Sweet Tea: A Novel (12 page)

M
ama told me the queasy feeling that sits in your belly is God’s way of speaking to you. A moment after I realized I had to make a choice, God spoke, so I listened, and I slid over to the driver’s side of Tom’s Jeep and drove away. I tried to remember the way back to the bar while following the speed limit so I wouldn’t dare be pulled over. Now, both Luke and I were official car thieves.

Once I found the bar, I drove through the parking lot looking for Jonzie’s car, but didn’t see it. She must have figured I’d gotten a ride home from Tom. Why would she figure I’d do something so stupid? Maybe because I
wa
s stupid. 

The threat of jail catapulted my heartbeat to an unnatural speed. I planned to ditch the car as soon as I got close enough to walk home. Luckily, landmarks I recognized helped me find my way home. McDonalds couldn’t have appeared at a more perfect moment. Only two blocks from Stargazer Court, I pulled in and turned the lights and engine off.
What should I do with the keys?
If I leave them in the ignition, someone might steal the car. Again. Maybe that’s not a bad idea. What do I do?

I felt that at any moment the police would arrive and arrest me. I started to think like a criminal and pulled a napkin from my purse, and wiped down the steering wheel to erase my fingerprints. After that, I lifted the floor mat, tossed the keys underneath, and took off on foot. My feet ached so bad I wanted to rip my spiked-heel boots off. If I’d had socks on, I probably would have, but my knee-highs would’ve ripped in a second. Exhausted and fearful, I reached the trailer and slithered inside using the backdoor. I climbed into bed and lay there begging God to let me sleep and forget about what I’d just done.

No sooner had I fallen asleep, the phone rang. I grabbed it before CeCe woke up.

“Where’s my car?” the voice shouted.

Still half-asleep, I asked, “Who is this?”

“Don’t mess with me, bitch! Where’s my car? I can’t believe you stole my freakin’ car. Are you crazy?”

Then I remembered, and I began to shake. More worried about leaving my fingerprints, I had given the creep my phone number.

Forcing my temper to remain intact and not wanting to wake CeCe I whispered, “I don’t even know you . . . and you just left me there—”

“Just tell me where my car is,” he shouted.

I told him, and he hung up. I thanked God I hadn’t told him my last name or where I lived. I also thanked God for allowing me to get home safely and prayed that Jonzie got home safe too. I fluffed my pillow, which smelled like the smoke my hair had absorbed from the bar. I wondered if CeCe would smell it too. Still tipsy and too tired to think anymore, I fell asleep. 

As soon as I woke up, I called Jonzie’s house. Her mother answered and said she couldn’t come to the phone. She didn’t tell me why. I figured Jonzie had a hangover but at least I knew she was home.

That evening CeCe and I stayed in, but Luke went out. Mama had fallen asleep on the couch and we waited up for Luke to make sure he didn’t wake her. Some time after midnight he walked through the door all glassy-eyed and smelling like smoke, but not like my hair had smelled the night before. Luke reeked of marijuana.

CeCe yanked him by the arm. In a loud whisper she said, “Mama’s home now, Luke, you’ve got to quit acting up.”

“Leave me alone, I’m goin’ to bed.” He spoke as if he were already sleeping. He kicked off his beat up work boots, causing them to roll across the living room floor, and trudged off to his bedroom.

“We’ve got to straighten him out,” CeCe said as we watched him stumble down the narrow hallway. “He can’t keep this attitude up. It’ll land Mama back in the hospital in no time.”

“If she ever wakes up,” I said. “And besides, he’s not gonna listen to us. We need someone else to talk to him.”

She nodded. “Like help from a guy. Someone Luke will respect. He’s done listening to women, but I can’t think of anyone,” CeCe said.

“Don’t you have any male friends at college?” I asked, finding it hard to believe she didn’t know anyone she could ask. CeCe never talked about guys anymore. Odd, since she was so popular with them in high school.

The last time she brought a guy home was during her senior year. Mama scared him away when she grilled him about politics. Mama’s views were skewed. Not that
I
knew anything about politics; however, she said things that sounded almost . . . communistic. Back then, I thought it was just Mama being bullheaded. Now I wondered if that was part of the sickness that had landed her in Central State.

Maybe CeCe likes older men and fears bringing them around Mama.
That would make sense.
But why wouldn’t she just tell me?
Definitely mysterious about the guy thing, I planned to find out why.

* * *

Sunday morning I called Jonzie’s house again, but her mother still wouldn’t let her talk. I worried something had happened to her Friday night. Or maybe her mom found out where she really went and grounded her. Different scenarios ran through my head. After stealing a car, I believed anything was possible.

At least Mama was more upbeat than usual, thanks to her medicine and having gone back to work. When suppertime rolled around, I yelled down the hallway. “ Mama, are you fixing supper tonight?”

She didn’t answer me. Instead, she sashayed into the living room and stopped between the couch and the loveseat. Her head held high, she flung her arms out and spun around. “What do you think?”

Dressed in a deep red v-neck dress that hugged her body and stopped just past her knee, her bobbed hair twisted into a tight bun and face made up to perfection, she looked stunning.

“Wow, Mama,” I managed. “You going somewhere?”

She grinned. Then she covered her mouth and giggled. “I’m going on a date.”

She’d never gone on a date before—at least not since Daddy. There was that weird incident with the guy in the trailer who brought her home when she lost her car, but thank God, nothing had come of that. I couldn’t imagine with whom or if she really did have a date at all.

“Who in the world do you have a date with?” I asked.

“Remember the nice man who drove me home when I lost my car?”

I jumped up from the couch. “Him? That man who took advantage of you!” After the other night, my faith in men had gone with the wind, and I didn’t want Mama flying away too.

She tilted her head, all dreamy-eyed. “Olivia, he didn’t take advantage of me, I took advantage of him.”

It didn’t sound right. How could she take advantage of him?

Just about the time CeCe heard us talking and joined in, the doorbell rang. I opened the door and there stood Westin Barnes.

He didn’t resemble the memory I had of him at all. Neatly groomed salt and pepper hair surrounded his peach colored face. His tie pressed and clipped and shiny brown shoes to match.

Mama ran to the door. “Come on in, Westin. Sit down.” She dragged him by the hand to the couch. “Would you like a glass of sweet tea?”

He placed his hands in his lap like a little boy. “No thank you. We should be going. We don’t want to be late for our reservations.”

“Westin’s taking me to Red Lobster.” Mama smiled, sucking her lips inward. She strolled toward the closet and pulled out the long fox coat.

Red Lobster?
I thought.
The closest thing Landon has to a fancy restaurant. This is serious!

Westin jumped up and helped her slip on her coat. His gentlemanly behavior seemed sincere. Much more composed than the day he tried to sneak out the back like a thief in the night. Even so, CeCe and I glared at him as if to say, “You better not hurt our mama.”

“Oh, I forgot my purse,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

As she headed down the hallway, Westin turned toward us with a smile and said, “How ’bout a joke? Everyone likes jokes, right?”

Luke’s curiosity sparked, and he moseyed into the living room from his spot at the kitchen table. “A joke? Watcha got?” he said.

We all sat down on the couch and eyeballed Westin.

“A man walks into a hamburger shop and orders a meal. The waitress brings his meal to him. He takes a bite out of it and notices there's a small hair in the hamburger. He begins yelling frantically at the waitress, ‘Waitress, there's a hair in my hamburger! I demand to see what is going on!’

“So the waitress takes him back to where the cook is, and to his shock, he sees the cook take the meat patty and flatten it under his armpit. He says, ‘That's disgusting!’

“Then the waitress says, ‘You think that's disgusting, you should see him make donuts.’”

Luke grabbed his belly and howled with laughter. In between laughs, he said, “I gotta remember that one.”

CeCe and I responded with a girly, “Eww!”

Westin breathed a small sigh of relief and grinned. “Don’t worry, kids, I’ll have your mama back before midnight.” He winked just as Mama reappeared, and he opened the door and led her out, waving goodbye.

I didn’t know what to make of the wink. It could have been innocent, or it could have been a con man’s wink. I planned to watch Westin Barnes closely.

Mama turned back and said, “Don’t wait up for me.”

Luke jumped up and ran to the window, peeled the curtain back. “He’s got a Cadillac. Maybe he’s rich!”

“Maybe he’s a car salesman and he borrowed the car,” I said.

“Why are you being so cynical, Olivia?” CeCe said. “Mama hasn’t been this happy in ages.”

Luke let the curtain fall from his grip. “Maybe they’ll bring me home a doggy bag.”

CeCe and I rolled our eyes at Luke, and he boasted a goofy grin.

The phone rang and I lunged for it. Luke got there first. “It’s for you,” he said, wrinkling his nose in typical younger brother disgust. “It’s Jonzie.”

“Meet me at the park by the lake,” she said. “Right away. My mama’s out shopping and I’m grounded.”

“Be there in fifteen minutes,” I said, and hopped on Luke’s bike because mine had a flat.

* * *

Jonzie sat waiting for me on our favorite bench when I arrived at the park, her back facing me. I jumped off the bike, flicked the kickstand down, and rushed to her.

She turned around, and I stopped cold. “Oh my gosh! What happened to you?”

Jonzie sported a black eye and a fat lip.

“Remember the cute guy at two o’clock?”

I nodded, too stunned to speak.

She cocked her head to the right, showing me the rest of her bruises. “He turned out to be a zero.”

“I . . . I saw you in the car. You seemed fine,” I sputtered, trying to hold back my shock. That was impossible, though. Jonzie never seemed so fragile before.

She glanced away and with a scathing tone said, “Oh, he seemed nice at first.”

“Don’t they all,” I interjected, sitting next to her. I thought about Mama and Westin, and how he seemed nice. Now I was more worried than ever.

“He moved too fast even for me.” Jonzie re-focused her eyes toward her lap. “After I told him to slow down, he stopped being nice.”

“He hit you because you said
no
?”

She raised her head. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her face red. “Not exactly. When he . . . when he wouldn’t accept my
no
, I hit him!”

“You what?”

She nodded. “Maybe I led him on a little. But this guy was a dog in heat. So I slapped him, and he hit me back. More than once. I don’t know how I got away.”

I leaned back on the bench, trying to absorb what she’d just said. “You’re crazy, girl,” I muttered. “We’re both crazy.”

She looked at me and said, “What happened to you?”

Seeing her eye bore into me through the bruises and swelling nearly made me cry - for her and for me. I told her my story, and what little color her face possessed seemed to vanish. 

“YOU stole a car? I can’t believe it. When I couldn’t find you, I figured you were having fun and could take care of yourself.”

“I thought the same about you.” I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Although risky, we both did take care of ourselves. We got out alive.

Jonzie smiled. “Ouch, don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

“Well, isn’t laughing better than crying?” I said, and elbowed her lightly in her side. “We better stick together from now on. I guess God doesn’t want us in nightclubs.”

“I don’t know about God, but my mama sure doesn’t!” Jonzie closed her eyes and nodded.

“You have your fake ID?” I asked.

Jonzie was wearing the same pants she had on the night we went out. She pulled it from her pocket. “Yeah, why?”

I put my hands on my hips and demanded, “Just hand it over.”

She reluctantly placed it in my hand. “Maybe we’re better off sticking with high school boys for now,” she said, avoiding my eyes.

I shrugged and forced a chuckle. “Right now, I think I’ll go it alone . . . at least for a little while.” I put the IDs in my pocket and planned to cut them up when I got home. Although Jonzie said she had no future plans of going back to the bar, I still couldn’t trust her with that power in her possession.