“The church will always help you,” her mother said. “I don’t want you to forget that.”
Jada wondered about that in silence as she drove them back to the motel. Could the church help her? How? “I have to work tomorrow,” she reminded her mother as they said goodnight. She’d taken two days off from Price Chopper but she needed the money—such as it was—and the job. “Will you be all right?”
“It will give your dad and me some time to talk and to think. This is some mess you have here, Jada. We’ll see you tomorrow night?” Jada nodded. “All right, then,” her mother said, and gave Jada another big hug. It wasn’t an apology, or total understanding, but it comforted Jada. In fact, as she stood there, bent at the knees, she felt she never wanted to leave the comfort of her mother’s arms.
“You have to bring the children back home,” Jada’s father said. He was speaking in a low voice, as if each table at the Olive Garden had microphones, listening to desperate grandparents’ plans.
“They are back home, Papa,” Jada reminded him.
Her mother shook her head. “They need to be back in the islands,” her mother said. “They need to be around their own kind, their own kin.”
“Well, over the school holiday, in the summer, I may be able to bring them down for a week or two. But right now I don’t know if we could afford—”
“Jada, we’re talking about sooner, not later. And we’re not talking about a holiday. We’re talking about a permanent move,” her mother said.
Her father nodded in agreement. “We can help you. You could stay with us at first, if you wanted to. If not, we could find you a place and a job. Your mama could watch the children after school.”
“Papa, you don’t understand. I couldn’t get permission from the court to take the kids overnight right now, much less permanently out of the country,” Jada explained.
“Well, then you’d have to do it without permission,” her father told her. “Certainly they can’t go on this way. They need a sense of family and of home.” Her mother nodded. “I don’t like to say it, but Clinton Jackson never knew what he was doing and he doesn’t know it now. He’s hurting his own children. The man must be crazy. And if the court can’t see it, well, you can, we can, the children can, and heaven knows the Lord can.”
Her mother reached her hand out to Jada. “We have prayed over this, Jada. We have prayed and we know that you must render up to Caesar that which is Caesar’s. But not your children. We want you and our grandchildren to get on the plane with us when we leave.”
“Mama, I can’t do that. I could never come back.”
“Well?”
Her parents looked at her. She couldn’t believe they were thinking of the same ideas that Jada had earlier. But they didn’t understand they were asking her to leave her country, her home, and become a lawbreaker. Plus, there might be extradition. Maybe the courts or Clinton could remove the children. And she might be banned from the island, or jailed there, or here. “Mama, I don’t know what the laws say. I don’t know about schools for the kids. And I’m not a Bajan. I’d be a stranger on the island. And the children, for them it would worse. The adjustment to school alone would be—”
“You wouldn’t stay strangers for long,” her mother told her. “Not on Barbados.”
For a moment, the idea of a tiny bungalow, endless sunshine, and her parents always nearby beckoned to Jada. But then she thought of the children and how big an adjustment it would be. They were American kids. The British-based school system would be difficult, at best, to adjust to. And there would be no work for her. Her parents, so conservative, so good, were trying to rescue her, yet their solution was not as simple as they made it seem. “Mama, I just don’t think so,” she said. “I could never come back here, and if the children did, if they had to, I couldn’t visit them. I know you wish I were, but I’m not a Bajan. Neither are they.”
Her mother and her father paused. Silence filled the room. “Well then, we want you to talk to Samuel.”
Her father nodded. “Samuel,” he said.
“Who is Samuel?” Jada asked. The way they said the name he sounded like some archangel from the Bible.
“Samuel Dumfries. He’s a barrister. Very big man in Bridgetown. He’s the son of the husband of my cousin, Arlette. Well, you remember Arlette, don’t you?”
Jada just nodded. She didn’t remember her cousin Arlette—who might actually be a second or third cousin, or the daughter of a third cousin, or just as likely only a courtesy cousin. But if she admitted that, it would take her mother fifteen minutes to work out the tortured relationship that “cousin” sometimes signified on the island.
“Mama, you forget I’m living with a lawyer. I’m afraid that there’s no legal—”
“Samuel Dumfries is more than just a lawyer, Jada. He works all over the islands. He has clients here. He has work all the time in New York and Boston. He knows a lot of people, Jada. We think you must talk with him.”
“All right, Mama,” Jada said, out of fatigue rather than hope. “I’ll talk with him.”
But on her drive home Jada felt worse than ever. Samuel Dumfries, whoever he was, couldn’t help in an American custody case. Jada sighed. Her parents loved her, but they offered no solution. It was silly to expect they would. It was hard for them to understand the complicated knot, the net, she’d found herself caught in. In a few more days they would have to leave, and Jada would find herself more lonely than she had been before. Her only hope was to comply as best she could with the court, hope that Ms. Patel would give good reports, and hope for a successful appeal. Jada didn’t know why she felt so hopeless, so disappointed. She just knew that she did.
47
Consisting of a party, pasta, and plans
“Who wants stuffed shells?” Angie asked as she bustled into the apartment. “Who wants eggplant parmesan? Who wants garlic bread?” The place was spotless. Michelle must have been at it all day, polishing, washing, scrubbing, and folding.
“Hi!” Michelle said. “I was just about to start dinner.”
“No need. I deliver,” Angie said. Jada came out of the bathroom. Angie looked at Jenna and Frankie, not surprised that they hadn’t clamored for the fancy stuff. “Oh,” she said. “I guess you two wouldn’t want spaghetti and meatballs, then.”
“We do! We do!” Frankie cried. Triumphant, Angie put down the bag of take-out. She was good.
“I was going to make a casserole,” Michelle said weakly, but Angie shook her head and then lifted a bottle of wine from the bag. “Who’s up for a little Dago Red?” she asked.
Michelle, taken aback by the epithet, didn’t have a chance to respond until Angie lifted a second bottle. “Here’s some Jew Juice for me,” she said, holding a bottle of what looked like rosé. Then she pulled out a third bottle of what looked like Chardonnay and gestured toward Jada with it.
“What’s that? Black white?” Jada asked.
“You stole my line,” Angie said, and Michelle decided not to be offended at the ‘dago’ stuff. “All for one and one for each,” Angie said. “If you drink enough of it, would you consider extracting my tooth? It’s killing me.” Jada shrugged. Then she looked at the two kids. “You guys have Orange Crush,” she added. “And you,” she said to Pookie, “you’ve got a nice piece of rawhide al dente.”
Her little dinette table was only big enough for two, but the kids sat at it and happily ate their meatballs while the three women perched on the couch and ate over the coffee table. Michelle had trouble chewing even the soft ricotta of the stuffed shells, but she managed to get a little of it down. Her jaw hurt, but the wine helped. When the news ended and Jenna had watched Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Angie suggested that tonight the kids go to bed in Jada’s room while the three of them sat up and talked.
“Last night I had a dream. Reid was telling me something. I don’t remember what he was saying, but he looked so gorgeous it was as if he was in the room with me.” Angie stroked Pookie’s ears and looked
down at the dog. “You know another reason why dogs are better than men?” she asked, and kissed Pookie on top of his silky head. “Gorgeous dogs don’t know they’re gorgeous.” Just then the dog started making weird noises.
“Uh-oh,” Michelle said, but it was too late. Pookie upchucked. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Michelle said. “My dog is bulemic. He binges outside and then comes home and pukes.”
“Better him than me,” Angie said as Michelle cleaned up the mess.
Michelle kept watching as Angie filled her own glass with the rosé. Once the children were settled down, she returned to the living room and said, “Do you think you should be drinking that, in your condition?”
Angie looked from Michelle’s serious face to the bottle. Then she laughed. “Alcohol-free,” she said. “Jewish whine: how come I’m not drunk?” She laughed at her own joke. “But you two need alcohol to be free, so drink up. I have what might be called a modest proposal for you.”
Michelle couldn’t help but tidy away all the dinner things, pack the trash, and put the bag at the door. Then she joined the other two. By then Jada had finished more than half her bottle, though Michelle knew Jada rarely drank. “Keep up with me,” Jada said, and filled Michelle’s glass. But now the wine seemed to be making her face hurt more—it throbbed, and all Michelle wanted was to lie down and try to sleep.
“Look,” Angie said, oblivious to Michelle’s mood. “I’ve been thinking. Every day I see women who are being wrecked not only by the men in their lives, but by the system. I’m doing what I can, but look at what happened to us.”
“Train wreck,” Jada said, nodding.
“The point is, I’m going through the system at work, but we don’t have to go through the system if we don’t want to.”
“Amen, sister!” Jada put down her glass of wine so hard that some sloshed over the side onto the tabletop and splattered on her shirt. “Damn,” she said. She tried to blot it off with her napkin.
“No. No, you need to soak it in—” Michelle began. Before she could finish, Jada whipped off the cardigan and handed it to her.
“I want it back, washed, and folded by tomorrow morning, Cinderella.” Michelle got up to get a paper towel to blot it up, but Jada stopped her. “Sit down and listen up,” she commanded.
Jada was the one who started talking then. “I stand at that cash register and I imagine all the things I’d like to do to Clinton. None of them are legal, and none of them are nice. But that’s not the point. The point is what he did to me and how to fix it. I’m sick and tired of being a victim.”
“And me?” Angie asked. “I’m busy counseling women while I’m a mess, and I’m giving advice? I’m telling them to work through the system? Look what it did for you, Jada! It gives me a feeling that Lorena Bobbitt might have had a point.”
“It wasn’t a point, it was a knife,” Jada said.
Michelle just stared at the ring of wine on the glass tabletop. She didn’t want to do anything to Frank. She just wanted him not to exist. She’d wished he’d never existed. Spending her life alone would have been better than the good years before this betrayal.
“My life as I knew it is over,” Mich said.
The other two women were silent for a moment. Then, “Victim queen, victim queen,” Jada sang. Angela joined in the chant. Then she stopped. “I want to be victim queen,” she said.
“No way. Clinton has my children,” Jada said.
Michelle laughed. “Okay. Don’t bicker. You made me queen. Now live with it.”
“Well, what I was thinking today,” Angie said, “is what if none of us are victims? What if we do something about this? What if we help each other to even up the score?”
“I swear I was thinking the same thing,” Jada said. “All day long, I kept scanning in groceries and thinking of what to do. You remember that movie about the three women who got revenge on their husbands?”
Michelle remembered it. She hadn’t bothered to see it in the movies, though Jenna had rented it over and over. “But that was a comedy,” she said. “Anyway, it was just the movies. You can’t do things like that in real life.”
“Oh yes you can,” Angie said. “I have a few ideas already. We’d have to brainstorm a little, do a little planning, but none of these guys are what you’d call Einsteins.”
“More like beer steins,” Jada said. “Bet you Clinton’s sitting at the house knocking back a couple of malt liquors in front of my children right now.”
Angie opened her briefcase and took out three sweatshirts. She unfolded one and held it open across her chest. “Operating Without Male Guidance” it read, and when both Jada and Michelle laughed, Angie threw each of them a shirt. “How about it?” she asked.
Michelle stood up and slipped the sweatshirt over her head, but it caught on her cheek. Her whole face ached. “Look, I don’t want to discourage you two or be a party-pooper, but it’s going to be hard enough for us to survive, to make a living, and to take care of our kids. Forget about anything more.”
“Michelle, Michelle,” Jada said, strutting around the room with her sweatshirt on. “Open up to the possibilities. Have another glass of wine. Once you open up to the possibilities …” She paused. “You don’t even have to work outside the system.”
“What do you mean?” Michelle asked, sitting down.
“The easiest way for you to get justice,” Jada said. “Haven’t you thought of it?” Michelle blinked and looked at her. “Turn him in,” Jada said. “Turn state’s evidence.”
Michelle gasped. “I can’t do that. I don’t have to protect him, or testify for him, but I really don’t want to testify against him.”
“Oh really?” Angie said. “And why not? He’s guilty and you know it.”
“I don’t give my own husband up to the police. I … I just couldn’t. I mean … it’s wrong. And I’m afraid. I’m afraid to even meet with him.”
“Hey. Don’t wig out. It was just a thought,” Angie said.
“Well, I’d give him up in a minute, Mich. I’d do worse. Today I thought that if Clinton were dead, I’d get custody again. Maybe.”
“Dead?” Angie asked, and her eyes opened wider. “I don’t think we should move to physical violence. After all, I am technically an officer of the law. Plus, women’s prisons are not as much fun as they seem in the movies.”
“Yeah, but I’d like a scorched-earth policy,” Jada said.
“Scorching is good,” Angie agreed.
“Well, in your case, you should have it. What happened to you was totally, totally unfair,” Michelle said to Angie.
“Oh, and you deserved what you got?” Jada asked Michelle, and very gently touched Michelle’s face with her index finger.
Michelle paused. “So, what could we do? I mean if we were going to do something?”
“I don’t have all my details worked out,” Angie admitted. “But I’m making progress. And none of it’s illegal. Not really.”
“My parents have offered to help me. I don’t know if they really can, but I do know my husband has to lose that house,” Jada said. “No way justice is served if he has the house or the children.”
Angie pulled a pad out from her purse. “Clinton,” she said, writing it at the top of the page. “No house,” she said, still writing. “And no kids,” she added.
“Yeah, and no visitation unless it’s supervised,” Jada added bitterly.
“You want Tonya out of the picture?” Angie asked. “Remember, this is just a wish list.”
“Honey, if he doesn’t have a dime and a place to live, Tonya will dump him for someone who does. I couldn’t care less.”
Angie turned to a new page. “Reid,” she said, jotting down his name across the top. “I’d like to see him exposed.”
“What do you mean?” Jada said. “Like a flasher?”
Michelle, who had begun to sip her wine again, giggled and snorted some. “Get his dick in a ringer,” she said, and then was shocked at herself.
“Yo
u know, that gives me an idea,” Angie said, and wrote CRAZY GLUE on the pad. She paused, looking at the ceiling. “No. What I mean is, I’d like something bad to happen between him and Lisa, my ex-best friend, so that he gets dumped.” She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t want him back, girls. I just want him humiliated.” She wrote DUMPED BY LISA, followed by CANCELED WEDDING? And then, SOCIAL HUMILIATION. “His parents hate any kind of scene, anything that isn’t done appropriately or discreetly. They always hated me, but I only hated them back recently.” She paused for a moment, then focused on Michelle. “But what do you want, Mich?”
“I had an idea, but now I can’t imagine it working.” She paused and wondered whether that were true. She supposed she could imagine things. She just couldn’t make them happen. And she was afraid to tell her friends what she’d thought of. They’d probably laugh at her. “All I know is I’d like to live clean,” she said. “Maybe really simple, but clean, you know what I mean?”
Jada nodded and patted Michelle’s hand. Angie wrote FRANK at the top of a new page, but Michelle shook her head.
“I don’t want to get back at Frank,” Michelle said. “I want to get away from him. In real life and in my head. It’s just that I don’t know how to do it.” Michelle’s voice fell. “I’ve only ever worked twice, once as a salesgirl, and then I had the job at the bank. And I only got it because Frank did a lot of business there. I know how to take care of my kids and a house, but I don’t know if I could support them and myself.” She raised her head and her eyes flashed. “I just know I’m ashamed of every penny I took from Frank. If it was all … tainted.” Her friends nodded.
“So, you’ve done some thinking, Mich,” Jada said, being positive.
“Maybe to know what you do want, you have to figure out what you don’t,” Angie added.
Michelle almost smiled. It was a comforting thought. “Well, I know that when I work again, I don’t want to work for a bank. I don’t want to work for anyone but myself. It’s not that I’m lazy, I just don’t like to be bossed around.”
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