Waiting to Exhale (6 page)

"I love my kids," he said. "And I'll make arrangements." "Arrangements?"

"You'll get some money, don't worry."

"Money?" That's what this was really all about. Division. Dollars. Divvying. He's scared I'm gonna take his ass to the cleaners. Bernadine felt as if she'd been plugged back in. Her fingers twitched and her feet tingled. But now that she could talk, she didn't have a damn thing to say to him. She turned her back and walked through the living room, up the two steps into their bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it.

She surveyed the room. A room she felt could easily be part of a funeral home. The mahogany bed was too ornate and looked like a giant sleigh. She had never seen a burgundy flower before in her life, but the comforter was full of them. There were too many goddamn pictures on the wall. Ugly oil paintings of things she didn't give a damn about, in those ugly gilded frames. She wanted white bookcases, but John had insisted on maple. And that Chinese rug. She hated that damn rug because she hated green, and besides, there was nothing in this room, nothing in this whole house, that would indicate that black people lived here. She jumped over the rug, and the tiles made her feet cold, but Bernadine didn't feel like putting on her slippers. She headed for the bathroom.

Once in there, she stood stock-still and looked at herself in the wide mirror behind the two sinks. Sunlight poured down over her from the skylight. Her eyes were puffy, her lips were chapped, and four red splotches had formed on her left cheek. She looked terrible. She turned around to face the mirror on the linen closet door and, for no apparent reason, lifted up her nightgown. Her breasts had shrunk. They didn't look the way they did before the kids. They were thin and almost flat; her nipples were on the verge of pointing downward. The contour of her body was a short soft curve, her skin a dull brown, except for the beige stretch marks on her hips and belly. Bernadine felt old. She looked old. Older than thirty-six. She got closer to the mirror, so close that when she breathed, two small circles of fog formed. She studied her face. Bernadine knew she'd never been pretty, and she reconfirmed it now. She stepped backward and stopped. Her eyes grazed up and down her body once more, because she was trying to imagine if anybody might still think of her as attractive, since right this minute she was ugly. She let go of her nightgown until she felt the hem hit her knees. She said, "Cheese." Her teeth looked yellow, although it had been 106 days since she'd quit smoking. But damn, that was what she needed right now. A cigarette. A cigarette would help her believe this. A cigarette would help her understand that her life had just been revised. A cigarette would help her decide exactly what to do next. How to proceed. She already knew she would no longer have a husband. Then she thought about that. Not have a husband? She sat down on the toilet and put her face in her lap. It seemed as if she'd always had a husband. Now all she knew was that she was going to be a thirty-six-year-old divorced mother of two. Which meant she was going to be single. "Single?" Her face sprang up, as if she'd just remembered something she'd forgotten.

"You son of a bitch!" she said, and jumped up from the toilet to look at herself again. Who's gonna want me? How am I supposed to start over, when in fact I'm not starting over? This is the middle of my damn life! And I've got two kids! Bernadine opened the medicine cabinet and looked at a row of prescription bottles. She was looking for an X for Xanax. When she found the bottle, she opened the top and popped two of them dry. She'd never taken two before. They were dissolving on her tongue when she realized she should take them with water. She turned on the faucet, placed her palms on her side of the vanity and stared at the gold-and-black speckles on the cultured marble. She pushed all her weight on her hands and felt her shoulders drop. I hadn't planned for this, she thought. Never even anticipated what I'd do if my marriage didn't last. It was supposed to last. She filled a Dixie cup with water, swallowed it like a shot, threw the cup in the trash, then felt even more enraged for having been this presumptuous. She wanted to punish herself for being so damn naive, but all she could do right now was kick the hell out of the mirror on the door. A spiderweb spread across the silver surface and made her body look as though it had cracked into hundreds of broken pieces.

"A pack of Kools, please," she said to the man behind the counter at the Circle K.

"You ain't got nothin' smaller?" he asked, trying to give her back the hundred-dollar bill she had handed him.

"I don't know," she said, and didn't bother to look. He was staring at her rather strangely, because although he saw crazies up here from time to time, this one looked sane, except why was her hair in them Shirley Temple-looking curls, like she just took out her rollers and didn't comb it? And why was she wearing a bathrobe and fancy bedroom slippers and a diamond ring what looked as big as that one Liz Taylor got? It looked like she'd been crying, 'cause her eyes was blood red, but then again, he thought, it could be drugs. That's probably it. She ain't been to sleep. A whole heap of these rich white women what live up here don't do nothin' but pop pills and drink all day long, 'cause they come in here to get their liquor and I see them little white bags with the writing on 'em from Walgreen's when they open their purses. That's a shame, he thought, as he watched Bernadine try to stuff all those bills inside her wallet. This one here's black.

Bernadine had not remembered leaving the house, or driving, or the fact that John had left before her. She did not remember falling down the two steps outside her bedroom when she had gone to look for her purse. She didn't know that right this minute the kids were still asleep, alone in the house, nor did she realize that for February, it was a record 90 degrees outside. When she got back into her car and turned on the ignition, not only did she not hear it, but her hands didn't feel the steering wheel, and the music coming out of the radio sounded muffled and distant, even though it was loud. Bernadine was trying to keep her eyes open, and when she looked out the window, everything she saw was gray. She knew that heat was silver, but when she blinked, everything was still gray. She pushed in the lighter and ripped the cellophane off the pack. When the lighter popped out, she lit her cigarette and sucked in the cool smoke. She did not cough. She sank into the sheepskinned seat, pushed the gear in reverse, pulled out of the parking space without looking over her shoulder, and tried to remember which way led home.

Chapter
3

They say love is a two-way street. But I don't believe it, because the one I've been on for the last two years was a dirt road. I finally gave up on Russell-a lying, sneaky, whorish Pisces-after realizing he was never gonna marry me. The first time I asked him about it, he said, "Just be patient, baby." And I was. Six more months went by, and he never once brought the subject back up. That's when it dawned on me that I could be living with him for the rest of my life.

Last January, we went to see The Accidental Tourist and came home and made some serious love. I knew Russell was in a luscious mood
,
so I figured this was the perfect time to bring it up again. And you know what he said? That marriage was a scary thing and he still wasn't ready to "make that move" yet.

I pushed him off of me and sat up. "What's so scary about it?"

"Everything," he said, and started stroking my breasts.

"Russell, it's not prison," I said, and brushed his hand away. "We1 ve been living together a whole year. What's the difference?"

"There's a big difference."

"Russell, do you really love me?"

"Of course I love you," he said, and started kissing my arm.

"Don't I make you happy?"

"Very."

"Don't I satisfy you?"

"Definitely."

"Then I don't understand what the problem is. You're thirty- seven years old, Russell."

"I know that."

"And I'll be thirty-five in six months."

"I know that too," he said. Now he was circling my belly button with his index finger.

"Well, when do you think you'll be ready?" I said, and slapped the top of his hand.

"Soon," he said, and rolled over. "I do wanna marry you, Robin. But it's a big commitment, and I'm just trying to get used to the whole idea. And as soon as I am, believe me, baby, you'll be the first to know."

So, like a fool, I kept my fingers crossed and hung in there another six months. I didn't wanna lose Russell. I'd had five serious relationships over the last seven years, and two of them ended because they met somebody else. I was determined not to let that happen again. I did everything in my power to make sure Russell would keep loving me. I kept myself up. Worked out four days a week, and he hardly ever saw me without my makeup. I spent a fortune on this weave, and mine looks as good as-if not better than-Janet Jackson's. I used to do my own press-on nails, but I let Gloria give me some acrylics after Bernadine finally told me how tacky they looked. My polish was never chipped, I always got a fill when I needed one, and my feet were never crusty because I got a pedicure once, sometimes twice, a month. I kept this apartment spotless, and Russell never had to so much as empty the trash. I warned him ahead of time that I couldn't cook, but he said he didn't care. He was also the outdoorsy type, liked to go camping, hiking, and fishing. I hated sleeping outside, not being able to go to a real bathroom, and fishing was totally boring, but I didn't complain. I went anyway. And on top of everything else, I gave him as much pussy as he wanted, whenever he wanted it, even when I was dead tired. What more could a man ask for?

When I first met Russell, he was living with some woman in this super-deluxe apartment complex, but he came home from work one day and she had moved out. Took everything. I hate to say it, but I was glad. I was tired of "laying low" and sneaking. Tired of him getting up in the middle of the night to go home, and really tired of not being able to call him except when she was out of town. He worked on a train, for Southern Pacific Railroad, so I couldn't exactly call him at work. I went over there a few times, but I never slept with him in their bed. That I refused to do. I did have some pride. Russell said that even though he could afford to keep the apartment, what was the point? He had told me at least a hundred times that as soon as he could figure out a way to end the relationship amicably, he would, because he loved me and couldn't wait until the time came when he could be with me twenty-four hours a day. "I guess things happen for a reason, don't they, baby?" he said. This psychic I go to, who's also a numerologist, had just told me something similar the week before: "Timing is everything," she said. And since I was entering a four personal month, she told me that "some mistakes would soon be corrected." She didn't say whose, but look at how things turned out.

I didn't want to know why that woman had left him, and didn't ask. I was just happy to have him all to myself, which is why, four days later, I let him move in with me. I felt like I had finally been blessed, because Russell was so fine that every black woman in America in her right mind probably wished she could have him. But he was mine now.

He did have a few problems. Problems I thought I could help fix.

First of all, Russell was in so much debt I borrowed three thousand dollars from my parents and lent it to him so he wouldn't have to file Chapter 11. He got in a minor car accident, and as it turned out, his insurance had just been canceled, but since I work for one of the biggest insurance companies in Phoenix, I made a few phone calls and was able to get him a backdated policy, and at a cheaper rate than he was paying before. He was having a string of bad luck, because then somebody stole his car, so I cosigned for him to get another one, because he couldn't go to work on his motorcycle.

To make a long story short, everything was fine until I found that half-slip in his gym bag and noticed quite a few of the Calvin Klein briefs I'd bought him started disappearing. And just like they do on TV, he started playing poker every Friday night with the fellas. Well, color me stupid, because I didn't want to believe he was seeing another woman. My mother always told me that things are never as bad as they look and to always give a person the benefit of the doubt. So I didn't mention the slip to Russell. I racked my brain trying to figure out what I wasn't doing enough of that might make him want to stray. Bernadine said I should just blow his brains out, because that's what she'd do if she ever found out John was cheating on her. Gloria told me to open my eyes and stop acting like I was blind. My mother said to make sure he used a condom from now on, and my daddy, who has Alzheimer's, didn't understand what the big fuss was all about.

I couldn't give up without a fight, so I tried harder and harder and even harder than that to please him. I loved Russell and wanted him to marry me so I could have his baby. I'd had a million dreams about it. But I know what my karmic lessons are. My numerology book says I'm too decentralized and will have a tendency to fight to express myself, because I'm always going to meet opposition. It also said I might want to consider changing my name in order to get a better vibration, because I'll never be able to "see the woods for the trees" as long as I'm a five. But I can't do that. Russell's numbers are worse than mine. He's full of fours. Which means he's irresponsible, tends to be scattered, restless, and dissatisfied, and in case of fire, he would seek all doors at once and, finding none, would run around in circles, screaming. Until he learned his karmic lessons he'd be a pleasure-seeker, constantly demanding change. But our Life Paths added up to the same number, so I figured he was supposed to be a part of my destiny, which was one reason why I couldn't let him go.