Young Wives

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “Well, in these cases the children always are exposed to—”

  “In our home my children have been exposed to love, respect, and moral behavior,” Michelle said as she pulled the letter out and thrust it forward at the principal. “This, on the other hand, I consider unloving, disrespectful, and immoral behavior.”

  Mrs. Spencer picked up the letter and looked it over briefly. “I didn’t know about this,” she said. “I don’t know anything about it, but I’ll look into it.”

  “No, I am looking into it,” Michelle said. “What’s needed here is a reassessment. Surely Miss Murchison was aware that my son had been exposed to some stress. And that children can be unkind to one another. Frankie has never had an accident at school before.” Michelle’s voice began to rise and her hands to shake. “How dare she let him sit in his urine all morning? In front of the other children. In the corner like a bad boy. How dare she humiliate him and betray him that way?”

  “You know the administration policy here is that children have to be toilet-trained to attend kindergarten. But I do think that Miss—”

  “I know for a fact that these accidents have happened to other children and that when they do, the standard practice is to dry the kid off as quickly and discreetly as possible and move on. Why was Miss Murchison doing otherwise? Why was she punishing my son?” Without waiting for an answer from the useless woman, Michelle stood up. “It had better not happen again, Mrs. Spencer,” she told her. “In fact, what better happen is that my son is given some extra kindness and special treatment to make up for this or else this school is going to be slapped with a law suit so gruesome that it will take the pension of every principal in the county to begin to pay it off.” Michelle turned and walked to the door. “I’m taking Frankie down to Miss Murchison’s room,” she said. “Then I’m going to the bake sale. I count on you to speak to that woman and make sure that my son gets to be monitor tomorrow and that today he gets to sit beside her at story time. Because he could use a little help right now.”

  Michelle felt like she had to keep moving. She swooped up her son and her brownies, nodded at Hillary Gross and the rest of the audience that had gathered in the room. Her head was up, her ponytail high, and attitude was expressed in every line of her long, stiffened body. Now, brownies and her son in tow, she turned her back on all of them and strode down the hall.

  She dropped Frankie off with Miss Murchison, had a whispered but fierce conversation with her, and then went on to the cafeteria. There two women had already set up the traditional “we’re having a bake sale” paper tablecloths and were spreading out the incoming sweets.

  Going into the big, echoing cafeteria was hard for her. She really needed Frank. She needed his strength. But the funny thing was that his strength was sometimes a terrible problem. He would have wrecked Mrs. Spencer’s office. He would have made things worse. He would have screamed and Hillary Gross and all the others in that office really would have had something to gawk at. That was why, despite his strength, Michelle had learned to do some things on her own. She wasn’t really good at them, but in the long run, it was the best thing. Now, however, she missed him desperately.

  Keep moving, she told herself, and keep your head up. Another mother, an older woman with dyed black hair, was unwrapping an angel food cake while a redhead Michelle had met at PTA—Minna or Mona, Michelle couldn’t remember which—sat with a money box, counting out paper and silver change. Michelle swung the heavy box up beside Mona (or Minna) and smiled brightly again. “Hi,” she said, putting out her hand. “We’ve met before. I’m Michelle Russo.”

  Minna-or-Mona nodded but then looked away, her eyes wandering somewhere over to the closed cafeteria windows. She didn’t offer her hand or her name. Michelle knew she should be cold and just shut up, but she had to try to push through this. “I brought brownies,” she sang out. “Mrs. Russo’s famous double chocolate specials.” She turned to the other woman who was watching her, silent. “I know a lot of women bring brownies,” she said, “but mine are baked from scratch. I know other people say that, but mine really are. Mine always do well.”

  The silence was a little frightening. She looked down at the table. Crumbs. She began to put them together into a tiny pile. One was stuck to the Formica and she scratched at it with her fingernail. “I baked four pans,” she continued, horrified at her own desperation. “That’s forty-eight brownies. And I ground the nuts for them. Don’t you find that store-bought shelled walnuts never taste really fresh?”

  There was nothing. No response at all. It was as if they hadn’t heard her. These two human beings stared at her as if she were a guppy from another planet, floating before them in the air, her mouth opening and closing to no effect.

  Michelle didn’t have time to reflect. She was there in front of them and had to make contact. She swept the crumbs into her hand, but then she didn’t know what to do with them. She couldn’t just drop them on the floor, so she stuck them in her pocket. Disgusting. “You know, one of the funniest things that happened when my daughter started school here was when the second grade had a big bake-off to pay for, oh, I don’t know, I think more laptops …” She stopped for a minute to think and heard a little laugh escape her. The two women simply stared as another woman joined them, a platter in hand.

  Just shut up, Michelle, she told herself, but she couldn’t. Somehow it had become really, really important to her that she break through the glass to these women’s humanity. If she could do it now, everything would be okay. If she couldn’t …

  “Anyway, one of the kids brought in a big banner and they pinned it all across the front of the tables. It wasn’t until late in the day that someone noticed the typo. The sign said ‘Cake Stale.’ Even my brownies didn’t sell very well that day.” She gave a little self-deprecating laugh.

  The woman with the platter put it down on the table adjacent to Michelle’s. Unlike the other two, her face, thank God, wasn’t frozen. Her eyebrows knitted together. She stared at Michelle, but in an open, assessing way.

  “Your face is very familiar,” she said. “How do I know you?”

  “From the newspapers,” the redheaded bitch answered before Michelle could say anything.

  She left the brownies.

  She went back to Frankie’s classroom, looked in and saw him sitting in his little chair beside Miss Murchison. Then, as slowly as she could manage so that it didn’t look as if she were fleeing in defeat, she walked out to the car. It wasn’t really cold yet. Just brisk. Yet she felt frozen in a weird way, or cracked like a piece of ice.

  She got into her car, threw a Celine Dion tape into the cassette player, and turned the ignition key. She made sure she didn’t allow herself to peel out of the parking lot. She kept one hand on the wheel but put the other lightly over her heart. She didn’t cry. She patted herself instead and said aloud, “That was hard. That was hard, but you did good. They don’t matter. You did real good.”

  She hoped she heard herself.

  “Oh, Frank, they were horrible,” Michelle told her husband. He was holding her around her waist as she leaned against him in the sanctuary and warmth of their kitchen. “Horrible. I mean, no wonder the kids are so shook up. I’m a grown-up and …” She stopped. What was she? Angry, hurt, outraged. Even—she hated to admit it—ashamed.

  Frank let go of her and stepped away from the table, pushing the chair loudly behind him. “I’ll go over there,” he said. “I’ll go over there and I’ll talk to those bitches.”

  Oh God! Just what she needed! Michelle could see the headline now: DRUG LORD PUNCHES OUT OLD LADY PRINCIPAL AND BAKE SALE MOTHERS. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him back to the table. Why hadn’t she remembered to save some brownies for the family? God, she was a complete idiot! She’d been so hyper and over-compensating that she’d given all four dozen to the school. She wished she could put one in front of Frank right now, pour him a calming glass of milk, and draw his attention away.

  Sometimes Frank, as strong an
d good as he was, was way too direct. Certain things couldn’t be fixed with higher volume, or even the truth. She noticed a smear on the chrome of the refrigerator handle. She thought she’d wiped down everything after she’d finished baking. She picked up the sponge and started for the fridge.

  “What are you doing, Mich?” he asked.

  She stopped, but the smear of batter stared at her. She had to wipe it off. She did, then put down the sponge and looked at him. “Nothing,” she said.

  In the last two days he’d been out screaming at attorneys or home, on the phone, screaming at other attorneys. Michelle wanted to tell him that listening more and yelling less might help, but he was a straightforward person. Michelle could see that he was already unbearably frustrated by the loops and curves of the law. What would it be like for him if this stuff dragged on? A chill ran down her back. Frank, thank God, stopped and put his hand around her wrist, too. He pulled her down to the other dining room chair. She looked at him.

  She always told him everything. It wasn’t always the right thing to do—he was so protective that he always wanted to involve himself—but Michelle had already explained this morning before she left that yelling at the teachers and other kids wouldn’t make them behave better toward their children. He understood that. Now he looked at her and tightened his grip around her wrist. She tightened hers in response.

  “Mich, I can’t believe I put you through this kind of pain,” he said. “I can’t fuckin’ believe it.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Michelle said. She felt cut off from the actual problem itself. She was only dealing with the aftermath. She put her hands on the dining room table. She’d try to look calmly at the bigger picture.

  “Frank, what’s going on? How can they do this to you?”

  “It would take too long to explain.” Michelle couldn’t help but think he said that because he himself had no idea how it worked.

  “Why don’t you try to explain. You know, it’s my life, too.”

  “Look, they’re out for someone’s blood. But they won’t get mine. The DA has some secret informer, but if there was gonna be an indictment, it would have been handed down by now.”

  “So you won’t be charged?”

  “No. There’s nothing to charge me with.”

  “And there won’t be any trial?”

  “Of course not. All of this will go away. Keep a list, though, Mich. Keep a list.”

  “I am.”

  “Look, after I get out from under this thing, after they apologize to me, I’ll have everyone from the governor on down come in here and kiss your feet,” he said, his eyes intense. She loved his deep brown eyes. She’d married him for them.

  “Shoes on or off?” Michelle asked. For him, she had to show a strong side, to help him through this.

  “Shoes on,” he said without laughing or losing his intensity. “I don’t want them to enjoy it. Only I can kiss your naked feet.” He moved his hand to the end of her fingers and pulled them up to his cheek; then he kissed each one. “You’ve been very brave, Mich. You aren’t the same little girl I married.”

  Michelle didn’t know why this terrible thing had been visited upon them. It was unfair, it was frightening, it was horrible. Maybe a tiny, very tiny part of her had wondered if there was the smallest possibility that somehow, she didn’t know how, but somehow Frank might be—not guilty, she knew he wasn’t guilty—but … involved, or … aware of something. It had only been a tiny question, but now, looking into Frank’s eyes, Michelle was ashamed she had even considered it.

  Michelle kept it together the rest of the morning and when Frank left that afternoon to check on a job and asked her if she was okay, she was almost answering honestly when she said yes. She’d kept cleaning and putting things in order. Making lists of broken things they needed replaced had a calming influence. Broken things could be fixed or replaced. Could her life be? She decided to go into work the next morning. She took some deep breaths. So, at three fifteen, when Jenna walked in the door Michelle turned and greeted her with a sincere smile—until she saw Jenna’s blank face.

  “What is it?” Michelle asked and ran to her daughter. She knelt beside her. “What?”

  Jenna pulled the big rumpled bag from behind her. “What is it?” Michelle repeated, this time referring to the bag. But kneeling there, she knew.

  “It’s the brownies,” Jenna said in a toneless voice. “The lady told me to tell you that nobody wanted them.”

  17

  Containing a fruitless search

  Jada got out of her Volvo and went to the pay phone just three cars away from where she was parked. She called into the office again, made sure that everything was under control, and gave Anne the briefest directions about what to do. Then she walked into the convenience store, used the toilet, and bought yet another cup of coffee, though caffeine was already singing in the arteries of her head.

  Nervously, she looked out the window. She’d been watching for hours now. She knew she ought to eat something, but her stomach rebelled at the sight of the nasty snack cakes and cheap breads and rolls arrayed along the dirty counter. Funky Yonkers. She just took her coffee and went back to the car.

  She’d spent three hours in front of Mrs. Jackson’s house, but she hadn’t seen any activity. Of course, it had been from four A.M. until seven, but now, on this gray November morning, there was not a sign of light or movement in the second-floor apartment of the run-down three-family building that Mrs. Jackson called home.

  But Clinton had to be somewhere with her children. He wouldn’t have taken them to a motel. First of all, he couldn’t afford it. Secondly, even Clinton wouldn’t upset the children in such a strange way. And would any decent hotel accept a man with three babies arriving in the middle of the night? She hoped not.

  She got into the car and gunned the engine to crank up the heat. Thank God Volvos were built for Scandinavia. She pressed the seat heat button so that she might stop shivering, but she wasn’t sure it was from the cold. It was more likely from rage and fear.

  The thought had crossed her mind that some deranged fathers had been known to run off with their kids and set them on fire or shoot them or … But she told herself firmly as she pushed her back into the warming seat that Clinton was not deranged. Angry, vengeful, vain, spiteful, and self-deluded, yes. But deranged, no. She had to keep her mind off unrealistic insanity and keep it on the insanity of her present reality.

  Although Jada had never really gotten along with her mother-in-law, and hadn’t spoken to her in the last year except for visits with the children, she told herself that this was no time for false pride. It was past nine o’clock and there was no sign of life up there. Odd as it might seem to Mrs. Jackson, she would have to go to the door to find out if her mother-in-law knew anything. She just hoped she did. And maybe she’d be lucky; when the door swung open she might see Kevon tucked on one end of the sofa with Sherrilee at the other. Then she’d swoop in and take her babies and nobody would be able to stop her. Nobody.

  Jada took another slug of the coffee, put it back into the cupholder, turned the ignition off, took the keys, got out of the car, locked the door, and crossed the street. Every single one of those acts drained her, but as she climbed the wooden stairs up to the second floor, she told herself she had a war to fight and she had to be ready for anything—even physical violence. Clinton had never raised a hand to her, but if he even touched her, if he tried to prevent her from taking back her children, she would rip into him with everything she had. It was funny—all the small activities like calling Anne, getting the coffee, even turning off the engine, seemed daunting and beyond her energy, but flying at Clinton with flailing arms and kicking feet seemed like something she could do for hours at a time without tiring.

  When she got to the door, she didn’t give herself a minute to think. She banged on it and waited for an answer. When there was none, she banged again. She peered through the door’s dirty window, but the kitchen was bathed in an even gl
oom and completely deserted. She rattled the door to no effect.

  Jada had never broken the law. As a kid she’d never shoplifted candy, she’d never gotten a speeding ticket. She didn’t even jaywalk. A black woman in a white town couldn’t. But now she had to get into this house. Maybe Clinton had her children hiding. She wasn’t a housebreaker, but without hesitating for a moment she took off her shoe, smashed it against the corner of the glass, and smashed it again to enlarge the hole. She slipped her shoe back on as she reached in, threw the lock, and opened the door.

  Once she was inside, she knew that there was nobody there. The air had the still quality of emptiness, not the moist living scent of people sleeping. Still, to be sure, she walked through the apartment, in its usual disarray. Mrs. Jackson was a lazy housekeeper just like her damn son. Jada shook her head at the plastic bags stuffed with dirty laundry, and worse, that were lying around the perimeter of the room.

  After checking Mrs. Jackson’s empty bedroom, she was about to leave—until it occurred to her to go to the telephone. There, on a bit of cardboard torn off a cereal box, were a few phone numbers. One she immediately recognized as the Yonkers phone number that had appeared so often on her bills.

  Tonya Green’s. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t pack up her babies and take them over to that slut’s house. It wasn’t possible. She could hardly believe it, but she knew it must be true. They must have plotted it out together. She could see it now. Tonya was “a good Christian woman” who would try to cover up her guilt for her adultery by caring for her new man’s children.

  “They weren’t there either,” Jada said. Michelle reached out and patted her knee. “They weren’t there, Clinton wasn’t there, but Tonya wasn’t there either. I think they all have gone some place together. I spent most of the night parked out there in the dark and cold for nothing.”

  “I spent all night baking brownies so I could have my daughter insulted. Things aren’t good.” Michelle got up, shaking her head, her long hair swinging in its clip, and went to the coffeemaker to bring the pot over to the table. She poured them each another mug, though Jada figured if she drank one more cup of coffee she would have to be hospitalized.