Young Wives. Olivia Goldsmith

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СКАЧАТЬ sleeping form, she didn’t feel alone.

      It was cold, and Frank shivered for a moment in his sleep. Michelle got up to close the window he insisted on leaving open. As she silently lowered it, she looked out at their quiet street. Then a limo, moving slowly, drove by. From her perch above, Michelle could see a face, white and drawn behind the glass. She could swear it looked up at her, that their eyes connected. She shivered and locked the window. Reflexively, for the first time in years, she crossed herself. Then she turned back to look at Frank, and almost ran to be beside him again in the haven of their bed.

      Frank had spent himself on her and their children, Michelle thought. He had built this house with his own hands and skill and strength for them. He fed them and clothed them. He taught his son how to throw, his daughter to dance. He taught all of them how to feel loved, how to be safe.

      I’m so very, very lucky, Michelle thought before she fell into another deep, deep dream.

      The next morning when Michelle woke up she found the ground outside covered in a deep frost. For a moment she considered climbing right back into the warm bed beside Frank but Jada, like some dark, heat-seeking missile, would just come up the stairs and drag her out. Michelle dressed with an extra layer, pulled her long tAngie of hair into a ponytail, and tugged on her boots instead of her sneakers. She was down the stairs and almost out of the house in just minutes. Pookie was already waiting there at the door, his brown eyes almost as pleading as Frank’s had been.

      “Okay,” she said, though she knew Pookie would slow them down. And Jada wouldn’t like that. Michelle loved Jada, but it had been odd at first to become friends with a black woman. There weren’t many in their neighborhood. And though Michelle prided herself on not being prejudiced, Frank and his family were … well, they certainly had special words and phrases that they used when they spoke about African-Americans. But they weren’t allowed to do it in front of Michelle, or her children.

      It was a luxury to have a close friend. She and Jada got along really well, but sometimes small things stood out strongly and marked the boundaries between them. There was something about the way Jada both excused and blamed her husband that was weird to Michelle. And there were the foods Jada served her kids, unhealthy prepackaged American things. Plus, the different television programs she watched, the different reactions to movies that she had. There were a few things like that that they’d both learned to stay away from. Now Michelle clipped the leash to Pookie’s collar and was out the door. She’d learned that if she didn’t make it a quick getaway at 5:40 every morning, she wouldn’t get away at all.

      The frost crunched under her boots and sent that little chill down her spine that everybody got when they heard certain noises. It wasn’t really cold, but the frost was a promise of things to come. Michelle loved cleanliness and she liked the freshness of the air in winter. It smelled clean. The dusting of snow, especially when it first fell, was also so clean-looking. Michelle walked down the street, almost reluctant to ruin its perfection with her boot prints and Pookie’s little paw spots. The tar of the street surface showed through starkly, black blots on the white sheet of road, as white and soft as confectioners’ sugar. Theirs were the only steps marring the perfection. That was the good thing about this time of the morning.

      Michelle looked up from the frost and saw Jada coming out of her house. She’d be in a grim mood. Jada hated winter. Well, Michelle was prepared to hear her complain and also ready to hear what was going on in the Jackson marriage.

      Jada pulled her hood tighter around her face. Gray flaky patches were already forming on the skin under her eyes. She wasn’t made to live in this climate, she thought, though she’d lived in the Northeast all her life. When she’d visit her parents in Barbados, her skin stayed moist. There her hair went into perfect jet ringlets and had bounce. She had what Clinton’s grandma called “good hair”—that meant it wasn’t nappy and didn’t need a perm to straighten it. Jada knew what it really meant was that it was closer to white people’s hair than it was to black people’s. She hated that kind of stuff, so she was disgusted with herself to find she was pleased that Shavonne had inherited her hair. It wasn’t as important that Kevon get it, and when he didn’t—his tight curls were a lot more like Clinton’s—Jada had accepted that. That made her a racist and a sexist, she figured. She’d decided she’d let God worry about Sherrilee’s hair.

      Jada reached for her Blistex stick. In the Caribbean, her full lips never cracked and chapped. She stuck her hand into the pocket of her parka, pulled out a tube of Vaseline and smeared it on her face and hands before putting her gloves on. It was the only way to keep her face from peeling off in little dry flakes all winter. She’d look shiny, but what the hell, nobody saw her but Michelle and Pookie, and the one or two nutjobs who ran past them in shorts, tearing their middle-aged tendons and ruining their knees.

      She was exhausted and probably looked it. She glanced at Michelle, who was approaching; she seemed wide awake, her face already glowing in the cold. Her long but perfect nose was merely a little pink at the tip. Otherwise, she looked gorgeous.

      Jada liked to walk with Michelle because, among other things, Michelle had legs even longer than hers. They paced each other well. But that little dog slowed her down and Jada hated standing still in the cold. There, in the early morning darkness, Jada couldn’t help but get agitated at waiting for the dog. Start and stop, start and stop. Michelle needed that dog about as much as Jada needed more stretch marks.

      “Make that dog move or I’ll have to strangle him and use him as a muff,” Jada threatened. Sometimes, though she felt very close to Michelle, in a lot of ways Jada believed there was an unbridgeable distance between them. Maybe it was because of the black/white thing, maybe because of Mich’s marriage, which was so happy. Jada knew how Michelle loved Frank, and Jada believed he loved Michelle in return. Most important, he loved his kids and brought home money each and every week.

      So Jada kept her mouth shut and hoped that Michelle and Frank Russo would be the only damn couple in Westchester County to manage to stay together happily in this decade or the next. Jada loved Michelle and she wanted her happy. After all, if they both bitched all the time, what would happen to their friendship? Not only that, but she needed Michelle as a walking partner. Let’s face it, she thought. A black woman walking alone in the dark mornings in this light neighborhood would be a daily invitation for the cruiser to stop by.

      “Come on, Pookie, honey,” Michelle said.

      Jada just didn’t get the way white people treated their pets, as if they were children. And, in Jada’s opinion, Michelle certainly treated her kids as if they were pets. She let her kids get away with murder—they didn’t tidy up after themselves or remember to say “please” or “thank you.” Then there was that physical, personal boundary issue. In Michelle’s house, Jada would never even think to take down a glass from the cabinet or open the refrigerator. But Michelle would do it in her house without permission. Jada had never criticized Michelle for any of it. It was small stuff compared to the warmth of their friendship. And maybe there were just as many things that Michelle held back from Jada.

      Now, though, Jada allowed herself to eye the undisciplined dog. Then she looked at Mich’s face. “Here,” she said, holding out her Blistex. “I swear you are the only white girl with lips fuller than mine. Sure we aren’t distantly related? Because I’d hate to kill my own cousin’s dog.”

      Michelle laughed, took the Blistex and the hint, and called out to the dog. “Don’t be so down on him,” Michelle said, for what had to be the thousandth time.

      “Well, he does have two advantages over men,” Jada sniffed. “He doesn’t brag about who he slept with and he never calls her ‘bitch.’”

      Michelle laughed. Pookie stopped sniffing and СКАЧАТЬ