Blanche Passes Go

by Barbara Neely

  “Who in town don’t belong?”

  “No women, of course, but I can’t think of any man in my social circle who isn’t a member.”

  “Thanks, Archibald. I’ll be in touch. Oh, one more question. What happens if you lose your key?”

  “You’re given another, with a new number, and your old number is struck from the log.”

  Blanche had no idea why she was so interested in Palmer’s missing key, but, having dreamed about keys the night before, she couldn’t help feeling she was on to something. She saluted her Ancestors, exercised, ate, and dressed before she called Miz Minnie and invited herself over. “I’ll bring you some apple tarts,” Blanche said. She didn’t mention they were left over from a catering job.

  “Club been there, oh, maybe seven, eight or so years now,” Miz Minnie told Blanche. “I hear it started as a way for the decent rich white mens to show they was different from they Klan-joining brothers—although none of them seem to want to do right by us, no matter which club they in. ” Miz Minnie shot a streak of tobacco juice into the label-less can beside her chair. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, then went on talking: “Leroy Sacks been workin’ there must be since the thing started,” she added when Blanche told her what she was after. “I believe his oldest boy’s workin’ there, too. He about your age.”

  “Bunnie Sacks, who lived over by the high school?” Blanche saw a lanky, honey-beige boy with bedroom eyes and perfect lips. Bunnie had been more interested in studying than in going to dances and parties, which had made him all the more fascinating to the girls in their class, including Blanche. She wondered if he remembered her.

  It was still early when Blanche got to Ardell’s to do her share of today’s prep work for the cocktail party they were working that evening. She needed to get her work out of the way: she had other plans for the bulk of the day. She’d already made fifty each of miniature ham and cheese puff-pastry tarts for tonight. They were in the freezer and would only need glazing before being popped in the oven. Now she prepared a huge pot of her mini ground-turkey-and-chicken meatballs simmered in a hot garlic-and-soy sauce—a spicier version of one she’d found in an old Julia Child cookbook many years ago.

  “Humm, Sounds like the old mistress thing,” Ardell said when Blanche told her about Mary’s visit and the flowers Palmer was sending.

  “Don’t it, now? ’Course, he could have a real sick friend or a lonely maiden aunt he cheers up with weekly flowers,” Blanche said, “but I doubt it.”

  “What you gonna do?”

  “Find out why a single man like him is backstreeting at all. These old families is as used to men screwing around out of their class as they are to having money, so I don’t think that’s it. I ain’t seen him with a woman at the bicentennial things either. Makes me think he’s banging somebody’s wife.”

  “Humm, if she is somebody’s wife, I sure would like to hear what kinda story she tells her husband about where all them flowers come from.”

  “I’ll be glad if I can just find out who she is.”

  As soon as she was done, Blanche grabbed her bag. She stopped on her way out the door to call Bunnie Sacks. His line was busy.

  “Good hunting!” Ardell called after her.

  Blanche knew she should try to curb her hopes. This flower thing could lead her to another woman who may have seen some of the Palmer Blanche knew, instead of the Mr. Likable people kept talking about. But if that woman was Palmer’s lover…Just find out what you can find out, she told herself, then figure out what to do with it.

  She hurried downtown and once again settled herself on the bench across from Buckley Flowers, with a newspaper and her thermos of tea to keep her company. She opened the paper, then ignored it in favor of the tea. Three people went in and out of the shop while she watched: a young white woman, an elderly white man, and a younger black man. The woman came out folding a piece of paper she put in her purse. The elderly white man came out with a bunch of flowers wrapped in blue-and-white-striped paper tied with a red ribbon. The black man came out with a bucket and squeegee and began washing the front window. Yes, indeed, some things hadn’t changed a bit.

  At eleven-thirty, Aurelia stepped out of the flower shop. She came back promptly at quarter past twelve carrying a grocery bag. The brunette white woman who’d opened the shop yesterday left at twelve-forty-five. She didn’t get back until two-thirty. Blanche thought she saw a bit of a sway in the woman’s walk. She had a feeling that if she got close enough to Flower Shop Lady she’d pick up a whiff of one of the milder-smelling liquors—gin or vodka—favored by a number of genteel lady drinkers she’d worked for in the past. In one case, it had taken her two days to realize the constant glass of what her employer said was ice water was that and more. Blanche put the lid on her thermos and folded the newspaper. She’d seen what she’d come to see; now she had to get ready for work.

  Although she didn’t have a minute to spare, she was happy to hear the phone ringing when she walked into the Miz Alice.

  “Hey, Malik, how’s it goin?”

  Malik showed no surprise that she knew it was him before he spoke.

  “Hey, Moms. I’m cool. What’s up with you?”

  “Everything is everything. How’s camp going? How was Outward Bound?” She settled back in her chair, her mind cleared of everything but learning as much as she could about what was going on with Malik and concern for his well-being—except for the part of her mind that was always surprised by her ability to let Malik and Taifa take up the center of her life even though she didn’t ever give them all of herself and didn’t think she should.

  “Man, Outward Bound was da bomb diggity. I mean it, Moms! We had to climb up the side of this cliff. One guy almost fell.”

  “But you were fine.” She spoke with confidence even as a picture of him hanging by one ankle over a height so high there was no bottom to be seen zipped through her mind.

  “Yeah, I did all right. And guys really had each other’s backs, you know? So if you messed up or something…It was cool, Moms.”

  “Make any new friends?” Blanche tensed once the question was out. She waited for Malik to get on her about always trying to get him to make friends outside of the neighborhood, but he fooled her.

  “Maybe,” he said. “A guy named Ray. He’s from Cambridge.”

  “It’s nice he’s so close.”

  “Yeah, we been talking about maybe doing handball this winter if…But I’m not the only one making friends, or so I hear. I tried to call you, but you were out.”

  Blanche hesitated, trying to get a hold on all that was being said and not said. “Ardell’s been keeping me hopping,” she said finally, deciding to take the neutral road and see what happened. “She’s got a lot of catering business because of the town’s bicentennial.”

  “Unh-unh. I got a letter from Ifa. She told me you were seeing some guy.” Malik sounded half tempted to make a joke of it and half tempted to accuse her of something.

  “His name is Thelvin Lewis. He’s a conductor for Amtrak.”

  “A train conductor? Cool.” He hesitated for a few moments. “So—what’s up with you two? I mean, Taifa said…”

  Blanche cut him off before he could tell her what Taifa had to say on the subject of Thelvin. It would only irritate her, and, anyway, this was Malik’s time. “There really ain’t nothing much to tell, Malik. We went out a couple times. We’re just having fun.”

  “You’re not thinking about…I mean, Taifa said it sounded like you and him were getting real tight. I mean, like…”

  “If I decide to elope with him, I’ll give y’all at least a week’s notice. I promise. But I don’t see it happening anytime soon. Okay?”

  “Okay Moms, I get it.”

  Blanche changed the subject to how she liked living in the Miz Alice. “When I was a kid, I used to pretend I lived all alone in this l
ittle house. It’s as much fun as I thought it’d be. I’m just not getting to spend much time in it,” she told him before she explained that she needed to get ready for work.

  She had to hurry through her shower. She knew that once she got to the job she was going to be run off her feet serving cocktails and canapés to forty people. It was just her and Clarice working the floor tonight.

  On the job, Blanche circulated, smiled, offered her tray of goodies, refilled the tray and started all over again. About halfway through the party she took a moment to look the crowd over—pretty much the same bunch she’d been seeing at most of the bicentennial events. There was the beyond-middle-aged woman who always wore pink; the young couples working so hard to seem gay and carefree while their eyes brimmed with boredom; the women alone who fiddled with their little clutch bags as though they were prayer beads, and looked so grateful when someone approached them; the folks who seemed always to be in a spot where fresh drinks were being offered and whose complexions grew rosier, hand gestures larger, and laughter merrier as the evening went on. Over there, by the window, was the snorer. He and his wife separated at the door, she to mingle, he to find a quiet corner with a chair where he slipped off to sleep until his wife roused him to go home. The dancing show-offs were there, too, looking dejected that there was no musical center stage for them to occupy. In her mind, Blanche redressed them all in polyester; she moved the party to the Holiday Inn and appreciated how little difference money made to who people really are at heart. The rich could afford better psychiatrists, but they were still as crazy, as low on self-esteem, as bored, sleepy, and lonely as everyone else.

  The job had gone well, but by the time she got home, the whole evening was a blur of heavy trays, spilled wine, the hostess and her husband arguing in hissy whispers in the pantry, and a guest too drunk to leave the bathroom. Blanche fell into bed without brushing her teeth and found nothing but sleep, deep and comforting as the womb. She woke full of a plan for how to approach Aurelia and find out where Palmer’s flowers were being sent.

  NINETEEN

  THE MISTRESS OF DISGUISE,PART ONE

  Blanche pulled out the housecleaning uniform she’d brought along: old and gray with frump written all over it. She put on the black, lace-up oxfords she usually wore only when it rained, mashed a straw hat over her cornrows, and grabbed her handbag. It was just one-ten when she opened the door to the flower shop.

  Inside, it was cool and smelled of fresh green and that nose-tingling essence of flowers that was more peppery than sweet.

  “Afternoon, miss.” She gave Aurelia a shy smile.

  Aurelia looked at her as though she thought Blanche might have wandered into the wrong place. “May I help you?” Her voice was as cool as the shop, and Blanche was prepared to bet her tone was a cheap imitation of that of the woman Aurelia worked for.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Blanche lowered her eyes in seeming deference. Whatever works, she told herself.

  “Well, my missus told me to pick up the cleaning, ya see.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, the young mister, he was there at the time, ya see, and he heard her say it and…”

  “Does this story eventually have something to do with flowers?”

  Blanche could see the pleasure in Aurelia’s eyes at having made this snappy remark.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am.” Blanche began wringing her hands. “Like I was sayin’, ma’am, the young mister, he give me this note and ast me to stop in here on my way to pick up the cleaning and put in this order for these here flowers, ya see.”

  “Yes, all right.” Aurelia held out her hand. “Let me see the note.”

  “Well, you see, that’s just the problem, ma’am.” Blanche opened her handbag and rooted around in it. “I done took everything outa this here pocketbook of mines and I can’t find that note nowheres.” She gave Aurelia a pitiful look. “He don’t like it when ya mess up,” she mumbled. “The young mister, I mean.” Blanche could feel disdain oozing out of Aurelia like fat from bacon.

  “Well, if you don’t have the note, there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Well, now, ma’am, ya see, this ain’t the first time. I mean, he done it before, ya see. Couple times. Give me a note to bring y’all ’bout them flowers he all the time sends.”

  A pitchfork-shaped frown marked Aurelia’s forehead.

  “That nice white lady with the long brown hair was here last time. She say, ‘Oh yes, the usual. He send them every week, same address, same flowers,’ she say, and didn’t even take the note, just looked it up someplace or somethin’, I guess, or…Well, maybe I just oughta talk to her. She here?”

  “What’s your employer’s name?” Aurelia pulled a large ledger out from under the counter.

  “Why, Palmer, ma’am. It was the young mister, Mr. David, who gave me the note and tole me…”

  “Yes, all right.” Aurelia turned pages sharply. “All right. David Palmer. Yes, I have it right here.”

  Blanche moved as close to the counter as she could get and coughed as hard as she could, holding her chest and doubling over. Aurelia moved back and looked at Blanche as though her first name was Typhoid. Blanche panted for a few seconds while she worked not to laugh. Then: “Ma’am, I wonder if I could trouble you for a drop of water?” She began coughing again.

  Aurelia turned and stepped behind a screen to her left. Blanche spun the ledger around and looked quickly down a column of names until she found Palmer’s. She heard a faucet running. In the Deliver To column was written “14 Decatur Street, Durham.” There was no name. The water stopped running. Blanche flipped the ledger back to its original position. Aurelia returned with a small paper cup half full of tepid water.

  “Lordy, ma’am,” Blanche said when she’d finished her water. “I done troubled y’all for nothin’. The young mister done sent me in here without a penny to pay y’all with and Lord knows I can’t spare a dime.”

  Aurelia gave her a puzzled and suspicious look. Blanche thanked her and hurried out of the shop. She made sure not to break out in a grin until she was out of sight of the shop. She could hardly wait to tell Ardell about her little scene with Aurelia and the way she’d used Aurelia’s uppityness to work her ass. Silly cow. Aurelia was black enough and old enough to know better than to judge people by how they dressed and talked. Anybody that stupid deserved to be played. Shoulda figured out a way to get myself a flower or two, she thought, giggling to herself.

  Saturday afternoon, Blanche borrowed Ardell’s car and drove to Durham. Decatur Street turned out to be a small, working-class-looking street not too far from Duke University. Most of the mid-sized houses on one side had two or more mailboxes, which made her think this might be a student area. The other side of the street had fewer houses. A weeded lot took up the corner space. Next to it was number 14: a small brick two-story house mostly hidden by trees and shrubs. It felt like nobody was home. The street was deserted except for a few cars at the curb. She was tempted to knock on the door of the little house, but what if someone answered? She turned the corner and continued down a similar street, still thinking how to approach number 14. She was going to have to come back.

  She took the car back to Ardell’s and headed for her mother’s: Cousin Sauda had arrived from Angelica yesterday.

  Blanche didn’t know what she’d expected her cousin to look like, but Sauda Leon was quite a surprise. Although her long flat nose and large shapely lips came straight from Africa, her skin was the color of rich cream, her hair red-gold and just slightly wavy instead of kinky. Mama looked dazzled, as though she’d been out in the sun too long. Blanche doubted if there would ever be a time in America when color went unnoticed.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Cousin Blanche,” Sauda said with a lilt in her voice that reminded Blanche of steel-drum bands in the park on Harlem summer nights.

  “Auntie Cora says you might be able to
help me get some work. I got a scholarship, but I need money for…”

  Blanche looked at her mother.

  “With the catering, I was thinkin’,” Miz Cora had the nerve to say.

  “It’s Ardell’s business, Mama, I can’t just…”

  “Already talked to her.” Miz Cora looked as satisfied as a dog with two bones. “She say maybe y’all could use somebody to help out.”

  Was Ardell out of her mind!? This girl might not know a cutting board from a washboard! Blanche jumped up from her chair. Or, more likely, Ardell didn’t have the guts to say no to Mama and had left it up to her to do it. “Well, I just dropped by for a hot minute, to meet Sauda and say welcome. I got a lot to do this afternoon, but I’ll stop by tonight, or maybe tomorrow, and we can talk about it.” While she was speaking, Blanche was also inching toward the front door. Now she opened it.

  “Wait a minute, Blanche! We can settle this right now! Ardell said you…”

  “Sorry, Mama, I gotta run.” Blanche snapped the door closed behind her and hurried down the street, feeling beat on by family and friend alike.

  TWENTY

  THELVIN, THELVIN, THELVIN

  This was the first time Blanche could remember a man inviting her to his place for Sunday brunch prepared by his own hands. She stopped at the Quick Mart and picked up the Sunday Durham Herald Sun. She looked at the skimpy array of regional papers in the store and longed for the Village Voice or even the New York Times. It was funny about the New York things she still missed after having been gone from the city all these years: the speed of underground travel that Boston’s subway system just didn’t seem to match; the sound of three or more languages being spoken in her multicolored neighborhood; black people dressed in ways that were neither American nor European; the particularly oily, sweet, foody smell of busier parts of Harlem.

  Thelvin opened the door before she rang his bell. He’d wanted to drive over and pick her up, but she’d borrowed Ardell’s car for the short ride to Durham. The big old house where Thelvin lived had a feeling of protection about it, as though anyone welcomed inside would be well taken care of. It had likely once been a single dwelling but was now a duplex. Thelvin was waiting in the doorway, a big fluffy white cat lolling in his arms.