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Debra gave him a very pitiful look. “Big Boy helps me out a lot, Mel. You know I don’t make much working in this place. Now that you moved out, I don’t even have the money you used to give me. If that heffah takes Big Boy, what I’m gonna do?”
Mel backed off. “Hey, I’m sorry. Just remember something. If Big Boy hears you’re sweatin’ this, he’s got you by the tit, and he’ll drag you around in the dust. Act like you don’t give a fuck, and that fat fool won’t be goin’ nowhere. Now put a smile on your face and pull yourself together. Me and my wife are coming to your house for Easter dinner next Sunday, and I don’t want you serving me no half-raw shit just because you been feelin’ too blue to cook it right.”
Debra said, “Aw, shut up, Mel,” and then she started to laugh.
Someone was missing from the scene. Mel gazed around the bar. “Where’s Belle?”
“Belle went to jail,” Debra said matter of factly.
Mel wasn’t surprised. “What for?”
Debra said that Belle had helped two dudes plan a holdup of the bar. “The robbery happened a couple of hours after you was in here the last time,” Debra informed him as she tapped her feet to the music that was blaring from the jukebox.
Mel remembered the strange way that Belle had acted that night when she was on the phone, and he hoped that the criminal justice system kept her ass behind bars. Some people were too stupid to be walking around loose.
“Debra, lemme ask you somethin’.”
Her feet stopped tapping. “What?”
“It’s about me and Adrienne.”
Her feet began to tap once more. “What’s goin’ on? She pregnant?”
Mel stared down into his glass. “No, thank God. It’s just that sometimes we act like we really want to make it. Then, a week later, things feel like it’s all over between us. How can we fix things, flip-flopping like that?”
Debra waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she said, “Maybe what’s broken can’t be fixed.”
Mel wanted to tell Debra that there was a lot more on his mind. Things like the worsening financial situation in his household, and how liquor wasn’t the high he craved. No matter how much he drank, it didn’t come close to the effect that coke gave him. Sometimes he wanted to throw his passengers off the bus, point the vehicle west, and drive nonstop until he reached Little Jimmy. The feeling was worse now that Adrienne had shown him all of her bills.
Mel didn’t say any of these things. He swallowed the rest of his drink.
“When we first got back together, I didn’t really want to be there.” He shrugged. “Something changed inside me around Valentine’s Day, and now I want us to make it. Trouble is, Adrienne ain’t the same no more, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet.”
Debra said nothing, and after a few minutes, Mel changed the subject. After drinking steadily for the next few hours, he threw some money on the counter, blew a kiss at his sister, and staggered out the door.
When he got home, Adrienne was lying on the sofa reading a magazine. Her eyes lit up when she saw him. “I was trying to wait up for you,” she said.
Mel staggered to their room without answering, fell across the bed, and then everything went black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
On Easter morning, Adrienne woke up to an empty bed. Mel had worked a double shift and wouldn’t be home until late afternoon. Just in time to get dressed and go to his sister’s house, where they were having dinner. Adrienne thought about the long, silent hours that stretched before her. She felt very restless. She surfed the television channels, watching a few minutes of each program before going on to the next.
By noon, she was tired of lying in bed. She showered, dressed, and then decided to put on some music and clean the house. She thumbed through her CD collection and finally chose Al Green’s Greatest Hits. She turned on the stereo at full volume and vacuumed the bedroom while singing along to “I Can’t Get Next to You.” You hit the nail right on the head, Al, she thought grimly. Ever since she’d told Mel about her bills, his attitude had gotten worse. He was brooding and silent for long periods of time and he was drinking far too much.
She was still in a foul mood after vacuuming the whole apartment. Al Green had moved on to “Tired of Being Alone” when Adrienne attacked the refrigerator. She took all the food out, filled a pail with soapy water, grabbed a sponge, and started scrubbing the inside vigorously.
Adrienne knew that a husband had a right to expect his wife to spend time with his family, but the fact that he was always shutting her out these days made spending Easter with his tacky sister and her useless friends a monumental sacrifice. Adrienne didn’t like Debra, because Debra had never really accepted the fact that Mel had ditched some woman named Rose the day after he’d shown up to install Adrienne’s telephone. She wondered briefly if Debra would overlook this and talk with her, woman to woman, about whatever was going on in her brother’s life.
By 3:00 P.M., the apartment was spotless. Adrienne was pulling clothes from her cl
oset in search of a casual outfit to wear for dinner when her parents called.
“Happy Easter!” Mama said.
“Same to you,” Adrienne muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
