Young Wives (12 page)

Whatever it was, however her mother felt, it was clear to Angie that there was no place for her here. Angie might as well go out and find a rock to sit on.

With that knowledge, all of her loss seemed to tumble in on her. She began to cry and then not to cry, but to sob. Her shoulders began to heave in spasmodic jerks and the noise she was making was almost obscene.

Natalie’s arms were around her in a moment. “Oh, baby. Oh, sweetheart,” Natalie said, stroking Angie’s greasy hair lovingly. “Oh, my little baby. You loved him that much? You loved that idiot so much? Mourn as long as you have to. But I think it couldn’t hurt you to start doing something for yourself. You definitely need your hair touched up. You want me to ask my guy to do it?”

“Mom, my problems won’t be solved by highlights.”

“No, but it’s a start.” Natalie took a deep breath. “You never really liked that job up in Needham. You just took it to be close to Reid.”

Angie couldn’t remember now why she had taken the job, but she knew she was lucky to get it. It hadn’t been easy to get the month’s leave of absence, either. But Angie wasn’t ready to go back or to quit. She put her head down and hunched her shoulders, knowing what was coming.

“Why don’t you give up those rich people’s wills and trust funds?” her mother asked her. “Why don’t you join our practice?”

Angie looked up from the Formica tabletop and stared at her mother. Natalie ran a women’s legal services clinic where the clientele was primarily women so down and out, so pathetic, that they didn’t have a few thousand to ante up to an attorney.

“I can’t work there,” Angie said, frightened of both the idea and her snobby repulsion. Her mother’s practice served mostly poor or embattled women coping with everything from a disastrous divorce to immigration problems to harassment. Angie wasn’t ready to spend her time helping other depressed women. She was too depressed herself. “I’m not registered with the bar here.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t drink I can swear you in until you get the bar,” Natalie said, and with a flourish brought a bottle of burgundy over to the table. She poured herself a glass—a jelly glass with blue dinosaurs on it—and then one for Angie. “Listen to me,” Natalie said, leaning forward and holding her glass of wine. “What the hell is the point of going back to the scene of the crime? What’s the point in going back to a selfish life where you’re thinking of nothing but your own pleasure—or your own pain? Believe me, one is worse than the other. Join us. We’ll get you through the bar in no time and we have a hundred women with problems so pressing, they’ll make your adventure with Reid look like a day at the circus. Did I tell you about the eighty-two-year-old woman evicted from—”

“Mom, I don’t want to hear about her pain,” Angie interrupted, and took a swig of her wine. “I have my own.” This wasn’t what she had craved, what she had expected and needed. She wanted her mother to fix her old life for her, not offer her a new one…a boring, awful new one with a house like a garage and a job worse than social work.

“You think. I don’t understand?” Natalie asked, raising her brows. “Of course I understand. All you can do is think of him. How maybe it didn’t happen, how you are looking for excuses, or, if there is no excuse, how maybe it was your fault and then you can forgive him anyway. How just because it happened once before, doesn’t mean it’ll happen again. Yup, I know what you’re thinking. But those are all the desperate configurations of a rat trapped in a maze, looking for the little bar to press to get the cocaine that the scientist administers at the end of every test. You’re obsessed with your future former husband because you’re still hoping somehow you can get that hit of affection. That hit of sex.”

Angie turned her head away. Her mother might be accurate, but accuracy didn’t feel like what she needed right now. Natalie leaned across the table, trying to get closer, but Angie kept her face averted. Natalie’s voice softened. “You feel like without it you can’t go on, that you’re trapped. But I’m here to tell you that being ‘in love’ is only an addiction. It keeps delusions going. It separates you from your real life, from real love, which you can feel for a friend, God, an animal, even a man. ‘In love’ sets you up to worship Prince Reid, some false idol you’ve erected within your temple. You were only with him for a year, Angie. You’re young—only twenty-eight. Oh, there can be a man, later, if you want one. A good man, one who could be there for you.” Natalie’s voice toughened up then. “One who doesn’t look like Brad Pitt in any way.”

Angie stood up and reached for her purse. Somehow she felt more depressed but less hysterical then she’d been. Her mother hugged her. “You look beat,” Natalie said, patting her on the shoulder. She hugged her again and Angie, too weak to hug back, let herself melt against her mother. That was what she wanted: to melt, to disappear, to lose herself forever.

“Do you want to sleep over?” Natalie asked. “I can unfold a cot I use when we get full at the crisis center.”

Angie restrained herself from shivering. The idea of sleeping on a bed of misery here in this warehouse made her father’s sofa and the plaster infinity signs overhead seem almost heavenly. “No,” Angie said. “I’m just fine.”

“Yeah,” her mother said. “You’re fine and I’m skinny.”

Angie managed to give her mother a watery smile before she shrugged into her coat and left.

In which dinner and an ultimatum are both served

Jada and Michelle had planned to rendezvous at Post Road Pizza, but Michelle had called back to say she had to go down and pick up Frank. Jada pulled the car into the driveway, got out, and opened the rear door for Jenna. Jenna got out, moving slowly, as if overnight her eleven-year-old body had been transformed into an old woman’s. But at least
she
was moving. Frankie seemed to have become paralyzed, turned into a block of stone, or maybe ice, by the trauma of the last twenty-four hours. When Jada lifted him from the backseat, she was surprised by his heaviness. The kid couldn’t weigh more than forty pounds, but as dead weight he felt like the huge bags of Sacrete that Clinton used to throw so easily across his shoulder in the old days. Jada hugged the little boy to her, freed up a hand, and put it on Jenna’s shoulder as she led them into the house.

When Clinton looked up from the kitchen table, Jada knew immediately that there would be trouble. She decided to ignore him for as long as she could. Normalization was the goal here, and since she normally ignored Clinton anyway, that was the route to take.

“Hey, Kevon! Hey, Shavonne! Guess who’s here?” she called out. Shavonne wasn’t crazy about Jenna lately—sometimes they got along and sometimes they fought—but Kevon adored Frankie. Kevon ran into the kitchen, but skidded to a stop when she put Frankie down on the linoleum. Kevon stood almost as still as his friend, then his eyes flicked from Frankie’s face to his mom’s.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked her in a hoarse kid’s whisper, as if he could already tell that Frankie wasn’t talking and maybe couldn’t hear.

Jada felt Clinton’s disapproval from all the way across the room. He was such a hypocrite! He’d hung with some neighborhood brothers who’d gotten in plenty of trouble, and once or twice had even brought the kids along until she’d put her foot down.

“He had a bad sleepover,” she said. “Remember when you had that sleepover at Billy’s?” Kevon nodded. It wasn’t easy for her son to be the only African-American in his grade. “Well, it was scarier than
that
. But he’s okay now. He’s with us.” She tightened her arm around Frankie, really talking to him. Kevon, bless his heart, reached his hand out to Frankie, who still stood immobile.

“Come on, Frankie,” Kevon said. “We hate Billy.” Jada realized that Kevon thought Frankie had spent the night with Kevon’s little enemy. But she wasn’t going to bother to correct the picture because, thank the Lord, Frankie allowed Kevon to pull him out of the room. She turned to Jenna, who was chewing the end of her hair.

“Is my mother coming back now?” Jenna asked.

“She’s having dinner with your dad. He wanted pizza. We’ll be eating in a little while,” Jada said. Then she raised her voice and called her daughter again. Shavonne came into the kitchen clutching the baby.

“Oh, hi,” she said, overly casual. She looked at Jenna. “I can’t really play with you now,” she told her self-importantly, “I’m baby-sitting my little sister.”

“Jenna’s going to help you baby-sit,” Jada said. She felt like strangling her daughter, and the girl wasn’t even a teen yet. “If you both do a good job, I’m going to pay you both.” She could actually feel Clinton’s stare, though he was behind her. “Don’t go up the stairs with the baby,” she admonished more gently than she felt disposed to be. “Play with her in the living room,” she told them. Reluctantly, it seemed, Jenna moved with Shavonne through the living room, Jada right behind them.
Be nice to her, Shavonne
, Jada thought.
Now’s not the time to stand off
. The baby gurgled and then spit up on Shavonne’s shoulder.

“Oh, yuck! Gross,” Jenna said. She’d inherited her mother’s clean gene.

“That’s nothing,” Shavonne told her. “When she had a cold, you should have seen her snots.”

Normality—such as it was—had been achieved. Jada felt relieved and left them. Graphic descriptions of bodily functions would bind them. She closed the dining room door, then entered the kitchen, but avoided even looking at Clinton. Jenna had refused pizza, so Jada pulled out two bags of frozen french fries and a cookie sheet, sprayed the pan with vegetable oil, opened the oven door, and threw the tray in. She filled a pot with water to boil hotdogs. At least they were turkey dogs, not the other junk. Guiltily she looked for something green to serve with them. Nothing but very old strawberry yogurt (which ought not be green). She hadn’t had time and Clinton hadn’t had the ambition to clean out the refrigerator in the last two or three weeks. Well, she told herself, she’d just give them green Jell-O and pretend it was a balanced meal. They deserved better and so did she, but she was working under a lot of adversity here.

Even more adversity than she thought, however. Clinton rose from the kitchen chair he’d been sprawled in and came up beside her. It wasn’t to help with the damn dinner, but to take the refrigerator door out of her hands and close it behind her. He leaned on it. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“Making the dinner that you should have made?” she responded. He was worse than DAS. The man was
dead
and stupid.

“Don’t try to get smart. You’ve already been dumb,” he told her. “What are those kids doing over here?”

She narrowed her eyes. “
Those
kids?” she asked. “You mean Frankie and Jenna?
Those
kids are always over here, or our kids are always at their house.”

“Not anymore,” Clinton said.

“Oh, Clinton, don’t start with me.” She did not have the patience for this kind of bullshit. Not today. Not now. Not from this bastard, who was spending his days with his dick in some other woman and his nights taking his kids for granted.

“Those children shouldn’t be over here.”

“
Shouldn’t
? Why
shouldn’t they
?”

“Because I don’t want them influencing my children.”

“Oh, today they’re
your
children?” she glared at him. “When did they become
your
children? They weren’t yours the other night, when Shavonne had her book report to write or the day before, when Kevon had diarrhea. You think Jenna is a danger to Shavonne, who bullies that girl shamelessly? And do you think that Frankie could influence anything right now?” She crossed the kitchen, her steps fast and angry, not that they made much noise against the plywood of the unfinished floor. She started to set the table.

“Are you through running your mouth?” Clinton asked. “Because you’re just missing the point. Number one, they’re the children of a drug dealer. Number two, if you don’t think the police are watching them and everything they do right now—”

“The police are watching everything that Frankie does? Well, that’s an easy job. Even you could do it. ’Cause Frankie isn’t doing dick.”

“Don’t show a smart mouth to me,” Clinton said, narrowing his eyes. “I’m telling you that a black man in Westchester don’t need a connection with a drug lord.”

“Drug lord? Goddamn it, Clinton. I know you don’t like Frank and I know you’re envious of him. But maybe, just maybe, he’s not guilty.” She threw the napkins on the table. “Every time one of your damn useless White Plains home boys gets busted, you’re telling me about police conspiracies and frame-ups all night long. Now they’re just? Clinton, they didn’t find any drugs next door. I don’t think the man’s involved with drugs. Maybe some bribes, maybe some crooked contracts, but not drugs.”

Jada walked closer to him, but not within arm’s reach. She had let her voice rise. She didn’t want the children to hear this, and she didn’t even want to be having this conversation with Clinton. But she wondered if she should be jeopardizing her marriage and her family for her friendship with a white woman. It occurred to her that Mich probably wouldn’t do it for her.

“You know Michelle,” Jada continued anyway. “You know these children. And you know how much Frank loves them, so just stop it, Clinton. Have some compassion. Would you want to have to bring your children home to this house after uniformed vandals tore it apart? Michelle is over there crying her heart out and cleaning up, and after dinner I’m going over to help her.”

“You are
not
going over there,” Clinton said, and came around the table and took her hand. He held it hard.

She snapped it out of his grip and held it up in front of her face. “Talk to the palm, Clinton. Because the ears aren’t hearing.” She turned away. “Didn’t you ever hear of due process? Let’s try to be Christians about this, Clinton. Don’t be so holier than thou.
You
only go to church to meet your lover.”

“Come on, Jada. Frank Russo is the kind of white man who—”

“This has nothing to do with race, Clinton,” Jada snapped. “I don’t know what Frank Russo did or didn’t do. But I know
he’s
not sleeping around, tearing his family apart. I know
he’s
not using his church as a singles bar.” All at once her rage rose within her and she felt it pushing words out of her mouth. “You’ve had plenty of time to make your damned decision and I’m tired of waiting for you to make it. I have waited and I hoped that you would make a decision—any decision. But you haven’t. So I have to. If you go down to Tonya’s again, don’t come back, Clinton. I mean it. The deadline has long expired.”