A Glimmer of Death

by Valerie Wilson Wesley

  The sun was fading, and I made another promise to attend to my neglected yard. Come May, I’d force myself to paint the bench—no matter what. I’d plant red-and-white impatiens under the trees and replant Aunt Phoenix’s herbs that had faded into weeds. I’d invite Julie or Vinton or Bertie over for lemonade or sparkling wine, and we’d sit on my bright yellow bench in my pretty backyard, talking about nothing and savoring the beginning of spring. Just thinking about my plans made me smile and shake off my worries about Harley. Right on cue, Aunt Phoenix texted me one of her Maya Angelou quotes:

  “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

  Like the gift, texts from Aunt Phoenix often missed their mark, but when they hit it, they hit it good. This one was right on time. I didn’t know what would become of Harley, but there was nothing I could do about it, and it was time for me to change my attitude, just like this text suggested. I picked myself up, finally ready to go inside, talk to my cat, start my baking, and be grateful for the blessings I had.

  “Dessa, is that you out there enjoying the last of this sun? You got a minute?” Julie called out from her kitchen window just as I was standing up. The gift had summoned her, I figured, so I sat down and she joined me.

  Julie had been a librarian before she retired, and had the quick, sharp attitude of a woman who loves books, donates to public TV, and keeps up with everything and everyone—locally, nationally, and globally. Darryl loved talking to her because she knew a little bit about everything. My own personal Google, he jokingly called her, which always made her grin. She was a tiny woman, not quite five feet, and probably weighed less than a hundred pounds, even with the two heavy chains with two sets of glasses always around her neck. Her dark brown Afro streaked with silver was cut short, and the training suits she loved to wear always looked freshly pressed. When she sat down beside me, I caught a whiff of lilac, and as lilac tends to do, I felt immediately at ease.

  “Forgive me, sweetie, for not stopping by to check on you,” she said, grabbing my hand and holding it for a second. “I’ve been neglectful of everything. Trying to get myself together. This being single again is no joke, I’ll tell you that.”

  She took a quick breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put it like that,” she said, apparently realizing that being single again for me was a far worse situation. “And I hope you don’t mind me calling you sweetie. That’s my default name for everybody, including the guy who fixes my car, who spent a couple of years in the joint and is nobody’s sweetie.”

  “Sometimes it’s good to feel like somebody’s sweetie,” I said, and meant it.

  “So how are you doing these days; how are you coping?”

  “Okay, most of the time,” I said, which was the truth. “How about you?”

  She chuckled deep in her throat. “Well, after being married to a man for forty years, it’s a real kick in the butt to have him walk out on you for a girl forty years his junior. But I’m better off without him. I just didn’t see it coming. I should have seen the warning signs, but according to him, I always had my nose buried in some book. He didn’t like to read. He was that kind of a man, which was the sign I should have seen,” she said, with an exaggerated shake of her head.

  “I have a friend at work who had a similar experience,” I said, thinking of Bertie. “And she lost her job nearly the same week.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “Well, she found a job at the real estate place where I work, Risko Realty, and she’s okay now,” I said, a generous exaggeration.

  “Risko Realty, isn’t that the place . . . ?”

  “That’s it,” I said, not eager to discuss it.

  “Her name wasn’t Bertie Jefferson by any chance, was it? A young woman whose last name was Jefferson and said her mother worked with you stopped by here earlier. She rang my doorbell by mistake, and said she needed to talk to you. Something about a pound cake.”

  “Oh Lord!” I said. Bertie had mentioned she wanted a cake but that had been a week ago. She hadn’t mentioned it since.

  “Did she say if she was coming back?”

  “She didn’t say much, just kind of gazed at your house for a while looking disappointed, which struck me as odd. I thought she was going to cry. I asked her if she was okay, and she said she was. Do you think I should have asked her in?”

  “No,” I said, too quickly. Julie, sharp as she was, picked up on something in my voice.

  “She’s not dangerous, is she?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said, trying to sound convincing, but after talking to Harley I wasn’t so sure. “Was there anyone with her?” I said, thinking about Avon Bailey, if that was who Harley had seen.

  “I didn’t see anyone. Are you sure about this girl? Do you think we should call the police?”

  “No. I’ll bake her mother’s cake, take it to work tomorrow morning, and find out what’s going on with her daughter.” I had momentarily forgotten I had other cakes to bake. But a pound cake was nothing to make, and it might make Bertie feel better, pick up her spirits as she always had mine. I was uneasy about Louella, though. Was it just the cake or was she reaching out to me for some other reason?

  “You look worried,” Julie said, her eyes lingering on my face.

  I tried to reassure her with a confident smile. “I’m fine, and I know an ex-detective I can call if I feel uncomfortable.”

  “Oh, a protector!” Julie said with a naughty wink.

  “Nothing like that, he’s a client,” I said more firmly and quickly than I needed to.

  “Sweetie, you must be some kind of baker,” Julie said with an amused chuckle as she left to go inside. “You take care of yourself, Dessa, and if you need anything, yell loud enough so I can hear you,” she added, not entirely joking. “You know if you ever just need to talk, I’m always here.”

  “Thanks, Julie.” Julie had a calm, reassuring way about her that made me glad we’d taken the time to talk. It was good to know she was nearby. I wouldn’t wait until my bench was painted to take her up on her offer.

  * * *

  When I got inside, I “chatted” with Juniper for a while and then took two dozen eggs, three pounds of butter, and a quart of milk out of the refrigerator so they could reach room temperature. I greased and floured all my cake pans. Six for the layer cakes, two tube pans for the pounds. The 7-UP cake was basically a pound cake with fizz, so I’d double the recipe and bake Bertie’s in my fancy fluted Bundt.

  It was smart I’d had the foresight to make Lena’s cookies yesterday. Thank God those were out of the way. Between the baking, cooling, and frosting, I’d be in bed before midnight with luck. Lennox’s cakes were basically the always dependable 1-2-3-4 Cake, a four-egg yellow cake—a safe bet for generations. Buttercream chocolate frosting was easily whipped up—butter, confectioner’s sugar, cocoa, splash of milk, touch of vanilla, beat and done—boring. Like the 7-UP cake, I could make it in a trance. Nothing like caramel icing, and the memory of that difficult frosting made me pause—just for an instant—reminiscing about the burnt sugar pleasure of it.

  I hadn’t made it since Darryl died and didn’t think I’d make it again. It was a special-occasion kind of frosting. I hadn’t had a special occasion in a while. There was too much stirring, and waiting, and melting of sugar—and if you didn’t get it on the cake soon enough the whole syrupy mess turned into candy. But it had always been worth it to see Darryl grin when he bit into that first slice. It wasn’t his favorite (he was partial to coconut) or I would have made it more often, yet it was worth the trouble.

  * * *

  Cooking calmed my nerves as it always did. When the layer cakes were out of the oven and cooling to be frosted, I made myself a quick tuna fish sandwich with mayonnaise, onions, and pickles and then made the buttercream frosting, helping myself to generous tablespoons. In a sugar-induced daze, I finished the 7-UP cakes—butter, eggs, flour, lemon zest, lime zest, 7-UP—in a heartbeat and pl
aced them in the oven, and sat down with a cup of chamomile tea. They’d been baking for nearly an hour when the front doorbell rang.

  “Mrs. Jones, you in there? Are you there?” Louella Jefferson yelled at the top of her lungs from my front porch. It was late. I decided not to answer it. I dug the paper with Lennox’s cell number from the bottom of my pocketbook and stuck it under a magnet on my refrigerator, just in case. I waited for five minutes, hoping she’d left. No such luck.

  “Please. Please let me in,” she called out again, her voice so loud and desperate I couldn’t ignore her.

  “Are you alone?” I asked, standing at the locked door, then regretted my words. If I’d kept my mouth closed, she would have assumed there was nobody here. It was too late now. She hesitated just long enough to make me worry.

  “Why do you think there is somebody with me?”

  “I need to know before I let you in,” I said, cursing our thrift in not buying a front door with a window that allowed you to see outside. I had to believe whatever she said.

  “I’m by myself. I just came . . . for my mother,” she said, her voice suddenly low. “I need to make peace with her. I’m worried about her.”

  I wondered what my baking her mother a cake had to do with her making peace, but she sounded so anguished and in such despair, I couldn’t find it in my heart to tell her to go, and she stepped inside—alone, thankfully.

  Louella’s worn green coat was too warm for that night, too big for her small frame, and had probably belonged to half a dozen people before it found its way to her. Her hair was messy and needed the touch of a strong comb and stronger brush. The smell of industrial-strength disinfectant followed her inside, which told me she had probably come from a women’s shelter. I recognized that smell from my volunteer days. (I was grateful it wasn’t nutmeg.) Her eyes were swollen and red, yet surprisingly, that terrible glimmer that had followed her around for so long had completely disappeared. I touched my amulet, despite Vinton’s cynical take on charms offering protection. I didn’t think this girl posed a threat but couldn’t be sure.

  She stood in the middle of the living room for a moment, pulling in a long breath as if inhaling the lemon cake scent that filled the house. “It smells good in here,” she said. “Erika told me when I saw her this afternoon that my mom said you were baking her a cake. I want to bring it to her tonight to surprise her. To make her feel better, get on her good side again, make her happy again.”

  “It’s a little late at night to be taking somebody a cake,” I said doubtfully.

  “If I go there with the cake, ring the bell, and she sees it, she’ll let me in and we can talk. There’s some stuff we still need to get straight. I need to find things to make her feel better.”

  I studied her face, trying to figure out what the girl was up to, what she really wanted. Bertie had always been kind to me, and I owed her daughter a courtesy. She needed to talk and if it was about her mother, I needed to listen.

  “I just happen to have one ready,” I said after a moment. “You’re really in luck tonight.”

  “Then luck is breaking my way tonight, Mrs. Jones. I wished hard for it and it came true.”

  Her magical thinking threw me, and for a moment I had my doubts. Bringing somebody a cake in the middle of the night was a nutty way to get on somebody’s good side. Had I made a mistake letting her in?

  “I’ll buy it,” she said, misinterpreting my hesitation. She pulled a folded twenty-dollar bill out of a well-worn wallet. “Is this enough?”

  “Don’t worry about money. Just come into the kitchen, and sit down. The cake’s ready to come out,” I said, following behind her, thinking about what Lennox Royal would say.

  She sat down at the kitchen table and gazed around the room in what looked like wonder. I snuck a quick look at Lennox Royal’s number tacked on the fridge.

  “I’ve never seen a blue kitchen before,” she said.

  “Neither had I.” I was softened by her sincerity and my memory of why I’d chosen the color.

  It had been Darryl’s idea, and we’d argued about it, long and hard. Blue is a bedroom color, I told him. Nobody can cook in a blue kitchen; there are no blue foods. Kitchens should be yellow, white, even light purple—think of grapes or eggplant. But blue? How about blueberries? he’d said, and I laughed and gave him five. We’d trekked up to Home Depot and bought something called Celestial Blue, which was soothing, soft, and heavenly, and every time I stepped into this room I felt like I was in heaven. Shelves, as white as clouds, were stacked with dishes and cups, cookware and containers, in varied shades of blue that we collected over the years. The one spot of red, a whistling teapot, was always filled with water and kept on the stove. I filled it now to make myself another cup of tea.

  Louella, closing her eyes, seemed to draw in all the smells, colors, and memories at once.

  “It’s nice here,” she said after a moment.

  “Yes, it is. Now, you need to tell me why you came here. Why you really came.”

  My question took her by surprise, and her answer came quick, with an edge of defiance.

  “But I already told you why. You promised my mom a cake, and I want to surprise her . . .”

  “What do you really want from me?” I said, interrupting her, not hiding the mistrust in my voice.

  Her sigh seemed to come from the bottom of her heart and told me she might be telling the truth, or most of it. “You’re my mother’s only friend. She doesn’t talk to anybody anymore. Everything is bottled up inside, and she won’t let out what’s bothering her. I’m worried about her. I was hoping you could give me some advice. Maybe talk to her for me. Maybe see what’s bothering her.”

  I was surprised to hear that Bertie considered me her only friend. I was flattered but it made me sad. “You know that giving her a cake is not going to solve anything.”

  “I know. I . . . I just need to talk to somebody, about everything that has happened. But you need to tell me something, too, okay?” she added, eyeing me suspiciously. “Why did you ask me if I came alone?”

  “I was afraid Avon Bailey was with you,” I said.

  “How do you know about Avon Bailey?”

  I checked the cakes and took them out to cool before answering. “The cops who interviewed me after Charlie Risko’s murder asked if I knew him. Then a friend told me he knew his father, and Harley mentioned him again this morning. He said he’d seen him with you. I’ve been hearing his name all over the place, and I want to know who he is.”

  When I sat back down, there were tears in her eyes.

  “Why are you crying?” I asked her.

  “No reason,” she said, wiping them away.

  I knew that wasn’t true but didn’t push it. “Who is he?”

  She didn’t say anything at first, then finally broke her silence, her voice low and empty.

  “The first guy I ever loved, even though I couldn’t love anybody back in those days. I did a lot of stuff I’m ashamed of now. I destroyed a part of my soul. Do you know what I mean?” she asked, looking me directly in the eye for the first time since she’d been here.

  “Yeah, I do.” She had pretty eyes, dark, wide, and long-lashed, and made me wonder where Erika had gotten hers. Everything about Louella had been so swallowed by the glimmer I’d never noticed her eyes before.

  “It seems to me you’re getting your soul back,” I said.

  “I’m coming to terms with stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Stuff about Erika. Tanya, Harley, and what Charlie and Dennis Lane did to all of us. How they played us. Took advantage of us.”

  It struck me then that maybe Charlie Risko was Erika’s father. When I asked her, she spat the answer out.

  “Hell no! I slept with Charlie after Erika was born. Yeah, I slept with men before she was born and after she was born. I did a lot of nasty stuff when I was younger. My mother never knew everything I was doing and why. She just knew I wasn’t the daughter she raise
d, she knew that. She baited me, too, saying I had no right to raise Erika. Maybe she was right once, but she’s not anymore. Can I have a piece of that cake?” she said, swerving in a different direction.

  “Don’t you want your mother to get the first piece?” I said, halfway joking because we both knew it wasn’t about the cake.

  “But it brings back so many memories of when I was a kid, when everything was good and made sense.”

  You’re still a kid, I wanted to say but didn’t. “What kind of memories?”

  She leaned back in her chair, a sliver of a smile on her lips. “My mother used to bake cakes like this. She was happy then, always smiling and laughing. Just smelling that cake makes me think of how things were. Before my father left, when they were still together. Before I made my mother ashamed. Before everything.”

  The cakes were still warm but cool to the touch, so I cut her a generous slice.

  “Do you have any milk?” she asked, hinting that she was trying to recapture something from her childhood. I got my blue cobalt glass pitcher and a matching glass (which I never used) off a top shelf, filled it with milk, and settled back to hear what I suspected she was ready to share. She drank the milk quickly, and I thought about Tanya, even though the cakes were different: decadent chocolate for a widow who didn’t grieve, wholesome pound for one who couldn’t stop, both caught in a past that still held them tight.

  “Why do you suddenly need to make peace with your mother?”

  “Because of things I told her. Things she didn’t know before, didn’t want to hear.”

  “What did you tell her?”