She looked toward Clinton. “Stop that,” she yelled. His mother was approaching her, her arms stretched out to Sherrilee. Kevon ran into the darkness, somewhere behind Jada’s line of vision, and she was forced to hand her daughter over.
Jada paced from wall to wall, from the empty living room through the unfinished dining room and across the plywood floor in the kitchen. She couldn’t sit down, she couldn’t lie down, she couldn’t cry, and there was no comfort anywhere. She kept walking, a sort of horrible version of one of Kevon’s motorized toys that banged into walls, adjusted slightly, and moved forward until it banged into another wall.
This visit had destroyed her hope that somehow she could normalize the family or calm the children. She could think of nothing to do to comfort herself. Finally, in despair, she picked up the telephone and punched in the Caribbean number.
“Mama,” she said. “I need to tell you what’s going on.”
33
Trial and error
Angie was getting dressed with a lot more care than usual. She’d even used some of her new salary to buy a pretty good suit (at discount, at Loehmann’s, with Natalie’s help). Not that she thought the new suit would help her win this case, but she figured it couldn’t hurt, though having to buy a size twelve did.
Angie couldn’t help it—she’d been working like a dog and eating like a horse. Her caseload was enormous; not only was she trying to handle Karen Levin-Thomas’s ongoing cases, but she also felt that she should take her place on the sofa, interviewing new clients. That way, if and when Karen came back, she’d have her own client list, a better shot at a permanent job. Because, oddly enough, she really wanted to be on the permanent staff at the clinic. It seemed right for her. She really liked and respected the other staff members. She also liked the variety of the work. And she felt deeply for her clients’ plight. She couldn’t say any of those things about the job in Marblehead.
So she’d prepared for Jackson vs. Jackson with every moment of spare time she had, and to tell the truth, with time she shouldn’t have taken from her other cases. She knew this was a kind of test by fire. The clinic would judge her by this performance. Thank God Michael Rice had helped so much.
She went into her apartment’s tiny bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Not a pretty picture. There were dark circles under her eyes. They no longer looked blue, and her skin was mottled. Well, too bad. She brushed her wet hair back and decided to just secure it with a scrunchy. She didn’t need to look attractive, just professional and honest.
She was so nervous that she felt sick to her stomach. Her face actually looked a little green. She decided she better pat on a little makeup. By now Angie knew the difference between this feeling and morning sickness. This was pure fear. She was afraid that she didn’t have the experience, that she hadn’t the background, the brains, or the contacts to do all she had to do today: secure Jada’s house for her, win her back her children, and get her out from under the sword of alimony and child support payments that was dangerously suspended over her.
As Angie tried to put eyeliner on her upper lid, her hand trembled and she ruined it. She sighed, tore a piece of toilet paper off the roll, and wiped off the black stuff. She took a deep breath and managed to get something approximating a straight line on both eyelids. Then she put some blusher on and finished with a little extra mascara. She looked better, though still pretty wan. Hey, she told herself, this isn’t a beauty contest. You have a good, innocent, unjustly treated client. You’ve done a lot of research. You have hired expert witness and investigators. And you have help from Michael Rice. You are going to win this case. You have to win this case.
She looked deeply into her own eyes in the mirror. “You have to win this case,” Angie told her reflection.
Jada snagged the right ankle of her pantyhose on the wicker leg of a chair just as she was getting her purse and was ready to go. She threw her bag down on the table, rushed upstairs, and began looking frantically for another pair. She didn’t have one. “Damn it to hell,” she said, though she very rarely swore. And she certainly didn’t want to do anything offensive to God today.
She didn’t think she had any more stockings here. She knew she had a spare pair at work, but she wasn’t going to show up there this morning, and she certainly wasn’t going to show up in the courtroom with a run from her ankle up to—Lord knows how far it would travel. It seemed to be moving like a freight train. The problem was, it wasn’t so easy to find pantyhose in her flesh color and her size. “Nude” wasn’t nude on a black woman’s legs. Plus, there was the problem of her height. Her father had always teased her, saying her legs were too long.
For a moment, Jada had a terrible longing to see her daddy. She hadn’t wanted to frighten and mortify her parents with all this court business, but at this moment she realized just how much she wished they’d be there in the courtroom with her. Her pride and independence had gotten in the way.
She guessed her father had been right—about her legs and a lot of things. When she bought a normal pair of pantyhose, the crotch didn’t make it past her knees. If she got a queen-sized pair (which she’d tried once or twice), then the crotch was better but she wound up with ankles looking like an elephant’s—all the wrinkles of the world gathered around them like bracelets on a Hindu bride.
Jada knew she had more important things to do than worry about pantyhose, today of all days. It was just that thinking about anything was better than thinking about the upcoming trial by fire. She’d read her Bible, the story of Job, over and over again, hoping for some comfort from it. Why had God chosen her—and her children—for such trials? She had spent most of last night on her knees praying, or on her back, sleepless. She knew that her babies loved her and needed her, she knew that God loved her and her babies, and she hoped that in his mercy He would deliver them to her, using Angie Romazzano as His instrument.
Jada liked Angie, and she knew that Angie understood her situation and identified with her. Angie was a good lawyer, a smart woman, and dedicated. The problem was that she couldn’t quite believe that other people could be as unfair and slanted as they were. Angela should try being black for a few weeks—then she’d get it. Jada had come to believe that there was almost no evil, no lie, that Clinton wouldn’t stoop to. She just hoped Angie had stooped lower.
Jada threw an extra lipstick into her handbag, checked her hair one more time, and ran out the door. She was picking Michelle up. As if everything else weren’t bad enough, Michelle couldn’t testify on her behalf now, because of the “accident”—if it was an accident—and the indictment. If she had the time, Jada would be even more worried about Michelle than she already was. Right now, though, she just needed to get through today.
Maybe, Jada thought, if she stopped at CVS on her way to the courthouse, they’d have something for her to put on her legs. She walked to the door and opened it, but before she stepped out into the cold, she looked back. The kitchen, unlike the rest of the house, was fairly orderly, and she wondered if tonight, or tomorrow, or anytime soon, she would be sitting around that table with her babies. She promised God she’d never complain about the bare plywood floor or the unfinished cabinets again. But she knew there was a chance that Clinton might be sitting here, in her house, with her gone and Tonya upstairs in the bedroom waiting for him.
Michelle was applying a little more pressed powder to the area under her eye when she heard Jada’s honk. A lot of the swelling around her eye had gone down, and the bruise had quickly changed from purple to a sort of mallard green. This morning she’d tried to cover it over with layers of pancake makeup and face powder. She thought she’d been pretty successful, if looking like a Kabuki dancer could be considered successful.
Michelle looked at herself, swallowed a Xanax, and put down the brush. Though the day was dreary, she slipped on her sunglasses, new wrap-around ones she’d gotten at 7-Eleven. She knew that Angie and her team had given up the idea of calling her to the stand, but she was goi
ng to be there for Jada even though showing up at court terrified her. She gave herself one last look in the mirror as the horn blared again, then ran down the stairs to her friend.
She left Frank sleeping. It amazed her that he hadn’t awakened when she got up, or even when the kids went off to school. It had occurred to her that perhaps he wasn’t sleeping; perhaps he was just lying there, feeling sorry or feeling angry. But she didn’t care what he was feeling. Since the accident, she’d napped in their bed in the afternoons when he wasn’t there, curled like a comma at the edge of a line of print. Then, in the evenings, she’d watch TV until he went upstairs and she could fall asleep on the sofa, wakened over and over by bad dreams.
Her mother had been the only one in her whole life who had physically hurt her—and only when she’d been very, very drunk. Michelle had always known cheating, lying, and beatings occurred in marriages, but Michelle had never, ever imagined that she would tolerate any of those. She’d picked Frank because he was safe, protective. Or so she thought. Now she’d experienced two out of three.
Frank had, of course, apologized to her later when they went to bed. He’d wept, and he’d put his arm around her. She’d stiffened and let him, though she didn’t want to be touched. Then, to her total shock and surprise, Frank had wanted to make love to her. She’d been angrier than she’d been when he shoved her. The idea of him kissing her bruises and begging for forgiveness while he entered her was even now enough to make Michelle wince, hurting her eye. At the time, it had made her sick to her stomach. She had pulled away and then she had only stared at him, as best she could with her injury. “Is it okay? Are we okay?” Frank had asked.
“No, no, and no,” Michelle had told him icily. “But I really don’t want to talk about this now.” And she’d slept pulled away from him. She’d kept up that wall of coldness between them since. The problem was, she didn’t know what she should do. Walk out on him during this awful time? Try to talk it over? Listen to his lies? Threaten to leave?
And what if he realized that she had not only found the money, but removed it from the house? What would he do then? Would there be another “accident”? Michelle lifted her hand to her cheek.
For the first time in years, Michelle hadn’t walked for the three days since her incident with Frank. She’d told Jada she’d fought with Frank and slipped. Jada had said nothing, which meant she was thinking a lot.
Meanwhile, Michelle knew the kids had noticed her eye, even though she’d smeared enough face paint over it to putty a window. Now, a few days later, she hoped she wouldn’t shock Jada or Angie with her defaced face. She was sorry she couldn’t testify, but she was doing the best she could. She ran toward the kitchen door and didn’t even bother to leave Frank a note. She’d be home long before the kids, and she had to take Jenna for a haircut late this afternoon. She walked to the door and closed up the kitchen behind her, ready to support her girlfriend simply by being there.
Jada thought Angie had managed the opening of the proceedings as well as could be expected. Creskin had immediately called Jada to the stand. He’d pounded her, but she’d held firm and her testimony sounded good. At least it had to her, and Angie had nodded several times. She kept her answers short, as she’d practiced. She talked about getting her job out of desperation. She explained her hours—and strongly insisted she did little overtime and almost no traveling. Creskin used some sarcasm, and started too many questions with “Isn’t it true that …?” but he was good. He pushed her too far on the drug stuff, and as Angie had directed her, Jada allowed herself to get angry … really angry. “I’m a Christian woman,” she said. “I don’t use alcohol or drugs.” He pushed, but Angie objected and then it was over.
In cross-examination, Angie had been able to squeeze in a lot of the problems with Clinton, though then Creskin had voiced his objections whenever he could. Jada had been grateful to take her seat. Now Mrs. Jackson, Jada’s mother-in-law, was called to the stand.
“So, how often were you invited to your son and daughter-in-law’s home?” George Creskin was asking.
“Not often. I could feel she didn’t want me there.”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Angie said, though Jada knew her mother-in-law was right.
“Sustained,” the judge replied. “Please stick with the facts rather than the feelings, Mrs. Jackson.”
Jada didn’t like the big ugly courtroom and its harsh fluorescent lights. She felt like a long dark line, too tall, too thin, too dark. She was now sitting at the table with Angie and Michael Rice; her husband was at the other table with his smarmy counsel.
“Certainly, Your Honor,” Mrs. Jackson said.
Jada liked Judge Sneed. He seemed businesslike, no nonsense. He’d have to see the truth in their story—Clinton’s failure, her overcompensation. Her dedication to only one thing: the family.
Now, though, Sneed was looking down at her mother-in-law. Jada almost had to laugh. The woman had been costumed for her part. She looked like the savior of her people, the backbone of a family. Jada was actually amazed at how well her mother-in-law had cleaned up. She was wearing a bright blue suit, a pale blue blouse, and a hat—a hat—completed by a little veil. Jada had never even seen her hair decently combed, much less a hat on her head. Mrs. Jackson looked like some of the old-timers, or the choir singers at church, instead of the slattern she was.
This was a woman who had ignored her son night after night to go meet her cronies in the bar near the Yonkers train station. Clinton had had to cook his own dinner and put himself to bed from the time he was six or seven. And worst of all, this selfish, weak woman was on the stand because Clinton wanted her to be, and the woman was testifying that she, Jada, was a bad mother? Jada felt as if all of the rules of behavior were being broken and she should simply stand up in court and tell the judge, the bailiff, the stenographer, and everybody else about this ridiculous, insulting masquerade.
“What did you see when you did get to visit your son and grandchildren?” Mr. Creskin asked.
“Well, Your Honor—”
Judge Sneed interrupted. “He’s Mr. Creskin. I am addressed as Your Honor,” he told Mrs. Jackson. She looked up at him with an apologetic moue. “I’m so very sorry, Your Honor,” she said. “I’m not used to this. Our family has never been in trouble before.” Jada snorted as Mrs. Jackson turned back to Creskin, her head bowed. He repeated his question.
“Well, she didn’t come home till real late. My son had to feed the kids and wash ’em down. He spent his life taking care of those kids. Then she’d come home, tired and cranky and braggin’ on that bank job of hers. And sometimes she’d slap the kids.”
Jada began to rise out of her seat, until Mr. Rice put a hand on her shoulder and pointed to the pad in front of her. That’s a lie, she scrawled, and then added, it’s all lies.
Angie leaned over to her and whispered, “Don’t worry. We’re going to discredit her as a witness. We’ve got her in a lie and her testimony will probably be contradicted. Don’t worry.”
Knowing that, Jada managed to stay calm during the next few questions. Then Mr. Creskin asked about the children’s condition when Clinton brought them to her house. “Oooh, they was sad,” Mrs. Jackson said.
“You mean sad because they left their mother?”
“No, I mean they were in sad condition. I don’t think my granddaughter’s hair had been combed for a week. And they was dirty. They was in dirty clothes and they needed baths. It was three o’clock in the morning. Clint had brought them over ’cause she was spendin’ time till then at her drug house down the street.” Mrs. Jackson looked right over at Jada.
“Objection, Your Honor,” Angie rose and said, but Jada couldn’t listen. She had to bend her head down so that the old witch in the witness box wouldn’t see the pain she caused. Jada wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Lies. All lies. Thou shalt not bear false witness … When Jada could listen again, she heard the objection overruled.
“Please continue,” oily Cresk
in requested.
“Oh yeah,” Mrs. Jackson said, and Jada could see her lick her lips, either in nervousness or delight at the next bite she was about to take. “She and that woman—a white woman, no offense intended—they spent time together every day. You would think my daughter-in-law, a woman with a job and a husband and a family, would want to spend her free time with them. But, no. So anyway, on the night my boy brought the children over, she didn’t even know they was gone. She was with her girlfriend. Past midnight. My boy and her, they didn’t have a fight or nothin’.”
Tears welled up in Mrs. Jackson’s eyes and she took a cloth handkerchief out of her purse. It was white and spotless. Jada knew that the woman had never had a pair of panties that clean, and wondered if it was Clinton or Mr. Creskin who had bought her the damn hankie. Her mother-in-law took a moment to wipe her eyes. “My grandchilrun was sad and tired and hungry and dirty. And she didn’t—”
“Who do you mean when you say she?” Mr. Creskin asked.
“Jada Jackson. She didn’t even call or nothin’ to find ’em. Can you imagine? I have an answering machine and I have messages from that night. And she didn’t even telephone.”
A lie. Jada wrote across the pad. I called a dozen times. They didn’t answer the phone.
“Don’t worry,” Angie whispered. “We’ll tear her apart under cross-examination. We’ve got the goods on her.”
Angie stood up and pulled down her jacket. She had conducted only a few cross-examinations in her career, and she was nervous but confident. She knew the danger here was to act too aggressive, to appear cruel to this nice old lady.
“Mrs. Jackson, I know this must be very hard for you, but I need to ask you a few more detailed questions,” she began. Cautiously, Mrs. Jackson nodded her head. Angie made a few bland inquiries about dates and times, and nodded as Mrs. Jackson answered them. Then she said, “Now, you’ve stated that when the children arrived with your son, they were in very bad condition?”
Young Wives Page 30