by Keene, Day
“Thank you. You said if you could help me, you would.”
“I meant it then. I mean it now.”
Dona took the two fifty-dollar bills from her change purse. “And while you’re here, will you please take these. It won’t change anything, but it will make me feel a little better.”
Ames put the bills in his pocket and removed his hat. “Sure you can’t tell me what’s eatin’ on you, sugar?”
“I’m sure.
“I notice you’re not wearin’ that ring.”
“I have no right to wear it.”
“Then maybe I have a right to say this.” Ames hesitated. “As you know, I’m a lawyer. Talkin’ is my trade. I could say this thing in court an’ make a jury lap it up. But here, alone with you, I’m sort o’ tightened up. So let me start by sayin’ this. I know now that last night was a mistake for both of us.”
“Thank you for realizing that.”
“God alone knows why you pretended to be something you aren’t. Deep in liquor as I was, I mistook you for what you pretended to be. When I left, I thought I had you pegged as a nice kid in a jam, mebbe tryin’ to forget some man. Then when I heard you’d rented the Sterlin’ cottage, after all the questions you’d asked about him, I wasn’t so certain. I thought mebbe you were just a smart little hooker on the make, that cryin’ the way you did was just a way o’ gettin’ rid o’ me. That’s why I bust into Blair’s tonight, part drunk an’ all randy. I figured we had some unfinished business. But now I’m right back to where I was last night.” He lit a cigarette and offered Dona first puff. “So, look, sugar — ”
“Yes, Jack?”
“This is the point I want to make. Sometimes, because of circumstances, two people, especially a man an’ a woman, get off to a bad start. They come at things hind end to, instead of the way they should.”
Dona hadn’t noticed that Ames was so tall. She had to look up to see his face. “What are you getting at?”
“Now I want to meet you proper. I want to take you to church and maybe for a ride. I want to buy you a coke an’ a box o’ candy an’ some flowers. I want to do the things a fellow does for the girl he’s courtin’. I want you to meet my sister, the one who keeps house for me.”
The wild drumming of the rain on the roof stopped abruptly. The wind whimpered one last time and died. The still, oppressive heat returned. Dona could feel small beads of perspiration form on her face. “You mean that, don’t you, Jack?”
“I never meant anything more.”
Dona finally said, “Thanks a lot, my dear. You’re nice. I like you.”
“An’ you’ll think about what I’ve just said?”
Nothing could ever come of it, but that much she could promise. “Yes, I’ll think about it.”
Ames lifted Beau from the chair like he was an over-sized sack of grain and folded him across his shoulder. “Okay. We’ll leave it like that. Now let’s get this poor devil back to town.”
Chapter Eleven
THE COTTAGE was bright with morning. There was a twittering of birds and a scolding of squirrels in the trees. Everything was drenched with the fragrance of newly-washed fruitful earth. Dona spread two of the slats in the blinds apart and looked out. All that was left of the rain was a muddy puddle in the road.
Her watch told her it was twenty-five minutes after ten. Either the servant from the big house had come and gone or the coffee and breakfast Blair Sterling had promised would be along shortly. She walked, yawning, into the bathroom and examined the negligee she’d hung on the shower rail to dry. It was still damp but wearable. After brushing her teeth and bathing her face, she walked back into the living room. The soles of her feet hurt her. She could see traces of blood that hadn’t been wiped up.
The main room was cool, getting a breeze through the open windows. Dona opened the front door, making sure the screen door was locked, then stood looking up the road. If no one from the big house showed up by eleven o’clock, she would dress and drive into town for breakfast.
Feeling calmer and more secure than she had since she’d started south, Dona wished she could tell Jack the truth, but she rejected the idea immediately. Ames was falling in love with her. Given time, he would propose. With him she could have security and for a time, a certain amount of respect. But the basic problem remained the same.
Dona lifted her hands high and then pressed them to her forehead. “It’s a rotten squirrel cage,” she thought.
She looked up as a discreet knock sounded on the wood of the front door. There was a car in front of the cottage. The pretty girl who’d brought her the citronella candle was standing on the porch with a linen-covered basket on her arm.
“’Mornin’, Miss,” the girl said. “Mister Sterlin’ say I should bring you some breakfast an’ do what I kin fo’ you.”
Dona unhooked the screen. “Thank you. What’s your name?”
“Hattie,” the girl said.
She set the basket on a chair, got a card table from the closet and set it up. Then she lifted the cover of the basket.
Dona attempted to be pleasant. “Have you worked for Mr. Sterling long?”
“I was birthed on the place,” Hattie told her. “I ‘spects to die on it.” She spread the table with a linen cloth and silver service, then filled a cup with coffee from a thermos bottle. The main dish was ham and eggs and there were numerous small side dishes.
Dona smiled, “I can’t eat all that, Hattie.”
The girl’s sullen eyes flicked from the table to Dona’s face. “I s’posed you’d have a appetite this mo’nin’. Go ahaid. Make out your breakfast.”
Dona took the chair from the phone stand and sat at the table. Her brief feeling of uplift dissipated. She was back in the same mental slough.
“While you’re eatin’,” Hattie said, “I’ll make up your bed an’ rid up the room a little.”
In the small wall mirror beside the door, Dona watched Hattie making the bed. She was over-long about it. Dona felt herself blushing as she realized the reason for the girl’s sullen attitude. She knew that Sterling had come to the cottage but not how long he’d stayed. She was looking for evidence of his presence. What Dona had assumed at the party was fact. In Hattie’s eyes, she was a new and possibly dangerous rival.
As she fitted the custom-made cover to the studio bed and fluffed the pillows, Hattie asked, “You goin’ to be here long, Miss Santos?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jist on vacation?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“What you think of Mister Sterlin’?”
“Why, I hardly know the man.”
“He plenty rich. He own most of Blairville County.”
“Is everything around here named Blairville?”
“Most everything.” Hattie was amused by something known only to her. “‘Cludin’ a few things that should be but ain’t.”
Dona didn’t bother to inquire what they were. She sat watching the girl in the mirror. Hattie was tall, with a lithe, animal grace. Her hair was straight enough to be cut in a close-cropped Italian hair-do. Long, tinkling silver earrings dangled from the lobes of her ears. Her breasts were high and full. Dona tried to guess her age. She asked, “How old are you, Hattie?”
“I’ll be fifteen, come August,” Hattie told her. “Why?”
“I just wondered.”
Hattie felt the other studio couch. “Both these beds get wet in the rain las’ night?”
“Yes. Before I could close the windows.”
“Why doan Mistah Sterlin’ he’p you?”
“He wasn’t here when the rain started. And when he did stop by, I had everything under control.”
The girl made a pretense of straightening the cover. “He doan stay long, then?”
Dona told her what she wanted to know. “He didn’t stay at all. He didn’t even come in.”
The sullen look left Hattie’s eyes. She insisted on refilling Dona’s cup. “Eat, Missy. You jist bird-pickin’
at your food. They’s nothin’ so good fo’ you as a big breakfast.”
“I’ll try,” Dona said, meekly.
“I’ll scour out the bath nex’,” she beamed. “Then you kin take your bath an’ dress while I rids up in heah.”
She disappeared into the bathroom and Dona heard water running. She tried to eat but didn’t have much appetite. After finishing the coffee in the thermos, she took clean underthings and stockings from her case and walked into the bath to see how Hattie was progressing.
The girl was sniffing a small flagon of Coty’s Emeraude. When she saw Dona, she apologized. “Excusin’ I pry personal, but it sure smells purty. The five-and-dime store in Blairville doan have nothin’ but some ol’ orange blossom perfume an’ weak ol’ lilac water.”
“Take it,” Dona said. “I have another just like it.”
Hattie slipped the perfume into the pocket of her dress. “Thank you plenty, Miss Santos. I thought you was quality folk when I see you sittin’ there las’ night, nursin’ one drink till it got warm, lookin’ kinda disgusted-like with the carryin’ on.”
Dona hung her negligee on the hook of the bathroom door. “Are all of Mr. Sterling’s parties like that one?”
“Mostly,” Hattie said. “I doan mind the men too much. Men is made that way. They’s always drinkin’ an’ rough talkin’ an’ misplacin’ they hands. But some o’ them li’l ol’ gals is a caution. They doan care what they say or do or who they do it with or where they do it. They from one room to ‘nother all night.”
Dona turned on the water in the shower and pulled her nightgown over her head. “Where does Mr. Sterling find them?”
“Mobile an’ Natchez, mostly. Then they’s a few local white trash out fo’ some fun an’ a few dollars.” She explained, “You see, Mr. Sterling’s a big man in business an’ politics. An’ he likes the men he does business with to be pleased. It’s easier that way to make deals an’ git ‘em to sign all them papers.”
“I see.”
Hattie laughed. “You doan see nothin’. Not long aftuh you lef’, two o’ them li’l ol’ gals took off all they clo’es an’ dance mother-nekkid on top o’ the grand piano. Then you should see what they done.”
Dona stepped into the shower. “I’d rather not know. Mr. Sterling likes that type of girl?”
Hattie smoothed the cloth over her bosom. “No, ma’am. He doan nevuh have nothin’ to do with ‘em.” Her smile was sly. “But he sho do like his women.” She started for the living room and turned in the doorway. “My, you sure got a purty skin, jist lak fresh rich cream in a bowl.”
When she was gone, Dona pressed her cheek to the cool wall of tile. She felt tired and, suddenly, old.
Dona soaped her body thoroughly and still felt unclean. This, too, was Blair Sterling’s fault. Her life had never been completely normal. She’d matured too young. Instead of the memories of childhood she should have, a birthday party, a father helping her with her homework, a picnic in the park, going to church together, her memories recalled a drunk sleeping in a doorway, a pimp slapping his meal ticket, the forbidden books she’d read in snatches in Bernie’s back room when he’d been busy with customers. Only until now, she’d thought they were just stories. She hadn’t known there were people who actually lived like that.
Hattie reappeared in the bathroom doorway. “Excusin’ I bother you again, Miss Santos.”
Dona turned off the shower. “Yes — ”
“You got company.”
“Company?”
“Yes, ma’am. They’s two men want to see you.”
“Who are they?”
“I dunno. They doan give their names. But one’s got a camera. I think mebbe they’s reporters from the Courier.”
“The Courier?”
“Yes, ma’am. Tha’s a newspaper.”
Chapter Twelve
DONA EASED the tight bodice of the sports dress Hattie had brought, then fluffed the still damp edges of her hair, as she looked at the two men waiting in the living room.
“Miss Santos?” one of them asked.
“Yes,” Dona answered, “That’s my name.”
The same man said, “My name is Kelly. Mike Kelly. Sorry to have gotten you out of your bath. If the Nigra girl had told us we’d have been proud to come back.”
“That’s quite all right,” Dona said. She sat on one of the beds and fastened the ankle straps of her shoes. “Who are you? What do you want of me?” She looked at the man carrying a camera. “You’re reporters?”
“Mike is,” the man with the camera drawled. Mike Kelly smiled, “We’re with the Courier. That’s the local paper. Maybe I’m off the track but if my hunch is correct, you’re news. You see this is the way it is, Miss Santos. Part of my job is to check the hotels for recent arrivals and when I checked the Yazoo last night I found your name but learned you’d moved out here.”
“Yes?”
Kelly explained, “The name Santos isn’t very common in these parts. And seeing as we printed a picture of another Miss Santos yesterday, I got to wondering if you two might be related. You saw yesterday’s Courier?”
Dona shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I bought one but I didn’t read it.”
“That’s a normal reaction,” the cameraman said.
Kelly took a copy of the Courier from his pocket and handed it to Dona. “Right there on the front page.”
A lock of hastily pinned hair escaped its mooring. Dona repinned it as she scanned the A.P. wirephoto of Estrella standing in the doorway of a DC-7, smiling at her public over a huge sheaf of long-stemmed roses. The caption read:
Estrella Santos, beautiful and talented nightclub and television star, arrives in Hollywood to discuss making a feature picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Dona laid the paper on the bed and looked at Kelly. “Just what was it you wanted to ask me?”
“If you are related to Estrella Santos.”
“Of course. She’s my mother.”
Kelly was pleased. “I hoped that might be it. I checked with Chicago and learned she had a daughter. Just passing through, Miss Santos?”
“Yes and no. I’ve been to the coast so often I didn’t want to fly out with my mother. So I thought I’d take a little trip while she was gone. I’d never been south so I drove to Nashville, on to Memphis, then to Natchez. From Natchez I came here.”
Kelly scratched a few notes on a pad. “For any particular reason, Miss Santos?”
“N-no.”
“How come you happened to stop in Blairville?”
“It was late and I was tired. It seemed an attractive little town typical of the South. The next morning I was suddenly so tired of driving I never wanted to see the car again.”
The cameraman said, “If I had a boat like that one you have standing outside, I’d bring it in the house and take it to bed with me.”
Dona laughed. “It wasn’t the car. It was just that I’d driven so far. So that morning, that was yesterday morning, I inquired about renting a lake or river cottage and Judge Harris suggested this place. I like it very much. It’s lovely.”
Kelly made a few more notes. “Are you going to be with us long, Miss Santos?”
“I don’t know. Let’s say as long as the whim stays with me, as long as I’m happy here.”
“Two weeks. A month?”
“Possibly that long.”
“Now let me ask you his. Do you sing or dance? Are you planning a theatrical career?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Estrella has all the talent in the family.”
Kelly put his note pad in his pocket. “And what do you think of the deep South, Miss Santos?”
“I think it’s very charming and quaint.”
The cameraman grunted, “Quaint. I should be offered a job in Chicago, even in St. Louis. Come payday, you hear the 9:15 whistle its way out of town, there I am. See me on the platform of the observation car thumbing my nose.”
Kelly laughed. “Oh, Blairville’s not quite that bad. Now co
uld we have a few pictures, Miss Santos?”
“Of course. If you think I’m news. But please let me re-comb my hair and change into something else.”
Kelly protested, “If you don’t mind, Miss Santos. Just as you are. Your hair is cute that way. You look very sweet and wholesome. And that dress will give the local girls a big bang. Has it any special name?”
“It’s a Trigere original. Most of my clothes are.”
Kelly added the information to the pad, then posed Dona sitting on the bed, once on the stairs of the cottage, and once standing on the beach.
It was all very pleasant and informal. Dona walked with the two men to their mud-splattered car and waved as they started away.
Dona was very pleased with herself. Having her picture in the paper, being treated as a celebrity, would further stimulate Blair Sterling’s interest in her. And the greater his interest, the more vulnerable he would be.
As she climbed the stairs, she saw Hattie, her basket on her arm, standing on the porch.
“Why are you staring at me that way?” Dona asked her.
“I dunno,” Hattie admitted. “It’s jist you look different somehow than you did this mo’nin’.”
“In what way, Hattie?”
“Sorta lak you mighty pleased ‘bout somethin’. I most kin see the dickey-bird’s tail a-stickin’ right outa your mouth.”
Chapter Thirteen
THE WALKS and stores on all four sides of the courthouse square were crowded with perspiring men and women. The men were dressed in overalls and blue shirts, the women in clean, stiffly-starched cotton dresses. It was difficult to find a parking space. Dona drove around the square three times, then was fortunate enough to be first in line when a farm truck vacated a space a few doors from the hotel. Dona backed the big car deftly into place and dropped a coin in the parking meter.
A passing man paused to drawl, “Pardon me, Miss, but you handle that car real good.”
“Thank you,” she said.
He added, “Fo’ a woman,” and walked on.
There was a dress shop a short way down the street. No swimsuits were shown in the window but the dresses were smartly styled.