Young Wives

by Olivia Goldsmith

  But this was no fun; sitting in a lock box away from everyone and being cold-shouldered by her coworkers felt really awful. She thought of the times she’d locked poor Pookie in his crate when he’d been bad. Maybe it was just a combination, Michelle thought, of her first day back, her new location, and her coworkers’ awkwardness. If she made the first move, perhaps everything would slide into place and she’d come to see this desk as an advantage. The phone rang and she lifted the receiver.

  “Michelle? It’s me, Jada.”

  “Oh, hi,” Michelle said. “How ya holding up?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you when you came in, but first I had to face Mr. Marcus and then I just had an hour-long meeting with Data Processing and I swear I don’t know one thing that was said in it.”

  “Doesn’t sound good,” Michelle told her. What a relief! Jada wasn’t cutting her off. “You want me to come in? Have you got a lunch break? We could go out to lunch.”

  “Not a good idea. Look, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t tell you there’s some pressure I’m getting about your job here. No problem. Just a little pressure. But I think we better … well …”

  “No problem,” Michelle said, though her throat seemed to close up as she took the news in.

  “Also, I really need your help.”

  “Sure,” Michelle promised. “So, what’s up?”

  “Open your bottom righthand drawer,” Jada said. “And don’t look up.”

  “Is it a present?” Michelle asked. “A present for me?” Slowly she pulled the drawer open.

  “Hey, it ain’t even a present for me.” Jada’s voice almost crackled over the phone. “Though I need it.” Michelle pulled out a piece of paper and recognized it in a second. It was a loan application made out by Jada. An unsecured loan for ten thousand dollars. Uh-oh.

  “I got it,” Michelle said. “What now?”

  “Michelle, I don’t know what to do. I already gave Rick Bruzeman a check for ten thousand dollars to pay his retainer.”

  “Ten thousand dollars?” Michelle whispered. “He asked for that much?”

  “That was just a start,” Jada admitted. “But he’s going to be aggressive and get me my kids back.”

  “It’s difficult,” Michelle agreed. “And it’s a ransom. I never imagined …”

  “It’s worse than that. I haven’t been able to get him on the phone since, just messages from his assistant. He’s always in court or in transit or in something.”

  “Well, he is a busy guy. Because he’s good.”

  “So good he said we have to move real fast and then he took my money and is gone.”

  God! Michelle wondered what Bruzeman was charging Frank. It must have been lots more, lots and lots more than this. She thought of a bitter joke Frank had told her. What can a goose do, a duck can’t, and a lawyer should? Stick his bill up his ass. She was afraid to tell it to Jada, not only because this wasn’t the time, but because Jada didn’t like vulgarity. “How are you going to do it?” Michelle asked Jada.

  “You got the answer right in front of you.”

  Michelle looked up from the piece of paper in her hand and over to Jada’s office. Jada was standing, the phone held to her ear with one hand, the other hand massaging the back of her neck. She shook her head when she saw Michelle’s eyes on her and turned away. “Don’t be looking over here,” Jada almost snapped. They were both silent for what seemed like a long, long minute.

  “Listen, Michelle,” Jada said. “This isn’t any kind of Whitewater scam. I’m not asking you to do something you wouldn’t do. I think I can guarantee the loan. I can’t touch the equity on the house because I need Clinton’s signature to do that. But I can pay this back as soon as I can tap the equity. What I need you to do is look at that application the way you would any other, but make it happen a lot quicker. Because if I don’t get cash in my account by tomorrow, I am definitely going to bounce Mr. Bruzeman high and wide. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Michelle said. “Listen, while I have you on the phone, can you tell me why I’ve been stuck in this corner?”

  “B-O,” Jada said.

  “Are you saying I stink?” Michelle asked—Michelle, who showered at least twice a day and almost never left the house without freshly washed hair.

  “Not body odor. Boss’s orders,” Jada told her. “Marcus was worried. A few jerks said something. But I think once everyone settles down, you’re not going to have any problems except for one or two assholes. But for now they’re all assholes. I’m looking out this window at a sea of assholes.”

  “Not a pretty picture,” Michelle told her.

  “I don’t know. I think it’s better than their faces,” Jada said, and Michelle had to laugh. The laugh freed her up; as awful as all this was, Jada was her friend and they both would live through this.

  Michelle had done her best for most of the afternoon filling in the legion of forms it would take to approve Jada’s loan. She’d also called around and got verbal approvals segment by segment. The trickiest thing she’d done was to back-date it all so that it appeared as if Jada had been on the queue waiting, and Michelle’s absence or lack of follow-through was at fault.

  It wasn’t hard to call people and say, “You’re not going to believe how I screwed up. I’m a week behind in processing my boss’s loan.” People were surprisingly cooperative when she told them her job might be on the line.

  And Michelle didn’t mind doing it. The numbers Jada had given her weren’t so bad that they made the transaction unlikely or totally out of line.

  The problem was, at least as Michelle saw it, that though Jada could pay this loan back eventually (and probably with some big difficulties) she couldn’t afford any further legal bills and the divorce might be very costly. Jada couldn’t just borrow another ten thousand when Rick Bruzeman demanded it. Her credit and her income wouldn’t justify it. And Bruzeman was smart, not patient. Michelle doubted he’d wait long.

  But what else were poor Jada’s options? A bad lawyer at a lower price? Some kind of legal aid program? Michelle shook her head. She looked down at her watch—in her new alcove she couldn’t see either clock on the wall—and saw that it was just touching three. She got up to stretch her legs and get another mug of coffee when she heard the altercation at the door.

  She sighed and stretched and kept walking. Almost every day at bank closing time, some bozo arrived who just had to—had to—make a deposit or a withdrawal before the bank closed. And every day, their security people waited and waited for that moment so that one of them, making six bucks an hour on his feet all day, would be able to tell the rich suburbanite that he or she was out of luck. Michelle looked up at the clock and glanced behind her toward the door. The clock said exactly three and the guard was pushing, actually pushing, the door closed despite the fact that some guy in brown shoes and a dark suit had inserted his foot between the two glass doors. Michelle didn’t know the guard; he wasn’t either of their regulars, but he was pushing pretty hard. The tellers didn’t even bother to look up at this kind of thing anymore, and the rest of the people on the floor seemed engaged in other activities.

  But the man’s foot was being crushed. The guard had put all of his weight against the door. Something had to give, but Michelle couldn’t decide if it was going to be glass or bone.

  “Stop it,” she snapped out to the guard. “Stop it. You’ll hurt him and the bank will be sued.” The guard turned to look at her, and just for a moment, moved his shoulder back from the door.

  It was enough to allow the customer to slip in. He limped toward her. She smiled, waiting for his thanks, but as he reached her he only asked, “Where’s the manager’s office?”

  God, she thought, I let him in, saved his foot, and he’s going to sue us anyway, or at least complain. “Is it really necessary to see the manager?” she asked with a smile. “Maybe I can help you.”

  “Your name Jada Jackson?”

  “No,” Michelle told him.

  “Then
I don’t have to talk to you,” he said, and moved past her toward the glass office wall at the back of the floor.

  Michelle continued her slow walk over to the coffee. But she did keep an eye on the obnoxious guy. She saw him approach Anne, and Michelle poured her coffee while Anne buzzed into Jada. But as Anne did that, the rude guy walked past her desk, opened the office door, and walked right in! From where she stood, Michelle could see Jada turn a surprised face to the now-open door, while Anne sprang up from her chair in protest.

  Michelle abandoned her mug and walked as quickly as she could toward the little scene. As she got to the doorway she could hear the man ask Jada if she was Mrs. Jada Jackson. Michelle was about to call out to her, to say, “No. Mrs. Jackson isn’t in,” but it was too late. Jada had already nodded her head and the process server—because that was what he was, and Michelle knew she should have realized it—reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a large envelope.

  “These are for you,” he said to Jada. “Consider yourself served.” Then he turned and limped past Michelle and back toward the door. Michelle couldn’t tell if he was limping because his foot had been crushed in the door or because he had a limp. But she turned back to Jada, who had already opened the envelope and was staring at its contents.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God,” Jada said—maybe it was closer to a moan—and sank into her seat. “It’s a determination of temporary custody,” she said, looking up at Michelle. “He’s gotten temporary custody and pendente lite.” Michelle shook her head.

  “But you haven’t gone to court yet. You—”

  Jada kept looking through the papers. “He went to court. He did. Clinton, the king of procrastination, went to court already.” She looked back down at the papers. “Where the hell was Bruzeman? How did this happen?” Jada asked. “He expects me to pay child support and alimony while he keeps the children.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Michelle said. “That is absolutely ridiculous. The court can’t do that. Can it?”

  For the second time, Jada took her eyes off the papers and looked at Michelle. “Yes, it can,” she said. “We were going to get there first and try to do this to him. At least that’s what I thought Bruzeman was doing.” She looked back down at the documents in her hand.

  “You know what Frank told me?” Michelle asked. Jada shook her head. “He said the post office had to recall their latest stamps.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they had pictures of lawyers on them and people couldn’t figure out which side to spit on,” Michelle said. “Has Bruzeman cashed your check? You better put a stop on it.”

  “I better do that and get another lawyer. I can’t believe this,” she added, and she looked as if she really couldn’t. “I have to pay for Clinton to keep my children away from me?” She shook her head, as if to clear it.

  “It’s insane,” Michelle said. “Absolutely ridiculous. Your kids can’t get along without you, and Clinton ignores them most of the time. You don’t have to pay that, do you?”

  In a sort of disembodied, floating kind of voice, Jada answered. “No. I don’t have to pay it. I can just not pay and be thrown in jail for contempt of court.”

  21

  A momentous meeting for all

  Jada sat perfectly still in the passenger’s seat beside Michelle. She was perfectly still, except for her hands, which were in her lap shaking. Jada knew that the trembling was an unbearable combination of fear and rage, but the knowledge didn’t stop the tremors. Half an hour before, back in her office, she’d tried to sign a memo Anne had brought into her. The shaking had started then. She’d turned her back on Anne, but even so she could barely hold her pen and her signature had been unrecognizable.

  The rest of her felt turned to stone, so cold and heavy that she was surprised the springs of Michelle’s car didn’t groan when she ponderously got into the bucket seat. Now she sat immobilized—except for her shaking hands—while Michelle tried to distract and comfort her. “Because it’s a better approach,” Michelle was saying. “I mean, it’s important to get the best, but you tried with Bruzeman, and Clinton beat you to the punch. Anyway, these people have got to know what’s what with women. I mean, the word ‘women’ is in their name. I wonder if all the clients are women? I wonder if all the lawyers are women.”

  Michelle was babbling, but she knew that after Jada had been served with the legal documents she had gone into some kind of frozen state. Michelle had helped her cope. She’d taken Jada into the copy room with a stack of papers as if everything were normal. Had told her to lock the door, though it was against the rules; had taped an OUT OF ORDER sign to the door, and then had made a couple of calls on Jada’s behalf. Now they were rolling along the Cross County Highway on their way to some legal aid place.

  “Okay. So, anyway, they’re going to know what to do about this because they’ve probably seen it a hundred million times. And they’ll tell you what lawyer to go to instead of that dick Bruzeman. Plus, you won’t have to pay that ridiculous retainer.” Michelle stopped talking abruptly, then turned and glanced at Jada. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she blurted. “It’s just that I feel so bad and I don’t know what to do to help you. You want me to be quiet?”

  Jada shook her head. She couldn’t speak, though. She couldn’t believe that Clinton had gone as far as he did. Here was a man who had done next to nothing for years, yet who had now managed a kidnapping, a legal coup, and a supreme revenge effort, secretly, swiftly, and incredibly effectively. Jada thought she’d known the man she was married to, but this behavior was new—and very, very frightening. What else was he capable of?

  Michelle was keeping up a line of chatter and what she must have thought were comforting little clichés. They were maddening. “It’s always darkest before the dawn,” she said.

  “Except when the morning brings tornadoes,” Jada answered.

  “Oh, come on. It’s got to get better than this. Every cloud has a silver lining.” Michelle was focused on the road as if at any moment the highway might plunge a thousand feet, or disappear into quick sand. Every few minutes, though, she’d pull her eyes off the obviously untrustworthy road and murmur encouragement to Jada. “Hold yourself together. Just keep yourself together.”

  Jada was trying. She lifted the papers in front of her. It made her dizzy, even sick, to read them, but she had to keep looking. Her future was in her lap. Phrases jumped out at her: “Serving as major bread-earner,” “unavailable to the children daily and on many evenings,” “over-involved with her job,” “ambitious for herself to the exclusion of her family responsibilities.” Her hands began shaking again uncontrollably, blurring the words.

  The creased white papers on her lap felt like some kind of blanched tarantula, each fold revealing another frightening leg, another sting. Jada wanted to fling them off of her knees and stamp the lying, hurtful papers to death on the floor of Michelle’s car, but she knew that, like the brooms that the sorcerer’s apprentice chopped up, more of these tarantula papers would simply spring forth. Jada couldn’t help but let a little moan escape her lips.

  “It’ll all be all right,” Michelle said, as soothingly as she could. She sounded as if she was talking to Jenna, or even Frankie, but this wasn’t some kindergarten insult.

  “Don’t you understand what he’s saying here?” Jada asked, her voice harsher than she meant it to be, but not as angry as she felt. “It will not be all right. He’s actually trying to say that I am an unfit mother. That my work took precedence over my children. That I was the bread-earner because I put my career first and now I have to continue to support him and the children, even though they moved out.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Michelle cried, and swerved into the right lane. “Jada, you’re a wonderful mother. You are the one who took care of everything for them. I know that. They know that. This is just some kind of mistake, some legal thing. You know how awful legal mistakes can be. I know, too. But we’re fixing ours. And this will be fixed. I know it.
They’ll be able to straighten it all out at the clinic.”

  Jada shook her head and stared out the window. She guessed she was glad she didn’t have to go back to Rick Bruzeman, but how good could a free clinic be? When one of her babies was sick, she went to a private physician every time. But over this, this most important issue in her life, she was going to go to some damn clinic?

  What, really, did Michelle know about anything? She was a white girl who let her husband take care of her. She didn’t understand about how tough life really was. Could any white woman really know about the prejudice that Jada constantly ran up against, about the fear she’d inherited from her immigrant parents about lawyers, authority, and the courts? Jada could understand how the police could break into an innocent citizen’s life and ruin it, but could Michelle be trusted to see how easy it would be for Jada to be misrepresented, to be cataloged as a useless, ineffectual, even a bad mother. And how practical was Michelle’s judgment? Michelle had brought her in to Bruzeman, after all; in a way, she held Michelle responsible for this, though that wasn’t fair. It was obvious that Clinton—for the first and only time in his life—had gotten the jump on her, and no matter who she hired, he wouldn’t have been faster than this Creskin lawyer had been. Jada glanced over at Michelle. She was trying to help, but sometimes Jada thought the gulf that separated them was too wide and deep to bridge.

  As if reading her thoughts, Michelle touched her knee and begged, “Just try it.” Then they pulled into the parking lot. “I heard from Ruth Adams that this place got her sister out of a lot of trouble.” Michelle parked, and in the silence, Jada felt like putting her head on the dashboard and weeping. Instead she forced herself to touch her lapful of white tarantulas, lifting them all by the edge of the paper.

  “I just noticed this place,” Michelle said. “I mean, Ruth had told me about it, but it was a while ago and I’d forgotten. I guess I didn’t really notice it until about a week ago.” She opened the door, and Jada silently followed her into the lobby. “I like the idea of legal services for women.” Michelle had to inquire about the location of the office, and after they walked up a dozen stairs they were there.