Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery Page 4

  Mumsfield handled the car like a loving parent guiding a favorite child. The car moved forward as though cushioned on a cloud. Lord! If that stuck-up Helen Robinson could see me now! Blanche grinned to herself and pressed her feet a little deeper into the plush carpeting. She ran her hand across the glove-leather seat. Money, she thought. It ain't even real, not like dirt or grass. But if you don't have any...She turned her head slightly and peeked at the three people in the back seat, people so different from her they might as well have been two-headed or made of glass, people who'd never once in their entire lives had to worry about the cost of groceries, paying their rent, or whether they had enough money to buy medicine for a sick child. What must it feel like? she wondered.

  A passing County Sheriff's Department car reminded her that she had more than money to worry about. She began to slip lower in her seat, then realized the law would no more look for her in a car like this than they would expect to find her in a convent. A fiery shaft of summer sun, in an otherwise cloudy sky, flashed through the trees and bounced off a highway sign. A good omen, she decided.

  THREE

  The country house sat on a rise overlooking a duck pond. A huge bed of pink, white, and yellow flowers lay on the far side of the pond, between the pond and the pinewood forest that seemed to ring the whole property. The highway was totally invisible. Not even the noise of passing cars and trucks could be heard. The briny smell of the sea in the air told her they'd crossed that invisible border between inland and shore. The pine trees whispered about their arrival.

  The house was nowhere near the size of the house in town. This was a wooden house, painted a lavender-gray made even more delicate by the deep green of the grass and the pine trees around it. A screened porch extended around three sides of the house. White wicker chairs and small tables were placed casually around the porch and added to the touches of white that framed the doors and windows and shimmered on the wheelchair ramp. The gabled roof and woodland setting made Blanche think of fairy tales. But the house didn't have a fairy-tale air. The house was anxious, as though something of which it did not approve had taken place on its premises, or was about to. Blanche wondered if it was her arrival or something else. She rooted for something else. There could be no harder task than working in a house that didn't like you. For as long as she was here, she needed to keep a very low profile. She hoped the house would cooperate.

  Blanche lined up behind the members of the family as they filed up the short ramp to the front porch. Grace was once again careful to keep Mumsfield away from the old lady in the wheelchair.

  The inside of the house was cozier than the house in town: deep sofas and big old rattan chairs with rose chintz covers and cushions, worn leather hassocks, dark green woven rugs, and large photographs of people in old-fashioned dress on the whitewashed walls.

  Grace took Blanche up the back stairs to a small room furnished with a single bed, a four-drawer dresser, a bedside table, a lamp, and a straight-backed chair. Murky-brown linoleum covered the floor, the same linoleum she'd encountered in many such rooms. No doubt there was a store somewhere that specialized in murky-brown linoleum and scratchy sheets for the help. “It's a pleasant enough little room, don't you think?” Grace had the nerve to say.

  “Well, it ain't going to spoil me, that's for sure,” Blanche told her. She might have to sleep in this mousehole, but she'd be damned if she'd act grateful.

  Grace chose not to address the issue. “I'll be waiting in the kitchen when you've changed.” She closed the door firmly behind her.

  The room overlooked the back garden, the shed at its foot, and the pinewoods beyond. There was an older black man in a baseball cap working in the vegetable garden.

  True to Grace's prediction, in the shallow clothes closet there were two washed and starched gray uniforms with white collars and cuffs and small white aprons to match. Blanche was delighted to find they were a size sixteen. Wearing clothes a size too big always made her feel slim. When she'd changed into one of the uniforms, she found her way down to the kitchen. Grace was waiting for her. Grace wasn't exactly frowning, but her face was tense. She seemed to be holding herself in readiness for a loud noise or bad news. When she saw Blanche, she immediately began discussing meals.

  “A small porterhouse, for my aunt's dinner. Perhaps some potatoes, or...” Grace paused, as though her train of thought had been derailed by a more compelling message from some side track of her brain. Blanche waited and wondered about the advisability of a porterhouse steak for an ailing elderly lady.

  “There will be a guest at dinner, just one,” Grace went on at last. She fiddled with the small pen and leather-covered notebook on the table in front of her. “He likes simple food. Roast chicken, I think. We eat promptly at seven-thirty. Promptly. I don't like Mr. Everett, my husband, to be kept waiting.”

  Grace said the words “my husband” like a new bride still dazzled by the idea. Blanche felt a surge of dislike for the man. Too rich to wait, she thought, too rich, too white, too male. And too pampered by his wife.

  “Aunt will want her dinner around five. I'll take it up myself if you'll just let me know when it's ready. She prefers that I bring her meals,” she explained. She didn't sound as pleased about catering to her aunt as to her husband.

  “Now, then...” Grace opened her notebook and went over the menus for the next five days, then gave Blanche the phone number for the grocery store in Hokeysville.

  An hour after Blanche phoned, a sweaty, red-faced boy delivered the four bags of groceries she'd ordered. He gave Blanche the cheeky “Hey, girl” greeting that teenage white boys working up to being full-fledged rednecks give grown black women in the South. Blanche hissed some broken Swahili and Yoruba phrases she'd picked up at the Freedom Library in Harlem and told the boy it was a curse that would render his penis as slim and sticky as a lizard's tongue. The look on his face and the way he clutched his crotch lifted her spirits considerably. Nina Simone's version of “I Put a Spell on You” came rolling out of her mouth in a deep, off-key grumble. She ran a carrot through the food processor until it was a pile of thin orange coins. She washed a baking potato and once again wondered why the old lady wasn't having soup or scrambled eggs. If she was up to eating a hearty meal, why wasn't she having dinner with the family? She steamed the carrots, put the steak on the grill, and readied the potato for the microwave. When the tray was ready, she went looking for Grace.

  Blanche hesitated in the doorway to the living room, struck by the realization that this was the first time she'd seen Grace motionless. Grace's head rested against the back of a large, old-fashioned rattan armchair. There was a haughtiness in her profile that wasn't noticeable when she was in motion. Her hands were loosely folded in her lap. She seemed to be looking out the window, toward the duck pond, but Blanche was sure whatever Grace was really seeing wasn't going on outside. Her stillness was so deep, so unblinking, she might have been in a trance. But there was something burning in the back of her eyes when she turned her head and looked at Blanche.

  If Grace had been a friend, Blanche would have immediately asked what was troubling her. But she'd long ago learned the painful price of confusing the skills she sold for money with the kind of caring that could be paid for only with reciprocity.

  “You're looking a little peaked, ma'am. You want me to take the tray up?” She let an edge of concern creep into her voice. It was a tone she used when inviting her employers to provide anecdotal evidence that money was indeed not everything.

  “I know I should take it up myself, but...”

  “Caring for old folks can be a trial sometimes.” Blanche commiserated.

  Grace looked at her for a long moment, then lowered her head. “She's changed a lot in the last...since the last time you saw her.” She fiddled with her fingers. Blanche waited for her to continue.

  “That's why I especially asked for someone who knew her before, someone who'd remember what a sweet, sweet dear she was before...” Her voice got snag
ged on something in her throat. She covered her eyes with her right hand. “You'll see what I mean.”

  Blanche hesitated. She didn't want to walk in on the old lady doing anything disgusting. Or dangerous.

  “She's not violent, is she, ma'am?”

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that. It's...” She covered her face and sobbed softly for a few minutes. Finally she raised her head and looked at Blanche.

  Blanche was unimpressed by the tears, and Grace's Mammy-save-me eyes. Mammy-savers regularly peeped out at her from the faces of some white women for whom she worked, and lately, in this age of the touchy-feely model of manhood, an occasional white man. It happened when an employer was struck by family disaster or grew too compulsive about owning everything, too overwrought, or downright frightened by who and what they were. She never ceased to be amazed at how many white people longed for Aunt Jemima. They'd ease into the kitchen and hem and haw their way through some sordid personal tale. She'd listen and make sympathetic noises. She rarely asked questions, except to clarify the life lessons their stories conveyed, or to elicit some detail that would make their story more amusing to her friends. She told employers who asked what she would do in their place, or what she thought they ought to do, “I sure wish I knew, I truly do,” accompanied by a slow, sad smile, a matching shake of her head, and arms folded tightly across her chest.

  Now Blanche knew that if she went to Grace, put her hand on the woman's shoulder, and looked concerned, it was likely Grace would bare the family soul. But Blanche didn't yet know whether Grace was the kind of person who both longed for someone on whom to unburden herself and was then grateful to the listener, or the kind of person who resented the listener for catching her at a weak moment. She took a half-step forward, hesitated, then crossed the room to where Grace sat.

  “Is there anything I can do, ma'am?” Whether she cared or not, there were certain expected forms to be observed.

  “No, no.” Grace continued to sob but made no attempt to talk.

  “I'll take the tray up now, ma'am.”

  Blanche went back to the kitchen for the tray and carried it up the stairs. She was both curious and concerned about what awaited her in the old lady's room. At the top of the staircase she realized she hadn't asked Grace which room was Emmeline's. The one farthest from the back stairs and overlooking the front of the house and the duck pond seemed like the right room for the family member with the money. Blanche was sure Emmeline fit that description. She'd worked in so many wealthy households she recognized the mix of respect, hate, and hope that crept into family members' voices when they talked about the moneyed one.

  “I brought your dinner, ma'am,” Blanche called from outside the door when there was no response to her knock. She balanced the tray on her left hip and reached for the doorknob.

  “I'm coming in now.” And I'm going to feel like a damned fool if I've been talking to an empty room, she added to herself. She turned the knob and pushed the door.

  Emmeline was lolling on a pale green brocade wing chair. A matching ottoman propped up her stockinged feet. A water glass with a small amount of clear liquid in it hung loosely from her right hand. She wore the same dress she'd worn on the ride from town. Only now the front was littered with cigarette ashes. The dress was also rucked well up her legs. Pink garters made tight rings above her lumpy red knees. Her thighs seemed to be melting off her bones and spreading in puddles on the chair around her. She was staring at a large color TV on which an excited-looking woman held up a can of Zesto! floor wax and moved her lips. The sound was turned too low to hear what she was saying. The small, round table by Emmeline's side held a porcelain ashtray overflowing with ashes and butts. The tablecloth was spotted with dark rings. The air in the room was thick with smoke and the smell of stale booze and not quite clean feet. Blanche was struck by the difference between Emmeline and her surroundings. She looked like a drunken Little Orphan Annie at eighty, with her frizzy yellow-white hair and blank, watery eyes. The room, on the other hand, was neat and bright, the kind of genteel room that she imagined a woman who read romantic historical novels and did needlepoint might have. Liquor sure does funny things to people, she thought.

  “I brought you some dinner, ma'am.”

  “Don't give me that 'brought you some dinner' crap, gal. I know they sent you to spy on me!”

  Blanche opened her mouth to tell Emmeline that her name was Blanche, not gal, then thought better of it. She set the tray on the bed while she made space for it on the table at Emmeline's side. When she looked around for the wastebasket, she spotted a rolling table of the kind hospitals use to serve meals to bed-ridden patients, only better looking. She gave Emmeline a why-didn't-you-tell-me look. Emmeline's lips curled in a mean-spirited smile. Blanche set the tray on the rolling table, lowered it to armchair height, and wheeled it within Emmeline's easy reach.

  “Would you like anything else, ma'am?”

  Emmeline reached down and lifted a bottle of Seagram's gin from beneath the floor-length tablecloth, filled her glass, and returned her bottle to its resting place. Blanche eased the door closed behind her as she left the room.

  Now she understood why Mumsfield was being kept away from his aunt. Blanche wondered what had started Emmeline drinking. Boredom, maybe. She'd worked for or around a number of rich old ladies like that—lots of money, no friends, no interests to speak of. Perfect candidates for an alcohol problem. But were Grace and Everett really stupid enough to think they could keep it from Mumsfield indefinitely?

  In the kitchen, she checked her rising rolls before cleaning the chickens. She was glad for Grace's dinner order of roast chicken, julienned string beans, scalloped potatoes, rolls, and apple pie with ice cream. A more elaborate meal would have called for more concentration than she could muster today.

  She searched the chickens for missed feathers, squeezed out a few overlooked shafts, and singed off the fine feathers on the wings before reaching her hand into the chicken's cool, slick body cavity to yank out the few unsavory bits left behind by the original cleaner. But although she was thorough and worked efficiently, her mind was preoccupied with when and how to head for New York.

  The idea of moving the children back to New York made her stomach lurch. At the same time, New York was the one place she knew she could find work quickly among people who wouldn't ask questions about paying her in cash or balk at her use of a different name. She was sure the good people of Farleigh weren't going to spend too many tax dollars on hunting for her. Unless, of course, they took her escape as a personal affront to all decent, God-fearing white people. She remembered the wanted posters for Joanne Little, Angela Davis, and Assata Shakur. She blushed at putting herself in such important company, then wondered if the sheriff's office appreciated the distinction. She silently apologized to any heavyset black women the sheriff's men might harass because of her. She rinsed, dried, and seasoned the chickens inside and out and sat them upright on paper towels.

  “I need some money,” she whispered aloud. That was her first problem. She washed the chicken fat from her hands. The ninety-two dollars and change she had would get her and the kids to New York, but it wouldn't do much more than that. She could probably borrow a bit more but not enough. As it was, she was going to have to ask her friend Yvonne to put her and the kids up until she got on her feet. It was a lot to ask, but she'd once done the same for Yvonne and her three children. Blanche was suddenly conscious that somewhere above her there was a room where Grace's handbag hung on the back of a chair, or lay on a bed or bureau. Everett's wallet, too, perhaps. She pictured herself tiptoeing into that room, taking twenties, fifties, hundred-dollar bills from designer wallets and stuffing the bills in her bra. She watched herself tiptoe back down the stairs into the kitchen. In all her years of working in people's houses, she had yet to steal any money. She'd borrowed some rice or a couple of potatoes now and again, as necessity demanded, but always replaced them. She wasn't against stealing from this sort. A lot of what they owned reall
y belonged to people like her, who were grossly and routinely underpaid, who worked in the factories and mills and made the money for the big boys. She just didn't believe in taking big risks for nickels and dimes. She also didn't want to be as cutthroat as the people she complained about. But just supposing she could make herself do it, then what? What happened when they found the money was gone? They'd have the cops on her in a flash, especially if she took off after stealing the money. And if they caught her, she'd be worse off than she was now.

  But even if she wasn't prepared to steal it, she needed more money. There was her income-tax check, of course, but its arrival date was uncertain. Ardell had already gotten her refund, and they'd filed on the same day. So, maybe in a couple of days. Maybe even tomorrow. I'll need to get it, sign it....

  And when she had money, how was she going to tell Taifa and Malik that despite her promise to them, and to herself, she was leaving town without them? What could she tell them that would make that all right? And how was she going to keep them from hating her and acting out in ways that might hurt them? She sagged against the sink and stared out the window into the surrounding pine trees as though they might tell her what she should do. If they knew, they weren't saying. They just went right on whispering among themselves. Blanche sighed and reached for the potatoes on the counter beside her. She halted just as her right hand was half an inch from the bright orange colander that held them. Mumsfield, she thought. In the next second he opened the back door.

  This was the second or third time this boy had been on her wavelength. This thing with him was beyond her Approaching Employer Warning sense, which alerted her to the slightest rustling or clinking of a nearing employer. This was more like the way she always knew when her mother was around, or Ardell, or which one of the children was about to fling open the door and bound through the house. This ability to sense Mumsfield's approach was of the same nature but different. What made it different was the fact that she didn't know this boy and didn't appreciate having him on her frequency. At the same time, it was always those closest and kindest to her whose presence she was able to detect before they came into sight or earshot. So what the hell does it mean? She wanted to know. Sympa. It was a term her Haitian friend Marie Claire used to explain relationships between people who, on the surface, had no business being friends. Still, an unknown white boy?