LITMIR.BIZ

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Yes! She would forgive Reid. What he had done was horrible, unforgivable, but she would forgive him. She was hot-tempered, like her father and mother. But she’d be big enough to do it. He had learned his lesson. Angie would look at this horror, this incident, as a last fling. Oh, she’d grant that most last flings came before the wedding, but Reid had always been a little slow emotionally. You couldn’t completely blame him. Look at his parents. He would promise to never do it again, he would shower her with more Shreve, Crump & Lowe boxes and they’d go back to their big white bed. She couldn’t restrain a shudder. Well, maybe they wouldn’t go right back to it, Angie realized. Maybe there would be some healing time necessary.

      Then, in a single instant, the image of Reid alone, miserable, lying curled in a fetal position on their big white bed came to her. Guilty. Despairing. It had taken him this long to track her down. He had been frightened, then remorseful. She knew that without her he was lost. He needed her energy, her drive, her warmth.

      Clutching his card to her Ranger sweatshirt, Angie ran to the phone and punched in their number. She heard the first ring and knew the stretch, the exact arc of his beautiful back as he reached for the phone. She could perfectly imagine that four hundred miles away in Marblehead, his hand was reaching across the sheets to the receiver. He was there, she knew it, too desolate, too sick, to go to work. He had been lying there in a painful pool of guilt and regret worse than her own misery. Because he did love her. Despite his cold parents, despite their disapproval, despite his own limitations, he loved her. The card in her hand said so, and Angie knew it deep in her gut.

      When the phone was lifted from the receiver on the second ring Angie smiled in vindication and waited to hear his voice, a voice as deep and clear as the sea off the Marblehead coast.

      “Hello,” a high-pitched woman’s voice said in a breathy exhalation. Angie nearly dropped the phone. “Hello?” the voice said again, this time in a questioning tone.

      Angie pulled her hand from the receiver as if it were on fire. She dropped it into its cradle. “Oh my God,” she said aloud. “Oh my God.”

      She’d called her house. Who had answered? Not a relative or an in-law. She didn’t have any sisters and neither did Reid. The voice certainly wasn’t his mother’s. What is going on? Angie looked down at the phone. She must have misdialed. She’d misdialed or, worse, Reid had already had the phone disconnected. Somebody new had their phone number. It must be one or the other. Angela snatched the receiver up and punched in their old number, but much more carefully this time. Had she remembered to dial the area code? Maybe she hadn’t and it had been a Westchester call.

      The phone rang and Angie held her breath. She pictured Reid again, but this time the picture was a little … well, mistier. This time, again on the second ring, the phone was lifted and again the soprano voice said, “Hello.”

      It wasn’t a wrong number. Reid had obviously changed numbers. But did they reassign phones so quickly? She should inquire. But her voice box was paralyzed. Maybe it was a cleaning lady. Yes. That was it. Or a stranger making a delivery or reading the meter. It could happen, she told herself. She looked down at the florist’s card she was still clutching to her chest.

      “Hello?” the soprano said again. “Hello. Reid? Is that you?”

      Since it wasn’t, Angela hung up the phone.

7

       Wherein Clinton and Jada have their talk, we learn about the nature of man, and the difference between milk, water, and blood

      “Clinton, we have to talk.”

      “Again?”

      “I’m afraid so,” Jada said. Once the kids were on the bus, she closed the kitchen door and turned away and started wiping down the stove top. She could still see his face in the reflection of the stainless steel. She wondered when he had last cleaned the stove. “I’m afraid so,” she repeated, but she wasn’t really afraid. She was outraged. He had finally gone too damn far bringing dirt into the house.

      Jada had suspected for years during their marriage that Clinton may have occasionally strayed. It was something she preferred not to think about, though awareness had sometimes been thrust upon her. That rich, bored woman in Armonk who had installed the two-hundred-thousand-dollar pool had called a little too often. And so had that black record producer’s wife, the Pound Ridge one who wanted to sing. Jada had decided to ignore them. They had never interfered in her marriage, never stopped Clinton from bringing home his paycheck, playing with his children, or loving her. Since then she’d learned that, in sales parlance, overly attentive client handling was called “petting the goldfish,” and if Clinton’s work had sometimes gotten a little up close and personal, Jada had turned a blind eye. He was a man, after all. And a good-looking, virile one. When men were offered what she thought of as POP—pussy on a plate—it was hard for them to walk away. Especially in Pound Ridge.

      Jada sighed. That was back then, when her marriage was good and the children were small and she stayed home with them. Now her life was made up of working all day and cleaning all evening. Of getting meals on the table, laundry folded, and then waking up to do it all again. Clinton’s life, as far as she could see, was made up of lying around watching television, having it off with this new girlfriend of his, and in his free moments making sure the kids didn’t burn down the house. Jada wasn’t complaining about her life; she was doing this for her family and she could keep on doing it as long as she had to. It was just that when she looked at Clinton’s life, if he would only make a few changes, everything could be so much easier for both of them. Easier and worthwhile. And she knew a part of him wanted a worthwhile existence. But a part of him was also willing to risk what they had by being lazy, taking her for granted, and tickling the fancy of some woman in Pound Ridge. “Well, I’m not in Pound Ridge,” Jada said aloud and strode into the dining room, snatching up a tray and a rag as she passed her husband.

      “Say what?” he said and followed her into the messy dining room.

      Jada began throwing empty cups, cereal bowls, and a couple of crumpled paper napkins onto the tray. I’m losing it, Jada thought. It wasn’t just the glassware that rattled; she was, too. She was speaking her thoughts out loud. It was a family trait—her mother did it when she was disturbed. “I was saying we have to talk,” Jada snapped.

      “Don’t you have to go to work?” he asked nervously.

      “No. Why? Are you expecting someone over here? Let me straighten up for your guest.” She wiped down the table. It amazed her, even after all these years, that Clinton could stand there watching her do for him without lifting even a fork. That’s what came of marrying a man who was DDG. Well, that was the least of it. Jada felt she had risen above the small stuff; long ago she and Clinton had promised each other that if they had children—and they obviously had—that unlike the two generations of Jacksons before Clinton, their kids would grow up with a father. That was the big stuff. Until now, despite whatever brief flirtations might or might not have arisen from his work, Jada had never doubted that Clinton’s NUP was taking. Like most men. But there was a limit.

      Jada, even now, with Clinton standing hang-dog and useless behind her while she picked up the placemats, tried not to make a moral judgment about it. People just had their NUP, like the color of their hair. Jada had to admit that Shavonne’s NUP was taking, too. Kevon, at least at this age, was more like Jada; his natural preference was to give. When she and Clinton had first met, the truth was Jada had liked to give. It had made her feel important and useful. Clinton needed to be taken care of and Jada guessed she needed to be needed. She’d cut his hair, she’d bought his clothes, she’d cooked for him. All Clinton had to do to make her happy was to say, “Nobody makes cornbread like Jada’s. Can’t eat no one else’s cornbread,” and Jada excused the double negative, feeling happy and content and ready to bake another fifty pans of cornbread. Now Jada knew Clinton-speak. “Can I help with dinner” meant “Why isn’t it on

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