“You shouldn’t have left me this morning.” He struggled up off the floor. “See, this here’s all your fault. She came by to see you about something. What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, Duane, how about giving her a cup of coffee instead of your dick?”
“I don’t feel so good, babe. I really don’t.” He leaned up against the wall.
She roughly pushed past him on her way to check on Lisa. “Best news I’ve heard all day.”
A minute later she marched past him again and entered the bedroom, where she proceeded to rip the sheets off the bed.
Duane sulkily watched her from the doorway. “Go ahead and throw ’em away. I don’t give a crap, you bought ’em.”
She didn’t look at him as she answered. “I’m taking ’em over to Wanda’s to wash. If you’re gonna sleep around with sluts, it ain’t gonna cost me nothing.”
As she lifted the mattress, a flash of green caught her eye. She shoved the mattress off the bed frame and then looked over at Duane. “What the hell is this?” she demanded.
Duane looked at her coldly. He sauntered into the room, scooped up the piles of cash, and stuffed them in a paper bag that had been sitting on the table beside the bed. He continued to eye her as he closed up the bag. “Let’s just say I won the lottery,” he said arrogantly.
She perceptibly stiffened at his words as though she’d been slapped flush in the face. For a moment she felt as though she would topple right over in a dead faint. Had Duane actually been behind all of this? Were he and Jackson in this together? She could not have envisioned a more unlikely pair. It couldn’t possibly be. She quickly recovered and crossed her arms. “Bull. Where’d you get it, Duane?”
“Let’s just say it’s a real good reason to be nice to me and to keep your mouth shut.”
Angrily pushing him from the room, she locked the door. She changed into jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt and then quickly packed an overnight bag. When she unlocked and threw open the door, Duane hadn’t budged; the bag was still clutched in his hand. She moved quickly past him, opened the door to the bathroom, and scooped up a wriggling Lisa in one arm; the dirty linen and overnight bag in her other hand, she headed for the front door.
“Where you going, LuAnn?”
“None of your damned business.”
“How long you gonna be pissed about this? I didn’t get mad at you for kicking me in the balls, did I? I done already forgot about it, in fact.”
She whirled around for a second. “Duane, you have got to be the dumbest person on the face of this earth.”
“Is that right? Well who do you think you are? Why, if it weren’t for me, you and Lisa wouldn’t even have a damned place to stay. I took you in or you wouldn’t have nothing.” He lit up another cigarette but warily kept out of range of her fist. He scrunched the match out on the tattered carpet. “So maybe instead of bitching all the time, you oughta try being nice to me.” He held up the paper bag stuffed with cash. “There’s plenty more where this came from, too, little girl. I ain’t gonna be living in this craphole much longer. You best think about it. You best think real good about that. I ain’t taking crap from you or anybody else anymore. You hear me?”
She opened the front door. “Duane, I’ll start being nice to you right now. You know how? I’m gonna leave before I kill you!” Lisa started to cry at her mother’s angry tones as though she thought they were directed at her. LuAnn kissed the little girl and cooed in her ear to calm her down.
Duane watched LuAnn march across the muddy yard, admiring her soft behind in the tight jeans. For a moment he looked around for Shirley, but she had evidently already made a run for it, naked and all.
“I love you, babe,” he yelled after LuAnn, grinning.