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haven’t had dinner yet?” Jada shot a murderous look at Clinton and went to the refrigerator. She took out the milk, grabbed a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, took out the last can of tuna, and decided to add the leftover string beans. There were plenty of ’em—why did she bother with green vegetables at all?
    In nineteen minutes the table was cleared and set, the television off, Shavonne washed, Kevon was found in his room, and the casserole was being dished out to the four of them. Life took on order and she could see even Clinton was marginally grateful. That sense of order, and the children, were the only reasons he hung around. But his lapses were getting worse and worse. She would have to talk to him.
    Jada looked across the table at her husband. He averted his eyes. His skin gleamed and his hair, in a new cut, was in a handsome fade. For a month this new crisis had been hanging over her head. She should talk to him tonight. Confront him. But she was so tired. I’m the real casualty in this family , Jada thought. She knew that, despite her incredible fatigue tonight, she still had to put Shavonne and Kevon to bed, check in on Sherrilee, as well as confront her husband and demand his decision, a decision he didn’t want to make and she didn’t want to hear.
    Jada began to spoon what was left of the casserole into a plastic refrigerator bowl. The limp, twice-cooked green beans—certainly a misnomer, because they were no longer anything even dose to green—lay there before her. They looked worse than dead—used up and wasted.
    Somehow the sight of them made her inexpressibly sad.

5
In which two people achieve orgasm and boots are made for walking
    When Frank Russo walked into the master bedroom a little before eleven that night, Michelle, her hair down, lay across their bed in her satin nightgown, her breasts bursting out of the white foam of lace at the straps, reading. She looked up from the page as Frank caught sight of her. He grinned, then tried to play nonchalant. As if. She smiled to herself, then waited. She knew the scent of her perfume, the one she wore on nights like this and that he still bought her every Christmas, was wafting toward him. She didn’t say a word—she only smiled and glanced at the fabric of his trousers, right below his belt buckle. She wondered, not for the first time, if she’d trained him like one of those Russian dogs that salivated when a bell rang. Would her perfume give him an erection anytime he smelled it?
    Frank sat down on the bed beside her, his eyes taking her in. “What you been up to?” he asked, his voice husky and intimate. “Painting the garage?”
    For a moment Michelle opened her mouth to protest. Then she closed it again. She wouldn’t laugh. Instead she shook her head slowly, letting her hair cascade over her shoulders, lowering her eyes demurely back to her book “Uh-uh,” she said, her voice slow. “But I did change the oil in the Lexus,” she drawled.
    “Good girl,” he said, and casually began to unbuckle his belt. “While you’re at it, my truck could use a tune-up.” It was only then that she allowed herself to laugh and put the book down. Then she took Frank’s hand and held it to her soft, wide-open mouth. She licked his palm.
    Frank couldn’t play cool any longer and groaned, then stripped off his shirt and undershirt, and lastly pulled off his jeans and boxers in a single movement. Michelle tried to keep his hand against her mouth the whole time, promising him everything with her eyes, but once in bed he pulled up the blanket as soon as he could and turned his back to her, curving his body into his sleep position. “God, I’m bushed,” he said, and lay there quietly, ready for sleep.
    “Frank!” Michelle wailed, and then he had to laugh and turn to her, his arms open, his flesh hard.
    Making love with Frank, after all this time together, was still great. Maybe, Michelle thought, it was because they knew each other so well but