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Force. I graduated undergrad at Howard University, in the top ten of my class with a 3.99 GPA, and you dare ask me if I was the product of affirmative action?’ He kicked at a rock nearby. Then he asked , ‘Why is it that if your skin is brown, black or tan people always wonder how you made it into college? I made it on my own merit, damn it. Not every black face is poor. Not every black person needs a handout. Not every black face needs financial aid, but thank God it’s there for those who need it. Give me a break.’
    “William was so mad that tears began to well up in his eyes. Not knowing what else to do, I reached out and hugged him…I kissed him. And to my amazement, William kissed me back. We were happily married for fourteen years, and two weeks ago it was all over—no salvaging, no pleading, and no good-byes. Finished.”
    Ashley bowed her head and twitched her mouth. She looked out at the ladies and Marvin, this somewhat unfriendly group. She was the only white face in a group of black ones. So what? The same kinds of things that happened to white women happened to black women. This group sitting in front of her was just mad because she was married to the finest black man on the planet—well, they didn’t know that yet, but she couldn’t be held accountable because she and William fell in love with each other, and yeah…he was black.
    Ashley sighed. “When I caught William with another white woman, he had the nerve to say it was affirmative action.”
    “Serves you right,” Claudette said.
    “Serves me right? It’s okay for him to cheat on me?”
    “I’ll say it again: serves you right,” Claudette said. “There ain’t enough black men to go around as it is for all the single black sisters out there.”
    Sylvia jumped up from her seat and stood between Ashley and Claudette.
    “That’s enough, Claudette. We have to respect one another. Everyone in here is a victim. We share a common denominator. We are all Exes and we’re tired of the self-serving, ain’t-going-nowhere pity parties that makes us eat a two-pound bag of Oreos and a half-pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey just at the thought of our broken lives. We are all hurting and looking for a way to get past the hurt and the pain, and that’s universal and extends to no one race. Let’s let Ashley tell her story without further interruption, please.”
    “Maybe this is not a good time,” Ashley said, looking at Sylvia but not at Claudette. “This was a bad idea.”
    “Yeah, it was a bad idea.”
    “Enough, let Ashley get on with it,” Mona said in a high-pitched voice, shoving her hand in the air.
    Claudette rolled her eyes at Mona.
    Ashley stood still for more than a minute. She squeezed her eyes shut, then exhaled.
    “I was angry when I caught him…them in bed together. But all I could do was just stand there because I was in such a state of shock I couldn’t even scream. They looked at me like I was a stranger in my own bedroom and had walked into the wrong house.
    “I asked William how he could do this to me, but all he could do was stare at me, wide-eyed. And the little bitch was so scared, she cowered underneath my husband to shield herself from what she believed was coming next.
    “I didn’t even have the energy to fight. I was pathetic. I walked out of the room and my husband didn’t even beg me to stay or say that he was sorry. I could hear them whispering, planning what they were going to do next. I walked out and went to my parents’ house.
    “I loved that man—a part of me always will. There were many days and nights of pleading and begging for him to end the affair. Yes, I went back home, but it only made the pain greater since he ignored me. When I could no longer take the mental abuse, I told him I was going to file for divorce. I thought this strategy would wake him up and he would realize that he’d be losing a good woman. No such luck. He looked at me and said, ‘Fine. I’ll move out