A flowered triangle where somebody stripped off old shelf lining tempted her to make this a project and strip off the rest. Seeing flowers when she opened the door would be a good thing on long winter days.
“When Felicity dragged Bonnie Mae off with some boyfriend or other, what a relief for us all. That girl’s pranks set Mama up for an early grave, that’s what.”
An itch began behind Dottie’s ear and extended to that unreachable spot between her shoulder blades. Didn’t Helene have an appointment this morning? She probably did, but had forgotten.
The sprinkling sound of shattered glass shot from the parlor. Dottie arched out of the cupboard, banging the top of her head against the lowest shelf. Helene’s cheeks, already high ruby, glowed.
“Why that…” She started from her chair and turned her heel. She almost slid into the Frigidaire, but grabbed the silver handle and steadied herself. The vein traversing her forehead like Highway Thirty across southern Iowa stuck out even more than usual. So did her wide hazel eyes under beauty salon eyebrows.
What if Helene had a heart attack right here in the kitchen? What if she…? But her employer straightened, soldier-like. “You know what that girl’s classmates called her in junior high? B.M, because she raised such a stink all the time.”
Thick heels clacked against scarred linoleum. Her skin under her arms shaking, Helene swung the dining room door wide and turned an imperial stare on Dottie, her chin quivering like a turkey’s wattle.
“Mind you, Dorothy Kyle, even though you keep your opinions to yourself, I know full well you agree with me—that girl’s a hopeless case.”
Dottie sat back on the floor. Hopeless? A clear recollection surfaced from Cora’s elementary school days, when Bonnie Mae led some taunting schoolgirls in a singsong rhyme.
“Cora Kyle ain’t got no style!” True, Dottie’s youngest wore hand-me-downs from Millie, or dresses Dottie sewed from scratch. So did quite a few other girls, but Bonnie Mae was the type to rub it in.
A long-forgotten pronouncement Owen made at the supper table one night came flashing back. “If that little snot don’t let up on Cora, I’ll go down to the schoolyard and smack her one myself.”
Yes, this flashy young woman was the same Bonnie Mae, but still, Dottie wondered. Was it fair to label anyone hopeless?
****
Sweat dripped off the full eyebrows forming a hedge above Al Jensen’s eyes. He swiped his brow, but kept scrubbing the kitchen walls. He hadn’t intended to go this far, but once he got started, the cleaning bug bit him hard.
“Why did I let the house go for so long? Nan would have something to say if she could see this grease and dust.”
He’d already dumped the scrub pail four times. Now, he climbed down from his stepladder to do it again.
“Most likely, my work is all in vain. Dottie probably won’t even come past the kitchen. Bet she’ll eat and head home as quick as possible.”
But just in case, he scrubbed the dining room, and found those walls badly in need of his ministrations, too.
“I’m ashamed of you, Albert Jensen, for allowing this mess.” His indictment floated through the living room. Would Nan say that?
No, she knew he chastised himself often enough already. He made it around three living room walls before someone knocked at the front door. No one ever came by in the daytime, except when Eva Maloney wandered this far from home. But she never knocked. To her every closed door signaled an invitation. The only other visitor…
From behind the heavy pale green drapery, he peered through the front window. Sure enough, his worst premonition became reality. Henrietta Perry, holding a pie tin-sized box, stood on his front step.
His mouth watered—maybe the pie was raspberry. But he didn’t want to get cornered by the most talkative woman he knew, not when Dottie would be home from work in less than two hours.
He plastered himself against the wall and lifted his eyes to where a spider crawled nonchalantly into the corner. Oh man, he’d have to whack it down as soon as Henrietta left.
“Please, let her leave the pie and go on home.”
In this pause from his labor, a bad odor reached his nostrils. He lifted his shoulder and cranked his head down. Phew—his armpits smelled something awful. He’d better take a shower and change his shirt as soon as he finished that fourth wall.
No, he ought to fry the fish first, so he wouldn’t smell like the river when Dottie arrived. Yes, that’s exactly what he’d do.
Another knock echoed, sharper than the previous one. He immobilized, as he learned to do decades ago when the enemy stalked. He waited. Waited some more. The knocking ended, but his front door knob turned. Surely Henrietta wouldn’t…
“Albert? Albert Jensen, you home?”
The screen door swung open and two feet planted in his entryway. Henrietta’s shrill voice filled the room.
“I could’ve sworn he didn’t saunter by to the store today. Where could he be?”
Al prayed hard.
“Albert?” Her volume increased. A long minute passed. “Well. I guess I’ll just set this pie here in the entryway where he can find it.” Her voice picked up speed. “And then, he’ll have to bring me back the pan.”
Fabric swished. Al pictured Henrietta depositing the pie ever so gently and turning to go.
“Strange, though. He always walks right past my house whenever he goes anywhere. So odd—I was watching just like always.”
The door shut. Al nearly collapsed. He pulled the curtain aside a smidgen. Henrietta swayed down his sidewalk, her prim hat tipped over a bluish hairdo.
His relieved sigh bounced off his rag-tag armchair in the corner beneath Nan’s knick-knack shelf. On closer inspection, he noticed thick dust lining her thimble collection.
“Better take them all down and rinse them in the dishpan.” Then he smiled. “I have a pie for tonight. A pie fit for a…fit for a wonderful woman like Dottie.” He loosened the towel covering. The mellow aroma of sugar and fresh-picked raspberries drifted out, and he gazed at a perfect crust and rich red juice oozing from Henrietta’s precise cuts.
He carried the treasure carefully to Nan’s Hoosier cupboard and went back to the living room for the pail. When he tossed the dirty water over the back porch railing, late afternoon sun shone down on him bright and clear. Not two rods away, Dottie’s east kitchen window glinted.
“Nothing but the best for Dottie. Nothing but the best.”
Chapter Five
“Why, Al. Your house is so clean. Do you always keep it this way?”
“Only for special company.” Al passed Dottie a platter profuse with fish and fried potatoes, his ear tips beaming as though he’d plastered them with rouge. “You are special company, you know.”
Dottie wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but tucked his words away. “You fried these fish to perfection, I’d say.”
“Nan taught me to dust them in that flour and cornmeal mixture.”
“You took good care of her during her sickness—such a hard time.”
His large Adam’s apple worked up and down. “Sure was. Wish it hadn’t ended the way it did, but…” He lowered his eyes to his plate.
“You did your best for her.”
He nodded. “So did you, for Owen.” He took a big forkful of potatoes.
Finally, it felt okay to be here, in this room where she and Nan shared so many good talks, so many cups of tea. Dottie could count on one hand the times she’d poked her head in since the day of Nan’s funeral, when the whole town descended upon Al, as it had on her when Owen died. Nan’s kitchen was nothing without her in it.
Once in a while, Dottie dropped off something she’d baked or a bowl of leftovers. But now that more time had passed, she felt all right.
When she’d consumed far too much, Al took their plates over to the sink. “Got a surprise for dessert.”
The pink and gray teapot wallpaper she helped Nan apply one time when the guys were off doing something, probably fis
hing or hunting, still looked serviceable, though a little worn in spots. At the moment, a teacup perched atop Al’s head.
He set a saucer with a steaming cup of tea before her, a cup of coffee at his place and a bowl of thick cream in the middle of the table. While he busied himself at the counter, Dottie sniffed. Green and full-bodied, exactly the way Nan served tea. Al must have made it earlier and let it steep.
He returned to the table with two massive cuts of dark red pie.
“Raspberry? Don’t tell me you made this?”
“You think I’m too dimwitted?” He angled his head like he asked a serious question, and Dottie wasn’t sure whether he teased her or not.
“Dim…? Not at all—it’s just that you told me you didn’t make cookies. Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you did make it.”
“Naw. You’re right. Pie’s not my cup of tea. Speaking of cups of tea, is yours all right?”
“It’s perfect. Thanks, Al.” She took a sip and the mixture of tart and mellow flooded her senses.
“Wasn’t that long ago, we had to stretch the coffee and tea for the war effort.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever be quite the same after those years, do you?”
“Nope. I was never the same after the first one, either. Something happens when things turn upside down like that. A person doesn’t even know how to talk about it.”
For the first time, Dottie considered what it must have been like for him facing a second world war. During the Great War, no one from her family except Owen had to go, and he only served stateside during the last few months.
“So the world has changed around two times in your lifetime.”
“Something like that. Makes you think—makes you appreciate things more. I felt that way when Nan and I married—a double gift, since I got Del at the same time.” Al ate some pie, but the lines in his forehead didn’t budge.
“When Charlie came along, everything took on new meaning all over again. It was like seeing the world through new eyes.” He fiddled with his cup handle. “Know what I mean?”
Elbows on the table, Dottie rested her chin on her folded hands. She’d never heard Al talk like this, and didn’t want him to stop. Had Owen ever spoken about how life changed a person? She couldn’t recall a time.
“I felt that way when the children were small—every stick in the path seemed there just for us to discover. Is that what you mean?”
“Yeah. That’s it exactly.” Al’s eyes shone like Bill’s used to when he built train stations and firehouses all over the house with his blocks. His intensity drew Dottie to the floor with him, to get acquainted with his make-believe town.
The more Al laid bare his thoughts, she forgot whether or not Owen ever shared such feelings. Incredible warmth enveloped her. She forgot about her pie, too, and about the time until Al glanced at his watch.
“Better finish your pie, young lady.” He went to the counter for the teapot and refilled her cup. “Guess I got off on that subject. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I haven’t talked with anybody like this since…” Since Nan died. Better left unspoken, but it was the truth. Helene had no capacity for such conversation, and Bonnie Mae? No use even considering that.
Al shifted in his chair. “Say, did you hear the cold’s swinging back into the state tonight?”
“No. I didn’t listen to the radio all day.”
“S’posed to be a hard freeze—the real thing. Got any plants you want covered?”
“Oh my. I haven’t dug the dahlia bulbs. For goodness sake, how could I have let that job go?”
“Because you work such long hours.” His voice carried no accusation, as Owen’s would have. No, it was more like…
“Let’s get right out there. I’ll help you dig them.”
“Why, that’s so…”
“You can wear my coat, Dot. I’ll grab something else.” He pulled his wool jacket from its hook and thrust it at her. “Let’s see, your dahlias are…”
“On the south side of the house, down a yard or so from the last hydrangea bush. I marked them with sticks.”
“I’ll get my flashlight. Come on.” Dottie meekly followed, aghast that she’d stayed so long. The first star shone above them.
“Meet you at the dahlias.” Al veered into his garage, and Dottie streaked toward the south side of her house.
She’d barely found the first marker when he arrived, pail and shovel in hand. “Here, you hold the light and point out the sticks.”
Dottie grasped the smooth metal cylinder, aware that the wind had whipped up even more by the time Al leaned back, foot still on his shovel. “Think that’s about it?”
“Yes. Thanks a lot. I’d have hated to lose these. Started them from my mother’s years ago.”
“Hmm. You sure we got them all?”
“I think so. Good enough.”
“Didn’t take long at all. Glad you remembered them, Dot.”
There, he did it again—called her what Owen used to. She couldn’t decide if she liked it or not. They walked toward her back steps, the artificial light sphere creating a comfortable circle in the night. Al handed her the pail of bulbs.
“You want me to cover that pink rosebush out front with a canvas tarp? You started it from your mother’s, too, didn’t you?” Concern showed in the shadows undulating across his high forehead.
Why would he remember about her mother’s bush? Nan must’ve told him, but that would have been years ago. “No, that’s all right. It’s hardy enough.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing else?” He strained forward. Something about his pose, gangly and eager to please, niggled the pit of Dottie’s stomach.
“I’m sure, but thank you.” Cold air billowed her skirt. “Well, then. Thank you for supper.” She started up the steps. “What’s the matter with me? I need to help you with dishes.”
“Oh, no you don’t. You’ve got an early morning tomorrow. I’ll pick up my coat after you get home from work, if you don’t mind. Don’t want you to catch a chill.”
“Okay.” She moved toward her back porch steps, but his voice turned her around.
“Thank you for letting me ramble on. You’re such a good listener.” He gave her a salute and shrank into the chilly night between their two houses.
As if to remind her it meant business, a shaft of wind skittered around the staircase. Winter lurked a blink away—and to think, last evening, they’d sat out fishing. Good old Iowa—you could count on the weather surprising you.
Al bobbed up his back steps and into the back porch. That niggling, like a fish at a worm, worked at Dottie’s insides. Her mind flashed to the boarding house.
If only she didn’t have to get up so early and go to work. If only…Al’s profile appeared in his kitchen window as he moved from table to dishpan and back again. He did so well on his own—even cooked for himself. Could Owen have managed like that if she’d gone first?
A field of stars flooded the sky. Autumn flew by so fast this year. The old pail in her hand overflowed with knobby bulbs that had produced so much gallant color. Just a few short months ago, they produced seedlings that grew strong green stalks and blossomed, but now shrank into dry, spent remnants.
The rich taste of raspberry remained in her mouth. Dottie smoothed her tongue over her teeth and glanced again at Al’s kitchen window. It looked as though Henrietta Perry had committed herself to satisfy his sweet tooth.
“Henrietta would spit fire if she knew I enjoyed a piece of her beautiful pie. I sure hope she never finds out.”
Unforgiving wind swooshed her chuckle back at her, so she started up the steps. If Al looked out and saw her dallying, he’d have something to say about her catching a cold. The creaking wooden stairs marked her every step. Winter encroached, and it looked to be a long, cold one.
Chapter Six
“Morning, Dad. There’s a pallet out back to unload already. Truck came early.”
“I’ll get right at it, Del.”
; Al tackled the first section, full of small wooden boxes laden with screws, nuts, and bolts. He used an iron trolley to haul the heavy containers, lifted them to the floor one by one, and began filling the wooden slots ranged along the right aisle. With great care, he tipped boxes into the correct spaces. The tedious job took until noon, but the full pallet gradually lowered.
When the clock struck twelve, he donned his coat and hat to walk home for lunch. He’d put a couple of pieces of fish in the Frigidaire before he went to bed last night, and plenty of Henrietta’s remarkable pie awaited him.
“Mind picking up the mail on your way back?”
“Sure.”
Delbert walked out front with him to rearrange snow shovels against the building. He’d always been a hard worker. A thrill of pride ran through Al at the sight of his older son’s muscular arms. He looked back as he exited the door and noticed for the first time that Delbert’s scalp showed through his hair on top.
Could he already be going bald? It seemed like only yesterday when Delbert came into his life with Nan. A double blessing, he’d thought at the time. Al’s vague memory of Nan’s father ran through his mind. Had he been short on hair? They’d only met once before he took to his bed, about to die.
Al touched the top of his own head, cap and all. He still had some hair up there, but never knew how much because Ed down the street trimmed it so short.
Slim traffic crept like sated cockroaches down Main Street. November did that to people, slowed them down and enticed them to hole up like moles. Every year about this time, he’d had to run a hardware ad in the newspaper with some sort of specials to draw people into the store.
He turned into the post office. Wallace handed him the mail before he could ask. “Fine sunny day out there.”
“It is. Cold but bright.”
“You workin’ over there today?” Wallace tipped his white head toward the hardware.
“Yeah. Unpacking pallets for Del.”
“Good man, Del. Glad for such a quality store in Sternville. Without it, we’d have to drive over to Heston for a hammer or a nail. Wouldn’t that be somethin’?
In This Together Page 4
