by Julie Smith
“They went home yesterday.”
“Oh. Well, how about we go by Corey’s?”
“All right. If it won’t put you out.” Miz Clara tried hard, but she couldn’t keep the pleasure out of her voice. She was dying to see her grandchild.
Talba took her by, and they all got a basket of fried chicken to eat, and Talba felt downright kindly toward her brother’s wife. Sophia Pontalba was just a tiny brown sweet thing… toffee, she thought, with amazement. Toffee. It was the way she’d described herself in her most famous poem, the one about being named Urethra. I was right on the money that time. What a little brown sweet thing!
On impulse, she said, “Mama, was I ever that sweet?” and everyone laughed.
“Lord, no! You was a mess from the minute you came into this world.”
Somewhere, she thought, I’ve got a little sister. Maybe she’ll appreciate me.
When she got home, it was still early enough to call strangers. She got out her list of Winterses and took up where she’d left off—at Dennis.
She hit paydirt on Kiana, who spoke almost as gruffly as Miz Clara. “This ain’ Mozelle house.”
Something about the way she said it telegraphed that she knew Mozelle. “Oh? You have her phone number?”
“No.”
“Miss Winters, it’s important. I’m a lawyer representing an estate—do you know what an estate is?”
“Yeah. I think I do.” Talba was willing to bet she did—there was a definite softening in tone.
“I wonder if you could help me find her.”
“Mozelle my mama sister. She don’t have nothin’ to do with us no more. She married to a doctor.”
“Oh. I see. Do you happen to know his name?”
“I done forgot.” It was like pulling teeth.
“Well, actually, we’re trying to trace all the relatives of a Bartholomew Winters, who left quite a considerable estate—did your mother and Mozelle have the same father?”
“They sure did.” Considerably more interest. Warmth, even.
After that it was easy. Her mama’s name was Leticia Hooks, and Leticia knew exactly what the doctor’s name was—Matthew Simmons. She even supplied his phone number.
Talba didn’t ask for his address—she was betting it was in the phone book, and she was half right. His office address was. Well, no problem, she had her trusty computer handy.
She certainly wasn’t going to call—by now it was almost ten—but she was dying to know more. So she backgrounded him.
On paper he was exactly as advertised, a pediatrician who’d gone to LSU med school, owned two cars and a house in a good neighborhood, and had no liens or bankruptcies in his closet. She felt slightly let down, though she couldn’t put her finger on why she was disappointed. Surely it meant her sister was being well cared for. The thought crossed her mind that he might know her brother, Corey—in fact maybe it was inevitable, given the worldwide rule of six degrees of separation, which in New Orleans was more like two.
The girl would be Corey’s sister too. What if they were friends, Matthew and Corey? What if Corey already knew his own sister and didn’t know he knew her? What if Matthew ended up being Sophia’s baby doc?
She thought, Why couldn’t I have been Corey? Scientific mind, plenty of money, no imagination—why do I have to put up with this instead?
She was disappointed in the chase, that was what it was. She’d gotten so used to turning up dirt it was like an addiction. So far as she could find, this man was so bland he’d probably never gotten his name in the paper, not even when he got married. Evidently, he didn’t support political causes, go to charity balls, or otherwise hang with what Miz Clara called “the niggerati,” a thought that set off another—if he’d been a different kind of man, her own sister might be about to become a debutante. Talba and Miz Clara would read about her making her bow, see her picture in the paper, and never even have a clue.
And that thought set off a third—Michelle being who she was, little Sophia Pontalba would undoubtedly be a debutante some day.
Talba’s brain was spinning out of control.
She rubbed her temples as if that would stop it, and then, barely aware of the impulse before she acted on it she backgrounded Calvin Richard, going through one of the services and finding nothing suprising. And then, as she nearly always did on a new case, she Googled him.
Google, she’d found, was great for turning up really personal things about people, like what sites they’d posted on. One man, for instance, a fellow from up around Shreveport, showed up on the Internet only twice. His name appeared with a photo of his wife’s adorable toy poodle entwined with his own Rottweiler on a veterinary site; and also under an inflammatory letter he’d written to a white supremacist site. Since the man was a potential juror in a criminal case with a black defendant, the latter was hugely important information—enough to enable her client to get him dismissed for cause.
She had Googled Matthew Simmons to no avail, but Calvin Richard was something else altogether. Or his wife Tanitha was. There were lots of references to her, on sites about childhood developmental disorders. Checking one at random, Talba saw that a whole newspaper article had been scanned in about children so afflicted, one of whom was little Damian Richard. In it Tanitha was quoted extensively.
Talba read it again. It was a Times-Picayune story that had been picked up by the wires and then had been scanned in to many of the sites—hence Tanitha’s ubiquity. It covered the disorders themselves (the best known of which was autism), the particular ways in which children who had them suffered, what the lives were like of families in which they appeared, and the toll it took on them emotionally, in terms of effort, and financially.
Damian had been unlucky enough to be diagnosed with what the doctors called Pervasive Development Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), which, according to the article, some said was a euphemism for “We don’t know what’s wrong.”
Damian seemed a perfectly normal little boy until he was about two and a half, when his parents noticed he still wasn’t talking and, not only that, didn’t even seem to hear well. He wouldn’t look them in the eye and generally didn’t seem to want to play with other children.
Then came an extensive—and no doubt very expensive—round of psychiatric and neurologic evaluations, which figured out very little except that Damian couldn’t communicate like other kids and had severe problems with language—in other words, that he was going to need a lot of help. Indeed, he’d been enrolled in a special school which even had such arcane equipment as a “hug machine,” and he was making progress.
Skipping through a few other articles on the subject, Talba learned that race wasn’t a risk factor but that sex was, many more boys being afflicted than girls, that doctors had no idea what caused these disorders, and that education was considered crucial.
“The most important intervention,” wrote one expert, “is early and intensive remedial education.”
Tanitha, the original article said, had done exactly what Talba had done—researched PDD on the Internet, taken the doctor’s advice to heart, and found a good school for her child, where she herself volunteered three days a week.
All well and good. But did Damian have a scholarship? How did a policeman’s salary stretch that far? Talba just had to wonder.
Maybe the mom had money. Talba checked her out too. Nothing proved she did or she didn’t. The thing bore looking into.
She went out to the kitchen to get herself some chilled white wine, maybe chat with Miz Clara a little. But her mother had gone to bed, and she couldn’t call Darryl. Raisa was with him and she didn’t want to take the chance of waking the child.
Oh, well, things could be worse. She happened to have a very good biography of that other baroness—the original one of Pontalba—which seemed particularly appropriate at the moment. She took her wine back to bed and snuggled in with the book.
But it was a long time before she slept and when she did, she dreame
d—not nightmares exactly but disturbing movie dreams, stories in which things were oddly out-of-kilter. Anxiety, perhaps, she thought, given what she planned to do the next day.
She woke up feeling so much out of sorts that not even the smell of Miz Clara’s coffee could cheer her up. Her mama was sitting at the old black-painted kitchen table, wearing ancient blue slippers, eating toast and bacon and reading the newspaper. She caught Talba’s mood immediately.
“You a little ray o’ sunshine.”
“I haven’t even said anything.”
“You don’t need to. You got a black cloud over ya head.”
Talba said, “I need some coffee.”
“You jealous, aren’t ya?”
“What?” For a moment, it was hard for Talba to determine the context, but then she remembered—the last thing in Miz Clara’s evening was the visit to Corey and Michelle’s, whereas hers had included sojourns in the various worlds of Matthew and Mozelle Simmons; Tanitha, Calvin, and Damian Richard; and that other baroness. Catching on, she said, “Of whom? Corey?”
“Michelle. You want ya own baby.”
“Well, I’ve got one. Little Sophia’s enough for me right now.”
“Umph umph. You ain’t foolin’ me. Don’t fool me one bit.”
Talba busied herself making toast.
“Why don’t you just marry that man and get it over with?”
“So that’s what this is about.”
“I see the way you look at that baby.”
“I love that little critter—any harm in that?”
“Sandra, go get ya own before it’s too late.”
“Well, well, well. Is this the same Miz Clara who used to lecture me on ‘stayin’ out of trouble?’ Waiting to marry till I’d established a career? Becoming the first African-American female president? She was a pain in the butt, but at least I was used to her.”
“You watch ya mouth, young lady.”
That was the way the morning started. Talba looked at her watch. Ten o’clock on a Saturday morning—just about equivalent to seven or eight on a workday. She really couldn’t put it off any longer.
The Simmonses lived in Kenner out in Jefferson Parish, on the far side of Metairie. Probably a good half hour away. Talba turned on the radio and sang along, anything not to think about what she had to do.
When she got there and saw the guardhouse, she almost turned around and bagged the whole errand. These people lived in a gated community. And no way, no way in hell, were they going to want to see her.
But the way out came to her so quickly it scared her, and she wouldn’t even have to lie much. She could continue the routine she’d already started, only with a different twist.
Before approaching the guard, she called the number she had for the Simmonses. A woman answered.
“Mozelle Simmons?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what an heir-hunter is?”
“I think I do.” As in the case of her young relative, she became a little more animated, decidedly more friendly.
“Are you the former Mozelle Winters?”
“Yes.” Talba could almost feel her anticipation. There was no distrust, or even impatience in her voice—she evidently was content to let this one unfold as her benefactor wanted it to. Perhaps she feared that if she disturbed the protocol of the thing, her good fortune would go away.
“Do you have a sister named Lura?”
“Lura passed away a long time ago.”
“And you’re her next of kin?”
“Yes.”
“Ms. Simmons, I think I can say at this time that I have some extremely important information for you—something that could enrich your life a great deal.”
At this point, the woman’s docility apparently ran its course. She sighed and for the first time, her voice was sharp. “I suppose there’s some huge fee attached.”
“There always is, Ms. Simmons. There always is. I’m outside your gate. Would you like me to come in and tell you about it?”
The other woman sighed again. “I suppose so.”
Talba had seen plenty of houses like this one—her brother Corey had one. Corey lived in Eastover, home of politicians, musicians, and Saints (along with a number of white people, though perhaps none in those categories). This place was something like it, or at least the houses were—expensive, soulless, and utterly unattractive to Talba, who would have lived in a Moroccan palace if she could have. She might be a baroness, but she wasn’t a European one.
The doorbell chimed some kind of ditty that was almost a whole song, but it too was soulless, and a little tacky. The woman who appeared at the door wore jeans that showed off a nice figure, and a crisp blouse. She was Miz Clara’s age, and trim, her straight hair fashioned in a shoulder-length do that was actually quite glamorous. She looked exactly like a doctor’s wife—and looked like she worked at it.
“Ms. Simmons?”
“Yes?”
“I have something very good to tell you, but it may surprise you a little.”
She smiled and, up close like this, Talba could see just how much time and trouble had gone into her makeup, the shape of her eyebrows, her manicure. She thought that no matter how much money she made, she’d never get into that silliness.
“Yes?” Mozelle said again, her head cocked a bit condescendingly, as if she thought she were a baroness.
“My name is Sandra Wallis. You may have known my father. Denman—”
Before Talba could even get his whole name out, the woman fainted.
Chapter Eighteen
Talba could see it unfolding, in slow-mo and yet still so fast she couldn’t stop it. The woman’s eyes rolled back, she started to crumple at the shoulders, her legs gave way… Talba reached out and did break her fall, but that was the best she could do.
Mozelle came to almost immediately, and she woke up screaming, screaming what the hell was Talba doing and she had tricked her and for God’s sake would someone throw Talba out. Since it was a Saturday, the whole neighborhood turned out, just about. But no one made a move to throw Talba out.
First, a man came out of the house, presumably Mozelle’s husband, a pudgy man not nearly so attractive as she was.
Talba had managed to ease the woman to the ground and now stood slightly away from her, unnerved by all the screaming. She kept staring at the inside of the house, half expecting a girl to come out, a girl slightly younger than she—the sister who was probably going to hate her after this.
“What happened?” the man asked and knelt by his wife. “What you doing on the floor, baby?”
Mozelle eased up on an elbow. “This trash come around here, tryin' to trick me….”
It wasn’t the right accent for the neighborhood, and Talba wondered if it got any better when she wasn’t upset. She doubted it. Mozelle’s charms, for Dr. Simmons, were probably obvious before she even opened her mouth.
The man looked at Talba inquiringly, and there was something long-suffering in his glance, something that emboldened her.
She gave him a smile that was just the least bit ironic, though she spoke apologetically. “I guess I reminded her of somebody. She fainted dead away.”
“Again?” he said to his wife. “You fainted again? Aren’t you ever going to learn?” There was affection in his voice, and Talba thought she understood a little of their relationship. Drama on her part and reassurance on his seemed a couple of the key elements.
The woman turned on Talba, furious. “You come here just like your daddy, trying to get what you can from folks doing better than you.” To her husband, she said, “Matthew, you make her leave. You just get that woman off my property. She Janessa daddy’s girl, you know who I mean? You know?” She was still on the floor of the porch, her husband’s arm around her shoulders, a queen giving orders.
This woman had reason to fear and hate Talba, given what her father had been to her sister, and, indeed, what she, Talba, had been to her. Talba suddenly felt ashamed that she’d
for gotten how vivid yesterday’s events could seem to people. “Mrs. Simmons, I’m really sorry I got you all upset. I can’t remember a thing about your sister, or about you if I ever met you, or even about my daddy—I hope you understand that. I’m sorry for what went down a long time ago, and I understand why you feel the way you do. I just wanted to meet my sister—that’s all in the world I wanted to do.”
The man turned to his wife. “You’re all right, baby. Come on up now.” The woman stood.
She said, “Why you want to meet Janessa?” For the first time, her face was genuinely curious.
“I want to make amends to her. Truthfully, I want to know her. She’s my sister, after all. Did you ever know the Reverend Clarence Scruggs? He told me to find her.”
“I don’t believe I did.” The curiosity was gone, and Simmons had apparently recovered some of her anger. “But you’re welcome to your precious Janessa.” She put a lot of angry emphasis on the word. “If you can find her.”
Talba had started to realize the girl probably didn’t live with the lace-curtain Simmonses in their postmodern dream house. “You mean you don’t know where she is?”
“Oh, I know where she’s s’posed to be. But let me tell you something, Ms. Sandra Wallis—oh, yes, I remember you—she’s bad to the core, just like you. Just like ya daddy. Just like all you Wallises. I never could do nothin’ with that girl. Isn’t that so, Matthew?”
The doctor looked miserable, but he nodded as bidden. “She never has been a walk in the park.”
“Left home when she was fifteen,” Mozelle continued. “Went to live with somebody else. I never could do nothin' with her. Uh-uhhh. Never could, not one day in her life. She could have had all these advantages.” She swept her arm to show what she meant. “But nooo. That wasn’t what she wanted. What she wanted was to be contentious and cantankarous. Well, see if I help her out when she come runnin’ back.”
Talba made a quick calculation. The girl would be nineteen now—apparently she hadn’t come running back in four years. “Are you in touch with her at all?”
