"Ain't No Misunderstandin'"

“Ain’t No Misunderstanding”

         Angela Totten stepped from the bus.  Her auburn hair was whipping at her face.  I had been sent on this mission, this errand, to be Miss Totten’s chauffeur from the bus station to Miss Graves’s house.  The bus had been an hour late but I hadn’t minded the hour to myself.  The day seemed to drape over the small town, the day wrapping itself in the possibility of rain.
         “Can I take your bags, miss?” I asked.           
         Her arm swung dismissively to the right.  The two sage suitcases sat erect and waiting.  I had no choice but to hoist them up and carry them to the trunk of the car.  Miss Totten was standing with her head held high next to the back door with a look that I could only assume meant she was waiting for me to open the door for her.  And, of course, I did.  I waited for her to disappear into the leather cushions before I shut the door. 
         I was stuck in the doorway between the living room and the dining room holding the suitcases like a ghost in limbo.  Miss Graves was perched upon her floral sofa while Miss Totten sank deep into the cushions of the opposing, but matching, chair.
         “Caleb, just leave the suitcases in the dining room.  I’ll have Lodde tell you when we’re ready to take them to the room.” Miss Graves instructed.
         “Would you like some tea?”  Miss Graves turned to the woman in the chair.  Miss Totten wore black pumps and a bright red mini skirt with a white blouse.          
         “Yes, please.  Do you have Earl Grey?” asked the woman in return.
         “Lodde, please bring Miss Totten some Earl Grey.  Oh, some sandwiches too.  Our guest must be just starving from her trip.”
         “Thank you.  I am rather hungry.  And tired,” the woman added. 
I turned and headed back through the dining room until I reached the back entrance to the kitchen where I found Lodde and Arletha huddled together arranging tiny sandwiches on a silver serving tray.
         “Hows you doin’ Caleb?”  Arletha asked.
         “I’m jus fine Miss Arletha.  Whatch’a knows about that there lady in the living room with the Missus?”
         “I know she has green eyes cold as a snake.  I know she looks at me like I was a doormat meant for her wiping her three hundred dollar shoes on.  That’s what I know.”  Lodde’s voice sounded like someone was pulling her vocal chords too tightly.  In the ten years we had worked for Miss Graves I had seen Lodde use her words to knock down the high and mighty like humpty dumpty being pushed from the wall.
         “I kno’s that’s right,” Arletha added.  Arletha’s high pitched laugh was infectious filling the room like sunlight pushing through a dark corner of space.  Arletha had a way of reaching in and pulling on the threads of people.  She also had a way of sewing them back up, brand new. 
         Lodde carried the tray down the corridor towards the living room.  I watched as her heavy bottom swung from side to side making her plaid skirt swish around her ankles.  Arletha and I sat staring at one another for a moment.  Arletha brought the delicate coffee cup to her caramel colored lips.           
         “I hate these damn coffee cups.  Why do rich people always have such soft cups? I’scared if I pour the coffee too hot the cup’ll melt right between my fingers.  Why are white people so afraid of anything hard, things that are thick, things with roots and life?  Everything be so delicate about them.  It’s like the more money they have the softer they have to make the things around them while theys insides get harder with every dollar in the bank.”
I loved when she talked about life and people. Sometimes when she talked this a way it made me wonder if she ate books up late at night when no one was paying attention and then came to vomit them up just for me. 
         “I swears that lady’s gonna send me to an early grave.  One of us is gonna go soon enough.  You mark my words” Lodde came bursting like a tornado.  Lodde was like that.  She was either a soft summer rain or a tornado. She didn’t have a setting for in between.
         I sat my coffee cup down, nodded to Arletha, and slowly backed out the door leading to the back yard.  I inhaled the fresh cut lawn that reminded me of days when I was a child and my mother would twirl me immersing me in all its fragrance.  The smell of rain coming or going always made me feel as if I was inhalin’ a part of my mother.  Little drops of rain began to pelt me in the face slowly at first but then began to build up speed like driver in a hurry to get somewhere.  I ran up to the side porch to escape its beating. 
         “She doesn’t have a clue why I am really here.  She thinks I am the daughter of a long lost friend of hers that she hasn’t seen in over twenty years.” I recognized the voice as Angela Totten’s, the woman I had picked up from the bus station.  I froze.  What if she caught me?  Miss Graves would put me on the street if she thought I was intruding on Miss Totten’s privacy, no matter even if it was to get out of the rain.  Her words trailed back to me. 
“She does have a lot of expensive things here and she’s as old as a bat.”  I heard her continue.  “She practically lives alone.  I’ve only seen three other people here, two women and a man, you know to help out with the cookin’ and stuff but I don’t think they will be any trouble.”
         My heart was poundin’ out the rythmn of my feet hittin’ the soft lawn.  I found Lodde in the washroom hanging the Missus’ dresses up on the line tacked to the washin’ room wall.
         “Well, Mr. Caleb what’s this rushin’ about?  You look like you jus’ seent somebody’s ghost.  You didn’t, did you?”  Lodde laughed. She saw that my face wasn’t changin’ and that made her stop. 
         “Lodde, I thinks that woman is planning something real bad for all of us.” I started to retell everything I had heard.
         “Lordy, Lordy,” Lodde said clutching at her breast.  “Whatcha think we should be doin’?  We should tell the Lady Graves.”
         “I don’t know if she’d believe us.  Besides, what’s she gonna say when she finds out hows I heard it anyway.  Maybe I misunderstood.”
         “There ain’t no misunderstandin’ the evil in people Caleb.  None a’tall.”


         Miss Graves was sitting on the chaise lounge when I entered.  She had a book held so high it practically touched her nose.  She finally laid it to rest upon her lap and pushed the silver glasses from her long hooked nose with her forefinger. 
         “Uh, Miss Graves, uh, ma’am,” I started.
         “Well, Caleb, spit it out already.  I don’t have time to play decipher the stutterer today.”
         “Well, ma’am.  You knows I’ve been working for you for some ten years ma’am. That’s why I feels its best that I tells you what I heard, what happened.” 
         After I had finished explaining myself, Miss Graves smiled.  She started with a low throaty giggle and said “Why Caleb that’s one imagination you have there.  I’m sure whatever you overheard on accident was misunderstood.  Angela is the daughter of a very dear and old friend of mine who has since passed away.  What you are suggesting is an insult, Caleb”
         “Well, that’s just it ma’am. I don’t think she is who she claims.”
         “Are you suggesting that I can’t judge character?  That I would invite strangers into my home, strangers that will do as you suggest and rob me?” Miss Graves’ eyes were wide. Her mouth was hung open like a curtain shade that had been drawn up.
         “No, ma’am.  I’m sorry.  You’re right.  I must have misunderstood.”

         On the seventh day of Miss Totten’s arrivin’ I felt the earth shiftin’ to something evil.  I could feel it in my bones the same way I imagine my grandmother felt the rain coming in hers.  That night I told Arletha and Lodde both that they’s better stay in theys room because I could feel the evil ridin’ us. 
         “Now Caleb you just let whatevers gonna happen happen, you hear?  Evil is evil and there isn’t no sense a'tall in you getting in the middle of that evil,”  Arletha was advising me.
         “Now Arletha there ain’t no sense in anything bad happening.  We don’t even know exactly what they’s gonna do.  What if they hurt Miss Graves?”  I asked her.
         “I don’t know, I jus don’t know,” she began to sputter like a car that was running out of fuel.
         That night I went to bed heavy.  The hot air was thick and smothering.  It was the creaking of the floorboards that aroused me, but it was the voices coming from the living room that awoke me to full attention.  I crept out into the living space and through the kitchen. 
         “Now wheres the good stuff?  The silver and the jewels?” A mans voice whispered.
         “I got into her room yesterday.  I hid the jewels in the silver drawer under the cloth.” Miss Totten’s voice was stretched with excitement.
         Footsteps crept to the kitchen where I stood with sweat racing down my forehead.  “You can’t take nothin’ that don’t belong to you!” I yelled. “This here is Miss Graves’s things.  And, she ain’t been nothin’ but kind to you Missus.  You all should just go on and leave and I won’t tell nobody was happenin’.”  I looked hard at Miss Totten and she glared right back.  Eyes cold and green just like Lodde said.
         “Ain’t anybody going nowhere without something in their hand, you hear?”  A second man said.
         I felt the blow, across the back of my head, and down my shoulder blades.  I lay for a long time before I could regain my balance.  I heard Miss Graves scream from the living room. I saw Miss Totten open her mouth and shriek like she was puttin’ on one of those fancy plays you hear about in New York City.  The men, pillowcases swung over their shoulders, headed to the kitchen and out the back door. I stared at Miss Totten and she stared back at me like a mother ready to whip her child. 
         “See what you did Caleb?  And, to think you accused Angela.  Yet, here she sits scared as the rest of us.  How did you know Caleb?  How did you know these men were coming?”  Miss Graves questioned me.
         My eyes swung again to Miss Totten.  A half smile slithered across the side of her mouth.  I knew what Arletha meant now.  There really was no misunderstandin’ evil like that.