Blanche Among the Talented Tenth (Blanche White series Book 2)

by Barbara Neely

  “We’re not babies,” Malik said with as much disdain in his voice for infants as Glenda had shown for Outsiders. Blanche had one of those moments when her heart nearly stopped at the thought that this child she was raising was growing up to be a prime aged male. She focused on the affectionate, good natured, individual person Malik had always been. Would puberty turn his entire personality around? She knew she didn’t have much control over whether he’d develop into a man she’d like to know. No matter how often she told him to treat girls and women with fairness and respect, and about the importance of knowing and understanding his own feelings, even if he and his buddies didn’t think it was cool to show them, there was still a whole world of other boys and men out there telling him that being a butt-fondling troglodyte was not only OK, but all right. She was already talking to the Ancestors about him.

  Carol and Hank’s table, as well as Faith and Al J.’s had been moved, probably down on the lawn. The Insider side of the room now had only a couple of tables. The Outsider tables were nearly full. A middle-aged man in a linen Armani suit, complete with loafers without socks escorted a much younger woman to a remaining Outsider table. Blanche hadn’t seen them before. From the way the man was looking at his companion’s breasts, she assumed the young woman wasn’t his daughter. The jogging couple was there. Blanche had seen them exercising together but they didn’t seem to talk much. The Hot Couple was sitting near them. She didn’t think she’d ever seen them when they weren’t touching. Now both of them sat with a hand beneath the tablecloth and a look of being elsewhere on their faces.

  Veronica looked startled when she saw Tina but quickly recovered. She gravely nodded in Blanche’s direction, without making eye contact. Martin waved. From the corner of her eye Blanche could see Veronica shooting them quick, sly looks. Durant hesitated when he entered the room, finally deciding to approach Tina first.

  “Meet you on the beach after dinner?” he asked her when the greetings were done.

  “Not until after I put the kids to bed.” She shot Blanche a look that asked for back-up.

  “We can put ourselves to bed, at least Deirdre and I can,” Taifa told them.

  “And so can we,” Casey chimed in.

  “OK, OK. Let’s just say you need an organizer to help you,” Tina told them.

  “I’ll help,” Durant offered. He looked around the table. “See you later,” he said when no one disagreed.

  Taifa watched Durant walk away. “When I have a boyfriend, I want him to have a convertible just like Durant’s and I want us to come here on vacation.”

  “I’m never having a girlfriend,” Casey announced.

  “Me either,” Malik agreed. “You have to dance with ’em and kiss ’em and stuff. It’s stupid.”

  Tina winked at Blanche who didn’t care to know what “and stuff” meant.

  “You’ll change your mind, I bet. You’ll have a girlfriend, sometime,” Deirdre told her brother.

  “Yes. You might meet someone on vacation,” Taifa added with a sidelong glance first at Deirdre and then at Blanche.

  The girls covered their mouths and giggled in unison. Blanche was sure they were kicking each other under the table. In case I thought I was getting away with anything, she thought, and decided the less said the better. Tina was watching her with a mischievous grin on her face.

  Malik looked from Taifa to Blanche and back again. “That’s stupid! Just ’cause you meet someone on vacation doesn’t mean they’re your boyfriend!” He glared at Blanche, letting her know this was all her fault.

  “That’s not what she said.” Deirdre told him.

  More giggles followed by a squabble about Taifa’s exact words that left Blanche and Tina out of the action.

  “Anyway, what if your girlfriend dies or something?” Casey asked.

  Blanche tuned back into their conversation.

  “So what if your boyfriend dies? You get another one.” Taifa’s answer was quick and easy.

  “First you have to cry and wear black clothes.” Deirdre reminded her. “I’d wear a veil and long black gloves, and carry a handkerchief with black lace.” She shifted her face into fake sadness.

  “And keep a piece of my loved one’s hair in a locket around my neck forever,” Taifa added, her hands resting on her imaginary brooch.

  “What kind of junk have you two been reading?” Tina wanted to know, which opened a discussion of books that had nothing to do with death and boyfriends.

  Blanche looked at their bright faces. How easily they molded what they were given into something they could use and understand. She’d meant to question them about how they were feeling about the deaths that happened here, but had never gotten around to it. She realized how little time she’d actually spent with her two since she’d been here. There’d been no pileups in her bed; no complaints about what his or her sister or brother had done; no whispered secrets. Not even any real demands for her time and attention. Was that due to being here and having Tina at their beck and call? Or were they suddenly beyond that already?

  By the time Mattie arrived, the children were having ice cream on the terrace and Blanche had told Tina her moment of joy was approaching. Tina gasped like a groupie at the sight of Mattie.

  “Mattie, I believe this young woman would like to meet you. Mattie Harris, Tina Jackson.”

  Tina stood up and held out her hand. “It’s truly an honor Dr. Harris. We read Woman as Warrior in our feminist theory course my last term. I felt like I could go out and take on the world after I read it. I just want to thank you for writing it.”

  Mattie fiddled with her shawl. Her eyes were misty when she looked up. “You’re a dear and generous young woman. I thank you. Quite frankly, I was in need of a few kind words.”

  “I’m sorry about Mr. Garrett’s death. I know he was your godson.”

  Mattie nodded. “Thank you, dear.”

  Tina waited for Mattie to sit before she sat back down herself. “When I was reading Woman as Warrior, I fantasized about meeting you, about being able to ask you something.”

  Mattie leaned forward slightly. “What would you like to know?”

  “Well, I wondered about your idea that there can never be equality of early childhood parenting between biological heterosexual parents. It was kind of hard to accept.”

  “You’re not alone. I still get letters from women protesting my premise. However, they tend to be childless women who hope to share parenting with a man. Many more women have written to thank me for corroborating the reality of their lives. As I said in the book, no matter what the parents may wish or do, the child instinctively knows which parent lactates and which, therefore, can provide life-giving sustenance. The child has a parent preference that transcends our desires for equal parenting and the sincere and determined efforts of many fathers. None of my critics have been able to refute this. Can you?”

  Tina shook her head.

  “Don’t let this discourage you, my child. You can do the lion’s share of parenting and still run the world, if you make sure your partner understands the need to make up for having less intense parenting responsibilities by taking care of other necessaries generally left to women.”

  Tina nodded her agreement. Mattie went on.

  “We women would be wise to remember that we have always done all the important things, grow food, raise children, develop social groups, all the things that sustain human life. In my new book, I try to understand and explain why it is that we won’t accept the power and ascendancy this gives us.”

  Blanche grinned to herself. While she agreed that women did most of the work that really mattered in the world, she had a hard time picturing Mattie out in the fields picking apples and berries, helping a neighbor birth a child, tending the village fire. But, writing a book that convinced a young black woman that she has an important part to play in the world was certainly a kind of
midwifery and planting and sowing and mothering.

  “Maybe we don’t appreciate ourselves because no one else does,” Tina said.

  “Not good enough, young woman, not good enough. We can easily prove our power. For example, what if every woman in the country refused to prepare dinner Thursday evening. Just the thought of it makes our power clear. And what if every secretary or waitress in the world decided to take the same day off. We don’t need other people to know our power, we need ourselves, ourselves.” Mattie’s eyes were brilliant, her voice strong and certain.

  “You mean organize,” Tina said.

  “Exactly, my dear, exactly. That’s when the change will come, when women organize and declare it time for the boys to make way. I don’t mean the insipid women’s organizations out there today, fooling around trying to reform the system using the boy’s rules. Ridiculous. No risk, no gain. We want equality, but we’re no longer willing to get hurt in order to get it. Today’s national movements, women’s and blacks’, seem more interested in being players in the white male club than challenging the white male patriarchy.

  Tina cleared her throat. “A bunch of sisters started getting together after the Anita Hill thing to work against violence against women. Black men who didn’t even know us called us man-haters and dykes, and talked about how we were siding with the white man, like Anita wasn’t even black! Those of us who didn’t immediately drop out, ended up spending most of our time trying to figure out how to deal with the way black men were treating us.”

  Mattie shrugged. “So what? Some white person has probably called you a nigger in your life. Did that stop you?”

  “No! It made me push harder.”

  “Exactly my point,” Mattie said.

  Tina nodded again. “But it’s different when it’s a black man who puts you down, especially if you’re a straight woman.”

  “Ah yes,” Mattie sighed. “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? Our need to be loved by our torturers. I can only suggest that young black women put a great deal of time and energy into pulling men back from where the only way they seem to be whole is to assume a position over women. I wish you luck, my dear. I can’t imagine what it will take to make men feel it’s all right to be human before they’re male or black. I suggest you not ally yourself with any man in a serious way until you’re very sure he’s got some of that straight.”

  The three women were silent. Blanche could almost see Tina thinking about what Mattie had said, trying to figure out how to use it to find her way through the mine field of being young and sharing control of your life with your hormones. But how different was it for her, at her age—feeling the loss of Leo and the heat of Stu?

  The children had finished their dessert and were clearly ready to leave. Tina rose. “It’s been really wonderful talking to you. I hope I see you again before I leave.”

  Mattie nodded as though a future audience might just be possible.

  Durant rose from his family’s table and followed Tina and the children. Mattie watched the two of them descend the stairs to the grounds. “I’ll bet you five dollars he loses her.”

  “I ain’t got that kinda money to throw away, and, quite frankly, it’s a bet I’d like to lose.”

  Blanche went back to the cottage and relieved Tina and Durant of their bedtime responsibilities. They left and the children settled down for the night. The only sounds came from the creatures in the trees and grass and from the waves. Blanche made herself comfortable on the living room sofa and slipped first into her book and then into a sound sleep. Tina woke her when she came in later that night and they both shuffled off to bed.

  TWELVE

  An overcast sky and the sound of the waves breaking more furiously than she’d heard before told Blanche her boat outing with Stu was off hours before she got a call from him. She could tell he was about to suggest an alternative. She headed him off by telling him something had come up that she needed to do today, anyway. Mattie had called her earlier:

  “Carol’s been asking to see me,” Mattie had told her. There was a long pause. “I’m not eager to go, as you might imagine. Nevertheless, she was Hank’s wife. I do have a duty. But I can’t see her alone, I simply can’t. Would you…could you possibly come with me, Blanche? I’d be very grateful.”

  “There are nurses, I’m sure someone would be glad to…”

  “No, I couldn’t bear some stranger.”

  A hired car picked them up at the Big House and took them to a small airstrip. Blanche had never before been in a commuter plane. The experience was one she hoped never to repeat. She tried to keep in touch with the Ancestors during her flight to lend some weight to the flimsy plane.

  Forest Glen Sanitarium was a tall, old brick building with a high, black, iron-railed fence. She could have been mistaken for a private estate, until she noticed the heavy screening on the second and third floor windows. A nurse in a starched uniform and perky cap sat behind a large desk inside the door. “May I help you?” was written on her face before she spoke. When Mattie told her how she could help, the nurse made a phone call. Another starched nurse came to escort them to Carol’s room.

  “How is she?” Mattie asked the nurse as she ushered them down a long corridor of closed doors.

  “Improving, we think. Slowly. She’s still deeply depressed. Doctor is hoping a new medication regimen will help. But so far…”

  Carol’s room was near the end of the hall. She was sitting up in bed near a window dominated by a tree just outside. She looked like an old child. A dated, yellow bed jacket helped that impression and made her look jaundiced. Her eyes were dull when she looked up to watch them enter the room. The nurse had knocked, Carol hadn’t answered. Her face changed when she saw Mattie. Her mouth opened in a silent cry; she lifted her arms and held them out to Mattie. Her eyes were flooded with yearning and she reeked of loneliness, Blanche had to turn away. Mattie leaned heavily on her stick as she crossed the room. Blanche could feel Mattie’s conflict, recognized it in her stalling-for-time gait. Little mewling sounds were coming from Carol now.

  The nurse took six giant steps to her bedside. “Now dear, don’t excite yourself.”

  Carol strained forward, her hands outstretched toward Mattie. Carol nearly lifted the older woman off her feet as she pulled Mattie’s hands to her lips. She showered them with kisses and washed them in tears.

  “Don’t, my child. Don’t,” Mattie was trying to pull her hands away.

  Blanche was sure they weren’t going to get any sense out of Carol. The nurse pushed a button and a woman in a pink striped uniform and white apron entered the room with a tray on which there was a hypodermic and vial of clear liquid. The nurse filled the hypodermic, pushed up Carol’s sleeve, and slipped the needle into flesh. Carol immediately slumped back against the pillows.

  “She’s been doing so much better, really.” The nurse straightened the sheet over Carol. “Could you possibly stay a few hours? Perhaps after lunch she’ll be more coherent. She’s been asking to see you for two days. Doctor thinks it would do her good to talk to you.”

  Blanche could tell Mattie didn’t want to stay. “Let’s do it, Mattie,” Blanche took Mattie’s arm. “We’ve come all this way, we might as well.”

  “We have quite a nice dining room and I’m sure you’ll find the solarium very comfortable.” The nurse directed them down an adjoining hallway.

  The stuffed chicken breast and rice pilaf were bland but at least the string beans were fresh. Mattie was distracted. Blanche knew Mattie was afraid Carol might tell her something that made it impossible to continue to believe Hank was innocent. Blanche wanted to say something comforting, but nothing came to mind. When the nurse appeared, Blanche gave Mattie’s hand a quick squeeze.

  “Thank you, my dear.” Mattie picked up her walking stick, straightened her back, and preceded Blanche down the hall to Carol’s room. The nurse ushered th
em in.

  Carol’s eyes looked slightly glazed, but she was relaxed and smiling. The nurse showed Blanche how to operate the call bell and left them.

  “Mattie. Oh, Mattie.” Carol held out her hand. Mattie took it in her own for only a moment before letting it drop to the bed.

  “Hello, Blanche. This is a nice surprise.” Her eyes filled. “I’m sorry.” She reached for a tissue on the table by her bed.

  “Don’t upset yourself,” Mattie told her. “I’m not going to stay long, too tiring for you. They said you wanted to see me.”

  “Yes, but…” Carol looked from Mattie to Blanche and back again.

  “You two talk, I’ll be outside,” Blanche offered.

  “No!” Mattie’s voice was tinged with panic. “No need, Blanche.” She turned to Carol. “Blanche and I have become fast friends. She’s been wonderful to me since…”

  Carol pressed the tissue to her eyes for a second. “Oh Mattie, I can’t believe he’s gone. I knew he was depressed, but I didn’t think…” She raised her head and looked at Mattie, who spoke with urgency:

  “My dear, tell me what happened the night Faith died, please! I must know, I must. You know he couldn’t have done this thing. Not Hank.”

  Tears pooled in Carol’s eyes. “Faith had invited us in for drinks. I didn’t want to go. Neither did Hank. We knew she…I was so angry, I’d given myself a massive headache. Hank insisted I lie down. He said he’d called Faith. I lay down and fell asleep. It was around ten when I woke. Hank was gone.” Carol stopped to blow her nose. “I went by the Big House. Someone told me Hank had been there earlier and left. I decided to look for him, to find out what happened with Faith. I had a feeling he’d gone to see her without me. I walked down the beach to his favorite spot. He wasn’t there. He often walked back and forth between here and the village, so I decided to get my flashlight and check there. I don’t know what made me stop at Faith’s. There were no lights on, although it was dark outside. Only the screen door was closed. I knocked. No one answered. I went in. I thought she’d gone to the dance. I had my flashlight, of course. I thought maybe I could find…I don’t even know why I went in the bathroom.”