Blanche Cleans Up Read online

  “Good morning, Blanche. Just juice and coffee, please. I hope you enjoy working for us even though it’s only for a short while.” She smiled up at Blanche.

  Enjoy? If she wanted the help to enjoy it, she’d pay more for fewer hours. Still, Blanche was partial to employers who looked her in the eye.

  Neither of the men spoke or even looked in Blanche’s direction. She considered giving them a loud, bustling greeting that forced them to acknowledge her, but she knew the advantages of not being seen. Still, there was no excuse for their bad manners. She made a mental note never to greet either of them first again.

  Ted Sadowski was going over his boss’s schedule for the day. “The lunch should be a snap, sir. Then there’s the good government panel followed by an interview with you and Mrs. Brindle for prime-time news and a small reception at the Plaza. The Drake Society dinner tonight. That should be pretty low-key.”

  Allister Brindle nodded. “Excellent, excellent,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

  Both men loaded up on the biscuits, ham, curried eggs, and mango slices. But not even Blanche’s food stopped the flow of their talk.

  “We’ll give ’em a bang-up lunch, make them feel included. They all need that, you know, all of them. They’re like children!” Allister Brindle spoke like an authority.

  “Oh, it’ll be fine, sir. You’ve got them in your pocket. They’re behind us a hundred percent.”

  Brindle reached over and slapped Sadowski on the back. “That’s why I hired you, Ted. Even I believe you when you mouth that bullshit.” Brindle’s smile faded. “Let’s not be overconfident, Ted. You can never quite trust them. You must never forget that.” He gave Sadowski’s shoulder a little shake for emphasis. “They’ve got different values. In the end, they’re in the pocket of whoever pays them.”

  Blanche left for the kitchen. She wondered which They Brindle and Sadowski meant—blacks, women, gays, Puerto Ricans, people in wheelchairs? It didn’t matter which. What mattered was that Brindle and Sadowski believed in They; talked about They as though They lived on the underside of a public toilet seat. Is this what Inez listened to every day? Poor Inez. Poor Inez, hell! Poor Blanche.

  When the front doorbell rang, Blanche waited for Carrie to come running from wherever she was to do her Ricardo job. The bell rang again. Still no Carrie.

  “Carrie! Door!” Blanche called toward the laundry room.

  “I’m in the bathroom!” Carrie called out.

  Blanche went down the hall and looked out the long narrow window in the front door. The man on the other side was the color of old, old gold. He could have been a mulatto or a Latino, but the ease with which he stood at rich white folks’door in his shorts and T-shirt convinced her he was Caucasian. She looked him up and down. Ummm, Soccer Thighs. She didn’t know zip about the game, but she watched it on TV occasionally for the stud muffins—particularly for those long, muscular, almost girlish legs and tight butts.

  She opened the door. The man picked up his gym bag and turned toward her. He looked at her as though she were the center of the universe and everything else was background. He smiled a closed-mouth smile that warmed his dark blue eyes even more.

  “Hi, I’m Saxe Winton. I’m Felicia’s trainer.” He held out his hand. “And you’re?” His voice was deep and warm.

  “Blanche.” She unintentionally mimicked his tone. She took back her hand and stepped aside. He gave her another of those Mr. Mona Lisa smiles as he passed her. I bet his dick curves up when it’s hard, she thought. Every man she’d ever known with an upturned dick had sex seeping out of his pores, just like this boy. No, not boy. Those wrinkles around his eyes and mouth weren’t all about laughing. Mid- to late thirties, probably. She closed the door behind him.

  “Is that you, Saxe?” Felicia called from the top of the stairs.

  Saxe turned to Blanche and gave her a regretful look as though duty were calling him away from where he really wanted to be. Great Googa Mooga! How much of that hot lustiness pouring off him like water over a fall was under his control? Did he want to present himself as lunch to every woman he met, or couldn’t he help himself? Maybe both. Pity the poor cow who thought it had anything to do with her. Awright, Blanche, get your mind out of your drawers, she told herself. Still, how long had it been? She got to two years and stopped counting.

  Carrie came out of the bathroom off the kitchen. “It was Mr. Saxe, wasn’t it?” She sounded like her number had come out and she’d forgotten to play it.

  “Yeah, he sure makes answering the door worth the trouble.”

  “Humph.” Carrie stuck her nose up in the air. “He sure ain’t why I want to answer the front door. Like I said, that’s my job from Ricardo. I just think Mr. Saxe is nice, is all.” Carrie didn’t look at Blanche.

  “Nice? I don’t know about nice, but I bet he could make your panties melt before you could get them off.”

  Carrie looked as shocked as if Blanche had lifted Carrie’s dress to check on the state of her panties.

  “What you mean?” Carrie smoothed her dress over her hips. “I wouldn’t take off my…I don’t want…I got to get the panties, I mean the sheets, folded.” Carrie darted into the laundry room quick as a lizard and closed the door behind her.

  Blanche shook her head. Poor thing can’t even admit that a part of her heartthrob is coming from lower down. Probably won’t even let herself feel that sweet drum beating down there. Blanche put on the kettle, then turned from the stove to watch the back door, knowing that it would open. It was an ability so old she no longer asked herself where it came from.

  A woman stepped inside. Blanche had no idea who she might be. Wanda Jackson, the cleaning lady, was due about now, but this white woman surely wasn’t Wanda Jackson.

  “Well, darlin’, you must be the replacement,” the woman said.

  She was about Blanche’s weight but a little shorter. They had the same stout-hipped, big-butt, big-busted frame, although this woman had the kind of shapely legs Blanche had cried for in her youth. Her hair was braided, too—not in two thick cornrows on either side of a center part, like Blanche’s, but in a circle of plump gray plaits wound around her head. Her face was as rosy white as Blanche’s was blue-black. The fine lines in her face reminded Blanche of the cobweb-thin cracks in very old paintings she’d seen in museums and wealthier employers’ homes.

  “It’s Wanda Jackson here.” She thrust out her hand. “And what might your name be, darlin’?”

  “Blanche. Blanche White.”

  Wanda gripped Blanche’s hand as though she meant to keep it. She cocked her head to the side. “And what a pair of names for one such as yourself, eh?”

  Blanche was impressed. A white woman who brought up color without stammering and quaking and going on about how some of her best friends had color as a sign she wasn’t a racist! What a nice surprise.

  “Speaking of names, you’re the first white Wanda I ever met.”

  Wanda peeled off two sweaters and a woolen scarf. “Well, you’re the fifth or sixth colored I’ve had to tell that Wanda is an old Polish name I inherited from my Polish great-grandmother on me sweet dead mother’s side; then I married a Brit from Liverpool, just like me mum, name of Jack Jackson. Who named you, darlin’?”

  “Great-Grandmama Ruth. She never said why, and she wasn’t the kind of woman who took kindly to being questioned.”

  Wanda nodded. “Just the kind of woman I’m lookin’ to be meself.” She sat down at the table and changed her heavy brown tie-up oxfords for the pair of paisley carpet slippers she took from her tote bag.

  “Tea?”

  “And what a welcome change you are from our Inez, darlin’. Hardly willin’ to part with a bit of water, not to speak of a cuppa tea.”

  Blanche heated the potbellied teapot and fetched a tin of cookies from the pantry.

  Wanda hovered over her cup, sugaring her tea and sniffing the fragrant steam, as if preparing to drink tea was as tasty and satisfying as sipping it. She sett
led into her chair as though she had no plans to clean the upstairs today.

  “I hope I didn’t offend with what I said about Inez,” Wanda said. “I didn’t mean no harm, you know. She’s a decent soul, even if she spends a tad too much time with her Brindle glasses on.”

  “Her Brindle glasses?”

  “The rose-colored ones, darlin’. You know the ones I mean.”

  “Ah, those. Well, I got twenty-twenty vision myself, at least on the job.”

  Wanda winked at her. “Better to see than to be seen, me old gran used to say.”

  “Wanda, honey, you’re somethin’. ”

  Wanda gave Blanche a long, level look. “And are you that taken with yer own good sense, darlin’?”

  “Sometimes,” Blanche told her. She thought about the conversation she’d heard in the breakfast room. “But I get your point.” Maybe the Ancestors put Wanda in her path to remind her not to fall into a They trap of her own.

  Wanda blew and sipped, sipped and blew. “A fine house, this, don’t you think? Although I can’t always say the same for him what owns it.”

  Blanche knew when she was being led and to somewhere she wanted to go. “Who are these folks, anyway?”

  Wanda leaned back in her chair. “Robber barons they were. Ran opium to the poor Chinese with Franklin Roosevelt’s grandda, then—”

  “You mean the grandfather of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt?”

  “The very same, darlin’. Didn’t stop there, either. The Brindles was also in cahoots with old man Kennedy runnin’ bootleg whiskey in the Prohibition. They say the father to this Brindle was a decent sort. Worked for the poor, tried to get laws passed to help the likes of us. I met him once, in a way of speakin’, when he come here to stay for a bit. This was years ago, before I come here to work regular. Back then I was hired in to help out at the shindigs they were throwin’. This particular time it weren’t just good works the old gentleman was pursuin’. Panted after my precious, he did, right there in the front hall. Now this one…”

  Blanche held up her hand. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I’m still back at your precious being panted after. I’ve heard it called many a thing, honey, but I got to tell you, this is new.”

  Wanda shrugged. “As I was saying, our current Mr. Brindle is more than a bit to the right of his dear old da.”

  “Carrie tells me he’s running for governor.”

  “That he is, darlin’, although some say he’s just practicin’ for a Washington run later on.”

  Blanche passed Wanda the tin of cookies. “What about the wife?”

  “Bit of a cold fish, personalitywise. Still, better’n him, At least she’s got a good side.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Saw her name in a paper. Not your regular paper. A newsletter like. Said she gave a considerable lot to one of them shelters for the homeless.”

  Blanche freshened Wanda’s tea. “Rich folks give money for reasons that ain’t got nothin’ to do with having a good side.”

  “Not money, darlin’, time. It’s time she’s been puttin’ in at that place.” Wanda nodded at Blanche’s look of surprise. “She’s in one of them do-gooder women’s groups, too. Not too good,” she added. “No intentions to parcel out their booty to the likes of us or anythin’. More in the way of socks for the poor wee kiddies and birth control for their mums.” Wanda dumped three teaspoons of sugar into her tea and reached for the cream. “Still, I know for a fact the Missus is still sendin’ checks to Lucy, who used to do the cleanin’ here. She’s the one got me the job when she had to quit. Knocked down by a hit-and-run driver on her way to the supermarket. In a wheelchair since then. That was two years ago.”

  Blanche wasn’t surprised about Allister’s politics, given what she’d seen of him, but Felicia’s generosity was a surprise. “That’s a lot of checks. You sure it wasn’t Felicia’s car that knocked her down?”

  “Blanche! That’s a mite cynical, my girl!”

  “No,” Blanche disagreed, “just realistic. You said she’s a bit of a cold fish.”

  “I see your point. But what a dull place the world would be if people only did what was expected, eh?”

  “What about Felicia’s people?” Blanche asked.

  “Well, socialwise, she married up, to be sure, but she’s got gobs of money. She don’t have relations hangin’ about. I think she comes from wig makers or some such, while his mum’s side came over on the Mayflower, I think. Her parents used to come to dinner from time to time, but they’ve both passed now. Same as his.”

  “What about Allister’s money?” Blanche asked.

  Wanda spread her hands. “Old but not as deep as it once was. His old man lost a good bit, I think. His mum’s money was really her family’s money. They kept most of it for their own line—accordin’ to Lucy.”

  Wanda looked into her almost empty cup and sighed but refused Blanche’s refill. “I’ve got to get on with upstairs sometime,” she said.

  Blanche looked over Inez’s menu for today’s buffet lunch: ham, cold roast beef, potato salad, shrimp salad, pasta salad, green salad, and a platter of high-end cold cuts. All of it ready but the green salad, thanks to Inez. But it wasn’t what Blanche called a “bang-up lunch.” It was the kind of lunch people like the Brindles served to guests they weren’t trying to impress, except with quantity. Good enough for They, no doubt.

  Carrie hummed “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” in a high nasal whine as she moved between the kitchen and the dining room. On her last trip, she took a detour down the front hall and came back so sparkly-eyed, Blanche knew she’d just shown Saxe out. Felicia Brindle sailed into the kitchen before Blanche could tease Carrie about Saxe.

  “Just wanted to make sure everything was coming along,” Felicia said, peering over Blanche’s shoulder to see what she was doing.

  As if she could do anything about it if it wasn’t. “Everything’s just fine, ma’am,” Blanche said, blocking Felicia’s view out of sheer cussedness. Blanche always called her employers ma’am and sir to their faces. It put just the right amount of distance between them and her and was good cover when she couldn’t remember their names.

  Curiosity—disguised as helping Carrie hand around the canapés—carried Blanche into the library where the guests had gathered for drinks before lunch.

  Blanche was generally delighted to come across a group of black people, but her stomach dropped when she saw that the They Brindle had referred to were what she called The Downtown Leadership—the black men that the big downtown white folks talked to when they needed blacks with positions and titles to support the latest cut in programs for the poor, or to amen some closet racist like Brindle. Do the Brindles of the world really think we’re all stupid enough to believe that shit is sunshine because the idiot who says so is black?

  She recognized Ralph Gordon, the new head of the Roxbury Outpatient Care Center. His face had been all over the papers a couple of months ago when the powers that be hired him after firing the woman who’d directed the health center for years. Her mistake had been complaining about cuts in her budget to the newspapers. Gordon was talking to James McGovern, the head of the Association of Afro Execs. He kept himself in the news by complaining about affirmative action and lying about black women taking jobs away from black men. Jonathan Carstairs, a lawyer who’d run for city councilor from Roxbury, was guzzling something from a highball glass. His campaign platform had included arresting welfare mothers if their kids got into trouble. Naturally, he’d lost the election. Blanche thought of him as a prime example of how racism made black people crazy. A tall, paunchy man Blanche thought was a high muckety-muck at one of the banks and a couple of men she didn’t recognize were hovering around Felicia Brindle.

  She watched Allister Brindle work the room, shaking hands and slapping backs. Was it phoniness that made him look like he was made of cardboard? His guests melted before him like butter under a hot knife. The talk was partly about sports and partly a sermon from Brindle
against those homos, welfare mothers, and drug-dealing teenage gangsters who were ruining the Commonwealth and the country. Blanche kept waiting for one of the guests to take exception. None did.

  Blanche wasn’t at all surprised that nobody from what she considered the helpful groups in the community was there. It wasn’t likely any of them would be hanging out with someone as far right as Allister Brindle. Like Allister had said, this was a paying gig. Every one of these suckers expected something in return for their sellout—a slot on some board of directors, some photos of them with the governor to hang in their offices and homes as a sign that they were somebody, or a reference to them in the newspaper as black leaders, which was important because they were leaders nobody followed.

  Except for one of them.

  Why was Maurice Samuelson hanging around Brindle? The Reverend Maurice Samuelson, founder of the Temple of the Divine Enlightenment. He certainly wasn’t a leader without followers. She’d walked by Samuelson’s Temple a couple of times just before services began, and there’d been so many people, mostly women, trying to get in, she’d had to cross the street. He was also probably the only one of these boys who actually lived in Roxbury, where most blacks in Boston lived. There were signs all over Roxbury about the Temple and its programs for elders and young people. He was the best-known outside of Boston, too. There’d been a story about Samuelson in Jet magazine. The article said his Temple was a new kind of African-American religion where Christian, Jewish, and Muslim holy books and beliefs were mixed together. She watched him as she offered the tray around the room.

  He was a short man who tried to make himself look taller by walking with his shoulders up to his ears and wearing thick-heeled shoes, both of which Blanche thought made him look like an old-time gangster. He slicked his long hair down with pomade heavy enough to turn his kinks into waves that curled at the top of his collar in the back. His dark blue suit fit as though he and Allister Brindle had the same tailor. His blue-and-cream-polka-dot bow tie and cream silk shirt were a perfect match. Of course, it wouldn’t matter to her how he looked. She was suspicious of anyone who was pushing not one, not two, but three male-led religions rolled into one.