Blanche Cleans Up Read online

  Blanche was expecting Felicia to send for her and ask what had happened to Saxe’s pictures. She was relieved when it didn’t happen. Maybe she was wrong about those pictures. Maybe Ray-Ray had taken something of Allister’s, as she’d first thought.

  Allister was in the breakfast room when Blanche passed by on her way to the kitchen. She waited half a minute before she strolled past the breakfast room again. Allister was now in the sunroom leaning over the stand of African violets. She couldn’t see his face, but she watched his hands. He slowly, gently removed browning leaves, moved pots from one spot to another, and brushed his fingers lightly against the blossoms. His body looked softer, more rounded, as if he’d been stiffening his spine and sucking in his gut until this moment when he thought he was alone. Like everybody else, Allister had more than one side, but she didn’t think it mattered. Was a rattlesnake sunning itself all that much less dangerous than one on the hunt?

  When Allister finally went upstairs to dress for dinner, Blanche waited again for shouts of “I’ve been robbed!” but all was quiet. Either Ray-Ray had pinched something of Allister’s that wasn’t obvious, or she’d been right the first time and it was Saxe’s pictures he’d taken and Felicia just hadn’t missed them yet.

  The wind had died down by the time Blanche left work. The air was still on the cold side, but she could feel spring just waiting to burst out. She climbed the driveway and walked up Cottage Street—really a one-lane, one-way road.

  This was the greenest part of the city she’d seen outside of Boston Common and the gardens downtown. It looked like country around here. Just like the Brindles’ place, the few other houses along the road were all down in a kind of valley tucked away out of sight behind stone or wooden fences. Following Inez’s directions, Blanche turned left at the top of the hill and followed a two-lane road until it turned into Perkins Street, where she saw the lake she’d noticed on the way in. The sign she passed said brookline, and she realized the Brindle house was about three blocks outside the city of Boston.

  But she’d crossed the line and was back in Boston now. Another sign announced that her lake was called Jamaica Pond, which told her she must be in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston.

  Her regular jobs took her into the South End, Back Bay, and Beacon Hill, but she’d never been here before or to other neighborhoods like East Boston, Charlestown, South Boston, or the North End. Somebody had told her that some of these places had once been separate towns, but that was a long time ago. But it was now 1996, and from what she heard and read, the major use of these neighborhood names seemed to be to keep people apart and suspicious of one another. And she knew there were Boston communities unfriendly to folks from outside, particularly black, brown, and yellow folks.

  From where she now stood, she couldn’t see the other side of the pond. Canada geese and ducks skimmed along its surface. People strolled, jogged, and pushed strollers on the path beside the pond. Blanche stretched out her arms to the greening trees and blue water. She missed all of this over in the part of Roxbury where she lived. There were some trees on its streets, but if there were any bodies of water in the neighborhood, besides public pools and mud puddles, she’d never heard about them.

  She’d been in Boston nearly three years, but having to build up her clientele and take care of the kids and the house, along with winters that demanded she stay indoors as much as possible, had reduced her learn-about-Boston time down to about six months. Still, she hadn’t even done six months worth of exploring. Maybe it was because she hadn’t had much choice about moving here. It was not so much her idea as her only alternative: She’d needed to get out of Farleigh in a hurry, and Cousin Charlotte had been able and willing to help her out. Blanche would have left Boston by now if it weren’t for Taifa and Malik. They’d been in three different school systems in as many years. It didn’t feel right to ask them to move again.

  She waited for the light to change at Jamaica Way and Perkins Street, where the traffic was moving at expressway speed. She looked down Jamaica Way with its huge houses on one side and the pond on the other. Nice. When the light changed, she hurried across and walked on toward Centre Street, where she’d get the bus. It was a longish walk. Miz Inez had offered her banged-up car, but Blanche had seen enough of Boston driving to know she didn’t want to be on the road unless she had to. Anyway, her fast-approaching-fifty-year-old body could use the exercise.

  She walked up Perkins Street, past big old houses that were now apartments, and over to Centre Street, where the store signs and street language were in Spanish, past the Bromely Heath Projects to the Jackson Square bus depot next door. She was on the tip of Roxbury now. She got the number 44 bus and let her mind slip back to the other events of her first day on Miz Inez’s job.

  Lord! Had she really poked that man? She had a feeling she’d be hearing about that. Shit! And didn’t Ray-Ray have a nerve, which was probably one of the reasons she liked him in spite of herself. A poor black person without nerve was a dead person. But that didn’t mean she approved of his sneaking onto his mother’s job to steal something, which was the only reason she could think of for him sneaking around upstairs. From what Carrie said, he was definitely no stranger to the house, but if he hadn’t worked for the Brindles for at least a year, why hadn’t Carrie or Wanda found his shirt and given it to Miz Inez to take home, and what did Ray-Ray mean when he said she’d be glad he came? She still didn’t know what he’d been doing in the Brindle house, but she knew his shirt didn’t have doodly-squat to do with it. Maybe Saxe’s pictures did, although it was hard to figure out how Ray-Ray would know Saxe had left them there. But she definitely intended to ask Ray-Ray about those pictures the next time she saw him. And that Carrie! Her and her pastor and her thing for “Mr. Saxe”! Lord! did she have stories to tell Ardell. Blanche got off the bus on Humboldt and walked up the street to Rudigere Homes, eager to be on her own turf.

  TWO

  DAY ONE—THURSDAY

  Even after all these months of living in the housing development, Blanche was still put off by the large, square, concrete court that doubled as parking lot and playground ringed by a narrow sidewalk. She was bothered by the circled-wagons feel of the place, the way the houses all turned in on the square as though snubbing the rest of the community. She knew it only looked that way. Rudigere Homes Tenants’ Association met and held community events, like the kids’ carnival and the barbecue in the park, with Warren Gardens and other cooperative housing tenants’ associations in the area. There was really nothing wrong with the place; she just missed living on a street where people strolled by or slowed their cars to look at the flowers in somebody’s bit of garden or window box, or to holler at a friend. What she liked most was that Rudigere Homes was a cooperative. She enjoyed the sense of semi-ownership that meant she wasn’t going to be asked to move because the landlord’s cousin’s girlfriend needed a place to stay, or the building was being condo’d.

  She also liked the development’s redbrick houses with their alert, lean faces and high narrow stoops. Each house had a postage-stamp square of grass and a baby tree flanking the front door. They were houses with few frills, but their no-nonsense attitude made her feel safe. They looked like houses that wouldn’t take no mess.

  She was still only on nodding terms with the four or five folks in the complex who belonged to what she called The Passing-Through Club—people who clearly saw Rudigere Homes as a stepping-stone to a house in Milton or Dedham or some other suburb, so they didn’t have time for folks who planned to stay. She got along fine with the rest of the residents, including plump, slow-moving Joanie, who lived next door. Like Blanche, Joanie had raised her dead sister’s two children, only Joanie’s two were now in college on full scholarships. Jack and Evelyn Morton—a young couple with two little kids—lived directly across the square. More than once Blanche had heard shouting coming from their house and went to the window in time to see Jack storm out and slam the door behind him. The three Saint Pointer Siste
rs lived side by side. They weren’t really sisters, and from the way they screamed at their kids, she doubted they were saints. The three women and a couple of their older children sang in a gospel group that traveled around giving concerts. But when they practiced at home, they always sang “Shaky Flat Blues” and “Love in Them There Hills.” The other families on the square included the Porters, an elderly sister and brother, and Miz Murphy and her grown son, Tongues. Miz Murphy spent a lot of time yelling at the children for playing in front of her house and did a lot of her shopping at Warren Liquors. Mr. and Mrs. Addison lived in the last house. Joanie said they were in their late eighties. Every evening, rain or shine, they ambled five times around the court, holding hands and laughing together like any other lovers. Then there was Karen.

  Blanche hurried by the house three doors from her own, almost tiptoeing in the hope of getting by without having to pay what she’d started calling The Karen Subsidy. But Karen was either watching at the window or had a sixth sense that told her when a possible contributor was within borrowing distance. She came lumbering out of her front door in a housedress so dingy, its pattern was almost a memory. She scuffled toward Blanche in her beat-up bedroom shoes. Blanche set her mouth to give Karen a faceful of “No!” Blanche was always ready to help out a neighbor with a cup of this or that, especially if the neighbor was worse off than she was. But Karen’s husband and oldest, living-at-home daughter both had jobs, plus Karen was collecting disability. Yet the items she borrowed and never replaced were growing, from a bit of cornmeal to slices of bacon, from salt to tampons.

  “Hiya doin’, Blanche? I was just heading for your house. One of my kids got a sore throat. You got any honey?”

  Blanche stared at her. Damn! How was she supposed to say no to a sick child? She rolled her eyes at Karen but motioned for her to come along. She showed her pique by making Karen wait outside on the stoop while she fetched the honey instead of inviting her inside. A person had to fight back any way she could.

  It wasn’t yet dinnertime, so she decided to cook instead of letting the children have the soup and sandwiches they’d have had if she hadn’t gotten home early. She gathered her favorite mixing bowl, an iron skillet, and a large loaf pan. Being home early also meant she’d be here when Shaquita came over.

  The only painless part of standing in for Miz Inez was Shaquita, Cousin Charlotte’s live-in granddaughter. Cousin Charlotte wasn’t about to leave a sixteen-year-old home alone for a week, no matter how much Shaquita argued that she was old enough to take care of herself. So Shaquita was staying with Blanche, who was pleased to have the girl around to show Malik and Taifa how a responsible teen behaved.

  Shaquita’s presence also ensured that someone would be at home with Malik and Taifa before and after school. Blanche decided to give the girl some extra cash in addition to the money she was already paying her to help Taifa with her Spanish and Malik with his English.

  Blanche peeled and quartered eight potatoes and put them in a pot with some salt water. She checked the clock. She had about twenty minutes of conversation time before the kids got home—time enough for a quick chat. She’d dialed the 919 area code and half of Ardell’s phone number before she remembered her old friend was off playing nanny on some yacht. It didn’t feel natural to be out of touch with Ardell. They’d always been on the phone to each other, even when Blanche was hiding from the police and when Ardell was hiding from her crazy-assed and now ex-husband. Blanche sulked for a few minutes, until she heard Ardell tell her to get over it.

  Blanche had just diced an onion and a couple cloves of garlic and was about to sauté them when she realized she was no longer alone in the house. She wouldn’t have known Malik had come home and gone right up to his room if she’d had to depend on her ears alone. It was her ability to sense when people she cared about were nearby that sent her upstairs. Although his door was open, he looked at her as though she’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t have been. Lately, she was shocked every time she saw him. Just last year he was a chubby, stocky little boy who loved being hugged and tickled and never went to bed without a goodnight kiss. Now he was tall and lanky, with a voice she barely recognized. And she wasn’t ready to think about who he might be kissing.

  “Yo, Mom.”

  Or at least she thought that’s what he said. “You hungry?” she asked, going somewhere she felt on solid ground. He shook his head and continued emptying his backpack onto his bed. She watched him from the doorway for a few moments, his bowed head and bent neck so unprotected, so young. She saw him curled up next to her hanging on to every word of the story she was reading to him; she saw him learning the alphabet and so proudly reading a story on his own for the very first time. Now his room was full of books she’d never heard of. He’d be thirteen soon. Was she giving him what he needed to take his next step, to run the obstacle course of teenhood into adulthood? There was so much he didn’t know about growing up and girls and ego and pain. She hoped she’d be able to find the words when she needed them. She could hear music leaking from under his door almost the moment he shut it. She went back to the kitchen. At least I know where he is, she thought as the beat made the walls throb. She sautéed the onion and garlic and dumped them into her big crockery mixing bowl. She added a pound and a half each of ground turkey and ground beef.

  “I’m home!” Taifa announced loud enough for the neighbors to hear her even with the front door closed, which it wasn’t. Blanche waited for it to slam. It took so long, she began to suspect Taifa of having some of her all-look-and-dress-alike girlfriends trailing in the house behind her—all sporting the same stiff-as-straw hairdo and enough earrings to stock a store. Blanche strode into the living room. Taifa knew homework came before company. But instead of friends, she found Taifa lugging a carton of candy bars—her school’s latest scheme to save the arts and athletics programs. Taifa dropped the box, kissed Blanche on the cheek, then dragged the box into the coat closet. Blanche figured there must be a hundred bars of candy in the box, but she didn’t complain. Taifa could sell fleas to a dog and make him come back for more at a higher price. Blanche had once seen her convince their stingiest neighbor to buy candy he swore he didn’t even like. But that was last year, before Taifa’s new boom-box voice and cracking gum.

  Blanche went back to the kitchen and added a couple tablespoons of tomato paste and a splash of milk to the mixing bowl. Taifa switched on the radio in the living room and began ooh-baby-babying in a high, screechy voice.

  “Moms!” Taifa shouted during the commercial.

  Blanche waited for whatever was to follow and wished the changes in Taifa didn’t bother her so much. She also wished Taifa and Malik would go back to calling her “Mama Blanche” instead of “Mom” or “Moms.” She knew who they were talking to when they used her name. As they got older, “Mom” and “Moms” felt like jobs that could be filled by anyone willing to do the work without either of the children taking much notice of the change.

  The song on the radio segued into a commercial for blemish cream.

  The phone rang. “It’s for me!” Taifa shouted.

  Blanche sight-measured some cumin and chili powder into the bowl and marveled at how quickly the girl’s voice went from a bullhorn to a phone whisper so low Blanche couldn’t hear a word.

  Taifa danced into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “Moms! Can you get me some new rollers when you go to the store?” She stared into the fridge as though it were a TV. “I seen these new bendy kinda curlers they be better than the…”

  Blanche sighed over the “they be better” but let it pass. She knew Taifa was bilingual. She also knew Taifa was trying to out-’hood girls who’d spent their entire lives in this community. It was Taifa’s way of making up for having been a private-school girl her first year in Boston. The school counselor had told Blanche it was just a phase the child would outgrow once she settled in and made some friends. But Taifa was now on the volleyball team and the school newspaper and had more fr
iends than Blanche and Malik combined. As far as Blanche could see, there still hadn’t been any change in her wannabeness.

  “…really dope curlers, Moms. My hair will look so fine!”

  Taifa reached into the fridge. Blanche sent her to the sink to wash her hands.

  She took milk and peanut butter from the fridge. “Moms! Did you hear me?”

  As if she could avoid it. Didn’t people in Ohio hear her? “I heard you, Taifa. Like I’ve told you a hundred times, if you want new rollers, you gotta buy them with your own money. I won’t have anything to do with you frying your hair up like a batch of pork chops. Now, if you want to get your hair cornrowed, dread it, or just wear it natural, I’ll be glad to…”

  “Moms! You are so out of it. I mean truly, really, totally out of it!” Taifa slapped a sandwich together and flopped down at the kitchen table. “You said I could do what I wanted with my hair, but you won’t let me do nothing I want to with it.”

  Blanche dumped some bread crumbs into the meat loaf mixture. Taifa gave her a look as sour as month-old milk.

  “What I said was that you could be in charge of your hair on three conditions: no dye, no extensions, and you pay for all your hair stuff with your own money.”

  Taifa poked out her mouth. “You just want me to look like a geek. You don’t care if my friends laugh at me and talk about me and stuff.” She bit into her sandwich.

  Blanche washed her hands, then squished meat loaf ingredients together and tried not to pretend it was Taifa’s tender throat between her hands. She took a deep breath.

  “I ain’t even sure what a geek is, and I don’t want nobody to make fun of you, baby, including yourself, which is what you’ll be doing if you grow up to be a black woman who thinks your hair’s gotta be processed or have extensions made out of Dacron or some poor Indian woman’s sacrificial hair to be beautiful.” Blanche mentally patted herself on the back for sounding so reasonable and even-tempered. She turned the meat loaf into the pan, covered the potatoes with a bit more water, and went on.