Duet for Three Hands

by Tess Thompson

  She fell to her knees on the Oriental rug. “Please, Nate, I’m begging you. I cannot live here. I have to get back to New York.”

  “I’m lucky to have a job. There are so many without work.”

  “But this horrid little town? My God, do you really hate me this much?”

  “The town’s somewhat provincial, sure, but it’s something. Especially given my situation.”

  Now, he walked inside. The house felt cool. Calling out to Frances, he heard her moving about the front room. Bracing himself, he went through the kitchen to the sitting room. Frances paced the floor, a half-empty bottle of sherry on the closed piano. She was dressed in an evening gown with a rope of pearls, and red lipstick was smeared around her mouth. He went to her, taking her gently by the arms. She met his gaze with dazed eyes.

  “Back from school so soon,” she said, slurring. “Did you prepare all the young ladies for a life of utter boredom?”

  “Frances.” He put the sherry back on the bar. “Let’s eat something. There’s bread and butter.” He wiped the top of the piano with his handkerchief.

  “Your precious piano’s fine.”

  “It should never have anything on its surface.”

  She went to the liquor cabinet and poured another glass of sherry. He moved toward her, like he might with a rabid animal.

  “You’ve had enough. You don’t want to be sick.”

  “I’m already sick. Of you. Of this sad life we’re stuck in like two pigs in quicksand.”

  He let his hands fall to his side. “Frances, please. Let’s eat something.”

  Suddenly, she lurched toward the liquor cabinet, grabbed the decanter of sherry, and hurled it toward the piano. “I don’t want something to eat. I want to go home to New York.” The crystal decanter broke, spilling sherry over the top of the piano. He ran to the kitchen to get a towel, thinking of the intricate strings within the instrument. When he returned, she lay collapsed on the couch, her gown around her like a mermaid’s tail. Sopping up the sherry with the towel, he felt relieved to see that none had seeped under the lid. After he finished, he made a pile of the broken glass.

  She sobbed from the couch. “I can’t go on this way.”

  He looked over at her.

  She held a shard of glass with a sharp point. “I’m going to end it, Nate, I swear to God, if you don’t promise to get me out of this place.” She put the glass to her throat.

  He inched toward her, his hands in front of him as if she might turn the weapon on him. “All right. I’ll start looking for another position. Maybe I can find something in Atlanta or Chicago.” He said whatever came to mind. “A bigger city.”

  She smiled, dreamlike. “Or Los Angeles. I read it’s always seventy-two degrees there. And I could become a star.”

  “Sure. Just hand me the glass.” Next to her now, he put his right hand around her wrist, no larger than a child’s, and took the glass from her, sighing with relief when the fight seemed to have gone from her as quickly as it had come. “Let’s get you up to bed.”

  She was limp in his arms as he undressed her and tucked her into bed. She fell asleep almost immediately, her hands tucked under her cheek. An angel in appearance. He went downstairs and sat at the piano, practicing easy scales with his right hand.

  He awakened to a sound coming from the washroom and reluctantly got out of bed. The bathroom light was on, and the door was propped open several inches. Frances was bent over the sink, scrubbing her hands. Dressed in a filmy white dressing gown, her hair wet and flat against her head, as if she’d just gotten out of the bath or come in from a rainstorm, she looked up when the door creaked.

  “Frances?”

  “Nate, is it you?” She blinked. Her gray eyes were now black, their large pupils dilated, like she was in a trance. “I can’t stop thinking of him.”

  “Who’s that, Frances?”

  “The dead man. I can’t get the scent of him off my hands. He smelled of mulch, Nate. Like something rotting.” With a glazed look, like a sleepwalker, she spoke in a whisper. “See, no matter how I scrub.” She held up her hands for him to see. He gasped. They were red and raw, like his mother’s had been after taking in laundry.

  Grabbing a towel, he patted them dry, careful not to rub too hard for fear of making the chapped skin worse. He brought them to his nose. “Frances, I smell only soap.” When had she stopped wearing the perfume that smelled of gardenias?

  “I’m so very tired.” She closed her eyes and tucked her head into her collarbone in a way that reminded Nathaniel of an injured swan.

  “Come now. It’s time for bed.” He took her hand and led her to her bedroom.

  Once he had her under the covers, she looked up at him with those stormy eyes that had once made his heart beat fast and furiously. “Do you mind terribly?” She spoke with the same strange, vacant look in her eyes.

  “Mind what?” He tucked the covers tighter around her frail shoulders.

  “Sleeping alone?”

  “It’s fine. I know I keep you awake with my nightmares.”

  “I wonder why I don’t dream?”

  We’re just two injured birds, he thought. “Never mind that. Just get a good rest. It’ll all look better in the morning.”

  “Maybe Mother could send some of that soap Cassie makes. It takes out all smells.”

  He smoothed a lock of her hair back from her forehead. “I’ll write and ask your mother in the morning.”

  Her eyes were closing now, and then she began to breathe in a steady rhythm that sounded so peaceful it was hard to imagine that the moments before were real.

  Chapter 17

  Jeselle and Whitmore

  * * *

  September 10, 1933

  Dear Jeselle,

  After the long train ride, I’ve finally made it here to Princeton. It’s my first night in the men’s dormitory. My roommate is Reginald King, Reggie for short. Apparently his father owns half of New England. Our room’s stark and small with two single beds and two desks. I’ll start classes in several days, but for now I’m free to wander about and paint. The campus is lush and beautiful this time of year. There’s much to capture, many colors and textures.

  I’ll keep my promise to write twice a week. I realize I’m not as capable as you in remembering all the details of a given situation, especially when it comes to what people say, but I’ll try as hard as I can to tell you all the interesting parts with the right details so that it will seem like you were here with me, only this way you won’t have to actually experience the boring parts.

  Please write soon.

  Yours,

  Whit

  * * *

  September 18, 1933

  Dear Whit,

  We’re back in Atlanta. We closed the lake house two days after you left. It will take some adjustment, as it always does, to be back with your father. Your mother isn’t eating much since we’ve been back. It’s like the sound of his voice makes her feel sick. I noticed a bruise on her forearm the other morning. Mama keeps a close watch on things, but we’re both on pins and needles all day long.

  Mama announced one morning that I was to get a job. Your mother made a protest, but she was no force for Mama’s will in this, telling your mother that it was time for me to earn my own keep.

  I found a job working for Mrs. Greer down the street. I’ve worked only two days, and I’m so tired I can hardly pick up my pen to write. I’m asleep before I hit the pillow.

  I’ll write another time. Until then, know I’m thinking of you.

  Yours,

  Jeselle

  * * *

  September 21, 1933

  Dear Jeselle,

  There are so many smart people here I’m humbled and, dare I say it, intimidated. I was accustomed to being less clever than you, but I was remiss in my understanding of the quantity of other intelligent minds out here in the world.

  I’m struggling terribly with my mathematics course. The professors tell me I only have to wo
rry about it this year since I’ve declared art history as my major. I wish you were here to help me with it.

  I’ve decided Reggie is swell. He invites me on all his adventures even though I’m not exactly the liveliest guy around. The others are always on the search for a party, which they consider any place with girls.

  Write soon.

  Love,

  Whit

  * * *

  September 24, 1933

  Dear Whit,

  It may sound strange, but everything’s dim since you left, the colors less visible like there’s a dusting of gray powder on everything. Your mother meanders from room to room, without direction, her footsteps barely discernible and only her deep sighs an indication of where she is. She’s lost without the two of us underfoot.

  And what do I have without you? I never knew how much there was to tell you until you were no longer here. I have nothing more than this blank page in which to confess all, to explore every detail of my life. I swore I wouldn’t complain about my fate, but Whit, sometimes writing is the only thing that gives me pleasure. With each word I can almost feel the gush of something come out of me, making things bearable. I scrub and iron and placate, all the while the words forming in my mind, how I might describe it later on the pages of my journal or in a letter to you. Sometimes I even dream in narrative right along with the pictures in my subconscious mind, like there’s a story inside me someone is waiting to hear. That is, when I’m not dreaming of you. Those nights I wake in the morning exhausted, as if I’d walked miles in search of you in my sleep, and dreading another long day at the Greers’.

  I don’t know if you remember Mrs. Greer. Your mother has had her over for tea on occasion. Her full name is Lucinda Rae Greer, and she has her monograms everywhere. LRG on the towels, LRG on the necklace around her neck, even a pad at her desk with LRG at the top of each page. I thought immediately that it almost spelled LARGE, ironic because she’s no bigger than a scarecrow hanging in a cornfield. Regardless, I started thinking of her as LARGE, only seeing the letters LRG when I thought it.

  As you can see, some things remain the same. My imagination continues to get me into trouble.

  I must close. LRG awaits me in the morning.

  Love,

  Jes

  * * *

  October 1, 1933

  Dear Jeselle,

  Mother wrote of your mama’s insistence that you get a job. She doesn’t understand it, as there’s plenty of work at our house. I don’t either, although I believe she’s hoping to get you out on your own to keep you away from me.

  I worry about you working for these women who run in Mother’s circle. They are not like Mother in any way, as you know. I wonder why Mrs. Greer hired you instead of a white girl?

  Someday we’ll have a life together, and I’ll take care of things so you don’t have to scrub and placate. Jessie, know this: when there is love, all things are possible. Jesus taught us this, did He not?

  Love,

  Whit

  * * *

  October 8, 1933

  Dear Whit,

  I believe there were two reasons LRG hired me instead of a white girl. The first is that I come from your mother’s staff. The second is that I work for an amount that LRG would be embarrassed to offer a white girl. But a black girl, in LRG’s eyes, why, we’re hardly better than the savages portrayed in that ridiculous moving picture put out by the Ku Klux Klan years ago. She believes I don’t deserve the pay she’s giving me. In her view, I’m no better than a trained monkey.

  Regardless, I was lucky to find a position when so many go without. Mama and I hear every Sunday at our church that black folks can no longer get even the most menial of jobs because a white man or woman is always offered it first. Before these hard times there were certain jobs a white person wouldn’t take, but now they’ll do most anything. We’re all, black and white, like hungry chickens scratching in the yard, trying to dig up something to eat.

  I know Mama and I have been fortunate to work for your mother all these years. Yet I can’t help but feel sorry for myself and for your mother. Always there’s this yearning in us for something more, for some meaning to our lives that cannot be found in my chores or her life of idleness. I know it in myself, this thirst I have for a life bigger than the one I have, an existence with freedom and intellectual pursuits. I see it in her, too, how she rambles about her big house with nothing to occupy her fervent mind but the daily, mundane nuances of society and fulfilling the requirements of her husband.

  It’s futile to wish things were different. It’s possibly even a sin to want more when I have so much. But still, there it is. A space that needs filling.

  Love,

  Jes

  Chapter 18

  Jeselle

  * * *

  Despite her dedication to writing Whitmore, there were certain aspects of Jeselle’s life she chose not to share with him. She suspected when a man loved a woman it rendered them irrational at the mere hint of any mistreatment. She could not risk Whit doing something rash, therefore she kept the details of her experiences to herself. The truth was uglier than her letters suggested.

  The Greers lived one street over from the Bellmonts in a massive Victorian. The morning of her interview, Jeselle had knocked on the back door, knowing it was unheard of for a colored girl to be at the front of anything. Mrs. Greer opened the door at once and motioned for her to come inside. The kitchen, once fine, was now shabby. The wallpaper, a pattern of red apples and frilly red curtains, peeled at the corners, white moldings were chipped and scuffed, and once red curtains were faded to the color of rust.

  “Your mother works for Clare Bellmont?” Mrs. Greer, stringy and sharp, made of nothing but bones and dry skin, crossed her arms across a flat chest. “Long time now, isn’t that right?” Her front teeth came to a point, like a rodent’s, Jeselle thought with a shiver. One of the nasty, greedy ones that skirt out from the bushes on the city streets of Atlanta, waiting for a child’s dropped crumb.

  “Yes, ma’am. All my life.” Jeselle shifted her weight from one foot to the other; the floorboard creaked.

  “I see.” Mrs. Greer fixed her eyes on Jeselle as if examining her for bruises or hidden worms like a peach in a bin at the grocer. “You work for Mrs. Bellmont, too, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Since I was small.”

  “This job’s just standard maid duties, along with taking care of my daughter. My husband likes his meals on time.”

  “I cook, too?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Two dollars a week.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Greer.”

  When Jeselle arrived back at the Bellmonts’ she found Mama and Mrs. Bellmont in the garden. Mama knelt in the dirt, tending to her herbs in the corner of the yard. She didn’t look up from her task.

  Mrs. Bellmont cut dead blooms from a rose bush with a pair of scissors but turned toward her the moment Jeselle was near. “How was it, baby girl?”

  “I start tomorrow. I’ll be her only help.”

  “In that big house?” Mrs. Bellmont cut a brown bud from a thorny vine and tossed it into the bucket at her feet. “They’re old money, but I’ve heard rumors they’ve fallen on hard times.” She moved to the next rose bush, cutting a wayward vine. “How much a week?”

  “Two dollars.”

  “What? Why, that’s criminal.” Mrs. Bellmont threw down her shears. “Cassie?”

  “Don’t you worry, Miz Bellmont.” Cassie looked up from her work. “We can’t expect everyone to be as generous as you are.”

  “Well then, why can’t she just work here?”

  “Just ’cause that ain’t the way it’s gonna be,” answered Mama.

  “You’re the most stubborn woman ever born.”

  “You got that right.” Mama plucked a large sprig of rosemary and held it up for them to see. “This’ll taste just fine with the pork roast I got at the market.”

  Jeselle looke
d over at Mrs. Bellmont and shrugged. They both knew it was no use to argue with Mama.

  The next morning Jeselle arrived to the Greer’s home at seven. She’d been preoccupied the morning before, nervous about the interview, and hadn’t noticed that the garden was as dilapidated as the interior of the house. Weeds carpeted the ground between plants, and brown patches were scattered across the lawn. A birdbath with dirty water, the sides of which were covered in mildew and moss, tilted like it might fall over at any moment. A muddy pond and a gazebo with faded paint and broken steps took up one corner of the yard.

  The door stood open. Mrs. Greer sat at the kitchen table, bent over a tablet. Jeselle lingered at the doorway, feeling awkward, and finally cleared her throat. Only then did Mrs. Greer look up. “Well, don’t dawdle, girl. Come on in here and get to work.” Squinty eyes with bags underneath that looked like uncooked pie dough darted to the paper on the table. She moved her arms over the pad. “Chore list is next to the sink. I expect all of it to be done by the time you leave tonight.”

  Iron shirts.

  Wash clothes in wicker basket.

  Give Winnie bath.

  Scrub bathroom.

  Polish hardwood floor in sitting room.

  Prepare supper.

  Jeselle calculated how long each task would take. If she used all the tricks Mama had taught her over the years she might be able to accomplish all of it.

  A baby toddled into the kitchen. She had fair hair that stuck straight up like she’d had a fright.

  “This is Winifred. We all call her Winnie. She’s almost two.”

  Jeselle bent down to the child’s level. “Hello, Miss Winnie. I’m Jeselle.”

  “Me baby.” She pointed a chubby finger at her chest, her pale blue eyes never leaving Jeselle’s face.

  “I have friends coming over later,” Mrs. Greer said. “I’ll want a cake made before they come. I have to go out.” She ripped the piece of paper from the pad and stuffed it in her purse.