Soulful Strut (13 page)

“Not anything trivial like getting on the
wrong bus, Candi,” Sherrial said to head her off. She raised an
eyebrow to punctuate her point.

“Okay, okay.” Candi sighed. “I trusted
somebody I shouldn’t have. My sister. I keep thinking one of these
days we can be family like normal people.”

“You want to tell us about it?” Sherrial
prompted.

“Same old bull with her. I tell her to keep
up with my car once I’m inside—prison, I mean.”

“Girl, you should have known better.” Another
resident shook her head.

“I get out, right? First day I call Kaia.
She’s stuttering, sure sign everything coming out her mouth is a
damn lie. I still ain’t got a straight answer. All I know is my car
is messed up. Maybe my old Chevy was a wreck, but still.” Candi
tried to keep her tone light, but her voice got shaky. She brushed
a hand over her face. ‘To hell with it. I’ll get another car one of
these days.”

“It’s hard when family or someone close isn’t
there for you,” Sherrial put in.

“Yeah. It’s like they oughta watch your
back,” Tyeisha blurted out.

For the next thirty minutes they talked about
having to cut ties with people who weren’t good for them. Monette
could have spoken on both sides of the issue. There were people in
her life she should have cut loose sooner. Winn Barron for sure.
Maybe if she had seen that mean-as-a- snake look in his gray eyes
sooner, she wouldn’t have been sitting in a halfway house. Then
again, maybe she would have ended up in prison and trying to start
over anyway. Her choices hadn’t been so great up until then.
Monette also thought about her family. Although she hadn’t cut them
out of her life, she sure kept them at a distance, Tyeisha’s voice,
raised in anger, cut into her spiral of self-pity.

“You leave my mama outta this.” Tyeisha
glared at Yarva.

“Aw, hell,” Yarva replied and waved a hand to
dismiss her anger. She glanced at Sherrial. “I thought we were
supposed to express ourselves in here.”

“Tyeisha has a right to say that subject is
off limits,” Sherrial replied.

“That’s right,” Monette added and stared at
Yarva.

“Still, Yarva has a point. We can’t move
forward if we don’t face facts, Tyeisha,” Sherrial prodded gently.
“Yarva didn’t say anything about Wanda that you haven’t shared with
us.”

“Exactly. I know more about mama drama than
any of y’all. Growing up in foster care ain’t no joke.” Yarva’s
neck muscles tightened.

Candi stole a quick peek in Monette’s
direction. “It’s not all bad, I hear.”

“Must have been from somebody who didn’t live
through it. I had six foster mothers. All of ’em beat the hell out
of me and never stop saying I was trash. At least the third one I
lived with didn’t have sons or a husband to hold me down and—”
Yarva beat on her thigh with a fist.

Monette thought about Talia. She had never
talked with Talia about her experiences in foster care. Talia had
more than a few good reasons to cut Monette out of her life. “We
haven’t talked about something,” Monette cut in. “What about
us?”

“Huh?” Tyeisha blinked at her.

“Yeah, I don’t understand,” Candi said.

“We could be the ones that someone else
should let go. Haven’t we done things to hurt other people?”
Monette crossed her arms tightly against her chest. “I’m thinking
about it from that angle. There could be good reasons why we’ve
lost somebody.” Tyeisha shook her head hard enough to make her
dreadlocks bounce. “No. I’m going to turn my life around so my mama
and my little girl won’t turn me away.” Her bottom lip
trembled.

“Yeah,” another woman said softly. “I
couldn’t keep goin’ if my kids didn’t want to see me.”

“Then take it from me and work like hell to
stop disappointing them.” Monette stopped there. She couldn’t have
said more, because her throat contracted from the effort not to
cry. Tyeisha grabbed Monette’s hand and squeezed it

Chapter 6

The next day Monette went to Second Chances
again. In a short two hours, Danica persuaded Monette that she was
needed more than ten hours a week. Monette agreed to help her start
a new program. Both their problems were solved. Danica didn’t have
the budget to hire an assistant, and Monette would earn valuable
community service hours even faster. Surprisingly, Monette found
she enjoyed the vitality and spunk of the teenage girls. Still, by
the end of her first week at Second Chances, Monette was happy for
the weekend. Between preparing for her weekly talk show and the
intense pace Danica set, she was worn out. Coming up with quality
guests for the talk show proved to be a challenge. She and her
producer had to weed out those who needed to be committed from
those committed to a legitimate cause. Monette marveled at how even
her low-watt celebrity brought out the weirdoes and scam
artists.

Saturday morning after breakfast, she sat on
the back patio with several of her housemates. Candi and the rest
of the women were weak from laughter at Monette’s account of some
of the characters she’d met.

“This one guy seemed okay, you know?” Monette
shook her head slowly. “He’s got this idea that Marcus Garvey was
right. Black Americans need to get our behinds back to Africa. I’m
thinking this is going to hit the air like automatic gunshots.”

“Damn right,” Candi broke in before she could
go on. “First, I wouldn’t even know which country to go to. I don’t
know where my people came from over there.”

“Yeah, well it don’t matter to me. If I can
ship off my ex-husband. I’ll just close my eyes and put my finger
on the map,” another resident joked, pointing her cigarette at
Candi to emphasize her sincerity.

“Girl, you’re crazy.” Lenore held her second
cup of coffee as she giggled. “Wait a minute. Maybe I’ll sign up my
ex-boyfriend.”

“Ain’t he from Mexico?” Tyeisha nudged Lenore
with an elbow.

“Don’t matter. I’ll bribe whoever I need to
and get that bum a spot on the plane,” Lenore shot back. The women
howled with laughter.

“So what happened with this guy? Sounds like
that woulda been a good show. I might have taken a break from work
to call in.” Candi looked at Monette.

“He started out talking real rational. We’re
all into it, right? Then suddenly he says he’s the reincarnation of
Marcus Garvey and Sojourner Truth. He starts shouting that they’ve
waited for generations to rescue our people. But we’ve got to keep
it quiet Seems the CIA has been following him around,” Monette
whispered.

“I knew that back-to-Africa stuff was nuts
for a reason,” Candi said and doubled over with laughter.

“Don’t joke about it, Candi. My Tante Ree
says spirits come back to bring messages all the time,” Tyeisha
said, her eyes wide as she nodded. “That ain’t just superstition,
either.”

“Tyeisha, don’t let nobody else hear you
repeat that Bayou Blue superstitious crap.” Candi rolled her eyes.
“Like I said, that stuff is crazy.”

“Now wait a minute. The brother may be a
little different, but leaving behind this oppression sounds good to
me,” Cynthia, a black woman with multiple check-fraud convictions,
put in.

“Girl, please. You’re American. You’d do
better to work on getting your act together on home turf,” Candi
said. Her words ignited a hot debate on the topic of ethnic pride
and labels.

Arguments flew around her as Monette sat
listening. After a few minutes she said, “Maybe I should have a
show on this after all. I just have to find a sane guest.”

“That sure would help,” Candi replied with
another bark of laughter.

Yarva came outside. She strolled up with both
hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Everybody is having a real good
time, I see.”

“Monette has some funny stories. Wait till
you hear.” Tyeisha looked at Monette. “Go on. Tell her.”

“Guess you get that sense of humor from your
mama. She’s got some real good stories about you.” Yarva nodded
back toward the house.

“What?” Monette frowned at her.

“She’s inside. Came over to visit and brought
a ‘friend.’ Hope I’m that lively at her age.” Yarva wore a smirk.
She knew the other women would relish a chance at fresh gossip.

“I better go inside.” Monette stood. She
hated surprises, especially the kind her family liked to spring on
her.

“Take your time. Mama is enjoyin’ a chat with
Trudy.” Yarva’s smirk grew wider at the effect her words were
having on Monette. “Yeah, Trudy loves workin’ a weekend every now
and then to meet any relatives that stop by.”

Monette shot Yarva a stony look as she walked
by her. She balled both hands into fists as Yarva’s laugh scraped
across her nerve endings. Without looking back, Monette went inside
and walked quickly toward the living room. A familiar, loud,
throaty voice greeted her when she approached the door. Monette
stopped several feet down the hall and steeled herself for
anything.

“Nette, that’s what I called her since she
was two. Anyway, Nette was a handful even when she was a little
thing. You probably figured out I started havin’ babies young, at
fourteen.” Annabelle paused to let out a smoker’s cough.

“I see,” Trudy replied in a prim tone that
implied she was exercising restraint

Monette imagined the expression on Trudy’s
face. She would have laughed at the mental picture if Annabelle had
been someone else’s mother. Even so, Monette tried to shrug off
Annabelle’s antics. After all these years it was past time that she
not let her mother get under her skin. Monette forced her hands to
relax. By the time she got to the living room, Monette wore what
she hoped was an unruffled expression.

“Hey, Mama.” Monette smiled at Annabelle. Her
mouth felt stiff when she looked at Annabelle’s outfit

114Lynn Smelly

Her mother sprang up from the upholstered
chair with some trouble. She wobbled on high-heeled yellow sandals
for a few minutes. A tall man, who looked younger than her mother
by twelve years at least, stood quickly and grabbed Annabelle by
one arm.

“Thank you, Waylon. Lost my balance for a
bit.” Annabelle looked at Monette and spread her arms wide. “Come
here and give your mama a hug. Been a long time.”

“Yeah, real long,” Monette said. Her mother
had only visited her a few times over the years and not at all in
the five years before she was released. Still, she accepted the
hug.

“You know I didn’t have reliable
transportation. Couldn’t count on your brothers to bring me.
Anyway, I’m here now. Came to see my famous daughter. Waylon, I
told you all about Monette. When you gonna have that movie deal,
sugar?” Annabelle flashed a smile that was still pretty despite her
age.

Monette gazed at her mother’s perfect teeth,
one of which had a gold crown. One of Annabelle’s previous
boyfriends had paid for those. Leonard something. Or was it Larry?
They blended together in Monette’s memory after so many years.
Annabelle snapped her fingers and brought Monette back to the scene
before her.

“Hey, girl. You just drifted off on some
cloud. I said when ... oh, never mind about that Guess she’s got a
lot on her mind. This is my friend, Waylon Harris.” Annabelle
grinned at him.

“Nice to meet you,” Monette said as she took
his outstretched hand and shook it His palm was smooth. Waylon
hadn’t done any rough manual labor recently.

“Nice meeting you, too,” he replied. “All
your mama talks about is how you beat the system and got paid doin’
it. That’s all right” Waylon nodded in appreciation. His hair was
styled in a fade. He wore a forest green knit shirt and tan
pants.

“Thanks. What brings you to town, Mama?”
Monette ignored the subtle message he sent with a lift of one
eyebrow.

“I came to see you, of course. Rita told me
she talked to you. I’m sorry I didn’t call you or come sooner. I
work part-time sitting with old people,” Annabelle explained as an
aside to Trudy.

“I thought you were retired,” Trudy said
dryly.

“What you talkin’ about I don’t have enough
age on me to retire. The pension I get is from my first husband. He
was a lot older than me.” Annabelle shot a side glance at
Waylon.

Monette gave a short laugh. Annabelle’s eyes
narrowed for a few seconds when she faced Monette, and then she
smiled. “I’m doing fine, Mama,” Monette smiled back. “Thanks for
coming by.”

“Didn’t mean to just drop in unannounced,
though. We were headed to Lafayette to a new seafood place, but I
thought might as well come to Baton Rouge and take you out to
lunch. If that ain’t against some rule.” Annabelle turned to
Trudy.

“Not at all. It was nice meeting you, Mrs.
Victor,” Trudy said and stood.

“Thank you, ma’am. Now if she acts up, you
call me and I’ll get on her.” Annabelle laughed at her own
joke.

Trudy stretched her mouth into a polite
smile. “Right. Y’all have a nice time.”

Monette watched her leave, and then faced her
mother again. “Don’t let me spoil your date, Mama. We can get
together another time. Maybe you’ll come back with Rita or one of
the boys,” she said, referring to one of Monette’s half
brothers.

“Don’t be silly, girl. We made a big U-turn
just to see you.” Annabelle draped an arm across Monette’s
shoulders.

Waylon gazed at Monette for a second, then
cleared his throat. “Listen, you two need some one-on-one time
after so many years of being apart. Why don’t I come back in, say,
an hour or so?”

“What you gonna do for an hour? Now, that
would be just plain rude to toss you aside like that.” Annabelle
let go of Monette with a frown. She seemed nervous about letting
him out of her sight.

“I’ve got some buddies that live here. I can
go hang out with them. One of ’em owns a barbershop on Thirteenth
Street. Y’all spend some quality time. I'll be back around
eleven-thirty or twelve to pick you up.” Waylon fished a set of car
keys out of his pants pocket “Matter of fact, hit me on the cell
phone, Annabelle. I won’t be far off.”