Lousiana Hotshot

resist.”
    To which he replied: “You couldn’t possibly work for him if you’re not a relative. And you couldn’t possibly be a relative if you’re in touch with me. Who
are you?”
    There was only one answer to that one: “Not to brag, but
I
am a Baroness. Check out my website, www.Baronessa.com.”
    Twenty minutes later, he got back to her: “Wow. I’m impressed. But now I know you
couldn’t
work for my dad. Black, female, and smart? Uh-uh. I don’t think so.”
    Suddenly the thing was a conversation:
    “Your mom and Angie made him hire me.”
    “How are they?” he fired back.
    Why don’t you know?
she wondered. She wrote: “They’re just great. Planning your dad’s birthday party.” As if she didn’t suspect anything was the matter.
    And if it was a gambit— she wasn’t sure herself— it worked: “Wouldn’t know about that. My family and I don’t talk.”
    “Figured as much— I’m a detective in training. :) Want to talk about it?”
    “I don’t know if I should. I don’t really know anything about you.”
    “What? I thought you saw my website.”
    “Are poets compassionate people?”
    “Ezra Pound was an asshole. And Byron was a womanizer. Sylvia Plath was crazy; Anne Sexton molested her kid… but me?
I
am a Baroness. Eddie’s a difficult man. I like him a lot.”
    “It’s not so easy for me.”
    “You’re just lucky you have a dad. I’m not sure if I do or not.”
Whoa,
she thought.
Where’s this thing going?
    But he didn’t pick up on it. “Why’d you write to me? Is my dad really okay?”
    “Actually, he’s home with a headache. Which, I guess, is why I wrote to you. Bored.”
    “Thanks a lot!”
    She could see it was starting to deteriorate into one of those insufferably boring email exchanges, and so she made a quick exit. “Oops, phone. Nice talking to you.”
    “We didn’t really talk,” he answered, leaving her feeling oddly betrayed. Did he mean they hadn’t exchanged meaningful thoughts, or simply that email wasn’t talk?
    She worked on the “locates” and employment checks Eileen placed in her in-box. Eventually, the day crawled by.
    Eddie didn’t have a real reason to get mad at her for temping at Baronial Records, but he might anyway. She half hoped he wouldn’t be back the next day. The less he knew, the better. Still, no way around it. She scribbled him a note saying she’d be out all morning, thinking she’d call in at noon.
    Instead of going home, almost without making a decision to do it, she went to visit her aunt Carrie.
    Aunt Carrie lived across the river in a little brick house— a very little house— with window bars protecting a lifetime of souvenirs and mementoes. Aunt Carrie was poor, but that certainly didn’t keep her from shopping. She had little of value in her house, but she made that up in volume. The place was chockablock, a jumble of junk that necessarily collected dust and grease. Talba didn’t know how she could stand it.
    Like her sister Clara, Carrie had no husband, but she had had one once. Uncle Frank— a man, unlike her father, whom she could vaguely remember. She had only one cousin, La Jeanne, a girl Talba’s age who’d had a baby in high school, but married later and had another baby. Talba was happy for her. Miz Clara had nothing but contempt— she wasn’t president and she wasn’t a doctor.
If you don’t watch out, ya gonna end up like ya cousin La Jeanne.
Talba’d heard it a hundred times.
    She rang the doorbell, knowing Aunt Carrie was there. She was home all the time when she wasn’t shopping. She was on disability on account of asthma and some other things— Talba didn’t really listen when she started talking about it.
    She came to the door with a kid clinging to her— La Jeanne’s younger boy, who was three. Carrie babysat him for a few extra bucks. She had other things she did too. She sewed a little, she gambled some, with mixed results. She kept thinking she’d win the Lotto.
    She was wiping her hands on an old frayed apron, like some stereotype of a nice aunt. “What’s wrong with Clara? Oh, Lord, what is it?” Dread sat like a spider on her round face.
    “Nothing. She’s fine. Why?” But Talba knew why. Belatedly, she realized she’d never showed up at her aunt’s door unannounced, certainly not at this time of day.
    “What you doing here, child?” She made no effort to move aside, to let her niece in.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I need to talk to