“What do you mean?” I stood up again.
“You ain’t just cooked your goose; you done cremated it, my man!”
“You think so?”
“I know so, Odell. But tell me this: How long do you think you can stand all this stress?”
“How do you know I’m stressed?”
“Pffft! You can’t hide that from me. I could see it with my eyes closed. When I told you why I came here today, you acted like you seen your own ghost. You lucky it was me that busted you and not a blabbermouth like Yvonne. Or that Buddy or Sadie.” Milton gave me another pitiful look. I knew he wasn’t feeling sorry for me, so I didn’t know what was behind that look. And he was right, I was stressed. But he was the one that was stressing me! The more I gazed at his butt face, the madder I got. It was a good thing for him that I wasn’t stupid enough to jump over my desk and wring his neck! “I’m glad we was able to work this thing out as fast as we did. I’m happy and you should be too, because you can go on with your two women. But I advise you to watch your step on account of you walking on real thin ice. If somebody else was to see what I seen, I hope they’ll be as reasonable as me.” Milton reached out his hand to me. “You want to shake on our deal?” I gave him the meanest look I could come up with and ignored his hand. “Oh well. I got to get back to work. Thanks for the money. Now, you be cool and have a blessed day.” He whistled as he strutted toward the door.
I dropped back down into my chair, but I couldn’t sit still. I got up and paced back and forth for about fifteen minutes, recalling everything Milton had said. The whole time I was sweating bullets.
I finally told Buddy, Sadie, and the latest stock boy that I didn’t feel well and needed to go home before I got worse.
Chapter 44
Joyce
WHEN I GOT HOME FROM WORK, ODELL WAS ALREADY IN BED. I rushed over to him with a wild-eyed look on my face. “Baby, what’s the matter? I called the store a little while ago and Sadie told me you got sick a couple of hours ago and had to leave. How come you didn’t answer the phone when I called here?” I sat down on the side of the bed and felt his forehead.
“I . . . I must have been using the toilet,” he said in a feeble tone. “My bowels have been in a uproar all day. I didn’t get much sleep last night, so I could barely keep my eyes open today. That’s why I got in this bed as soon as I got home.”
“It’s my fault. I should not have kept you up half the night trying to make a baby. You stay in bed and I’ll make you some tea. You hungry?”
“Uh-uh.”
“You say that now, but I’m going to fix some chicken soup. Don’t you get out of that bed unless you need to use the toilet again.”
Seeing Odell so sick scared me. He was the healthiest man I knew. The whole time we’d been together, he had never been sick enough to leave work and take to his bed. He didn’t like doctors, but I was going to do everything I could to get him back up on his feet. I hoped that the only thing wrong with him was a bad case of the runs. I’d been there myself more times than I cared to think about, so I knew how annoying and inconvenient it could be. But it was a condition that wasn’t too serious. If he didn’t get better by morning, I’d make him stay home and I’d call in sick so I could stay in the house and take care of him. In the meantime, I wanted him to stay in bed.
Odell probably would have done that if Yvonne and Milton hadn’t come to the house about twenty minutes after I had given him a bowl of the chicken soup I’d made. Right after they started talking, he stumbled into the living room with the bedspread draped around his shoulders. “I thought I heard company,” he said in a weak tone. He stood in the doorway with an expression on his face that scared me. It was the same frightened look I’d seen the day I told him I was pregnant.
“Man, you look terrible,” Milton howled. “We heard you wasn’t feeling too good.” He and Yvonne had already made themselves comfortable on the couch.
“Who told y’all that?” Odell wanted to know, looking at me. I shook my head.
“Sadie told us,” Yvonne answered.
“Oh?”
“Uh-huh. We stopped by the store on our way home from work to see if we could get a ride home with you and she told us you’d left already. Sick as a dog. I was so sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you, Yvonne,” Odell rasped.
“And I wanted to pick out me one of them pinstripe suits today,” Milton added, giving Odell a wink.
“Oh,” Odell said again, wrapping the bedspread tighter around his body. I could see that he was even weaker than he’d been when I got home, so I hoped Yvonne and Milton wouldn’t hang around too long.
“Um, Odell, maybe you should get back in the bed,” I advised. I walked up to him and massaged his shoulders. “Did the chicken soup do any good at all?”
“Look like he need something stronger than chicken soup,” Milton suggested. He looked Odell up and down and frowned.
