LITMIR.BIZ

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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 started walking. Jada set a fast pace. Michelle smeared Blistex all over her wide mouth and handed it back to Jada. “Between the two of us this stick won’t last out the winter,” Michelle said.

      “Hell, it won’t last out the walk if you use that much,” Jada retorted.

      They walked for a moment in silence. “Do you think I’m getting fat?” Michelle asked, as she did almost every morning.

      “Yeah. And I’m getting white,” Jada retorted. Michelle giggled. Then her face took on her serious look, the look that meant that soon the quiz would start, and Jada just wanted to put it off as long as possible.

      It was early enough that the streetlights were still on, but as the two women passed under one it blinked off. “So where do things stand, Jada?” Michelle asked, predictable as an actuarial table.

      “I don’t know. We never had time to talk.” Nevertheless, Jada raged about the condition of her kids and home the previous night as she and Michelle speed-walked past the quiet houses.

      “You have to draw a line in the sand,” Michelle said. “You have to …” But Michelle caught herself.

      Sometimes Jada thought her friend was afraid to give advice. “I don’t think I can stand it. I’m going to have to take an ax to his head, even though he is the father of my children.”

      “Hey. When did that stop you before?” Michelle asked, and Jada had to grin.

      Michelle definitely had a giving NUP—a term Jada had invented to categorize a person’s Natural Unit Preferences. Michelle was a generous friend, and generous to her husband and children. But somehow Jada just didn’t feel like taking pity from Michelle right at that moment.

      “He’s gone crazy on you, Jada,” Michelle said. “If Frank ever …”

      Jada tuned out because she loved Michelle—she was her best friend, even if she was from the south, white, had a stupid dog, and was sometimes thick as a plank.

      It had been weird when Jada realized that she really didn’t have any close black friends anymore. She couldn’t hang with the African-American tellers at the bank and she didn’t relate to the few neighborhood strivers whose daddies and grand-daddies were professionals and who went to college—real sleep-away colleges. She certainly couldn’t relate to Clinton’s homies, who thought that double negatives were standard and career planning was marriage to a man with a job at the post office.

      She and Michelle had a lot in common, but Michelle actually thought Frank was perfect and closed her eyes to all the funny stuff that went on in Frank’s business, not that any of it was funny. Jada knew there were county contracts, inside deals. Frank Russo thrived, even when the economy was at its darkest. There was no way that Frank hadn’t paid off officials, wasn’t connected to … Well, Jada didn’t like to think about it. It was none of her business. But a few years ago, when Frank had asked Clinton to join him in business, Jada had actually been relieved when, for once, Clinton had made the right decision. It wasn’t jealousy that made Jada believe that the Russos had a little too much cash. If Mich wanted to close her eyes to it, that was her business.

      The Jacksons had bought Jada’s Volvo station wagon from the Russos. It had been Mich’s car. But Michelle got a new model every eighteen months or so. Since Jada had gotten the station wagon, Michelle had been through two—no, three—luxury cars, and she’d told Jada Frank paid cash for every one. Jada had to admit Frank Russo was a good man—for a man. Most importantly, he really adored Mich. But that didn’t fool Jada: when it came to his NUP, old Frank was a taker, too. In a way he was worse than Clinton. He had Michelle completely fooled. Jada doubted if Frank knew where the washer or dryer was in his house, much less the stove. If Michelle were to ever leave Frank home alone with the children for two days and Frank couldn’t call his mother over, the Russos would die of starvation, despite a refrigerator full of food. Frank, who could work with his shining dark hair to get just the right lift, was incapable of slapping a slice of Velveeta between two slices of bread, or sorting laundry, or making the bed. He made Clinton look like the black male Betty Crocker. And Michelle never complained.

      Hey, girl, she told herself. Stop the comparisons. Try for a gratitude attitude. Drop the criticism. This daily walk, Jada thought, this friendship, and this safe and pretty neighborhood, were two of the good things in her life. She said a silent prayer, remembering to be grateful for her strong legs and lungs, her friendship and her home. She looked around at the houses, the gray trees glistening with the last of the frost. Pretty. “Look,” she said, pointing to new construction. “They’re putting a sunroom on.” She and Michelle checked every house improvement project and gave their approval—or not. Michelle looked at the hole knocked into the side of the brick colonial.

      “Oh, I’d love that. It looks like it’ll be a real greenhouse. I wonder if Frank could build one for me?”

      He should build a doghouse first, Jada thought, tripping over the leash as Pookie cut her off yet again. They turned to the right, Pookie pulling Michelle, who was almost slipping as the dog pulled her on the snowy street. As Jada looked away in annoyance, she saw the oddest thing—a face appeared in the window of a Tudor across the street for a moment. It was a face so pale that a trick of the light made it seem almost luminous, although the eyes were so shadowed that they seemed to recede into the darkness of the house. In the back

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