House of Rougeaux(36)

Now get out of here.

She let herself out the back door and came around to the street.

Don’t run.

Walk.

She cut a wide circle through the neighborhood and then pointed herself in the direction of home.



* * *



Crossing the Rue Notre Dame, Martine arrived back in her own district but kept walking. She heard the noon whistle from the railroad, and still she went on. She walked until every tremor left her body and relief took their place. Then she retraced her steps up to a little green park and drank at the water fountain. She couldn’t go home just yet, and was suddenly so tired. She sat down on a bench. A deep feeling of revulsion clouded her senses. Had she done something to give the wrong impression to Mr. Braddock? If she had she couldn’t think of it.

A situation like this had happened to her sister Elodie once. An employer like Braddock. Elodie had fled too, but without being able to call upon recent references she was never able to find another position. It was lucky for her that she was already engaged to be married at the time, and was soon able to fall back on her husband’s income. Martine had no such prospects. She couldn’t just run out on a job. The Rougeauxes were not desperate, but the family depended on Martine’s contribution, especially where Maxwell’s future education was concerned.

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she rummaged in her pockets for a handkerchief, thankful that at least for the moment there was no one else around. At last she blew her nose and felt a measure calmer. Then that same voice of self-preservation spoke again. This time it said: Eat your lunch.

From her handbag Martine drew out the sandwich wrapped in a cloth napkin that her mother had prepared for her early that morning, half a baguette stuffed with cold cuts, pickles and Momma’s homemade mustard. A man’s kind of lunch. It was cut in half again so two twin sandwiches lay there on the napkin on her knees. She ate one, diligently chewing every bite. There were crows in the trees, and there was a man in worn-out clothes poking around in a rubbish bin.

Now quit feeling sorry for yourself, and go see Didi. That was the order that punctuated the end of her shock. She got up and with some effort she caught the eye of the man by the bin. She lifted up the second sandwich in the napkin so he could see it and laid it down on the bench. Then she hightailed it to her sister’s.



* * *



At this hour the older children would be at school; Didi would be home with the youngest and the two little ones she minded for a neighbor. She came to the door with a finger to her lips. The children were napping.

Elodie, ten years Martine’s senior, had always seemed to her like a grown woman. She had much of their parents’ solidity, and could be every bit as practical and stern, but she also knew things no one else did, and didn’t waste time pushing against something that wasn’t going to budge.

Once, a year ago, Martine had spent much of the day so engrossed in Madame Lambert’s copy of Lord Jim that she felt as if she were living in two worlds at the same time. When Didi came to see the family that evening she took one look at her sister, who was kneeling on the floor with the three children around her neck, and said, “Well, look at you, surrounded on all sides by the open sea.” And not long after that, Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights secretly made Martine’s heart flutter, and he lived in her mind as she went about her work. On an afternoon when the two sisters were helping Momma prepare a crate of pears for canning, Didi pronounced, “He’s no good.”

“Who’s not?” asked Martine.

“Your new beau,” Didi said, and winked before Martine could object.

But Elodie had much to say on important matters too, and after Martine had related the story of that morning at the Braddocks’, her sister stayed quiet a good while.

“You can’t go back there,” Didi said at last. “Won’t be nothing but a tangled mess.” She rose and went to the sideboard where she had some potatoes soaking in a basin.

Martine bit her lip. “What am I going to do then?”

“Find something else.”

“Damn.”

Didi turned back toward her. “You swearing now?”

“Only on special occasions.”

Didi laughed. “Well this one is worth it. No doubt about that.” She gazed out the little window over the kitchen sink. “Listen,” she said, “why don’t you go down to the placement office? It’s not even noon yet. Get a jump on things.”



* * *



Half an hour later Martine was climbing the stairs to the downtown office of the placement agency, a dimly lit set of rooms on the second floor of a brick building off St. Laurent Boulevard. The waiting area was packed; Martine certainly wasn’t alone in seeking work. When it was her turn, the clerk behind the front desk handed her a form and a pencil. Martine filled out her name, age and qualifications, but stopped cold at the place for references. She couldn’t use the Braddocks, obviously. Madame Lambert was dead, and her employer from before that was almost four years ago. How would she explain that kind of gap? She slowly laid down the pencil and said she’d have to come back the next day with the form. Her deft hands were suddenly clumsy, folding the paper and putting it away in her handbag. What little hope she’d had crumpled into her throat and threatened to force its way out in tears. Damn it if she hadn’t already cried enough for one day. She headed for the stairs. Outside the sunlight hit her eyes and she was momentarily blinded, and in that second of blindness she heard her name.