Young Wives

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “Don’t you tell me what’s important.”

  Michelle took a step back and Jada could tell she’d hurt her. She hadn’t meant to. It was just that these white women sometimes were so damn sure of everything. And people accused black women of being bossy. Jada took a deep breath.

  She had tried to think it through calmly, but each time she did, it seemed that this was the last piece of unfinished business she had to complete. She couldn’t just leave the home she’d worked so hard to keep together, the home Clinton didn’t respect but would now inherit. She walked over to one of the cots that they borrowed from Natalie and perched at the end of it. She looked up at Michelle, who had gone to the sink, and in her usual crazy way was washing the two mugs that had been left on the drain board. But Jada knew Michelle was only doing that to cover her hurt.

  “Michelle,” she said. “I’m sorry,” but Michelle couldn’t hear her with the water running. Hard as it was for Jada to apologize, she owed it to her friend. Jada got up, walked to the sink, and leaned over to look at Michelle. “I’m really sorry, Michelle,” she repeated.

  “That’s okay,” Michelle said. Jada hoped that was true and took her friend’s soapy hands, rinsed them, and pulled her over to the cot.

  They were already doing so much for her that Jada found it hard to ask for just one more thing—even if it was only understanding. But she wanted—needed—them to understand. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” was a quote that Jada had wrestled with over and over again, but this felt so right—even if it was risky—that she felt certain she had to do it. “Just sit down and listen?” she asked Michelle. “I have it all figured. If you agree, I know we can get Angie to see it.”

  Michelle took a deep sigh. “Penis gluing, kidnapping, turning state’s evidence, and now … this. Why don’t we just join the mob?”

  “Why don’t you just listen for a few minutes,” Jada said. “I’m telling you, I have it all worked out.”

  And she did have it all worked out.

  Michelle, reluctantly, made the call to Clinton. Of course, Tonya answered (which was only one of the reasons Michelle had to make the call) but Michelle asked for Clinton. Though it was clear the woman was reluctant to hand over the phone, Clinton did, at last, get on the line. Michelle had been letter perfect.

  “You know, I’m moving,” she’d said. “All this trouble with Frank and all. Anyway, I thought you might want some of my furniture.” Jada couldn’t hear her husband’s response, but if Tonya was listening on the extension—and she probably was—Jada was pretty sure about the response. “I have a sofa and a love seat I don’t need. There’s a lot of other stuff, too.”

  Angie joined them and listened to the phone call, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. She hadn’t said she would cooperate, but she would. Clinton, the freeloader, jumped on the offer. Jada knew he was the kind of hypocrite who didn’t want his kids to play with “a druggie’s children,” but he’d take the guy’s furniture into his house and let his kids sit on it. And so it was arranged that Tonya and Clinton would come over to Michelle’s on Sunday for the pick-up.

  Michelle stood at the counter, making the arrangements with Clinton and sounding perfectly neutral, as if there were nothing unusual about offering her best friend’s enemy a gift.

  Jada watched and listened and then noticed something really different. Truly different. Amazing, even. “Angie, look at this,” she whispered. “Do you see what I see?”

  “I see a felony in the making,” Angie whispered.

  “No. No. Look at the counter.” Michelle, just finishing her conversation on the phone, was standing before the mess of coffee cups and the smeared counter. And she wasn’t picking up a sponge. “She’s looking right at the mess and she isn’t doing a thing about it.”

  “Oh my God,” Angie said. “You’re right.”

  Jada had made sure that Michelle was very specific about the time, and she made sure that Clinton understood that if he didn’t get it then, he wouldn’t get it at all. “I may not be there, Clinton,” Michelle said. “But if not, if I’m already on the road, my lawyer will let you in and you can take the stuff.” Michelle hung up the phone and looked over at her two friends. “What are you staring at?” she asked them.

  “Michelle, do you want to wipe down that counter?” Jada asked.

  “Oh, fuck it,” Michelle said. “We have more important things to worry about.”

  “Unbelievable,” Angie said.

  Jada spread out her arms. “Cindy! Cindy, you’ve grown up.”

  64

  During which Michelle is briefly behind bars

  Michelle had to be sure that she had a good alibi so that she wouldn’t be implicated in any way in what she thought of as “Jada’s housewarming party.” She figured the best thing to do was go to jail, because there was no place where you were photographed, observed, signed in, and signed out, the way you were there. It was kind of ironic—going to prison to be sure she didn’t go to prison. But Michelle supposed that Frank wouldn’t know the difference, and the DA would eventually like to know her whereabouts at the particular moment when Jada was finishing her caper.

  Michelle had been busy. She’d made arrangements for Natalie to watch her kids while she called five potential housekeeping clients, received letters from four more, and had met with most of them. She’d also interviewed staff. The acting she’d done up in Boston and Marblehead helped her—she just acted like a secure businesswoman or an employer and it seemed to work. She’d only had trouble with one prospect, who was clearly a nut.

  Then, nervously, she’d gone back to her house—now that Frank was jailed—with Jada and Angie. They helped her dirty it. Then she used it as a test site and training ground. Some of her prospective employees were awful; in five minutes of watching them clean, she could tell they’d never do the job right, but she did pick out two women—Gladys and Emily—who seemed capable and motivated. She figured she could find one more person, and then the four of them could cover nine or ten houses a week. Michelle was going to charge premium prices, but give first-class service, and she thought she could clear more than enough to live on.

  She didn’t have to go see Frank, but she felt that if she didn’t, there would be something incomplete, something still childlike and frightened about her. Frank couldn’t take care of her anymore, but he also couldn’t hurt her unless she gave him the power to do so, which she was not going to do.

  Frank had been picked up almost immediately after she had given George Douglas the evidence. Knowing that he was out of the house, she had gone there briefly to pack some essential things for herself and the children; now she was prepared to make her own move, but for some reason she wanted to touch base with him. Fourteen years meant something and although Michelle didn’t want to think of them as “the best years of her life,” they were certainly formative. In any case, although she was frightened, it was necessary to see Frank

  But the reality of jail was frightening—she had to go through a metal detector, be searched, and then walk down a seemingly endless green corridor, with heavily screened and locked doors at regular intervals. Imagining Frank here was worse than upsetting. The keys on the guard’s ring jingled, the only noise until he unlocked one more barred and screened door and took her into a visitor’s room where Frank sat behind a big table, looking surprisingly small.

  He didn’t look good. He was wearing gray work pants and a shirt that matched. It made him look like a janitor or a mechanic. His usually ruddy skin looked very pale against his dark hair. But the biggest change was his expression. His eyes, his whole face, looked closed—not closed as in sleep, but emotionally closed.

  “Hands on the table,” the guard said as Michelle took her seat opposite Frank.

  Frank threw the guy a look, but complied. Then he looked straight across at Michelle and said, “Is this what you wanted?”

  “No. It’s not what I wanted, Frank.”

  “Michelle, in my wildest dreams I n
ever thought you’d betray me like this.”

  Michelle had thought she was prepared for anything, but he pissed her off. It was still the old game—twisting everything so that Michelle was always the stupid one, everything he did was right, anything he didn’t want was wrong. She wondered if he’d always been like this and she’d just never noticed. Well, two could play at that game.

  “You gave me no choice,” she said. “You threatened me, Frank,” she said. “You shouldn’t have threatened me. Because our deal was always that we put each other first and then the children, and each of us as individuals came last. But you, you’ve been selfish and crazy and irresponsible through this whole thing. You weren’t thinking of me, and you certainly weren’t thinking of the children. They can’t afford to have their mother go to prison, Frank. It’s just not a possibility.”

  “I never threatened you,” Frank said.

  “Right. And you never hit me,” she said. She took the tape cassette out of her purse. “Want me to play this for you?” she asked. “It’s what you said at the diner.”

  “Put that away,” he said harshly. “They have cameras all over here.”

  “Okay. So I have children who need me more now than ever. Remember them, Frank. They’re so traumatized already, I don’t know how long it’s going to take for them to recover. We have to leave town. All the newspaper coverage has affected them, me, and even the school. We have to leave their friends, who are no longer their friends, and we have to go somewhere else and start over—without you. Every single thing we did, everything we tried to do for them, is ruined. Do you understand that, Frank?”

  “What about me?” he asked. “You think everything isn’t ruined for me?”

  “Your choice,” she said.

  “No, yours. You put me behind bars.” His voice dropped but became ferocious. “You turned me in. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”

  Michelle recognized the rage. He would hit her again if he could. But now she was safe. She was grateful for the table between them, for the guard, for the law. “I’m sure that’s true,” she said. “You never believed you’d get caught. You never believed you’d be punished. You always believed you were exempt from everything.” She looked around the room. Both small windows were made of frosted, bubbled glass with chicken wire embedded in it. She couldn’t see the sky, or even what the weather was.

  “No one’s exempt, Frank.”

  “Doing what you did was the stupidest thing,” Frank said. But she couldn’t hear that word one more time. She interrupted him and almost jumped up in doing so. The guard looked over as if to warn them, but she didn’t care.

  “Oh, that’s it. That’s it, Frank. Stupid Michelle! It’s always Stupid Michelle! You almost convinced me I was a simpleton. Well, Stupid Michelle has started a new business. Stupid Michelle is going to move the children to a new town, with a good new school. Then Stupid Michelle is going to support them and try to make them feel secure, even though they have a daddy who was the local drug lord and is going to prison.” She paused to get her breath. “Remember, this was nothing I ever planned, but it’s something that I’ve had to do. And Frank, I’m doing just fine. And I’m doing it without you.”

  “What are you talking about?” he bleated. “Where are you moving? Where are you taking my kids?”

  “I’ve filed for divorce, Frank. And I’ll get sole custody. Long-term, it might have bad effects on the children, but for now that’s my choice. When you’re out of prison—”

  “I’m not going to prison, Michelle. I know people.”

  “I don’t care who you know. I don’t care what you do. I hope you have other money hidden, Frank, because otherwise you are broke as well as guilty. I don’t care where you go. I’m out of here.”

  Frank shook his head. “I can’t believe you gave over a half a million dollars to the DA. You are stupid, Michelle.”

  She wondered how many times she had heard that, whether Frank said it directly or implied it. She wondered how deeply she had always believed it, and she knew that she didn’t have to believe it anymore. She also knew she didn’t have to tell him anything, or defend herself. She knew that between the two of them, one of them had been really stupid. One of them had ruined a life that could have been satisfying, even beautiful. But there was nothing that she could do about that now, except never let herself be insulted in that way again. “I think visiting time is over,” she said. “Oh. And I do have something for you.” She threw an envelope on the table.

  “What’s this?” he asked, looking around, his dark brown eyes wide, the pupils dilating.

  “The list. The list of everything you had me make. Everything torn or lost or damaged or broken. All the things the county would replace.” She paused. “It’s totally complete. Everything ruined or broken is on it. Except our marriage. You can add that if you want to. Good luck, Frank.”

  “And that’s it, then? You don’t expect to ever see me again?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “I’ll see you again. In court. I’m testifying.” And she turned and left him there.

  65

  In which there is goodness and greatness and great balls of fire

  Jada was waiting around the corner in the Volvo, ready with some empty shopping bags. She was wearing her church clothes and had already picked up the children. “Why are we waiting?” Shavonne asked.

  “We’re going to church with a friend.” Samuel pulled up behind her. “Here he is. Now I want you to be quiet and good.” She got the children into his car and tried to explain what was going on.

  “Where are we going?” Shavonne asked.

  “Who’s he?” Kevon wanted to know. “Is he like Ms. Patel?”

  “Not exactly. He’s a real friend, and now we’re going to church. Ms. Patel will be there,” Jada said. “I’ll be right back. I want you to sit here for ten minutes,” she said. “Shavonne, you’re in charge. I’ll be right back—I forgot my Bible.” Which was true. It was at the house.

  Jada waited at the end of the street until she saw Clinton and Tonya walk out of her house and along the way that she and Michelle had walked together so many mornings. Their walks seemed so long ago. She looked around at the street, knowing she might never see it again.

  Once Clinton and Tonya had disappeared into Michelle’s house, Jada clutched the bags and went into her own house for the last time. She took the newspapers she’d already twisted into spills out of the shopping bags, along with two flame logs. Then she went upstairs and started by looking through every room to make sure no one, no living thing, not even a hamster, was left behind. She filled her shopping bags with some of each of the children’s favorite toys and clothes, leaving newspaper behind in its place. Just as she’d suspected, in a new burst of energy Clinton had begun painting and fixing some of the unfinished spots that had been such eyesores to her for all those years. And, as she’d suspected, he’d also left paint cans, paint thinner, and all kinds of other dangerous stuff around. Perfect.

  Down in the kitchen, she was amazed to see the plywood floor had already been half tiled. She wondered if he would have ever finished the other half, or whether for Tonya it would have remained half tiled instead of all plywood. She poured the bottle of kerosene on the plywood, put a flame log inside one of the wooden cabinets with piles of newspaper. Then she got the kids’ birth certificates and four or five photo albums from the hall bookshelf, along with the Bible.

  Nothing left on the shelves mattered to her; it was just a lot of paper. She poured some of Clinton’s paint thinner on them. She put the second flame log in the messy hall closet, under the wooden stairway. There was lots of flammable junk in there, but just to be sure, she opened the paint cans and threw in more newspaper. She wondered if it would clearly be seen as arson. She shrugged. In for a penny, in for a pound. And it might look like spontaneous combustion or a construction accident. After all, as Michelle reminded them all the time, most accidents happen in the home.

  But this
wasn’t her home anymore and never would be. All that struggling she’d done, all the hours of working, away from her kids, and she’d thought these walls were important. DAS—dumb and stupid.

  In the living room, she passed her wedding portrait but didn’t bother to take it. She was surprised that Tonya hadn’t taken it down. Maybe Clinton hadn’t let her? She didn’t care, but she did pick up the candlesticks her grandma had given her and added them to the haul in her shopping bags. Then she poured the last of the kerosene onto the living room curtains and across the floor, where it met the bookcases in the hallway. She stood at the door, took out a box of matches, and made sure that her hands were clean and dry. She smoothed down her dress. She’d been gone eleven minutes. She had to get back to the kids.

  Carefully, she stepped over the threshold and lit one match. When it was burning, she threw it into the house and watched the little line of flame run along the hall floor she had so often washed. Just to be sure, she put the whole box down and threw one more lit one on top of it. Jada turned her back and left the door just slightly open, to increase the flow of oxygen. By the time she got to the sidewalk, she thought she could already smell a tiny hint of smoke. But she wouldn’t allow herself to turn around. Most accidents might happen in the home, but this was her home no longer.

  Angie wasn’t shocked to find that Clinton and his girlfriend were greedy. They’d both been put off when they saw her face, remembering her from the trial, but she calmly explained she was acting as Michelle’s lawyer now and had them sign a release. She didn’t feel calm, though. This man was a freeloader, willing to hurt his children emotionally in return for his own comforts. Rather than giving him freebies, she’d like to give him hell. But he’d get what he deserved.

  Michelle had told her which pieces of furniture she could let them carry off, but Tonya had the nerve to ask for the credenza, a clock, and one of the paintings on the wall also. It had been a pleasure for Angie to say no.