“She ain’t my mama!” Yvonne snarled. “And you need to get out of my face because I’m a happy married woman.”
“So? I’m a happy married man. But I—”
“Start stepping before I yell rape!” Yvonne threatened.
The man threw up his hands and did a neck roll. “Well, excuse me.” He cussed under his breath, and then he put his hands in his pockets and strutted back down the street.
“Can you believe how bold some men can be? I get so sick of ducking and dodging one pass after another! It’s nerve-racking!” Yvonne complained. Then she let out a loud sigh and gave me a sorry look. What she said next sent a jolt through me that pierced me to the bone. “Girl, you lucky you don’t have to worry about men pestering you all the time like they do me.”
She was the one that was lucky. All my life I’d wanted men to pay more attention to me! I couldn’t think of anything she could have said that would have made me feel any worse. Stroking her ego was the last thing I wanted to do, so I decided to say something neutral. “You’d better enjoy getting all that attention as long as you can because it won’t last forever,” I said casually.
The first day I laid eyes on Yvonne, I envied the way she looked. But she had been so nice to me, I hadn’t felt any serious resentment toward her. I did now, though. I hated her for being so beautiful—and knowing it. Not only that, she was rubbing it in my face whether she meant to or not. Women who looked like me must have been her worst nightmare. Because of what I’d been through today, I wasn’t so sure I still wanted to be friends with her. And then she said something that almost made my jaw drop: “Joyce, that first night you and Odell came to the house and I heard how happy y’all was and how well y’all was doing, I got real jealous of you.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “You’re jealous of me?”
“Well, I was at first. But now that I know you better, and see how sweet and nice you are, I feel blessed to have a friend like you. Milton feel the same way about Odell and even said he wish he could be more like him. And, I wish I could be more like you.”
Chapter 38
Odell
WHEN I GOT HOME SUNDAY EVENING FROM MY VISIT TO BETTY Jean’s house, Joyce was in the kitchen cutting up a chicken in the sink that she was going to fry for our supper. I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed the back of her neck. When she giggled and turned around, I kissed her on the mouth. “I was hoping I’d have time to take a bath and splash on some vanilla extract before you got home,” she said in a tired tone.
“You don’t need it.” I kissed her again. She smelled like lard, but that was all right with me. It smelled good on her.
“How was your daddy?”
I let out a long, loud breath and shook my head before I backed to the table and dropped down into the chair facing the sink. “No better, no worse.”
Joyce pulled out the chair across from me and sat down with a thud. “And Ellamae?”
“Believe it or not, she wasn’t so nasty this time. She even made me a peach cobbler.”
“Well, I guess even devils have good days.” We laughed at the same time. “I hope they don’t expect us to come out there for the holiday on Tuesday.”
“They don’t,” I muttered. There was no way I was going to take Joyce out to my daddy’s house until I had actually paid him another visit. That way, if he or Ellamae said something that might make Joyce suspicious about the number of times I did visit, I would be prepared. Daddy’s memory lapses had got even worse and Ellamae’s was going downhill real fast, and that worked in my favor. The last time I did visit, they didn’t remember I’d just seen them three days before.
One of the few things Joyce was real strict about was us being together on holidays, either with her parents or with Daddy and Ellamae. Since I’d started my relationship with Betty Jean, I had only been able to spend a few holidays with her and the boys. I made up for it by being extra nice and generous either before or after those days. This coming weekend, I planned to give her a bottle of the expensive perfume she’d been hounding me to bring her for weeks. We wanted some girl babies to round out our family, so I was going to be extra affectionate on my next visit.
“That’s good because I told Yvonne we wanted her and Milton to come over for a cookout.”
“Oh? How come I’m just hearing about it?”
“I just asked her yesterday. We went shopping and some things happened that I didn’t like. I feel sorry about the way I felt about those things and now I really want to do something nice for her and Milton.” Joyce looked away for a moment. When she returned her attention to me, there was a sad expression on her face.
I held my breath for a few seconds and stared into her eyes. “What things?”
Joyce nodded and blinked. “Almost every man we ran into tried to make a move on Yvonne.” She told me about the two men who had approached them on the street and the one that had paid for Yvonne’s
