by Brit Bennett
Soon she began to look forward to stepping through the glass doors, ambling slowly down the sidewalk with Blake. Soon she noticed how when he blinked, his eyelashes were dark and full like a baby doll. How on days when he had a big presentation, he wore bulldog cuff links, which he admitted, almost bashfully, were a gift from his ex-fiancée. The relationship had failed but he still considered them lucky.
“You’re observant, Stella,” he said. “I don’t think anybody’s ever asked me about these before.”
She noticed everything about him, but she didn’t tell this to anyone, especially not Desiree. This life wasn’t real. If Blake knew who she truly was, he would send her out of the office before she could even pack her things. But what had changed about her? Nothing, really. She hadn’t adopted a disguise or even a new name. She’d walked in a colored girl and left a white one. She had become white only because everyone thought she was.
Each evening, she went through the process in reverse. Miss Vignes climbed onto the streetcar where she became, again, Stella. At home, Stella never liked to talk about work, even when Desiree asked. She didn’t like to think about Miss Vignes when she wasn’t her, although, sometimes, the other girl appeared suddenly, the way you might think about an old friend. An evening lying about the apartment, and she might think, I wonder what Miss Vignes would be doing right now. Then there she was, Miss Vignes lounging in her lush home, a fur rug peeking between her toes, not this cramped studio she shared with a sister who always smelled like starch. Or one night, when they’d stood outside a restaurant waiting to be served at the colored window, she thought, Miss Vignes would not receive her food out an alley window like a street dog. She couldn’t tell if she was offended, or if Miss Vignes was on her behalf.
Sometimes she wondered if Miss Vignes was a separate person altogether. Maybe she wasn’t a mask that Stella put on. Maybe Miss Vignes was already a part of her, as if she had been split in half. She could become whichever woman she decided, whichever side of her face she tilted to the light.
* * *
—
NO ONE IN THE ESTATES knew what to make of it: Stella Sanders crossing the street to visit with that colored woman. Marge Hawthorne swore she saw her venture over months ago, Stella ducking her head as she carried a cake in her arms. “Welcoming that woman here, can you believe it?” Marge asked, and nobody did believe her, not at first. Marge was always imagining things; she’d sworn twice that she had seen Warren Beatty at the car wash. But then Cath Johansen spotted Stella and Loretta at the park, sitting side by side on a bench. Their shoulders rounded, casual and easy. Loretta said something that made Stella laugh, and Stella actually reached for Loretta’s cigarette and took a drag. Put that colored woman’s cigarette in her own mouth! This detail—specific and odd—made the story stick, not to mention the fact that Cath was telling it. She’d always been a little enamored with Stella, orbiting around her like a satellite planet happy to be washed in her light.
But when she told the other ladies about Stella and Loretta, Cath said that she’d never known Stella well, not really, and besides, there was always something a little strange about that woman. Betsy Roberts interrupted to tell the group that just that Monday, she’d seen Stella walking across the street with her daughter.
“That’s the shame of it,” she said. “To bring that little girl into all of this.”
But what all of this meant was anybody’s guess. No one said a word to Blake Sanders, who’d noticed Stella’s strangeness but had already accepted that his wife was the type of woman who fell into moods he could not decipher. His mother had warned him about her, said she wouldn’t be worth the trouble. He’d just started dating Stella then, but she’d been his secretary for two years already; he spoke to her more than to anyone else in his life. He could sense by the shape of her shoulders if she was in a bad mood; he could read in the slant of her handwriting when she was hurried. But dating Stella felt like unfolding an entirely new mystery. He never met anyone else in her life. No family, no friends, no former lovers. Back then, her distantness seemed dreamy. Romantic, even. But his mother said that Stella was hiding something.
“I don’t know what,” she’d said, “but I’ll tell you this—her family’s still alive.”
“Then why would she say they aren’t?”
“Because,” his mother said, “she probably comes from some backwoods Louisiana trash and she doesn’t want you to find out about it. Well, you’ll find out soon enough.”
His mother had wanted him to marry a different girl, one who came from a certain pedigree. In college, he’d escorted that type of girl to dozens of formals—society girls who bored him to tears. Maybe that’s why he was drawn to the pretty secretary who came from nowhere and had nobody. He didn’t mind her secrets. He would learn them in good time. But years had passed and she was as inscrutable as ever. He came home early from work one afternoon, calling her name, and found the house empty. When his wife and daughter finally returned, an hour later, Stella, surprised to see him, bent to give him a kiss.
“Sorry, darling,” she said. “We were at Cath’s and I lost track of time.”
Another time, he’d beaten her home because she’d stayed too late at Betsy Roberts’s house.
“What were you two talking about?” he asked later.
She was sitting in front of her vanity mirror, brushing her hair. One hundred strokes each night before bed; she’d read it in Glamour once. The red brush blurred, mesmerizing him.
“Oh, you know,” she said. “The girls. Little things like that.”
“I’ve just never known you to be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Well, friendly.”
She laughed. “I’m just being neighborly. Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me to get out more?”
“But you’re gone all the time now.”
“What am I supposed to do?” she said. “Tell Kennedy she can’t have friends?”
He’d been a shy child, so he never had many friends, colored or otherwise. But he did play with Jimbo, an ugly black rag doll with a plastic head and queer red lips. His father hated his son running around with a doll, a nigger doll at that, but Blake carried him everywhere, whispering all of his secrets into those plastic ears. This was a friend, someone who guarded your feelings behind that frozen red smile. Then one day, he stepped into the yard and saw clumps of cotton scattered all over the grass. On the dirt pathway, there was Jimbo, gutted, arms and legs strewn, his insides spilling out. The dog must’ve got to it, his father told him, but Blake always imagined him tossing that doll into the dog’s snapping jaws. He’d knelt, picking up one of Jimbo’s arms. He’d always wondered what the inside of the doll might look like. For some reason, he’d thought the cotton would be brown.
* * *
—
BY CHRISTMASTIME, Stella had spent so many afternoons at Loretta’s house that, out of habit, she told Loretta one Monday that she’d see her tomorrow. “It’s Christmas Eve, honey,” Loretta said, laughing, and Stella laughed too, embarrassed that she’d forgotten. She always dreaded the holidays. She could never stop thinking about her family, even though their celebrations were nothing like hers now. A tree so tall the star brushed against the ceiling, so much food for dinner that she got sick of leftovers, and mountains of presents awaiting Kennedy. Each December, she piled into the department store with the other mothers, clutching the letter to Santa, and tried to imagine a childhood like this. The twins always received one present apiece, something useful like a new church dress. One year, Stella received a piglet from the Delafosse farm that she named Rosalee. For months, she’d fed Rosalee, running when the pig chased her around the yard. Then Easter Sunday came and her mother killed the pig for supper.
“And I ate every single bite,” she told her daughter once. She thought the story might teach Kennedy to be a little more grateful; she hadn’t expec
ted the girl to burst out crying, staring at her as if she were some monster. Maybe she was. She didn’t remember crying for that pig at all.
“You all doing anything exciting for the holidays?” Loretta asked.
“Just a few people coming over,” Stella said. “A small thing, we do it every year.”
The party was not a small event; they’d hired caterers and a string quartet, invited the entire neighborhood. But of course, she couldn’t tell this to Loretta. She’d known, licking the invitations shut, that she could never invite the Walkers.
On Christmas Eve, the Johansens arrived first, bearing a brick-hard fruit cake, then the Pearsons carrying bourbon for the eggnog. The Robertses, deeply Catholic, brought a tiny blonde angel for the tree. Then the Hawthornes waving from the front steps with homemade fudge, the Whites with an ironic beach snow globe, and soon the living room crowded with company. Stella felt hot from all the people, or the mulled wine, or maybe even from knowing that, across the street, Loretta could probably hear the music. She must have seen that endless parade of neighbors climbing up the steps. Or maybe not. Her own parents had arrived that evening; Stella had watched the elderly couple climb out of the Cadillac, Reg hefting the suitcases from the trunk, Loretta wrapping her arms around their backs as they glanced around the neighborhood, as dazed as if they’d stumbled into another country. Wouldn’t her own mother look at her new life the same way? At least Loretta’s parents would be proud. She had come upon her nice things the honest way, not by stealing a life not meant for her. Then again, she and Loretta had both wound up in the Estates by marrying well. Maybe there wasn’t such a big difference between the two after all.
Blake swapped her empty glass with another mulled wine, bending to kiss her cheek. He loved hosting parties, even though it only made Stella want to find a corner and hide. Betsy pulling her into a conversation about linens, Cath asking where she’d purchased an end table, Dale dangling mistletoe over her head. She was lingering on the edge of a circle, wondering if her daughter was still spying through the bannister, always afraid that she was missing something exciting. Then the circle of neighbors lit up with laughter, smiling at her, awaiting a response.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “What was it again?”
She was so easily embarrassed at these parties. She’d catch herself on the edge of a political discussion—the Vietnam situation, perhaps, or an upcoming election—and someone would ask what she thought. Even though she read the newspapers and had her opinions like anyone else, her mind went blank. She was always afraid that she’d say the wrong thing. Now Dale Johansen was smirking at her.
“I said I’m wondering when your new friend might show up,” he said.
“Oh I don’t know,” she said. “I think everyone’s here by now.”
When the others exchanged amused glances, she blushed. She hated being the butt of a joke.
“What’re you talking about, Dale?” she said.
Dale laughed. “I’m just asking if your friend from across the street is coming. I’m sure she can hear the music out there.”
Stella paused, her heart thrumming.
“She’s not my friend,” she said.
“Well, people are saying that you’ve been calling on her,” Cath said.
“So?”
“So is it true? Have you been visiting with her?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your goddamn business,” Stella said.
Betsy Roberts gasped. Tom Pearson laughed uncomfortably, as if he were willing it to become a joke. Suddenly, Stella felt as if she had transformed into a totally new creature in their eyes. Something wild and feral. Cath stepped back, her cheeks pink.
“Well, everyone’s talking,” she said. “I just thought you should know.”
* * *
—
THE NERVE OF THAT WOMAN.
In front of the bathroom mirror, Stella fumed, splashing water on her face. Where did Cath Johansen get off anyway? Storming into her house with that dry slab of fruit cake and telling her, to her face, in her own home, in front of everyone, that the entire neighborhood was judging her. Dale grinning dumbly beside her, Blake watching with that confused look on his face like he’d woken up from a nap to find all these strangers standing around in his living room. She’d stormed upstairs and smoked a cigarette hanging out the bedroom window. She could hear the quiet murmuring of the party downstairs, Blake, no doubt, making excuses for her. Oh don’t mind, Stella, she’s always a little testy this time of the year. Yes, her holiday blues, who knows, who can understand that woman half the time anyway? Then the Johansens and the Hawthornes and the Pearsons stepping carefully down the walkway, past the manicured lawns, behind their identical front doors to whisper about her. If only they knew. The thought ran through her head deliciously, the same way she always thought, driving on an overpass, of turning her wheel and sending herself careening over the rail. There was nothing more tantalizing than the possibility of total destruction.
“I mean, can you believe it?” she told Blake. “In my own home! Talking to me like that. I mean, where does she find the nerve?”
She furiously spread night cream on her face. Blake lingered behind her, unbuttoning his shirt.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said. He didn’t look angry, only worried.
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said. “The girls like playing together—”
“Then why wouldn’t you tell me? Why would you lie about going to Cath’s—”
“I don’t know!” she said. “I just thought—it seemed easier that way, all right? I knew you would have all your questions—”
“Can you blame me?” he said. “You’ve never been like this. You didn’t even want them to move in—”
“Well, the girls like playing! What was I supposed to do?”
“Not lie to me,” he said. “Not tell me you’re doing one thing then sneaking over there all the time—”
“It’s not all the time.”
“Cath said it was twice this week!”
Stella laughed. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “You can’t truly be taking Cath Johansen’s side over mine.”
“It’s not about sides!” he said. “I’ve been noticing it too, you know. You’re not yourself. You’ve been walking around like you’ve got your head in the clouds. And now you’re chasing after that Loretta woman. It’s not normal. It’s—” He eased up behind her, cupping her shoulders. “I understand, Stella, I do. You’re lonely. That’s right, isn’t it? You never wanted to move to Los Angeles in the first place and now you’re lonely as all hell. And Kennedy’s getting older. So you probably . . . well, you should take a class or something. Something you’ve always wanted to do. Like learn Italian or make pottery. We’ll find you something good to do, Stel. Don’t worry.”
One night, long ago in New Orleans, Blake had invited her to a work banquet. “I’d hate to go alone,” he told her, “you know how these things are,” and she’d nodded, even though, of course, she didn’t. She told Desiree she had to work late and instead borrowed a dress from one of the other secretaries. Blake met her in the lobby of the banquet hall, as dashing as any leading man. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” he whispered into her hair. All evening, he never left her side, his hand always lingering at the small of her back. At the end of the night, he brought her to a café for coffee, and halfway through her cherry pie, he told her that he was moving back to Boston. His father was sick, and he wanted to be closer to home.
“Oh,” she said, dropping her fork. She hadn’t realized how desperately she wanted more nights with him like tonight until she realized that there would never be another. But he surprised her, touching her hand.
“I know it’s crazy,” he said, “but I’ve got a job offer in Boston and—” He faltered a second, then laughed. “It’s crazy, Stella, but would you join me? I’ll need a
secretary there and I just thought . . .”
They hadn’t even kissed yet but his question sounded as serious as a marriage proposal. “Just say yes,” he said, and the word tasted like cherries, sweet and tart and easy. Yes, and just like that, she could become Miss Vignes for good. She didn’t give herself a chance to second-guess. She didn’t plan how she would leave her sister, how she would settle in a new city on her own. For the first time in her life, she didn’t worry about any of the practical details when she told Blake Sanders yes. The hardest part about becoming someone else was deciding to. The rest was only logistics.
Now she glanced at him through the mirror, Blake watching her with those soft, worried eyes. She’d created a new life with a man who could never know her, but how could she walk away from it now? It was the only life she had left.
* * *
—
ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, she leaned against Blake’s chest, watching their daughter squeal and dive into her pile of gifts. A Talking Barbie that spoke when you pulled her cord, a Suzy Homemaker oven set, a red Spyder bicycle. Look at this, look at that, she must have been such a good girl this year! Unlike all those rotten poor children staring at empty trees who must have deserved it, bad because they were poor, poor because they were bad. She’d never wanted to participate in the Santa mythmaking, but Blake said that it was important to preserve Kennedy’s innocence.
“It’s just a little story,” he said. “It’s not like she’ll hate us when she figures it out.”
He couldn’t even bring himself to say the word lie. Which was a lie in itself.
Scraps of wrapping paper littered the carpet, Kennedy collapsing in a blissful haze. Stella opened each of Blake’s boxes to reveal another gift she hadn’t asked for: a floor-length mink coat, a diamond tennis bracelet, an emerald necklace he fastened as they stood together in front of the bedroom mirror.
