Blanche Passes Go

by Barbara Neely

  They laughed together.

  Mumsfield insisted that his chauffeur take her home. He was a young white man who also looked familiar.

  “Where I know you from?” she asked.

  He tilted the rearview mirror so that he could see her. “I useta live out Hokeysville, near Mr. Mumsfield’s summer place. Delivered groceries, worked on cars, ma’am.”

  Of course, the smart-mouthed grocery boy. Hadn’t she put a curse on his penis for talking fresh to her? Had it worked?

  “Got any kids?” she asked.

  The young man blushed and glanced at her in the mirror again. “No, ma’am, not yet, anyways. No wife. But I got a girl.”

  Well, the curse didn’t seem to have crippled his love life completely, although working for Mumsfield certainly had improved his manners and attitude. Maybe she was selling Mumsfield short by thinking he couldn’t help Karen change.

  When she got home, Blanche hurried toward the blinking light on her answering machine:

  “Hey, Moms. It’s me. I’m in camp. I’m glad you got a machine. I’m okay. I’ll call you, like Friday. See ya.”

  Malik’s message dissolved a rod of concern stiffening her back that Blanche hadn’t even been aware of—evidence of that parent-worry thing she’d come to realize would likely live in her in one form or another until she died—like a lingering cold she couldn’t throw off. When the children were small and using up every moment when she wasn’t working for money, she’d soothed herself with a one-day-they’ll-be-grown fantasy. Now that they were practically grown, instead of trying to convince them to be careful of strangers, pick up their toys, and eat their okra, she was urging them to use condoms, to avoid hard drugs, and to become their very best selves. Different topics, more stressful topics. Who started that bullshit about parenting getting easier as the children got older? What parenting lost in intensity it picked up in worriation.

  The next message gave her something else to worry about:

  “Leave,” a voice hissed on the machine. “Leave right now.”

  When her heart stopped thumping so loud she could hardly hear, Blanche played the messages again, preparing herself for the second one while Malik’s message replayed. Then there it was. Just four ordinary words, but so full of threat they made her want to run. Though she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, she was pretty sure she knew who it was. It could be a wrong number, but she didn’t think so. She thought it had everything to do with what she’d been doing. Who had she told about looking for information on David Palmer? Who might have told him? She didn’t even have to think about it: that little old weasel, Mr. Bennie. She’d bet money on it. She poured herself a small drink. Her hands were shaking just a bit. She looked around the Miz Alice. Safe. Secure. In here. But out there…She called Ardell.

  “In a way, I’m glad it happened,” Blanche added after she told Ardell about the message on her machine.

  “What!?”

  “Well, don’t you see, Ardell? It means I’m on to something. Palmer wouldn’t be leaving threatening messages on my machine if he didn’t have something to hide.”

  “Humm, well, maybe it’s because he raped you that he wants you to leave town, to make sure you’re not going to bring it up or do anything about it.”

  Blanche shook her head. “He knows there’s nothing I can do to him. Even if I had proof, it’s probably been too long ago for the law to care. It’s gotta be because I’m asking questions!”

  “How you think he found out?”

  Blanche told Ardell her Mr. Bennie theory.

  “Butt-sucking old buzzard. I never did like him much.”

  “His wife was nice.”

  “Musta scared you half to death. I’m gonna come get you. You can spend the night here.”

  “No. I told you he ain’t keeping me for nothing, and he sure ain’t running me outa my house!”

  “You sure, Blanche?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Yes, I’m sure, for now. But I bet this is just the warm-up. He’ll wait a day or two at least to see if I leave.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then that’s when I start getting scared.”

  “Well, you’ll just move in with me.”

  “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

  There was a click on the line.

  “Uh-oh, gotta go,” Ardell said. “I’m waiting for a couple of calls, and this is liable to be one of ’em. Come on over.”

  “No. Don’t worry, Mommie, I’ll be okay.”

  “All right, Miz Smart Ass, but if you get another threat, you call me. You hear me, Blanche?”

  “Yes, Mama,” Blanche said in a little-girl voice, and hung up before Ardell could say anything more.

  She wasn’t pretending to be unconcerned. She was still caught in the aftershock of the rocket of fear that had shot through her when she first heard the message. But it wasn’t nearly as strong as the surge of excitement created by her certainty that David Palmer had something he didn’t want her to know. She just had to find out what it was before he decided to do something more direct than just ordering her out of town.

  FOURTEEN

  WORRIATION, HYPOCRISY, AND A SECRET

  Blanche woke with David Palmer worrying her mind like a popcorn hull lodged between two back teeth. For all her show of bravery to Ardell, Blanche had spent an uneasy night, waking any number of times to feel for the knife beneath her pillow, to listen for noises that shouldn’t be there. Now she rolled out of bed and showered beneath a rush of water as hot as she could bear it, then turned it to cold. Her skin squeaked when she was done. She dried and oiled herself, and her hair, quickly gathering it into a knot on top of her head. At her Ancestor altar she struck a match and began speaking as the first tendril of smoke from the stick of incense curled toward the ceiling like an undulating gray snake.

  “Ancestors, I come to you this day in need of the strength to right the wrong done to me, and the courage and speed to do it before I get caught.” The thought of being once again in Palmer’s clutches would have rocked her if she hadn’t just then felt the strong presence of her Ancestors around her. She closed her eyes and felt the weight of Palmer shifting from her back and shoulders to her upper, then her lower arms. She raised her arms and shook them violently out to the sides, throwing the heft of him from her body to dissipate in the air around her. His shadow remained, like a film across her left eye, but she could feel her Ancestors telling her that it would not always be so. Soon, very soon, she would be done with him.

  But despite the Ancestors’ help and the added incentive of a threatening phone call, she was still reluctant to make more Palmer calls. Curtis had put her off with his lonely nice-guy talk about Palmer. The man she wanted to hear about was a rotten rapist, not the dutiful son Mr. Bennie had gone on about. Which was why she had to keep moving, keep talking to people until she found somebody who knew the David Palmer she knew.

  A young woman answered her first call. She said Miz Letitia was having her hair done so she couldn’t come to the phone. Blanche pictured one of those late-afternoon hair-fries that used to go on in her mother’s kitchen and those of her friends: one of them straightening and curling the others’ hair to the accompaniment of women signifying, sneaking a little nip, and telling stories that had made young Blanche laugh and learn. Miz Letitia was one of the best seamstresses in town. Miz Minnie had said she did work for the Palmer women. Blanche told the young woman on the phone that she’d be sure to call back.

  Blanche could feel her shoulders tightening, a bit of headache above her right eye, a feeling that she was purposely playing in dog shit. But she forced herself to press on.

  No one answered the phone at Mr. Jim’s house. He was gardener to the Palmers and a lot of other rich folks in the area. Blanche couldn’t help feeling relieved. No more Palmer right now. She tried Ardell’s number. Both lines busy.
Ardell had mentioned she had to call a woman about catering her wedding and had some ordering to do. The way Ardell was working these days, she was probably trying to do both tasks at once. The thought of Ardell working away moved Blanche to wash the fifty carrots for the carrot tulips she needed to make for a job they were doing tomorrow. She got them out, washed and patted them dry, but couldn’t stand still long enough to work on them. I need a walk, she thought. The carrots went back into the refrigerator. Blanche headed for downtown in search of deodorant and hairpins.

  She’d always liked downtown Farleigh. Wasn’t much to it, although there was a bit more than when she’d lived in town. Three stores that had been boarded up when she’d left for Boston were now a boutique, an antique shop, and a sweets bakery. The tree-shaded wooden benches along the sidewalks were comfortable—perfect for a nice session of people-watching. And something about the low two-story buildings added to the friendly feel of the place.

  “Champagne lady!” someone shouted behind her. Blanche turned around to see who was being called. She was surprised to see a young white woman galumphing toward her. A pink-and-yellow floral-print dress bouncing around her substantial thighs.

  “It’s me, Daisy Green!”

  Where did she know this girl from? She was close to six feet tall, wide and muscular, too. Yet there was something defenseless about her, as though she could be seriously wounded by a word.

  “You remember!” the young woman said just as Blanche realized who she was. “You gave me some real champagne at that ceremony for that new women’s place named after my friend Maybelle Jenkins?”

  “Oh, hey, Daisy. How you doing?”

  Daisy hadn’t seemed nearly so tall at the dinner the other night, as though those unwelcoming surroundings had actually made her shrink.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I forgit your name.”

  “Blanche, Blanche White.” She waited for the usual double-take.

  Daisy nodded. “Got me an aunt named Blanche. Lives over by Fayetteville.”

  You never know, Blanche said to herself. Of course, Daisy probably didn’t even realize that her name meant white twice.

  Daisy lifted her fine, pale hair off her neck and let it slip back into place. “It sure is humid!” She looked over her shoulder and perked up. “Come on in here and let me buy you a Coke, Miz Blanche. For bein’ so nice to me t’other night.” Daisy was pointing to a little restaurant a few doors away.

  Blanche looked the place over. She didn’t want a Coke, especially from this greasy spoon that had Poor Working White Folks’ Hangout written all over the grimy plastic lace curtains at the cloudy, finger-marked front window. She could smell the oilcloth tablecloths and the overused grease without opening the door.

  “Weren’t you headed somewhere?” she asked, hoping Daisy was on some errand she’d momentarily forgotten.

  “No, ma’am, I was just on my way home. Today’s my half-day at the cleaners.” Daisy took Blanche’s arm and tugged her toward the restaurant. Blanche decided it was easier to give in than to fight all this gratitude.

  They both ordered cherry Cokes from a waitress who looked from one of them to the other as though she wanted to ask them what they were doing together. Blanche had expected some pop-eyed reactions. For all its blooming downtown and spreading out, Farleigh was still a small Southern town where the Daisys and Blanches did not generally meet in restaurants for gabfests over Cokes. But Blanche decided it was good for her to be there. She’d been thinking lately about how she only knew and hung out with people who were like her. When she’d lived in Harlem, she’d spent time with Puerto Rican and Cuban women as well as an occasional Asian or African woman she met through work. She missed seeing the world from other colored people’s eyes and tasting it through their food. Daisy wasn’t colored, but she sure as hell wasn’t white in the way the people they both worked for were. Blanche thought it a special shame that so many poor white people had been suckered into believing black people were their enemy, instead of seeing how both groups were being screwed by the same pale rich guy. Daisy may not have worked all that out, but she was obviously ready to have a Coke across the color line, which was unusual enough in Farleigh to make her interesting.

  The waitress never looked or spoke directly to Blanche, although every other person—all of them white—looked her over as though she had wings, or more likely a tail. Once they were served, as naturally as the sun’s passing overhead, their conversation turned to Maybelle.

  “I keep thinking about how she…”

  Blanche interrupted before Daisy got too choked up. “Sounds like her boyfriend did it.”

  Daisy shook her head. “Bobby didn’t do it, Miz Blanche. I know he didn’t. He really loved Maybelle.” Daisy sipped her cherry Coke and blinked at Blanche over the glass. “I mean really, really loved her.” The hint of something like envy in Daisy’s voice piqued Blanche’s interest.

  “Then he must be real broke up,” she said. “Bad enough to have your girlfriend die, especially like Maybelle was killed, and then to be arrested for killing her yourself…”

  Daisy nodded. “He’s in a bad way, awright. I went to see him down the jailhouse yesterday. He looked so sad and hurt, I wanted to…”

  Blanche didn’t press Daisy to continue her sentence. They both knew where it was going.

  “She was my best friend.” Daisy’s cheeks were flushed. Misery whined in her voice.

  Blanche nodded. Poor thing. Having a crush on your dead girlfriend’s boyfriend who’d been arrested for the girlfriend’s murder had more shades of guilt and complication involved in it than there were feathers on a duck’s behind—which made Blanche quite curious about how it was all going to go down. She figured she was like Daisy’s seatmate on a cross-country bus—a stranger Daisy could talk to about her secret love for Bobby without worrying that word would get back to people who knew her and would think her feelings out of line.

  “Well, I hope everything turns out the way you want, Daisy, honey, but you know they say nine times out of ten the boyfriend’s the one who…”

  “No, Miz Blanche. Not this time! You just wait until the man Bobby was huntin’ with that night shows up.”

  “Daisy, do you really think there’s any such hunter?”

  “There is, Miz Blanche, I know there is, and that ain’t all, no.” Daisy leaned over the table toward Blanche. “Bobby wasn’t the only one who…” She stopped talking as suddenly as if a hand had been clamped over her mouth.

  “The only one who what?”

  Daisy’s cheeks were deep red now; she moved her hands to her lap. “Talkin’ outa turn,” she said. “Papa always say it’s gonna be my downfall.”

  Blanche was so curious she could almost feel her nose twitching. She leaned back in her chair and looked around the room, trying to seem as casual as possible. “Yeah, well, I know you think Bobby didn’t do it, but I can’t help wondering if he really does have an alibi. I mean, where’s this hunter?”

  “He’ll show up, Miz Blanche, you mark my words. Anyways, Bobby can prove…he…” She stopped talking again and looked twice as stricken.

  Blanche was truly curious now. “Girl! You really believe that! Guilty people always say stuff like that, pretend they know who did it and hope somebody’s silly enough to believe them.”

  “Bobby’s not like that! He’s not!”

  “Yeah, right. If Bobby can prove somebody else killed Maybelle, why don’t he just tell the Sheriff?”

  Daisy looked around the room, then down at the table, before she spoke. “He…the Sheriff ain’t no friend to Bobby. He’s always messin’ with Bobby and his brothers. Always accusin’ them of…Bobby don’t trust him. He’s gonna give the information to…”

  “Daisy! He tells you he got proof, but he won’t use it to get hisself out of jail, and I know he didn’t tell you what it is he knows. You sure are gullible, h
oney.”

  “He did, too, tell me what it is, but I can’t tell nobody! He…he knows…He found somethin’! When he found Maybelle. You’ll see!”

  Blanche believed her, but admitting it wasn’t the way to get Daisy to talk. “Something, hunh? He found something? Like what? A driver’s license? A note saying, ‘I’m the one who did it’? Come on, Daisy.”

  Daisy looked at her with eyes full of tears. Uh-oh. She hadn’t meant to push the girl this far.

  “I done already said too much!” Daisy pressed her lips together.

  “Sure, honey, sure. Let’s just pretend you didn’t say a word.” Blanche pushed Daisy’s Coke a tad closer to her. If what Daisy said was true, it would all come out soon enough. Blanche watched as Daisy delicately sipped Coke through double straws.

  “Well, it was nice talking to you, honey. But I need to get rested up for work tonight. Another one of them bicentennial dos.”

  “Y’all take care, now,” Daisy told her as they parted on the sidewalk.

  Blanche watched Daisy’s square-hipped, flat-butt back as she bounced down the street and wondered whether loyalty to Maybelle’s memory or the hots for Bobby would win out.

  She went home, changed her clothes, and opened the refrigerator. The sight of those carrots waiting to be carved convinced her this was a good time to call her mother.

  “Hey, Mama. It’s me, Bl—”

  “I know who this is! You think I’m so simple-minded I don’t recognize my own child’s voice? I knew what your voice sounded like before you did. Bawled like a stuck pig for the first couple days, till my milk started to flow good, then you just…”

  Blanche felt herself drying up as though each of Miz Cora’s words was a little leech sucking the blood right out of her veins with each of Miz Cora’s stories about baby Blanche’s eating, pooping, playing, and sleeping habits. Blanche thought about interrupting, but what good would that do? Mama would likely take up the subject of being interrupted and talk on that for another half-hour.

  “…were six months old ’fore I could git you to stop doin it. But that ain’t why you called me. You must be wantin’ something, ’cause I know you ain’t just called to say hello to your poor old mother, ’cause you nev—”