Free Borrow Trouble by Mary Monroe Page A

concerned about my future with Leon. As much as I had always wanted a man who had more of a backbone than Robbie, I didn’t want a man who made all my decisions for me.
    Leon had made it clear that he was in no hurry to have another child. He had a nine-year-old daughter by a woman that he had lived with for several years. He loved his child, and he took good care of her, but even though she was only nine, Collette was a mess. Not only was she moody and materialistic, she had a hard time getting along with other kids. She had been kicked out of every elementary school in Butler. Leon had just enrolled her in a swank private school in Cleveland Heights. More than once he had told me that he was glad he had only one child to deal with.
    But I wanted a child, and I wanted one soon. That’s why I flushed my birth control pills down the toilet as soon as we got back to our hotel room.

CHAPTER 13
    I nez stayed in Barbados for ten days. I received a postcard from her, letting me know that after she left that island, she was going to stop off in Jamaica for an additional few days. Unlike Inez, I didn’t like to run away from my problems. I liked to sit down with someone who cared about me and talk things over. Inez was the best listener I had ever known. There was not a psychiatrist, or a bartender, in town that I would rather tell my troubles to before Inez.
    I was glad that I had made the decision on my own to try and get pregnant, but this was something that I wanted to discuss with my best friend. Not that I wanted her to give me any advice, but it would have been nice just to have her around to listen to me.
    I enjoyed being married. I felt like a totally different woman. I looked and acted differently. And other people noticed, even some of my second-grade students. “Miss Beakes, why come you all the time smiling and humming stupid songs now?” asked Walter Marrell, the most obnoxious youngster in my class this year. Walter looked like a gnome, with his lopsided head, long ears, and round, flat nose. But he still liked to draw attention to himself. His small black eyes seemed to look right through me as he anxiously awaited my response.
    â€œWalter, you must remember that I am Mrs. Webb now. No more Miss Beakes. I got married,” I said proudly. I stood in front of my class, with the latest Harry Potter book in my hand, preparing to read a few excerpts to them.
    â€œWhy did you get married, Miss Beakes?” the same boy asked, with a giggle, his two front teeth missing. “Now you got to sleep in the same bed with a strange man.” The whole class snickered.
    â€œWalter, married people sleep together. Now if you don’t mind, let’s confine our attention to our good friend Harry Potter,” I said firmly, holding up the front of the book. I didn’t read much for my own pleasure, but when I did, it was usually a novel by a popular African American author, like Carl Weber or Mary B. Morrison. I’d already read most of the classics and more textbooks than I could remember, so Harry Potter was as much a treat for me as it was for my students.
    But Walter seemed more interested in my story than Harry’s. He occupied a desk at the front of the classroom, right across from my cluttered desk, so he was hard to ignore. “My daddy makes all kinds of strange noises when he’s in the bed with my mama,” Walter announced, facing his classmates. Then he turned to me. “Miss Beakes, do you and your husband make a lot of strange noises in the bed?” This time the class roared with laughter.
    The bell rang before either Walter or I could say another word. And the subject was never brought up again. At least not in my classroom. I wanted to share cute little stories like this one with Leon, but he didn’t have a lot of interest in what went on in an elementary school. I didn’t bother to tell him about little Walter’s comments. However, I told him about