Young Wives (8 page)

Jada, even now, with Clinton standing hang-dog and useless behind her while she picked up the placemats, tried not to make a moral judgment about it. People just had their NUP, like the color of their hair. Jada had to admit that Shavonne’s NUP was taking, too. Kevon, at least at this age, was more like Jada; his natural preference was to give. When she and Clinton had first met, the truth was Jada had
liked
to give. It had made her feel important and useful. Clinton needed to be taken care of and Jada guessed she needed to be needed. She’d cut his hair, she’d bought his clothes, she’d cooked for him. All Clinton had to do to make her happy was to say, “Nobody makes cornbread like Jada’s. Can’t eat no one else’s cornbread,” and Jada excused the double negative, feeling happy and content and ready to bake another fifty pans of cornbread. Now Jada knew Clinton-speak. “Can I help with dinner” meant “Why isn’t it on the table yet?”

From the time Clinton’s business had begun to fail, it had been one long slide on his side. Bit by bit. First he stopped bringing home money, then he stopped looking for work, stopped coaching Little League, stopped doing carpentry around the house. He’d even stopped what, in her opinion, was a married man’s most primal task—taking out the garbage.

Her parents’ marriage hadn’t prepared her for this. Her mother and her father loved and respected each other. They’d been bitterly disappointed when Jada married an American black man. Though she’d been born in New York, Jada’s parents were Bajans and they still thought of Barbados as home. “Americans. Forget them. They have no drive,” her father had said. “They have no morals,” her mother had warned her. Jada felt they were old-fashioned and definitely prejudiced, even more so against blacks than whites. Most of all they were prejudiced against other Islanders: they despised Jamaicans, were competitive with Antiguans, and were suspicious and contemptuous of the French islanders. American blacks were beneath them all.

It was ridiculous. Jada had laughed at them. But now occasionally Jada wondered if her parents hadn’t been right, at least about Clinton. She hoped her marriage calmed down again, because she didn’t look forward to giving them bad news. She wasn’t certain about all American black men, but hers was undependable and lazy.

Maybe it wasn’t true, but it felt true now. Maybe there had once been some kind of equilibrium between her and Clinton, when her giving had been balanced by Clinton’s money-earning and the wonderful loving, but both had ended long ago. He hadn’t earned even a dime in almost five years and they hadn’t made love in almost three (except for the New Year’s Eve when both of them had been drunker than they should have been and Sherrilee was accidentally conceived). They hadn’t had sex in so long that her diaphragm must have been torn. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but she’d gotten pregnant and—after what had happened once before—she couldn’t bear the thought of not bringing the baby into the world. She’d prayed over it, and God, or her heart, had spoken. Sherrilee was an adorable baby, good as gold, and though it had been difficult to work through her pregnancy and was difficult now to leave the baby behind when she went to work, Jada didn’t regret her decision. She had thought the baby might bring them closer, and Clinton had acted delighted and involved. But, as with most things, Clinton didn’t follow through and now she wondered if she had done the right thing.

“Jada. Please have patience. I need you,” Clinton said.

Need? Jada had been so damn needed that she’d run out—not out of giving, but out of feeling happy about doing it. The children had shown her that it was as natural as breathing to give to a nine-year-old, but definitely unnatural to have to give in the same way to a thirty-four-year-old man. Natural or not, Jada was damn tired of it.

“Yeah. You need me. But you say you
love
her.” Jada couldn’t believe he’d told her about this latest affair. She hadn’t wanted to hear a word, but he’d insisted. “Go need her,” she told Clinton, and turned her back.

Jada stuck her head into Shavonne’s room looking for dirty laundry, Clinton behind her. She picked up the pile and moved down the hall. Tonya Green, the woman Clinton was seeing, claimed to love children, though Jada had heard that her two were living with her mother. What did
she
do all day? Jada wondered. She didn’t work. She had a reputation in their church for being very pious. She taught Bible school. Did she go to prayer meetings? Hang out in bars, hoping to meet a buff married man? Maybe she alternated. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, prayers. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, her prayers were answered.

Jada snorted. The oddest part of all this to Jada was that when it came to the sex—Clinton and Tonya together—she just didn’t care. Ten years ago she would have been filled with jealousy. She had thought that making love to Clinton was central to her life. Now she didn’t even miss it. Sleeping beside him was bad enough. Sex would be…well, she was too angry, too tired, and too disappointed in him to want it.

Jada didn’t think Clinton loved her. He just needed her, wanted her to love him. And she couldn’t. Clinton sometimes still wanted to make love to her. Clinton had wanted their baby. Clinton took good care of the baby now. But Jada didn’t feel like making love to him, and she didn’t feel like taking care of him. She wanted
him
to take care of
her
. She’d lost respect for Clinton and perhaps she had some responsibility for this pathetic affair with Tonya.

Jada had only been surprised that Clinton had bothered to tell her at all. He’d never bothered before. Surprisingly, she had merely thought, “One fewer thing I have to do. Let Tonya listen to his bullshit rap about the next useless, unrealistic scheme he’s going to fail at.” Jada realized then that she hadn’t really listened to him in years, after dozens of plans she had listened to, had critiqued and prayed for, had ended in nothing. Yet men had to be listened to by someone.

What
she
had to have, what she was working herself to the bone for, was a stable family. She wanted to live in their house, the house Clinton had begun but still hadn’t ever finished, and she wanted to see the kids do well in the community and really well in school. She wanted to see Shavonne win the local ice skating finals and go to the prom. She wanted Kevon to get his math scores straightened out and wind up with a scholarship to a really good college. She wanted the children to grow up with a father, as they’d both pledged before God. They all needed him there. He had to watch the baby while she worked. He’d promised to help raise the children. She didn’t think about the quality of her marriage—what was the point? But they had to have this Talk. Too bad she was so damn tired. She was always tired. Jada got to the door of their bedroom, and Clinton was right behind her. “I’m getting ready for work,” she said.

“I thought we were going to talk,” Clinton said.

Of course, he was right. She had begun this, but somehow between the kitchen clean-up, the dining room, the laundry check, and the assorted other things she had tried to get done, she had very little energy left. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I did say that.”

“I’m going to make up my mind,” Clinton said. “I promise you. I’ll get my life in order.”

He was making her crazy. “Déjà vu all over again,” Jada said without attempting irony or humor. She turned around and faced Clinton for the first time since they were in the kitchen and realized she still wanted to slap his face. “Do you realize that you said the exact same thing, in this exact spot, in the exact same tone of voice, one month ago?”

“What are you talking about?” Clinton asked, already defensive. The man was DAS—dumb and stupid—if he didn’t see what was coming.

“Let me refresh your memory.” Jada started straightening up the bed. She hated to lie down in a rat’s nest of messy bed clothes. It amazed her that Clinton couldn’t even pull up the sheets and blanket when he got out of their bed—hours later than she did—each morning.

“You explained about Tonya back then,” Jada said, keeping her voice neutral. “When you started drinking truth serum along with your Bud Lite in the afternoon.” It was unproductive to use sarcasm, she reminded herself. She stood on her side of the bed. But Clinton didn’t react. This man was oblivious to everything. “Clinton,” she said to him, “to tell you the truth, I don’t care what you do with your johnson. But I
do
care about this family. And I’m not letting your selfish-ass ways destroy it. I’ve given my blood for this family. I’ve given up my personal life, I’ve given up my outside interests. I get up in the dark and leave my babies sleeping in their beds to put food on the table. I don’t like my job. Never have. I never wanted a career. I never wanted to be successful, to be a boss. I only did it out of necessity—”

“Okay. Enough,” Clinton interrupted. “I remember. Don’t try to make me feel worse than you usually do.” Clinton looked down. “I try hard.”

For a moment Jada was filled with enough anger to really smack him up-side the head. As if she was saying any of this to make him feel bad! With Clinton, everything was always about Clinton. Try hard? The man didn’t make the damn bed! “Shut up, Clinton. Give your excuses, run your mouth to Tonya. What I’m saying is that you can move in with her and I can go on with the kids, or you can give her up and try to keep us together, as a family. What’s it going to be, Clinton?”

Jada thought of a proverb her mother had told her. It might have been from the Bible or it might have been an old Bajan expression. “A drink that is given when it isn’t asked for is like milk. The same drink given only when it’s asked for is like water. But a drink you have to beg for, that’s given resentfully, is like blood.” Jada had to ask and ask Clinton for even the smallest thing, and then half the time it remained undone. Her house still needed flooring in the kitchen and a dozen other finishing touches. Jada knew that Michelle didn’t have to ask for anything. A moment before she even knew she was thirsty, Frank would offer that girl milk. Jada tried not to resent her friend, but sometimes it was hard.

“Jada, I know you’re hurt. I know you’re frightened.” He climbed back into bed, under the blankets, as if he needed to be shielded from her. That enraged her. She needed protection from him, not vice versa.

Jada opened her eyes wide. “Clinton, I’m not hurt over this. I’m hurt that you won’t work to keep this family together.”

Clinton lifted his head from the pillow and started to say something, but Jada raised her hand and opened her mouth in time to stop him. “And I
was
afraid when I thought I couldn’t earn a living. But I’m not hurt and I’m not afraid now, Clinton. I’m just telling you again, straight and plain, that you have a choice to make.” She began to strip off her walking clothes but then, suddenly, felt that she didn’t want to be bare in front of him. He was still a good-looking man. His chest was flat and wide. His stomach was tight even with his weight gain. His skin never chapped or grayed, while she had stretch marks and wrinkles. It was a strange feeling—modesty in front of her husband of so many years. “It’s you that’s breaking a commandment, not me. I’m trying to live righteous.” Jada opened the closet door and stood behind it as she struggled into her work clothes.

“Jada, you don’t understand…this thing with Tonya and I isn’t just about the flesh. We have a spiritual connection.”

Jada put her head around the closet door and stared at him. Mercy! Sometimes she couldn’t believe the bullshit that came out of this man’s mouth.
Sweet Jesus, you made this man
, she thought.
Now make him see the light. Or, alternatively, pluck out his eyes
. She thought of her parents. On Barbados, a small island where everyone knew everything, people learned compromise as an art form. Not Clinton, though.

“I can forgive you,” she said. “I can live with you. And I can try, even harder than I have, to keep this family together. But not if you talk to me about that woman’s spiritual qualities. Everyone has to draw a line, Clinton. I don’t want to hear one damn thing about her. Don’t insult me with a comparison.”

“I wasn’t comparing,” Clinton began, his version of an apology, then saw her murderous expression and stopped. “My family means everything to me,” he added quickly. “You know that. Maybe we haven’t been getting on so good, but there have been times when it was smooth and times when it was rough.” He rubbed his long fingers through his hair, then held the back of his neck as if it ached. Too bad he was DDG, Jada thought. “It can be smooth again,” he said. “I know that. I hope for that. That is where my commitment comes from. But with Tonya…well, I feel like what happens there is for
me
. Not for my children, not for the family, not to keep the mortgage paid down. Just for me.” He paused. “And I feel like I deserve something.” He shook his head. “This is making me unhappy. And it’s making you unhappy. And Tonya, she’s a good woman. It’s making her—”

“Don’t tell me how
she
feels, Clinton. That is not a way to open my heart,” Jada snapped.

“It isn’t easy to be a black man in a white man’s world,” Clinton said.

“Oh, spare me. It isn’t easy to be a black woman. And I’m starting to think it isn’t easy to be a white woman, either. It isn’t easy to be
anything
in this world, Clinton. That’s why we have churches.”

“Jada, I have prayed over this. Tonya and I have prayed over this together.” Jada rolled her eyes, but Clinton ignored that. “All I want to do is try to explain how hard it—”

“Stop explaining, start deciding,” she said. “Look on the bright side, Clinton. You have the choice—your family or your mistress. That’s a lot more choices than most people get. But I’m telling you, you can’t have both. So if you don’t make a decision, I’m making it for you. And this time, Clinton, there is
no
flexibility. Next week I move all your stuff out of here and into the garage. I’ll tell the children and I’ll tell Reverend Grant. I’ll go to a lawyer. So by next Wednesday, your decision is made, either by you or by me.” She turned her back on him and tucked in her blouse. She did it so hard she broke a nail and caught it on the waistband of her pantyhose. Well, first her marriage, now her nail was broken. And it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Beside it was a photo of Shavonne holding Kevon when he was an infant.