“You noticed her looks, huh?” Joyce’s words was so stiff, you would have thought she’d dipped them in starch.
“Well, kind of. She was so loud, how could I not notice her?”
“That’s not what I meant. Milton and Willie Frank were loud, too, and so were we for that matter.” A hurt look crossed Joyce’s face and I felt like a piece of shit. “I guess you also noticed how much prettier she is than me. I can understand why colored men act a fool when it comes to redbone women. It’s as close as they will ever get to having a white woman. . . .”
“Now you putting words in my mouth,” I accused.
“I don’t have to. You brought up Yvonne’s good looks.”
“Yeah, but so what? She ain’t got nothing on you! You the cream of the crop.”
“You really think so?”
“I don’t think it, I know it. Women that look like her is shallow and self-centered and that ain’t enough to keep a man like me happy. I wouldn’t take five Yvonnes for one of you.” That compliment must have really impressed Joyce. She sucked in some air and smiled. But the smile stayed on her face only a few seconds. The next thing I knew, she had tears in her eyes.
“I don’t care how much I got going for me, I would give anything in the world to know what it’s like to look like Yvonne.” She looked at her hands, which was even larger than mine. Her feet was too. “Every morning I have to coat my face with face powder and rouge, just to look decent. Women like Yvonne don’t have to do all that. They can roll out of bed looking as glamorous as the models in the Sears and Roebuck catalogs.”
“It don’t matter. I done told you and I hope I don’t have to keep telling you: You still got more going for you than Yvonne!”
Joyce’s jaw dropped. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“You a lot smarter and got way more class. You come from a real good family. Just from the few things she mentioned about her folks, I suspect they are just as trifling as mine. Yvonne Hamilton ain’t got a damn thing for you to be jealous about. Shoot! She just a pooh-butt waitress in a pooh-butt restaurant. You work for the nicest colored school in town. You give me everything I want from a woman.”
“Not everything . . .”
“What do you mean?” I asked, holding my breath. This was one question I already knew the answer to.
“I don’t care what you keep telling me, I know you won’t be satisfied until we have some children, and neither will I. Only then will our family be complete.”
“Um . . . it’ll happen, baby. Just give it a little more time,” was all I could say.
* * *
A little more time was what I needed so I could make extra trips to see Betty Jean and my boys. I just needed to find a way to justify some additional absences. That turned out to be easier than I thought it would be.
The day after our first visit together to the Hamiltons’ house next door, I came up with a plan that would allow me to spend at least one more night a week with Betty Jean. “Daddy ain’t doing too well. He wants me to start spending at least one more night a week with him,” I told Joyce a few minutes after I got home from work at five-thirty Tuesday evening.
“What’s the matter with him now? He’s not getting any better, huh?” she asked as she helped me take off my jacket. Joyce hadn’t been with me to visit my daddy in weeks, and I didn’t blame her. If Ellamae wasn’t in the picture, Joyce would have been as close to my daddy as she was to hers. Daddy liked her and he asked about her every time I saw him. But he understood why she didn’t like to come to his house. I didn’t want Joyce to change the way she felt and want to see Daddy more often because it would mean that I really would have to visit him more often and Betty Jean less.
“The same old things, just worse. He done convinced hisself that death is right around the corner. But according to him, it’s been that close for the past twenty-five years.” I chuckled. “Oh well. He have his good days and his bad days. I just wish he lived closer. The drive to get out to his place ain’t that long, but I don’t like them dirt roads and all them creatures jumping out the bushes in front of my car. Last time I drove out there, I ran over three different squirrels and almost hit a deer.”
“I’d go with you every time you went if Lonnie would get rid of Ellamae. The way he mean-mouths her to us, I can’t for the life of me understand why he keeps her around. They haven’t slept in the same bed in ten years. She talks to him like he’s a dog, and he’s caught her cheating on him! He should want her out of his life.”
“Getting rid of her wouldn’t solve the problem. After my mama died, every woman he got involved with was a she-devil. The next one might be even meaner than Ellamae. The thing is, he don’t like to live alone.”
“Then if the only reason he keeps her around is because he doesn’t want to live alone, he can move in with us,” Joyce said. “Let him know that if he only wants to take a short break from her, he’s welcome to stay with us for a few days or weeks.”
“I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear that, honey,” I replied. “But Daddy would never let that woman stay in the house he paid for by herself for a few days, let alone a few weeks. Knowing Ellamae,
