Red Light Wives. Mary Monroe

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СКАЧАТЬ usually turned off my telephone ringer as soon as I was in for the night. Once I had finished doing whatever I had to do outside my apartment, I liked to leave all that madness right where it was. I hated selling my body to men who saw me as nothing more than a piece of warm meat. But that’s exactly what I’d been reduced to. The long, hot baths that I took every night when I got home didn’t wash away the shame I wore like a second layer of skin.

      I was very stingy when it came to my downtime. I didn’t want to see or talk to any human beings when I didn’t have to. I didn’t even leave my answering machine on once I turned off my telephone. Clyde knew that. And the other girls knew that, too. The only people who knew that I turned my telephone back on after midnight were Ester Sanchez and the people at the old folks’ apartment complex where I’d dumped Mama when she got too nosy about my activities.

      Mama had been asking way too many questions and making comments that made me uncomfortable when I visited her. “Rosalee, how come I ain’t never seen none of your modelin’ pictures in the magazines or newspapers or even on the television? You just as pretty as that Tyra Banks and all the rest of them Black models I see grinnin’ and posin’,” she’d said.

      “It takes time, Mama,” I told my mother, searching my mind for other subjects to bring up. “Did you record Bernie Mac last night?”

      Mama ignored my question. “Time? Well, honey, time ain’t somethin’ you got too much of to waste. Clara, the White lady from across the hall, said you was kind of long in the tooth to just be startin’ out modelin’. Them girls always start out when they teenagers.”

      “Not in San Francisco. And, I do not look my age. A lot of people think I’m still in my teens.”

      “But you ain’t! You a twenty-four-year-old woman—with a husband.”

      Mama had a way of making me sigh and hold my breath to keep from saying the wrong things. “Mama, things are different in California.”

      Mama rolled her eyes at me and screwed up her lips. “And another thing Clara said was, maybe you was posin’ for them nasty man magazines. Butt naked. Girl, I sure enough hope you ain’t caught up in none of that ponygraphic mess. Your daddy would explode in his grave.”

      “I’m not.”

      To keep Mama off my back, I went out the very next day and had a portfolio put together with shots of me wearing a different outfit in each one. Clyde had snapped the pictures himself. I gave the bogus model evidence to Mama, and she shared it with all of her friends right away. That shut her up for a while about that subject, but she still called me up every day to whine about other things. Everything from losing the generous monthly allowance I gave her at the black-jack tables in Vegas to her fear of getting raped by one of the elderly men in her building. No matter what it was, I could count on it upsetting me more than it did Mama.

      I had just talked to the woman I paid to look in on Mama from time to time. Other than complaining about a few new ailments, Mama was doing fine, so I knew it had to be Ester calling me exactly one minute after midnight. I was convinced that she’d been sitting by the clock with her telephone in her hand, counting the seconds to the minute she could disturb me.

      Ester was a fast-talking Latino who had eased her way into my life and now called herself my homegirl. But I didn’t have any close friends, and hadn’t for a long time. The women I dealt with were “business associates” and I wanted to keep it that way. It made what I did to get paid seem less shameful and painful.

      I didn’t have a naturally deep or strong enough voice to sound threatening, like some of the Black women I knew. I had to fake it. I swallowed hard, cleared my throat, and gave my best imitation of a growl. “Ester, this better be good. Shit.”

      Ester let out an exasperated sigh then mumbled something in Spanish. Knowing her, she was cussing me out. But it didn’t bother me because I was used to it. “Doggie shit, girlfriend,” Ester grumbled, loud and clear. “Listen up, I need your help. Come pick me up at the motel. You know which one. Rapido, fast!” Everything this girl wanted, she wanted fast. But I didn’t do nothing rapido, for her or anybody else.

      I fired up a joint first and took my time responding. “Aren’t you supposed to be at that party in North Beach with them horny dudes from the airlines?” I was stretched out on my bed, still in the leather skirt and silk blouse I had worn to “work.” My head, throbbing from the six shots of tequila I’d swallowed earlier, was propped up on two pillows. Every light in my bedroom was on, but a cloud of thick, sweet smoke oozed out of my nose and mouth, blinding me for a few seconds.

      “I done that already. I done everything for them guys but ride a white horse. And I got the sore pussy and achin’ mouth to prove it. Come on, girl. You owe me some favors anyway.” Ester’s voice was ringing in my ear. “I never ask you for that much nohow.”

      I rubbed my nose and ground out my joint in the dirt of a droopy fern sitting on the corner of the nightstand next to my bed. “My night is over. I told you that when I talked to you a little while ago. You with Clyde?”

      “Fuck no, I ain’t with Clyde. I don’t have to see him until in the mornin’. You know that.” Ester paused, sucked her teeth, and let out a long, deep breath before she continued. “I tried to call Rocky, but that retarded girl who babysits her kids told me Rocky was still with you.”

      “Yeah, Rockelle is still here with me. We had that bachelor party tonight, remember?” I looked up at Rockelle, standing over me with her thick arms folded, fanning smoke I’d blown in her direction. Rockelle didn’t smoke weed. She didn’t even smoke cigarettes, claiming she cared too much about her health. But that didn’t stop her from gobbling up every greasy, fatty thing in my refrigerator. She was gnawing on a pig foot now.

      “Well, tell Rocky to come pick me up. If she don’t wanna drive that rattrap of hers, give her the keys to my Jetta. Rapido!”

      “Rockelle is restin’, Ester. She’s got to sober up, shower the funk and slime off her big ass, then get up out of here so I can get some sleep. A horny judge over in Oakland is sendin’ a limo for me tomorrow mornin’.” I winked at Rockelle. She rotated her thick neck and gave me a dirty look. Rockelle was not my best friend, just my wife-in-law and a “business associate.” We tolerated each other because of our relationship with Clyde, a man who treated us like he’d bought us by the pound. “You know Rocky can’t leave her kids for too long with that slow-witted girl.”

      Why Rockelle trusted her precious babies with a retarded girl was beyond me. I’d left my old cat, Callie, with that same girl one night when I had to fly to Vegas for an all-night date and I haven’t seen that cat since. I winked at Rockelle again.

      Nodding and chewing hard, Rockelle rolled her eyes at me and waddled toward my kitchen.

      Ester gritted her teeth, her impatience at its highest level. “Stop bitchin’ me around, bitch. Don’t punk out on me tonight. Rosalee, I don’t ask you for much. I never say no when you ask me for a favor. I wouldn’t be callin’ you if I didn’t really need you. Come on now. There’s this girl, a Black girl, and she got some trouble. She need our help. Real bad.”

      “Ain’t she got a man to help her out?” I had my own problems. I didn’t want to have to deal with somebody else’s, too. Especially some strange woman I didn’t even know.

      “Not no more. Remember that man I told you got shot to death in that corner store by our motel last night? Dude was this girl’s husband. She from out of town and ain’t got nobody to help her out, see. Come СКАЧАТЬ