“I insist.”
“No, I am saying you really don’t have to pay her anything. I have her for six hours a day nearly every day. I don’t create many messes. She never has enough to do. You’ll be doing us both a favor, honestly. You can have her for half the time. Noon to three. Okay?”
“Who is paying for those six hours a day?”
Melanie’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit but she went on as if the question hadn’t been asked. That was none of June’s damn business. “I’ll send her over at twelve.” Melanie turned for the door.
“Is she a trustworthy person, this Eva?” June asked.
Melanie pivoted back around. “She doesn’t snoop if that’s what you mean. She does what she’s asked to do without any questions. You won’t have to lock up the silver, either. And if Elwood doesn’t want to see her, he doesn’t have to. She can set a tray outside his door.”
“And where is she from?” June asked. “I can tell she’s not from around here.”
“She’s from Poland. A DP. She lost her home and her family—I guess everything—in the war. The American government brought her over back when they were doing nice things for people instead of destroying them like they are now.”
“How? How did she lose everything?”
Melanie shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve asked her a couple times. I don’t think she likes to talk about it. Noon, then. Okay?”
“All right.”
Though the conversation seemed clearly finished, Melanie lingered on the welcome mat. She wanted so very much to talk to Elwood. She was about to ask, very kindly, if she could have just five minutes of his time, when June picked up on the reason for her hesitancy to leave.
“So. How did your call go?” June asked. “Elwood…he’ll want to know.”
So. There was to be no short visit. At least not today. “You can tell him I didn’t give them anything. What they really wanted were names and I said I couldn’t provide any.”
“What kind of names did they want?”
“The names of Carson’s friends. His acquaintances. Anyone I had ever seen with Carson even if I had never heard them speak about anything political. But I promised Carson I wouldn’t do that to him. Or his friends. So I didn’t.”
“That’s very generous of you. Considering what it’s costing you.”
“Those men in Washington don’t control the blacklist; Hollywood does.”
“But aren’t the studios paying attention to who is eager to clear their name and who isn’t? That’s what I’ve read in the papers.”
Melanie bristled. “I’ve been given no promise that spouting outnames will clear me. Besides. If I go back on my promise, I’ll have nothing. Absolutely nothing, and Carson would never forgive me. I’d have to go crawling back to Omaha. I’m not doing that. This hell I’m in can’t last forever. It can’t. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
In the next second Melanie recalled the words Elwood had written to her earlier that morning:“You must live with what you decide…”
“Were those men happy with you telling them nothing?” June asked, intruding into Melanie’s thoughts.
“No.”
June didn’t say it, but they both knew this meant nothing was going to change for Melanie. Not presently, anyway. She’d remain on the blacklist. Perhaps for a long time.
4
Eva was surprised by Melanie’s request that she head over to the Blankenship house at noon but wasn’t put off by it. Most days she’d done all there was to do at Melanie’s by noon anyway, and she spent the rest of the workday dusting shelves that weren’t dusty, cleaning windows and mirrors that weren’t smudged, vacuuming rugs that yielded nothing, polishing furniture she’d polished the day before. Her only reluctance in helping out at the Blankenships’ was that she was somewhat nervous about being around Elwood Blankenship, the man who never left his house.
Melanie told her there had been a tragic car accident years ago; that Elwood had been driving and someone had been killed. That event had changed him. Transformed him into someone who did not venture out anymore. Apparently this inability to step outside one’s own house happened sometimes to people who’d suffered a great trauma. There was a name for the condition, Melanie had said, but she could not remember what it was.
Eva could halfway understand Mr. Blankenship’s response to this immense tragedy in his life. She was familiar with immensetragedy. What she’d liked most about her new life in America was that she was far, far away from everything that had happened to her, and if she was honest, being inside the same house as a man who’d dealt with disaster by shutting himself away from the world concerned her. Would she be reminded again and again of what she’d lost when she heard Elwood Blankenship moving about behind a closed door or when she cleaned his bathroom or as she prepared a lunch tray for him?
Melanie wasn’t sure she would even see Elwood, but what if she did? What if she had to serve that meal and witness firsthand the haunted look she’d seen in her own eyes?
Then again, maybe it was time to see if she could bear a hearty visible reminder that the world could be a cruel place. Maybe it was time to gauge her resilience. How did a person know how strong they were if their strength was never tested? And didn’t she want to know if she was free of the ghosts of her past, even the ghosts of those she had loved?
