Young Wives

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.

11 (#ulink_96a1be66-f329-50ad-90af-3c6085448582)

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.”

“Don’t you threaten me,” Clinton warned her. “You can’t take my children away. You didn’t even want the baby.”

Jada snapped her head back as if she’d been slapped. “Don’t go there,” she said. “I’m not making you give up anything. You’re choosing to leave it, to leave us.”

Clinton moved very close to her, and for a moment his size and the anger she could feel in him frightened her. She didn’t—wouldn’t—let herself take a step backward, away from him, but she was scared, though she hoped it didn’t show. “Don’t you dare go over there tonight,” Clinton said to her.

“Don’t you dare give me orders,” Jada spat right back at him. “Why don’t you give the children their dinner instead? Something useful, instead of stupid threats.” She leaned toward him, just to show him he didn’t scare her. “I listen to God and my conscience before I listen to you. Michelle’s my friend. She would do it for me.” And with that Jada spun around, away from him and out the kitchen door into the relief of the cool darkness.

12 (#ulink_134b10b0-5ee9-51c0-adfd-959236c7a970)

Wherein Angela stops playing hooky and instead gets hooked

Angela was dressed, for the first time in almost a week, in real clothes. She was wearing what she thought of as “a cheap legal suit”—one of those rayon-and-wool blend, navy blue jacket and skirt jobs that was a knock-off of what all the women at her ex-law firm used to wear. This one, though, was a real cheap one. And big. She’d gone up to double digits. You didn’t want your size or your IQ to be there.

Yesterday she had forced herself up and out of the house, and had dragged herself over to Hit or Miss. Now she looked down at herself, sitting behind the wheel of her father’s Dodge Dart, the one he referred to as “the spare.” This outfit certainly couldn’t be called a hit, so it must be a miss. She was a miss now, too. Or on her way to becoming one. An unmarried miss.