Cakewalk

by Rita Mae Brown

  Sidney always wanted to control the situation. “You can’t let her get away with it.”

  “I can hardly bring Carlotta, Celeste, my mother down here to testify on my behalf.” She held out her finger with the cigar band on it. “And I am engaged.”

  “Honey, that band will disintegrate in no time. No one will believe you’re engaged until you have a diamond engagement ring and it’s announced in the papers.”

  “What?”

  “People will take you for a fool being seduced by a smooth-talking, good-looking fellow.”

  At that moment, Louise didn’t know whom she hated more, Sidney or Delilah.

  Controlling herself, she smiled tightly at Sidney. “I appreciate your warning. This isn’t a warning, merely a notice: I think we’ll have another crowd on Saturday. If you ask Mr. Grumbacher if you might carry a sales book, just in case you are needed, he’ll be impressed.”

  Sidney blinked. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  Off he went to climb the stairs to ask permission to carry his own sales book. She observed, knowing full well he would present this as his own idea. Fine by her. She had bigger fish to fry, but first she had to catch them.

  —

  The late afternoon warmed as the sun shone without a cloud in the sky. Celeste, Fannie Jump, and Fairy sat outside, listening to the birds sing.

  Fannie Jump launched into the tea cakes and sandwiches, proclaiming, “You know, Celeste, Fairy and I really must do more at our homes. You are always the hostess.”

  “No husband to convince, less uproar.” Celeste leaned back in her chair. “If you count out Juts; she’s been alarmingly docile.”

  “Really?” Fairy’s tone rose.

  “She’s doing her lessons, helps around here, and spends time with Ev because Ev brings her lessons home from school. I hope she’s given up the idea of quitting.” Celeste poured herself more tea, the others stuck to cold drinks. “I’ve heard the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sisters of Gettysburg are planning a special celebration at our Magna Carta Day. Something about the fifty-fifth anniversary of the end of the war.”

  Fannie Jump, more relaxed now, boomed out, “They should have done that on April ninth.”

  “Too cold, plus everyone shows on June fifteenth,” Fairy said.

  “If they’d done anything last week, they’d have to realize the young don’t care,” Fannie growled.

  “You’re right, but Minta Mae versus Caesura will make us care,” Celeste noted. “They’ll hijack our best day.” She paused. “I already have a date.”

  “Do you?” Fairy remarked.

  “Ben,” came the answer.

  “More fun if you’re next to a handsome man on Magna Carta Day.” Fannie reached for another tea sandwich.

  “I hope so.” Celeste held up her teacup as if in salute. “Touché.” Fannie held up her drink.

  Fairy was on her high horse. “You two. Celeste, I don’t recall you engaging in innuendo even when we were at Smith.”

  “Oh, Fairy. You were worried about Celeste when Ramelle so inconveniently found herself on the path to motherhood. She’s happy now.”

  “Were you worried?” Celeste addressed Fairy.

  “Worried is too strong a word but you did endure a jolt, Celeste. You keep things to yourself, but if Archie had become pregnant”—she used a strong word—“I would have either fainted or cast him into darkness.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have, Precious.” Fannie Jump glowed. “You would have exhibited him with the traveling circus and further enriched yourself.” She drained her scotch. “I’d be thrilled if men could bear children. Knock some sense into them.”

  “Has it knocked sense into us?” Celeste remarked. “No. All it’s done is create an unnatural state, chastity for the marriage market. Then, once married, you throw that to the winds and enjoy physical congress. Should you submit to powerful eroticism before marriage and find yourself in Ramelle’s state, you’re ruined.”

  “Unless your parents have enough money to send you on a European tour.” Fannie poured another drink.

  “What tour?” Fairy was puzzled.

  “That’s just the point, Fairy. It’s a lie so the poor girl can go have her baby, give it up, and come home an intact virgin for the marriage market,” Fannie Jump said sarcastically.

  “And given that a European tour is something most young women of means embark upon after college, it’s a good cover.”

  “Ramelle, fortunately, was older and found a rich, good man. Plus she married him.” Celeste shrugged. “Fairy, thank you for thinking about me. Maybe on one level, I was relieved.” They both stared at her so she continued, “She wanted to be a mother. Now she will. I don’t want to be the source of anyone’s disappointment. I disappointed Mother enough.”

  “Celeste, your mother loved you,” Fairy insisted. “When you returned from England, she was happy. She didn’t really want you to live in England. Yes, she did think you would marry well here, but she still loved you and you kept up appearances.”

  “That she did. Let’s go back to this men getting pregnant thing.” Fannie warmed up. “Remember when we all read Pliny the Elder’s Natural History?”

  “Yes.” Fairy finished her sweet tea, reached for the pitcher, poured more. “I thought it great fun.”

  “Remember the people he described who live at the far reaches of the earth? There were the people with one big foot. On a hot day they’d flop down and use their foot for an umbrella.” Fannie Jump smiled. “Then there were the Blemmyae, whose faces were in their chests but in every other way they were perfectly human.”

  Fairy nodded. “Of course, I remember.”

  “And what about the Machyles?” Fannie Jump leaned toward Fairy.

  “Yes, yes, the people who can assume either sex at will.” Fairy enjoyed remembering college sophomore Latin, at which she had excelled.

  “Well, maybe men could get pregnant. Who knows if there’s truth in those stories but some of them have proven true when an archaeologist digs up something.” Fannie Jump folded her arms across her chest.

  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful?” Celeste thought. “No human being could hide behind being male or female to excuse stupid or brutal or selfish behavior. We’d really have to own up to our sins.”

  “Or enjoy them,” Fannie Jump roared.

  “Oh, Fannie, I love Archie, but really, enjoy is too strong a word.” Fairy exhaled loudly through her nose.

  “Listen, Fairy, if he knew what he was doing in bed, you’d be thrilled. Our husbands, decent men and good providers, do not have excitement for a middle name. I have this one life and by God, I am going to have excitement.” Fannie Jump slapped the table.

  “Fannie, dear, don’t take another drink,” Fairy reprimanded her.

  “She has a point.” Celeste smiled. “But so do you. We have this one life, this sliver between eternities. Perhaps rules are meant to be broken.”

  Fairy folded her hands together. “I’d hate to be a man.”

  “No one said you had to like it. I don’t think I’d care one way or the other so long as I could change into a woman whenever I felt like it. Which I would because I wouldn’t want to sleep with women,” Fannie declared.

  “But if you were a man, perhaps you would.” Celeste stated the obvious, although not obvious to Fannie Jump.

  Fairy entertained the thought. “Maybe.”

  “Celeste, I never could understand why you put up with it. The time it takes to arouse a woman, convincing her you truly care, listening to the questions or just listening, period. I couldn’t do it. I haven’t the patience,” Fannie grumbled.

  Celeste smiled. “You learn to have it. You and I can’t be the only women who can be direct. But it doesn’t matter. We are who we are. We are stuck with what we are and we might as well make the best of it.”

  “Would you like to be a Machyle?” Fairy was honestly curious.

  “I’d give it a try. Maybe we’re seeing the world with just one
eye. Switch sexes at will and you apprehend all reality.”

  “Maybe that’s the point of loving a man.” Fairy spoke with firmness. “You do have your other eye opened through his experiences and vice versa. Perhaps that truly is the point of dimorphism.”

  Both Fannie and Celeste looked at her.

  Before either could respond, the back door opened and closed.

  “Mother!” Louise’s voice carried. “You won’t believe this!”

  The three walked back into the house and, along with Cora, heard of Delilah’s gossip.

  Fannie Jump curled her upper lip. “That woman lives in a state of perpetual inconsequence.”

  “True.” Celeste smiled at Louise, then looked at her friends. “We need time to consider this, but it does appear that Big Dimps needs to come to Jesus.”

  Celeste used the southern term that meant one will be severely corrected.

  The marble steps shone, a receding line of daily washed entrances and exits. A fourteenth-century painter, coming to grips with perspective, would have delighted in the steps, for which Baltimore is famous.

  Celeste and Ben reached his rooming house, where Mrs. McCleary, bucket and brush, suds overflowing, vigorously scrubbed her steps.

  “Mrs. McCleary, I’m sorry to dirty your steps, which are always whiter than anyone else’s.” Ben had his hand under Celeste’s arm. “This is my friend, Miss Celeste Chalfonte, I’m going to show her my quarters and I will leave the door open. We won’t be long, but I’d like her to see how bright everything is, even the stairway.”

  Mrs. McCleary didn’t rise but looked Celeste up and down. She knew a rich woman when she saw one.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. McCleary.”

  “Likewise.” The stout middle-aged woman forced a tight smile. “Ben. Did you win?”

  “We did, ma’am, we did. Eleven to four.”

  “Saints be praised.” She smiled at last. “Monza owes me one dollar.”

  Monza, a neighbor, had been named for the popular stage star of an earlier day, Monza Alverta Algood, a celebrated beauty. The current Monza missed that boat, but she was tidy, knew what colors looked good on her, and was a stalwart friend to Mrs. McCleary.

  “I’ll do my best to enrich you.” Ben smiled as he led Celeste up the steps.

  Mrs. McCleary heard their footfalls recede. Puzzled by something she put down her brush, hurried next door. “Monza, the Orioles won.”

  Monza, thin, appeared at the door, reached into her skirt pocket, and pulled out a dollar. “I will win it back.”

  “Monza, help me. Why does the name Chalfonte sound so familiar?”

  “Old Line Manufacturing, the B & O Railroad, and God knows what else.”

  Mrs. McCleary’s eyes popped open wide. “There’s a Chalfonte in my house. Her necklace and earrings could buy the block!”

  “In your house.” Monza thought, then genuflected.

  Mrs. McCleary gave her a playful slap. “Monza, you’ll have to confess that and if you don’t, I will.”

  They both laughed.

  Ben opened the door to his rooms: a small kitchen, small living room under a skylight, a bedroom and tiny bathroom. “Here we are.”

  Celeste stepped inside, looked around. “You are such a clean fellow.”

  A flat, polished drawing board rested on the porcelain-topped kitchen table, two chairs shoved underneath. Papers on top drew Celeste’s attention.

  “May I?” She picked up the top paper, good drawing paper, a box of colored pencils resting on the table as well. “Ben, these are beautiful.”

  He stood beside her. “I thought to do windows of the great ladies of the Bible. Queen Esther, Sarah, Judith.” He paused as she pulled out the last one. “I really did this for you. Ruth and Naomi.”

  A mist colored Celeste’s eyes. Who would have thought of Ruth and Naomi, most especially the man you hold in your arms? “Ben—” She took a deep breath, repeating herself. “These are beautiful.”

  “Well, I thought”—a boyish enthusiasm shone from his face, vibrated in his voice—“Carlotta has lost all her windows and it is a school for girls and, well, shouldn’t they look at the heroines of the Bible? I haven’t gotten to Anne yet, nor her daughter, the Blessed Virgin Mother, but I’m thinking about it. For the Blessed Virgin Mother, I must use a lot of light blue and—” He stopped himself. “I’m blathering.”

  “No, no, I’m actually overcome.”

  “Well.” He pulled out a chair for her. “She may not like them but I’m going to try. If she knows about us, she may not like them at all.”

  “She’ll ignore it. Actually, she will take comfort in the fact that you are a man.”

  “Good.” He smiled at her. “I don’t know what I’d do if I weren’t.”

  Celeste replied, with a wry smile, “I’d know what to do. Fear not.”

  He burst out laughing and then with encouragement talked a blue streak.

  —

  Outside Mrs. McCleary looked knowingly at Monza. “I’d better check.”

  “If you toss them out, do it slowly, I want to see Miss Chalfonte.” Monza was now glued to her clean front marble steps.

  Ben had scribbled in a notebook some rough drawings for Celeste. Hearing Mrs. McCleary’s footsteps, he met her at the open door.

  She stood there, stuck her head in, but the rest of her considerable body remained on the other side of the doorjamb.

  “Mrs. McCleary, please come in. I can offer you coffee, milk, tea, or a Co-Cola.”

  “No, thank you.” She stared at Celeste, notebook in hand.

  Radiant smile at full wattage, Celeste said, “You must have help. One woman can’t keep a building pin tidy like this.”

  “I do it all.” Mrs. McCleary puffed up like a broody hen. “I have a system, you see. Unless it’s pouring rain or blinding snow, I scrub the steps every afternoon. Mondays are wash days, naturally, I take down the curtains and wash them. Tuesdays I iron. I always sweep the stairway before going to bed. Every day I have my list of chores. Of course, I pick my tenants with care. No slovenly people. No loose people either. I prefer churchgoers and Mr. Battle attends when he is in town. Makes all the difference in the world, the caliber of your people.”

  “Yes, it does, and you are a good judge of character.” The wattage remained at full power.

  “Mrs. McCleary, we are on our way out. Do you need anything? I can run to the store and come back,” Ben offered.

  “No, thank you.” She turned and thumped down the stairs, each step ringing.

  Ben squared up his papers, put his pencil back in the wooden box with the colored pencils.

  “Take your notebook. Or, if you like, we can go to an art supply store and get more.”

  “You really think…” He paused, began again. “You think these are good?”

  She stood up, walked over, leaned down and kissed his cheek, then kissed him on the mouth. “I thought I’d seen everything when I saw that backhanded catch you made today. Ben, you really are talented.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I’m happy when I draw. Well, I’m happy when I play baseball, too.” He stood up, put his arms around her waist, and kissed her.

  Going out, he carried his pencil box while Celeste carried his notebook. Kissing her gave him an erection. As Ben was well built, trying to hide the evidence proved difficult with only the pencil box. Fortunately, when he and Celeste reached the sidewalk, Mrs. McCleary and Monza, focusing intently on Celeste’s jewelry, missed his.

  As they walked along he regained his composure.

  Monza bleated to Mrs. McCleary, “That is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Ever.”

  Arms crossed across her chest, Mrs. McCleary nodded.

  —

  The pleasant late afternoon encouraged walking.

  “Your apartment has good light.”

  “That’s why I took it. That, and it’s not too far from the park. You’d be surprised at how much difference light
makes.”

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.” He was eager to hear.

  “Carlotta responds to what she sees. Imagination is not her strong point, or I don’t think it is. If you make large drawings of your stained-glass windows, can you use watercolors to intensify the color—or what about canvas where you can paint deep colors?”

  Ben didn’t want to remark on how much paint and canvas cost, not to mention the frames for stretching the canvas and the cost of brushes. Good sable brushes ran high.

  “How about I do one?”

  “A test?” She slipped her arm through his.

  “Yes. You can see how you like the true colors. We can go from there.”

  She was beginning to understand that the issue was money. Celeste had never had to think about it. She’d gone to school with other girls who never had to think about money and in fact were discouraged from doing so. Celeste would never, ever have to worry about money. Those worries belonged to men.

  “Yes.” She squeezed his arm while thinking about finding a loft for him with wonderful light or living quarters where he could paint, work.

  She knew she’d have to find it, show him, then try to convince him. Ben truly did not want to take her money and she respected him for that.

  Blue jays squawked in trees.

  Ben laughed. “Bet Mrs. McCleary and Monza are jabbering like that blue jay.”

  “Mrs. McCleary is a censorious character.”

  “That she is.” He patted her hand on his arm.

  “How did you make that backhanded catch? It was as though you knew exactly where the batter would hit the ball. I love watching you out there.” She grinned.

  “Ah, well, even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes.”

  “Now, Ben, don’t be falsely modest. Tell me, if you can, how you do what you do and in the blink of an eye?”

  “First, I study the players. I try to remember who pulls the ball, who pops up, who can thread the needle. Some hitters can see the ball better than others. They can often select where they’re going to hit. Between first and second base is always a sure single if you’re not powerful, or if the pitch isn’t one you can blast out of the park. Most hitters hit toward me because they’re right-handed. I know I have to be alert and sometimes a grounder takes a bizarre bounce. All I can do in that case is hope my reactions are fast enough.”