Blanche Passes Go

by Barbara Neely

  A car not their father’s drew up in front of the house where Doretha, Lucinda, and Murlee lived. A woman and a man got out and went inside. A few minutes later, the girls and their mother came out of the house. The mother had a suitcase, each of the girls a big green plastic bag. The man was carrying a box. The woman opened the trunk for the box and bags, then got behind the wheel. The three girls piled into the back seat with their mother. As the car passed Blanche’s house, the three of them waved and Lucinda called out the window:

  “Bye, Mith Blanche. Thankth for the cookieth!”

  BLANCHE’S GIG FROM HELL DESSERT SAUCE

  4 egg yolks

  1/4 cup sugar

  7/8 cup muscat or any other sweet dessert wine

  1 cup heavy cream, whipped

  2 tablespoons lemon juice

  Whisk the eggs and sugar in a metal bowl until pale yellow. Add the wine and continue whisking until frothy. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water, being careful not to let the water touch the bottom of the bowl, and whisk until the sauce thickens slightly. Continue simmering and whisking until the sauce reaches 165 degrees on a candy thermometer. Cool immediately by putting the bowl in a second bowl of at least the same size half filled with ice. Whisk occasionally until cool. Just before serving, fold in the whipped cream and lemon juice.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to the following for their invaluable, clarifying, thought-provoking, insightful comments and editing: Babs Bigham, Pam Dorman, Nancy Falk, Roz Feldberg, Regina LeJeune, Susan Hans O’Connor, and Phyllis Wender, with very special thanks to Dick Cluster, Shelley Evans, and Pamela Harkins. Thanks as well to Jeanne Bracken for her research; Lisa Dodson for camp stories; Vernelle Jordan for helping me to understand; Joycelyn Moody for her menu advice; Ariel Rogers for her detective advice. Particular thanks to Chef Shola Olunloya in Philadelphia, for his recipe and dinner menu. Finally and primarily, undying gratitude to HWMIAP: Jeremiah Cotton.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Barbara Neely’s short fiction has appeared in various anthologies, including Breaking Ice, Things That Divide Us, Angels of Power, Speaking for Ourselves, and Test Tube Women. She lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, where she is working on the next Blanche White mystery.