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what I needed to do."
    He's trembling. This man, this tallish, almost good-looking man who happens to be black, this man standing on the threshold of my kitchen, his hand out for mayonnaise, mumbling
something
about a chicken, is trembling.
    Now, if I could go back and start fresh, I would try to worry
less about his plans for my mayo and pay more attention to the special opportunity his sudden appearance at my door offered, the chance to get better acquainted, become true neighbors. I can guess what some of you are thinking. I know what I thought myself—the mayonnaise is going to wind up in an X-rated place, and the man busy down there in that place, mayonnaise his favorite erotic dish, his bushy hair rubbing against my bushy hair and mayonnaise smearing his lips as he laps it from my thighs—but no, this is not that kind of story. This is a different story, but I admit the other video crossed my mind too and made me suspicious of his intentions. I'd been easy, maybe too easy. Here's a strange man who'd paid no attention to my existence for four years and I'd opened my door to him, as if none of his rude behavior had hurt me, and now he's standing just a few feet away, his hand out, making a bizarre request. I don't know him. He doesn't know me. Where is this business going? Where does he want it to go? Where do I want it to go?
    Believe me, I'm not the kind of person who makes a big deal out of small things. I'm the sort of individual who responds well to crises. I have three children. They're adults now, and all of you with kids know child-rearing toughens you up. Or kills you. You can't afford to waste your time sweating the small stuff. Real crises come pretty regularly. Demand your attention, demand everything. Leave you feeling very drained, very empty. Emptied of what I'm not sure, because I'm not sure I remember who I was twenty-eight years ago, before marriage and the daily, absolute demand that I pay attention nonstop to other people's needs and forget mine. But I do know that for twenty-eight years, a good portion of them spent in this upscale neighborhood my husband worked very hard and continues to work hard for us to live in, even though he's gone, even though he's moved to a condo in another upscale neighborhood in town with another woman, even though our divorce is well on its way to being consummated and I'm alone now except when the
children decide to come or go. During the ups and downs of all those years, I was not the type who cried easily. I don't think I've cried more than twice during the course of these rather trying and miserable divorce proceedings. So I'm not making a big thing out of a small thing when I tell you this large black man standing in my kitchen, his face cracking, the trembling passing through his body, this man scares the pee out of me. What have I gotten myself into? Is he sane? Four years like a ghost in the neighborhood, ignoring me when we pass on the street, and now he comes to my door with an absurd request.
    Does he know about the divorce? Has he heard about it from the neighbors? Not likely. How would he hear it from the neighbors? I've seldom seen him speaking to anyone, nor anyone to him. But news travels in strange ways. People share cleaning services. People share exterminators. People share mechanics, and this is, after all, a small community, so he might know. He very well might know. An acquaintance of his might play cards with my husband and have heard the stories. My husband drunk, in one of his sloppy, evil moods, may have told the stories I hate him to tell about me and LSD in college and all that dope we smoked together and those scary situations. And the way he claims he rescued me from one kind of life and brought me here to raise our children in peace and quiet and serenity and changed my life and changed his. What does this man know about those stories? Does he know I'm here in the house alone these days? Is he here because he wants something from