The Daughters of Erietown

by Connie Schultz

  Enclosed is a card for your convenience to indicate the date and approximate time of arrival. Almost any day is satisfactory, but I should receive the card in time to confirm that I will be able to meet you. Usually any day including Saturday is a good day by afternoon.

  Best of luck to you and your team in the game and tournaments.

  Very truly yours,

  Carl R. Swartz

  Basketball Coach

  CRS: bms

  encl. (1)

  Encl. It took Brick two days to figure out what that meant. He finally went to the school library and searched the dictionary for words beginning with “e-n-c-l.” Felt like a fool once he realized it stood for “enclosure.” There was so much in this world he didn’t know.

  Brick pulled the postcard out of his pocket. It was addressed to Coach Swartz. Thomas Jefferson’s profile was embossed in burgundy on the two-cent stamp.

  The back of the card was a blank slate of possibilities.

  Brick folded the letter around the postcard and slid both back into the envelope. He tucked it in his shirt pocket, behind the pack of Kents, his new cigarette brand since the day after he’d opened the letter. He rested his head against the shed and closed his eyes. Three weeks had passed, and he still hadn’t responded to the letter. Until today, he hadn’t told a single soul about it. Not his mother, and certainly not his father. Not even Ellie.

  Finally, early that morning, he’d decided to talk to Coach Bryant. He showed up early for practice and found Sam Bryant in his usual spot on the bench, hunched over a clipboard on his lap. Just the sight of the old man made Brick relax.

  “Hi, Coach.”

  Coach’s furrowed brow softened at the sight of his star player. “Brick. What are you doing here? Can’t get enough of me, eh?”

  Brick returned his smile and threw his jacket on the bench before reaching into his shirt pocket. “You got a minute, Coach? I wanted to show you something.”

  Coach set the clipboard on the bench and reached for the letter in Brick’s hand. Within seconds he was on his feet, his eyebrows arching as he read.

  “Jeeeeesus Christ,” he said. “Brick, this is big. This is bigger than big. This is the damn biggest letter any Jefferson High School player has ever gotten in the history of Jefferson High School.”

  Brick laughed. “Really, Coach?”

  Coach set the letter down on the bench and grabbed Brick’s shoulders. “Son, listen to me. If Carl Swartz is asking you to come visit Kent State, that means he’s watched you play at least a half-dozen times.” He looked up at the empty bleachers. “Huh. I know exactly where he sat, now that I think about it. He was the guy in the dark green overcoat sitting behind Buddy Clark’s family. Wore a fedora that he never took off, which is why I remember him. I heard he’s like that. Pretends to be someone else when he’s checking out players.”

  He shook Brick’s shoulders. “Brick, Coach Swartz wants you to play for Kent State and he’s got the scholarship money to make it happen. Your life just changed.”

  Brick could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention. “I don’t know, Coach. No one in my family’s ever gone to college. And I’ve always had a hard time with studying. You know that better than anybody. How many times have I sat at your kitchen table so’s Mrs. Bryant could help me with biology?”

  “The point is, you knew when to ask for help,” Coach said. “Loretta says you know more than you think. You’re my point guard for a reason. You’re the smartest boy on the team.”

  Coach started fidgeting with his tie. “Look, Brick, I don’t know how to say this any other way: You need to get out of here. You need to get away from this town. Hell, I’m just gonna say it. You need to get away from that house. From him. Fear has a way of blinding a person to his own potential. You can’t spend your life worrying when the next punch is coming.”

  “I’m not afraid of anyone,” Brick said. “I’m sure as hell not afraid of him.”

  Coach locked eyes with Brick. “I’ve seen the bruises on your face.” He pointed to Brick’s eye. “You had a nasty cut goin’ there just last month. I wouldn’t treat a dog that way. It has to get to you, being thrown around like that. I hope you’re afraid. Your fear will keep you alive.”

  Brick took a step back. “Coach, I—”

  Coach held up his palm. “I don’t need to know your business. But I do need you to know that this”—he picked the letter up off the bench, waved it—“this is your one chance to find out who you are, and what you can really do. You can’t do that here. You have to leave this school, this town. You have to leave this life behind you.”

  Brick slid his left hand into his pocket and started jingling his coins. Coach pointed to his pocket. “Hear that, Brick? That’s the sound of pocket change. If you don’t take advantage of this opportunity, that’s all you’re ever going to have. A pocket full of change and a life of broken dreams.”

  “Maybe my dream isn’t about playing basketball.”

  Coach laughed. “Who’re you talking to here? I see you out there. I see how hard you work to make those shots look easy as a sneeze. I’ve never known a boy who glides across the floor like you. You’re a born leader, too. Whole team looks up to you. You were made to play this game. It’s the only time you look happy.”

  Brick looked up at the basketball hoop and said nothing.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Coach said. “Ellie’s a sweet girl. If she loves you, she’s going to tell you to go to Kent State. If she loves you, she won’t want to hold you back.”

  “She’d never hold me back, Coach. Ellie believes in me more than—” His eyes darted quickly to Coach’s face then looked away. “I gotta go change for practice,” Brick said, folding the letter back in the envelope and sliding it into his shirt pocket.

  Coach grabbed his arm. “Brick, I don’t want to overstep here. It’s just that I want everything for you.” He loosened his grip. “What does Ellie say?”

  “I haven’t told her yet. She hasn’t seen the letter.”

  “Well, son, it’s time to let her know about it, don’t you think? Give her a chance to get excited for you.”

  Brick reached for his jacket on the bench. “Yeah, I guess so. I’m driving her home after practice. I’ll tell her then.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be happy for you,” Coach said. “How could she not? Take it from me. Nothing is impossible when your woman believes in you.”

  Brick had lied about driving Ellie home. He wasn’t even allowed to pull his truck into her driveway. He lied to Ellie, too, the next morning when she asked why he hadn’t waited with her at the bus stop after school. “Coach wanted to go over last’s week game to prepare for the one coming up with Glenville,” he told her, avoiding eye contact.

  Ellie didn’t even question him. He wasn’t sure what to make of her lately. She seemed always on the verge of tears, like she had some bad news she was keeping to herself. Normally he was willing to do whatever it took to make Ellie smile. He just didn’t have it in him right now.

  Brick raised his coat sleeve to look at his watch. Barely twenty-four hours had passed since he’d talked to Coach, but it felt like a week. He wasn’t sleeping, and he had no appetite, which his mother had noted at breakfast. “I know you’re upset about Ellie’s grandpa, but you have to eat,” she told him, handing him a plate of eggs and toast. “You need your energy for the game.”

  He felt so guilty, he couldn’t look at her. His mother would love to know he got the scholarship, but she’d be just like Coach and tell him to get going and forget about Ellie. How could they not see that everything good about him came to life only after Ellie named it? In her eyes he was handsome and smart. “Clever-smart,” she always said, “and nobody’s fool.” She said he was brave, too, the way he didn’t let his father hold him back. She was the only person in his li
fe who made him believe his father was wrong about him. Even his mother couldn’t do that.

  Brick pulled out another cigarette and flipped open the silver lighter Ellie had bought him with her babysitting money for Christmas last year. He flicked on the flame, held it under the cigarette, and snapped the lighter shut. He angled it so that he could read the engraving: LOVE, PINT. He slid the lighter back into his pocket and threw the cigarette at the moon.

  Ellie yanked her skirt around her knees and slid across the front seat, pressing her back against the passenger door. “Brick, I’ve told you over and over, I can’t do that.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything, Ellie.”

  “Maybe you weren’t, but your hand was breaking every rule from A to Z.”

  “What rule starts with ‘Z’?”

  Ellie looked out the windshield and stared at the ice caps on Lake Erie. “Zoo,” she finally said. “Don’t act like you live in a zoo.”

  Brick laughed, and the briefest of smiles disrupted Ellie’s scowl. He cracked open his window and reached under his jacket to pull out the pack of cigarettes tucked into his shirt pocket. Ellie glanced at the brand and shook her head. “Kents,” she said, softly. “Of course, you’re smoking Kents now.” She pulled up the collar of her coat and shivered. “It’s freezing outside, Brick.”

  Brick flicked open his lighter. “It isn’t much warmer in here, if you ask me.”

  Ellie squeezed her eyes shut. The last thing she wanted to do was to start crying. “Brick, you said yourself we don’t want to take any chances of ruining your scholarship. You said it yourself.”

  “All right, Ellie. I said it once, and you’ve said it a hundred times since.”

  Ellie said nothing. She was done talking, done explaining herself to anybody. Brick was going to Kent State, no matter how many times he said he hadn’t decided. And everyone but Ellie McGinty would celebrate. She spread her damp hankie across her lap and ran a finger over the cluster of her grandmother’s embroidered lilacs, French knots of pink and lavender. Yesterday morning she had walked into the kitchen and, at the sight of Grandma standing at the stove frying bacon, felt such a wave of sadness. Her grandmother’s dress was made from the same fabric she had used for many of the squares in Ellie’s quilt, and for two of the pot holders hanging on the hook by the stove.

  “Grandma, have you ever bought a brand-new dress? From a store. One that’s already made.”

  Ada turned around and looked at her granddaughter. “Why would I waste my money on that?” she said, and turned back to the stove.

  “I just wondered if you ever wished you had one dress you didn’t have to make.”

  “You’re going to wish you knew how to sew someday, young lady. I won’t always be around to make sure you have clothes that fit.”

  “I’m going to buy mine, Grandma,” Ellie said as she pulled out her plate and coffee cup. “I’m going to go shopping, and I’m going to wear dresses just like the ones in Ladies’ Home Journal.”

  “Is that right,” Ada said, cracking two eggs into the skillet. “Guess you’re going to be marrying up then.”

  Ellie walked over to the stove and lifted the percolator off the back burner to pour a cup of coffee. “Or maybe,” she said, setting the percolator back on the burner, “maybe I’m going to get a good job myself. With my own paycheck. Maybe buy my own dresses.”

  “Is that right? Is this because Brick’s going to go to college?”

  Ellie sat down at the table and started picking at the hem of her jumper. “I wasn’t talking about Brick. He’ll go if he wants. But who says I’m not going to college, too? Plenty of girls go to college now. I could be a teacher. Or a nurse. You always say I’m good at taking care of people. That I anticipate other people’s needs.” Ada carried the skillet to the table and slid the bacon and eggs onto Ellie’s plate. “You can do that as a mother, too.”

  Now Ellie scrunched up the hankie and silently berated herself. Here she was, slumped in Brick’s pickup truck, pouting because he had a chance to make something of himself. What was wrong with her?

  They’d had a terrible fight the day before, after Brick showed her the letter from Kent State. It was the way he kept reprimanding her. Be gentle with the envelope. Don’t muss up the paper. Watch your fingerprints there.

  “That’s my future you’ve got in your hands, Ellie,” he’d said. My future. Not our future. She’d started to cry, and he shut down. Drove her to Becca Gilley’s house and didn’t even say goodbye.

  After a sleepless night for both of them, they rushed to each other at the school entrance. “I just need to talk to you, Pint,” he said. “Once we talk you’ll know everything’s going to be fine.”

  Ellie spent the day fantasizing about how he would take her hand and confess that he could never leave her. Then he would ask her to marry him. What an idiot she was. She turned to look at Brick. “If you go to Kent, what’s going to happen to us?”

  Brick’s face relaxed. “What’s going to happen? Ellie, we’re going to get married, that’s what’s going to happen. That’s what I tried to tell you yesterday, but as soon as you saw the letter you were all cryin’ and stuff and wouldn’t listen to anything I said.”

  She looked at him, waiting.

  “I’m going to get a college degree, and then I’m going to marry you and be head basketball coach at one of those big high schools in Cleveland. I might have to start by coaching JV, but Coach has taught me everything he knows. I’ll be coaching varsity before you know it. You’ll be there every game, cheering for me just like you do now, only you won’t be standing on the sidelines in that cheerleading dress. You’ll be the coach’s wife. And you’ll be sitting with all of our sons.”

  Ellie giggled. “I’d like at least one girl. I want to have a daughter and name her Joy. It was Grandpa’s mother’s middle name.”

  “Then we’ll have a girl, too,” Brick said. “I want you to have everything you’ve ever wanted, Ellie.”

  She looked at Brick and smiled. “Coach McGinty.”

  “And his lovely wife, Mrs. Brick McGinty,” he said, grabbing her hand. “I’ll teach history. Or biology, maybe.”

  She slid up next to him, and he wrapped his right arm around her. “It’s different when you’re the one giving orders, Ellie. Everything’s different when you’re the one in charge.”

  She looked out the window and sighed at the sight of so many barren trees. “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”

  “Write me lots of letters,” he said. “And you’ll come down on the bus to watch my games.”

  “What if I go to college, too? What if I want to become a nurse?”

  Brick stiffened. “Well, this is new.”

  “Well, I was just thinking, why not do something useful with myself while you’re away at school? I’ve got the best grades in the class. You know that. Maybe there are scholarships for that, too?”

  Brick took a deep breath and slowly nodded. “Well, sure. This is our dream, right? Together. Neither one of us wants to be stuck in this tiny hellhole of a town for the rest of our lives.”

  She laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t act excited when you showed me the letter, Brick. I’m just trying to figure out where I fit in. You think so much bigger than others. Some of the boys are fine with getting jobs on the docks. Like Richard Ryan. He’s going to work at the power plant, for EEI. Marcia says he’s going to join the union, make more money than both of their fathers put together.”

  “And be a slave for the rest of his life,” Brick said. “Workin’ for someone else, taking orders from some dumb-ass nobody. That may be good enough for them, but it’s not good enough for me.”

  Ellie squeezed his arm. “If you teach, even if you coach, you still have to take orders. It’s not like you own the school.”

  Brick turned to face her, his
eyes glistening. “Ellie, you know how it feels when you stand in the middle of that gym? When you’re doing one of your cheerleading routines and everyone’s cheering for you? Everybody’s looking right atcha?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s what it feels like every time I’m on the basketball court. All eyes on me. I want to feel like that for the rest of my life. I want to feel that buzz when I walk into a room, when I see you there in the center of it all, cheering for me, louder than anyone.”

  She pulled her hankie out of her sleeve and wiped the tears from his eyes. She no longer cared about being late, or any stupid school penalties she was about to outgrow anyway. She just wanted to hear more about the life waiting for them away from Clayton Valley.

  “What else do you want, Coach McGinty?”

  He pulled her close, and started kissing her eyelids, her cheeks. She leaned back as he pushed her hair from her face, cupping her chin, lifting her mouth to his.

  “Ellie,” he whispered, as he rolled her coat off her shoulders. “My Ellie.”

  Grandma Ada’s younger sister, Nessa, was the only person Ellie knew who brought no judgment to other people’s bad news. She was sixty-three and had never married, a single fact about her life that she often mentioned to friends and strangers alike as evidence of her sound judgment and independence. They could call Nessa Travis an old maid and a spinster all they wanted. She was one of the lucky ones, she insisted to Ellie—a woman exempt from other people’s low expectations.

  Nessa was the only person in Ellie’s extended family to have gone to college. She’d graduated from Reynolds Teachers College in 1915 and for more than four decades taught senior English at Erietown High School. Every summer, she had traveled alone by train to explore “this great country of ours.” Ellie had filled two shoe boxes with Aunt Nessa’s postcards, each one crammed with facts about the region delivered in her tiny, precise handwriting, ending with the same postscript: “Put this on your list of places to see before you die.”