Waiting to Exhale Read Online Free PDF Page B

But then again, Bernadine really couldn't be sure, because she felt stoned, as if she'd smoked a good joint. But she hadn't. Still, something was pushing her shoulders down, while what felt like helium was escaping inside her head. She couldn't move. She was sinking and floating. Felt heavy, then light. And this scared her.
    She tried to get her feet to move, to turn and walk down the hallway, but they were paralyzed. She tried to raise her arms, to dismiss this whole thing, but now they were frozen too. She couldn't even move her fingers. And then, for no apparent reason, Bernadine remembered feeling helpless like this before. It was the time she had almost drowned.
    She had swum out into the middle of the lake to a raft with a girlfriend who was six months pregnant. Being a pack-a-day smoker and not a very good swimmer, Bernadine was so out of breath she was panting by the time she climbed up and collapsed on the wooden slats. The sun was turning orange behind her closed lids, and she was just getting comfortable, when she heard a voice say, "Ready?" She opened her eyes and saw a big belly hovering over her. "Race you back," her girlfriend said, and dove back in. Bernadine sat up slowly and tumbled over the side of the raft. She cut through the water without grace. She could see her girlfriend up ahead. For five or six yards, Bernadine did the crawl stroke, but when she went to pull her right arm up over her shoulder, she had no strength. She tried treading water but had no strength to do that, either. She tried twisting over on her back to float, but the thought itself tired her even more, and finally she gave in and let her body sink. With her eyes open, Bernadine dropped down, watching the golden water swirl in front of her, thousands of bubbles engulfing her, and she felt as if she was flying. She went ahead and surrendered, gave in to what felt like complete grace, as close to peace as she had ever come, when suddenly it occurred to her that she was in fact drowning. She panicked. Took water into her lungs and was coughing, when her feet touched the bottom of the lake. Bernadine pushed down hard, forcing her body to jet up through what seemed like miles of water, where she was surprised to learn that she could now stand. The water barely covered her shoulders. She stood there for a few minutes, long enough to catch her breath, then started walking to shore, the water pulling at her breasts, thighs, and calves. She didn't bother telling her friend, who was waiting on the blanket, that she had almost given herself permission to die.
    Now she looked over at her husband, thinking she had wanted to be rid of him, had been trying to conjure up the courage, the nerve, the guts, to tell him to leave, but she didn't have that much courage yet. All she wanted to do was repossess her life. To feel that sense of relief when the single most contributing factor to her uttermost source of misery was gone. But he beat her to the punch. Not only was he leaving her. Not only was he leaving her for another woman. He was leaving her for a white woman. Bernadine hadn't expected this kind of betrayal, this kind of insult. John knew this would hurt me,-she thought, as she tried to will the tears rolling down her cheeks to evaporate. And he'd chosen the safest route. A white woman was about the only one who'd probably tolerate his ass. Make him king. She's probably flattered to death that such a handsome, successful black man would want to take care of her, make her not need anything except him. She'll worship him, Bernadine thought, just like I did in the beginning, until the spell wore off. Hell, / was his white girl for eleven years.
    It's sad, she thought, as she stared at specks of what had to be Kathleen's dandruff on the lapels of John's black suit, that when you finally come to understand the man you love, that's when you realize you don't love him anymore. As a matter of fact, she couldn't stand John. It had taken years for her to see