hung over the quartet for a good five minutes as they worked on digesting the startling information that Elizabeth had shared. The only sounds were the wail of Miles Davis’s trumpet on the stereo and the steady beat of rain pounding against the windows.
Finally, Barbara found her voice. “Have you spoken with a lawyer, Ell?”
Elizabeth nodded. “This morning. Right after that bastard left for work.” She sniffed.
“What did your lawyer say?” Stephanie asked.
Elizabeth wiped her eyes to make room for more tears. “He said if I wanted to fight it I could and that basically I could get everything since he…he cheated on me!” she wailed. “I can’t believe it. I had that little hussy in my house.”
“Don’t worry about that now,” Ann Marie said. “Just take Matt—I mean that bastard’s bags and set them on the curb.”
“I don’t know if I even want to live there…too many memories.” She lowered her head.
“But you deserve that house. You put your heart and soul into it all these years. You stayed home so that he could pursue his degrees and his career. You raised your kids there. That’s your house,” Stephanie insisted.
“She’s right, Ell,” Barbara said. “And it’s worth a fortune. I wouldn’t give it up. Let him find someplace else to live.”
Elizabeth sighed heavily. “I guess. Besides, where would I go? I certainly can’t live with Desiree or Dawne, they have their own lives. Ohhh, what am I going to tell my daughters?” She erupted into a new wave of tears and sobbing.
“Your daughters are grown and doing their t’ing. They are mature young women. They will understand. At least you don’t have to worry ’bout dem moving back in wit’ you like some daughters,” Ann Marie said with disgust. “And really upsetting your life.”
Stephanie turned to Ann Marie. “Like who? I know Raquel didn’t move back home.”
Ann Marie sucked her teeth. “Girl show up on me door bag and baggage. What me gon’ do?” She sucked her teeth again.
Elizabeth leaned forward, her red-rimmed eyes wide. “Raquel left Earl?”
Ann Marie looked from one to the other. “Yes.” She muttered something that no one could understand. “Grown chile ain’t got no business moving in wit’ her mudder.”
Elizabeth reached for Ann Marie’s hand. “Annie, something awful must have happened for her to leave Earl. Did you talk to her?”
“Me too upset to talk.” She shook her head.
“But don’t you even want to know what happened?” Stephanie asked, perplexed.
“What can me do even if she tol’ me? Nutin’. What me gon’ tell Phil when he come back next week?”
“Phil!” the trio sang in unison.
“Girl, you have got to be kidding,” Stephanie croaked.
“He’s fine and everything, but that’s your child. What are you worried about him for?” Elizabeth asked.
“I have a one-bedroom apartment for a reason. Don’t keep no company that’s not sharing me bedroom, if you get what I mean.”
“But that’s your daughter, Ann Marie,” Barbara scolded, unable to fully understand Ann Marie’s total lack of concern for her child. It was unreasonable and cruel, not characteristics that she associated with Ann Marie. But when you put folk’s backs up against the wall there was no telling if they were going to come out swinging or singing. She always felt that Ann Marie’s relationship with her daughter was not all that it could be, but this turned her stomach. There had to be more to it than what Ann Marie was saying.
“Yes, she’s my daughter wit’ a ’usband.” She pushed herself up from the floor and fixed herself another drink. “I don’t want to talk ’bout it no more.” She took a long swallow and for an instant her gaze connected with Barbara’s, and Barbara was stunned to see fear in Ann Marie’s eyes.
“You know what’s best for you and your daughter,” Barbara said, letting Ann Marie off the hook. “But don’t let a man come between you and your child. That’s all I’m gonna say besides pass me the bottle. I really need a drink now.”
The women giggled, releasing some of the tension in the room as Ann Marie refilled everyone’s glass. They sipped in silence.
“What would you do if you didn’t want to have sex anymore, but the person you didn’t want to have sex with was your boss?”
The silence was officially broken.
Chapter 5
All eyes turned in Stephanie’s direction. She had a pinched look on her face, as if she’d swallowed something sour, but the look of defiance that generally hovered in her caramel-colored eyes was missing. Barbara immediately thought of the episode that morning and knew her gut feelings about Stephanie had some merit. This she had to hear.
Ann Marie was the first to speak up. “What you say, girl? Your boss? You been doing the do with your boss?”
“Ann!” Barbara admonished. She lowered her voice. “Is it true? You and Conrad what’shisname?”
Stephanie bobbed her head and took a sip of her drink.
“Well, I’ll be,” Elizabeth murmured, forgetting her own drama. “How long?”
“About a year.”
“And you’re just telling us,” they cried off-key.
“It wasn’t supposed to be anything, you know. Just a few dates.”
“Is that how you got your last promotion?” Ann Marie asked.
Stephanie looked at her and rolled her eyes. “I was going to get the promotion, anyway.”
The trio um-hmmmed her.
“Fine.” She jumped up. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not an idiot. I didn’t get to where I am on my back. I work hard for everything I have in the boardroom or the bedroom,” she slurred. “I thought you all were my friends.”
“Damn, she actually looks like she’s gonna cry,” Ann Marie muttered in awe, the four glasses of alcohol making Stephanie look like one of those desert mirages floating in front of her. “Sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”
“Yes, please,” Elizabeth said, rubbing her eyes. “You’re giving me an ache or something.”
Barbara sputtered a giggle. “Oh, what a night,” she sang badly and raised her glass in a toast. “To Ellie, who after twenty-five years of marriage is being kicked to the curb by her philandering husband and a hussy.”
“Hear, hear!”
“To Ann Marie, who can’t get it on anymore, with her daughter in the next room, and is now afraid her stuff
