"Southwest Baltimore? Which part?" asked Tess, a true Baltimorean, forever focused on the precise boundaries of where people lived.
"Pigtown," Jackie muttered. "Pigtown, okay? Anyway, Mama wanted me to keep the baby, so she could raise it, get a little extra AFDC money and food stamps every month. I almost went for it, too. But you know, I had finished high school and I had this nothing job, and I suddenly saw my future. I told myself, ‘This is it, girl. You've still got a chance to make something of yourself, but not if you keep this baby.'"
The appetizers arrived-a tart with woodland mushrooms for Tess, some goat cheese thingie for Jackie.
"What about the baby's father?"
"He wasn't interested in being a father. But you know, I give him credit for admitting it up front, for not pretending to be into it and then dumping me as soon as the baby came. I saw that happen often enough to my girlfriends. Anyway, I signed my daughter over to a private agency and never looked back. And when I got a scholarship to Penn, I decided to change my name legally, sort of a symbol of my new life. In the back of my mind, I think I didn't want my baby to come looking for me one day. You see, I figured I was going to be somebody real famous, real successful, and I didn't want any tabloid trash reunion in my future."
Jackie's story was at once impressive and repellent to Tess. How could someone be that calculating at eighteen? Yet the woman's confidence in herself had been rewarded. Here she was, her life tricked out with the material trappings of success at an age when many of her contemporaries were still slacking. Tess knew now she had seized on the issue of "Mary Browne's" age with such glee because she couldn't bear to think that someone just a few years older than herself, someone born without wealth or privilege, could accomplish so much. But Susan-Jackie had tripped over her own age only because that was the one part of her masquerade she hadn't thought out. An uncharacteristic slip, most likely.
"So why did you come to me? Are you worried your daughter is going to show up on your doorstep? Do you want to launch some kind of preemptive strike, make sure it's impossible to find you? It can probably be done, but I specialize in finding people, not hiding them."
"I don't want to hide. I'm not ashamed of my past." Well, well, well. Jackie had a temper, one she couldn't quite control. Hands shaking, she took several long, steady sips from her water glass. When she spoke, she was in control again, her voice steady and smooth.
"As I told you, my mother died within the past year. We had gotten to the point where we had some contact, but I was little more than a human bank machine to her. She'd call to complain about some crisis in her life, I'd send her some money. Once she was gone, I waited to feel bereft. Instead, I felt haunted, as if someone were following me. I found myself blowing off appointments, driving around Pigtown and looking at the young girls there. I kept thinking, Are you out there? What became of you? Do you hate me?"
"Your daughter was put up for adoption, probably with some nice middle-class family. She'd have to be an awful ingrate to hate the woman who made it possible for her to have a better life."
"I wish I knew that. She'll be thirteen this summer. I wasn't much older when I met her father. Five years later, she was inside me."
Tess wondered what it was like to be pregnant. She knew only what it was like to fear it, to worry obsessively over failed contraception, to count the days in the calendar over and over again, calculating ovulation and wondering if maybe, just maybe, the pharmaceutical companies of America had let her down. Nothing was 100 percent effective. Then again, what if you couldn't have a baby? What if you spent all this time and money and worry preventing something that would never happen? Could you get a rebate?
"Do you want to be part of your daughter's life again? Because that's not something I'd be party to. I believe your parents are the people who rear you."
"No, absolutely not. I just want to see her, know she's okay. What could I be to her, anyway? I'm a little young to be a mother figure, too old to be a friend. I'll put my name in the state registry and when she turns eighteen, she can find me there if she wants. For now, if I could just see her, even from a distance, and know that it all paid off, I'd be happy. Blood tells. I made so many mistakes when I was younger. I just want to know she isn't making the same ones."
Another lost child, Tess thought, and this one doesn't even have a name. She couldn't imagine where to start.
"Will you do it? Will you help me find my baby?" Jackie had dropped her detached, professional tone. Her voice was urgent, almost pleading.
"I don't know. What you're asking is pretty hard. Truthfully, I wouldn't even know where to begin."
"There's this Adoption Rights group that meets in Columbia every other week. We could go there first, learn some strategies."
"It's not just the ‘how' part that bothers me. After all, I could give it my best shot, earn some money without worrying I was bleeding you dry. I'm still not sure I want to work for you."
"Why?"
"Because you tricked me, you jerked me around. Okay, you got burned by some other detectives. But there were other ways to figure out I'm legitimate. I can't shake the feeling you liked that whole elaborate game, that you really got off on your Mary Browne disguise. I feel like a little mouse, batted back and forth in some cat's paws. Besides, you're bright, you must have connections if you worked for politicians. You can probably find out as much as I can, even more."
"It's true, I'm successful-more successful than you, for a fact."
"Why, thanks for pointing that out," Tess said dryly.
"But when it comes to dealing with people who have power over me-especially white people who have power over me-I lose it. I either get all bashful and tongue-tied, or I start screaming lawsuit. Neither approach is particularly effective."
Tess had a strange sense of déjà vu, as if she knew exactly what Jackie meant. The principal at Gwynn's Falls Middle School, taciturn Keisha, Beale's uncooperative neighbors, even the Nelsons. They had thwarted her, been less helpful than they might have been, and all because of her race.
"Okay, quid pro quo," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"I'll take your case, but I want more than money from you. I want your help, talking to people who won't talk to me, on another case I'm working."
Jackie's look was contemptuous. "You mean poor black folks, don't you? What, do you think there's some secret language I speak that will get me by? That some poor black kid is going to talk to a sister, who happens to be driving a Lexus and wearing the kind of clothes I wear?"
"Maybe. I am willing to bet you can convince a middle school principal that you're a particular kid's next of kin, which is something I can't pull off. That's a start. We'll see how it goes from there."
Their entrees arrived and Jackie attacked her pompano en croute with a ferocity Tess found admirable, even familiar. She was bent over her meal with the same intensity. But Jackie could concentrate on her food without losing her train of thought.
"So, if I help you on this other case, do I get a discount?"
"Nope," Tess said cheerfully. "The wages of sin, for not being straight with me from the beginning. Consider it a fraud surcharge."
Finally, Jackie smiled, but it was a cool smile, even a little supercilious. "Good for you. You've already learned one of the cardinal rules for the small businesswoman. Don't give it away-unless you have to."
"Did you ever give it away?"
"No. But then I was good from the very beginning."
Chapter 9
They drove into the city together, although it would mean a long trip back for Tess, who had left her car at Jackie's apartment. But she needed to brief Jackie on the names of the children she was looking for, the block where they had once lived, the questions to ask. She also liked the unaccustomed luxury of Jackie's car, the pampered feeling of being chauffered, although she didn't mention this to Jackie.