Would he think that she let just anyone kiss her? She wanted to explain that she didn’t, but she could think of no way to put it that wasn’t trite, so she said nothing. For the first time she did not critically analyze a kiss as it was happening but let its warm syrup pour through her and, when it ended, felt a keen privation.
“I want to see you again,” he told her. “Will you meet me at the Lucky Club tomorrow night? Tonight,” he amended, glancing at the dashboard clock.
She didn’t answer. He looked at her so solemnly that she turned away from him, feeling weighed down by his gaze. After a moment, he started the engine and they continued back to town.
Stopping at the corner of Second Street, several houses from Kate’s, he cut the lights but not the engine. When he looked at Bess, she smiled and touched his hand, which lay on the steering wheel. He smiled gravely back.
“You don’t have to decide now,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be working.”
“At the Loon?”
“Seven-thirty to three-thirty.”
“I’ll come in for coffee. Is that all right?”
“Of course.”
She hurried across the intersection and up Second Street to Kate’s house, watching Doyle Hanlon’s taillights disappear. Trembling, she ran up the steps and inside, letting the screen door quietly close behind her. She mustn’t wake Aunt Kate, who would ask what she had been doing.
Closing the door of her room with care so that a tiny click was the only sound, Bess threw the rumpled clothes from the bed onto a chair. Without turning on the light, she undressed, tossing her things onto the same chair and climbing into bed without a gown. She kicked the sheet and spread to the bottom of the bed and lay exposed to the darkness. Pretending that her hands were Doyle Hanlon’s, she ran them over her face and breasts and down her belly.
Celia, is this what happened to you?
Chapter 13
KATE
Archer stood, as he often did, at the foot of Kate’s bed, a darker stain within the darkness of the room. She left off talking with him when she heard a car stopping at the corner and then the screen door twanging downstairs.
Bess was home, although later than usual. The Big Ben alarm said two-fifteen.
Up the stairs the child came, quietly, stepping (Kate knew) to the side of the tread, close to the wall, to keep the stairs from creaking. She didn’t stop in the bathroom to wash her face, but went straight along to her room and closed the door.
Archer waited.
How would Bess get into that bed with all the clothes and books piled on it? Kate massaged the swollen knuckles of her right hand. After a minute of listening to soft to-ing and fro-ing in the next room, she heard Bess’s bedsprings gave a metallic wheeze and the house was still.
Kate sighed. In the account book of her mind, she ticked off another night, only a handful remaining until Bess would be away. Elizabeth Canby escaped without injury.
Her eyes again sought the dark figure at the foot of her bed.
“If I’d had it out with you, Archer, the night that Celia came running here with Bess …
“I know you hit her because there were marks on her cheek, but there was more to it, something awful, because she stayed with me a week.” Fretful, Kate scraped her fingers back and forth across her brow.
“I guess I still had a speck of pity for you,” she went on. “The war was off and running, and everybody was going except the older men and 4-F’s. You wanted to play soldier and you got half crazy with loathing that useless arm.
“You’d’ve got killed doing some dramatic thing, I don’t doubt. You yearned for a reckless end, like the end of a gangster movie.
“You were so miserable, they had to let you go at the lumberyard. They couldn’t have someone dealing with the public who snarled like a cur. I think they were about to give you the boot at the creamery, too. But you showed them. You showed us all.”
A little mewl of frustration hummed in her throat.
“If I’d gone to you the night that Celia came running here … But Martin was only dead eight months, and I kept thinking that having it out with you was something a man should do.”
Disgust at her long-ago failure hardened her voice. “But a woman must do things.” Like Demeter braving Hades to bring back Persephone.
Impatiently she dismissed Archer and turned her gaze once more to the white-on-white pattern of the ceiling. In the intricate web of silvery leaves lay intimations of things that a woman must do.
Chapter 14
HARRIET
Harriet woke at six, not a bit tired, though it was only three hours since she had slipped out of her heels on the front stoop, crept in the door, and flicked off the porch light.
The morning was brilliantly sunny. The birds were pandemonious, as Kate liked to say, kicking up such a racket that a person couldn’t sleep, even if she weren’t half dying to be up, announcing good news.
Harriet swung her legs over the bed and wiggled her feet into feathery mules. She would have to buy a pair of practical slippers now and save her feathery mules for special. Pulling on a light cotton robe, she made the bed and bustled along to the bathroom, humming Rogers and Hammerstein as she went.
Descending the stairs, the mules clunked and Harriet was afraid she’d wake up Kate. She didn’t ordinarily wear mules coming downstairs, except on weekends. Well, Kate had probably gone to bed early and wouldn’t mind the noise.
Harriet wasn’t going to the Water and Power Company this morning.
She was taking a half day off. She would call in later and tell them she had a doctor’s appointment. No, she’d better say a dentist’s appointment because she didn’t want them thinking she was pregnant, which they probably would when they heard she was getting married.
Suddenly she felt faint. Married. Hanging on to the stove, she made for the stool, crying like a fool. She groped in her pocket for a hanky. When she’d used up the hanky, she grabbed the hand towel from the rack beside the sink. Finally she found the box of Kleenex that Kate kept on the windowsill beside the African violets. Dabbing and blowing, she mopped up the ravages of her new happiness, then patted cold water from the open tap onto her puffy red face. She glanced up to see Kate at the door.
“What on earth is the matter?” Kate asked.
“Nothing. Nothing is the matter.” Harriet’s laugh came out squawky and high-pitched, like an exotic bird call. She could see that Kate thought she was hysterical.
“Well, what is it then?” Kate started across the kitchen, looking as though she might give Harriet a shake to settle her down.
Harriet swung about, throwing her long arms around Kate in so ruthless a manner that the other woman winced. “I’m getting married!” Then, grabbing Kate’s hands, Harriet tippy-toe danced before her like a child needing to be led to the bathroom.
Freeing a hand, Kate groped for the stool. “Married,” she breathed. “Married.” Lowering herself carefully onto the seat, she blinked several times and put a hand to her head as though she’d bumped it on a cabinet door.
“Aren’t you happy?” Harriet yelled, feeling in herself such a source of power and energy as she had never known. A brand-new engine was running her and she could not stand still.
Grabbing the coffeepot, she filled it with water and coffee, then plugged it in with a flourish. From the bread box she pulled a loaf of raisin bread and dropped two slices into the toaster.
“Eggs?” she asked Kate, sliding the iron skillet out of the oven.
“What?”
“Would you like eggs, darling Kate?”
“No … no. Not this morning.”
“I think I will,” Harriet twittered, throwing open the refrigerator door as if it were the gateway to the future. “I’m hungry enough to eat a cow.” She withdrew eggs, butter, homemade peach jam, and a bottle of orange juice. “I didn’t get in until three. But I woke up at six like I’d been shot out of a gun.”
Carrying the jam, plate
s, and silverware into the dining room, Harriet began laying the breakfast table, never missing a beat in her narrative. “You’re probably wondering how all this came about. I’m sort of knocked off my pins, myself. I’m pinching myself black and blue, Kate.”
Pulling two juice glasses from the cupboard, Harriet filled them and returned the bottle to the refrigerator.
“That bottle’s empty, Harriet,” Kate pointed out.
“What?” Harriet glanced at the empty orange juice bottle and doubled over laughing. “I was going to put an empty bottle in the refrigerator!”
“Yes.”
When Harriet finally reined in her laughter, she put the bottle in the sink and began to fry three eggs. Never in her life had she eaten three eggs at breakfast; never in her life had she been engaged.
“Well—to begin—Rose and I went to the Old Time dance, as planned.”
Kate nodded.
“Everything was sort of the same as it always is at the Old Time. Kate, would you push the toaster down?” Harriet recalled seeing Bess at the Dakota Ballroom in the company of a married man, but she would say nothing of that. “I danced with DeVore Weiss and some others, and so did Rose.” She turned the eggs gently, then carried the skillet to the dining room and slid them onto her plate. Returning the pan to the kitchen, she buttered the toast.
Kate shuffled into the dining room in her moccasin slippers. Ahead of her Harriet swooped and glided and trilled like one of the early-morning birds.
“Late in the evening, Kate, I got this awful feeling that I was making a fool of myself—thinking that DeVore Weiss was interested in me. All of a sudden it seemed to me that it was Rose he was stuck on and that he’d sort of used me to get to know her. Can you imagine how depressed I was?” She reached across the table to grab hold of Kate’s hand, but Kate’s hands were folded in her lap, so Harriet absently brushed invisible crumbs into a pile beside the jam jar.
“I was so depressed, I went outside and sat on the grass under a tree. I sat there a long time. Rose said I was missing for so long, she thought I’d gotten sick and gone to the car, but I was just sitting feeling embarrassed and sorry for myself.
“It was time for the last dance when I went back in. All the men were rushing around looking for the one they wanted to take home. And here comes DeVore saying, ‘Where in hell’ve you been? I was about to send the cops out lookin’. ’
“I couldn’t believe my ears. He’d never said anything of a romantic nature like that. I was dancing about six inches off the ground. Then, while we were waltzing, he asked me, ‘You got a way home?’ Well, of course I did, since I’d come in Rose’s car, but I didn’t want to say that for fear that’d be the end of it, so I said, ‘I don’t know.’ Can you believe it? I lied on my feet as if I’d been doing it all my life.”
The narrative was interrupted for a bite of egg. “Wouldn’t you know it, last night this fellow named Ernie asked Rose home, so today I’ve got to drive her over to Red Berry to pick up her car at the Dakota. Well, that’s a small price to pay, wouldn’t you say?
“When we left the dance, I thought DeVore would bring me right home. He has to get up with the roosters. I didn’t care, I was so happy to be going with him. But instead he stops at the all-night and orders their best steak, one for him and one for me.
“He said to the Arnoldsen boy, ‘Give us a pair of your best steaks. One for me and one for the lady,’ just as much as announcing to the world that I was his girlfriend.”
Harriet rose and went to the kitchen for the coffeepot, cups, and saucers. Returning, she poured two cups, pushing one across the table to Kate. “You haven’t drunk your juice or eaten your toast.”
Resuming her seat, she continued as though there had been no pause in the story. “While we were eating, half the county came in there, gawking like we were prize hogs at the county fair. A couple of them were farmer friends of DeVore’s, and they came over to the booth to say hello and look me over.
“DeVore didn’t pay them much mind, but just chatted casually, like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be sitting with me.
“When we finished the steaks, we ordered ice cream. And DeVore said, ‘I thought maybe you’d got a better offer.’
“ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked him.
“ ‘When you were gone so long from the dance, I thought maybe you’d gone for a walk with another guy.’
“ ‘I was feeling a little light-headed from the heat, was all, so I went out to get some fresh air,’ I told him.
“ ‘I’m glad that’s all it was,’ he said, and I nearly keeled over in my strawberry ice cream.
“It was almost half past two when we left the all-night. ‘You’re going to be a zombie in the morning,’ I told DeVore, ‘staying out all night like this.’
“ ‘Don’t you worry,’ he said. ‘When I’m feeling good, I can go without sleep a couple of days.’ He was like that from the time he asked me for the last dance, saying one sweet thing after another. He’s quite the romantic swain when he gets going.
“He knew right where I lived. I don’t think I ever told him that, but he drove right up to the house, like he’d been doing it for years. I started to get out and he said, ‘What’s your big hurry? Will Missus Drew turn on the porch light?’ He’s got a wonderful sense of humor. You’re going to laugh when you know him.
“Would you think I could be this hungry when I ate like a thresher four hours ago?” After a few more bites of the toast and egg, washed down with coffee, she laid down her fork. She was staring at the coffee cup, and as she spoke she kept her eyes glued to it.
“He started to kiss me, and I said, ‘I don’t think we should do this the very first time you bring me home. I don’t want you thinking I’m fast.’
“Then he said, ‘What if we were engaged? Would it be all right then?’
“I asked him what that meant because I thought it was some kind of joke and I didn’t like it.
“ ‘I mean, if I ask you to marry me, will you let me kiss you?’
“ ‘If you ask me to marry you and you mean it and aren’t just playing with me, you can kiss me till the cows come home,’ I told him.
“Then he started kissing me and he was getting pretty serious and I still wasn’t sure we understood each other, so I pulled away and asked him, ‘Is it all right if I announce the engagement in the paper?’
“ ‘Hell, you can put it on the radio if you want,’ he said.
“We kissed for about ten minutes, and then I told him he had to go home because I was too excited about the engagement to go on kissing.
“ ‘I don’t think the cows have come home yet,’ he said, and he gave me a couple more kisses just to show who was boss.
“He’s coming to the house tonight to meet you, so you can see how serious it is.”
She daintily applied peach jam to one of the small bits of toast, took a generous bite, and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I’m so happy, words fail me, as they say.”
Kate said nothing.
Chapter 15
KATE
After Harriet went upstairs to take a bath, Kate hobbled to the daybed on the porch. She could not afford to think about Harriet’s marriage. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to face the loss it would mean, the changes it would bring.
Her fingers plucked abstractedly at the ripple-weave spread while memory, like the strong retreating tide that carries the struggling bather out to sea, carried her where she did not wish to go.
On that horrid afternoon in 1930, she’d thought, Dear God, don’t let life change. Don’t let it change the way that Martin is saying it must.
“We can’t hang on,” he’d told her. “They’re taking the tractor. I can’t make the payments. We can stay here till we lose everything,” he’d said, “or we can sell now for what we can get. It won’t be much. Maybe enough to pay our debts. Maybe not.”
“But what would you do?” Holding tight to the edge of the kitchen table, she sank down on a
chair.
“Try to get a job at the garage.”
He was good with engines, with anything mechanical. Hadn’t he kept that old Ford going all these years? And he was always taking off down the road to repair some neighbor’s machinery.
She had clutched at his shirt. “One more year, Martin, one more year? I’m only thirty-seven.” She’d thought that she had a lifetime to fill herself up with the farm. “Something will come up.”
“That’s what we said last year.”
“We don’t need much. Look at all the food I put up from the garden every summer. We’ll get by.”
“We’re not making enough from the crops to pay for the seed. You know that.”
“But the old folks are buried here. We’re going to be buried here, aren’t we?” Tears blinded her. “You promised,” she cried, wringing the hem of her apron as if it were wet laundry.
He hung his head and stumbled to the door.
Later, she washed her face at the kitchen pump and went out to the garden. Lying down between rows of beans, she closed her eyes against the sun and clung to the straw beneath. She was in danger of falling off the planet.
When she opened her eyes, a man in a gray fedora and three-piece business suit was standing over her.
Sweeping the hat from his head, he said, “Mrs. Drew? I’ve come about the farm.”
But why was she thinking about losing the farm? It really had nothing to do with Harriet.
Yet the past has a will of its own, and you must learn to entertain it, because it will visit, invited or not.
Chapter 16
BESS
Bess woke at seven, and was bathed and dressed by a quarter past. Dashing downstairs, she heard Aunt Kate and Harriet in the kitchen washing dishes. That was unusual. Ordinarily they didn’t cook a big breakfast on weekdays.
No time to stop. She would phone Kate from work after the early rush. Flying out the front door, she called, “See you later,” and ran most of the way to the Loon Cafe, a deep, narrow building sandwiched between the Majestic Theater and Mather’s Five and Dime.
What a Woman Must Do Page 10
