Borrow Trouble. Mary Monroe

stopped sweeping and placed one hand on her hip, shaking a finger in my direction. “You make it my business when you ask me to lie for you when Robbie or your mama calls looking for you, girl. You make it my business when you have Leon pick you up from my house so your nosy neighbors won’t see you crawling in and out of another man’s car so they can run and tell Robbie.”

      “Let me make one thing clear. When I want your advice, I will ask for it. In the meantime, stop wasting your breath. Leon wants to be with me, and I want to be with him,” I said, holding up my hand. I guess my girl didn’t want to talk to my hand, because she dropped the subject.

      Inez was the only one who knew about my relationship with Leon so far. But it wasn’t long before the neighborhood busybodies saw me and him out together and started blabbing.

      The following Saturday morning, my telephone rang at six a.m. “You just like your Aunt Denise!” To my everlasting horror, it was Mama. I’d grabbed the phone on the first ring, hoping that it would not disturb Leon. He looked like a man who didn’t want his sleep interrupted. I had never seen a person sleep the way he did. His face was frozen in a frown so extreme that his lips looked like a horseshoe. He was curled up in my bed, with his arm around my waist. I preferred to be with Leon at his house. There was no comparison between his nice place and my tiny apartment, which I’d furnished with odds and ends from thrift stores, yard sales, and dollar stores.

      “Mama, is that you?” I asked, whispering. I was so groggy, I could barely see.

      “What’s wrong with you, girl?” Mama asked, her voice full of her usual impatience and nerve. She stopped talking long enough to suck on her teeth. “You know doggone well who this is, gal!” Mama hollered loud and clear. My mother hollered a lot, but I overlooked it because I knew that all the hollering she did was out of love and concern. She had made it clear that no matter how old I got to be, to her, I’d always be one of her babies.

      “Good morning, Mama,” I muttered, rising. I was not comfortable talking to my mother while I was naked and lying next to a naked man. I pulled the sheet up to my chin.

      “You are going to end up just like your aunt Denise: old and as lonesome as a micky ficky. You can’t clown men like you doing, girl! Robbie ain’t no fool. He ain’t going to settle for whatever nasty hind parts you got left when that IRS scalawag takes off.”

      “I know, Mama,” I said, trying to keep my voice low enough for Leon not to hear.

      “It’s just a matter of time before Mr. IRS realizes all he’s got by having you is a woman who cheats on her man. And poor Robbie! He’s going to ball up and die when he finds out he’s being played.”

      “Mama, may I call you back later? I can’t talk right now,” I said, sitting up on the side of the bed, my feet dangling. I could hear Mama and my twelve-year-old sister, Frankie, mumbling in the background.

      “You better get yourself sorted out girl. I am telling you that that Dunbar boy ain’t no fool. Poor Robbie! It would serve you right if he came up to you and snatched that nice engagement ring off your finger. And you setting a bad example for your baby sister.”

      “You’re right, Mama. Like you always are.” There was nothing like agreeing with Mama to calm her down. “Mama, I will call you later, and we can talk more about this,” I insisted. “I love you, Mama.”

      “I love you, too, baby,” Mama said, her voice much softer. She sounded like a totally different woman now. “Do you want me to come over there and cook up a mess of greens? I ain’t got nothing to do today.”

      “That’s all right, Mama. I’ll call you back later,” I replied, hanging up.

      “What’s up, baby?” Leon asked, sitting up. His arm was still around my waist. He placed his long, muscular legs on top of mine. “Who was that on the telephone?”

      “My mama. You know how old people are,” I replied, with a heavy sigh, waving my hand.

      “Unfortunately, I do,” Leon said, rolling his eyes. “I hide when I see my mama and daddy coming up on my front porch.” He laughed. “I hope we don’t end up like them with our kids,” he added, giving me a playful tap on my chin.

      His last comment opened the right door for me to reveal what was on my mind. “Uh, Leon, I don’t know where this relationship is going, but I think it’s something we need to talk about,” I said in a tentative voice. I held my breath and stared straight ahead. He was taking too long to respond, so I looked at him.

      “Where do you want it to go?” he asked. Leon didn’t look half as good when he was just waking up as he usually did. Without his neatly combed hair and suit, he was a fright. His hair was matted and full of lint that had rubbed off of my cheap bedspread, and his breath stank like horse shit. I didn’t even want to think about how I looked, or smelled, after the long night we’d just spent drinking and fucking.

      I shrugged. “I am engaged to marry another man. I’ve told you about Robbie Dunbar. If he doesn’t know about you and me already, he will soon enough. If I lose him, and I wouldn’t blame him for calling off the engagement, I’ll be alone again. That is, if you decide to move on, too. And that’s not where I want to be.” I paused and turned my head slightly to the side so that I didn’t have to see Leon’s face. But I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him. I looked at him again and blinked.

      “Why don’t you tell me where you want to be?” Leon held up his hand. “Do you want to be with me?” His eyes were looking directly into mine.

      “Of course. But are we going to take this to the next level, or is this it?”

      “Girl, if you want me to marry you, just come out and say it.” He laughed.

      “Is this a marriage proposal? You didn’t say anything about love.” I looked away again, talking now like I was talking to myself. “I love you, and I’ve told you so, repeatedly. But you’ve never said it to me.”

      At this point, Leon placed his hands on my shoulders and gently spun me around. “I love you, Renee. I would marry you in a minute if I thought that was what you wanted—”

      “It is what I want!” I boomed.

      “Well, before we do it, maybe I should at least meet your mama,” Leon decided. I had already met most of his family. I liked all of them, and as far as I could tell, they liked me, too. I knew that once Mama met Leon, she would come around. He was the most charismatic man I’d ever met.

      Inez had made it clear that she would probably never accept Leon. That bothered me, but I ignored it as much as I could. Other than the fact that Leon had once been best friends with one of her thuggish relatives, I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t like him. But it was just as well, because Leon hated Inez just as much as she hated him.

      And that was one thing that didn’t seem like it was ever going to change.

      CHAPTER 10

      As hard as it was to believe, I still had feelings for Robbie. But I knew in my heart that I could not spend the rest of my life with him. It wouldn’t have been fair to him, and it wouldn’t have been fair to me. He did next to nothing to excite me, and if that was already bothering me, I couldn’t imagine how high I’d be climbing up a wall ten or fifteen years down the road. Compared to Leon, Robbie was from another planet.

      There was never a dull moment with Leon. In addition to a regular weekly night out at the movies, Leon took me to dinner at least twice a week. Not to any of the greasy rib joints and cheap Ponderosa Steakhouses that Robbie used to take me to with coupons, but to five-star restaurants where the menus didn’t show any prices. Then, to show off, I started cooking Leon’s favorite foods for him. We both had ties to the Deep South, so we both loved greens, beans, corn bread, neck bones, ham hocks, and candied yams. Robbie was so indifferent, he didn’t care if I fed him cold hot dogs or mud pies. And getting honest compliments from Robbie was as difficult as pulling a hen’s teeth. The few times that I had tried to pry comments out of him