Angels Unaware

by Lisa Deangelis

  I stayed at the Schuylkill County School for Wayward Girls, for three short months. Ah, dear old Schuylkill, my alma mater. I will always remember it fondly. It was just the kind of school I’d always imagined rich girls went to. We got three meals a day in a clean dining hall, and we wore neatly pressed white blouses with little collars, grey jumpers, and saddle shoes. I had never looked so nice before, nor have I since.

  Every girl had a chore at Schuylkill, and the laundry—given my extensive experience—fell to me. It was easy work compared to what I had been accustomed to at the inn. In the basement of the school, great machines washed the clothes automatically, and neatly spaced clotheslines waited in the sun for the wash to be hung.

  Schuylkill had a library, too, that was as big as the entire second floor of the inn. We were allowed to check out as many as three books at a time. Mrs. Gulliver, the librarian, liked me and when there was a book I liked especially, she’d let me keep it for my very own. She even let me keep the K volume of the encyclopedia, even though it broke up the set. That was how I learned all I could about Kathmandu, so that when I went there someday, I’d be prepared.

  Sometimes I read poetry and me and Mrs. Gulliver would talk about it. Mrs. Gulliver was partial to Keats, but I thought he was a sissy. I liked Byron. He travelled more. He wrote: For though I fly from Albion, I still can only love but one. Albion is England, and I couldn’t understand why his Lordship didn’t just say England instead of confusing everyone. Mrs. Gulliver said it was probably because England doesn’t rhyme with love but one. I wish I could have introduced Mrs. Gulliver to Leon. They’d have gotten on like a house afire with all the reciting they’d have done between them.

  I was disappointed to learn that Byron had lived in England. It didn’t count as travel if you already lived there. But he redeemed himself a little in my eyes when Mrs. Gulliver told me that he’d died in Greece. I was so impressed that I made up my mind then and there that I, too, would die in a foreign land far from the place of my birth.

  Mrs. Gulliver had never travelled any further than Scranton to visit her sister, but I liked her just the same.

  Most of all I liked living at the Schuylkill County School For Wayward Girls because I had so many friends there, especially Martha Balzell, who was in for pickpocketing, and Theresa Fimple, who’d castrated her uncle when he’d made her do things to him once too often. I’d never had any friends at home. Even my sisters were not the kind of people I’d have picked for friends. But at Schuylkill, none of my classmates had fit in at home, which was why we all fit together so well at school. I secretly hoped that I’d never finish paying my debt to society.

  In fact, if not for Jewel’s letters, my bliss would have been unmarred—words I had come across in poetry and in conversation with Mrs. Gulliver. I even started writing some of my own poetry. Puberty does that to people, makes them melodramatic; makes them think that they are feeling things that no one has ever thought or felt before. Byron would have been green with envy.

  “Jewel, Jewel, never cruel

  But oft the fool

  And very messy

  When it comes to men named Jesse.”

  (That was my first effort.)

  Second effort:

  “I make the concession

  To the hospitality profession

  For the sake of my mother

  Who’ll have no job other

  But I’d sure prefer

  To leave it to her

  Get a room with a view

  In the town Kathmandu.”

  (Well, it was better than the first.)

  Mrs. Gulliver loved my poetry, which suited me fine, because at that age, I needed somebody to love something I did, even if it did stink. I guess it was her liking me that made me comfortable enough to read Jewel’s letters to Mrs. Gulliver, who got a big kick out of the “creative” grammar and misspellings. Mrs. Gulliver was nice to call it “creative” instead of “stupid.” She was always very charitable about ignorant people and never looked down her nose at those who hadn’t had a good education.

  I guess Jewel was getting scared that I was too comfortable at Schuylkill and might never come home, because every week, I’d get a letter from her:

  Deer Darcy,

  I miss you trebly. Plees com home. Leev that scool. You don’t belong ther. We ned you and wont you bac with us.

  All her letters were the same and I ignored every one of them, reading them to Mrs. Gulliver, then tucking them under my mattress. Except for the last one. That one, I never read to Mrs. Gulliver. That one, I did not keep but burned in the wash basin in my room as soon as I’d come to the end. That last letter impelled me home immediately, in the hope that it wasn’t already too late.

  After lights out that night, I climbed the wall, taking the possessions I’d acquired at the school—three volumes of Byron’s poetry and the K volume of the encyclopedia. I hitched a ride from a passing farmer, then walked the last three miles to the inn. I arrived at last, footsore and weary, at two o’clock in the morning. A light burned on the inn’s front porch and Jewel was pacing anxiously beneath it. She had been expecting me, knowing I would come, knowing I had never failed her and would not fail her now.

  Neither one of us spoke. We didn’t have to. Without a word, she led me up the back stairs to a bedroom that we used only for storage. The smell of decay hung in the hallway, heavy and oppressive. I opened the door and tried not to breathe. Jewel hung back, her hand to her mouth, shaking. I saw a shapeless form wrapped in Jewel’s pink chenille bedspread; its upper end was caked with dried blood. I unwound the bedspread and exposed Jesse’s face. I wrapped him up again and seized him by his boots, putting one under each arm. He may have been slight of build in life, but he was heavy as the dickens to drag once dead. Jewel backed away as I hauled his body down the hallway. Going down to the landing, his head hit each stair behind me with a sickening thud. Looking down from above, Jewel began to cry.

  “Promise me,” I muttered through clenched teeth.

  “Anything,” she sobbed.

  “That we’ll never talk about this. Ever.”

  “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  “No. It can’t matter now. It’s done. And I never want to hear about it again, not even when we’re alone. Not ever. Do you understand?”

  She nodded and I went out and buried him.

  Three days passed before the sheriff came. The reverend was not with him, but Mrs. Hennessey was so overcome with curiosity that she stationed herself brazenly at the bottom of the porch steps, so as to hear better. The sherriff looked surprised to see me.

  “What are you doing home? I thought you were in reform school.”

  I shrugged. “I got reformed and they sent me back.”

  “Get your mother,” he instructed.

  “Why?”

  “None of your business. Just get her and get her quick. I don’t have all day. I got other business to tend to.”

  “Has a burst of criminal activity besieged Galen, Sheriff?” I asked.

  “Get her or I’ll get her myself.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why?” His body filled the doorway.

  “She’s ill. Influenza. Been in bed for days.”

  The girls came laughing into the parlor behind me. I chased them out, so that the sheriff wouldn’t have a chance to ask them anything. I could have told them what to say, rehearsed them till they got it right, but they weren’t really a part of the secret. It was between me and Jewel and no one else. Besides, there was no use in involving them. They had slept right through it all and couldn’t know what had happened. “Maybe I can help you,” I volunteered. “I’m handling Jewel’s affairs while she’s sick.”

  He hesitated. “All right. You know that fella called hisself Jesse James?”

  “Of course, I know him. He lived in my
house goin’ on a year.”

  “Well, his name isn’t Jesse James at all.”

  “No?” I asked breathlessly.

  “That’s right. Real name’s Wistar Paist and the government is looking for him.”

  “What for?”

  “Seems Paist went AWOL in Philadelphia right after his ship docked. He’s in a lot of trouble.”

  “Well, he isn’t here if that’s what you came for.”

  “I didn’t think he was. Highway patrol found his motorcycle abandoned on the highway. Seems odd he’d just go off and leave it like that.”

  “Maybe somebody offered him a ride,” I said helpfully.

  “When did he leave here, Darcy?”

  “Yesterday, maybe around two o’clock.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “You know how his kind are, first one place, then another.”

  “Why’d he leave?” he asked me. “I thought that things was real cozy with your mama and him, just holed up here like two bugs in a rug.”

  I forced myself not to sound offended. “I told you all I know. He left because that’s the kind of man he is, a drifter. Men like that never stay in one place long.”

  The sheriff removed his hat and leaned against the porch post. “I get the feeling you’re hiding something. Maybe you’re hiding him. Maybe you got him in the attic or the barn.”

  “You’re welcome to search the house, if it’ll make you sleep better,” I said, throwing the door wide.

  “I’m not that stupid,” he muttered scornfully. “I’m sure your stalling has given him plenty of time to escape. We’ll search the orchard and the woods. Maybe he’s hiding there just waiting for you to give the all clear sign.”

  My throat went dry. I had buried Jesse in the orchard where the earth was soft. And nothing, I knew, aroused canine curiosity like the combination of death and soft earth. Old Sam had tried to dig him back up, and if the sheriff had brought dogs….

  “I couldn’t help but overhear,” Mrs. Hennessey interjected, climbing the porch steps, as if to take her place at center stage. “Darcy is speaking the truth. That Mr. James did go off just like Darcy said. Why, I’m probably the last person in Galen to see him go,” she said triumphantly, as if expecting a prize. Clearly, she now thought herself an indispensable part of the conversation.

  “You saw him, Mrs. Hennessey? When was that?”

  “Well,” she deliberated. “It must have been about two, because the sun was just beginning to go down down over the ridge. Mr. James was walking along the ridge, swinging that duffel bag of his. Mr. Hennessey used to have one of those when he was in the Navy, God rest his soul. He waved to me from up on the ridge, Mr. James, I mean, not Mr. Hennessey, who’s been dead for thirty years, and couldn’t possibly wave.”

  “Was he wearing the black helmet, ma’am?”

  “Now let me just think.” The widow put a bony finger to her lips. “Yes, yes, he was.”

  “Then are you sure it was him? It’s pretty far up to the top of that ridge, and with a helmet on…”

  “I’m positive,” she snapped, clearly affronted at the notion she might have been mistaken. “I saw him just as clear as I see you standing here. My eyes are as sharp as ever, and it was that James fellow up on that ridge. Just because I’m getting old doesn’t mean I can’t see.”

  “All right now, ma’am. There’s no need to get your bowels in an uproar. If you say it was him, it was him. Just seems strange, that’s all.”

  “Are you satisfied now?” I demanded.

  “For the time being,” the sheriff answered. “But you and your mama better stick around, ’cause there’s something about this whole thing that smells like old fish.”

  “And where would I possibly go?” I asked defiantly. “Nobody in Galen ever goes anywhere except to the cemetery.”

  And, feeling sad in a way that had nothing to do with the dead man in the orchard, I went back into the house.

  3.

  Lighting a Little Hour or Two

  In the history of mankind, has there ever been a life that went according to plan? At sixteen, I had my entire life, as well as the entire lives of my sisters, all planned out in advance. It seemed the practical thing to do.

  The girls were shaping up nicely. Jolene was getting smarter every day and dazzling us all with her book knowledge. And Caroline took your breath away with her overwhelming beauty, though she was somewhat more overwhelmed than the rest of us. But I wasn’t fooled. Despite their sterling qualities, they were as self-sufficient as chicks in a fox den, and I knew that they would never really be able to take care of themselves. Hence, somebody would have to always be there to take care of them, and I was damned if it was going to be me. The only logical persons to assume responsibility for them in later life, since they would never do it themselves, were husbands. Better yet, rich husbands who would have the means to shelter them from the harsher aspects of life, just as Jewel and I had done. I reasoned that there was only one place where a young girl could count on meeting, if not wealthy, then at least up and coming men, and that was college, which everyone knew was jam packed with rising doctors and lawyers. For myself, I didn’t regret that I would never go to college because I knew I would always know more about the things that counted than my teachers. It would have been nice to marry Jewel off, too, but that wasn’t likely, seeing as how she’d been on the market so long already with no takers.

  As for me, I planned never to marry. The idea of loving somebody seldom crossed my mind except in the most fleeting way. I loved Jewel and my sisters simply because I’d taken care of them for so long, and when you put a lot of care into something, you grow to love it, even if you didn’t start out that way.

  Loving a man never occurred to me at all. I knew you needed one to have a baby, but you needed him for such a short time, just a minute or two probably, that it seemed pointless to sign up for a lifetime of service. Besides, I didn’t much like children. They were too loud and bothersome and tied you down for half your life—the good half—so that you never got to travel anywhere and wound up born and dead in the same lousy little town. Not for me. The only kind of future that I would even consider was one filled with adventure, with no sisters and no Jewel depending on me for everything from lighting ovens to fixing the truck.

  Nobody gets to pick where they’re born or who they’re born to, and I accepted my lot in life early on, but as soon as the girls went away to college and Jewel had mastered the basic principles of profitable inn keeping, I was going. I’d point myself in the direction of Kathmandu and little by little, town by town, year by year, I’d get closer to it. Maybe I wouldn’t reach my destination till I was an old, old woman, but damn it to hell if I was about to let anybody hang on my coattails when time came to start the journey, not even the people I loved. Loving someone, I’d determined, would only slow me down and delay my travels to exotic places. And many years would pass before I came to know that the place where you love a man deeply and irrevocably is the most exotic place to be found.

  It’s strange how we never recognize the future, how the most momentous things can happen, and for a while we go along thinking nothing’s changed at all. That’s how it was with him.

  I was out back when I heard somebody coming up the walk. I’d been busy all morning butchering a pig, a job I hated, but since I was fond of eating regular, I’d reconciled myself to the slaughter. I reminded myself that we prey upon and are preyed upon. That’s just how it is. My hands were all bloody when I came around front, wiping them on my apron. An old man waited there, with a young boy hovering behind. I waited for the old fellow to say something, but he just stood dumbfounded, staring at my bloody apron. Finally, he lifted his eyes and in broken English, he muttered something and pointed up to the house. I didn’t understand his words but figured he wanted a room at the Hospitality Inn. Jewel
had recently painted a sign that read: “George Washington Slept Here,” in the hope of attracting foreigners, and I wondered if this idiocy had actually worked. I felt sure that whatever money these foreigners had, if they had any at all, would quickly run out, and they would become one of our Special Discount guests.

  I gave the old guy a good once over. He was sick. I could tell by the yellow in his eyes where there should have been white, by the ashen pallor of his face, and the trembling of his limbs. He barely had the strength to stand and leaned heavily on the boy, breathing shallowly. I was about to tell him no when Jewel came out of the house in a lather. Some clairvoyance informing her that I was just about to boot a vagrant off our property. She came down the steps like lady bountiful with a big broad smile, and took the old man’s hand, shaking it vigorously as if she were queen of England and he some visiting prince. Taking her aside, I asked, “Are you out of your mind, crazy woman? That man has got a sickness as sure as I live and breathe, and it could very well be catching and then we’ll all sicken and die. And I’ll be damned if I’ll nurse that old goat and expose myself to what could be black plague or something worse.”

  “My father is not ill,” the boy stated in perfect, if heavily accented, English. “He is only tired. We have been travelling for many weeks.”

  I held the boy’s gaze—his eyes dark blue, his expression haughty and proud. Neither of us blinked, and we might have gone on a long time like that, if Jewel hadn’t spoken. “How do you come to be here?” she asked, and he shifted his gaze to her.