“Why don’t you just stay the night then.”
He stayed and we enjoyed more wine and a late fried chicken dinner I had delivered from Percy’s. I made up the couch and around midnight, I went to bed, leaving him up watching TV. I don’t know what time it was, but during the night I woke up and found him standing at the foot of my bed. I don’t know if it was the wine or if this was something that was bound to happen sooner or later. No words were needed. He smiled. I returned the smile, and then I threw back the covers.
What he did to me and what Mr. Boatwright had done to me for years were two different things. And as far as the men from Scary Mary’s were concerned, I couldn’t even remember what sex had been like with them. It seemed so unreal when I recalled any of it, which was every day. The shame of prostitution as part of my work experience was overwhelming. He offered to teach me things, telling me, “We got all night.” I did everything he told me to do.
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MARY MONROE
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Dedicated to Ocie and G. W. Bonner
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the following:
Robin Givens, whose interest in this story, when it was a screenplay for her called Girlfriend, kept me from tossing it onto that huge pile of rejected manuscripts I now use as a weight-lifting device.
Sheila Cunningham Sims, Heather King, and David Akamine—dinner and drinks are on me!
I greatly appreciate the help and advice I received from my former agents, Charlotte Sheedy and Joseph Vallely.
I am very grateful that this novel fell into the hands of my super agent, Andrew Stuart, whose encouraging telephone calls and letters always came at the right time.
Special thanks to my editor, Karen Thomas, whose expertise and patience finally gave this book the chance it deserves.
To the crew at the New Century Theater in San Francisco, don’t forget Pretty Black.
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 1
To this day I don’t know exactly where Mr. Boatwright came from. He slid into my life one dark miserable day in October 1956, when I was six years old. I arrived home from school and there he was, decked out in a fleecy white suit and a lopsided fedora. He was grinning all over the place as he removed his musty things from a large military bag and placed them on our already cluttered living-room floor. His pointed-toed shoes lined up in our hallway looked like a row of little missiles.
“Who are you?” I asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
He looked about a hundred years old. I stayed close to the door and kept my hand on the doorknob, ready to run if I had to. First, he looked me up and down, bobbing his head like a rooster. A lot of people did that the first time they saw me. I was probably the only first grader in Ohio who weighed almost as much as an adult. Suddenly, and for a brief moment, I suspected and hoped that he was the grandfather I had never met. He was a heavyset man with copper-colored skin and sparkling brown eyes that looked out of place on his wide, flat, heavily lined face. His lips were thin for a Black man. I looked around for Mama. She appeared within seconds with a smile on her face that stretched from one side to the other. She stopped in the middle of the floor and started wiping her flour-covered hands on her crisp white apron. Standing close to the man, I could see that he was not much taller than Mama and she was only five-foot-two.
“Annette, this here is Brother Boatwright. He fixin’ to move in with us,” Mama informed me.
Stunned, I looked from her to him then back to her. “Is this my granddaddy?” I asked. My heart was beating about a mile a minute.
“No.” Mama chuckled. “You ain’t got no grandfolks no more. Brother Boatwright is just another brother in need of a place to live.”
“He’s just a strange man?” I gasped, disappointed. I was the only kid I knew who didn’t have grandparents to visit and expect gifts and money from. I tightened my grip on the doorknob.
“No, he ain’t no strange man!” I could tell that Mama was getting frustrated with me by the way she narrowed her eyes and jerked her head from side to side when she talked. “Him and Reverend Snipes go waaaaaay back,” she told me, waving her hand dramatically. I did not want some strange old man, especially one that might start bossing me around, invading the space I shared with Mama.
“Oh,” I mumbled. I let go of the doorknob and moved closer to Mama. “Is he going to sleep with you like a husband, Mama?” I