Waiting to Exhale (5 page)

It's unfortunate, she thought, as she watched him take a sip of his coffee, then gritted her teeth to stop them from chattering, that he never understood or appreciated the virtues of patience, the sanctity of stability, or the sheer comfort of knowing that you have some level of control over what happens next. By the time John knew he had clearly arrived, when everything had fallen into place and there wasn't much further he could go-when the routine had become too much of a routine, when even making money became predictable- John needed another event. Enter Kathleen. His boredom with Bernadine and their life had set in like gangrene, and she knew there was no antibiotic strongXnough to cure it. She almost wanted to warn the white girl.

And she wasn't hurt. She was mad. So mad that now her temples were twitching and it felt as though somebody was tightening a rubber band around her forehead. She wanted to say something, but she couldn't get her mouth to work. She took a deep breath, and kept inhaling until finally she managed to get a small tunnel of oxygen into her lungs.

"Take it easy, Bernie. You knew this was coming, so let's not get theatrical."

She exhaled slowly, then said, "Theatrical." It sounded like she was singing it soprano, so she said it again, like an alto. "Theatrical?" Bernadine wanted to tell him that he could take his little Barbie doll and leave now. But she couldn't say it, because her mind kept getting tangled up and now she couldn't stop blinking. She collapsed against the doorframe for support and waited for her muscles to work.

So this is how a bookkeeper keeps books, she thought. This is what happens after eleven years of marriage. This is how it can all end, just like this, on a Sunday morning when you wake up, getting ready for church, and you put your rollers in and go in the bedroom to check on the kids and decide to let them sleep a few more minutes and your husband calls you out into the kitchen, where he's drinking coffee, wearing the same clothes he'd worn yesterday when he left, and of course you can see that he's not going to church and he tells you, "We need to talk," and you dread this because talks always lead nowhere and they always end up with John telling you what you're not doing right or what you're not doing enough of or what he would prefer that you be doing. He hands you a cup of coffee and does not prepare you for anything except some more minor bullshit, but then he just blurts out, "I've filed for a divorce because I want to marry Kathleen." You are glad you didn't sit down. You drop the cup on the floor, and the hot coffee splatters all over your ankles and the hem of your nightgown. At first you don't feel it, but you do feel the heat from the rollers, so you yank them out two at a time and hurl them at him. You know who Kathleen is, and you know you heard him right. Kathleen is twelve years younger than you. She is twenty- four. She is white. She is your husband's bookkeeper. At his company, where he sells computer software. The company you helped him start. The company you worked your ass off to strengthen, because right after you went back to school and got your degree in business, you became his secretary, his office manager, his computer, his consultant, his accountant, his bookkeeper, his wife, and his lover. You did everything for him at once.

And then he grew. He got a partner and a real office and real employees and, later, Kathleen the bookkeeper, who was fresh out of some two-year college and California pretty and blond but not at all a threat because, number one, she was white and you knew John would never look at a white girl and, number two, he loved you and the kids.

Of course this is all your fault, Bernadine, because like a fool you acquiesced too soon and gave up too much. You fell right into the blueprint of his life and gave up your own. Let him talk you into leaving Philadelphia and moving out here to Phoenix, where the overhead was supposedly low. He knew you had always wanted to start a catering business, but John said to wait. Wait to see how well his business did before taking on any more unnecessary risks. While you waited, you took the first boring job offer you got, at a nursing home. Then he had this house built on a mountainside acre in Scottsdale because he wanted privacy. You got lonely up here on this mountain in this big-ass house. You began to ignore the city lights you could see from every room; the sunsets began to vex you because they were so predictable. You even prayed for a few overcast days, just to break up the monotony of all this damn sunshine. And on top of everything, all your neighbors were white and not all that neighborly.

So you put your dream on hold and learned how to decorate. For a whHe, all you thought about were French doors and Mexican tile and window coverings and Kohler toilets and Sub-Zero refrigerators and porcelain vs. stainless steel and Casablanca ceiling fans and recessed lighting and verde light fixtures and pickled oak and cool decking. Everything in your house was southwestern. But you started to loathe anything that was pastel and everything that had a coyote or a cactus on it.

You had enough equipment in the kitchen to open a restaurant:

Krups coffee/cappuccino/espresso maker; four different sets of pots and pans: Calphalon, white and orange baked enamel, stainless steel; and you had woks, a Belgian-waffle maker, deluxe blenders, an Acme juicer, and everything Cuisinart ever made. You even joined a cookbook club and spent years in the kitchen teaching yourself how to prepare even more exotic meals. To get out of the house, you took a cooking class. Then an entrepreneur class for women. You had tons of books on catering, but then John thought it would be a good idea for you to become a CPA, so you took the test and failed two parts on purpose because you did not want to become an accountant.

And you didn't need to drive a BMW-you had loved your Legend. You didn't want to store your art deco posters in the garage simply because they weren't originals. You didn't need two-hundred- dollar shoes or Louis Vuitton luggage or somebody's name on the label of every piece of clothing you bought. You didn't need that ugly Rolex, either-your Seiko was just fine. You thought gold was boring, that silver was prettier and looked purer, but thanks to John, you owned more gold than Mr. T. And you had never been turned on by diamonds; you loved stones that had some cultural value: lapis, jade, turquoise, carnelian, ivory, onyx, and obsidian. But John wanted you to look rich, and for the past eleven Christmases and birthdays, every box he gave you was small enough to fit in your palm and you didn't have to guess what was inside. And the kids. They were spoiled rotten. Too many expensive toys, which, for the last four years, you'd given to the children in Mexico at Christmas, along with tons of shoes and clothes, some of which had never been worn.

What it all boiled down to was that you didn't need to live in all this luxury to be happy. Because you weren't. You didn't need to be rich in order to appreciate the "finer" things in life. Right after you got married, John started his litany. "One day I'm going to have exactly what they have," he'd say. "They" being rich white folks. He had taken it to the extreme, gone completely overboard, but you couldn't tell him that. You didn't know how to tell him. You didn't know then that you had no courage, or that you'd need so much of it, at least as far as dealing with your husband was concerned. When you told him you wanted to cut your hair, he told you he would leave you if you ever came walking in here with it short. So you let it grow. You had to wear number 30 sun block or avoid the sun altogether, which was pretty hard to do in Phoenix, because John didn't want you to get too dark. And more important than anything, you didn't tell him how damaging you thought it might be to your kids to go to a school where there were only two other black children. But you were his wife, and you had done what you'd been taught to do: let him take the wheel while you took the back seat.

You fool. You didn't even realize that you had stopped looking at the road, until John got bored watching the fish multiply in the ponds he'd had dug in the backyard and said he thought it was time to start a family. So you got pregnant. Your blood pressure skyrocketed and you had to quit your job, but John said it was better this way. You should be at home. So you followed both his and the doctor's orders. You stayed in a horizontal position for six months and read Dr. Spock and every baby book on the market until you felt like a child expert.

When John junior was born, you poured all your energy into motherhood and watched your husband's business prosper. You believed in him, in the safety of his plans. And at his request, before John junior could say a complete sentence, you had another baby. John insisted on naming the first child after him, and you insisted on naming the second one. But he didn't want any child of his to have an African name. He wanted to name her Jennifer or Kristen or Ashley or Lauren, but you had made a deal, and you kept it. By the time you were weaning Onika off breast milk, you started feeling restless and bored and got tired of staying at home with the kids all day long. You started watching those stupid soap operas and game shows and got a prescription for Xanax because you were screaming all day long. And your brain, it felt as if it was shrinking.

Every single time you said you were ready to start your catering business, John would think of something else for you to do with the kids that would usurp your time. He wouldn't let you put them in day care, because he thought those places were dangerous. So you spent your afternoons taking John junior to piano lessons, karate, Cub Scouts, T-ball, and soccer. You dragged Onika to ballet and gymnastics when the child could barely walk straight. He had convinced you that being a good mother meant staying at home with the children until they were at least school age.

So you postponed your dream again. For five more years. But you felt like a single mother, because John worked long hours and the kids were always asleep when he got home and barely saw him on weekends. It was you who read them bedtime stories. You who took off work to take them to the doctor, the dentist. You who stayed home to nurse them when they were sick. It was you who didn't miss a recital or a game. It was you who took them to school and picked them up. It was you who got the wax out of their ears, made sure they took their vitamins, and later made sure they did their homework right. And it was you who took them trick-or-treating, you who dressed up like the Easter bunny, and for the last eight years, it was you who coordinated their birthday parties and sat through hundreds of others.

And then there were the conventions. The conferences. The trade shows. The potential-client dinners. Potential-client meetings. John went everywhere he could so he wouldn't have to come home.

And sex. It became almost irrelevant, almost an afterthought, because when it did happen it was as if John was doing you a favor, and even then he tried to overcompensate. So you stopped wearing the garters, the G-strings, the lace, and those four-inch heels. You hid all those videos that had given him most of his ideas. You stopped pretending to enjoy it altogether and started giving him mummy pussy. You simply stopped moving. Of course by then you knew something was terribly wrong, but you didn't know how to fix it and didn't want to.

And last year, right after Onika had started first grade, John had a brainstorm. He wanted another baby. For the first time in years you felt strong enough and told him no. That you had not been educated to become a permanent housewife, that you needed more stimulation and you were going to get it. He got mad and you got your tubes tied. You complained to Gloria, your crazy hairdresser, who told you that one sure cure for chronic boredom was to get involved in something worthwhile. She belonged to Black Women on the Move, a support group that held workshops for women who wanted to do more with their lives than cook, clean, and take care of the kids; for women who weren't moving but wanted to move; for women who had already achieved some measure of success but wanted to find a better way to deal with the stress that came with it; for women who wanted to be more than role models, who were willing to make the time to do something for black folks whose lives-for whatever reason-were in bad shape. So you joined it.

Gloria introduced you to everybody she knew, but Robin was the one you hit it off with. She was so unlike you: bold and zany, optimistic about everything, and she talked a mile a minute. She didn't have a drop of class, no sense of style, but it was clear that she tried hard. And you didn't care, because what you liked about Robin was the fact that she knew who she was and what she wanted, which turned out to be a baby. She ordained herself "Auntie Robin" and started taking your kids to the park, the movies, the zoo, roller-skating, to anything "on ice"-and anyplace else she saw in the Sunday paper-so you could have some time to yourself and she could get some maternal experience. You thought she was a little on the fickle side when it came to men, because that boyfriend of hers was giving her a run for her money. He treated her worse than a stepchild, but you kept your mouth shut and your thoughts to yourself, because you now had something you hadn't had in a long time: somewhere to go, something to do, and somebody to do it with.

When John had eventually refused to give you the money to start your catering business, claiming it was just too risky, you took another boring job, as a controller for a real estate management firm, and lied to him about your salary. You began to put money aside so one day you could start your business anyway. He had a series of fits after you went back to work, because now not only did you have your own money but for the first time in years you had interests outside of him and the kids and this stupid house.

Erom there everything had gone downhill.

"I'll be back next Sunday to get my stuff," you heard him say. "You'll be hearing from the lawyer soon too."

This was entirely too easy for him. And like everything else he did, you could tell that he'd been creating the software for this program for some time. But he'd computed wrong. You wanted to catch him off guard, remind him that you also knew how to exit DOS, how to search and replace, how to merge, but when you thought about it, you realized you didn't have to prove anything to him anymore, so instead you simply moved your cursor. You cleared your throat and summoned your mouth to work. "What about Onika and John junior?"