Young Wives Read online

  When they got to the car, Michelle, the very tall and leggy blond Angie had met, had to be woken out of her trance by more than a couple of hard taps on the window. She raised her arched brows then, and fumbled for the door lock, getting out the car still clutching a wet tissue in one hand.

  “Angle’s invited us to lunch,” Jada said in the cheeriest voice she’d used since Angie met her. “Let’s see if I can choke down anything more solid than consommé.” Michelle shrugged, but Jada took her arm and she began walking across the parking lot with them. “I haven’t been able to eat solid food since Clinton took my kids,” she told Angie.

  “Why don’t I get stricken with that?” Angie asked. “I had to buy this in a size ten and now I’m having trouble zipping it.” Of course, she knew why her waist was disappearing, but she preferred denial.

  Michelle looked over at Angie briefly, but her eyes flicked away. No denial there. In that moment Angie saw a world of fear and pain. What kind of trouble was the woman in?

  They got a booth at the diner. Angie had only thirty dollars from the kitty and maybe another nine dollars of her own money, but she figured if she watched what she ate she could cover it. These two wouldn’t be ordering lobster, and if they did, in all good conscience she’d have to warn them that even the tuna salad at the Blue Bird was suspect.

  Jada and Michelle sat opposite her. When Jada turned to ask Michelle what she was having, the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she knew this woman finally connected with the synapse in her brain that had been reluctant to fire. “You walk together,” Angie said. “You walk past my house every morning.”

  “Which one is your house?” Jada asked.

  “Well, it isn’t my house. It’s my dad’s house on the corner of Oak.”

  “Oh,” Jada said, and turned to Michelle, who was wiping off her empty water glass. “She’s the mistress.”

  She turned back to Angie. “We knew an older guy lived in there alone, but when we saw you in the window we figured you were his young chippie.”

  “Nope. Just his not-so-young daughter. He already had a young chippie after my mom. She took him to the cleaners.” Angie picked up the menu. She looked at the lunch specials and felt that she could eat them all, beginning with the stuffed flounder, cole slaw, and parsley potatoes, and ending with the home-style meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and onions. She had to do something about this eating; she’d be a pork barrel in another month.

  Jada put her menu down as if the weight of it exhausted her. “Yeah, we’ve been walking together for four years, right, Michelle?” Michelle nodded and put the glass down, but picked up her fork. “That’s why Clinton is charging me for being a bad mother.”

  Michelle turned her full attention to Jada. “What?” she asked.

  “Angie just explained to me that Clinton wants full custody, the house, alimony, child support, and for me to pay the legal bills that will get him all that. Because I’ve been a neglectful mother, doing all those irresponsible, mad, fun things like working at the bank and getting in a little cardiovascular exercise. That and the orgies, pony-rolling, pedicures, and endless martini parties.”

  “What the hell is he talking about?” Michelle asked, holding a knife in her hand.

  “What the hell is pony-rolling?” Angie wanted to know. “Because if I gain another five pounds I think I’m eligible.”

  “I haven’t a clue what it is,” Jada said, “but it sounded decadent, didn’t it? It all goes together with my decadent lifestyle. You know, the one all of us neglectful mothers indulge ourselves in—driving ten-year-old used cars, wearing the same four suits to work all the time, deciding which monthly bill won’t get paid this month, and listening to James Brown while we vacuum. There may be hell to pay, but I don’t regret a minute of it.”

  The waitress came over and Jada ordered tea, Jell-O, and the soup. When Michelle asked for a BLT, Angie was safe to hit the meatloaf special. Once the waitress had left, Angie decided to try to cheer up the natives. “Hey,” she said, “why are dogs better than men?” The two women looked at her. “Because dogs feel guilty when they’ve done something wrong.”

  Even Michelle laughed. “I thought it was because dogs never bring strange bitches home and sleep with them in your bed,” Jada said.

  “Yeah. And dogs never request custody. Or alimony,” Michelle added.

  “Dogs don’t get arrested,” Jada said.

  “Boy. You girls are good at this game,” Angie told them. “We play it in the office all the time. My favorite one so far is, ‘Dogs are better than men because they’re happy with any video you rent.’”

  “Dogs aren’t threatened if you earn more than they do,” Jada said bitterly. “They don’t try to ruin your life.”

  Michelle lowered her voice. “Jada,” she said, “this is horrible. He can’t be such a miserable prick to you. He can’t.” Angie could see Michelle’s eyes getting watery as Jada deftly patted her hand.

  “Believe me, Mich, I’m taking it seriously,” she said.

  Angie looked at the two women, both with troubles that more than equaled her own, and felt envious. How nice to have such a supportive friendship. Angie couldn’t prevent herself from thinking again of Lisa. How stupid could she have been? Why couldn’t she find a trustworthy friend the way Jada Jackson had? Perhaps her hunger showed on her face, because when Jada looked away from Michelle, she stared at Angie for a long moment.

  “Why don’t you join us in our walks?” Jada asked. “It might be good for your weight and good for your head,” she said. She turned to Michelle. “You wouldn’t mind, would you?” Michelle just shrugged; it wasn’t a formal invitation, but it wasn’t a veto, either.

  “I’d like to,” Angie said. “That would be great.”

  “Well, don’t count on greatness,” Jada told her. “Mostly we just talk about men, dogs, and survival.”

  Angie began to laugh. “Girls, I can see you and raise you,” Angie told them.

  26

  Another walk, another talk

  On their morning walk, Michelle listened while Jada raged about her children and Clinton. “What did you finally tell them?” she asked, truly horrified.

  “That Clinton and I were having a fight and that I was going to be away for work. That Daddy thought their visit would be fun.”

  “Did they buy it?”

  “Are you kidding? Kevon started crying. He said he hated ‘Aunt’ Tonya. Aunt! Can you believe it? She’s an aunt and I’m Princess Di’s half-sister!” Jada paused. “Shavonne gave me a look …” Jada went silent, and Michelle knew only too clearly what receiving that look of betrayal and mute anger had felt like. She’d already seen it on Jenna’s face, and after the Russos’ next wave of notoriety, she’d see it again.

  “You should have blamed Clinton,” Michelle said.

  “Not now. I’ll wait until the legal ax falls on him. Then, when the kids are back home, I’ll explain. Except not about the affair. That’s not their business.” Jada shook her head. “I had all I could do not to break down and cry like Sherrilee when I left them,” she admitted.

  But despite her sympathy—or because of it—Michelle couldn’t bring herself to talk to Jada about the ax that was about to fall on her own neck. It wasn’t fear that Jada would turn on her and consider her and Frank guilty. It was weirder, colder, as if a mental garage door had shut somewhere in her mind—and until the newspapers, television, lawyers, and court battered it down, Michelle was pretending there was nothing behind the door. It must be a gift she’d inherited from her mother, she thought bitterly as they trudged around the bend of Oak Street. She turned to her friend. “I thought of another reason why dogs are better than men,” Michelle said.

  “Because dogs don’t criticize your friends?”

  Michelle smiled. “Good one. But I think dogs are better than men because they don’t care if you shave your legs or not.”

  “I think dogs are better because if they go crazy you can just put them to
sleep,” Jada said. She didn’t sound as if she were joking.

  “Jada, it’s just awful. Are you going to work today?” she asked.

  “Are you kidding? Work is all I’m good for,” Jada said bitterly. “I’m a damn wage slave. And I need the job to keep sane as well as pay the bills.”

  Michelle wondered for a minute if that was a dig at her, since Jada knew that she and Frank didn’t have money problems. But she let it go. If she had a sin, Michelle thought, it was pride. And she just couldn’t tell anyone, not even Jada, about this until she absolutely had to. It made her feel a lot farther away from her friend than the yard between them. It made Michelle feel alone in the universe. “Look, I have to go to see Frank’s lawyer this morning, so I won’t be in until about noon. Can you cover for me?”

  Jada nodded. “You’re caught up on stuff?” she asked. “Because I do have to take heat from Mr. Marcus. He didn’t like the newspaper stuff. But he’s manageable.”

  “I’m up on everything,” Michelle told her. “I got your loan through, and had it deposited in your account.”

  “But I don’t need it now. Thanks for doing that for me. It wasn’t exactly …”

  “Bank policy?” Michelle asked. “Screw bank policy.”

  “Lord. I wish I’d never …”

  “Did you stop payment on that check? Somehow I feel like Bruzeman’s not the kind of guy who gladly refunds your money,” Michelle said.

  “I hear you. I did. Hope he doesn’t sue me for it, not that he did anything to earn it.” Jada sighed. “You up on everything else?”

  “I only have one client who might call, and I’ll check in.”

  “Fine,” Jada said as they got to her house. She stamped her feet in the cold. “If there are any new applicants, I’ll just have Anne give them the paperwork. Of course,” Jada added with a grim smile, “she’d snitch to Mr. Marcus in a second to get a chance at your job. Not that I’d ever let her have it.”

  They parted without a good-bye, Jada grim and Michelle grimmer, both facing an almost unbearable day. Michelle’s first hurdle was getting the kids up and off to school. Then she walked Pookie quickly, fed him, and brought some coffee up to Frank. Both of them dressed in silence to see Rick Bruzeman.

  Michelle was ready first and went down to the kitchen, where she started to scrub the counter, being careful not to get her cuffs dirty. When her husband joined her, he sat on one of the stools at the center island. She had just wiped it off and noticed the coffee ring that his cup bottom made. She wanted more than anything to wipe it up, but instead she forced herself to take a seat across from him.

  “Frank, how could this happen?” she asked. “I mean, if a person accuses you of something, if someone’s jealous, or vengeful …” She paused. Frank was looking down at his cup. “The thing is, I can understand how the police might just push in here, but I don’t understand how they could indict you. I mean, they didn’t find anything.”

  “There isn’t anything to find.” He sounded defensive, or insulted. His tone implied that she was stupid.

  “I know that, Frank. But I don’t understand,” she said in a voice she thought was submissive, not threatening. “Maybe I am stupid, but what I don’t get is how they can put you on trial based on nothing but someone’s accusations.”

  “I don’t know either,” Frank said bitterly. “They’re just out to get a guy whose last name is Russo.”

  Michelle couldn’t stand it any longer. She reached across the island, lifted Frank’s cup, and swabbed away the coffee blot he’d been playing with. She got up and went to the sink, washing her hands twice after rinsing out the sponge. She almost jumped when Frank came up behind her. “You don’t doubt me, do you, Mich?”

  Michelle shook her head. She didn’t doubt her husband, but she did doubt Bruzeman, the prosecutor, the court, and their ability to pay huge retainers to Bruzeman and to cope. “We better go,” was all she said.

  They had to take separate cars, since Michelle was going on to work. In the silence of her Lexus, she let the mental garage door close again on all of it. She needed the silence, the emptiness. She didn’t play any music; there was just the road and the driving. For a brief minute, Michelle wished she didn’t have to take the exit that led to Bruzeman’s offices. She wanted to sail straight along the highway for days, her mind empty, the road ahead clear. She sighed and threw on her blinker, following Frank’s taillights onto the exit ramp.

  Bruzeman made them wait, just the way he had when she’d brought Jada in. Frank, never good at waiting, paced and became angrier and angrier. “First the little bastard tells me we’re going to sue the cops and the county and make big money. Then he drops the news about this bullshit indictment like it’s a Valentine,” he spat. “Now he makes me wait? He makes you wait? After the money I’m already paying him? Just who the fuck does he think he is?”

  Michelle watched Frank as he pulled himself into something close to a rage. She knew it was his way to deal, just like the garage door was hers. “It’s only been fifteen minutes,” she told him.

  “You know what the guy charges per hour?” Frank snapped. “Fifteen minutes is a hundred and twenty bucks’ worth of waiting in his world.” Just as Frank muttered something about whether the prick would charge him for it or not, they were met and ushered down the hall by the secretary. Frank walked into Bruzeman’s office as if he himself had built it, and sat on the big leather chair, rather than the sofa, leaving Bruzeman, who had only just hung up the phone, nowhere to sit but the other side of the couch. Michelle held on to the arm of her side as if the sofa were one of the Titanic’s lifeboats. She was afraid she was going to go under.

  “Well, the news isn’t good, Frank. But—” Bruzeman began.

  Frank wouldn’t let him continue. “How the fuck could a secret grand jury be called without you knowing about it? Without us doing something?” Frank almost shouted.

  Bruzeman raised his eyebrows. “What would there have been to do?” he asked. “Frank, I told you from the get-go that there was a good chance of an informant. I mean a heavy-hitting informant. Otherwise the cops couldn’t have gotten the search warrant.”

  “But they didn’t find a fucking thing. I mean …” Frank had calmed down a little, but Michelle still sat hunched and frightened.

  “If they hadn’t found anything, which of course they didn’t,” Bruzeman said in his slimy voice, “they wouldn’t have arrested you and your wife, if the informant or even a cooperating witness already didn’t have strong evidence. When I got your bail, I told you that.”

  He had? Michelle wondered if that were true. Neither Bruzeman nor Frank had told her that. “You also told me we’d have this cleaned up in a week and twenty-five thousand dollars,” Frank said.

  “Witness?” Michelle asked. It was the first word she’d spoken. She’d kept her head down, literally and figuratively, but now she turned to Bruzeman at the end of the sofa. “A witness to what?” she asked him.

  “To these allegations,” Bruzeman said as if she were a slow child, and turned back to Frank.

  “But what did he witness?” Michelle asked. “What could he say he witnessed?” She could imagine a neighbor or a competitor of Frank’s making some kind of angry anonymous phone call or sending a note. She could easily imagine one of the carpenters or roofers who Frank routinely fired for incompetence turning on a dime, complaining to the state unemployment office or dropping hints to the IRS They had been audited three times, but they’d been fine. No fines or taxes due. The thing was, Michelle knew that people like that didn’t convince a judge and grand jury that a man should be put up for trial. “Who’s the witness?” she asked.

  “It’s my understanding it’s a sealed indictment,” Bruzeman said.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  Bruzeman raised his brows. He didn’t even look at her, but directed himself to Frank. “Frank, we have a lot to cover and I don’t think it’s time for a legal lesson for your wife right now. I have
word that this is going to break to the press this morning, so …”

  “This morning?” Frank asked. He looked at his watch. “We only have two more hours before it’s not this morning any more.”

  “My point exactly,” Bruzeman agreed. He finally turned to Michelle. “You’re not in any jeopardy,” he told her, as if that were the only reason she’d asked. “Apparently the informant retracted any accusations against you, or whatever he said didn’t hold. So you’re completely out of this.” He smiled. “That means you’ll be able to testify on Frank’s behalf. We’ll prepare you for that. But right now I just wanted to prepare you for the indictment that’s about to be handed down. Frank and I will do what we have to here.”

  Michelle realized she was being dismissed. The man’s arrogance was unbelievable. She felt sorry for his wife, if he had one. Jesus, she felt sorry for his dog.

  “Here’s my point,” Bruzeman was saying. “If you’re approached by anyone, just give no interviews. Your only statement is that your husband is innocent of all charges and that you and the children stand behind him as a good father, a good husband, and an innocent man.” He got up and handed her a typed sheet that said those things, as if she needed them written down. She looked over at Frank. He was white, as pale as she had ever seen him. Michelle felt more questions bubbling up, as if her throat were filling with foam, but she rose as Bruzeman had.

  “You want me to go now, Frank?” she asked her husband. Frank nodded and didn’t move from his chair. Michelle let go of the arm of her life raft and stepped away, out into the waves.

  Driving to work, she had a little bit of time to think about the children. If it got bad again, if there was newspaper coverage and a lot of talk, maybe she’d have to think about different schools for both of them. But where? There were a few private schools nearby, but they were expensive, and anyway, what good would that do Jenna? The children there would probably be more, not less, aware of gossip, and she’d be a new girl as well as visible because of her father’s upcoming trial. Jenna liked her current school and her classmates … well, as much as any twelve-year-old could.