Young Wives

“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. “Dеj? 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.

Her babies. Her family. Jada knew the last few years had made her hard, and she didn’t like it, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Meanwhile, if she could only save her babies, give Shavonne and Kevon and Sherrilee something more to start their lives off with. She couldn’t let this decision be made for her as Clinton dithered and the clock ticked.

She found the strength to turn around and look at her husband. “Clinton, just think a moment. Your daddy ran out on you. His daddy ran out on him. You’re free to run out on your children, too. But that’s not what we promised them. They’re your babies, too. I think you want something better for them. I know I do, but I’ll take what you give me, Clinton. It’s just that I won’t put up with you and Tonya together, and have all of them at church talking. Plus allowing you here, takin’ up space in my house and my bed.”

“It’s my house, too,” Clinton protested. “For Christ sake’s woman, I built this bed.”

“Then take the damn bed over to Tonya’s,” Jada snapped. “And don’t take the Lord’s name in vain in this house. Point is, you can live here with me and the children if you want to try again to be a family. Or you can live with Tonya. She’s got kids, don’t she? Two? Three? Four? By how many men? Well, you can have them or yours. You just can’t have both.”

“I don’t want both,” Clinton whined. “I just don’t know what I want.”

As if she cared, Jada thought. “Well, you have a week to figure it out,” she told him. Dressed now, she clicked across the floor in her high heels. She was in the hallway before she remembered, turned back, and put her head back into the bedroom. “Oh, and Clinton,” Jada told him. “You better begin to find your own gas money.” She slammed the door and went to say good-bye to Sherrilee before she left for work.

8 (#ulink_b570b250-9b30-5b86-a61e-054d91ca75b3)

Economically containing both Michelle’s bustier and bust

Michelle squatted to the floor to pick up yet another Disney action figure, pushing the bones of the bustier she was wearing up into her ribs. Don’t do housework dressed like Nasty Spice, Michelle told herself. This is what you get.

Ah, the pull between passion and prudence. Of course, she could just leave the stuff lying around, but though she sometimes wanted to dress like a high-class hooker for Frank, Michelle knew beneath her uplifted cleavage beat the heart of a very tidy housewife. In fact, she was probably a little neurotic about it. Having grown up with filth around her, as an adult she was constantly cleaning. Maybe she should get a French maid’s costume. She smiled at the thought as she picked up the red plastic toy. Frankie had so many of the things Michelle couldn’t tell who they were anymore. Was it because he was a boy or the second child? Back in Jenna’s day, Michelle had known the difference between a Little Mermaid and a Belle, but now the Hercules/Aladdin/Moses continuum was too confusing. She sighed, and guiltily wished Frankie had stuck with the Lion King. Somehow he had more toys but less attention than Jenna had gotten.

Once down at carpet level, Michelle noticed half a dozen Legos under the ottoman—good thing she hadn’t vacuumed. She’d hoovered up more Micro Machine pieces than any Electrolux could be expected to eat. Pookie was chewing on his plastic bone and growled at her. Michelle shook her head at the dog, throwing back her hair, left down for Frank. Then she reached past Pookie for the Legos and gathered them in her right palm, balancing them with the action figure—she thought it was Jafar—in her left hand. She managed to straighten up in a single movement without using her hands from her squat on the floor. Not bad for a thirty-one-year-old woman.

She turned her head. Over the back of the sofa she could see Frank’s dark hair, and the very top of Jenna’s head, leaning on his shoulder. Jenna was clutching Pinkie with her right arm. Frankie must be lying across his dad’s lap by now, lulled to sleep long ago by the bleeps and yeeps of whatever Nintendo game his dad and sister were playing. Michelle smiled. They had all had a good night; Fridays were always good nights. She and Frank had split a porterhouse and pasta while the kids had had hamburgers, their favorite. Frank had played wiffleball with Frankie for almost half an hour, then he’d suffered through a Rug Rats video, followed up by a Nintendo marathon. Jenna had let her brother play with Daddy while she helped Michelle clean up the dinner things. Her reward was getting Frank all to herself for the last hour while Michelle policed the area. Mich’s reward would be her time alone with Frank in bed. Her smile, which created a parenthesis on either side of her wide mouth, deepened.

She moved to Frank and, very gently, touched his shoulder. She’d learned a long time ago not to come up behind him and touch him too hard—it really startled him. Now Frank bent his head back against the sofa cushions and looked up at her, though neither Jenna nor Frankie made a move. Nothing moved except the dancing Zelda image on the TV screen. The kids were both sleeping and Frank was playing the idiotic game alone!

“Time for bed,” Michelle said in a throaty whisper and Frank’s smile echoed her own. “You carry Frankie. I’ll walk Jenna up,” she told her husband. Frank nodded, then reached out and took a Lego from her right hand.

“Did you bake these just for me?” he asked, his voice low.

“You don’t bake plastic,” Michelle said. “You extrude it.”

“I thought we’d do that later, upstairs.” He waggled his eyebrows. Michelle shook her head and moved her hand to Jenna’s shoulder.

“Come on, big girl,” she murmured to Jenna who, very reluctantly, came out of her doze and, propelled by Michelle, got on her feet.

“Bed time for Bonzo,” Frank added as he placed his sleeping son across his shoulder, cupping the boy’s head gently in one hand.

“Be careful with him. Most accidents happen in the home,” Michelle reminded him.

Upstairs, Michelle got Frankie out of his clothes and into his pajama top while Jenna got herself into bed. Michelle took pity on her firstborn and didn’t insist that Jenna wash her face and brush her teeth. Just for one night it would do. She knew just how tired Jenna felt. She looked forward to lying down herself.

When she entered their bedroom, Frank was already stripped and under the sheets. As usual, he hadn’t folded down the bedspread, so Michelle did it for the three-thousandth time. He was a good man and a good father. They had had a lovely night, but she still couldn’t train him to take the bedspread off before he lay down. Oh well. There were a lot worse traits.

“Come here, gorgeous,” Frank said, his voice already thick with sleep. Michelle sat down on her side of the bed, pulled off her shoes, and wriggled out of her skirt, but left on her panties and bustier. She wanted Frank to notice how nice she looked in it. Frank took a curled tendril of her hair in his hand and gently pulled her face down to his. “Hey, hot stuff. How much for the whole night?” he asked.

“A lot,” she informed him before he kissed her.

“Worth every penny,” he said. He reached for her upthrust breast. “Take that thing off,” he said. Michelle followed his order in less than sixty seconds. “That’s more like it,” Frank murmured, wrapping his arm loosely around her, resting his hand on her hip and pulling her against him.

“Better than Nintendo?” Michelle teased.

“Well, not as exciting but …” he mumbled. She poked him between two ribs. “Okay, okay. Better than Nintendo,” he admitted and kissed her on the neck. She sighed deeply and she heard her sigh echoed by him. Fridays were always long, exhausting evenings, but good ones. She was happy and tired and so was Frank. “Baby, you know I want you, but …”

Michelle kissed him on his sexy, stubbled cheek. Later perhaps, some time in the middle of the night, he would wake her up with his arm tight around her and the rest of him insistent.

But it wasn’t Frank who woke Michelle. It was a horrible, rending sound and the noise—lots of noise—of feet on the stairs. From somewhere downstairs the usually quiet Pookie was barking ferociously. Michelle barely had time to sit up before she was aware of the red light flickering round the room. My God, she thought, the house must be on fire.

“Frank!” she screamed, but his eyes had already flown open, just as the bedroom door did. And then their bed was surrounded by men, some in uniform, some not, all with guns drawn.