The House on Harbor Hill

by Shelly Stratton

  She was right. I probably would’ve.

  I had thought . . . hoped that maybe I could work in a secretarial pool or as a shop girl once I got to D.C., but the only thing I could find was work as a maid or housekeeper.

  Working for the Williams family isn’t the best job, but it’s just a start, I tell myself every night before I lay my head on my pillow and drift off to sleep. I tell myself I am meant for better, and one day I will get it.

  “You know,” Cee says, tapping his cigarette into the car’s metal ashtray, “if you need a ride home from now on, I can take you. You don’t have to catch the bus.”

  I frown and shake my head. “That’s not necessary, sir . . . I mean, Cee. The bus is just fine, and I wouldn’t want to impose.”

  “You’re not imposing!” he shouts as the lanes go from one to three. The traffic begins to pick up speed, and the wind rushes by now, filling my ears with thunder. “I’m offering. It’s no big deal!”

  “Don’t you have to take your friend home?”

  The question is out before I have a chance to take it back.

  “What friend?”

  I purse my lips. I shouldn’t have said anything. The car brakes at a stoplight.

  “What friend are you talking about, Delilah?”

  “The . . . the lady you bring with you sometimes.”

  He leans over in his seat, extinguishes his cigarette, and looks at me again in the rearview mirror. His green eyes crinkle at the edges. I can tell he’s smiling, though I can’t see his mouth.

  “You mean Betsy? She’s old news! We broke up two weeks ago!”

  I feel almost happy when I hear him say this, then angry that I care at all.

  “Betsy’s a nice girl, but she’s a little too clingy, if you get my drift. I like my girls more . . . I don’t know . . . aloof, I guess. I like a girl who lets me chase her. A man wants a challenge,” he says and winks at me in the mirror’s reflection.

  My eyes drop to my lap. I don’t know what to say to this, and he bursts into laughter again.

  I don’t say anything else, and neither does he for the rest of the drive. When we finally arrive on the block where I live, boys are playing football in the middle of the street, and a couple of girls are playing jump rope on the sidewalk. Our neighbor is sitting on the front porch fanning herself with a folded newspaper.

  The children stop their games and part like the Dead Sea to make way for Cee’s GTO. They stare slack-jawed at it and then at me in the back seat. He pulls to a stop in front of Auntie Mary’s house, and I am suddenly embarrassed at how shabby it looks. Only four months ago, I thought the brick row house was almost grand compared to Mama’s small shack. Now I wonder how it looks to Cee’s eyes.

  “Thank you kindly,” I murmur before pushing open the car door.

  “Didn’t take long to get here. I know where you live now, so it should go even faster when I bring you home tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I say as I climb out of the back seat. Several eyes are watching us. My neighbor has stopped fanning herself.

  He chuckles again. “I told you that it’s—”

  “No,” I say firmly as I slam the car door and throw the strap of my purse over my shoulder, stopping him short. “Thank you for the ride, but . . . no.”

  I rush away from the car and open the chain-link fence. I run up the concrete steps leading to the house. Before I reach the top stair, the screen door opens.

  Auntie Mary takes up the width of the door frame with her wide hips and shoulders. The smell of fried chicken and collards hovers around her. She stares at Cee’s GTO as he drives off. The children trail behind the car like Cee’s the pied piper.

  “Who was that?” Auntie Mary asks, her dark face wrinkling over as she squints at me. “Why were you riding in that car?”

  “Miss Mindy asked her brother to bring me home,” I lie before squeezing past her through the doorway. I set down my purse on the floor. “You need help finishing up dinner?”

  Auntie Mary is still frowning, but to my relief, she doesn’t ask me any more questions about Cee. Instead, she nods. “Take the biscuits out the oven for me and set up the table, will you?”

  CHAPTER 14

  I can’t find my book.

  I look for it before I go to sleep, eager to return to nineteenth-century New York with its balls, operas, and intrigue. I check my purse, look under my bed, scavenge through my drawers, and scour the front parlor room. I look for it so long Auntie Mary shouts for me to turn out the lights and “stop making all that racket,” because I’m keeping her and the children awake. I do as she asks and reluctantly climb back upstairs to my room and go to sleep.

  I figure I must have left the book in the back seat of Cee’s car. Now I may never find out what happened between Newland and Ellen.

  When I wake up the next morning, I try to push The Age of Innocence, along with Cee, to the back of my mind and prepare for work.

  I hop off the bus and arrive at the Williams house a little before six A.M., as streaks of blue, pink, and orange are finally painting the morning sky. I walk in through the servant’s entrance, and the smell of breakfast already fills the air. When I step into the kitchen, I find Roberta hunched over the oven burners. She drops one sizzling piece of bacon onto the iron griddle, then another. Agnes is making fresh lemonade. She glances up at me as I shrug out of my sweater and set down my purse.

  “I didn’t hear you come in!” she says after slicing a lemon in half on the wooden cutting board. “Can you set the table while I finish this up?”

  I nod and do as she says.

  The rest of the morning goes by without commotion. I pack the children’s lunches—cutting off the crusts of the sandwiches and peeling the grapes like the little ones like—and I stand with them on the street corner with the other housekeepers and their charges until the school bus arrives. Miss Mindy heads out at ten A.M. to meet one of her friends at a shop downtown.

  “I’ll be back at around three, girls! I’ll likely need help carrying my bags into the house, so make sure you’re ready. Don’t leave me standing by the car like last time!” she calls over her shoulder while her kitten heels click, click, click across the driveway’s cement.

  We watch from the window as she climbs inside her Lincoln Continental. She waves at us, and like pups on command, Agnes and I both wave back.

  “ ‘Don’t leave me standing by the car like last time,’ ” Agnes mimics in a high-pitched voice. With a droll roll of the eyes, she turns away from the window. I stay to watch Miss Mindy’s car pull off, then walk back into the kitchen to join Agnes and Roberta.

  “Why’s she always shopping anyway?” Agnes asks.

  “Shoo, if I had the money she had, I’d spend it too!” Roberta says as she pulls back the lid of a can of crushed pineapple. She shakes the contents of the can into a glass bowl.

  “She’s not the Queen of England, Berta,” Agnes says. “Miss Mindy comes from money, but it ain’t that much money!”

  “Humph, she got more than you!”

  I bite my lower lip to keep from laughing. I open the pantry closet and pull out the feather duster and Lemon Pledge so I can start dusting upstairs.

  “Why do you think Leroy isn’t here anymore?” Agnes persists.

  She’s referring to Mr. Williams’s old driver, Leroy, who disappeared one day in June. He took Mr. Williams to work that morning, as usual—then we never saw him again. Mr. Williams drove himself back. Leroy didn’t even come back to the house to get his pack of Marlboros or his lunch pail.

  “They had to let him go!” Agnes shouts. “Couldn’t afford him anymore! And at the rate she’s spending money, they may not be able to afford us either.”

  At Agnes’s words, I drop the duster limply to my side. I’m stunned.

  “That’s not . . . that’s not true, is it?” I ask, my voice tight with panic.

  I’ve just started getting my full salary, and now I may have to start looking for another j
ob?

  “Oh, chile, don’t listen to that nonsense she’s talkin’!” Roberta flaps a towel in Agnes’s direction.

  “It’s not nonsense!” Agnes crosses her arms stubbornly over her chest. “It’s the truth! They’re spending money like it’s—”

  “You an accountant now? You’ve seen their books? You don’t know for sure if that’s why they let Leroy go!” Roberta argues, cutting her off. “You’re trying to bring the devil on us talking all that mess! I don’t wanna hear any more! Keep it to yourself!”

  Agnes sucks her teeth and walks off, mumbling under her breath. I linger in the kitchen a few seconds longer before I head upstairs and dust and vacuum the rooms while Agnes does the first floor. By the time we all eat lunch together at noon, it seems the argument from earlier is forgotten. We are back to our usual selves. I wash my dishes in the sink, then return to cleaning and washing the house and doing the laundry. By the end of the day, my arms and feet are aching. I am longing for my book again and the escape it would offer.

  I keep an eye out for Cee’s car in the driveway, but he does not make an appearance. I wonder if my snubbing of his offer has anything to do with his absence today, and then I brush away the thought. Cee certainly wouldn’t change his schedule based on something I did or said. I am of no concern to him, so he should be of no concern to me.

  A little after six, I start to pack my things and wave good-bye to Agnes and Roberta.

  “See you tomorrow!” I call to them.

  “You have a nice evening, girl. See ya!” Agnes calls back.

  Roberta only grunts her reply.

  I stroll back to the bus stop. Today seems even hotter than yesterday, and I wipe the sweat from my brow. I fantasize about the lemonade Agnes made this morning. I can almost feel the coolness of the drink against my lips and taste it as it slides down my throat. Is this what people daydream about when they are crossing the desert and have nothing to drink?

  As I draw near the old wooden bench, I pause.

  Cee is parked about twenty feet away. He is leaning against the hood of his GTO, smoking and holding a book in his hands—my book. I stare as if I am seeing a mirage, but he doesn’t disappear. He’s still standing there. He tosses his cigarette to the ground and crushes it under the rubber sole of his tennis shoe.

  “I thought I’d find you here,” he shouts to me with a grin. “You left this behind!”

  “Th-thank you,” I stutter as I walk toward him. I take the book from him and stare at the paperback, elated to see it again.

  “The Age of Innocence, huh?” He lets out a low whistle. “That’s some heavy stuff.”

  My eyes jump up from the book to his face. “You think it’s too heavy for me?” I ask, unable to keep the defensiveness out of my voice.

  “No! Nothing like that. I’m just . . . I’m just saying I haven’t met too many girls who read Wharton for fun. I like that you do, though!”

  I lower my eyes again and scan the pale woman in repose on the cover. “You’ve read it?”

  “Yeah, I had to read it my first year at Tulane. Freshman composition. It was a little steamier than the other stuff we had to read, but I would’ve liked more action, frankly. She’s no Kerouac!”

  “So you know how it ends?”

  “I sure do!” He pushes a wayward strand out of his eyes and hooks his thumbs into the back pockets of his jeans.

  I flip through the book’s yellowed pages. Many are bent from bookmarks made by the paperback’s previous owners before it arrived at the used bookstore where I purchased it.

  “I was hoping for a happy ending . . . that Newland and Ellen would . . . you know . . . end up together.”

  But I can tell from the look on his face my hope is pointless.

  “Not all stories are meant to have happy endings, Delilah.”

  I nod sadly. “You’re right.” I drop my book into my purse. “Thank you for bringing my book to me. It was—”

  “I didn’t just come here to bring you your book. That was just an excuse.” He pushes his unruly hair out of his eyes again. I wonder why he doesn’t just cut it, but so many men are wearing their hair long these days. “I’d still like to drive you home again.”

  I don’t answer him right away and instead look around to see if anyone is watching us—and they are. A woman who is pushing a stroller pauses. She’s pretending to adjust her baby’s bottle, but I can see her squinting behind her cat’s-eye glasses, staring at us across the roadway. Even a few cars seem to slow down as they pass us. The drivers’ gazes linger on us a second too long.

  I shake my head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

  “Yes, you can!” He pushes himself away from the hood and walks toward me. Only a few inches are between us. “You did it yesterday!”

  “You know I can’t,” I whisper. “I wasn’t—”

  “I know no such thing.” He shrugs. “It’s not like it’s against the law!”

  “But your sister! She would—”

  “Oh, Mindy doesn’t care! As long as her hair and nails are done and Garfinkel’s is open, she’s fine! Besides, if she asks, I’ll tell her the truth: I’m just driving you home.”

  “But why?” I plead, because I honestly don’t understand.

  His smile widens. “Because I like you!”

  I am not relieved by his answer. Instead, I feel worse. I feel cornered.

  I have brushed off boys . . . men before, but not a white man, and none have been as persistent as Cee. I am on the verge of telling him no yet again when he says, “You’re special, Delilah. I saw it the moment I met you that night of the party. I just wanna get to know you. That’s all!” He stares into my eyes, and I can’t help but be drawn in. “We can talk about books. We can talk about movies. Whatever you want! It doesn’t matter to me.” He tilts his head. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  He’s right. It would be nice to talk to someone, finally. I realize how little talking I do nowadays, how all my thoughts are pushed toward the bottom of my mind like Mr. Williams’s socks, which always seem to float to the bottom of the laundry basket. What would it be like to talk about the things that are important to me? There are so many questions I have and things I want to say, but have no one to say them to. Auntie Mary wouldn’t know what I was talking about, and Agnes and Roberta would probably look at me like I was crazy or think my musings were just silly nonsense. But I suspect Cee wouldn’t. He wouldn’t laugh at me if I talked to him about the characters in my books or Martin Luther King Jr.’s death or the Beatles. He’d listen.

  “For example,” Cee begins, as if reading my mind, “if you like The Age of Innocence, you should try The House of Mirth next, if you haven’t read it already. I liked it better!” He steps toward the passenger door and holds it open for me. “I could tell you why I liked it more . . . while I drive you home.”

  I can’t help but laugh at his persistence, at his guile—handsome devil that he is. And like the devil, he dangles the apple from the tree of knowledge in front of me. As much as I suspect I will regret it later, I must have a bite.

  He inclines his head toward the leather passenger seat, and ever so slowly, I step forward. But instead of climbing onto the front seat, I sit in the back.

  He shakes his head, shuts the door behind me, and shrugs. “Well . . . it’s a start, I guess!”

  CHAPTER 15

  When I’m ready to leave the Williams home for the day, I duck into the second-floor hallway bathroom and shut the door behind me. I have to turn on the bathroom light because hardly any light streams through the window nowadays. The sun is setting earlier now that it is late September. It is cooler too, so the swampy heat, which used to linger in the air at all hours and had Miss Mindy turning up the air conditioning, has now disappeared.

  I check my reflection in the mirror to make sure my hair is combed and there is nothing in my teeth. I reach into my purse and spray the dime-store perfume I purchased a week ago on my neck and my wrists so the stench of bleac
h and sweat are no longer on me.

  I want to smell nice for Cee. I hope I look pretty too.

  “Of course you do, beautiful,” I can hear Cee whisper to me like he did last week when we went driving to the waterfront.

  At the memory, I smile so much my cheeks hurt.

  I open the door, step out of the bathroom, and head down the hall. I’m humming as I walk, but I stop near the stairs when I hear something slam behind me. I look over my shoulder, in the direction of Miss Mindy and Mr. Williams’s bedroom. The door is ajar. A shaft of orange light shoots into the hallway. I can hear hushed voices seeping out, then Mr. Williams shouts, “Really? Another goddamn party, Melinda?”

  I take a few steps back and peek through the crack in the door to find Mr. Williams pacing back and forth in front of their bed. He’s frowning too.

  Agnes told me they were set to go out to dinner tonight at some supper club in the city. That’s why Mr. Williams is wearing an evening jacket and tie, but he roughly yanks off his tie and tosses it to the floor.

  Miss Mindy acts like she can’t see the tie splayed on the carpet or her husband’s pacing. She stays perched at her makeup table, smoothing the edges of her bouffant hairdo as she gazes in the mirror.

  “There’s no need to get angry, honey.” She reaches for a pair of diamond studs on the mahogany tabletop. She places one of the studs in her earlobe.

  “What do you mean there’s no need to get angry?” he yells. “The last thing I need right now is to have to foot the bill for another goddamn party! Two hundred bucks for booze! A hundred bucks for hors d’oeuvres! All because a bunch of tight-assed—”

  “It’s our turn to host again,” she says calmly, putting in her other earring. “Suzy did it last month. When you live in a neighborhood like ours, you’re expected to have parties . . . to be social. You don’t want us to become pariahs, do you? What do you expect me to do?”