The thin-lipped, middle-aged woman read it and ran her eyes over Billie. “You’re Indian. Where did you get this?”
“From Mrs. Hofmann,” Billie murmured.
“I’m sure you did,” she said with sarcasm in her voice.
She took Billie’s books and put them under the desk. “I’ll not approve it.”
Billie blinked in disbelief. Everyone in town knew she worked for Lena and Oscar Hofmann. They had been seeing her in Little Falls for years.
Billie’s gay mood vanished. She couldn’t get her books. Reaching into her pocket, she handed the librarian a note. “Mrs. Hofmann thought you might want this, Mrs. Washington.”
It was a permission slip from Lena with her telephone number.
The librarian pursed her lips and angrily stamped the check-out cards, pushing the books back to Billie. “Now mind you. Bring those back in good condition.”
“Yes, thank you,” she said and left.
Hot tears welled up in Billie’s eyes as she walked down the steps of the library. It wasn’t the first time she had encountered a small mind, and it would certainly not be the last.
* * *
All through June, whenever she had free time, Billie pored over her library books. All day long, she looked forward to bedtime when she could put on her nightgown and settle into bed with her books. She thought, at first, she would miss novels, but she did not. She happily devoured everything she could find on photography from books to magazines to journals.
But by the first of July, she was running out of material. What would she do when she had been through them all?
“She has a fine mind, Lena,” Oscar said one evening as Billie ran upstairs to read before bed. “Shall I do it?”
Lena dropped her knitting into her lap and nodded. “Ja, do it. She is a good girl and worth it. She is like one of our own.”
Three weeks later, a package arrived from the Sears and Roebuck Company. It was addressed to Oscar. Billie set it on the kitchen table and went back to work. The next morning, when she came down to make breakfast, both Oscar and Lena were sitting at the kitchen table. Usually, she was the first one up, and she looked at them with surprise.
“Sit down, sweetheart,” Lena said, patting the chair.
Oscar pushed the parcel from the mail order company over to her. “This is for you. Open it.”
Billie was stunned. She reached for the package. It was heavy. Carefully, she untied the string and folded back the paper. Her eyes grew wide. “A Brownie camera!” she exclaimed. She looked from Oscar to Lena and back again. “Is—is this for me?”
“It is,” Oscar said with a grin.
Billie gasped. She picked up the camera gingerly. It was an aluminum box covered in black leather with three lenses in front, a viewfinder on top, and one on the side. There were levers for loading film and a carrying handle on top.
“It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” she said. “Look! There’s even film.”
Oscar and Lena laughed.
“Thank you, thank you,” she said, rushing from one to the other and hugging them. “I will pay you back someday!”
“Nein, it is a gift,” Oscar said. “Enjoy it, little one.”
And Billie did enjoy it. Each afternoon, when her household duties were complete, she would head outside to take photographs. Since her film was limited, she chose her subjects carefully. Some of her first shots were of the hired boys. They thoroughly enjoyed being photographed, seeing it as an opportunity to show off. The Hofmanns posed as well, but they were uncomfortable. Billie even took photos of the farm animals and barn cats but only when they were sleeping. She knew, if her subjects moved, the photos would blur.
When she finished her first roll of film, she was lost. It had to be sent away for processing, which would take weeks, so the Hofmanns agreed to let Billie do extra chores to buy more film. That way, she could continue taking pictures.
Because of her passion, her skills improved quickly. She seemed to have an instinct for composition and became adept at arranging her subjects.
“Stand by the barn, Johnnie,” she ordered one evening. “Just there, yes and back a little. Yes, now Alvin stand next to him.”
Alvin dashed over, put his elbow on Johnnie’s shoulder, and leaned against him jauntily.
“Oh, yes, that’s good. Now, don’t move.” She turned to Buzz. “Come here and sit on the fence by Alvin.”
Buzz climbed up and removed his flat cap.
“No, leave your caps on, all of you.”
The boys did exactly as Billie said, no arguments. The shy, reserved girl they knew was gone. Behind the camera, she was in charge.
When she had taken the picture, Johnnie asked, “Say, I saw a family of otters down by the river. You want to walk down there and have a look?”
Billie’s eyebrows shot up. “All right,” she replied, “let me put this away.” She took the camera in the house.
When she returned, they followed a path along the creek to the river. It was sunset, and the rays cast a golden glow on the water. Birds called from the trees as squirrels darted through the brush.
Billie felt tongue-tied and awkward. Only moments ago, she was ordering everyone around; now she was back to feeling quiet and shy.
Johnnie picked up a stick and swatted at weeds as they walked. “You miss school?”
“Sometimes. You?”
“Nah,” he replied. “You’re good in school. It never came easy for me.”
“You do good memory work,” Billie argued. “You had lots of lines in the school play.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t easy.”
They walked a while in silence until he said, “I don’t think I’m going back next year.”
Billie stopped and looked at him. “Why not?”
“I’m going to get a job instead. I never liked it at St. Matthew’s. But I guess it’s better than some places. My cousin got locked in the root cellar at his school for speaking Chippewa.”
“Really?”
“Ya, they─”
Just then, they came around a bend, and the river opened up before them. Johnnie put his fingers to his lips. They tip-toed, and suddenly, he grabbed Billie’s hand and pointed. Two otters were swimming toward shore, parting the water behind them in a V. The little creatures climbed up onto the far shore and, after sniffing around in the grass, abruptly slid down the muddy riverbank into the water.
“They’re playing,” he whispered in Billie’s ear.
She nodded and smiled.
Over and over, the otters climbed up the bank and slid down. At last, they lost interest and swam off.
When Johnnie turned around, Billie realized he was still holding her hand. She withdrew it quickly. “We better go back,” she said.
“Ya, I guess we better.”
* * *
Johnnie asked Billie several times after that to walk with him in the evening, but she refused. She knew the Hofmanns would not approve. She liked Johnnie, but she felt funny spending time alone with him. It was confusing, and she did not feel ready for that kind of friendship. She preferred her photography.
Billie’s first set of prints came in the mail in the middle of July, and she was thrilled. It was exhilarating to see her work. But she also viewed it with a critical eye, examining the composition, light, and clarity.
“Well, look at that, Mama,” Oscar said, looking at a picture of Lena. “At last, you can see why I think you are a beauty.”
Lena cuffed him on the arm and went back to hanging clothes on the line.
“The boys are in the barn,” Oscar said to Billie. “Go show them.”
Billie called the boys outside to look.
“God, you’re ugly,” Alvin said to Johnnie, looking at one of the pictures.
“At least my nose isn’t flat,” Johnnie countered. They started pushing each other and laughing.
Buzz was standing off to the side. Billie knew his sight was poor. “Here,” she said, handing
him a magnifying glass she had brought for Mr. Hofmann.
Buzz’s face lit up. “Thanks, Billie.”
He walked over, and Alvin handed him the pictures. “Now you can see how butt ugly you are too.”
Buzz chuckled and thumbed through the photos.
The rest of the summer, Billie worked on developing her technical skills. By August, she had gone beyond what books had to offer, and she knew it was time for her creativity to evolve. Buried somewhere deep inside was her own style, but finding it proved difficult. For weeks, nothing presented itself, and she was growing frustrated.
“Billie,” Mrs. Hofmann called one evening at sunset. “Tell Oscar to come in and eat his sandwich.” She pointed down the driveway.
It was then Billie saw her shot. Mr. Hofmann was standing in the middle of the road with his back to her, watching a storm approach. The sky was filled with black clouds that rolled and tumbled, looming like black castles on the horizon. The sky was flashing with lightning.
The wind whipped her skirt as she walked down the dirt road toward him, camera in hand. The sun was still out overhead, giving her the light she needed. She positioned the camera at her waist, looked down through the viewfinder, and took three photographs of Oscar in the foreground of the storm.
Suddenly, he turned around and roared, “Get in the cellar now!”
Lena called the boys, and they dashed into the root cellar. When they emerged after the storm, several trees were down, and a shed was flattened.
A week later, Billie entered the photos in a contest run by The American Amateur Photographer Magazine, and in late August, a check came in the mail. She had won first prize.
* * *
“Here is your money,” Oscar said, handing Billie her twenty dollars. He had just returned from the bank, where he had cashed her check.
“Please, it’s yours to pay for the camera.”
“No, that was a gift, little one,” Lena said. “And we will hear no more about it.”
“Buy yourself some more film,” Oscar said, sitting down in an easy chair with a sigh.
Billie laughed. “That’s a lot of film.”
It was her last day with the Hofmanns, and she was feeling blue. Other years, Billie had not minded returning to school, but this year, it was difficult. Her life was taking a new course, and she wanted to pursue it. Off and on all day, she considered what to do with her prize money. It was a fun problem to have. Think of the film it will buy. Maybe I could buy another camera? It seemed as if the possibilities were endless. But as the day progressed, she began to feel uneasy.
When she finished washing the supper dishes, she dried her hands and went into the parlor to talk to the Hofmanns. Oscar was reading the paper, and Lena was mending.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hofmann,” Billie said.
Oscar put the paper down, and Lena took off her glasses.
“Is there any way you could deliver the money to my parents? They need it more than I do.”
“Ja, it can be wired,” Oscar said. “Are you certain of this?”
“Yes.”
Lena smiled. “You are a good girl.”
Billie felt relieved. It would have felt funny doing anything else with the money. As she was pulling clothes off the line later that evening, she heard her name.
It was Johnnie. He walked up to her, his hands in fists. “I came to say goodbye. I got a job at the lumber mill.”
“Really? No more school?”
“No more school,” he said and shrugged. “Things change. I probably won’t see any of you again.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, Johnnie.”
“At least now I have photographs of everyone, everyone but you.”
She smiled and looked down.
“May I?” and then he bit his lip self-consciously. “May I kiss you goodbye instead?”
Billie’s eyes grew wide, and she looked at the farmhouse. The sheets on the line where hiding them from view. She nodded.
Johnnie took off his flat cap, put his hands on her shoulders, and kissed her.
“Goodbye, Billie Bassett.”
“Goodbye, Johnnie.”
Chapter 5
Billie expected she would settle back into school and that comfortable feeling would return. It never did. She kept yearning for the long, summer days on the farm, where she felt safe and secure. She would gaze off in class, thinking about the happy hours spent behind her camera, then be caught and scolded.
“What’s wrong with you, Bassett?” Miriam asked after science class one morning. “Are you in love?”
“Yes, but not with a boy.”
Miriam’s eyebrows shot up. “A girl?”
“Oh, stop it,” Billie said, picking up her books. “I wish I was back on the farm taking photos. Oh, Miriam, it was the best summer I ever had.”
“I would think so, working with Johnnie Kelly.”
Billie shrugged. “I really didn’t see much of him.”
Their next class was mathematics with Mr. Withers. They watched Ivy Brubaker walk in just before them. She had put on weight again. There was more color in her cheeks, and her uniform was clean.
“She looks better,” Miriam whispered to Billie.
Billie swallowed hard. “When do you think Mr. Withers will announce the name of his new teaching assistant?”
Miriam frowned. “Any day now.”
Billie’s thoughts went to Miriam. She understood now why her best friend had become so unpredictable and withdrawn two years ago when she was Wither’s assistant.
The class seemed to drag on forever, and when the bell rang, Billie breathed a sigh of relief. Withers had not yet announced his choice.
That afternoon, Billie was assigned once more to gardening. Everyone had to rotate through work duties, but if you excelled at something, the nuns gave you that job repeatedly. The heavy gardening, landscaping, and fieldwork was done by the boys, but the girls tended the flowers.
Today, Billie was to weed the walkway in back of the school. It was a long, winding flagstone path with an arbor overhead covered in vines, a lovely refuge on a hot summer day and the pride of the academy. Weeds sprung up regularly between the flagstones, so that week it was Billie’s responsibility to clear them.
She didn’t mind the chore. Most students hated weeding, but it gave her time to get lost in her daydreams. With a watering can by her side, she would moisten the ground to loosen the roots and then drop down on her knees to pull out the weeds. The work was satisfying, and she was so engrossed in it, she didn’t hear someone walk up. Not until she saw two men’s shoes in front of her, did she look. It was Mr. Withers. She jumped up with her heart hammering.
“I’m sorry if I startled you, Miss Bassett,” he said in his nasal voice.
Billie was mute. She swallowed hard and dropped her eyes.
He searched her face as if it was the first time he had seen it. “You mustn’t be afraid of me,” he said. “I’m your teacher.”
She nodded.
He touched her shoulder. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, she raised her eyes. A smile flickered on his thin lips.
“You’re such a pretty little girl. I’ll see you tomorrow in class?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled.
He walked off.
With trembling hands, Billie gathered her tools and ran back to the academy. Just as she was about to dash inside, she bent over and retched into the hostas.
* * *
Like a sleepwalker, Billie went through the motions of class the next day. She had slept little the night before because she knew now, without question, she was Wither’s new choice. She had seen it in his smile.
She wanted to run to Sister Agnes, break into tears, and tell her everything, but then she remembered what Miriam had said about the girl who had reported Withers. She had been expelled. Billie could not take that chance.
Once more, she was back to running away, but where would she go? They would search her parent’s home a
nd then the Hofmann farm. She could sleep in barns and haystacks but not in winter. It was hopeless. She felt alone and ashamed that she was a girl, a girl who attracted this kind of attention.
By math class, Billie was completely numb. She felt removed from her body as if she was a marionette on strings. Withers was at his desk, dressed in his usual threadbare wool suit and faded bowtie. She felt his eyes on her when she walked in.
Billie went through the motions of class, trying to keep her mind on the work. At the end of the hour, Withers put his chalk in the blackboard tray, dusted off his hands, and said, “Worksheets are due tomorrow. I expect them in my basket first thing.” The bell rang, and the students stood up. “You are not dismissed,” he said.
Everyone sat back down, looking at him.
“I am pleased to announce my choice for teaching assistant this year is Miss Wilhelmina Bassett.”
Billie stared straight ahead, expressionless.
Everyone picked up their books and started out the door.
“Miss Bassett, a moment,” Mr. Withers said.
Billie walked over to him, her eyes on the floor.
“Congratulations.”
She nodded. Even through the haze, she could smell his foul breath.
“We will begin Saturday morning at 9 am. My office is on the fourth floor. The small one with the round window.”
It was the attic room.
“That will be all.”
The fog continued for Billie the whole day. Several times, she drifted off and left the iron on the blouses too long, almost scorching the fabric. Cleaning the lavatories was less risky, but even there, she forgot to wash the floors.
Since it was raining, gardening was canceled, so she helped in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. She watched the rain run down the windows. She thought it looked like tears.
Miriam kept darting looks at her. At last, she stepped over and said, “Billie.” She hesitated, looking around. “About tomorrow, I would say use your imagination. Pretend you are somewhere else. You may not notice things as much. You know what I mean?”
Billie stopped peeling potatoes and looked at her. It was a glassy-eyed stare as if she had just been awakened from a deep sleep.
Miriam clutched her arm and blurted, “Billie, don’t be afraid─” and she stopped, returning to the sink.
The Image Seeker Page 4
