Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. It was the Saturday after Sherrie Armstrong’s funeral. I didn’t have any plans for the day, so I was glad when Clyde and Lula dropped in.
Clyde took Lula and me out to lunch at the same restaurant where I’d first met him. The man spent almost as much time in Alfredo’s as he did in his own apartment. But him extending an invitation that included me was rare, so I went. As soon as we got back to my house and stepped on my front porch, the telephone in my living room started ringing.
It was Helen.
“Miss Rocky, can…can you come get me?” she mumbled in a voice so low I could barely understand her.
“Speak up, girl,” I ordered, my hand cupping the telephone receiver. I first assumed that Helen had taken the kids to her house. She often did that when I left them alone. I didn’t have a problem with that as long as her parents didn’t mind.
“Hi, Miss Rocky, can you come get me?” Helen said, sounding like she had a mouth full of food, making me almost drop the telephone. My sons peeped around the corner, but they disappeared as soon as they realized I’d seen them.
“What the hell—girl, where the hell are you? What the hell do you mean going off leaving my kids in this house alone?” I couldn’t contain myself. I was glad Clyde and Lula had come in for a drink. They rushed over and stood next to me with anxious looks on their faces. Lula leaned her head toward the telephone to try to hear. “It’s Helen!” I said, looking from Clyde to Lula.
“I’m at the Hyatt Regency hotel honeymoon suite. I had some whiskey and I…I think I’m drunk,” she slurred. Then she let out a loud hiccup. “I been with a man. He’s in the bathroom, so I can’t talk long.”
“You’re what? Drunk? You stupid bitch! What the hell have you done?” I looked from Clyde to Lula again. “This damn girl is off somewhere drinking with a man!” I roared.
“Holy shit,” Clyde mouthed, his hands on his hips. Lula wrapped her arm around my shoulders to keep me from falling, I was wobbling so hard.
“See, this is what happened, Miss Rocky. I had a date with this man, but he got crazy and started talking real mean to me and then he took all my money and called me names and a skanky whore. He’s…he’s a creep! I tried to get him to come to your house for our date, like the other ones that called up on your telephone in your bedroom did. I didn’t want to leave the kids alone because I knew you might get back before me and be mad. And that’s just what happened. Miss Rocky, I won’t do this no more,” Helen yelled.
I thought my head was going to split in two. I could not believe my ears. My mouth was hanging open as wide as it could without dropping off my face.
Clyde and Lula stood there like mutes with stunned expressions. By the time I got the whole story from Helen, I was horrified.
“Clyde, that damn girl’s been turning tricks!” I wailed, slamming the telephone down. “She’s tricking with some asshole who just went off on her damn ass. Can you go get her?”
Clyde had a look on his face that I’d never seen before. His lips moved for several moments before any words came out. “Son of a bitch!” he yelled, with a look of absolute rage on his face. He turned a shade darker, right before my eyes. “That retarded girl that babysits for you?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
I nodded. “That little slut!”
“Helen?” Lula hollered. “Helen’s been turnin’ tricks?”
“What the fuck—how she get caught up in this shit?” Clyde wanted to know.
I started wringing my hands and pacing the floor. “Clyde, I don’t know. I guess…she’s not as retarded as we thought she was.”
“I guess not! What you been tellin’ that girl?” Clyde waved his arms, giving me looks that would have made my flesh crawl under any other circumstances.
“I haven’t told her anything about…my business, and I didn’t have a damn thing to do with this shit she got herself into!” I shrieked.
Lula’s eyes were stretched open so wide, I thought her eyeballs would pop out.
“Where she at?” Clyde shouted, already heading for the door with his keys in his hands.
“She’s at the Hyatt in the honeymoon suite. That dumb ass got drunk and robbed,” I told him.
Clyde practically ran out the door with Lula behind him. They were not gone five minutes before Helen’s mother was at the door, wild-eyed and frantic. I kept as far away from her as I could because she looked like she wanted to rip my head off.
“Rockelle, what is going on? Helen just called and said she’s in a hotel room,” Mrs. Daniels screamed. She had on a plaid housecoat and some gray house shoes. Her hair was in rollers. “She said a man got her drunk and took a couple of thousand dollars from her. Where did Helen get that kind of money? What you got my baby doing?” Mrs. Daniels continued, moving toward me with both her hands balled into fists. “Talk to me!”
With my hands held up, I stumbled until my back hit the wall. I stood there like a statue, with nothing moving but my mouth. “Mrs. Daniels, calm down. I don’t know what that girl’s been up to,” I lied, still trying to sort out the mess Helen had just told me.
The truth hit me like a ton of bricks. That sly little wench had been answering my trick calls, fucking in my house, and leaving my kids alone to go hook up with her tricks. “I thought she was responsible. She’s never done anything like this before,” I managed. I got so light-headed I thought I was going to faint.
“Well, she won’t be coming over here anymore. What you do is your business, but you won’t be involving my child. You lucky I don’t call the cops on your yella ass—”
“You can’t blame me for this shit. I tried to help Helen feel more like a normal girl. If you cared so much about her, maybe you should have been paying more attention to her,” I shot back.
“Don’t tell me how to raise my child, you sleazy bitch. You can trash your life, but you won’t trash my child’s. As long as you live, you better not ever ask Helen to babysit your brats again.”
I would have said more to Helen’s mother, but she ran out the door. Before I could go check on my kids, Juliet stumbled into the room.
“Mama, what’s wrong out here? I heard loud voices,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
“Baby, are you all right?” I asked, putting my arms around her. It hurt when she pulled away from me.
“Yeah, I’m all right. Why?” she asked, shrugging.
“Uh, Helen won’t be babysitting for us anymore.”
“Why?”
“Uh, she left you guys in the house alone. That’s way too dangerous,” I explained.
Juliet shrugged. “That mean you won’t be goin’ to work no more?”
“Well, no. I’ll still have to go out to work, but I’ll get Mrs. Johnson from across the street to watch you and your brothers.” Helen had always been my primary babysitter. But Rolene Johnson, a lonely old widow with no children of her own, had always made it clear that when Helen couldn’t babysit for me, she would. “But I probably won’t be able to work as much.”
“Oh.” Juliet seemed wide awake now. Nothing got that girl’s attention faster than the subject of money. “That mean we won’t go shopping and buy a lot of cool stuff no more?”
I loved my daughter, but she was one of the coldest individuals I’d ever come across. If she was this trying already, I couldn’t imagine what she was going to be like when she got older. I had a hard time believing how much control she had over me. As much as I did for her, it never seemed to be enough. What hurt the most was admitting that she was just like me. Or at least, the way I used to be. It never ceased to amaze me how much my life had turned out like my mother’s. Even the fact that we both had a daughter first, then two sons. And like Mama, my daughter was to me what I had been to Mama. What goes around, comes around.
“Uh, no it doesn’t. I don’t care what I have to do, I’ll see to it. We’ll have just as much money to spend as we always did.”
“We better,” Juliet said with a cold, hard look on her face.