Crescent City Connection

Jacomine. I’m sorry for your trouble,” as if someone were dead.
    Surprise filled the woman’s eyes like tears, and Skip was reminded of an animal that expects, from long experience, a kick instead of kindness.

Ten
    DORISE HADN’T LIKED these white people from the minute she arrived, though they were friends of Cammie’s. She came to set up for a Sunday brunch—a job she damn well knew how to do as well as the next person. All you had to do was tell her where you wanted the food and where you wanted the bar and then enjoy your party.
    She walked in and this Meredith, who introduced herself as Mrs. Clemenceau as if it were the nineteenth century, started in with a checklist. She, Meredith, had made a list of what Dorise was supposed to do!
    Dorise said, “Don’t you worry, darlin’. I’ve done this a hundred times. I’m gon’ take care of everything and you’re not gon’ have to worry about a thing. Those sure are pretty earrings you’re wearing.”
    Diamonds. First thing in the morning.
    Every now and then she ran into an uptight one and she always said that, or something like it, and you could just see the little wrinkles in their foreheads straighten out. And then they would show their pretty teeth and they would whisper, “thank you” or some such, and leave in a cloud of perfume.
    Dorise moved slowly and confidently. She didn’t race about creating more panic. She just did what had to be done, in about the time it took these ladies to put on lipstick.
    This one didn’t respond. Her eyes squinched even closer together, as if she considered Dorise impertinent, and she snapped, “You haven’t done it a hundred times at my house.”
    And then her husband came out and when Dorise smiled and said hello, he didn’t even respond, just looked right through her as if she didn’t exist.
    Dorise had no choice but to waste her precious time listening to what this Mrs. Clemenceau wanted her to do and then do it in the order that Mrs. Clemenceau wanted it, with Mrs. Clemenceau standing over her the whole time, practically daring her to do something wrong, which she did. Being supervised affected her that way.
    And naturally everything took twice as long, doing it Mrs. Clemenceau’s way, and so she wasn’t even completely set up before the first guest arrived, though she was only five minutes away, and though the next guest didn’t arrive for another twenty minutes. Still, it hurt her pride.
    She served mimosas and Bloodies for a good half hour after she judged it was time to eat, but Meredith had told her not to start serving until she told her to. And then she forgot to tell her, and clicked in on a cloud of ruffled feathers: “Dorise. It’s twelve-thirty.”
    As if that were something to Dorise.
    Dorise didn’t even like her guests. The men were overweight and a little too loud, especially after a few drinks, and they had quite a few. The women all seemed to have those same wrinkled foreheads Meredith did. Dorise would catch snatches of the conversation and they were all talking about crime. Crime and who did it. The people who did it were called “they” and it was abundantly clear from the way the guests cut their eyes to see how much she heard that “they” were invariably African American.
    Going through the house to collect the glasses, Dorise noticed that Mr. and Mrs. Clemenceau, despite their obsessiveness, poor manners, and general sourpussness, had some pretty nice things.
    They had those good, nearly threadbare Oriental rugs. They had gold leaf mirrors that had cost more than Dorise’s car. They had silver and jewelry and stereos and all the things she had talked to Troy about.
    Thinking of Troy, it occurred to her that if the Clemenceaus lost some of their nice things it wouldn’t completely break her heart. Playing that game with Troy had made her uncomfortable that time, but here, in her head, there wasn’t any harm in it and as it turned out, it was lots of fun. These people talked about crime all the time and didn’t even have a burglar alarm. They didn’t have decent locks on their windows either, and they sure didn’t have a dog that was going to do them any good.
    Now they did have a dog—a little yappy white thing that had been trying to get a grip on Dorise’s ankles ever since she arrived. But its nasty little mouth was too small.
    When she got home, she needed something nice and real to get the taste of that place out of her mouth, so she put on a pot of red