"Where do you think you're off to?" Lena opens the trunk and sets the grocery bags on the ground.

"I'm late for Dr. Miller," Kendrick says. Teenage girls suck their teeth, boys newly out of their teens, or at least this one, Lena thinks, smirk. Is this what I've taught you? she wants to ask. Is this the way you'll look at your girlfriend, your wife, when things get tough? She walks to his car and lifts her hand to rub his cheek like she did when he was three, and they were full and round, but Kendrick bobs out of her reach.

"It's only two thirty. Your appointment isn't for an hour and a half." It takes no more than a glance for Lena to double-check her calculations on the dashboard clock. "I'll take you."

"I can drive myself." Kendrick throws up his hands, looking, Lena thinks, just like Randall. "I'm almost twenty-one, I don't need my mother to drive me around like I'm a kid in grammar school. Anyway, Dad says it's okay."

Six months ago, Kendrick's phone calls and emails became sporadic, unlike his first year at Northwestern, when he called with weekly updates. Lena and Randall a.s.sumed that the demands of his second year and his academic scholarship kept him busy. He was sulky and distant and had been that way at Thanksgiving. They blamed his moodiness on fatigue. A phone call from his roommate, upset with Kendrick's erratic behavior, set Lena in motion. Kendrick confessed that he dabbled, he called it, with uppers, downers, and sometimes cocaine to help with a bad case of the blues and the pressure of everybody's expectations. Randall gave him no options: no more money and treatment-at home or in a rehab center-within seventy-two hours.

The day Kendrick came home, Lena, Randall, and Camille unanimously decided to surprise him at the luggage rounder instead of circling the airport until he showed up at the Arrivals exit doors. When he appeared at the foot of the escalator, Randall flinched as if someone had delivered a one-two punch to his head. The couple next to them stared, not with a stranger's usual admiration of Kendrick's confidence, but repelled by his appearance. Nothing about Kendrick was the same. His pants sagged lower than usual, more from weight loss than trend, a dingy T-shirt hung from his almost skeletal shoulders, his matted hair was on the verge of accidental dreadlocks. The crinkle in the corners of his eyes that always made Lena think he was up to devilment, even when he wasn't, was gone.

At home, Randall set rules for Kendrick and left them for Lena to enforce. He cut Kendrick's driving privileges and imposed a ten o'clock curfew and mandatory visits to a therapist.

Arms crossed against his chest, Kendrick frowns as if Lena is wrong. Lena wonders how much Kendrick values her right now.

"I love you, son, and I know these restrictions are tough, but you knew the rules when you opted for home treatment. Only a few weeks to go."

"Why are you being such a-" Kendrick catches himself and rolls his eyes. "I don't know what to tell you except, Dad says it's okay."

"Your father said nothing to me, and you're not driving anywhere until he does." Lena takes two bags full of groceries into her arms. "Come help me."

"It's been four months." Kendrick guns his engine. "I'm ready to go back to school and no curfew. I miss my friends. I want my privacy back. Dad said it, and I'm outta here."

"I can't apologize for something I haven't done, Kendrick. There's a reason why you abused drugs. I want to make sure that you take your time and get all the help you need so that it never happens again."

"Jesus Christ!" His words snap from his lips. "Are you ever going to forget, or do I have to spend the rest of my life making up for it? I'm not an addict, Mom. I just made a mistake."

"Yes, you did, Kendrick." Lena's words sail into the air as Kendrick puts the car in reverse and races down the driveway. "But you don't have to take it out on me."

Lena tosses her car keys and oversized handbag onto the kitchen counter and trips, not for the first time, over Kendrick's size 12 Nikes. If it's true that feet never stop growing, Lena thinks, her son's shoes will be two sizes bigger in no time. Adrenaline helps her to unload the rest of the groceries, to shove b.u.t.ter, vegetables, and the fifteen-pound roast into the refrigerator and hurry to the front door. It helps her lift the boxes, one by one, into the living room as carefully as if they are full of Steuben crystal and to strip away the clear tape of each box in one long piece.

She checks the invoice against the thirty-eight CDs and resists the urge to run to the computer, type each song into a spreadsheet, and alphabetize them. Instead, CD in hand, she scours the front of the complex stereo system for the simplest b.u.t.tons: power, load, play. Randall has, they have, the best, most convoluted music equipment his money can buy. He once told Lena that even if they couldn't afford the amplifiers, concert-quality sound of the six-foot speakers with super-sensitive tweeters, woofers, and other components she doesn't understand, that he would have bought them anyway. After their children, music is their strongest common denominator.

The volume k.n.o.b is obvious, and one exaggerated twist fills the room with music. Tina's voice bellows from the speakers, and the infectious melody cloaks Lena. For now, it is the beat she needs-steady, strong, funky. So, Kendrick can drive; can do whatever he wants without the need of his mother's consent. He values his father. His father values him. Who values her?

Tina knows it, sings it, summarizes it as clearly as the pain, the ache that works its way to Lena's heart: And I don't understand what's your plan that you can't be good to me And I don't understand what's your plan that you can't be good to me.

Tina's question is Lena's: "Who will be good to me?" Her question is for Randall, for Camille, for Kendrick.

Through the living room, the hallway, up the stairs and down again. Head and hips shake to the beat. The handmade sofas, the wall-sized art, the spindly Venetian vases-they say Randall has been good to her. Fingers snap and feet dance. Let the tears stream.

The day after Randall gave her the yellow diamond, Lena put her camera into the armoire; a memento of who she was and her value. She stops in front of a black-and-white picture taken with her 35mm the year before she married: Lulu and John Henry on their thirty-sixth anniversary. The award-winning photo was published by the Oakland Tribune Oakland Tribune for all her world to see. Years later, it was supposed to be submitted along with her business plan. The contrast is high and sharp; the focus on their eyes. They look straight into the camera, and the lens captures their love for each other and the photographer. for all her world to see. Years later, it was supposed to be submitted along with her business plan. The contrast is high and sharp; the focus on their eyes. They look straight into the camera, and the lens captures their love for each other and the photographer.

Chapter 8.

Randall flips through the rows of CDs hidden behind the doors of a built-in cabinet that also houses the stereo. He once told Lena that he wanted to own all of the most important jazz alb.u.ms of the twentieth century. The first time he mentioned his goal, he and Lena had been sharing their stories. Like Lena wanted to study photography, Randall wanted to major in music even though he played no instrument. He chose to major in business-his father didn't care, Randall said-so that, unlike his father, his future family would be well cared for. Between the faux-painted cabinet, the shelves of his study, and his vinyl collection carefully stored in the temperature-controlled crawls.p.a.ce under the house, he has, like every other part of his life, overachieved this goal. He loads six CDs into the player and waits for the first track to start. His head jerks with each click of the volume dial, like a bird attentive to its young; his hands adjust for the perfect balance of ba.s.s and treble.

On the opposite end of the rectangular living room, Lena drags her forefinger across the mantel and moves last year's family portrait one inch to the left. Randall pa.s.ses two oversized chairs and the fireplace on his way to Lena's side of the room. Tonight, Lena feels like a trophy wife on display in the burnt yellow pants and top Randall insisted she put on. She wears it to please him; it is not her style. He fiddles with the sabuk around her waist-a c.u.mmerbund he calls it-and rubs his thumbs on the small of her back in a circular motion. She relaxes into Randall's mini-ma.s.sage, her head falling against his chest, and wills him to recall his promise to make one more counseling session.

Three and a half days, the numbers going up instead of down, mark the time Randall has been home, and they have not spoken of serious matters. Lena wishes this respite signified the desire to move on. No spontaneous touches, no suggestive double-talk, no teasing as foreplay to time alone. Randall has occupied himself less with thinking or work and more with sweating: hours of racquetball, hoops with Kendrick beating him only once out of the five times they played, hiking the hills around their home with and without Camille, jumping rope, and shadowboxing. He has spent quiet time in the living room listening to music and sorting through his CDs. The coffee table becomes the focus of her attention: a dead leaf pinched from the bouquet of peonies, hydrangeas, and, her favorite, rubrum lilies; books poked into a perfect pile.

"Are you happy?" Lena asked Randall if he was happy before their first counseling session ended. His deep breathing had more than physical purpose: thought gathering, a careful delivery of words. Different from the breaths taken the first time he'd said "I love you." During the session, his finger thumped against the wing chair's arm and he said that she should be "f.u.c.king ecstatic, judging by what you have and the life you live."

"Every day at TIDA, the white boys measure my words and my work for potential mistakes. Work is not about happy. Work is about beating the odds and kicking a.s.s." He closes his eyes like she's seen him do a thousand times-a trick learned in a year's worth of biofeedback sessions. "I'd be happy if we could table this."

"Not work. Like Tina says-whether times are happy or sad."

"That was Al Green. Tina Turner was singing, Lena, not espousing a philosophy." Randall's heavy voice is sarcastically chipper. "With the money Tina Turner makes, she's found happiness, trust me."

The singsong doorbell chimes, and Lena rushes to the dining room for one last survey of the table. She swaps two place cards, corrects the alignment of a spoon and fork to exactly two inches from the table's edge, and motions to the housekeeper in the kitchen to turn the oven off.

Randall steps into the entryway and spins on the doorbell's last note-his silk shirt flutters from his broad shoulders to its loose hem. He raises his thumbs: all systems go. "Look around, Lena. What do you have to be sad about?"

From her end of the table, Lena feels like a minor character in her hundredth performance of play: a vital prop, without dialogue and unnoticed. She is unable to figure out if she has grown away from her friends or too much into herself.

Lynne, who worries more about pedigree than personality, blathers on about a couple she recently met: the husband's father was the first black appellate court judge in his state and the wife is a third generation AKA. Charles's fear of Bali street food. Candace prattles on about her children: X is getting a PhD, Y is pregnant by her doctor husband again, Z is up for partner at his law firm.

Lena takes in the room-gilded mirror over the buffet, the crystal chandelier, the curved arches cut into the Oriental rug's thick wool pile. What does she have to be sad about?

"How's your dinner, Charles?" Lena asks Randall's best friend.

"Perfect, as usual," Charles volunteers through a mouthful of roast and reaches for another slice.

"And these cut veggies... what are they?" Charles's bimbette girlfriend asks Randall. As if he knows, Lena thinks. Randall makes suggestions, like executive overviews, and leaves the details to his wife. The young woman, sultry and innocent at the same time, refocuses her attention on Randall before Lena finishes her description of the sharp mandoline and its precision cuts of yellow and red beets, jicama, and carrot tied with softened strands of chive. The bimbette sits on Randall's left, Charles on his right. Randall chitchats with the two of them and flashes his even-toothed smile. Watching the three of them, Lena wonders if Charles brings these air-headed, busty women to their home more for Randall's entertainment than his own.

"This is why I adore your parties, Lena." Lynne nudges her husband, who is almost done before the others have barely started. He shoves food in his mouth and tells them he can't stop this habit-six sisters and brothers who all ate fast in order to get seconds-even though it's been forty years since he sat with them at his parents' table.

Lynne dismisses him with a wave of her hand. "Your food is so creative, like one of those TV shows. Artsy."

The dark wood is the perfect backdrop for the food arranged in the middle of the round African mahogany table Lena commissioned for the square dining room. The rich wood is striated with tiny rings that testify to its age. Frilly paper caps on the standing rib roast, garnishes of purple cabbage, parsley, and finger-sized fruits; presentation and taste are important to her. She cannot brag about well-earned promotions or increased corporate profits or the next big takeover like Randall, but she can outdo most with her food.

Candace, her politically incorrect, six-carat diamond, and her dimpled husband, Byron, sit to Lena's right and left. Candace catches his eye as her tongue drags creamy potatoes across her fork.

The bimbette joins in. "Oh, everybody's life seems much more exciting than Charles's." She bats her obviously false eyelashes in Randall's face.

"I make money, baby," Charles says through his second helping of garlic mashed potatoes. "That's exciting enough."

Randall slaps his buddy's back and winks at Lena: I told you so. The bimbette hasn't been and probably won't be around long enough to understand she should keep her mouth shut. Or perhaps, Lena muses, this one gets a "get out of jail free" card, because she is young enough to be the daughter of any one of them or, as her neckline creeps farther down between her full, taut b.r.e.a.s.t.s, no man pays attention to what she says.

The housekeeper brings in a silver tray with two dessert choices-a thinly slivered chocolate ganache cake and an orange-scented brioche bread pudding with amaretto cream-paired with Dolce, Randall's most expensive dessert wine. Every man, save for Byron, whose mouth twitches in antic.i.p.ation of Candace's next suggestive move, engages in a segregated conversation with Randall. They natter raucously over sports and bulls.h.i.t in that way men do: disjointed hyperbolic statements that mean nothing, but their laughter says they're having fun.

"Why is it...?" Lena straightens so that her voice projects across the table. "That the men talk. The women talk. But we never talk together?"

The beads of the crystal chandelier tinkle from laughter's vibration, Randall's being the loudest. "Because we men never have time to get together." To a person, except for Lena, all heads dip in agreement as if Randall is their leader and it is his right to voice the group's opinion. Lena is unsure if this is because he is or because they're in his house, eating his wife's good food, drinking his expensive wine. "We work hard to support your habits." All eyes follow Randall's finger as he thumps it against his chest on the spot where the yellow diamond rests on Lena's.

"Whatever happened to what attracted you to us in the first place: politics, race, music, art, last summer's bestseller... f.u.c.king?" Lena snaps and watches Randall's eyebrows arc in dismay at the same time that the doorbell chimes.

"That must be Sharon." Randall grimaces and shoves his chair back from the table. "I told her to drop by for dessert."

"Why?" Lena asks.

He looks at Charles. "You'll get a kick out of her. She's sharp."

Lena brushes crumbs from her now crumpled outfit and watches Randall guide Sharon into the dining room by the elbow and make introductions. Randall has told Lena on more than one occasion that in corporate America, like other places, black folks have to look out for one another-Sharon needs a mentor, and he needs someone to keep him abreast of what goes on in middle management. The not so subtle hints that Lena has watched Sharon toss in his direction for the three years she has been with TIDA are not the kind of loyalty Lena appreciates.

"Why, don't you look cute." Sharon bends to greet Lena with a hug. The skinny spaghetti straps of her sleek black c.o.c.ktail dress have fallen off her angular shoulders and she looks Lena over again. "That's the same get-up Randall gave his secretary. I told him I'd have to teach him a thing or two about presents. Don't you agree?"

"Oh, I think he does quite well." Lena fingers her diamond. "When he sets his mind to it."

Randall squeezes an extra chair in the s.p.a.ce between him and Charles and immediately launches into a recap of how he fired his a.s.sociate. Sharon chimes in. Together, the two make the dismissal seem like a lively event.

"You should have seen Thompson's face." Sharon pantomimes a dejected look. "When he came to clean out his office, he never looked me in the eye. He was in and out so fast that he left a picture of his kids and dog on his desk."

"Mess with me once you're on my s.h.i.t list," Randall says. "Twice, and you're out. You were great, Sharon. I won't forget that." Randall lifts his gla.s.s. "To Sharon."

"And thank you for letting me barge in." Sharon clinks her gla.s.s against Randall's.

"I bought three chunks each of Novo, Quadra, and IntelligNT." Randall changes the subject. "Got them all for a steal when they split." His voice drops when he reveals the stiff three-figure price per share. Lena watches Sharon's eyes grow wider every time his chest puffs higher and higher with each stock description. Lena has told him a thousand times that the men don't like to hear him brag. They suffer from financial p.e.n.i.s envy, his portfolio is bigger than theirs, but right now she is unsure for whose benefit the boasts are.

For the second time in less than ten days, Lena has an attack of fantasy violence. This time Sharon is the object of her desire, only unlike Candace's comical recovery, Lena imagines Randall would push her away and gallantly rush to Sharon's side. If she had the guts to be a bad girl, Lena thinks, she might loosen this d.a.m.n, scratchy tunic, drop the baggy pants to the floor, unhook her bra with one hand, and push her lacy bikinis down her legs to get her husband's attention. She could sidle up to Randall, press herself against him, moan until he apologized for inviting Sharon.

"You're a better woman than I am. I wouldn't have let her in my house." Candace's look says you better show that woman whose man Randall is. "What's the matter with you? Why did Randall invite her? What was he thinking when he gave you that outfit?"

"He meant for her to have it." Lena wonders if this is the expensive meal he promised Sharon.

"Randall says you're quite the decorator, Lena." Sharon redirects sections of her chocolate dessert to the edge of her plate. "I'd love a tour of the house. Maybe you can give me a few pointers. I don't have an eye for that sort of thing." She pats Randall's arm. "And this one keeps me busy."

"Show her my office and the master bedroom. Take the ladies with you. She just finished redecorating." Randall rises from the table and holds an invisible cigar to his mouth-his signal for a smoke on the front porch.

"I think we'll skip the tour and go into the sunroom. Upstairs is a mess," Lena lies.

"In that case, I think I'll join the boys on the porch. I'm sure Randall won't mind." Sharon glances at the front door, and her smile conveys more than friendliness or amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I'm sure I have a cigarillo you could handle," Randall says.

"Oh, I can handle that, and more," Sharon says, standing to follow Randall to the porch.

Lena knows Sharon isn't the first woman at TIDA to hit on Randall. The CFO's second wife cornered him at last year's Christmas party and told him in no uncertain terms, which Lena could plainly hear, that she always wanted to f.u.c.k a powerful, s.e.xy black man. That woman was not this determined.

With two measured steps, Candace puts herself between Randall and Sharon, separating them with her wide designer skirt and the woody-amber scent of Hermes perfume. Lena watches her take Sharon's arm in a firm girlfriend grip, and with that one motion she forgives Candace for each and every bragging word, for each and every bit of raunchy gossip; this one action endears Candace to Lena forever.

"Let the boys tell their dirty jokes and smoke their stinky cigars. It's the one vice we wives allow." Candace steers Sharon to the sunroom, leaving Lena and Charles alone beside the table.

"Is she f.u.c.king him?"

"Ask him. But Randall's no fool. You don't mess around in your own backyard, especially when you're trying to be the head of your company." Charles feigns a slight bow. "I, on the other hand, wouldn't let my head be turned by some overambitious twit. If you weren't married to my best friend, I'd seduce you into having a torrid affair with me and f.u.c.k you all over the kitchen between all the lovely meals you'd cook for me."

"Drop dead, Charles. If Randall is your best friend, why do you say things like that to his wife?" Lena empties the last of a bottle of aged cabernet into her gla.s.s. "Why don't you go f.u.c.k Sharon? She seems to want to give it up pretty badly, and you've got enough money."

"Because you know I'm not serious. Because she's not my type. Because everyone knows you'd never leave the son of a b.i.t.c.h." Charles winks and saunters to the porch.

The hint of cigar smoke wafts between the threshold and the door as Lena walks past. Tonight the smell does not remind her of John Henry or the night Randall gave her the yellow diamond. It reminds her that Randall has his own agenda. That once she shared that agenda with him. As she nears the sunroom the bimbette's shrill voice reaches Lena before she sets foot there.

"Does she always go to this much trouble? I mean, that meal was fabulous."

"For what you ate of it, dear," Lynne says, her back to the sunroom's double doors. "We call Lena the black Martha Stewart. She got away with that off-the-wall comment, though. I thought Randall was going to lose it."

"Randall? He's a big, cuddly bear," Sharon says.

"Yeah, a grizzly," Lynne retorts.

"Got to give the girl credit," Candace says. "She is is talented." talented."

"Would Lena be nearly as inspired without Randall's... resources?" Sharon asks.

"Look at these orchids. And who uses their best dishes and silverware, and those tiny veggie dealies, for a casual 'get together'? Please." In one soundless step, Lena traverses the sunroom's threshold before Lynne realizes her hostess is in the room. "She's such a hypocrite. You see that diamond? For all she complains about being tired of material stuff, she flaunts the h.e.l.l out of it and everything else. Lena married well."

"And what the h.e.l.l does that mean?" Lena's voice is hard, her enunciation perfect. She knows that Randall can take down a company, make managers tremble with a simple request, control millions of dollars; he reeks of power-apparently, she is just the woman attached to the powerful man. "If this is what you say when you think think I'm not around, what do you say when I'm not?" I'm not around, what do you say when I'm not?"

The bimbette slinks through the side door. Lena gives the young woman credit for having more smarts than she thought. Unlike Sharon, who approaches Lena, arms extended, with concern that her face does not show.

"And you. I have no idea why you're here." Lena sways-from wine or words, it makes no difference to her-the winegla.s.s slips from her hand, sending teardrops of red wine onto the now wrinkled sabuk and across the tiled floor.

"I'm here because Randall asked me, Lena. I had no idea you'd object."

"You need to leave. Now." Lena points to the door through which Lynne and the bimbette exited seconds before and watches Sharon take her time to collect her purse and pashmina and strut out of the room.

"Don't mind her," Candace says. Lena is unsure which her her she refers to. "And don't be a fool. Follow her, and I mean Sharon, and act like nothing happened. I'm telling you." Candace pushes a lacy handkerchief into Lena's balled fist. "She'll tell Randall that you asked her to leave. If you stay here, she wins." she refers to. "And don't be a fool. Follow her, and I mean Sharon, and act like nothing happened. I'm telling you." Candace pushes a lacy handkerchief into Lena's balled fist. "She'll tell Randall that you asked her to leave. If you stay here, she wins."

The "everything is okay" smile disappears from Lena's lips after she pays the housekeeper and turns off the lights. Within five minutes of closing the door on their last guest, Randall lounges on the cushy chaise beyond their bed. He takes up the entire s.p.a.ce wide and deep enough for two. One leg stretches onto the dark hardwood floor and the Persian rug with a provenance. He pokes between the cushions for the remote control while Lena paces, full of the energy she needed earlier.

"I told you I didn't want to have a stupid party."

"Lynne is too dense to have been serious. She's jealous. More importantly, you embarra.s.sed me in front of our friends and my colleague."

"I embarra.s.sed you, Randall? You invite that... woman to my home. You don't bother to tell me. She shows up looking like she's ready to eat you while I'm dressed in this"-Lena waves her hands up and down her body-"this clown suit, and you're embarra.s.sed?"

"You were crude. You told Sharon to leave. You owe her an apology." Randall's expression is somber and without a hint of sympathy. He curls his fingers beneath his chin and looks at her in a way that says no further discussion is necessary.