Charlaine Harris - Shakespeare’s Champion

“What did you want me to do?” I asked.

“Okay.” That calmed her, as I’d intended. “I want you to change my sheets-the clean ones are in the bathroom closet-and dust the house, and vacuum. There’s only one bathroom, and it’s in pretty bad shape. Clean the sink and tub, and wipe the kitchen counters. Mop the linoleum floors.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of right now.”

We discussed my pay, and my hours. She thought the house might take me until twelve-thirty to get in shape, and if the kitchen was any indication I agreed it would. I got to the Winthrops’ at one, usually, so that didn’t leave me much leeway. I figured I could stop by my house and grab a piece of fruit on my way to the Winthrops‘.

I examined the house first, to plan my work. Mookie had retreated to the living room at the front of the house, which she had turned into a workroom. There was an old couch, an old chair, an old television, and a huge desk. She hadn’t hung any curtains, and the blinds on the big windows were coated with dust. The wastebasket was overflowing, and cups from various fast-food places dotted the desk, the arm of the couch, the floor. I kept my face blank. I’ve learned to do that.

As Mookie sat down at her computer, I wandered down the hall (filthy baseboards, fingerprints on the paint) to the bigger bedroom. I wrinkled my nose. The sheets certainly did need changing, and the bed had probably never been made since the sheets had been put on. There was a thick layer of dust on every surface-every surface that wasn’t already covered with something else, like paperbacks, makeup, snack wrappers, tissues, jewelry, hairbows and brushes, receipts. I could feel that little contraction between my brows that meant I was perturbed. Then I examined the bathroom, and I shook my head in disbelief.

The second bedroom was almost empty, only luggage and a few boxes strewn about the floor… at random.

Now I wondered if the allotted time would be enough.

I went out to my car to get my supplies, wondering how far I could get. I’d start with the bathroom, for sure… then the bedroom.

Cleaning is work that doesn’t occupy your whole mind, which is something I occasionally enjoy. I was half-smiling to myself as I began scrubbing the bathtub. I’d expected Mookie Preston to be completely white, and she’d expected me to be black. We’d both been astonished.

In a better world, we wouldn’t have even noticed that we were of different races-maybe if we’d even met each other in a big city, we would just have celebrated our ethnic diversity. But it wasn’t a better world, at least not here and now. Not in Shakespeare. Not lately.

My astonishment about my new employer faded as I concentrated on the task at hand. After some determined scrubbing and mopping, I had the bathroom looking very respectable. I gave it a sharp nod and turned to start work in the bedroom. To my surprise, Mookie Preston was standing right behind me.

“I’m sorry I startled you,” she said, looking rather shocked herself as my hands fisted.

I relaxed with an effort. “I didn’t hear you,” I admitted, not happy at all about that.

“It looks great,” she said, looking past me into the small room. “Wow, the mirror especially.”

Yeah, you could see your reflection now. “Good,” I said.

“Listen, are you put off by my being mixed race?”

“What you are is none of my business.” Why did people always want to talk about every little thing? Even before a gang had held me down and drawn pictures on my chest with a knife, I hadn’t been one for chatter.

“I didn’t know you were going to be white.”

“Yeah.”

“So, can we make this work?” she persisted.

“I am working,” I said, trying to make a point, and began to strip the sheets off her bed. What I wanted Mookie Preston to get out of this was that if I’d seriously objected to her parentage, I would’ve hopped back in my Skylark and gone home to try the next name on my standby list.

Whether she got the point or not, I don’t know. After waiting for me to say something else, she drifted back to her computer, to my relief.

She left once, to go to the grocery store. Other than that one period of peace, my new employer was in constant motion, jumping up to go to the toilet, drifting down the hall to get a drink from the refrigerator, always making some passing remark. Apparently, Mookie Preston was one of those people who can’t be still when someone else is working. When she told me for the third time she was leaving for the grocery, I decided it would be a good opportunity to clean the office area without her hovering presence.

At a closer examination of the nearly bare, dusty room, I realized the strips of paper fixed to the walls were genealogical charts. Some of them were printed really fancy with Gothic lettering, and some of them were dull-looking computer readouts. I shrugged. Not my thing, but harmless. There were a few books arranged on the old student standby of boards and cement blocks; three of them were about a woman named Sally Hemmings. I’d have to look her up at the library. There were stacks of software boxes, bearing titles like Family Tree Maker and Family Origins. I saw a list of Web sites taped beside the computer, and a list of phone numbers to places like the Family History Library and the Hidden Child Foundation.

But the more I dusted and straightened and vacuumed, the more questions I had about this woman. She’d been living here for at least five weeks, if she’d called me to get on my list right after she’d moved into this house. Why would a young woman like Mookie Preston move to a small southern town if she had no friends or relations in place here? If Mookie Preston was only a genealogical researcher, I was a sweet young thing.

She was gone a long time, which was fine with me. By the time she was toting in her plastic bags of Diet Pepsi and Healthy Choice microwave meals, I had the house looking much better. It would take a couple more sessions to finish clearing up the backlog of dirt and scrub down to a regular weekly accumulation, but I’d made a fighting start.

She looked around with her mouth a little open, stiff reddish hair brushing her shoulders as her head turned.

“This is really great,” she said, and she meant it, but she wasn’t as enthusiastic about cleanliness as she was pretending to be. “Can you come every week?”

I nodded.

“How do you prefer to be paid?” she asked, and we talked about that for a while.

“You work for a lot of the local upper crust, I bet?” she asked me, just when I thought she had about finished chattering. “Like the Winthrops, and the Elgins?”

I regarded her steadily. “I work for lots of different kinds of people,” I said. I turned to go, and this time Mookie Preston didn’t detain me.

As I was assembling cheese, crackers, and fruit for a quick lunch in my own-thank God, spotless and silent-kitchen, the doorbell rang. I glanced out my living room window before answering the door. A pink van was parked in my driveway, with FANCY FLOWERS painted on the side.

It was surely the first time that particular vehicle had been to my place.

I opened the door, ready to tell the delivery person that she needed the apartment building next door, and the perky young woman on my doorstep said, “Miss Bard?”

“Yes?”

“These are for you.”

“These” were a beautiful arrangement of pink roses, baby’s breath, greenery, and white carnations.

“Are you sure?” I said doubtfully.

“ ‘Lily Bard, Ten Track Street,’ ” the woman read from the back of the envelope, her smile fading a bit.

“Thank you.” I took the bowl and turned away, shutting the door behind me with one foot. I hadn’t gotten flowers in… well, I just couldn’t remember. Carefully, I set the bowl on my kitchen table and pulled the gift envelope out of the pronged plastic holder. I noticed it had been licked and shut rather carefully, and after I extracted the card and read it I appreciated the discretion. “I miss you. Claude,” it read, in a slanted, sprawling hand.