Wonderland Creek

by Lynn Austin

  “Of course I refused,” Freddy said quickly. “Honestly, he had a lot of nerve. I’m your best friend, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I’m going home.” I grabbed my coat and stuck my arms into the sleeves.

  “Please don’t be mad at me, Allie. I told Gordon that he was a cad for dumping you and an even bigger cad for asking me out. I wouldn’t have talked to him at all if you hadn’t begged me to.”

  “I’m not mad.” And I wasn’t. I was jealous. “I need to go home and lie down.” It felt like the world was using my heart for a punching bag, and it couldn’t take any more blows.

  “Let’s do something fun this weekend, okay, Allie? Just the two of us?”

  There weren’t many fun things to do in Blue Island, Illinois, but I agreed. I hugged Freddy good-bye to show her that we were still friends and went home to sulk.

  On my last day of work, everyone was sad to see me go. “But we won’t say good-bye,” Mrs. Beasley insisted. “I’m sure you’ll be back to borrow books. And you’re going to continue to collect books for Kentucky, aren’t you?” She gestured to the overflowing box of donated books near the check-out desk. There were four more boxes just like it in the back room, along with three bags of used magazines. “When are you planning to ship these to Kentucky?” she asked.

  “Soon, I guess. I’m not really sure.” I had lost my enthusiasm for the project, not to mention my reason to get out of bed every morning. As a parting gift, Mrs. Beasley let me check out one of the brand-new books I had catalogued that day. It would be the last time that I would ever have that privilege.

  On Sunday I sat with my mother in church instead of with Gordon for the first time in nearly a year. Everyone in town would know about our breakup now. All around me, I could see the gossip mill starting to grind as heads bent close, whispering, nodding, tilting in my direction. It was unbearable. The moment my father pronounced the benediction, I fled into the vestry, my cheeks betraying my embarrassment, and ran out through the back door.

  My parents gave me a week to mope around and feel sorry for myself and sleep late every morning. By the second week they’d had enough. Mother breezed into my bedroom at seven o’clock on Monday morning and rolled up the window shades, flooding the room with light.

  “It’s time to stop moping, Alice. I know you’ve had some difficult losses, but you won’t get over them by sleeping late and reading books all day.”

  “There’s nothing else to do,” I mumbled, my face buried in the pillow.

  “There’s plenty to do. Your father and I have drawn up a list.”

  This was terrible news. My parents were veteran list-makers, believing that every problem in life could be solved with an adequate list. No matter how daunting the task, they believed the impossible could be accomplished by breaking it down into items and checking them off, one by one. If my parents had drawn up one of their lists for President Roosevelt, the Depression would have ended by now.

  “Put on your robe, Alice, and come down to breakfast.”

  I did as I was told. Did I have a choice?

  “Your mother told me about your rift with Gordon,” my father said as I slouched into my chair at the kitchen table. “I was sorry to hear it. Would you like me to talk to—”

  “No!” My father and Gordon’s father were friends, being close associates in the death and grieving business. I suspected that they had conspired to put Gordon and me together in the first place. “Don’t talk to anyone about us. Please!”

  He sighed and gave me his soft-eyed, pastoral gaze. “If that is your wish, Alice. But—”

  “Please, Daddy. I can handle this on my own.”

  He munched on his toast for a few moments, shaking his head sadly before saying, “Your mother and I have compiled a list.”

  It was a declaration of war. He would try to recruit me for one of his Christian good-deed tasks—always a high priority on any of his lists. I had to avoid those at all costs.

  “I can make up my own list. I’ll have it on your desk by noon. I promise.”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. “Now that you’re no longer working at the library, I know of many unfortunate people in our community who could use your help.”

  “I don’t like working with unfortunate people. They make me uncomfortable.”

  “Alice Grace!” Mother said with a gasp. “What a thing to say.”

  “I’m sorry, but the way they look at me with their big sad eyes makes me uneasy, as if it’s my fault that I have everything and they have nothing. I don’t know what to do or what to say.”

  I could tell by my father’s drumming fingers that he was running out of patience. “How long do you plan on wallowing in self-pity, Alice?”

  I gulped down my glass of orange juice and stood. “I’m all done wallowing. I’m fine now. Really.” His drumming fingers stopped, and I could see that he was about to preach a sermon on how self-pity was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. If I added up all of the sins that my father claimed were part of the Deadly Seven, there would be seven hundred of them. I was fairly certain that self-pity wasn’t on the original list, but if I challenged him on it, he would make up something flowery and philosophical-sounding, like, Self-pity is the younger sister of sloth, dining on the same bitter foods, sleeping in the same sordid bed . . . or some such wisdom.

  “Here is our list,” Father said, handing it to me before I could escape. “You might want to use it as the basis for your own. And since your mother and I are both going out on errands today, we have agreed that you should accompany one of us. No more lying around all day.”

  I took the list from him and folded it in half without looking at it. “Where are you going?” I asked him, dreading his reply.

  “I’m delivering donated food and clothing to Chicago’s near West Side. They’re calling the area ‘Floptown’ since so many people are forced to live on the street.”

  I quickly turned to my mother. “And where are you going?”

  “I promised your aunt Lydia I would pay her a visit before she leaves.”

  “Where is she off to this time? Patagonia? Bora Bora?” Mother’s younger sister was as odd as a cat with feathers. A visit with Aunt Lydia was like an hour spent in a windstorm, and I usually avoided it at all costs. But today it seemed like a better choice than a place called Floptown. At least I could bring along a book to read.

  “I’ll go with you, Mom.”

  When we finished the breakfast dishes, Mother put on her visiting hat and a pair of clean white gloves and we rode the streetcar to Aunt Lydia’s house. I brought along an empty bag. These days, you couldn’t travel two blocks without running into a poor person selling apples on the street, and I knew that by the time we traveled to my aunt’s house and back, my softhearted mother would have purchased enough fruit to make a dozen apple pies.

  Aunt Lydia and Uncle Cecil had no children—and the world should be thankful for that. They lived in an enormous house in the fashionable Beverly neighborhood and had vaults and vaults of money, even during this Depression. No one seemed to know what line of work Uncle Cecil was in or where all his money came from. I was convinced that he was mixed up with one of Chicago’s notorious gangsters.

  Mother always referred to her sister as “fragile.” To me, Lydia was as jumpy as a cricket in a chicken yard. I never understood how my grandparents had managed to produce two daughters as drastically different as my saintly mother and my loony aunt Lydia.

  A maid answered the door and led us inside Aunt Lydia’s house. Her décor was a wild jumble of expensive, tasteful pieces of furniture perched alongside outrageous souvenirs and gewgaws from the many places she had traveled. In the sunny morning room where we sat down to chat, for instance, she had hung a stuffed moose head from the wilds of Canada above an antique Louis XIV writing desk. The moose, as glassy-eyed as my aunt, wore an embroidered scarf from Morocco tied around its head like an immigrant woman in a kerchief.

  We chatted and sipped coffee for a while befo
re Aunt Lydia announced her latest travel plans. “We’re going to a spa in the Appalachian Mountains. The fresh mountain air is supposed to be marvelous for the lungs. So invigorating.” My aunt carried a cut-glass tumbler of golden liquid in her hand at all times, ice cubes tinkling as she gestured. On the rare occasion when she wasn’t holding the glass, she looked naked.

  “Don’t people usually go to the mountains in the summertime?” I asked. “Won’t it be cold there in March?”

  “Oh, but we simply must get away. The spa has a hot spring. I’ll be taking a water cure.”

  “Drinking it or bathing in it?” I asked. Mother poked me with her elbow in warning, but I ignored the hint.

  “Why, both, of course. They have a very rigorous schedule at the spa—we’ll be eating a special diet, taking exercise, communing with nature. Cecil and I are looking forward to it immensely.”

  “Cecil is going, too?” Mother asked.

  “Yes, we’re driving down there together. He needs to get away as badly as I do.”

  I pictured a mob of gangsters chasing after him, car tires squealing, tommy guns rattling.

  “We’ll be driving down through Kentucky,” she continued, and the moment I heard the word Kentucky, an idea struck me like a gong at the carnival after someone swings a big hammer and hits the target. Why not ride to Kentucky with my aunt and uncle and deliver the donated books I had collected, in person? My uncle’s car was the size of a small steamship, with a trunk large enough to stash a couple of dead bodies. Surely it would hold my five boxes of books and the magazines. Best of all, I could get away from Blue Island—the gossip and humiliation. I could disappear!

  “May I go with you, Aunt Lydia?”

  She and my mother stared at me in unison.

  “Alice Grace Ripley!” Mother said, when she finally found her voice. Her outrage could be measured by how many of my names she used. If I had been given a fourth name, she would have used it now. “You know better than to invite yourself. And you also know that we can’t afford to send you to a spa.” I’m sure she would have added that we weren’t the sort of irresponsible people who frittered away money on useless luxuries like water cures and hot springs, but she would never insult my aunt to her face.

  “If you need to get away,” Mother continued, “why not spend some time on the farm with one of your sisters? I’m sure they would have plenty for you to do.”

  I made a face. “They’ll make me chase their kids and round up their chickens. Besides, there’s not a decent library for miles and miles out where they live.”

  “What has gotten into you?” Mother asked.

  I looked down at the polished parquet floor, tears stinging my eyes. “As you may recall, I’ve been laid off work at the library because of the Depression.”

  “Then why not marry that strapping young beau of yours?” Aunt Lydia asked. “A rollicking good honeymoon will cheer you up in no time.”

  Mother’s face turned the color of a ripe tomato at the mention of such a taboo subject as a rollicking honeymoon. My cheeks felt sun-warmed, too. “Alice and her young man have had a falling out,” Mother said in a whisper—although I don’t know why she needed to whisper. Aunt Lydia’s maid didn’t understand English and the rest of the world already knew about my breakup with Gordon, thanks to the diligent ladies in my father’s congregation.

  “Oh, that’s too bad, darling,” Aunt Lydia said. “Have you thought about taking a lover?”

  Mother’s face went from red to white in an astonishingly short time. Her ability to speak vanished completely. “It’s a little too soon to look for another beau,” I said quickly.

  “Who said anything about a beau?” Aunt Lydia said with a wink. “What you need is—”

  “Lydia, please!” Mother begged.

  “Well, it sounds to me like Alice could use a few days at a spa. Of course she can come with us. Cheers, darling!” She lifted her glass in salute.

  “I wouldn’t be going to the spa,” I explained, “just to Kentucky. I’ve been collecting used books and magazines for the poor people down there, and since you and Uncle Cecil are going that way, I thought maybe I could tag along and deliver the books in person.”

  “How would you get home again?” Mother asked, being annoyingly practical.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just stay there, and Uncle Cecil can pick me up on the way home. I’ve been corresponding with a librarian down there, and I’m sure she must have some volunteer work for me to do while Aunt Lydia is taking her cure. I could help her catalogue all the donated books.”

  “I still think you’d enjoy the spa more,” Aunt Lydia said, winking at me again. “But of course you’re welcome to ride along, Alice. A nice road trip will cheer you up in no time.”

  I wondered if I might regret my rash decision later. Uncle Cecil’s cigars smelled like burning tires, and for all I knew, nasty men with prison records might be chasing him all the way to Kentucky. But how wonderful it would be to simply vanish, leaving everyone to wonder where I’d gone.

  On a cold, misty morning in March, my road trip to Kentucky began. We would travel the Dixie Highway, which ran all the way from Chicago to Miami and passed right through my hometown of Blue Island. I had been eager to leave, wanting to get away from the pitying looks and prove to Gordon that I didn’t care about him anymore—although I had no idea how leaving town would actually prove anything. But the moment Uncle Cecil’s car arrived at the parsonage and I saw Mother’s tears and Father’s worried frown, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I felt homesick, and I hadn’t even left home. I had never traveled far from home before and had never been separated from my best friend, Freddy, for more than a week. My parents didn’t take vacations.

  Before I could stop them or say that I’d changed my mind, my father and Uncle Cecil had shoehorned the donated books and my one measly traveling bag into the car’s trunk alongside Aunt Lydia’s countless suitcases and hatboxes. “Lydia packed her entire wardrobe,” Uncle Cecil grumbled.

  “I heard that!” my aunt said. “Why do you always exaggerate, Cecil?”

  I had forgotten how much they bickered. My parents never bickered; they simply exchanged lists.

  Mother kissed me good-bye. Father rested his hand on my shoulder and said, “Remember who you are, Alice.” It was one of his favorite admonitions. The answer he had drummed into me was, “I am a child of God”—and therefore I needed to act like one. But aside from that rote reply, who was I really? I used to be able to say, I’m Gordon Walters’ girlfriend and I’m a librarian at the Blue Island Public Library. I could no longer say either of those things. I swallowed the lump in my throat and climbed into the car. The door slammed shut behind me, sealing me in like a pickle in a canning jar when the lid sucks shut with a pop. I gazed straight ahead so my parents wouldn’t see my tears and I wouldn’t see theirs. Uncle Cecil gunned the engine and headed south.

  I had been eager for a change of scene, but unfortunately the scene never changed, mile after mile, hour after hour. We drove through scattered farming communities like Steger and Grant Park and Watseka, Illinois, and they all looked numbingly alike, their brick storefronts lined up like boxers facing each other across Main Street. Identical-looking filling stations and diners and roadside motels seemed to follow us like pushy salesmen, disappearing in the rearview mirror, then popping up again farther down the highway. And in between each town, farmland stretched endlessly as far as the eye could see. As the stench of cow manure filled the air, I nearly begged Uncle Cecil to light one of his cigars.

  I couldn’t recall reading any good novels that featured rural Illinois or Indiana as their setting, and no wonder. The book would be much too boring. Interesting plots were inspired by interesting surroundings, and who could be inspired by farmland? This probably explained why my life had been dull and uneventful so far. I lived in a boring state.

  Rain spat from the clouds onto Uncle Cecil’s windshield. The dull sky and gray pavement were the color
of dingy dish towels. My uncle turned on his head lamps so he could see through the fog, and I feared our overloaded trunk would make the headlights shine up into the sky instead of down onto the road.

  The terrain might have looked boring to me, but it became more fanciful and enchanted for Aunt Lydia the farther we drove. She had brought along her tumbler of golden liquid, pasted to her hand even at this early hour, ice cubes rattling like bones until they finally melted just outside of Danville. I saw her sipping from it, but I never saw her refilling it—and yet the glass never emptied. It was magical, like a sorcerer’s trick.

  “Look, darlings! A herd of buffalo!” she said, pointing to a dozen dairy cows huddling in the fog. My uncle and I exchanged glances in the rearview mirror. “And doesn’t that castle over there remind you of the ones we saw in Germany, Cecil?”

  “For crying out loud, Lydia, that’s a barn!”

  At this rate, she would be seeing leprechauns and unicorns before we reached Indianapolis. Uncle Cecil stomped the accelerator and whooshed past a slow-moving car as if in a hurry to deliver Aunt Lydia to her water cure as quickly as possible. I pulled a book out of my bag and began to read, praying that we wouldn’t get into a head-on collision in the fog.

  We stopped for lunch at a roadside diner, ingesting enough grease to lubricate a locomotive before getting under way again. I hadn’t noticed any gangsters chasing us, but my uncle drove as if carloads of them were speeding after us. I continued to read my book, becoming the main character, living her life. It was so much better than my own.

  The storm clouds lifted as the afternoon progressed, and every time I looked up from my book I noticed more and more hills—and more and more signs of the economic depression. Men in tattered clothing stood alongside the highway, thumbing for a ride. Entire families camped in makeshift tents beside the road, their laundry sagging on ropes strung between the trees. Overloaded cars waddled down the Dixie Highway like tortoises, with piles of possessions lashed onto their roofs in tottering bundles. We also passed crews of unemployed men who had been put to work by the president’s Civilian Conservation Corps, laboring on the roads, stringing telephone lines or repairing bridges.