The Secret Life of Anna Blanc

by Jennifer Kincheloe

  In the foyer, the front door hit the doorstop. Anna tore the matron ad from the paper and crinkled it into her pocket. Mr. Blanc stomped into the parlor followed by Mr. Wright, who at least had the decency to look sheepish. Anna stood and threw down the paper. “It's after midnight! You were supposed to take me to see Sarah Bernhardt! And this after you worked all day Sunday! I may as well not have a beau!”

  She thrust the ad for the White Cross Vibrator into her father's hands. “Daddy, I want this.”

  He grunted. “Ask Mr. Wright. He owns the factory.”

  Mr. Wright took Anna's limp hand and kissed it. “Miss Blanc, I'll give you anything you want.”

  Anna snatched back her hand. “I wanted a night at the theater.”

  Mr. Wright gave her a rueful smile. “I'm sorry we missed the play, and I will make it up to you, but it couldn't be helped. There's a bit of a crisis at the bank.”

  Mr. Blanc wandered over to a decanter and poured brandy into two sparkly crystal glasses. He handed one to Mr. Wright. “The bank comes first. She knows that.”

  “I could help at the bank,” Anna said. “I have nothing else to do.”

  Mr. Wright smiled. “You overestimate me, Miss Blanc. If you were in the building, I'd get nothing done.”

  Anna didn't know if she should be flattered or insulted, and so couldn't decide what to say. Mr. Blanc's brow rippled with a frown. “Make yourself useful, Anna. Do charity work. Women find that satisfying.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “I'm not knitting blankets for orphans.”

  She glanced at Mr. Wright, whose brows had lifted in mild shock.

  She sighed. “I might try something else.”

  Mr. Blanc nodded. “Very acceptable. Ask the sisters at the Orphans’ Asylum tomorrow.” He punctuated the statement with a grunt that indicated the subject was closed.

  The next morning was Saturday. The Santa Ana winds came up, blowing hard from the east, licking up the last drops of moisture and charging the air with electricity. The hot winds infused the city with a restlessness that could not be sated. Horses bolted, teenage girls ran away from home, and ordinarily peaceful men started bar fights or struck their wives. Anna loved the winds, which came every year, though they made her hair wild. They mirrored her insides.

  By seven a.m., Anna had changed clothes six times, tried four different positions on the settee, and was pacing the parlor like a caged leopard. She needed employment or she would simply go mad. She pulled out the advertisement for the assistant police matron position and stared at it. Mr. Wright would never allow it. It wasn't decent. The Widow Crisp would never allow it. It went without saying that her father would never allow it. Even if the Widow Crisp and Mr. Wright allowed it, which they would not, if Mr. Wright married her she would have to quit so she could carry out her wifely duties. If she worked secretly as an assistant matron and Mr. Wright found out, he might get mad and find a different sweetheart. If Mr. Wright found a different sweetheart, she would be trapped in her father's house and would simply have to kill herself. Anna crumpled the advertisement and tossed it in the trash.

  By eight o’clock, Anna had driven her bumblebee yellow Rolls Royce convertible to the Orphans’ Asylum and was dragging herself up the path. Her skirts whipped in the wind. The Widow Crisp dogged her every step. The majestic stone building shone in the sun like fool's gold, an empty promise. In the garden, three barefoot urchins took turns throwing a knife into the rotting carcass of a dog.

  Anna went straight toward the Headmistress's cottage, hoping to avoid the children. It was ivy covered and storybook charming. Window boxes brimmed with geraniums that danced the turkey trot in the wind. It was green and pink and could almost be made of candy. A witch could live inside. In fact, one did.

  Anna knocked on the cottage door. A nun in a long black robe and convoluted wimple opened the door. She was old, smelled like mothballs, and had a hairy mole that almost blocked one nostril. She greeted Anna with pursed lips and a knowing smile that made her mole quiver. “Miss Blanc, do come in. I am Sister Hildegard, Headmistress. We do welcome your patronage, no matter what is said.”

  This remark stunned Anna and she frowned. To have such a reputation without any of the fun of deserving it. The injustice was galling. Insults always took Anna off guard, especially those proffered with a smile. They confused her, and she could never think of anything smart to say. The Widow Crisp smirked. Anna followed the nun into the parlor and tried to relax her brow so as not to cause wrinkles. Anna's speechlessness seemed to please the sister, who offered her a chair and a cup of tea as black and bitter as sin.

  The room was adorned with an excess of doilies. Afghans in drab colors were draped over chairs and settees. Anna watched the Widow Crisp slip two doilies into her sleeve.

  Sister Hildegard set down her cup. “We most desperately need blankets. Do you knit?”

  Anna was beginning to doubt that volunteer work was for her, when there was a rhythmic rapping at the door. The nun hobbled to the door and answered it. Something like glee lit her face. She stepped aside so the woman could enter. “Miss Blanc, I think you know Mrs. Louis Taylor, our volunteer coordinator.”

  A young woman sashayed through the door, showing Anna her expansive, glistening gums and gray teeth. Anna's eyes popped. She did know her, though she knew her as Miss Enid Curlew. Miss Curlew was a soulless viper of a girl, very rich, and no friend to Anna. Once, she'd told the whole second-grade that Anna hadn't worn drawers. During assembly, she'd tripped Anna on purpose and Anna fell. Anna's skirts flew up, and all the girls looked to see if the rumor was true. It was.

  Miss Curlew, Louis Taylor's new bride, smiled wickedly at Anna. “I know it's early in the day for a visit, but I suppose it isn't early in China, is it, Miss Blanc?”

  Anna's mind sizzled away, scorched with humiliation. Her pale lips struggled to form words. “Yes. I realized I. Yes. It's very…”

  Without finishing her tragically unwitty sentence, Anna fled. She shoved past the horrid hag, out the door, onto the porch, and collided with the one man in the world she wanted most to avoid—the man with dreamy hands, the breaker of her heart, the man who was for sale, the indiscreet beast who had told Enid Curlew about Anna's eagerness to be ravished—Louis Taylor.

  It was the first time she'd seen him since the Mission Inn atrocity. For a moment, they were frozen there, close enough to kiss. She could smell his spicy cologne. Anna's lower lip trembled. He grasped her arms and gazed at her with lovelorn eyes, as if he'd been the one betrayed. “Anna. We have to talk.”

  Mrs. Curlew-Taylor emerged from the cottage and smashed Louis on the head with the teapot. “You filthy dog!”

  It broke the spell and the teapot.

  Oolong dripped from his brilliantine onto his shoulders and tiny porcelain shards stuck to his hair and shirt. Mrs. Curlew-Taylor folded her skinny arms. “Why ever did I marry you?” She clobbered Anna with a victory sneer that shattered her like the teapot, clearly taking pleasure in rejecting a man that had rejected Anna.

  Anna came to her senses, dodged around the unhappy couple, and bolted down the path. The Widow Crisp burst through the door, knocking Mrs. Curlew-Taylor into the geraniums. The Widow hiked up her skirts and sprinted after Anna in a brand new pair of men's sneakers. She overtook Anna, grabbed her by the arm and leaned into her face. The old raven's expression was so chilling, it made Anna wonder where Mrs. Morales had found her new chaperone and whether she had skipped the agency and gotten recommendations from a street gang. The Widow's Sunday school voice was heavy with the threat of tribulation. “I'm not an empty-headed hen who can be dodged and ditched, Miss Blanc.”

  Anna tried to wriggle free. “I was his wife!”

  The Widow Crisp clung like a vise. She grasped Anna tightly by the elbow and walked her to the front of the yellow car. “I don't care about your tragic love affair. I'll not lose my bread and butter on your account!”

  Anna set the crank, and the Widow Crisp steered her to the door
, pushed her behind the wheel, and slid in beside her. Anna needed no encouragement. As fast as cars were, there was no car in the world that could get Anna away from the Orphans’ Asylum fast enough. Her heart was pounding, her breathing shallow. The future played in her mind: an endless series of afternoons spent knitting in parlors, suffering humiliations at the hands of women like Mrs. Curlew-Taylor, and, if she were lucky, evenings spent shooing flies off dried-out turkeys and melting gelatin molds while the man she might someday love missed dinner. And, if she weren't lucky, there would be no love, no marriage, only waiting in the custody of a chaperone that looked like a saint, but most probably had a rap sheet and criminal connections. She accelerated.

  The wind shook Anna's yellow convertible and bombarded it with leaves and city dust as it careened down West First Street. A palm frond blew across her windshield. She drove much too fast considering the wind, and the fact that she shared the road with a cable car, a donkey cart, and a crowd of women that spilled out from the doors of Central Station, the headquarters of the LAPD. As she steered around them, a police matron stepped out of the station in a crisp white uniform and shouted something authoritative, motioning for the women to form a line. They did. Anna fixed her eyes on the matron in the rearview mirror, hoping it was Eve, and almost hit a yellow dog. The Widow Crisp clung to the dashboard, her knuckles pinched white.

  It wasn't Eve but some other hardworking, working class, lucky, lucky woman. Anna pulled over and tried to collect herself. She pounded on the iron steering wheel with her fist. She bit her lip much harder than usual, taking off a layer of skin. She needed to clear her mind, which was feeling more and more like a hopeless and dangerous place, a hotbed for insurrection. The wind was egging her on, whipping her hair.

  She closed her eyes and tried to extract herself from the moment, to focus on the things she had to look forward to: knitting, marrying, shooing, waiting. Anna would choose death over this future if she had any chance of being reincarnated as a police matron, but Catholics didn't believe in reincarnation, and even if it were true God and Anna did not always see eye to eye. She would probably come back as something lower down the chain, like a shimmering moth or an opalescent beetle.

  Anna knew she should approach the problem practically. She could lie to the people at the police station and get a job as an assistant matron under a false name. She could then lie to Mr. Wright and her father as to her whereabouts. They were far too busy to miss her anyway, at least for a few weeks. She could lie to the Widow Crisp…

  This is where her plan fell down. She was shackled to a chaperone who was not weak, not stupid, and not on her side. She wilted, flattening her forehead on the steering wheel.

  The Widow Crisp gave a mocking grunt. “You're a fool, with all your sentimentality. Mr. Taylor's handsome, if you like the preening type. But he's lazy and broke. Though he is better than you in one sense; he knows how bread is buttered.”

  It occurred to Anna that this wholesome-looking woman also knew how bread was buttered, and that they were about the same frock size. “Dear Widow Crisp. You've suggested that your zeal for my protection isn't driven entirely by concern for my welfare, that you are worried about the security of your position. If your primary concerns are financial…” Anna let the word hang in the air.

  “You haven't got a penny, Miss Blanc.”

  “But I am well decorated. I have ice.” Anna took off her ruby necklace and dangled it in the air between herself and the Widow Crisp. The stone was large and luminous, surrounded by diamonds. Anna had no idea how much it had cost. She watched to see if the raven could be lured by the shiny trinket.

  The Widow Crisp took it up, felt the weight of it, examining the stones. Anna grabbed it back. “They're not paste. Perhaps we can find an arrangement that suits us both?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I want to spend two weeks alone, to do whatever I like, no questions asked. And…” Anna looked distastefully at the Widow's mousy frock and chewed on her lower lip. It was badly cut and coarsely sewn from a material that looked more like corrugated cardboard than any fabric with which Anna was familiar. She pinched the Widow's sleeve to see if it was as stiff as it looked. It grated on her fingers. She curled her upper lip.

  The Widow snatched her arm away. “And what?”

  Anna inhaled, closed her eyes, and puckered her face with all her might. She steeled herself to exhale the horrid words. “I…want your clothes.” Anna braced herself on the steering wheel as if recovering from some great exertion.

  “Hah!” the raven cawed. “These clothes were tailor made. I want your ring too.”

  The Widow pointed to a rose gold band on Anna's finger. It was set with a large round emerald, surrounded with tiny seed pearls. Anna hesitated because its beauty was rare. “Then I want six weeks, and you'll need to knit blankets for the Orphans’ Asylum. If you tell anyone, I'll say you stole these.”

  The Widow peeled back her lips in a malicious smile. “You speak my language, Miss Blanc.”

  Anna dropped the jewels into her hand.

  In the dappled light under the canopy of an avocado tree, Anna stripped off a gown of Irish lace and stood for a moment letting the warm wind caress her. She would prefer to stay naked on a day that promised to be hot enough to kill livestock. She stood ten rows deep into the orchard, and all around her were waving branches, smudge pots, and fallen fruit.

  She handed her dress to the Widow Crisp, who stood naked and thin, her own rough frock in a pile at her feet. Anna picked it up. It smelled of acrid sweat and medicine; it smelled like the Widow Crisp. It was damp under the arms. As Anna slipped into it, the rough fabric scratching her skin, she thought there could be no better disguise in the world; the frock was so far from anything Anna would ever wear. It was more than a breach in taste. It was a capital crime.

  Her fingers deftly fastened the buttons that ran up to her chin. It mostly fit, but it strained across her bust and would need to be altered. She thought it couldn't matter for one day. No decent person would be looking at Anna's bust and certainly no officer of the law. “If you burst my buttons, you'll pay for it,” the Widow Crisp said.

  Anna ignored the comment and padded on bare feet through the orchard, crunching in leaves that sailed up into the wind, avoiding sticks, failing to avoid a moldy avocado that squished between her toes. Her own lilac-colored shoes waited safely in the car. She put them on. Their elegant silver buckles glowed at the bottom of her monstrous frock, but the skirts would mostly cover them. She set the crank and hopped behind the wheel.

  The Widow Crisp emerged from the orchard like a pig in pearls, wearing Anna's Irish lace, smelling of Ambre Antique perfume. The gown caught in the wind and waved goodbye to Anna like a flag. She peeled off, leaving her chaperone cursing at the side of the road, her pretty dress sagging at the Widow's bust line.

  If there had been a mirror, if Anna could have seen herself, she would have lost her nerve. As there was no mirror, and her mind was muddled by the wind, she parked her yellow convertible several blocks from the station and stepped out in the heinous, sandpaper frock. Her hair was still done up with a perky feather clip, which topped her ensemble like a peacock on a dunghill. She passed the fruit seller in the sombrero, and the limping dog, and came to the long line of ladies that snaked around the sidewalk.

  The Central police station was grander and busier than the one in which Anna had been incarcerated—built of heavy, gray granite blocks, with multiple stories to accommodate a receiving hospital above, quarters for the surgeon, larger stables, and a bigger flag. Parked out front, there were several police wagons hitched to white horses, a dozen bicycles, and one shiny gas-powered police car with a gold star. Anna brushed past the women, climbed the stone steps, and peeked through the glass of the double doors. The station bustled with victims and suspects reflecting the flavor of the city—Mexicans, French, Russians, Jews, Chinese, Englishmen. With a deep breath, the wild wind caressing her face, Anna summoned all her nerve and
pushed open the door.

  The matron Anna had seen earlier was arguing with the captain, violently shaking her head. He looked seasoned and wore his authority comfortably, but she projected a fierce moral authority that left them closely matched.

  “It was wrong!” the matron said.

  The captain rumbled back in a Scottish brogue. “We have a reputation to uphold, Matron Clemens. It's as simple as that!”

  “Have it your way, Captain Wells, but don't expect me to do the hiring!” She folded her arms, immovable as God.

  Anna stepped closer. “Excuse me. I'm here to apply for the assistant matron position.”

  The matron turned on her and growled. “Wait in line like everybody else!” She gave the captain a glare that would have incinerated a lesser man and stomped off to her desk.

  The captain threw up his arms. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” He stepped around Anna and swung out the front door. It slammed behind him. Not knowing what else to do, Anna followed.

  On the front steps, both Anna and the captain surveyed the line with desperation. It hadn't occurred to Anna that this army of women might be here to apply for one assistant matron position. She would now be last in a queue that ended somewhere around the block. Unsure whether to join the line or ask the Widow Crisp for her jewelry back, she began to slump down the stairs just as a uniformed officer came sauntering up, giving each lady the head to toe. She backed up against the rail to let him pass. He was slick, though unshaven. His eyes lingered appreciatively on Anna's bust. Anna felt both attracted and repulsed, but her heartbeat quickened when she read his badge. “Detective Wolf.”