Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery (6 page)

“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 really 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?

Mumsfield's “Hello” was spoken so softly, Blanche might have missed it if she hadn't seen his lips move. He closed the door behind him and immediately began pacing the kitchen floor, huffing and mumbling to himself until the air in the room was as stiff as well-beaten egg whites. His pants were once again held up by a belt. Blanche wanted to ask him what had happened to his yellow suspenders, and the orange ones that had preceded them, but he was clearly too upset to discuss fashion.

“Mumsfield, honey, you gonna have to find a better way to express yourself than by bad-vibing this kitchen when I'm in here trying to cook!”

“Yes, Blanche,” he mumbled. He stopped pacing but began twisting from side to side, like an agitator in a washing machine.

“Mumsfield, honey, please! Relax!” Blanche wiped her hands on her apron and beckoned to him to take a seat. She rubbed
and gently kneaded his shoulders and the back of his neck, the way she did for her kids when they had nightmares. She willed the tension to leave his body and could feel his knotted muscles relaxing beneath her fingers. Once again, she was surprised by the familiarity with which she treated him, but it felt all right.

“Mumsfield is very upset.” His words stumbled over each other.

“What about, Mumsfield, honey?”

“Why couldn't Mumsfield talk to her, Blanche?”

“Who, honey?”

“Why is she not the same as before, Blanche? Why is Aunt Em not the same?” He twisted around to look up into her face. “When is she going to be the same again, Blanche?” Tears glistened in his eyes.

Blanche didn't know what to say. He reminded her of Uncle Benny. Uncle Benny had a real bad stutter. Because people either ignored him or grew impatient before he could say his piece, Uncle Benny used as few words as possible. But something about the way he tilted his head or moved his hands or twisted his mouth pumped Uncle Benny's few words full of meanings and explanations that never came out directly.

“Aunt Grace says Aunt Emmeline doesn't want to see Mumsfield...me until she's all better. When will she be better, Blanche? I didn't mean to make her sick.” He turned his head and gave Blanche another pained look.

“You didn't make her sick, honey. What ails her ain't hardly your fault! I'm sure she'll be all right in a couple days, and then you can have a nice long visit.” Blanche figured Grace and Everett were just keeping Mumsfield away from the old lady until her binge was over. Which was why Grace had fed him that stupid germ business. Why didn't they just tell him the truth? Anyone could see how sensitive the boy was.

“But when she fell and broke her leg, she wasn't different. She let Mumsfield carry her to the car before the ramp was ready,
and bring her flowers, and talk to her about when she was a girl and there were horses and buggies and no cars, and about Uncle Elmo. He said it would be all right soon, but when, Blanche? When?”

“Who said?” Blanche wanted to know.

Mumsfield put his hand over his mouth and shook his head vehemently from side to side. Before Blanche could press him, someone knocked on the back door.

“Hey, Mist' Mumsfield. Excuse me, ma'am.” This time the grocery delivery boy lowered his eyes as he spoke to her and hesitated in the doorway until she motioned him inside. She was impressed with how quickly he'd learned. She'd have to remember to use her curse number more often.

“It's Mr. Mumsfield here I need to see.” He turned toward Mumsfield. “The truck conked out on me down the road there. Could you maybe take a look at it?”

“Sure, Jimmy.” Mumsfield wiped his eyes on the backs of his hands and bounced out of his chair as though he'd already forgotten what they'd been talking about. “I'll be right back!” He ran up the back stairs. When he returned, he had removed his jacket and was carrying a tool kit. He'd also added a pair of bright red suspenders to his attire. “I'll be back, Blanche. I trust you, Blanche,” he told her.

Blanche shook her head. She wasn't interested in being trusted just now. Somehow it made her responsible, like when her kids began a question with “Now tell me the truth, Mama Blanche.” She knew right off that she was about to be asked something she'd rather not answer at all but was now duty bound to answer as honestly as she could. And she always felt she ought to stick by the people who trusted her. She didn't need anybody to feel loyal to right now, especially someone like Mumsfield.

Blanche had never suffered from what she called Darkies' Disease. There was a woman among the regular riders on the bus she often rode home from work who had a serious dose of
the disease. Blanche actually cringed when the woman began talking in her bus-inclusive voice about old Mr. Stanley, who said she was more like a daughter to him than his own child, and how little Edna often slipped and called her Mama. That woman and everyone else on the bus knew what would happen to all that close family feeling if she told Mr. Stanley, or little Edna's mama, that instead of scrubbing the kitchen floor she was going to sit down with a cup of coffee and make some phone calls.

Loving the people for whom you worked might make it easier to wipe old Mr. Stanley's shitty behind and take young Edna's smart-ass, rich-kid remarks. And, of course, it was hard not to love children, or to overlook the failings of the old and infirm. They were not yet responsible in the first case and beyond it in the other. What she didn't understand was how you convinced yourself that you were actually loved by people who paid you the lowest possible wages; who never offered you the use of one of their cars, their cottage by the lake, or even their swimming pool; who gave you handkerchiefs and sachets for holiday gifts and gave their children stocks and bonds. It seemed to her that this was the real danger in looking at customers through love-tinted glasses. You had to pretend that obvious facts—facts that were like fences around your relationship—were not true. Mumsfield was a grown white man in whose home she was presently hiding from the police. Still, he seemed far more capable of causing an attack of dreaded Darkies' Disease than any other person for whom she'd worked. She wondered if her heightened awareness of him might have something to do with his child self being so close to the surface. He seemed to approach the world, and her, with a trusting innocence that was both endearing and disarming. He was gentle as baby's breath, and smart enough about some things, including recognizing her as an intelligent, knowledgeable person, something the majority of her employers seemed to miss.

She pressed her hand to her chest as though it were possible to collapse that hollow feeling inside, the one that let her know when something was going on in a household. Sometimes it was a pending divorce, or a terminal illness. Sometimes it was madness or cruelty. In this case, maybe it was just Emmeline's drinking. But the hollowness in her chest was more serious than that. She could feel it in the house, too, a kind of dour restlessness. Like it's waiting for the worst to happen, she thought. Just like Grace. She reached up and turned on the radio on the windowsill over the sink. She found some soft rock to temporarily sweeten the place.

An hour before dinner she went up the back stairs to get Emmeline's tray. She steeled herself for another encounter with the woman, only to find the tray sitting on the hall table at the top of the main stairs. The meal was more picked over than eaten. Blanche leaned against the table and slipped off her left shoe. She bent down and gently rubbed the corn on her little toe. A car door slammed out in front of the house. A few moments later the front door opened and she heard someone talking in the hall below. She moved closer to the top of the stairs and closed her eyes so she could hear better. It was Everett.

“I assure you, old man, she'll be quite herself before long.... resting just now. Needs as much rest as she can get. The cough, you know, she's been keep...” Everett's voice grew fainter as he moved into the sitting room.