The Vanishing Half(55)

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AT MAISON BLANCHE, Stella addressed envelopes for Mr. Sanders. He was the youngest associate in the marketing department and movie-star handsome, so all the other girls in the building envied her. Carol Warren, a busty blonde from Lafayette, told Stella she didn’t know how lucky she was. Carol worked for Mr. Reed, who was nice enough, she supposed, even though she couldn’t stop staring at the gray hairs sprouting out his ears when he dictated messages. But what it must be like to work for Mr. Sanders! Carol chewed her salad eagerly, waiting for Stella to share some delicious detail about him, but she didn’t know what to say. She hardly spoke to the man at all, except in the mornings when he dropped his coat and hat on her desk, and when he returned from lunch and she passed on his messages. “Thanks dear,” he always said, reading the scraps of paper as he started back into his office. She didn’t think he even knew her name.

“A real dish, isn’t he?” Carol whispered once after she’d caught Stella staring.

She flushed, shaking her head quickly. The last thing she needed was to get caught up in the office gossip. She kept to herself, arrived on time, left when she was supposed to. She ate lunch at her desk and spoke as little as possible, certain that she’d say the wrong thing and make somebody wonder about her. She certainly tried not to speak around Mr. Sanders, only offering a soft hello when he greeted her. One morning, he paused in front of her desk, his briefcase swinging at his side.

“You don’t talk much,” he said.

It wasn’t a question, but she still felt compelled to answer.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I’ve always been quiet.”

“I’ll say.” He started toward his office, then suddenly turned. “Let me take you out to lunch today. I like to get to know the girls who work for me.” Then he patted the desk as if she’d said yes, to show that it had been decided.

All morning, she was so rattled, she kept misaddressing her envelopes. By lunchtime, she hoped that Mr. Sanders would forget about his offer. But he emerged from his office and beckoned her to follow him, so off they went. In Antoine’s, Blake ordered oysters and, when she stared silently at the menu, an alligator soup for both of them.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, sir,” she said. “I was born . . . well, it’s a little town north of here.”

“Nothing wrong with little towns. I like little towns.”

He smiled at her, lifting the spoon to his mouth, and she tried to smile back. Later that evening, when Desiree demanded details from her, Stella wouldn’t remember the emerald green wallpaper, the framed photographs of famous New Orleanians, the taste of the soup. Nothing but that smile Mr. Sanders had given her. No white man had ever smiled at her so kindly.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” he said. “Anything you want to know about the city—anything at all—you ask me. Don’t feel silly about it. I know how strange a new city can be.”

She paused. “How do you eat those?” she asked, pointing to the oysters.

He laughed. “You’ve never had oysters? I thought all you Louisiana people love them.”

“We never had much money. I always wondered.”

“I didn’t mean to poke fun,” he said. “I’ll show you. It’s very simple.” He reached for the fork, glancing up at her. “You belong here, Stella. Don’t ever think you don’t.”

At work, Stella became Miss Vignes or, as Desiree called her, White Stella. Desiree always giggled after, as if she found the very idea preposterous, which irritated Stella. She wanted Desiree to see how convincingly she played her role, but she was living a performance where there could be no audience. Only a person who knew her real identity would appreciate her acting, and nobody at work could ever know. At the same time, Desiree could never meet Miss Vignes. Stella could only be her when Desiree was not around. In the morning, during her ride to Maison Blanche, she closed her eyes and slowly became her. She imagined another life, another past. No footsteps thundering up the porch steps, no ruddy white man grabbing her father, no Mr. Dupont pressing against her in the pantry. No Mama, no Desiree. She let her mind go blank, her whole life vanishing, until she became new and clean as a baby.

Soon she no longer felt nervous as the elevator glided skyward and she stepped into the office. You belong here, Blake had told her. Soon she thought of him as Blake, not Mr. Sanders, and she began to notice how he lingered at her desk now when he said good morning, how he invited her to lunch more often, how he began walking her to the streetcar after work.

“It’s not safe out here,” he said once, pausing at the crosswalk, “a pretty girl like you walking alone.”

When she was with Blake, no one bothered her. The leering white men who’d tried to flirt with her at her stop now fell suddenly silent; the colored men sitting in the back didn’t even look in her direction. At Maison Blanche, she once overheard another associate refer to her as “Blake’s girl,” and she felt as if that distinction covered her even beyond the office building. As if just by venturing into the world as Blake’s girl, she had been changed somehow.

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.