Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 01 - Blood on White Wicker (5 page)

We took a cab there, and after, I paid the driver the fare and a generous tip. Going to the reception desk, we asked to see Mrs. Hendrix.

“Are you a relative?” asked the nurse behind the desk.

Before I could say no, Jesse spoke up and said, “This here’s her granddaughter.”

The nurse sadly shook her head and said, “The poor dear, she may know you, and she may not. She has her good and bad days. Take that elevator over there to the third floor. She is in room 312.”

The door to her room was open. She was sitting in front of a TV, but the sound was muted. I could see her from the side. She looked like she weighed about 90 pounds. Her hair was long and gray, and it was down, like someone had just brushed it for her. She looked familiar to me, but I knew I didn’t know her. When she turned her head and saw me, she started screaming.

“What the hell’s going on in here? How did you get in and what are you up to?” The voice came from one of the biggest black men I have ever seen who had just walked into the room.

“John, please help me,” the woman said. “She’s supposed to be dead. She can’t be here.” Then she turned to me, “Does this mean that I’m dead? I don’t understand!! Please! Please help me, John.”

The man jerked his head toward the door and said to the woman, “It’s all right, Henry. Don’t worry! I’ll get them out of here.”

He looked at us again and this time jerked his head and his thumb toward the door. To me he was downright scary, but he didn’t seem to bother Jesse at all.

When we got into the hallway, John said, “Who are you people, and what the hell are you doing here?”

“Well, this here is her granddaughter…” Jesse began.

“No, she ain’t. She doesn’t have a granddaughter. Her grandson comes here often with his mother, Henrietta’s daughter. But you don’t need to know any of that. So are you going to explain, or am I going to call the cops?”

The thought of the cops being called seemed to scare Jesse. She grabbed my arm and got me out of there. We walked to the end of the drive and caught a bus.

“Don’t you worry none, sugar, we’ll get Dave to help us. He’ll know what to do,” Jesse said after we got seated.

When we got back home, we found Dave sitting on the front porch smoking a cigarette.

“Where on earth have you girls been? You were gone so long, I was beginning to worry.” Jesse sat next to Dave in the swing, and I sat in one of the rocking chairs.

Jesse started telling Dave all about my dreams and what little we found out.

“You mean to tell me that the necklace was the same one from the dream? Hmm…first we got to find out more about the old lady. Who is she, and how did she come to have this necklace?

“Then there’s this thing about you seeing yourself in the future in your dreams, Vicky. And this old lady was thinking you’re supposed to be dead. We’ll hire a private detective, but you have to help pay for him, Vicky. So I’m going to give you extra work to help you out, which is what I was sitting here thinking about anyway.”

“Sure, Dave, I can make more trips to the park. I don’t mind at all.”

He looked at me for awhile and then said, “How old are you now since your birthday yesterday? because I don’t have in mind more trips to the park. We got Mardi Gras coming up, and we’re going to be busy. Now, I could hire a few more girls, but we have enough girls here as it is. So what do you think, Vicky?”

I had begun to suspect what the other girls had been doing, and I didn’t want any part of it. But, on the other hand, Dave had been so good to me, had asked very little of me, and had paid me so well, I didn’t feel like I could say no. I was afraid to speak, so I just nodded.

My only experience with sex was when my foster father raped me, and every time I thought about it, I wanted to throw up. I was still sitting on the porch thinking when Dave came out.

“Almost suppertime,” he said. “You been sitting out here all this time?”

When I nodded, he said, “You thinking ’bout what I’m asking you to do?” Without waiting for my reply, he continued, “Will this be your first time?”

“My foster father raped me. That’s why I ran away.”

“Aw, shit. I’m sure sorry about that, Vicky. I really am. I’ll tell you what. You just forget about this for now. I’ll still hire the private detective. I’ll pay for the whole thing myself.”

“You are so nice, Dave. You’re a real good person.”

Dave snorted, “Don’t you go making me out to be no saint, now. I’m not a good person. I know exactly what I am. But I try to do right by my girls. The sad thing is that I know that my parents would be ashamed of me if they could see me now. They were respectable people in the community.

“When I came home from Vietnam, both my parents were dead, and I just didn’t give a shit about anything anymore. I was just 19 years old and felt like my whole life was over.”

He was still talking, but I wasn’t hearing much. I felt so bad for him and thought it must have been horrible to have to go through all that. Before I realized it, I was crying so hard that my shoulders were shaking.

He pulled me over against him and kissed my cheek. He dried under my eyes with his thumbs and then kissed my eyelids. I turned to him and put my arms around his neck and started kissing him on the mouth. Then his tongue found mine, and we were locked into a passionate kiss.

In the back of my mind, I was thinking, “I’m not afraid. I love this.”

He started kissing my neck, then he took the tip of his tongue and started tickling my neck. It tickled so much, I giggled. He laughed and then stood up and pulled me by the arms. I went with him willingly.

No one was in the hallway, and he led me up the stairs and down the hall to his room. We were tiptoeing. His room was enormous. There was a king-sized bed with a zebra- patterned comforter set. There were a lot of wild animal fur-covered pillows on the bed, on the floor and on all the chairs. His dresser, chest of drawers, and night stands were black lacquer. He began tossing pillows from the bed onto the floor. Then he turned down the covers. I noticed that the sheets were black satin.

“Come here,” he said. And that’s all it took.

The whole experience was so opposite from the first time. Dave was very patient and loving. He made me feel special. I can’t say that the earth moved, but it wasn’t unpleasant, and I thought that I could tolerate it. I told him that I wanted to do my part just like the other girls. He told me I was a good girl, and he appreciated me. I was glad that I had made the decision to do what Dave wanted.

I was supposed to start my new job on the day of Mardi Gras.
When the big day came, the girls came up to my room to help me get ready. I was a bundle of nerves.

Marty had a funny-looking cigarette that she lit up and handed to me.

“What is it?” I asked.

She snorted, “Come on, girl, you ain’t that dumb. It will help you relax.”

I took it and drew the smoke into my lungs. It took my breath away, and my eyes started watering. But after a few hits, I was beginning to feel more relaxed.

Dave came in just as Rhonda was fastening the unicorn around my neck. I had decided to wear it even though I felt uncomfortable with it, because Jesse was my best friend, and I wanted to make her feel good.

“You look good enough to eat, girl,” Dave said.

I was wearing a long baby blue dress that I had bought with my own money. It was real silk, with tiny little pearls sewn all over it. It fit my body tight and had a slit up the front almost up to my crotch. Jesse had done my hair and makeup. She had given me a softer look instead of the fat hair and heavy makeup she had given me my first night in New Orleans.

“I’ll be downstairs,” Dave said. “Don’t be long.”

After Dave left the room, Marty said, “You slept with him, didn’t you? Did he give you the Vietnam story and make you feel sorry for him? You know it’s not true, don’t you? He told us all the same story when we first came here, each one of us.”

Jesse had been applying blush to my cheeks. She threw the brush down on my dresser and rounded on Marty.

 
“You leave her alone. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You sound like some jealous whore. What’s the matter with you? Dave would get rid of you if he heard you.”

Marty left without another word. I could hear her stomping down the stairs and Dave saying, “Now, what’s the matter with you, Marty?” I didn’t hear her response, but I didn’t care what she said.

 
“Don’t pay any attention to her, Vicky. She’s just an ungrateful bitch. Just think where we would all be if we hadn’t ended up with Dave. We could have ended up in a real whore house, with a pimp taking all our money. Dave is good to us and generous. I felt lucky he was there when I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

I was going to ask her about her past, but then Dave yelled up the stairs, “Hey, what y’all doing up there? Our guests are arriving.”

I was used to parties at Dave’s. Every night we were at the French Quarter or at a party at home. The dining room was a long room along the right front of the house. It had a long cherry wood table with 12 chairs, a china cabinet and a fireplace that was usually lit. There were usually four or five other guests.

Delilah, our cook, was very beautiful. She was tall and thin with skin the color of dark wood. Jesse called her Voodoo behind her back. We all laughed at Jesse for calling her this, but she said that Delilah could put a hex on you.

When we came down, Delilah was setting the table. I asked if I could help, and she said, “No, sugar, come on in the kitchen and visit with me.” As I followed her into the kitchen, I could hear Dave and the others in the living room laughing.

She went over to the stove and started stirring shrimp, butter and garlic in a frying pan. There was rice cooking and a big pot of some crawfish concoction, probably gumbo. There was a big salad on the kitchen table. I picked up a piece of lettuce out of the bowl and started nibbling on it.

“Can you see into the future, Delilah?” I asked.

She glanced at me over her shoulder.

 
“Not really,” she said, “ but I can sense things and feel things sometimes, and I have a good feeling about you. I feel that you will one day find your family and the other side of you.”

“What do you mean the other side of me?”

She picked up a dish rag and started wiping down the counter. “I don’t know exactly what I mean, to tell you the truth. It’s just something I feel when I look at you. It’s like there’s another side.”

We could hear Dave letting someone in the front door.

“Come on in, Mark. Good to see you again,” I heard Dave say.

Another male voice said, “Hi, Dave. Where is she? Oh, hello, Jesse, how you been, sweetie?” Then it seemed like everyone was talking at once, and I heard them all coming into the dining room. I could hear my heart beating about a hundred miles an hour, and my face felt red hot.

Dave yelled out, “Come on out here, Vicky. Where are you, girl?”

I ran out and the first thing I saw was Jesse hanging onto the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He had thick blond hair and eyes the color of emeralds. He was wearing a cream-colored, long-sleeved silk shirt with the sleeves turned up to just below the elbows. His eyelashes and eyebrows were dark brown and thick.

I hoped this was my date because there was also a greasy-looking man even shorter than Dave. He was almost fat and was bald on the top with just a fringe of hair around the sides of his head. There was another man, not bad looking, with salt and pepper hair and a beard. I hardly saw them, because my eyes were on the blond man.

“Vicky, this is Fred,” Dave said, indicating the short fat man. “This is Roger,” indicating the bearded man, “and this is Mark, your date.”