She walked slowly along the path. The night was cool and indigo. Mother Water was still flashing her silver and the nearly full moon created shadows like black holes beneath the trees. She heaved a large sigh. It had been a long time since anyone but Leo had so totally appealed to her sexually. She thought back to the last time she’d been so physically attracted to another man and acknowledged that every time she’d left her head in her diaphragm pouch, she’d lived to regret it. Ah well. This time at least she wouldn’t have to regret having had sex. She could relax and play all the boy/girl games she wanted. Instead of heading directly back to the dance, she walked across the lawn to a spot where she could see people dancing and talking on the terrace.
The hot couple and the jogging couple were on the dance floor, as well as other people she’d never seen before. Stu was talking to the young man she’d seen drinking beer in the bar. She listened to the Lawrence Welk sound-alike music and watched the dancers moving beneath the colored lights. They reminded her of pastel colors. Beautiful, and serene, but with none of the fire of the red-and-purple-loving black people she knew. There was nothing in the way these people moved on the dance floor that said their people invented rhythm. There was no swing in their walk, none of the shoulder, hip, or hand language that spoke volumes among black people she knew. Was having your juices watered the price of living and working outside the black community, as she was sure most of these folks did? Their teeth were all wrong, too—too straight, too white, too real. There were no bad feet among them. No runover shoes, no small runs on the inside of the leg of the pantyhose, no marriage of color and style for the sheer purpose of expressing personality. No hint of molasses in their voices. While the food here was excellent, she hadn’t seen any collards, cornbread, sweet potatoes, fried chicken, grits or any other staples of the black diet as she knew it. As far as she could see, the things, beside color, that made a person black were either missing or mere ghosts of their former selves. It was sad. Still, for all that, there was an air of gaiety about the dance, almost of relief. She remembered what Mattie had said about this being the first post-Faith dance. Suddenly, she’d had all of Amber Cove she could handle. It had been a long day and she needed to rise very early. Mother Water was expecting her.
FOUR
Blanche pressed the lever on her alarm just before it was to ring at four a.m., rose, showered, washed her hair with African Formula Genuine Black Shampoo and Conditioner. Afterward she wiped the condensation from the medicine cabinet mirror and stood naked before it, oiling, then corn-rowing her damp hair, enjoying its soft, woolly texture. There was a hint of rusty brown in its blackness and more than a handful of gray. She moved her fingers quickly down the parted section. She thought about Veronica Tatterson and her hair products and marveled that something that felt so good could be such a matter of shame and distress to so many people. Most of the black women she knew, especially the younger ones, could hardly stand the idea of their hair in its natural state. She shook her head. Us and our hair, she mumbled as she smeared lotion over her ample thighs and buttocks, it’s as deep as our color stuff. She dressed in a loose white blouse and skirt then gathered the small bundle from Madame Rosa, her flashlight, and a towel, and left her room for the beach. The chill grass startled her feet. She didn’t know if the shivers that ran up and down her back and arms were caused by cold or excitement. She knew people who would think she’d lost her mind if they saw her out, “playing around with them roots and such,” as her mother had said when she’d seen Blanche’s ancestor altar.
Blanche had once read a book that talked about black people as spiritual people, and white people as material people. She’d thought this was a put-down—a way of saying black people didn’t have enough contact with reality. At the same time, she’d thought the main reason black women in their thirties and forties threw themselves into the church was because they were lonely; their husbands were running around on them, or they were looking for husbands. Her own needs had proved her wrong. She now understood that her urge to hug trees, talk to the ocean, and lean on the dark as though it were a mother’s welcoming arms came from the same place as other women’s need for church and god. Now that she was aware of it, she could see the ways black people accepted spirituality as normal. It was as much a part of her African heritage as the heavy dose of melanin in her body. Her mother claimed to be shocked by Blanche’s “praying before idols.” But she’d sent Blanche faded and cracked photos of aunts long dead, and a rock shaped like a big-hipped woman. She’d also sent a bit of Grandmama Robinson’s crochet work and called to say she thought it might make a nice altar cloth. It was in her mother’s blood, just as it was in her own.
The older she got, the stronger her need to be connected to something that was larger than the world as she knew it. By the time she’d reached Boston, it was like an extra presence in her house, whispering to her about candles and incense and dancing beneath the full moon. She’d always practiced a kind of haphazard spirituality—having her cards read regularly and an occasional bone casting by a Yoruba priestess. She’d avoided the Christian church all of her life. As a child, being in church had always made her dizzy. As she grew older and learned more about the world and her place in it, she became convinced her problem with Christianity was due to its being the religion of the people who had enslaved her ancestors. How could the religion pressed on her people as a pacifier be the best pathway to her spiritual self? She couldn’t separate Christianity from the memory of the famous picture of slaves laid out like sardines in the bottom of a ship, or the iron slave necklace she’d seen in a museum in Richmond. After she’d watched Ali Mazuri’s public television series on Africa, she’d felt the same about Islam. But she also needed something beside the day-to-day. She’d considered finding the Yoruba house in Boston. But she could think of no reason why the Yoruba religion would be any less male run, with all the crap that went with that.
One day she saw a newspaper article about people who’d founded so-called churches as tax shelters. It occurred to her that she could design her own religion, too. She already knew who and what to worship. Instead of looking for a place to worship, she’d built one. She turned her tendency to talk to her dead grandmothers into ancestor worship. She began collecting pictures of all her dead relatives and built an altar for them—and up-ended wooden crate she sanded and shellacked and covered with Grandmama Robinson’s crochet work. She bought candles and flowers for her altar. Her hippy-woman rock from Mama, the rock from Africa, and the one from Australia, given to her by a geologist ex-employer, also went on the altar. Every morning, she lit the candles and incense and talked to her ancestors about her problems and dreams, her wishes for her children, her spiritual. She accepted as correct her childhood perception that she was somehow connected to the tree she climbed, the water she swam in, and the air that filled her lungs. She routinely called on all the forces in the universe for power. Since she’d begun her spiritual practice, she felt more firmly rooted in, not on, the ground, as though she had been joined with everything that sprang from it and the sea and air that made it possible. It seemed extra right that Madame Rosa had sent her here to find the answer to her dream. The sea was the place where she found the peace and cleansing her friends said they found in church or the mosque. Whenever her life got out of hand, she headed for the sea.
Now she stood open mouthed and lost in the wonder of the sky. The stars seemed to flare up, as if to challenge the returning sun. She lighted her way past the boulders where she’d sat the day before and walked until the beach curved and the Inn disappeared behind her. The sky was beginning to lighten. When she reached a spot that felt right, she waited for the first sight of the sun. When the sun began to show, she turned her back to the ocean and walked into it. She held the small packet from Madame Rosa over her heart in both hands. Every muscle in her body clenched from the shock of the cold water. She fought to control the clatter of her teeth. Her wet skirt held her calves captive. As s
unlight touched the beach, Blanche repeated what she’d told Madame Rosa about her dream, the hollow feeling when she woke, the grief, but never any memory of what happened in the dream. She asked what the dream meant, as well as for the ability to remember it after she’d woken. She asked for guidance in this problem with her kids putting on airs and taking on attitudes that she knew were dangerous. She asked for deliverance from the memory of Leo and for a long, long life for Mama. When she’d asked her last question and unloaded her last worry, she pressed the packet to her chest and held it there then moved it to the top of her head. She poured all of her worries and concerns into the packet, just as Madame Rosa had instructed. When she was done, she threw it as far from shore as she could. She stepped quickly out of the water and dried her freezing feet. She wished she’d remembered to bring a pair of socks. She slipped on her sandals and left her flashlight and towel on a rock while she walked farther along the beach. She could feel her mind unclench. She walked until that was all she was doing—walking, looking at the sea and birds, listening to the waves and walking. When the beach abruptly ended in a high bluff, she turned around and walked slowly back the way she’d come, feeling more relaxed than she had in weeks. Her only desire was to take a long, hot shower followed by a long, sweet, dreamless nap. She picked up her towel and flashlight on the way to her room.
She was stepping into an after-nap shower when the phone rang.
“Hi. It’s Stu.”
“Hey.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t make it back to the dance last night. I missed you.”
Blanche had nothing to say to that.
“What are you up to, today?” he asked. “I’d love to see you.”
“Christine and David will be back today.” Blanche told him. “I’ll probably spend the day with my kids. And I want to give Deirdre and Casey some time to get used to me. What about Tuesday?”
“OK, if you insist.”
As she turned from the phone a picture of Leo’s sleek blackness formed in her mind and made her stomach lurch. Did he miss her at all? She shook her head vigorously and decided to wash her hair. She’d have liked to talk to Ardell about the dance, but this time of day on Sunday she was at her weekend job at the nursing home where she was only allowed three minutes for personal phone calls and only one call a day.
Her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t had any breakfast. She dressed in slacks and a shirt, folded her Panama hat—left to her in the will of Mr. Rosenberg, an old employer, because she’d often admired it—along with five hundred dollars. She stuffed the hat in her oversized shirt pocket.
Despite the urging of her stomach, she naturally headed toward the sea once again, freeing her mind from thought with each step. By the time she’d removed her sandals, her full attention was on what lay before her. She closed her eyes, turned her back to the sea, and stepped into the icy water. Cold rocked through her but she smiled as she turned to face the ocean. She opened her eyes. “Good day, Mother,” she whispered. She let the sight and feel of the water flow through her again. She rested there for a moment.
The children will be back today was the first thought that floated into her mind. It pleased and soothed her even more. She stepped back from the sea and wiped at the water on her feet and ankles. They would be ashy before she finished eating. She saw herself hurrying back to her room to slather lotion on her feet as though dry skin were a cause for shame. She put on her sandals and headed for the terrace. Anyone, including herself, who was offended by her damp and soon-to-be-ashy feet, didn’t have to look at them.
Brunch was being served buffet style on the terrace. Mattie waved to her from an umbrella-topped table.
“Good morning, Blanche. Sit down and I’ll get someone to fetch you some vittles.”
And you’ll tell me what to eat, too, if I let you, Blanche said to herself. “Be right back.” She headed for the buffet table. She could feel Mattie’s eyes on her. Just like Mama, Blanche thought. And like Mama, it was good for Mattie to occasionally have her orders at least altered if not disobeyed. Of course, Mattie’s need to give orders was no stronger than Blanche’s need to alter all orders whenever possible. Like two sides of a coin.
As at dinner, Blanche was pleased by both the array and presentation of the food, although she’d have preferred grits and biscuits to croissants and eggs Benedict. She settled on a fruit cup to go with her OJ and coffee, to start and returned to her table.
“I saw you dancing with young Stu,” Mattie said.
Blanche smiled at the young part. Of course, when you were Mattie’s age, who wasn’t?
“Strange boy. I wonder what made him come back here? His family never expected he would, I’m sure.”
“Were his parents friends of yours?”
“Friends?” Mattie seemed to consider for a moment. “No. His mother was a shy woman. Weak. A recluse for much of her life.” Mattie made shy and weak sounds like heroin addiction and child molestation.
“And his father?”
“Rudolph? A fine man. Kind, considerate gentlemanly. First rate mind.”
“Any brothers or sisters?”
Mattie shook her head.
Blanche sensed something more about Stu’s family, but Mattie didn’t say it. They were both distracted by the arrival of the woman who’d bad-mouthed Faith in the bar last night. This morning, she wore a purple and white caftan with matching purple mules. Her companion was equally relaxed in a forest-green sweat suit and loafers.
“Excuse me,” Blanche told Mattie and went to stand in the buffet line behind the woman in the purple caftan. Blanche jostled the woman’s arm. The woman looked sharply over her shoulder, as though expecting a rear end attack. Blanche grinned and held out her hand.
“Hey, I’m Blanche White. How you doin’?”
The woman's round, plump-cheeked face lost it's defensive frown. She took Blanche's hand. “Linda Isaacs. This is my husband, Gabriel.” He swallowed Blanche's hand in both of his and grinned at her, his rich brown face as full of outcrops and hollows as a southwest vista.
“I saw you folks in the bar yesterday. Before dinner,” Blanche told them, deciding to get right to the point. As she expected, Linda was eager to talk.
“Aren’t they something?” Linda jerked her head toward the gathered Insiders. “As hincty a bunch of Talented Tenths as you’d ever want to see.”
Blanche laughed. “It’s been a long time since I heard that old DuBois’s thing about the light-brights being the natural leaders of their darker brethren.”
Linda piled her plate high with shirred eggs and Canadian bacon, finger-sized smoked sausages, a bagel, and fried tomatoes. “And ain’t these just the people he had in mind to run black America and teach morals to all the poor really dark darkies? I know these Negroes think they’re the chosen ones! And to think, I’m the one who wanted to come to this damned place! You’re the first person we’ve met since we’ve been here! Those others hardly speak.” She gave Blanche a bold look. “I don’t mean no offense, but quite frankly, honey, I’m surprised they let you in.”
“They didn’t know I was coming,” Blanche offered her palm with the comment. Linda slapped it and they both laughed.
“They weren’t exactly expecting you, either, I bet,” Blanche added.
“You heard, huh?”
Blanche nodded in the affirmative.
“Yeah girl, that woman talked about my clothes like I was dressed in rags. If it hadn’t been for Gabriel, she’d a died with a black eye. None of them others said a word, but I saw their faces. I’m glad today is our last day in this place!” Gabriel nodded in agreement while he filled his plate.
Blanche talked with Linda and Gabriel long enough to learn they made their money from their limousine service, clothes cleaning business, and government-subsidized apartments. She got the feeling that Linda was the one with the business brains and Gab
riel the one who could charm the workers into unpaid overtime. They ended their little chat in agreement that Amber Cove Inn could be a really great place with some changes in the food and clientele. Linda announced that her eggs had gone cold and replenished them. Blanche was sorry they were leaving.
Mattie was spreading orange marmalade on half a slice of dry toast with an air of indifference that Blanche decided not to break, unless Mattie admitted she was curious about Linda and Gabriel. Mattie held out for half a minute more.
“All right, Blanche, you win. Let’s have it.”
Blanche laughed and told Mattie almost word for word what she and the couple had said.
At the end of her retelling, the young man she’d seen drinking alone in the bar yesterday escorted a young woman to the table where Martin and Veronica were sitting. The young man had Martin’s forehead and the same long neck and sandy hair as Veronica Tatterson. But it was the woman he was introducing to them who held Blanche’s attention. Her face was the twin of the face on a bronze head of an African woman Blanche had seen in the Afro-American History Museum. This woman was deep black with a rosy luminescence that didn’t look like makeup. Even from a distance, Blanche could see that her eyes were meant to break hearts. Her face could have been the model for a profile on an African coin. Her full features were perfectly balanced in a mobile, expressive face. She was a big woman, too, not fat, but muscular and an inch or two taller than the young man. Dreadlocks hung to her shoulders. She was seated now, motionless, seemingly aloof. All the young man’s attention was focused on her. The Girlfriend Meets The Parents, Act One, Blanche thought. She watched the introductions and Martin’s attempt to start a conversation that didn’t go on for long. Only the young man seemed to be finding anything enjoyable in the event, and only when he was looking at the young woman.
Blanche Among the Talented Tenth (Blanche White series Book 2) Page 7