Minute Maids

  MINUTE MAIDS

  an original short story by Rachel Caine

  * * *

  After she'd looked at the blood a while, Olida was able to think of it as a stain. A big old ugly stain from floor to ceiling, throwing red legs over the tub, puddling around the pot. She pulled the last stiff towel down from the rod. The bathmat made a sticky sucking sound as she peeled it loose from the floor; the blood underneath looked black and flowed slow, like syrup. Olida wrapped the mat in the towel and tossed the whole mess to Rita-Mae. The girl made a face and held it at arm's length.

  "Shit, don't throw it at me! Think they're gonna want this stuff?" Rita-Mae asked, and pushed her limp blond hair back with a sweaty hand. She'd been scrubbing at the stain in the hallway, the one that came down the hall to the bathroom in sloppy footprints. "I mean, we gonna wash it or what?"

  "Rita, did you leave your brain in a jar this mornin'? Just throw it out," Olida said, and wiped at her face with the back of her forearm. Lord, she was tired. Dried blood stuck to her gloves in brown flakes. "They'll be buyin' new towels."

  "Think you're so smart. How d'you know?" Rita-Mae shot back. Olida didn't even look at her. Rita-Mae's mouth didn't bother her any more.

  "'Cause I would," she said, "and so would you if they was your towels. Get me that pail of hot water, and you put enough Pine-Sol in there that I can smell it this time."

  Rita-Mae gave her a dirty glare and walked away swinging her butt like the trailer-park trash she was. Olida sighed and heaved herself off of her knees. At fifty-five, getting up wasn't as easy as it used to be. She caught a look at herself in the stained mirror as she turned -- a wide-hipped black woman, dressed in a white woman's castoffs bought for three dollars at the thrift shop. Good smooth skin, too much gray in her hair. She wondered how much Misty Lee Jackson over at the Le Chic Salon would charge her to dye that it out. Too young to be gray, she thought. I still look good.

  She knew she was lying to herself. She looked like any old sorry-assed nigger, sentenced to clean up other people's shit for the rest of her life.

  But shit was better than this, Lord, better than seeing what was left after folks done unto each other. Sometimes she felt bad about it, in a quiet way. She sighed and remembered what her momma had always said, bent over scrubbing up drunks' vomit at Joe's Late Nite Place

  .

  "Rich folks get depressed," she said aloud. "Poor folks get back to work."

  She reached up to unfasten the Care Bears shower curtain. The plastic rings let go with pops, and the curtain sagged like a carcass into the tub. Blood flaked away and made piles of red grit like old rust.

  Well, no sense in staring at it. She turned the hot water on and left it to soak.

  The blood wiped right off the glossy wall across from the toilet, gone like a bad dream. She used an old toothbrush to clean it out of the cracks in the tile and looked at the floor with a flashlight to make sure she'd got it all. When she was satisfied, she stood up to stretch a minute and lifted her arms over her head. Her back felt like it was put together with rubber bands, wrapped twice.

  Fifty-five. Sweet Lord Jesus, what a trial it was to get old. Olida sighed and got down on her knees again to sponge off the tile behind the toilet. Some of the blood was solid enough to peel off in a layer, like those Fruit Rollups her grandkids liked to eat. Old Jell-O, that was what it was. Old spilled raspberry Jell-O.

  She flushed the Jell-O down the toilet and got down on her knees again to sponge off the thick syrupy film that was left. Rita-Mae had brought her Pine-Sol bucket while her back was turned, and every time she dunked the sponge in it the water turned darker.

  She finished that and reached way back to clean off the streaks that had to be hiding where she couldn't see them.

  Something hard touched her fingers. She let out a yelp and banged her head on the pot scooting away; her heart felt heavy and thick in her chest, hammering to get out. She took in deep, deep breaths until her chest stopped aching, then crawled under the toilet and reached in and grabbed what she'd found.

  It was a little Care Bear, with a big happy rainbow on its chest. One ear had been chewed off, and the other showed child-sized toothmarks.

  There were dried bloodstains all over it. Olida took the sponge and scrubbed it, scrubbed it again until her fingers cramped up, then plunged it into the soapy water in the bucket and scrubbed it some more. When it was as clean as she could make it, she set it reverently back up on the shelf where the other Care Bears waited.

  The tub was full of hot red water. Olida pulled the plug and rinsed the shower curtain until she saw no more blood, anywhere.

  When she cleaned the mirror, there was no sign that anything had happened at all. Just an empty, clean-smelling bathroom waiting for a child.

  The Care Bears smiled at her from the shelf.

  Rita-Mae had finished her job and was polishing the wood hallway floor with oil, face dark pink and sweaty. She glared. Olida nodded to her and went on into the kitchen, where Zenobia was packing up their supplies into the carrying cases. The cases had faded stickers on them that said MINUTE MAIDS, but they hadn't none of them worked for Minute Maids in twelve years. Olida reminded herself for about the one hundredth time to take those stickers off, and forgot about it as soon as she dropped her rubber gloves into the trash sack piled in the corner.

  "We done?" Zenobia asked. Olida nodded and flapped her damp hands to cool them off. "Rita-Mae done a good job on the hall, did you see?"

  "I saw. You want your money now or at Charley's?"

  "Better now, I got to pick up Mando at school. He got football practice and all. I see you later, okay?"

  "Okay, honey. Here." Olida rubbed her hands on her faded work pants and dug ten twenty dollar bills out of her pocket. She handed them to Zenobia; the Mexican woman's round face puckered in a frown.

  "You give me too much, Lida. How much they pay you?"

  "Don't matter, you know that. You done a good job. You tell Mando to win on Saturday, hear?" Olida said, and Zenobia frowned at her for another minute, then shrugged and nodded. She waddled out the door to her ancient Woody station wagon with two of the carrying cases, and Olida waved to her as she backed out of the driveway and onto Tattinger Street

  . The wagon drove away, flapping peeling fake wood like streamers.

  That left Rita-Mae. Olida paid her off -- Rita-Mae wasn't as happy as Zenobia, but then she never was -- and helped her carry her share of supplies out to the orange Pinto. It sputtered and roared and belched black smoke as the girl gunned it and drove away.

  Olida stood on the porch and felt the sun breathe on her skin while she ticked off the list in her mind. Check the doors and windows. Take out the trash. Lock the door and drop the key over at Miz Grainger's house. She went back inside, blinked back sunspots, and turned right to walk down the hall.

  A little girl stood at the end of it, by the bathroom. She was wearing a long yellow nightgown with green ribbon on it. Olida stopped and braced herself against the wall. Her head pounded. A numb feeling bled up and down her left arm, and her eyes filled up with tears. She couldn't get her breath, and she felt tired, so tired she couldn't even feel too scared.

  She just wished it wouldn't keep happening.

  The little girl was white, with blonde hair. She just stood there, watching, waiting. Olida slid down the scrubbed wall to the oiled wood floor, and knew she was sitting right where nice Mrs. Gilbert had died.

  The little white girl held something out that caught the setting sunlight. It was a small plastic Care-Bear. She smiled and nodded to Olida.

  "Sweet Jesus, make it stop," Olida whispered, so softly she couldn't even hear it herself over the pounding of her heart. Tears broke free to slide like oil down her cold skin. She tried to tu
rn her face away, but she couldn't. The little girl turned and walked back in the bathroom.

  It's empty, Olida told herself. I cleaned it. Nothing there to see.

  She lay there half-propped on the wall for a long while before she felt the numbness in her arm go away. Standing up made her feel light-headed and sick, and scared. Her legs felt weak.

  The front door was behind her. She walked down the hall, the way the stains had walked. She walked to the bathroom and looked inside.

  Little Isobel Gilbert stood in the middle of a pool of blood. Blood everywhere, on the shower curtain, on the Care Bears, puddled around the pot. Isobel clutched her favorite plastic toy close and cried without making a sound. The whole house was like that, waiting.

  Olida felt so tired. The numbness hadn't gone away in her arm like she'd thought; it drilled deep into her bones like termites, cleaned out all her strength and left her empty. Too old, she thought. I'm so old. I don't want to see these things no more.

  Isobel looked up at her, and the tears sliding down her cheeks were blood.

  Olida went down on one knee. Something wet soaked into her work pants. Seen at close range Isobel wasn't so solid, more like a flickering TV picture, grainy and glowing.

  The little girl held out her arms.

  Olida closed her eyes and embraced her. Just for a minute, she felt her, cold and bloody, and then warm and firm like a child should be. And then it was gone, a whisper against her skin and through her body. Olida collapsed back against the cabinets and lay there while her heart fluttered in her chest like a caged bird, and settled down to pound again. It sounded quieter now. Weaker.

  Her fingers slid over the floor. Clean, smooth linoleum. Nothing wet.

  Olida raised her head and looked at the clean bathroom. She prayed for a while, flat on her back, and waited for her strength to come back to help her home.

  * * *

  Dinner was done, and even though Olida knew she shouldn't let the plates sit there she was too tired to clean up. She went in the living room and turned on the evening news. Her husband Lark stayed in the kitchen, rustling his paper; he pretended to be too deaf to hear the doorbell when it rang. Olida hauled herself out of her threadbare recliner and switched off the TV before she opened the door.

  The face on the other side turned out to be a sickly yellow-white. Nervous. It was Miz Cochran from the Calvary Temple, and she tried to smile and didn't do a very good job of it.

  "Olida, I'm so sorry to bother you, but your husband said it would be all right to come on by. We -- I mean the members of the Calvary Temple -- we took up a collection for Deacon Graham, and we'd like you to -- to -- clean his house for him while he's in the hospital. As a Christian favor."

  Miz Cochran found it hard to look Olida in the eye, like she might catch something off the stare. Her eyes kept moving away, down to the cracked concrete porch or off to the hollyhocks blooming in the garden, or over next door to where Fredoric sat on his steps and grinning at the show. Olida stepped aside to let Miz Cochran come in, but the woman just stood there like a mule, shaking her head. Olida came out and let the screen door slam shut behind her.

  "Why, sure, Miz Cochran, that would be just fine," she said, and tried to remember what the pastor said about turning the other cheek. "Deacon George, he's a real nice man. Real nice. He fixed my sink when Lark was down with his back problems, and I'd consider it just fair to do something for him in his bad times. How is he?"

  "He's fine. The doctors say they plan to let him go by Saturday. We just didn't want him to come home to the -- " Miz Cochran flapped her hands, helpless.

  "Mess," Olida supplied. "I reckon we can clean all that up. He used a shotgun to kill that burglar, didn't he?"

  "I think so," Miz Cochran said weakly. "Lord, I don't really know."

  Didn't want to, neither, Olida figured. She shrugged and let it go. She haggled another few minutes, poking at Miz Cochran's squeamishness when she thought it could get her to a better price, and in the end agreed on a perfectly good five hundred dollars. It would get Zenobia through another week of running her army of kids around, and get Rita-Mae's husband another few good drunks, and get Olida ahead a little on Lark's medical bills.

  Miz Cochran couldn't leave fast enough. Olida leaned on the door frame and watched her flowered dress shimmy away. She hadn't dared come by herself; somebody white waited in the car for her. Olida's neighbors Fredoric and Shalimar waved at the car until the white folks drove away, hellions just because they didn't have anything better to do. Olida grinned and went back into her house.

  Miz Cochran hadn't made such a good deal. Olida figured she would have done the job for two hundred, and paid Rita-Mae and Zenobia out of her own pocket. Deacon Graham had been good to her and Lark these past years; one of her prize possessions was the bronzed praying hands he'd made for her. He was known for them, at least in the county shows and fairs. Her pair looked like middle-aged hands, gnarled with hard work. Hands like her own.

  She went into the kitchen and sat down across from Lark with the phone. He kept his nose in the paper and pretended not to notice her. Rita-Mae's number rang five times, and when it finally got picked up it clattered as somebody dropped it. There were children screaming in the background, one baby, one just a baby at heart. The TV was on loud enough for Olida to pick up the end of the weather report she'd missed. Rain tomorrow. Thunderstorms.

  "'Lo?" somebody yelled on the other end.

  "Rita-Mae?"

  "Rita-Mae's in the can. Call back later." The boy was about twelve years old, too much attitude and too little sense. Olida decided he could have taken after either his mother or his father. In the background, a woman's voice yelled at him to put the phone down and asked who it was.

  "It's that nigger lady you work for!" the boy yelled back. Olida's back straightened, then relaxed. It didn't do no good to worry about it, not with Rita-Mae's kids.

  The boy yelled again, this time in pain as somebody smacked him. The phone picked up with another clatter.

  "Olida?" Rita-Mae asked. She was short of breath. "Sorry. If he had a brain, he'd take it out and play with it. Curtis, get in there and watch some TV! Don't bother me no more!"

  Olida waited until the fight on the other end died down to just the baby's squalling in the background.

  "You want a job tomorrow?" Olida asked.

  "How much?"

  "Hundred fifty. It'll be quick, in and out. Not like today."

  "Huh," Rita-Mae grunted. "Where is it?"

  "Deacon Graham's house. You 'member, he shot that burglar?"

  "Yeah, I heard that. Expect he keeps a clean place, him being a church man and all. What time you want me?"

  "Oh, ten. That'll give Zenobia time to get the kids settled." Olida cleared her throat. "You won't have no trouble getting Richard to keep yours?"

  "Richard don't go nowhere until the bars open, you know that. Won't be no trouble. He needs the money."

  "We meet there, ten sharp, okay?"

  "Okay." Rita-Mae hung up without a goodbye. Olida pushed her glasses back up on her nose and dialed Zenobia's number.

  "Ten is fine. God bless you," was Zenobia's answer. She didn't ask questions. She never did. Olida hung up smiling, which was the reason she always called Zenobia last, and looked across the kitchen table at Lark, who was working on the sports page with a deep frown. He didn't read so good, even after long years of trying.

  "Don't like you going to the Deacon's house," Lark said suddenly as she got up to take their dinner plates in to the kitchen. She stopped and looked at him, surprised, and got another frown and a rattle from the paper. He cleared his throat.

  "How come?" she asked. He turned the page.

  "Just don't. Just don't like him."

  Lark, Olida had long since resigned herself, was never going to take to any church or any church folk He'd threatened to throw Reverend Barnaby down the front steps one night when the Reverend came calling about the annual revival collection, and the Re
verend was as black as a Georgia midnight.

  "Lark, I promised, and I ain't goin' to go back on my word. Ain't nothing wrong with the Deacon."

  Lark grumbled under his breath. She carried the dishes to the sink and clattered them until he got up and hobbled out into the living room. Lark wasn't moving so good these days. Back troubles had put him out of work on the loading docks, and now he had trouble sleeping, and the money she made cleaning didn't go far enough to cover his medical bills. She turned the water on hot enough to steam her eyeglasses and scrubbed at the dishes until her mind felt clean.

  She ran herself a hot bath and put some rose colored bath crystals in it, the ones Lark had given her last Christmas; the smell was like a hot summer garden, and reminded her of trimming rose bushes in her momma's back yard, back when black folks sat in separate sections and had to use toilets white folks wouldn't have let their dogs pee in. The roses had been blood-red and velvet-smooth, the thorns as sharp as knives. She'd asked momma to plant some yellow ones, the kind that didn't have such sharp thorns, but momma had grinned and told her that the ones that were the hardest to get close to were always the best.

  There were blood spots on her work pants. Olida picked at them a minute, then rinsed them in the sink and put the pants in the laundry basket. The bath was hot and steamy, and when she settled into it she felt light, feather-light. Like a little girl.

  Olida was half-afraid she'd see the ghost again, but there was only the smell of roses, and rain.

  She dozed off and woke up with enough of a jerk to spill water out of the tub. She'd been in the water too long. Her skin looked loose and wrinkled. She felt like she'd gone to sleep in the bath a young firm woman and woke up a bloated, sick, old sack. Wasn't right. She'd mislaid ten or twenty years, somewhere, without even taking notice of them.

  When she got out of the tub again she felt heavy and old and mortally tired. Her robe was getting too small for her, and her stomach pouted out through it like it had when she was carrying LaVelle. She belted it tight and went back out in the living room.