Blanche Among the Talented Tenth (Blanche White series Book 2) Read online

  She didn’t expect him to be in his shop or to answer her knock. She also didn’t expect to find his boat. She was right on all counts. She went around the building and climbed the stairs to the back door. It was locked, too, but there was a small cardboard box propped against it with her name printed on it. The sight of the box made her so mad she couldn’t open it until she was halfway back to Amber Cove Inn. How dare he know that she’d go to the back door? There was a note in the box:

  Dear Blanche, I’d do anything to change what’s happened. I can’t face you again. Or Mattie. I’ll contact Carol, I promise. This is the best I can do in the way of reparations. It was my mother’s. Stu.

  The large oval brooch was made up of a ring of brilliant emerald-green stones nestled between an inner and outer ring of twinkling diamonds. She turned it over and over in her hands. Excellent taste in jewelry, Faith had said of him. Had he carefully gone through his mother’s jewelry case looking for just the right piece for her? Or had he figured that any piece would melt her heart? After all, it did belong to his mama. It wasn’t fair that a man like him didn’t throw off a warning scent. Or maybe he had. She thought back to the first days. Why hadn’t she heeded her first mind when it told her there was something off about him? Was she so determined to prove she could get a man to replace Leo that she had stopped listening to herself? Now here she was, a few kisses later, all turned around because Stu wasn’t who he seemed. And since she was on the hard questions, what part had their complexions played in all this? Had his daddy’s love for dark skin rubbed off on him? Or did he really hate black people because his dad dissed him for not being dark enough? Maybe all along he’d planned to hurt or embarrass her in some way. Well, he’d certainly done that. Her face grew hot at the thought of how he’d used her own body to lure her out of the cottage. Maybe he’d planned to ransack her room and then run home and throw her across his bed. Or maybe not. She could see herself standing outside his locked door with damp panties, her mouth sour with self-loathing. She stomped on the possibility that he had simply been attracted to her. Dragging along behind it was that which fueled much of her rage at him and made her want to hang her head in shame: her attraction to him. Her attraction to a man who’d knocked her out, pushed her. Shit! She didn’t mind stepping wrong, that was only natural, but this was part of that woman-thing, where the man in your head has little to do with the man in your bed. She’d thought she’d grown beyond that. And where had he gone? Was his note to her a lie like Hank’s note? She put the brooch back in the box and slipped it into her shirt pocket. It was time to talk to Ardell.

  “I’m back!” she called out to Tina and slipped quickly into her room and closed the door. She reached for the phone. “I got caught in the catch.” She began with Stu being Mattie’s son and what a rotten cow she turned out to be, then skipped to the connection between the anklet, Susan Moon, and Stu’s having mentioned bringing an Asian friend home to visit. “It was all down hill from there,” she said, then backed up. She couldn’t tell the story of what had happened to her without beginning with what had really happened to Faith.

  She began with Mattie and the note and worked her way through what Stu had told her about the night Faith died. “No one touched the woman! It was an accident, just an accident.”

  “Damn!” Ardell said, when Blanche stopped talking. “Do you think Stu really meant to let Hank believe Carol killed Faith?”

  Blanche didn’t hesitate. “I know he did. I told you what he said. That business about not telling Hank because Hank ignored him like he did when they were kids is so much bullshit. They ain’t been kids for a long time. Stu saw how upset Hank was. He could have stopped Hank and told him Carol had only been in Faith’s for a second, but he didn’t. Because he liked hurting Hank. Although he probably didn’t expect Hank to kill himself and leave a note saying he’d murdered Faith. But it’s what Stu didn’t tell Hank that made Hank think he needed to tell that one last lie.”

  “Hummm. But why was Hank so sure Carol would be blamed for killing Faith? Didn’t everybody think Faith had an accident?”

  “You know how it is when you notice a little spot on your blouse? It’s so obvious to you, you know everybody else sees it, too. Hank knew, or thought he knew Carol had killed Faith. And Stu knew about it so naturally Hank thought other people must know, or at least would come to find out somehow.”

  “Hummm. I guess you’re right. The whole thing’s just too crazy for me. The antics of people with too much pride and money and not enough melanin. I called that color thing, didn’t I?”

  Blanche agreed that she had. From the very beginning Amber Coveites had told her this was a place where none of the color codes could be ignored, including Stu’s attempts to play against the rules with her.

  “I’m sorry it’s been so rough for you, Blanche.”

  “I know you are, honey, and that helps, believe me.”

  They were silent for a moment in which Blanche felt her friend as close to her as her heartbeat.

  “I wish I could stop feeling like I shoulda figured something was seriously wrong with him,” Blanche sighed.

  “You did figure something was up with him, Blanche! I’m the one who pushed you to give him a shot.”

  “Yeah, but you never saw him. If you’d been here, maybe…”

  “This is stupid,” Ardell told her. “He’s the one in the wrong! Why we keep trying to find ways to blame ourselves for what men do to us?”

  “Maybe it’s because we know we wouldn’t get hurt so much if we paid more attention to who the man is and less to what we’d like him to be.”

  “Hummm. I can’t argue with that. But don’t beat up on yourself. It was an honest mistake.”

  “Yeah, but I still keep feeling like there’s something more.

  “Like what?

  “I don’t know. Something that’ll put paid to the whole damn business.”

  “What about taking your ass home? That’s one thing you can do. Just leave that place. Time’ll do the rest.”

  “There’s got to be something more.”

  “It ain’t that simple, Blanche. You’re up in Maine, not out in Hollywood. Life don’t work like the movies. What you want to happen? For him to drag his tired ass to your door and beg your forgiveness? For Mattie to come to you with tears in her eyes and goodness in her heart? For the whole thing to never have happened, so you can be different from all the other women in the world who’ve been fooled and knocked around for even less reason? I don’t think so! That’s what makes it tough. It’s like gettin’ shit on your shoes, no matter how you scrape, there’s always enough left to stink, until you just walk it off. That’s what you got to do, walk it off.”

  Tina was waiting for Blanche when she got off the phone. When she heard the story, she wanted Blanche to press charges: assault, breaking and entering, bodily harm, she rattled off charges like a lawyer. “No way you can let him get away with this Blanche, no way!” Tina’s eyes were angrier than Blanche had ever seen them.

  Blanche thought about her conversation with Ardell. Neither of them had even thought of the police. She reminded herself that she had about twenty years on Tina. Maybe their worlds were even more different than she’d realized. But she didn’t really think so. Time was the difference. She kept her voice as neutral as she could when she spoke. “He’s already gotten away with it, honey. Nothing can change that. Throwing him in jail don’t change a thing he’s done to me. No. I’m not going to put myself through that. Not enough payoff.”

  Tina looked at her in a way that made Blanche want to flinch. “How can we stop men from battering women if we don’t press charges?” she demanded to know.

  Blanche felt a wave of regret as she watched Tina’s mouth set in a line of disapproval but she wasn’t about to betray herself or lie.

  “No,” she said, “I’m definitely not going to press charges. Far as I’m concern
ed, teaching self-defense to girls starting in the first grade has got a better chance of stopping men from beating us up than pressing charges. I’m not going to add insult to injury. Anyway, he wasn’t my boyfriend punching my lights out on a daily basis. He didn’t rape me. I don’t think he knocked me out because I was a woman. How do you think I’ll be treated? How seriously do you think the police would take me? Not only am I an outsider, but the inside folk would shoot me down. It scares me half to death to think of ever having someone do something to me that I can’t avoid going to the police to get fixed. I’m glad this ain’t it.” She remembered the look on Stu’s face when she’d punched him in the gut and smiled. “Besides, I’m sure Stu has at least one tender spot for me.” She explained.

  “Yes!” Tina shouted, her fists in the air. “At least that!”

  But Blanche’s account of her moment of retaliation wasn’t enough to lessen the distance that now stretched between them. Ah well, Blanche thought, ah well. Maybe we’ll run into each other in ten years. She didn’t tell Tina about the brooch. She hadn’t mentioned it to Ardell either.

  By the time Christine and David arrived, Blanche, the children, and Tina were ready to go. Deirdre and Casey had the droopy look of those left behind.

  At a superficial glance, Blanche might have believed Christine and David had managed to patch their marriage together. But when she listened closely she heard the brittle edges of over-politeness, like the thin crust over hot lava. Neither of them seemed much in the mood for talking, which suited Blanche. She only had a moment alone with Christine, who said she’d be in touch.

  While the Crowleys went off with the children to say good-bye to the fort, Blanche walked up the beach away from the Inn. It was time to take her load of Amber Cove to the sea. Out of sight of the others, she squatted on the beach and gathered a small heap of stones—larger than peas but smaller than eggs. As she recalled each hurtful event of her stay at Amber Cove, she picked up a stone. She rolled it between her palms and fingers coating it with what she could see and feel, smell, and hear of the moments she hoped to leave behind: Taifa’s color complex; the knot on her head and the bruise on her back; Tina’s disappointment in her; Mattie’s acting like Mattie and Stu being Stu; the pale, cold, color-conscious attitude of Arthur Hill, Veronica, and others; and the haint in Hank’s eyes. She rolled each of them round and around a stone then threw the stone and it’s worrisome new shell as far as she could out into the sea. She felt freer when she was done. Not free, but freer, now that the hurts were outside of herself, rolling back and forth and back on the floor of the sea where the sway of Mother Water was already rubbing them away to sand.

  She held out her arms and thanked Mother Water and the Ancestors for safe passage and lessons learned. She took Stu’s brooch from her pocket and raised her arm to throw it out to sea. But in the last moment, something told her it might best be put to a different use. She slipped it back in her pocket and went to collect the children.

  EPILOGUE

  She was only home a day before David called to say he’d forwarded a package that had arrived at the cottage for her and that Adamson wanted her to call him. A part of her wanted to tell David to call Adamson and say she’d left the country unexpectedly and would call him in a year or so. But, of course, her curiosity wouldn’t allow it.

  “It was my old friend, Abby Greenbaum’s signature. That’s how I got it so fast. A fine piece of work, isn’t it? Someone lost it, hunh? She’ll be glad to get it back. Let’s hope this fella’s her husband. Could cause a problem if this is his doxy’s bauble!”

  She assured him she’d be very careful.

  “The guy’s name is Stuart, Robert Stuart.”

  As if she didn’t know.

  The postcard from Christine came a week later:

  Blanche,

  Here’s my new add. & #. Please be in touch. I have C. & D. on weekends. Let’s get the monkeys together. Poor Stu.

  They found his boat, but not him. How much do you know about this? Why didn’t you tell me?

  Love,

  Christine Crowley

  12 Catherine St.

  Cambridge, MA 02139

  866-2656

  Blanche called Ardell.

  “Do you think he’s dead?” Ardell asked her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you care?”

  Blanche laughed. “I always care. That’s just the problem, ain’t it?”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All thanks and praises to:

  All the sisters, dark, light, and in between, who tried to help me get it right, including: Maxine Alexander, Taifa Bartz, Donna Bivens, Rhonda Celester, Demita Frazier, Charlena Gilbert, Hattie Gossett, Marsha Morris, Beverly Smith, Barbara Taylor, and April Taylor;

  The All Girls Writing Group: Lynn Burbridge, Shelley Evans, Linda Mizell, and most especially, the irreplaceable Kate White whose editing and critical advice I value beyond measure;

  The other midwives and mamas: Michael Denneny, Keith Kahla, John Clark, and Barbara Elovic for their assistance; Lisa Dodson for the word on bops on the head; Jeremiah Cotton, Roz Feldberg, and Peter Hardie for their careful read; Mimi Hersh for those writerly lunches; Karen Lombard for the writer-friendly medical examiner; Kate Maddes for GP; Miz Mama, Vanessa, Bryan, Rasheen, Taifa, Tyrone, Gloria, and Chanel for providing the ballast; Sarah McMahon for information and articles on Maine; Long’s Christine Megos for her jewelry expertise; Katherine Hall Page for leading me through the labyrinth; Pam Rodgers for her supportive postcards; Sharon Rosen for suggesting Maine; Nancy Ryan and Barry Phillips for the perfect soupçon of inspiration; Renee Scott, for her historical research; LeVar Small for the right word; Charles Tolbert for his professional advice and general encouragement; Phyllis Wender for her wisdom, friendship, and advice.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Barbara Neely’s short fiction has appeared in various anthologies, including Breaking Ice, Things That Divide Us, Angels of Power, Speaking for Ourselves, and Test Tube Women. She lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, where she is working on the next Blanche White mystery.