ain't got to tear the house down!” he advised. For the first time, this man looked ugly to me. He had on the crisp white smock that he worked in, and the way I was feeling it could just as well be his shroud. I wanted to kill him, but first I needed to know exactly
why
I wanted to kill him.

“If you don't talk to me and tell me everything, this house won't be the only thing I tear down!” I threatened, kicking another one of the four chairs to the floor. My feet must have been heavier or stronger than I thought. Because when I kicked that second chair over, it landed with such a thud the radio on the counter came back on by itself. I was glad to see that I had put some fear into Lizzie. Her eyes got big and I could see the terror in her face. Now I knew why she had worn running shoes to my house. There was a strong possibility that she might have to leave in a hurry.

“Annette, please try to understand,” Pee Wee's voice trembled as he spoke. As frightened as they both appeared to be, I couldn't figure out why they'd been brave enough to face me in my own house in the first place. “I don't know how to tell you…”

“All I want is for you to finish what you came here to tell me!” I roared. My head was throbbing so hard now, my ears went numb. “Keep going and give me the whole story!”

Pee Wee put his arm around Lizzie's shoulder and pulled her closer to him. My eyes burned as I watched this scene unfold in front of me like a cheap beach towel.

“Uh, I didn't mean for this to happen, but it…but…it…did,” he stammered. “And I feel the same way Lizzie feels. You are the last woman in the world that I ever wanted to hurt. I mean, look what you done for me,” he said, making a sweeping gesture around the kitchen with his hand. He swallowed so hard he had to lift his chin. “You made a good home for me, and you gave me a beautiful daughter. I will always appreciate that. But”—he stopped and shook his head. He even smiled, but that smile was so empty and false that it stayed on his face for just a split second.

Then he gave me the most pitiful look that another human being had ever aimed in my direction. “I think I'd be happier with Lizzie for now. I am sure enough sorry, Annette! Honest to God I am!” he wailed.

My heart felt like it had been pierced by a poisoned dart. I couldn't think straight for a moment, and it took me a few more moments to get a grip on myself.

In the meantime, Pee Wee's words rang in my ears like a death sentence. And as far as I was concerned, that was exactly what it was.

T
here was a taste in my mouth that was so sour and nasty you would have thought that those donuts I'd eaten had been glazed with shit. I slid my tongue up, down, and around the walls inside of my mouth, hoping it would dissolve the coat of slime that was threatening to make me sick. It didn't help. All it did was move that slime from one spot to another, and that made my stomach roll with nausea. If somebody had dropped a piano on the top of my head, I could not have been more stunned. I slapped the side of my head with the palm of my hand and rubbed my ear. I blinked hard, because not only was I not sure of what I was hearing, I was not sure of what I was seeing. But there was nothing wrong with my vision. My husband and a woman whom I had considered a friend, were standing in front of me telling me that they were in love. It made zero sense.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. When I opened my eyes, Pee Wee was looking at me like I was the most pitiful and disgusting woman on the planet. And that was exactly how I felt. I was getting sick of the way he and Lizzie kept looking at each other before they turned to look at me at the same time. I had to wonder how long they had been rehearsing their performance in this real-life soap opera. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that you and Little Leg Lizzie are already having an affair?” I wanted to know, hands on my hips.

Their silence, and the fact that they couldn't look me in the face, was the only confirmation I needed.

“Like I just said, I'm sorry, baby,” he mumbled, looking at me and pulling his lover even closer to him.

I appreciated a joke as much as the next person, if it was good. This was one of the lamest, most ridiculous jokes I'd ever heard. “This
has
to be a joke, and it's a bad one at that,” I mouthed, glaring from Pee Wee to Lizzie. “Pee Wee, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” I scolded, giving him a dismissive wave and a slightly contemptuous look. At the same time, my mind was reeling, trying to find some reason for my husband to be standing in front of me telling me such a stupid joke….

“Look, lady—this is no joke!” Lizzie had the nerve to say. And I knew she was not joking. I think I had known from the moment I'd heard this unimaginable news that it was not a joke. I just couldn't bring myself to believe it right away. I didn't know why then, and to this day I don't, but for some reason I'd thought that if I prolonged the conversation, it would ease the pain. It didn't. By then my stomach was churning like a volcano about to erupt.

I had to rub my stomach before I could speak again. As soon as I opened my mouth, tiny drops of puke shot out with the words. “Bitch, you'd better talk to me with some respect. You and your funky ass are in
my
house now. And you do not come up into my house talking to me like I am just another aging ghetto skank—like you! Not unless you want to leave here in a body bag,” I warned, wiping vomit off my lips and chin with the back of my fist.

“You don't have to get so nasty, Annette! I'm trying to talk to you in a civilized manner! You are the one acting ghetto!” Lizzie shrieked like a shrew. In spite of her bravura, she seemed to shrink before my eyes. Even though she was about the same height as I was, she suddenly looked about four inches tall. I didn't know if that was because I had reduced her to almost nothing in my mind or because I was hallucinating. If I was hallucinating, then what I was seeing and hearing was not what I thought.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

“I'm taking Pee Wee,” she told me with a snort and a smug look.

My hand was already in a fist and I was one step from sucker punching that smug look off of her face. “Taking him where, BITCH?”

Instead of answering my question, she turned to him and said, “I told you we should have told her in a letter! We both know how unstable this woman is. There's no telling what she might do….”

Those words hit me like a cannonball. A sharp spasm attacked my leg, almost making me drop to the floor. “You got that right!” I told her, raising my fist.

Lizzie gasped and reared back on her legs, like she was about to run or duck. But instead of running or ducking, she clung to my husband even harder and looked at me with her eyes narrowed into slits. The expression on her face was so intense I could feel it. It felt like she was shining a flashlight in my face, a big one with a lot of heat and a painful glare like the kind cops used. Even though that hateful look she was giving me made my eyes burn, I refused to blink or rub them as long as hers were still on me. I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of seeing any more discomfort on my part than she was already seeing. It was a small gesture, but each time I managed to “hold my ground,” so to speak, it made me feel better.

“Baby, let's get your things and get the hell up out of here!” Lizzie bellowed into my husband's ear. His eyes got big as he looked from her to me. This was one man who didn't know how lucky he was that he was still alive. In all of the days of my life, I had never seriously thought about committing homicide until now. It didn't take me long to dismiss that thought. If I was going to spend the rest of my days in jail, it was not going to be because I'd killed a man for dumping me for another woman. I was glad that I was still lucid enough to realize that
no
man was worth that.

However, I was not about to let them down gently. No matter what happened now, my name would remain on their lips and minds for a long time.

“Is my suitcase still in the bathroom closet?” Pee Wee asked me in a meek voice.

I ignored him as I turned to Lizzie. “Woman, I hired you to work for my husband. Are you standing here telling me that you are fucking him, too?” It was no secret around Richland that Lizzie had led such a sheltered life she was still unattached at the age of forty-seven. “You've never had a boyfriend or a husband before in your life, but you are willing to settle for…for my leftovers? You think so little of yourself that you will settle for licking the jar, scraping the bone?”

Pee Wee gasped so hard he stumbled, like he was the one who had just been pushed into an abyss by two of the people he trusted most in the world. “Annette, is that the way you saw me? The bottom of a jar? A bone?”

“Yes! And not a very tasty bone at that!” I roared. “I stayed with your black ass because I thought you were a good man!”

“I was—
I am a good man
!” he defended, whimpering like a wounded puppy.

“Well, if you don't get the fuck out of my house, you're going to be a dead man, too!” I warned. “Go get that suitcase, pack up all your shit, and get the fuck out of my face!” I dismissed them both with a vigorous wave, but they didn't move.

“Annette, be reasonable. This man deserves to be happy,” Lizzie said, words oozing out of her mouth like syrup. “He needs
me
,” she whimpered. I could not believe that she was talking to me like we were discussing a recipe or a yard sale.

“Look, bitch, a good ass-whupping is what you need! And that is exactly what you are going to get if you don't get the hell out of my house,” I warned. With my arms folded, I clip-clopped across the floor like a stallion. I stopped with my face so close to Pee Wee's, I could feel and smell his sour breath. “You better tell me what the hell is going on here, and you better tell me now!”

Pee Wee's mouth dropped open and he stood still for several seconds, looking at me in slack-jawed amazement. It seemed like he was stalling for more time, more time to make me even more miserable. I kept my eyes on his, and for the first time I noticed how dead his eyes had become. The pupils were no longer a sparkling shade of brown. They were now a shadowy shade of black, with deep, dark circles above and below.
When did that happen?
I wondered.
And why?
Well, whatever the reason was, it was too late for me to fix.

“What the—how many more times do I have to tell you? Are you deaf! Do you want me to spell it out on a piece of paper or what?
I'm leavin' you
,” he boomed.

I shrugged and muttered some gibberish under my breath like a lunatic. “Then go,” I advised in a voice that was so calm it scared me. I didn't remain calm for long. My voice took on a life of its own, flying out of my mouth like a missile. “Get out before I throw you out!” I yelled, shaking my head and both fists.

He just stood there staring at me. The longer he stayed in my presence, the more danger he was in.