Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery Read online

  “Never mind,” she added, saving Blanche from having to think up an excuse for not having a suitcase. “You can take care of that tomorrow. You're about Bernice's size. She always leaves a spare uniform at the country house. You'll just have to wear your street clothes until we get there.” She gave Blanche a somewhat pained look before continuing along the cobblestone path.

  Blanche was reminded of old lady Ivy, out on Long Island. She couldn't stand to see the help in regular clothes, either. Might mistake them for human beings. Blanche chopped down her usually wide stride to match the pace of the woman in front of her. A stone could walk faster, Blanche tsked to herself.

  “Cook left a cold lunch.” The woman turned her head toward Blanche. “You need only set up a buffet in the dining room. We'll serve ourselves. We'll lunch early. I want to leave for the country as soon as possible.” She took a deep breath. “Of course, there's the washing up to be done.

  “Darn it!” The woman lurched forward as though she'd tripped over some unseen obstacle. She recovered herself and continued walking and talking as though nothing had happened.

  Blanche thought of her Aunt Sarah. Blanche had actually seen Aunt Sarah continue to expound on the best way to smoke a turkey while sitting in a sea of oranges she'd knocked from a bin at the supermarket after stumbling over nothing anyone could see. Aunt Sarah had continued her turkey-smoking instructions even while Blanche and one of the bag boys were hoisting her to her feet.

  “There is no other help in the house, just now.” The woman raised her pink-nailed hand as if to ward off some protest or question from Blanche.

  “Of course, you'll be getting the meals and seeing to the house in the country,” the woman told her.

  Blanche wondered if rich girls took classes in how to impose on the help by making an impossible workload sound like a breeze.

  “It is aired and ready for us, however. And we're very informal there. No large dinner parties, few guests. Although we always maintain a high standard.”

  A wry smile lifted the corners of Blanche's mouth. Life did seem to be poking fun at her, sometimes. Even on the run she had to clean up after people.

  “We always give our regular staff vacation when we go to the country. That's why you're here.” The woman turned her head and gave Blanche a smile with more width than warmth in it. And because you're trying to make it on the cheap with just one staff person, Blanche added to herself. What was it about money that made people who had it not want to spend it? Blanche gave the woman her own shark's tooth smile, along with a demure “Yes, ma'am.” She was relieved to hear the regular help was away. She wondered if the woman was as direct and fast-talking with other people who were not the help.

  The woman stopped and turned so suddenly that Blanche almost bumped into her. She examined Blanche's face. “You have worked for us before, haven't you?” A vertical frown creased the middle of her forehead. “I specifically asked the agency to send someone who knew our...routine. My aunt's...I don't seem to remember your face...” Her eyes narrowed slightly.

  Blanche forced her mouth into a toothy grin and blinked rapidly at the woman. “Oh, yes, ma'am!” Blanche's voice was two octaves higher than usual. “You remember me! I worked for ya'll about six months ago. I think one of ya'll's regular help was out sick? Or maybe had a death in the family?” She gave the woman an expectant look.

  The woman's face remained blank for a moment. “Oh, yes, of course.” She quickly turned and continued walking along the path. “My memory is just terrible of late,” she told Blanche over her shoulder. “So much to think about, to remember...so much on my...”

  Blanche smiled and nodded. She ain't got no more idea what's going on in her house than a jackrabbit. Blanche had guessed as much. The woman hadn't even bothered to ask her name. That was just fine. The last thing Blanche needed right now was a truly interested employer. But she was sorry for the permanent help. This was the kind of employer who responded to your need for a surgeon with a bag of dated, cast-off clothes.

  The house they approached was large, many-winged, graceful, and of that peculiar pink brick which Blanche remembered seeing only in this part of the country. Blanche believed in the power of houses. She'd worked inside too many of them to act—as most people did—as though a house were just a building. She could often tell what a house was going to be like by the way it either fit into the landscape or imposed itself upon it.

  This house rose from a bed of flowers and shrubs that spoke of a builder and a once-a-week gardener, both with an eye for blending nature and architecture. But this house had nothing to say to her, personally. Much like the woman who lived in it, the house recognized her only as a function. Fortunately, she wasn't going to be there long enough for it to matter.

  She followed the woman up three steps to a flagstone patio and through French doors into a room that smelled of leather and was lined with so many books it could have been a nook in the New York Public Library. The woman opened a door on the far side of the room. Blanche followed her down a long hall, around a corner, past four or five other doors, and down a dark, uncarpeted, and narrower corridor into a large, bright kitchen.

  It was at least as attractive, well designed, and well appointed as any of the kitchens she'd known in New York. And it was larger than most—a microwave, plus two built-in, eye-level ovens, a rotisserie, a double-door refrigerator and freezer built into the wall, an eight-burner range, copper-bottomed pots hanging from the ceiling, a wealth of kitchen cabinets, and, in the middle of the floor, a butcher-block work station complete with sink and garbage-disposal unit. It was a kitchen so different from the rickety range and dripping tap in the house Blanche lived in that she didn't think they ought to be called by the same name.

  “I'm sure you can find everything you need.” The woman looked around the kitchen like a bellhop checking the towels. “There will be three at table for lunch. We shall want lunch at eleven-forty-five. You may use the room up these stairs, first door on the left, to freshen up. You won't be coming back here, so don't leave anything behind.” The woman gave Blanche an expectant look.

  “Yes, ma'am,” Blanche told her. “I understand.” Blanche thought the woman was about to add something, when the phone rang. The woman turned abruptly and pushed a swinging door that Blanche assumed separated the kitchen from the rest of the house. The phone fell silent in mid-ring.

  Blanche leaned against the butcher-block station and let her breath out in a slow, steady stream. If the agency had found a replacement for her, that person had to show up pretty soon. Then what? Miz Mistress was sure to call the sheriff. To save face after having let a stranger into her house, she might even claim that Blanche had pushed her way in uninvited or tried to steal something. If I had any sense, Blanche thought, I'd leave now. But which way was out? A look out the kitchen window showed her a walled-in yard that didn't have a wooded path like the one they'd taken to the house. If she went through the front of the house she might run into the woman, and she certainly couldn't find her way through the house to the way she'd entered.

  She heard a noise on the other side of the swinging door and quickly slipped on the bright-eyed but vacant expression behind which she'd hid from the woman so far. Blanche had learned long ago that signs of pleasant stupidity in household help made some employers feel more comfortable, as though their wallets, their car keys, and their ideas about themselves were all safe. Putting on a dumb act was something many black people considered unacceptable, but she sometimes found it a useful place to hide. She also got a lot of secret pleasure from fooling people who assumed they were smarter than she was by virtue of the way she looked and made her living.

  “That was your agency,” the woman said as she entered the kitchen. “They called to say you weren't going to be able to make it until tomorrow! Can you imagine! I gave them quite a lecture about their lack of efficiency.”

  The woman looked so pleased with herself, Blanche wondered if she got her jollies from telling people
off—or maybe it was the novelty that perked her up.

  “They want you to call them. Perhaps after lunch.” She turned her head to give Blanche another of those mouth-only smiles and bumped into a chair. “Ow!” The woman pushed the chair away from her as though it had been the attacker. She turned sharply and left the kitchen as though the whole room might be in cahoots with the chair.

  That was the second time Blanche had seen her stumble. There was something about the woman's clumsiness that reminded Blanche of Deke Williams, the stunt man for whom she'd once worked. She used to love to listen to Deke explain things like how to take the least painful fall, and how Charlie Chaplin had raised falling to an art form. There was certainly nothing arty about this person's stumbling around.

  Blanche looked at her watch—10:45. How could so much have happened to her in so few hours? She opened the refrigerator. Three of its spacious shelves held artfully decorated and arranged platters of cold meats and salads, as well as two trays of yeast rolls waiting for the oven. Good. She had plenty of time to make her phone calls. She'd noticed that the woman had gone to the front of the house to answer the phone instead of using the one hanging on the kitchen wall. She wondered if this was the colored-only phone—this was Dixie, after all. But she thought it more likely that the woman had been expecting a call she didn't want overheard. Blanche went to the swinging door and pushed it gently to see if her employer was anywhere around. Blanche didn't want her phone calls overheard either. Beyond the swinging door was a pantry with shelves and a narrow counter on either side. There was another swinging door at the other end of the pantry. It lead to the dining room. Blanche took a quick peek. No one there. She listened. Nothing. She decided to take the chance while she had it and went back to the kitchen to make her calls.

  “It's me, Mama.”

  “I was wondering where you was. I want you to stop by the...”

  “Listen, Mama. I only got a second.” Blanche lowered her voice and kept her eyes on the swinging door. The urgency in her tone stopped her mother from objecting to being interrupted in mid-order.

  “I wanted to tell you I'm safe. I...”

  “What you mean, 'safe'?” her mother wanted to know. “I don't know nothin' about you not being safe!”

  “I can't explain right now, Mama. Just trust me and take care of the kids until I can...If the sheriff or anyone asks, say you haven't talked to me. Say you figure I've run off to New Orleans, like I been talking about doing. But please don't let the kids hear you say that...They're all right, ain't they? Yes, I know you're not a lying woman, Mama, so you know it must be important, or I wouldn't ask you to do it. I'll call you again just as soon as I can. Give Taifa and Malik my love, and tell them I'm sorry I couldn't call while they were home, and tell them I'll...”

  “Don't you worry about these children,” Miz Cora interrupted. “My grandbabies is just fine here with me, just fine.”

  For a few seconds after her mother hung up, Blanche continued to hold the receiver to her ear and stare at the wall in front of her. Her mother's words hung in her mind like heavy weather. There was no mistaking her tone. Blanche felt herself a soldier being forewarned of the coming war.

  It seemed ironic that after California, and all of her resistance and anger over being saddled with Taifa and Malik, she was afraid to leave town without them—even though that clearly made sense. She didn't want to have to fight her mother to get them back. The idea of fighting her mother made her stomach tighten. It had taken Blanche a long time to feel like her own woman, out from under Miz Cora's strong hand. Her mother had not approved of her refusal to belong to the church, her leaving Farleigh for New York, her decision to continue to do domestic work instead of being a nurse like her sister or some other mother-proud profession. They'd been fighting for nearly twenty years over Blanche's unstraightened hair. In those years, Blanche's relationship with Miz Cora had grown less contentious, as Blanche had proved that she was both moral and ungodly, that New York would not automatically make her a junkie, and that she would not be arrested as a revolutionary because of her hairdo. Still, in her mother's house, where Miz Cora's spirit seemed to be the major ingredient holding walls and floors together, Blanche sometimes felt she was once again in ankle socks and braids. She didn't intend for Taifa and Malik to have to fight so hard for their freedom. She dialed the phone again. Ardell answered on the first ring.

  “Hey, girlfriend. I was just thinking about you. How'd it go this morn—What's wrong?”

  Ardell's recognition that something was wrong before Blanche told her so was one of the reasons why their friendship was almost as old as they were. All through Blanche's New York years, through the year in which Blanche had lived in California as a grownup runaway, through Ardell's crazy marriage and religious conversion (and unconversion), they'd supported and encouraged each other with an intensity and constancy that had often made their men jealous and suspicious. Neither Blanche nor Ardell paid that any mind. They didn't think their relationship was anybody else's business and were both quick to say so.

  “Oh, girl! You are not going to believe this shit!” Blanche proceeded to bring Ardell up to date and asked her to call the women whose houses Blanche had agreed to clean in the next few days.

  “I'll tell them you got the flu. And I'll go by and see if there's anything your mama needs doing.”

  “That's what I really need. I feel so bad dumping all this worry on Mama and the kids, too.”

  “I'd be glad to keep the kids, but you know Miz Cora will rip out my jugular vein if I even suggest she part with her grand-babies! As for worry, Miz Cora has handled a whole lot worse than this! Don't you go looking for things to be upset about. You got enough on your plate.” Ardell paused, then added, “I think what I really need to do is borrow a car and come get your butt!”

  “No. We're leaving for their place in the country in a couple of hours. I'll be safer there. But right now, I need to get off this phone and get these people's lunch on the table.” She spoke quickly and urgently, trying to cut Ardell off from where she was surely headed with her comment about borrowing a car. Blanche knew just whose car Ardell had in mind. But her effort to derail Ardell was as futile as it usually was.

  “What about Leo?” Ardell's voice was a study in nonchalance that didn't fool Blanche for a second. “You want me to call him? He—”

  “Don't even start it, Ardell. You know how I feel about Leo. I've told you I—”

  “All right, all right,” Ardell interrupted. “You just let me know how I can help.”

  “Thanks, honey. I'll be in touch.” Blanche hung up the receiver and drummed her fingers on the counter. In a way she was grateful to Ardell for bringing up Leo. She needed something to get on her left nerve, to keep her from feeling sorry for herself or too scared to function. And there was nothing like the mention of Leo to raise her temperature.

  They hadn't been a couple since high school. But some people in town, including Ardell, seemed to think they were star-crossed lovers. And she wasn't sure Leo didn't think the same thing, bringing the kids toys and games, and helping them with their homework. If a way to a man's heart was through his stomach, surely the way to a mother's heart was through her children. Unfortunately, he also offered her unsolicited advice on everything from how she should raise them to what she should wear. And as if to irritate her even more, Taifa and Malik, with prompting from no one, had taken to calling him Uncle Leo. If Blanche had ten dollars for every time she'd told him to mind his own damned business, she'd have enough money to buy a car and leave town right now. But no matter how she screamed at him, or how sarcastic she became, he was always willing to help her in whatever way she needed, even as he lectured her about being impractical and half-crazy. Maybe that was what irritated her most. It was as if he'd decided to wear her down with kindness and decency. Well, she certainly didn't want him butting his nose in now, chastising her for not having come to him for the money she needed, and treating her as though she ought to h
ave a keeper! Fortified by her indignation over Leo, she turned to face her current situation with a bit more confidence.

  Yes, there is an end to this, she told herself. I've lived through times at least as bad. Having her apartment building burn down in the heart of winter, with two kids to care for, was surely as terrible as going to jail for thirty days. Having everything that was portable stolen from her apartment and then being mugged on the street not once, not twice, but three times in as many weeks, was certainly in the same ball park as being on the run from the sheriff. I just got to be up to whatever I got to do, she told herself.

  She moved around the kitchen, opening cabinets in search of plates. The first door she opened revealed shelves full of raspberry vinegar, coriander, virgin olive oil, saffron, things she'd used with regularity in the kitchens of the smart Manhattan condos and lofts, and the mellow old family-owned brownstones where she'd rented out her services as cook, housekeeper, lady's maid, housemaid, waitress, laundress, seamstress—whichever of her services, or set of services, an employer needed to buy and could afford. The kitchens she came across now that she was reduced to day work in Farleigh were more likely to be stocked with Crisco than caviar. Rich and well fed, she thought, and wondered about the people who would take the other two places at lunch. She tasted a bit of Italian pimiento, a few French capers. In other kitchens, she'd sometimes held foreign foods and imagined herself buying them in their country of origin. Sometimes, this fantasy led to the realization of how much there was to see and do in the world, and how little of it she was likely to experience. Today, she'd have traded a chance to travel the globe for the ability to simply go home.