The Vanishing Half(51)
“So why did you move here?” Stella asked. “The Estates, I mean.”
Loretta raised an eyebrow. “Why did you?”
“Well, the schools. It’s a nice neighborhood, don’t you think? Clean. Safe.”
She gave the answers she ought to, although she wasn’t so sure. She’d moved to Los Angeles for Blake’s job and sometimes she felt like she’d had no say in the matter. Other times, she remembered how thrilling the possibility of Los Angeles had seemed, all those miles between there and her old life. Foolish to pretend that she hadn’t chosen this city. She wasn’t some little tugboat, drifting along with the tide. She had created herself. Since the morning she’d walked out of the Maison Blanche building a white girl, she had decided everything.
“Then don’t you think I’d want those same things too?” Loretta said.
“Yes, but don’t you—I mean, it’s got to be easier, isn’t it, if you—”
“Stuck to my own kind?” Loretta lit another cigarette, her face shining like bronze.
“Why, yes,” Stella said. “I just don’t know why anyone would want to do it. I mean, there are plenty of fine colored neighborhoods and folks can be so hateful.”
“They’re gonna hate me anyway,” Loretta said. “Might as well hate me in my big house with all of my nice things.”
She smiled, taking another drag of her cigarette, and that sly smile reminded Stella of Desiree. She felt like a girl again, sneaking a smoke on the porch while their mother slept. She reached for Loretta’s cigarette, leaning into the glow.
* * *
—
YOU HAD THE JOHANSENS, of course, on Magnolia Way—Dale worked downtown in finance, Cath served as secretary of the Brentwood Academy PTA, even though she hardly took minutes at all during the meetings, you couldn’t guess how many times Stella had glanced at her notepad and found it blank. Then the Whites over on Juniper—Percy worked in accounting at one of the studios, she couldn’t remember which, Blake would know. He was also association president, but he’d only run because his wife kept pushing him to be more ambitious. Lynn was from Oklahoma, an oil family, and God only knew how she’d found herself saddled with Percy White. You’d understand if you took a look at him, but let’s just say he wasn’t what she had in mind when she’d dreamt of marrying a man who worked in Hollywood. Then the Hawthornes on Maple—Bob had about the whitest teeth she’d ever seen in her life.
“I think I’ve seen him,” Loretta said. “Big ones too? Kind of like Mister Ed?”
Stella laughed, nearly dropping the ball of blue yarn. Across the leather couch, Loretta smirked the way she always did when she knew she’d said something funny. Which was often, now that they were on their second glass of wine.
“You’ll see them all soon,” Stella said. “They’re all nice enough people.”
“To you,” Loretta said. “You know you’re the only one who’s darkened my door.”
Stella did know, but she tried not to dwell on that fact. She watched the yarn slip out in front of her, Loretta’s crochet hook winding through the air. When she’d called Loretta earlier and asked if the girls might want to play again, she figured they would meet up at the park. She did not expect Loretta to invite her over or for herself to accept. Now the girls were playing in the Walkers’ backyard—you could hear their yelps through the screen door—and she was tipsy from the wine, listening to Loretta talk about witnessing Reg’s acting career finally take off. How even though he found Frisk stultifying, he was grateful to play a cop for once, not another street hood snatching some lady’s purse in the opening credits. Loretta went to set with him from time to time, but found the whole business so dreadfully boring, she usually ended up in a corner somewhere, crocheting. It amazed Stella, how deeply unimpressed Loretta seemed by every fantastic aspect of her life. Whenever Loretta asked her a question, Stella grew embarrassed, aware of how little she had to offer.
“I told you,” she said. “I’m really not that interesting.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that for a second,” Loretta said. “I bet there’s all sorts of fascinating things swirling around inside that head of yours.”
“I assure you, there isn’t,” she said. “I’m as plain as they come.”
She’d done one interesting thing in her whole life, but she would spend the rest of her days hiding it. When Loretta asked about her childhood, she always hedged. She couldn’t share any memory of her youth without also conjuring Desiree; all of her memories were cleaved in half, her sister excised right out of them, and how lonely they seemed now, Stella swimming by herself at the river, wandering through sugarcane fields, running breathlessly from a goose chasing her down the road. A lonely past, a lonely present. Until now. Somehow, Loretta Walker had become the only person she could talk to.
All summer, she waited for Loretta’s phone calls. She might be watching her daughter paint watercolors in the backyard when the kitchen phone rang, and just like that, she’d pack up the paint set, glancing carefully down the street before ushering Kennedy across. Or she might be on her way to the public library for storytime when Loretta phoned, and suddenly the overdue books were no longer as important as venturing across the cul-de-sac. When they returned home, she told her daughter not to mention the playdate to Blake.