Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery

by Barbara Neely

  When Malik got his turn to talk, he was still miffed about being chastised, but he cheered up as they talked."... And I helped row the boat, too!” he told her, then wound his way through the fishing trip, and his friend Donnell's fall from his bike, which had resulted in a chipped tooth.

  Blanche hated the fact that while they talked, she was distracted by the realization of how long she'd been on the phone. But, as with her mother, she let the children rattle on. In reward, she found herself laughing without irony for the first time since she'd left home three days ago. They passed the phone back and forth until they finally worked their way back around to where they'd begun, with questions about her return home. She took a deep breath and told them she wasn't sure when they'd be together again, but that it might be a while. In the silence that followed, she told them, as she rarely did at home, how much she loved them. She sent them kisses and hugs and reminded them to take good care of their grandmother.

  When her mother came back on the line, Blanche could hardly talk around her tears. Her mother had something to say about that, once she sent Malik and Taifa out to play. “You ain't got no energy to waste on snivelin', girl. You got your front and your back to watch. I didn't raise you to be neither weaklin' nor fool. Now you stop that cryin' and act like you got some backbone!”

  “Yes, Mama. Bye, Mama.” Despite her mother's orders, Blanche hurried into the laundry room off the kitchen and turned on the tap in the utility tub to muffle her sobs. Unlike her mother, Blanche believed in tears. She knew from long experience how cleansing and calming a good cry could be. And she had more than herself to cry about. The memory of the silence that had followed her announcement to the kids made her cry even harder. After her tears came those restful moments in which whatever she'd been crying about was clearly understood to be outside of herself, some flaw in the world, not in her, and therefore not insurmountable. It was a state that made it possible for her to prepare and serve a dinner that showed no signs of her distress. She washed the asparagus and tried to decide whether to cook enough so that there'd be some left over for a vegetable soufflé on Monday—she found that leftover asparagus worked much better in her soufflé than fresh. She looked up as Mumsfield approached the kitchen.

  She made him a couple of smoked turkey sandwiches to hold him until dinner and hoped he wouldn't linger. She was still brimming over with her own feelings and in no mood to talk. But he was.

  “And may the Lord God bless you one and all,” he told her in a deep, pompously ministerial voice, with an oversized grin on his face. He went on to mimic some of his fellow churchgoers, including the less than kind comments they made about others among them—comments made right in front of him, because his condition made him as invisible as her color and profession made her.

  “We went to our house, Blanche. But Cousin Grace made me wait in the car. I only wanted to get my baseball cap. Why wouldn't she let me go in the house with her, Blanche?”

  “Umm hmm.” Blanche nodded her head and sighed.

  “Are you tired, Blanche?” Mumsfield asked her.

  Blanche felt her face flush. She didn't like to half-listen when someone talked to her. She was too well acquainted with how it felt to be treated as though what she said wasn't worth the energy it took to listen.

  “I'm sorry, Mumsfield, honey. Maybe you could tell me all about it some other time. I just can't set my mind to it right now.” As she spoke, she prepared herself for his feeling rejected.

  Instead, Mumsfield cocked his head to the side as though trying to listen harder, or to make sure he understood what she'd said. Then he gave her one of the sweetest smiles Blanche had ever seen.

  “Yes, Blanche. I will tell you tomorrow. I trust you, Blanche. You know I understand things.” He left the kitchen for the front of the house.

  She was glad his feelings weren't hurt because she'd told him to leave off with his church story, and she understood why he was so pleased that she'd told him so, instead of pretending an interest she didn't have. All us invisibles are probably sensitive about that, she thought.

  Dinner was a quick and quiet affair. Blanche had hoped some clue as to what that phone conversation was about would come out at dinner while she was in the room, but Grace and Everett hardly spoke, each seeming preoccupied with unshared thoughts. If there was any conversation beyond that related to passing dishes back and forth, it didn't take place while Blanche was in the room.

  True to his word, the next morning Mumsfield was in the kitchen well before breakfast, and still full of his trip to town and to church yesterday. Blanche was ready for him, this time. She'd slept well and woken to the lucky song of a mockingbird. While she'd brushed her teeth and bathed, she'd bucked up her spirits with speculations about what she would find in Boston besides cold weather.

  Now she gave Mumsfield her full attention. She laughed as he moved his hands in the air, sketching women's hats that should never have been made, let alone worn, and demonstrated the strut of importance practiced by the husbands. Then he sang his favorite bits of several hymns. She realized that everything was still exciting and fresh to him. It didn't matter that he'd probably heard those hymns and seen those hats many times before. It was enough for him that church and hats existed. Things didn't have to be unique to be interesting. She envied him his baby eyes, his ability to find delight in the simple parts of life. It made her wonder about the term “retarded.”

  But even though she could tell Mumsfield was pleased with the conversation, she still sensed a watchfulness in him, as though he were observing her for signs of inattentiveness or boredom. She showed none. She asked him for details of the church and the state of traffic. She liked talking to him. She liked trying to see the world the way he saw it. She was sure talking to him was good for her.

  After breakfast, she vacuumed and dusted the living room and dining room and moved upstairs. When she'd finished making beds in all the other rooms, she stopped in front of Emmeline's door.

  “I won't! I won't!” Emmeline shouted just as Blanche knocked on the door. Blanche fully expected to be politely turned away by Grace, or shouted at and told to “stay the hell out” by Emmeline herself. But this morning, Grace waved her inside and went to stand with her back to the window. The place looked and smelled like what it was, a room constantly occupied by a person sweating gin. Blanche wished she could open a window but assumed if they'd wanted one open, they'd have done so. She worked as quickly as she could. It wasn't just the smelly, messy room that made her hurry. The silent fight going on between Emmeline and Grace was like red-hot pincers on Blanche's nerves. She could feel their wills rolling around the room, scratching and clawing at each other like two characters out of that old Gang Girls in Prison movie. All the while their eyes were riveted on her. Grace was poised on the balls of her feet, ready to speak or act should Emmeline say or do the wrong thing. Emmeline lay limp in her chair, her body almost melding with the upholstery. No part of her moved, except her hard, bloodshot eyes, which gleamed with alertness. Blanche thought it was the pose of a person who knew how to use other people's strength to her own advantage. She also realized that while Grace and Emmeline kept their eyes on her, she was just the lens through which they eyed each other suspiciously. She was relieved when she had to move on to the connecting bathroom.

  From the condition of the tub, it seemed that Emmeline had finally had a bath. In Blanche's experience, it was unusual for a woman in Grace's position to attend to the washing of wrinkled old behinds. Of course, from the way the old lady had smelled yesterday, Grace wasn't doing such a hot job. Still, it was odd that they didn't hire a nurse or companion for Emmeline, or at least try to foist more of her care onto the help. At first, it had seemed kind of nice that Grace chose to personally care for her aunt. Now Blanche knew there was very little that was nice going on between them. She finished off the bathroom with a swipe at the mirror over the basin and left Emmeline's bedroom without a word to either of the silent women.

  It was
later that day that Mumsfield told Blanche about the clothes in the guest room next to Emmeline's room.

  SEVEN

  Blanche moved around the kitchen preparing to prepare dinner—gathering bowls and large wooden spoons, choosing knives, setting out measuring cups. She paused in her search for a large colander when she heard Mumsfield calling her name. He said it three times before he ever got to the kitchen—at least she hoped he was saying it out loud and that she wasn't picking it up from his thoughts.

  “Blanche,” he said again, as he entered the room. His voice was full of questions and rose slightly with each repetition of her name. “Who is in the guest room, Blanche?”

  “I don't know, Mumsfield, honey.” Blanche found the colander and turned her attention to looking for a ring mold for the rice. “Who do you think is in there?” she asked after she'd located the pan on a pull-out shelf in a cabinet beside the stove.

  “No one is in the guest room, Blanche. No one.”

  She wasn't accustomed to Mumsfield not making sense, so she was halted for a few seconds. She looked at him closely to make sure he was all right. His perpetually quizzical eyes gazed steadily back at her.

  “You mean the guest-room person isn't in the guest room now?” she half-stated, half-asked. She nodded with satisfaction when Mumsfield agreed with her interpretation.

  “When did you see the person in the guest room?” She was once again stopped by Mumsfield's answer.

  “Never, Blanche. I never saw the person in the guest room.”

  Blanche decided to try a different direction. “Mumsfield, honey, what were you doing in the guest room?” For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to answer. He blinked in a way that made her think he might be about to cry. She'd decided to tell him to forget the question, when he started speaking. His voice was soft and hesitant.

  “Sometimes,” he began, “sometimes...” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “Sometimes, I touch...I feel Aunt Emmeline here,” he said, holding his hand up, as though he were about to press his palm against something. “I go in the...in the guest room...in the closet. I put my hand...” Once again, he raised his hand as though to press it against a wall, then sighed deeply. “But there was no feeling, Blanche. No feeling. Only the clothes.” His sadness brimmed out of his eyes and made his mouth quiver.

  Blanche understood what Mumsfield was trying to tell her about the feeling between him and Emmeline. Blanche had shared the same kind of super-sensitivity with her girlhood friend Eula, a high-yellow, sweet-faced girl who'd been Blanche's other self for the two years Eula had lived with her aunt and uncle in a house three doors from Blanche's own. Blanche and Eula's twin-hood was sealed by their both beginning to menstruate on the same rainy spring day. Blanche's heart had nearly broken when her mother told her Eula's uncle and aunt had been killed in an accident, and Eula was being sent back to her parents and fifteen brothers and sisters in Florida. She'd never found a friend to replace Eula, not even Ardell.

  Now Blanche took Mumsfield's hand and led him to a chair at the table. She fetched him a glass of lemonade and sat across from him and waited until thoughts of his aunt were no longer creases in his forehead.

  “Now,” she said, “how do you know someone's been in the guest room?”

  “The clothes, Blanche, I told you. The clothes. In the closet!”

  “Aah.” She asked him as many questions as she could think of about the color, shape, size, and texture of these clothes. When he'd finished answering her questions, she knew the clothes in the closet in the guest room were women's clothes that most likely belonged to Emmeline. Mumsfield's account of the shoes made her sure they were Enna Jetticks. Not Grace's type, yet.

  Blanche wondered why Grace would put a complete set of Emmeline's clothes in the guest room. It wasn't likely to have been anyone else. Emmeline was usually so drunk Blanche had never seen her even stand up, although that didn't mean she couldn't. It was unlikely that Everett was well enough acquainted with old ladies' dressing habits to know to assemble snuggies and an undershirt as well as the usual slip, panties, and bra, especially this time of year. Something else for the list of peculiar things happening in this house, she thought.

  “I don't know who's been in the guest room, Mumsfield, honey, but I think the clothes probably belong to your Aunt Emmeline.”

  Mumsfield broke into full smile. He could, as he'd said last night, understand things. You only needed to get in step with his way of putting his thoughts and words together, just as you had to squint to read fine print.

  Mumsfield switched the subject to what was for dinner and spent the next hour learning the intricacies of making a good wild rice ring.

  Blanche had hoped to slip up the back stairs to put away some of the laundry she'd done after breakfast, but talking to Mumsfield had put her behind. She checked the thermometer in the veal roast and basted it with the pan juices.

  After dinner, Grace brought Emmeline's tray back to the kitchen. From the looks of the plate, Emmeline had, as usual, eaten very little.

  “Your cooking is quite good, Blanche.” Grace set the tray on the table and turned to Blanche.

  “Quite good,” my foot, Blanche thought. “Fabulous” is more like it. But she merely nodded her all-purpose nod, which could be interpreted to mean whatever the viewer needed it to mean.

  “You must have had a fine teacher.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  Blanche knew Grace intended for her to say on, to talk about how she'd learned to cook and from whom. But Blanche didn't want to play the let's-pretend-I'm-interested-in-you-as-a-person game. It might be necessary to Grace's image of herself, but even to keep a low profile Blanche wasn't prepared to go along with the go-long, as Cousin Murphy used to say.

  “Have you considered a regular cook's position?”

  “I can't stand the constant heat, ma'am. Makes me all dizzy and nauseous.” She managed to keep a straight face somehow. Her sarcasm was totally wasted on Grace who arranged her features into a mask of sympathetic understanding, as though Blanche had said she couldn't be a cook because of some disability. Blanche coughed down the laugh that threatened to betray her. Grace, having discharged her duty to show personal interest in the help, went on to talk about what really concerned her. Blanche both listened to and watched her as she issued her velvet-sheathed orders.

  “We like our bed linen changed every three days this time of year.” Grace was flushed, her eyes bright and alert. She spoke with a crispness Blanche had first heard when Grace had opened the back gate to admit Blanche to the house in town. The last time Grace had seemed so sure of herself was when they'd done the meal planning. She's in her element, Blanche thought. For all her rattled, nearly helpless behavior, she likes being in charge. She really believes she's the Mistress of the Manor. Is that why she wants to control Mumsfield's money, to make sure she gets to play châtelaine in high style? Although, from what Blanche had overheard, the will-changing business sounded like Everett's idea.

  “And please remember, just a hint of starch in Mr. Everett's shirts.”

  For one brief moment, their eyes actually met. Blanche was the first to look away. “Yes, ma'am.”

  After Grace left the kitchen, Blanche sat down at the table. Was it just that old race thing that had thrown her off when her eyes met Grace's? Her neighbor Wilma's father said he'd never in his adult life looked a white person in the eye. He'd grown up in the days when such an act very often ended in a black person's charred body swinging from a tree. For many years, Blanche worried that it was fear which sometimes made her reluctant to meet white people's eyes, particularly on days when she had the lonelies or the unspecified blues. She'd come to understand that her desire was to avoid pain, a pain so old, so deep, its memory was carried not in her mind, but in her bones. Some days she simply didn't want to look into the eyes of people likely raised to hate, disdain, or fear anyone who looked like her. It was not always useful to be in touch with race memory. The thought of her losses some
times sucked the joy from her life for days at a time.

  But in this case, it was Grace's particular eyes that she'd shied away from. There'd been something in them that was all Grace, which Blanche hadn't wanted to see. She was still sitting at the table when Grace returned to the kitchen.

  Now Grace's eyes were wide and red-rimmed. They flitted around the room like trapped birds. Her hands were clenched tightly together, her knuckles stood out sharp and white as bleached bones. Blanche wondered if she'd imagined Grace's calm assurance of a few minutes ago. “Please take the two... gentlemen on the side porch some refreshments.” She spoke more slowly than usual, and, given her appearance and behavior, Blanche was surprised by her even tone of voice.

  Blanche fetched napkins, filled a cut-glass pitcher with iced tea, and set it on a large serving tray along with a decanter of brandy, snifters, and tall, thin iced tea glasses. She could feel, and sometimes see, Grace's eyes on her. They reminded Blanche of a storm she'd once seen building out to sea. The clouds had tumbled soundlessly end over end in the distance, gathering around the heart of the storm. When the storm broke over the beach it had flattened everything it touched. Where was Everett? Why wasn't he playing host to these two gentlemen who'd caused such a reaction in Grace?

  Curiosity lightened Blanche's step as she moved through the house. She balanced the tray on her hip while she opened the door and stepped out onto the screened-in porch. There was still some light in the sky, but on the porch deep shadows had already begun to settle in for the night. As she was about to round the corner onto the long side porch, one of the men spoke. Blanche relaxed and imagined her ears to be large, trumpet-shaped organs designed to pick up the smallest sound. What she heard made it clear that the men on the porch were neither gentle nor strangers.

  “Bobbie Lee, I don't have that kind of money. And even if I did...”