The Daughters of Erietown

by Connie Schultz

  She slowed her walk along the busy road, clouds of dust billowing around her sneakers in the dry dirt. It was only the middle of May, but it was already so hot and humid that the people in Blackford County had settled into their August moods. Smacking their children in public. Barking at cashiers for prices that weren’t their fault. Yells piercing the air from second-floor windows opened wide to windless nights.

  Rosie shaded her eyes as she walked. Not a cloud in the sky. Even the weather wasn’t on her side. She wished for a button she could press, a lever to pull, to force the sky to match her mood. She was tired of feeling mocked by sunny days.

  Two more weeks until school let out, and then another endless season of helping her mother do other people’s laundry, from early morning until dinnertime. “You don’t need to get a job at the Burger Chef,” her mother said when Rosie came home with the application. “How you gonna get there, Rosie? How you gonna get home? How you gonna buy the uniform? We take in twice the laundry in the summer months because you’re here to help. It’s our time to make money, not spend it.”

  Lucia Russo always had her list of reasons for how life could never work out. They were the wrong kind of people for dreams. “You’re born, you work, you die,” her mother was fond of saying as she made the sign of the cross. “We offer up our suffering to God, and one day he welcomes us home.”

  Rosie couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for a God that expected people to thank him every day for a lifetime of misery just so they could earn a place in his house once the living was done. As her father had long ago proved, you could find that kind of man right here on earth.

  She walked around the corner and stopped under the shade of the willow tree. It was tall and ancient, and took up most of the Parkers’ front yard.

  What if?

  She looked around to make sure no one had just heard her big idea busting loose.

  What if this was the time to leave? To go far away and move in with Aunt Lizzie?

  She looked around again. The branches fluttered and waved, as if egging her on.

  Rosie sat down on the edge of the lawn and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. There was nothing but bad memories for her here in Foxglove. Her mother loved her, but Aunt Lizzie believed Rosie deserved a better life.

  Aunt Lizzie was her father’s younger sister. She grew up in Foxglove, but as soon as she graduated from high school she moved to the northeast corner of the state, to Erietown. “Named for one of the Great Lakes, Rosie,” Aunt Lizzie had told her on her last visit. “An entire town right on Lake Erie. Cool breezes in the evening no matter how hot the day.”

  Her real name was Isabella, but she’d changed it to Lizzie as soon as she left town. “Isabella’s too formal,” she’d told Rosie. “A girl needs to sound friendly.” She wore shorts with sailboats and anchors on them, and bandannas and straw hats to protect her hair, which she streaked with blond highlights every summer to show off her tan. From June through August, Aunt Lizzie smelled like Coppertone lotion. Rosie loved to imagine her aunt hopping into her Ford Thunderbird and scattering seagulls as she hit the gas for her four-hour drive south to Foxglove.

  Not that she visited anymore. Aunt Lizzie hated Rosie’s mother. “She doesn’t just push my buttons,” Aunt Lizzie once told Rosie, “she installed them.”

  Lizzie blamed Lucia for her brother’s sudden exit four years ago. “He’s so afraid of you he won’t even let any of us know where he went,” Lizzie screamed at Lucia in their kitchen.

  “Coward, your brother,” Lucia said, pretending to spit on the linoleum. “What kind of man leaves his wife and his child, leaves us with nothing? Nothing. He’s in hiding because he doesn’t want to help support his own daughter. He’s with that horrible woman. I know it and you know it, and now my poor Rosie knows it, too.”

  Rosie sat at the table, her eyes wide with the discovery of just how much had already gone wrong in her life. The two women froze, staring at her.

  “I’m outta here,” Lizzie finally said, pointing at Lucia. “You’re a sick woman. You poison everything—poison everyone—you touch.” She gestured toward Rosie. “Poor Rosie. What’s to become of her?”

  Rosie ran after Aunt Lizzie as she walked toward her car. Aunt Lizzie left her with a promise. “You know where I live, honey,” her aunt said as Rosie leaned into the open window. “When you decide you want to be something more than the lonely Italian girl in Foxglove, you catch a Greyhound and come up north. Come live with me in Erietown. I’ll give you a chance for a new life.”

  “Aunt Lizzie, please don’t stay away. Mom doesn’t mean that.”

  Aunt Lizzie scribbled something on a small piece of paper, folded it into a square, and pressed it into Rosie’s palm. “You tuck this away someplace private,” she said. “Someplace where you can always find it.”

  Rosie stuck it in the pocket of her jeans shorts and stepped back, covering her face with her hands as her aunt revved the engine and peeled away in a cloud of dust. It was the last time she would ever see Lizzie Russo in Foxglove, Ohio.

  Rosie didn’t read her aunt’s note until bedtime, and then immediately folded it into a tinier square. She crawled into the back of her bedroom closet and wedged it between the floorboards in the corner.

  That had been three years ago. She hadn’t looked at it since, out of loyalty to her mother, but she never forgot it was there. Lizzie’s home address, and the address for the Greyhound bus station in nearby Marietta. It was the tiniest shred of hope in Rosie’s otherwise pointless life.

  Now, as Rosie thought about it, her heart started to pound. She tipped her face toward the sky and closed her eyes. Maybe it was time. Maybe it was time for her to go somewhere else, where she could be someone else. The thought of leaving her mother brought tears to her eyes. She loved her, but Lucia Russo would spend the rest of her life as the abandoned wife, waiting for God.

  She could leave Rosie behind. She could get on that Greyhound bus and become eye-turning, take-no-bullshit Rosemary, the most popular girl in Erietown.

  A breeze kissed her damp neck and stray strands of hair danced across her face, applauding the first big idea she’d ever had.

  She heard it. She was sure of it.

  Go, Rosie, the wind whispered. Go while you still can.

  The woman behind the ticket counter pulled off her reading glasses to get a better look at the scared young thing standing in front of her. “You got no one pickin’ you up? Child, have you ever been to Erietown?”

  Rosie couldn’t see why she should be answering a Negro woman’s questions about anything, but after a long and lonely ride on a Greyhound bus she was oddly comforted to be on the receiving end of this stranger’s concern. “No,” she said. “I mean, no, ma’am. No one knows I’m here yet. Ma’am.”

  The woman’s face softened. “What is your name?”

  “Rosie. I mean, Rosemary. Rosemary Russo.”

  “Well, Rosemary, the last city bus for the day just left. You can’t just be wandering the streets.” She looked down again at the slip of paper Rosie had slid across the counter to her. “Do you have a phone number for this address?”

  Rosie shook her head again. The woman pulled out a phone book from under the counter. “Okay, what is this person’s name?”

  A young black man standing behind Rosie shouted over her head. “Some of us here need to get a ticket,” he said. “Today.”

  The woman scowled at him. “And you’ve got three other windows you can use,” she said. “I don’t need any mouth from you, Leonard Moore.” He held up his hands and started walking over to the line on their right. “Sorry, Mrs. Colbert.”

  “You don’t know sorry till I talk to your mother,” she said. “Usin’ that tone of voice with me.” She looked back at Rosie. “What’s her name, honey?”

  “Lizzie. Lizzie Russo. But her real
name is Isabella.” Mrs. Colbert flipped open the phone book and ran her finger down a column of names. “Same last name. She a relation?”

  Rosie nodded. “Yes, ma’am. She’s my aunt.”

  “Hmm. I don’t see any woman listed here under Russo. Is that her married name?”

  “No. I—I—” She set her suitcase on the floor. “I don’t know if she’s married.”

  Don’t panic, Rosie told herself. She had gotten this far by herself. She wasn’t going to give up now.

  Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since she’d sneaked out in the middle of the night and walked to the edge of her long driveway where that awful Alan Fletcher was waiting for her in his brother’s car. She’d talked him into driving her the thirty miles to the Marietta Greyhound station. He was so shocked at how nice she was being to him that he walked her into the bus terminal and insisted on waiting with her until the bus to Erietown rolled in four hours later, at sunrise.

  “Rosie,” he said as they sat on the bench. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life,” she said. “I have to get out of here if I’m ever going to be who I’m supposed to be.” She could tell by the look on his face that he had no idea what she was talking about. His confusion made her feel sorry for him, but it also affirmed her decision.

  In the six hours since, she’d seen so much of Ohio that she’d never known existed. Miles of flat farmland, and so many colored people in the cities. After the bus stop in Canton, almost half of her fellow passengers were colored. She sat ramrod straight and afraid for her life, refusing to get off the next three bus stops for food or even a bathroom break. Now here she was talking to the first person who bothered to be nice to her, and she was colored, too.

  All she had to do was find Aunt Lizzie’s house.

  Mrs. Colbert waved her hand and frowned. “Helloooo?”

  “I’m sorry,” Rosie said. “I was just thinking. Maybe she doesn’t have a phone. Or maybe she doesn’t want anyone to have her number.”

  The woman closed the phone book and folded her hands on the cover. “Anyone in this town with a phone number is in this book. Don’t you have phone books where you’re from?”

  Rosie tried to remember ever seeing one in her house. She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not in Foxglove.”

  The woman sighed. “Foxglove? You from the hills?”

  “Between them,” Rosie said. “But I don’t live there anymore.”

  Mrs. Colbert smiled. “If you’re from Foxglove, you must be pretty surprised to see me sitting here behind this counter.”

  Rosie blushed. “No, ma’am.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Mrs. Colbert said, chuckling. “Your eyes give you away. Now, listen, this address you’ve got here is in the harbor.”

  “No, I know for sure that she lives in Erietown.”

  “The harbor is part of Erietown. It’s on Lake Erie, where the ports are. You’re on the south side of town right now. You have to cross the bridge and go down the hill to get to where your aunt lives. There are two neighborhoods there. One’s for the Italians, the other’s for the Finns.”

  “We’re Italian,” Rosie said.

  The woman nodded and stared at her for a moment. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  The woman frowned. “What a coincidence. I’m just a year older. You sure we ain’t Irish twins?”

  Rosie sighed. “Seventeen,” she lied again. “But I’ll be eighteen in two more months. You aren’t going to turn me in, are you?”

  The woman shook her head. “I figure if you got yourself on that bus to come all this way to find your aunt, you got your reasons. No business of mine.” She looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping before leaning over the counter. “All right, listen,” she said, softly. “If you want to wait another hour and”—she glanced at the clock on the wall—“and thirteen minutes, I can drive you part of the way to that address.”

  For the first time, Rosie smiled. “Oh, thank you Mrs.—Mrs. Colbert?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” the woman said. “I can take you as far as the end of the bridge, to Sardelli’s. I can’t be driving alone in that part of town. Your aunt’s Italian. If she’s still living here, someone at Sardelli’s will know her.”

  Rosie tilted her head. “I don’t understand why you are…” She hesitated and decided not to ask. “I’m so grateful. Ma’am.” Mrs. Colbert pointed to the row of benches closest to the ticket counter. “You sit over there. Don’t wander off, and don’t let any of those men hanging out by the entrance start talking to you. Anyone starts messing with you, you come right back to this window.”

  Rosie nodded and picked up her suitcase. “Yes, Mrs. Colbert. Thank you so much.” Mrs. Colbert waved her off and yelled, “Next.”

  Rosie sat down in a spot that allowed her to keep an eye on her first friend in Erietown. Mrs. Colbert wasn’t anything like her mother always said about colored women. She pulled out a small notepad from her purse and started her list.

  Things Mom was wrong about:

  “All colored people (not her word but I’m never going to use that word again) hate white people.”

  “Nice girls don’t shave their legs.” (I shaved my legs last night and the only thing different about me is my legs.)

  “Only Catholics will go to Heaven.” (I’ve already met one nice person headed for Heaven and I’m pretty sure she’s not Catholic. Mrs. C. at bus station. God, you know who I mean.)

  Rosie tucked the notepad back into her purse and thought about the letter to her mother she’d left on her pillow.

  Dear Mama,

  I’m sorry, but I had to go. Remember when Father Mark said at Easter mass that we never run out of chances to be somebody else better? Well I decided that I had to leave my old self behind so that I can meet the new Rosie waiting somewhere else. I’m sorry to sneak off but I know you would never have let me go on my own like this. I promise to write to you as soon as I get to Erietown. That’s where I’m going to live. When I get a job, I’ll start sending you money.

  I love you, Mama. This isn’t your fault.

  xoxoxo

  Rosie

  P.S. I’m going to be Rosemary from now on, so don’t be confused when you see that name in the return address on my envelope.

  Maybe her first letter now that she was away from home would be about Mrs. Colbert. To make it clear how she was different now.

  * * *

  —

  One hour and seventeen minutes later, Rosie was in the passenger seat of Mrs. Colbert’s car. “This is a pretty car. What kind is it?”

  “Nineteen fifty-five Ford Fairlane,” Mrs. Colbert said as she pulled out of the parking lot. “My husband, Fred, works at the Ford plant, so he got the employee discount. Part of their union contract. First new car we’ve ever owned.”

  Rosie ran her fingers along a seam of the seat’s fabric. “I’ve never been in a new car. It’s so clean.”

  “Oh, my car is always clean, no matter how old.” Mrs. Colbert turned to look at Rosie. “So, now you’re Rosemary.”

  “People back home call me Rosie, but I was thinking I’d start going by my full name.”

  Mrs. Colbert nodded. “Rosemary. I like the sound of that. More mature. And if you’re starting out fresh, why not start out with a name you want everyone to call you?”

  Rosie smiled. “That’s what I thought, too. I just have to get used to thinking like a Rosemary.”

  “How is a Rosemary different from a Rosie?”

  Rosie looked out her open window. “I guess mostly I don’t want to be who I was in Foxglove.”

  Mrs. Colbert glanced at her. “And who were you in Foxglove?”

  “I dunno. Rosie has never fit in anywhere. She has to hide e
ntire parts of herself because people will hate her if she’s just herself.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if any of that makes sense.”

  “More than you know,” Mrs. Colbert said. “People take one look at you and think they have you all figured out. Is that what you mean?”

  Rosie turned to face her. “Exactly. Like how you look tells them everything about you. About what’s going on inside you.”

  Mrs. Colbert slowed suddenly and leaned across Rosie to yell out the open window. “I’ll be there in a little bit. Just got an errand to run.” Rosie could tell by the look on the two black women’s faces that Mrs. Colbert didn’t usually drive through town with a white girl in her car. She started paying more attention to the neighborhood. It was all colored people, sitting on porches, checking mailboxes, yelling at little children riding tricycles or running through sprinklers in the yards.

  “What part of Erietown is this?” Rosie said.

  “Not your part of town,” Mrs. Colbert said, but she was smiling. “This is my neighborhood. The west end.”

  “You mean I’m not allowed to live here? Because I’m not colored?”

  “We prefer ‘black,’ ” Mrs. Colbert said.

  Rosemary blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Now you do,” Mrs. Colbert said, patting her hand on the seat. “And yeah, you’re white—and Italian. It’s not that we don’t want you here. It just isn’t done. Your people and my people, we don’t mingle.”

  “Is that why you can’t take me to my aunt’s house?”

  “It’s not a good idea,” Mrs. Colbert said. “Let’s leave it at that.”