9. ELLEN IS GONE. Margaret and Tommy are gone. Hudeen and Chandra are in an uproar. It is hard to get the story.

A Cox Cable van is parked two blocks from The Quarters. A man in the cherry picker is working on the line. He and the driver pay no attention to me.

Chandra has a new job and a car to go with it, a white compact with WOW-TV in large black letters. She’s the Feliciana correspondent and will do her first assignment this afternoon, the horse show at the Feliciana Free Fair. She’s full of it. She uses words like “major market,” “doing a remote,” “feature segment.”

Where is Ellen?

Hudeen, who long ago gave up ordinary talk except for exclamations and demurrers, can’t seem to relate the sequence of events.

Chandra, excited and nervous about her new job, is not much better.

I have to get the story by a series of questions, sitting facing Chandra at the breakfast table, Hudeen standing as usual at the sink, shelling peas and cooking greens, one eye cocked on the old Sony Trinitron. Watching As the World Turns, which has been on for fifty years. There’s young, now old, Chris Hughes. Over thirty years ago I was watching Grandpa Hughes counseling Ellen when the first bulletin came on that Kennedy had been plugged. Hudeen, sensing my alarm, is willing to turn down the sound and answer questions.

Ellen, it seems, has gone to Fresno, after all.

She left this morning.

With Dr. Van Dorn?

No, but he picked her up and took her to the Baton Rouge airport.

Tommy and Margaret went to school as usual, right?

Yes, he took them and they going to stay there as boarders while Miss Ellen gone.

What? What do you mean they’re staying there? Why aren’t they staying here?

Hudeen: I own no. Like I tole Miss Ellen, we take care them, ain’t that right, Chandra?

Chandra, sobering up from being a TV personality: Yes, that’s perfectly true. We’re perfectly capable of taking care of them. Hudeen is here during the afternoon and I’m here at night. In fact, I offered to take them to the fair and they wanted to go. But after Mr. Van Dorn talked to your wife, they decided it would be better if they stayed at the school with the boarders.

For the whole week?

Yes.

I see.

“He done give her a whole big box of Go Diver,” says Hudeen, hand on the volume control.

“What?”

Chandra: “After they talked in there,” Chandra nods toward the living room, “more like arguing at first, while we were keeping Tommy and Margaret in here. Yes, he did give her a five-pound box of Godiva chocolates, which she ate while I was packing for her and the children. And about that time I get my call from WOW—”

“You say she ate them all?”

“I mean all,” says Hudeen.

They get into a discussion of Godiva chocolates. “She already a little heavy, I tole her!” Hudeen exclaims into the sink. “And I had her breakfast ready, her and the chirren, some fried grits and gravy, which don’t put no weight on nobody.”

Chandra is shaking her head at me and rolling her eyes up.

Hudeen, who doesn’t miss much, sees her.

“Don’t you mock me, girl!”

“I’m not mocking you.” Chandra turns to me. “It’s not the calories so much as the sugar metabolism and known carcinogens in chocolate.”

Sugar metabolism. Carcinogens. I’m not following this.

“Just a minute.” I hold out a hand to each. “Hold it. Let me get this straight. You, ya’ll, are saying that Ellen had an argument with Dr. Van Dorn, that he gave her a box of candy, that you had to pack for her and the children, that she’s gone to Fresno by herself, and that the children are going to stay at Belle Ame with the boarders?”

“Sho,” says Hudeen, keeping an eye on Chris Hughes’s granddaughter, a girl in deep trouble.

“She was quite upset about something,” explains Chandra, again shaking her head at Hudeen, “which was why I helped with the packing—”

“Wasn’t studyin’ any packing,” says Hudeen. “I tell her, I say, Miss Ellen, you got to pack.”

“But she was fine, don’t worry,” says Chandra, as sober and sensible as I could want. “She polishes off that box of candy, which would have polished me off, and is perfectly fine. I don’t like that man,” she adds thoughtfully.

“Who, Dr. Van Dorn? Why not?”

“He’s manipulative. I don’t trust him,” says Chandra.

“He biggety too,” says Hudeen.

“How do you mean?”

“Telling me to call Carrie Bon and tell her Claude he staying out there too. Didn’t ax, told, like I’m working for him.”

“Wait. You’re telling me that Dr. Van Dorn asked you to call Carrie Bon, Vergil and Claude’s mother, at Pantherburn and tell her that Claude was going to be staying at Belle Ame too?”

“That what I’m telling you.”

I look at Chandra. She shrugs. “That was after I left. I had got my call.”

“What did you do, Hudeen?” Hudeen doesn’t turn around but holds up both hands, pale salmon-colored palms turned up. “What I’m going to do, he standing right there holding out the phone. So I told her he be staying on with Tommy and Margaret and she say all right.”

“I see.”

“I sent him some clothes too, but he big.”

“I know.”

“I sent him your sweater and pajamas.”

“Good.”

“Dr. Tom—” For the first time Hudeen turns to face me, drying her hands with her apron, eyes almost meeting mine, then falling away. “I sho wish you’d—Ain’t no way I can—” She turns back to the sink.

I look at Chandra. She too opens her hands. “She means that Tommy and Margaret need more parenting and that Mrs. More is preoccupied with her bridge or with—” She too falls silent.

Parenting. True, I could use more parenting skills.

We all fall silent.

I’m thinking about the argument and the Godiva chocolates. Then I think of nothing. Then something occurs to me.

“Chandra, I want you to do me a favor.”

“Ask it.” There is something alarming about her new gravity, her attentiveness to me. I think I liked her smart-aleckness better. “I got a few minutes before I have to do this remote. I’m meeting the camera crew and the remote unit.”

“This won’t take long. I want you to make a phone call for me.”

“No problem.” She picks up the wall phone.

“No. Don’t you have a cellular phone in your car?”

“I surely do.” She looks both pleased and puzzled.

“Okay, but first hand me that phone and I’ll make a call.”

Hudeen and Chandra make an effort to appear not to listen as I make my call. But they don’t talk. Hudeen turns off the sink tap.

I call Belle Ame. A woman’s voice answers. I ask for Van Dorn. He’s not there.

“This is Dr. Thomas More. With whom am I speaking?”

“Oh, Dr. More! This is Mrs. Cheney from homeroom. You remember me!”

“I sure do.”

“Dr. Van Dorn will be back in a few minutes. He’s down at the soccer field.”

“Very good, Mrs. Cheney.” She has the sweet-lady voice of a sorority housemother. “I am calling to tell you I am picking up Tommy and Margaret and Claude Bon in about an hour. You can tell Dr. Van Dorn when he gets back.”

“Well surely, Doctor, but I thought—”

“Plans have been changed. I’m picking them up. Please have them ready, Mrs. Cheney.”

“I surely will, Doctor. But—”

But I’ve hung up. I pass the phone to Chandra. She looks at me.

“Chandra, I can’t explain now—we have to move fast—but will you make a call for me from your cellular phone in your car?”

“Of course.”

“You were leaving anyway.”

“Yes, I—”

“Can you leave this instant?”

“Sure.” She gets up. She hears something in my voice. “What’s the call?” She’s good. She doesn’t ask why.

“Do this please. Go to your car, but don’t make the call until you’ve driven ten blocks past those Cox Cable linemen. Then park and make this call. Call Belle Ame, here’s the number. Ask for a Mr. or Mrs. Brunette. All I want to find out is if they’re at the school. You don’t need to talk to them. Mrs. Cheney will probably answer the phone. You will learn right away either that they’re with the school or that she never heard of them. Hang up. You understand?”

“I understand,” she says, watching me like a hawk.

“Then call me. If Mr. and Mrs. Brunette are with the school, say this: Dr. More, I just called to say I can make it tonight. If Mrs. Cheney never heard of them, say: Dr. More, I’m sorry, but I’m going to be tied up at work. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” What she hears in my voice is the urgency. She’s halfway to the door.

“I appreciate this, Chandra. We have to be careful, even with a cellular phone. I’ll explain later.”

“No problem.” She’s gone.

After Chandra leaves, Hudeen and I are silent. Finally Hudeen says “Shew!” and then after a while she says, I think, “Humbug.”

I move to Chandra’s chair next to the wall phone. The seat is still warm from Chandra.

Before I know it, Hudeen has given me a plate of Tennessee ham, collard greens, black-eyed peas, two corn sticks which she makes in an iron mold, and a slab of sweet butter. “You ain’t going nowhere till you eat this. You looking poor. You been looking poor.” By poor Hudeen means I’m not fat. “You want some buttermilk?”

“Yes.”

I eat fast, watching the stove clock. It takes four minutes for the phone to ring. Hudeen jumps and says “Lawd.” I let the phone ring twice. I pick it up.

“Hello”—with a mouth full of collards.

“Dr. More?”

“Yes?”

“Chandra Wilson.”

“Yes, Chandra?”

“I just called in to the station and I can make it tonight.”

“Thank you for calling, Chandra. I hope you’ll feel better.” I hang up.

I eat it all. The ham is strong and salty. The collards are even stronger than Carrie’s mustards, stronger than the meat. Hudeen nods. She is pleased. She wants me fat.

I look at my watch and call Lucy at Pantherburn.

“Lucy—” I begin.

“Oh, my Lord, I’ve been worried to death. There’s something I’ve got to—”

I cut her off. “Lucy, I appreciate your concern for your uncle and I’m on my way.”

“What?”she says. “What?”

“I most deeply appreciate your concern for your uncle. I’m leaving now, okay?”

“Okay, but—” She understands that something is up and I can’t talk.

“I need you to help me make a professional call, okay?”

“Okay”—baffled, but she’ll go along.

“I’ll see you in half an hour, okay?”

“Half an hour,” she repeats in a neutral voice; then collecting herself: “Fine, I appreciate it!”

I finish the last of the buttermilk. “Thanks, Hudeen. They’ll be back tonight.”

“Bless God! I sho be glad.”

“Hudeen, don’t call Carrie Bon about Claude. Don’t call anybody.”

“Bless God, I’m not calling a soul.”