Minute Maids

by Rachel Caine

  Zenobia scooted over to make room and passed Rita-Mae a gray-looking toothbrush. Rita-Mae dunked it in water and started scratching at the cracks in the floor; Zenobia gave Olida a grin, but that died as she got a good look at Olida's face.

  "Anything wrong?" she asked. Olida blinked and looked down at her; the Mexican woman's face was screwed up in a frown. "You look strange."

  "I feel strange," Olida said, and shrugged. Poor folks get back to work.

  "You are strange," Rita-Mae said. If it was supposed to be a joke, none of them laughed. Rita-Mae kept scrubbing at the blood and didn't look at anything or anybody else.

  There was nothing much left to do. Olida folded up the ladder and set it aside, went down the other hall a little ways to look for blood drops. She found a smear on the wall and wiped it off with her sponge. It left a little pink stain on the crumbling paint. She bent over to look at something on the floor -- and it scuttled off, cockroach or damn big spider.

  Damn, she didn't like it here. No more than Rita-Mae did, or Zenobia. She wanted to go home and listen to Lark grumble on about the television or her church or the food she should have been cooking up.

  She didn't want to be here no more.

  As she looked up from the faded carpet, she saw a shadow move at the end of the hall. No cockroach, not that big. Her hair tightened on her head. She swallowed hard and started to call for Rita-Mae and Zenobia, but they were working. Nothing, she told herself. I ain't seeing nothing.

  There were stairs at the end of the hall, and a door about halfway down. Olida took a few steps that way, looked back.

  Rita-Mae was scrubbing at the floor, head down, face hidden by sweaty blond hair. Zenobia had her back turned.

  Olida went to the door and looked inside.

  The first thing she noticed in the confusion was a fur coat, lying over a chair like a dead dog. It was moth-eaten, and one sleeve had come apart in spirals. On the floor beside it was a pink dress, frilly, the kind little girls only wore to church at Easter or to parties too fancy for them to enjoy. On the bed, a new-looking ski jacket. A pair of faded blue jeans. A silky pair of women's underwear.

  There were clothes everywhere, thrown in piles, spilling over a dusty bed and crowding open the closet door like animals that died trying to escape. Olida took a step inside and heard a rustle as something small ran for cover. Rats, probably. And more cockroaches.

  Nobody lived in this room.

  The ski jacket was new, though. The underwear looked new, too.

  The curtains were pulled completely shut, but a few rays of sunlight tore through holes in the dusty fabric and fell on the water-stained carpet. It didn't make the room look any more cheerful.

  There was a lopsided dresser against the wall. One drawer hung open like a tongue sticking out at her. Olida picked her way through the hills and valleys of clothes to reach it and look inside. She saw a tangle of things that looked like leather.

  She lifted out a wallet. It was a man's wallet, well-worn. Inside there were about thirty dollars and a faded Nevada drivers license that belonged to a stranger, a knobby-faced white man in his late fifties.

  The license had expired in 1984. Olida put it down and pulled out another one, a woman's, stuffed with pictures of smiling children. Another stranger. The address on her drivers license was in Bloomington, Illinois. She was about thirty, pretty, red-haired.

  Her license was still current.

  There were thirty or forty wallets piled in the drawer, along with loose change, folding money, loose pictures. Olida fished out a coin and looked at it. A silver dollar, solid silver, from the '60s.

  She figured there must be more than a thousand dollars lying loose in the drawer. And that was just the one that was open.

  The whole room smelled like dry rot. She turned away and stumbled back to the door, took deep gulps of the tainted air of the hall. The silver dollar felt cool in her palm.

  "Zenobia," she called.

  "Aqui."

  "You seen a phone here?"

  "No. Maybe in the kitchen?"

  Olida tried to remember. She kept seeing the velvet-lined drawers, the tools, the pile of things on the floor.

  "Never mind that. I want you to leave and call the police."

  "Police!" Zenobia echoed. She scuffled around as she got to her feet. "What we got to call the police about?"

  "Just do what I say. Take your car and call them," Olida said, and came back down the hall. The sunlight was murky in the entryway, barely struggling in through warped yellow panes of glass next to the Deacon's triple-locked door. Rita-Mae's face looked ghostly and strained, and she clutched her red-stained toothbrush in front of her like a weapon. Zenobia just looked confused. "Rita-Mae, you go on home, too. I'll wait for the police in my car."

  "But -- " Zenobia shrugged and dumped her toothbrush in the pail. "Okay, we're done anyway. What do I tell them?"

  "Tell them I got somethin' to show them," Olida said. Would the police even listen to an old nigger woman? Her heart felt fluttery in her chest again. She didn't like the police, but what else could she do?

  It took a minute to pack up, but it was done in silence. Rita-Mae dumped bottles into her box without worrying about spilling anything, and stuffed sponges in still wet on top of paper towels. Zenobia, catching nerves from Rita-Mae, piled things haphazardly into her crate and lifted it with a grunt. She balanced it on her hip and turned the doorknob.

  It didn't open. Zenobia sighed and checked the deadbolts.

  It still didn't open. Rita-Mae flew over and clicked the locks, on-off, yanked on the knob. Nothing happened.

  Rita-Mae kicked the door, threw her whole weight against it. Olida, light-headed, braced herself against the wall.

  "It won't open! It won't open!" Rita-Mae panted. Zenobia pushed her aside and tried it herself.

  Finally, she stopped rattling the knob, and the three of them just looked at each other. Rita-Mae was shaking all over, face white and damp. Olida could feel her own sweat sliding down her forehead. Zenobia just looked surprised.

  "Olida?" Zenobia asked. "What do we do now?"

  Pray, Olida thought. "Look for the back door."

  They left the carrying cases and crates in the hallway and went back to the kitchen. Olida kept hold of Rita-Mae's arm. Every once in a while she felt the skin shake, like a horse's trying to get rid of a biting fly.

  "In the kitchen," Zenobia said decisively. "Everybody has a back door in the kitchen. Madre de Dios!"

  She stopped in the doorway and covered her mouth and nose, squinted her eyes until they were little brown lines in her face. Olida coughed the smell out of her mouth and hauled Rita-Mae along past garbage bags and the pile of metal in the floor. Zenobia followed more slowly, staring.

  There was a screen door at the back of the kitchen, hidden behind a rickety metal table. Olida shoved it out of the way and pulled the door handle; the door opened with a rusty squeal. The room on the other side was dark; she felt along the wall and found the cool plastic of the light switch.

  She stopped, because she didn't want to see what the Deacon had hidden in the dark.

  Damn if she was going to start being spooked. Olida flicked the switch up.

  Rita-Mae trembled once, a whole-body shiver, and laughed out loud. And kept laughing, crazy as a loon.

  It was a laundry room, washer and dryer, antique-looking but just the same kind Olida had in her own house. A blue laundry basket with most of its plastic rim broken off squatted on top, and a box of laundry detergent with the lid ripped off sat over to the side. He had a box of fabric softener sheets on the windowsill.

  Everything was dusty.

  There wasn't any way out, not even a little window.

  "Come on," Olida sighed, and turned away. The screen door slammed closed. Rita-Mae stood there staring at it, hands clenched into white fists.

  "Used to be a door," she muttered. "Crazy bastard took it out. How come he took out the goddamn door?"

  "Don't m
atter, Rita, let's just look for the phone," Zenobia said steadily. Rita-Mae glared at her, blew stringy hair back from her red face.

  "You look for the goddamn phone. I just want out. I ain't stayin' here. No way am I stayin' here. I don't get paid enough for this."

  Olida left them and went on across the hall.

  The sitting room across the hall was dusty but neat. Olida picked up one of the magazines on the coffee table -- a church magazine, put out by the district. And he had a few old woodworking and craft magazines, too. Nothing too new.

  Rita-Mae was still muttering, and getting louder as she paced. Olida heard metal skitter loudly over the kitchen floor and looked back to see the white woman kicking at the pile of forks and spoons, jaw knotted up and trembling.

  Zenobia, coming into the sitting room, shrugged and rolled her eyes and mouthed crazy gringa. She walked over to the big window next to the television set and pulled the curtains back.

  "Hey, look, Lida, I can see your house," she said. Olida came over. Zenobia was right; over a scrubby-looking tree and two fences she caught sight of her green-painted house, and the hollyhocks blooming. "We got to keep our heads. We're okay. Can't be too bad if we can wave to Lark, huh?"

  Funny how home looked strange now -- the porch, the sagging chairs, the new red shingles that had cost her almost all their savings last month. Looked like somebody else's house, Olida thought. That made her feel kind of sick and light-headed.

  "The hell we're okay," Rita-Mae said, and stomped into the room and over to the window. "This is stupid. I don't care if we have to rip a hole in the fucking wall, I'm getting out of here."

  "We can't do that," Zenobia said patiently. Rita-Mae's jaw got tighter and whiter.

  "Why? You think he got a right to lock us up in here?"

  "Because if we're wrong we'll have to pay for it," Olida said wearily. "Rita-Mae, why don't you sit down, watch some TV or something while we figure this out?"

  Rita-Mae glared and stalked over to twist the knob. Nothing happened.

  "Hell," she muttered. "Asshole doesn't even have a decent TV."

  "Try plugging it in," Zenobia suggested. Olida tried the locks on the window. They just turned, useless. What now, she thought. She couldn't stop staring at her house across the way, with its pretty new shingles and the hollyhocks waving in a breeze she couldn't feel.

  Rita-Mae grabbed hold of the TV and pulled on it. It slid out from the wall with a hiss of wood on carpet, and she crouched to look.

  Olida tried to pull the window up. It didn't even creak.

  "I ain't believin' this," the white woman said. She pointed behind the TV set. Olida bent and looked with her.

  The set had no back. And nothing inside, just the glass, painted gray on the inside. And a thick layer of creamy-looking dust.

  Olida straightened up and wiped her forehead. It was too hot, and she was too old to understand any of this.

  "This is crazy," Rita-Mae said with conviction. For Rita, a gutted-out TV was worse than slaughtered babies. "Man, this guy's really sick."

  There was a faded family picture on the sitting room wall. There was old Reverend James Graham, looking like a tyrant, one hand on the shoulder of his mousy wife Evelyn Graham. And little George, tucked between them. He looked big-eyed, like any child at that age. And his sister Charity huddled behind their mother. Olida walked over to look at it close up.

  "I hate this fucking place," Rita-Mae declared, and went off down the hall. Zenobia stared wide-eyed after her, then followed.

  Olida watched the photograph.

  She was seeing double. The picture looked out of focus. Lord, she thought, I believe I'm going to faint.

  The second little George Graham blinked. His eyes were bright with the camera flash. Charity Graham sank down even farther. Her eyes looked swollen. Mother Evelyn turned around to look at her, held her hand.

  They'd had their picture taken right here, right in this room. Olida was looking at a reflection of something over her own shoulder.

  She turned to look at the sofa, where they'd sat for the picture.

  Their lips moved, but they weren't really there, not really seeing her. Little big-eyed George Graham stared off into space, in her direction, and his image flickered and faded out just like an old TV picture.

  Reverend James Graham was the last one to go, staring straight ahead. When he was only a shadow against the flaking wallpaper, he turned and looked right at Olida.

  She covered her eyes. When she looked again, he was gone.

  They were all gone.

  Zenobia was calling for her, down the hall. Olida wiped her forehead with trembling fingers and went. Her arm felt numb again.

  She walked down the hall anyway. It didn't seem too hard.

  "The door to the garage is locked," Zenobia reported. Rita-Mae leaned against the wall, arms wrapped around herself for comfort. "I don't find no other doors."

  "This is bullshit, Olida. I want out of here. Out. Now," Rita said. Olida sighed.

  "I know, honey. We'll find a way."

  "You want a way? I'll show you the goddamn way." Rita-Mae pushed past Olida down the hall, to the sitting room. Olida got to the door just as Rita-Mae picked up the gutted TV and threw it at the window.

  "Hey!" Olida yelled -- too late. Rita-Mae had thrown it hard, and straight.

  It bounced off.

  They all stared at it as it thumped back on the carpet, and then stared at the window. It vibrated, and stopped. The TV screen was cracked right across in a jagged line like a streak of lightning.

  "Would you look at that," Zenobia murmured. She went to the window and tapped on it. "Not glass. Some kind of plastic."

  "Plastic?" Rita-Mae said. Her eyes opened wider, and wider, until Olida thought they were going to pop out and roll around on the floor. Pink skin turned beet-red all along her cheeks and nose. "Plastic? PLASTIC?"

  She picked up the TV. Olida grabbed for it, yelled for Zenobia to help her, and together they got it away and Zenobia wrestled Rita-Mae back to the dusty old couch. Rita-Mae stopped fighting and sat there, panting, glaring out of red-rimmed eyes.

  "Olida?" Rita asked. Olida nudged the TV back up against the wall. "Olida, I fuckin' quit. Do you hear me? I QUIT!"

  Olida leaned against the wall and wished, just for a second, that she had a gun. She was mortally sure she could use it.

  "The front door," Zenobia said suddenly. Olida looked up, and Zenobia was grinning, ear to ear. "Tools in the kitchen. We take the hinges off!"

  "Yeah!" Rita-Mae cheered. "Take the hinges off! Yeah!"

  Olida felt her lips slide into a smile. It felt good.

  They were going to do it. They were.

  * * *

  An hour later, Zenobia sat back and blew on her reddened fingers. The hinges weren't moving. The Deacon had soldered them somehow, and even against the hacksaw, they were still holding.

  Rita-Mae wasn't.

  "Give me that," Rita ordered. Zenobia handed it over. Rita-Mae worked for about two minutes before her patience ran out, and she started hammering on the door with her bare hands.

  Olida couldn't stand it anymore, and she walked off into the hall to catch her breath. The hammering sounded like her fluttering heartbeats as it got softer in the distance.

  Shadows moved at the end of the other hall, next to the staircase. I ain't going down there, Olida told herself. She tried the front door again, rattled it, pulled as hard as she could.

  I ain't going down that hall.

  There were pictures on the walls all the way down. She flipped on a light and looked at them. There was George Graham as a child, a fat baby in a sailor suit. Charity, two or three, looking sullen. Charity disappeared from the wall after about the age of twelve, but George continued in class pictures and high school graduation. Toward the end Evelyn Graham dropped off the wall, too; Olida remembered the funeral. Reverend Graham appeared one more time.

  George had framed his obituary.

  "GRAHAM, R
EVEREND JAMES. Passed away on August 17, after a lengthy illness. Survived by his beloved son George and daughter Charity Graham Warriner. Services will be held at the Calvary Temple on August 23 at 2:00 p.m." That much was right, she remembered. But not the sentence typed on after. "He died too late."

  She kept reading it over. Died too late.

  The last picture was of Deacon George, dressed in his Sunday best, shaking hands with Reverend Hillyard from over at Hemple Baptist.

  There were shadows at the bottom of the stairs. Olida pushed through them and went up the steps. The third creaked like her old bones, the fourth didn't make any sound at all. There was a light switch halfway up but the lights didn't work. Deacon George didn't go upstairs often, she figured.

  Or didn't need the light.

  "Olida?"

  Olida yelped and almost tripped. Zenobia stood in the shadows at the foot of the stairs, looking scared. She still had her hacksaw. Behind her Rita-Mae waited, hunched against a cold that sure wasn't in the air. The house was hotter than a blacktop in July.

  "Don't go up there," Zenobia said more quietly.

  "What about the door?"

  "I can't get it open. Please, don't go up there."

  "If the door ain't gonna open, I got to," Olida said. "Phone must be up there. I've called the man. I know he's got a phone."

  She took another step up into the dark. Behind her, she heard a step creak.

  "Then we all go. Come on, Rita."

  "No way!"

  "You want to stay here alone?"

  "I -- "

  Rita-Mae sounded like she was out of breath, or crying. But when Olida looked back, she saw two shadows following her.

  The staircase sounded like something alive, all creaks and groans and whispers. Olida found the top and something that felt like carpet. She reached up along the wall. Nothing.

  "Rita-Mae, go back and get us some flashlights," she ordered.

  "Why me?"

  "You want to go up here in the dark?"

  The stairs creaked again. On the way back Rita-Mae ran, feet pounding on the groaning wood, breath whistling. Her light waved and bobbed, nearly blinded Olida as Rita handed over the heavy metal flashlights.