Baker Towers

by Jennifer Haigh

  Maybe so; what did Lucy know? She’d been raised by women, and her teachers were nuns. Her whole life her brothers had ignored her, and she had no memory of her father. Leonard Stusick didn’t count; he was only ten, a little boy. The man Lucy knew best was Ed Hauser, who showed up every Friday night to take Joyce to the movies. Ed was tall and ungainly, nearly bald; his trousers an inch too short, as if a flood were coming. After supper Joyce would monopolize the bathroom for an hour. She’d emerge in one of her schoolmarmish dresses looking no different than before, except for the dash of red lipstick at her mouth. For cripe’s sake, Lucy wanted to say. It took you an hour to do that?

  When the doorbell rang, Joyce answered it in a sugary voice. She made a big show of inviting Ed into the kitchen, where he shook hands with Dorothy and Lucy, like the Fuller Brush salesman. Then Joyce took him into the parlor to say hello to Rose. For reasons Lucy didn’t understand, her mother was crazy about Ed. He sat beside her on the couch and tried speaking to her in Italian, which he had learned in college. His Italian was so bad that it made Rose laugh. This, Lucy supposed, was Ed’s best quality. As pitiful as he was, as awkward and unattractive, he could make her mother laugh.

  When Joyce and Ed came back from the movies, Lucy was always awake. Lying in bed, she heard their footsteps on the porch, Ed’s clumsy shuffle, the quick tick of Joyce’s pumps. There was a pause before the door opened, and Lucy knew they were kissing good night. The very thought of it turned her stomach.

  Now she watched Dorothy stack the plates in the sink. Her boyfriend was handsome. Lucy liked his dark hair, his big shoulders, the elegant way he’d opened the car door. She could imagine them dancing, even kissing. She didn’t mind the thought of Dorothy being kissed. Dorothy wasn’t mean like Joyce; she simply lacked a backbone. Now Lucy wondered if it were all an act, a way of deflecting attention so that she could do as she pleased.

  AFTER SUPPER Lucy took her marbles across the street and knocked at the Stusicks’ back door. The supper dishes were stacked in the drainer. Leonard sat at the table hunched over his homework, his glasses sliding down his nose.

  “Whatcha doing?” Lucy asked.

  He looked up from his book. For a second you could see how happy he was to see her. Then he rearranged his face into a more reasonable expression.

  “How’d you like the volcano?” he asked.

  Lucy wondered, for a moment, if he’d heard what Connie and Clare Ann had said. She’d been aware of him some distance behind them—walking alone, carrying his volcano in a shoe box. She hadn’t dared to say hello.

  “I liked the explosion,” she said. “Wanna shoot some marbles?”

  “Sure,” said Leonard. “But you have all of mine from last time.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll let you win them back.”

  Leonard rose. “We could play on the front porch. The light is better out there.”

  Lucy thought about the picture they would make, sitting on the porch steps: the little boy with glasses, the fat girl twice his size.

  “Nah,” she said. “Let’s go out back.”

  They went out the back door and crouched over the sidewalk. It hadn’t rained all week; faint chalk lines were still visible from the last time they’d played. Carefully she redrew the lines.

  “Was that your sister?” he asked.

  Lucy nodded.

  “Did somebody die?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then why was she getting out of a hearse?”

  She let him shoot first. “I don’t know. I think he’s her boyfriend.”

  “She has a boyfriend?” He looked dumbfounded, as though she’d told him Dorothy could fly.

  Lucy gave him a dirty look. “Why shouldn’t she?”

  “How should I know?” He took another shot. He had small, careful hands, like a mouse’s paws. “I just wouldn’t have thought so, is all.”

  “Me neither,” she admitted. “Anyway, I’m not even sure it’s true. It’s”—she captured one of Leonard’s marbles—“a hypothesis.”

  She tested her hypothesis over the next few weeks. Dorothy came home from her walks in a shapeless wool coat, a plaid muffler wound around her throat. One night after supper, Lucy examined the coat pockets (empty); she sniffed the muffler for perfume (none). She studied Dorothy at breakfast, lumping out bowls of oatmeal; in church, her lips moving silently as she fingered her rosary. She waited for a knowing look, some hint of secrecy. None came.

  In November, All Saints’ Day fell on a Wednesday—a free day for the parochial students, although the public school was open. Joyce went to work as usual; Lucy spent the morning in front of the television. In the afternoon Dorothy left for her walk. Lucy waited a few minutes, then followed behind.

  They walked through the center of town, past the fire hall and St. Brigid’s, to where the road climbed Indian Hill. Dorothy moved briskly; Lucy, breathing heavily, could scarcely keep up. At the base of the hill were the coal-company offices; at the top, a custard stand and the municipal swimming pool, both closed for the season. The hill was steep; there was no sidewalk. Still they climbed.

  At the top of the hill Dorothy stopped. She smoothed her hair and unbuttoned her coat. Lucy had fallen far behind; she was sure Dorothy hadn’t seen her. Still she stepped back from the road, behind a clump of teaberry bushes. She heard deep rumbling in the distance, a car’s engine. A moment later, a shiny Pontiac climbed the hill. Lucy blinked, confused. She had expected the hearse.

  Dorothy turned at the car’s approach. She smiled and gave the driver a wave. Lucy ducked lower, grateful for her hiding place. Her legs trembled weakly, exhausted from the climb, but now she didn’t care. Things were getting interesting.

  The car disappeared behind the pool house, shuttered for the season. A moment later the engine died. Lucy heard a car door open and close. Then Rock Hudson appeared. He wore dark trousers and an Eisenhower jacket. He ran a hand through his curly hair.

  He said something in a low voice. “Oh, I think so!” Dorothy answered brightly. She fell into step beside him; they strolled the path that snaked through the park. They did not touch. They’re walking, Lucy thought. Big deal.

  She looked up at the sky. Cumulus clouds, gray underneath; rain was coming, or maybe snow. Her left foot hurt across the instep, blistered by the strap of her Mary Janes. She wished she had worn her tennis shoes. Who knew Dorothy would walk so far?

  She breathed on her hands to warm them. The two figures strolled the perimeter of the park—the man talking, Dorothy nodding agreement. Finally he took her hand, and they disappeared behind the pool house.

  Lucy rose from behind the bushes, her legs stiff from crouching. The grass was marshy. Her feet were silent as an Indian’s.

  She peered around the building, as she’d seen the Hardy Boys do on television. She watched Dorothy step daintily into the backseat of the Pontiac. The man followed, closing the door behind him.

  Lucy squinted. The sky had darkened; she could barely see inside the car. Dorothy’s head disappeared from sight. Then the man’s. They’re lying down, Lucy thought.

  A raindrop struck her cheek. She stood in the rain, watching.

  Six

  Fall froze into winter. The Monday after Thanksgiving, men donned their orange vests. The firemen held a 5 A.M. pancake breakfast. At the high school, Viola Peale taught Latin grammar as usual, despite the empty desks. All the boys, and a few girls, were absent on Opening Day. Some teachers gave up and held study hall. A few called in sick and went hunting themselves.

  Deer appeared in the beds of pickups, trussed and hanging upside down from trees. Vic Bernardi bagged a ten-point buck; he was shown holding its antlers on the front page of the Herald. Leonard Stusick shot his first deer, a respectable six-pointer. Excitement gave way to boredom, his sisters’ complaints: endless meals of deer sausage and venison stew. Taxidermists worked overtime the month of December, to mount all the heads in time for Christmas.

  THAT WINTER, without fanfare, Baker Brot
hers closed its company store. A small notice appeared on the back page of the Herald; when Joyce read it aloud, Rose was astonished. She hadn’t been inside the store—any store—in years, but Baker’s remained clear in her memory: the green tiled floor, the window displays of pots and china, the fabric samples hanging from hooks on the wall. The dark wooden counter lined with spice jars and medicines, earthenware vats of pickled cucumbers and peppers and cabbage and beets. From childhood on, the store had seemed to her a complete universe, containing everything a person could want, however fanciful her tastes or exotic her interests. Baker’s stocked the everyday things Rose needed—flour and soap powder, cooking oil and salt—plus other, more glamorous items—beef roasts, a trestle sewing machine, sugar cubes decorated with tiny rosettes—she coveted but couldn’t afford. That left plenty—musical instruments, a typewriter, crystal figurines shaped like animals—she couldn’t imagine finding a use for, even if she had a hundred dollars to spend.

  Years before, the Pennsylvania Railroad had built a siding to Baker’s back door, to accommodate shoppers arriving on the local. Now a few widows went to Baker’s out of habit, but the miners’ families hadn’t shopped there in years. The union had done away with company scrip, and big grocery chains—Acme, Quaker, A&P—had moved into town. Joyce shopped at the A&P every Saturday; the new store was cool in summer, brightly lit. You could take your time browsing, she told Rose, and fill your cart with what you wanted. There were no officious McNeelys behind the counter, reminding you when you’d charged too much.

  That year, the Novaks got rid of their coal burner. The new electric furnace was a Christmas gift from Georgie. Since Sandy had left for Cleveland, the sisters had taken turns stoking the fire and hauling in the coal, chores nobody would miss. A few months later, Joyce replaced the coal cookstove. An electric one would heat faster, she explained. Dinner would be ready in half the time.

  The old stove was hauled away. Sitting on the porch, Rose watched it go. Stanley had bought it from Friedman and Sons, the Jewish furniture dealers in town. Izzy Friedman had given him a special price and delivered the stove in the middle of the night. Rose had lain awake with a pounding heart, furious with Stanley for taking such a risk. Miners who lived in company houses had been told to buy their furnishings from Baker’s. Shopping elsewhere was a firing offense.

  The new electric model sat in the corner of the kitchen. Leaning close, squinting, Rose could make out letters on the dials: MED LO, MED HI. The words meant nothing to her. For the first time in her life she burned the polenta. Black bits of onion floated in her tomato sauce. Her meatballs came out of the oven raw in the middle. Bread rose too high; the slices resembled Swiss cheese, shot through with holes. It was as if she had forgotten everything she had ever known.

  By springtime there were no more treats for Lucy: no popcorn balls stiff with molasses, no homemade macaroons. Her lunch bag contained apples and Fig Newtons, sandwiches made from store-bought bread.

  The electric stove required no stoking, no nightly polishing with paraffin wax. Rose’s life had been filled with work; now, absurdly, there was nothing to do. Her daughters took over the cooking, slipshod meals of casseroles, vegetables thawed from the freezer. She began to believe the doctors. For years she had ignored them; now she felt old and sickly.

  She cursed the stove and waited to die.

  The funeral was held at St. Casimir’s, where Rose and Stanley had been married. If anyone had asked her, Rose would have chosen Mount Carmel, the church of her girlhood: its ceiling painted salmon pink, like a tropical sunrise; its profusion of Madonnas like a collection of dolls. Years ago, the parish had maintained a funerary band; when Rose’s mother died, a uniformed trumpeter and drummer and accordionist had followed the hearse to the cemetery, serenading the casket with hymns. No one knew where the custom had originated. “In the old country,” they all assumed. Rose had found the music comforting, a joyous wave of sound to carry her mother away.

  It was George who remembered this, standing at his mother’s grave. He was the only Novak old enough to remember his Nona, and the aged Italians who’d played music at her funeral. He wished he’d brought his clarinet along; he hadn’t played in years but was sure he could muster up something. It would have seemed an absurd gesture to everyone but Rose. Rose, he knew, would have been delighted.

  Afterward, walking back to his car, he watched his three sisters make a beeline for the hearse. They all seemed determined to ride in the front seat. The driver had graduated high school a few years ahead of George. A loudmouth, not too bright, the oldest of the Bernardi boys.

  “What’s that all about?” he asked Sandy, who was riding shotgun in the Cadillac. He was glad to have a passenger. Marion had declined to come, and there hadn’t been time to fetch Arthur from his school in Connecticut. “I’ve got plenty of room, and they have to ride in the hearse?”

  “Beats me,” said Sandy. He’d come in from Cleveland on the Greyhound bus; he was between jobs and didn’t have a car. He’d gotten rid of his teenage pompadour, and his suit cost more than George’s. He looked like a million bucks.

  That fall Lucy started at St. Joseph’s, the parochial high school, a long walk from the center of town. Walking to school, she sometimes spoke to herself in her mother’s voice: Lucy, it getting cold out. Bella Lucy, you got to wear your gloves. She supposed this was how it began, how crazy people first went crazy. She didn’t care. Going crazy was better than forgetting. She would not forget her mother’s voice.

  St. Joe’s was larger than her grammar school, larger even than Bakerton High. Parochial students were bused there from all over the county. Lucy had been the oldest in her eighth-grade class, but at St. Joe’s she felt like a child. The upperclassmen seemed to inhabit another world entirely. The girls wore lipstick; some, engagement rings. The senior boys drove cars to school.

  In the crowded hallways she felt invisible. Strange faces everywhere, girls from Kinport, Coalport, Fallentree. They paid her no attention, a nameless fat girl. Lucy didn’t mind; in fact, she preferred them to the Bakerton girls—Clare Ann Baran, Connie Kukla, the prissy blondes who’d tormented her childhood. They watched her now with silent pity, as though they knew everything about her: the fat girl whose mother had died.

  The house felt empty when she came home from school: no Rosemary Clooney on the radio, no heavy footsteps on the stairs. Sometimes Dorothy was home, but to Lucy it made no difference. Dorothy seldom spoke; her presence was insubstantial. Her footfalls barely made a sound.

  After the final bell, Lucy sat on the back steps of the school, bare-legged in her uniform, shivering in the cold. She looked often at her watch: three o’clock, three-thirty. At four o’clock Joyce would come home from work; Lucy would sit in the kitchen and watch her prepare supper. She still disliked Joyce intensely; that had not changed, would not change. The unchangingness comforted her; that, at least, could be counted on. Sturdy, unlikable Joyce could be counted on.

  For the first time in her life, she slept alone. She understood that this was normal, that everybody else—her classmates, her sisters—had slept alone their whole lives. Still her sleep was shallow and anxious. She dreamed often of being lost. Always in these dreams she was looking for her mother.

  The days were quiet and sad. Only Fridays were different. When Lucy came home from school, Angelo Bernardi would be sitting at the kitchen table. Knowing this, she did not linger on the school steps. She walked briskly, resisting the urge to run.

  He sat at the table across from Dorothy, a glass of beer at one elbow, an ashtray at the other. He wore a black shirt, open at the throat, showing dark hair. The house filled with his generous laugh, the smoky buzz of his voice.

  “Hey, Miss America,” he’d call when she came in. “Staying out of trouble there at St. Joe’s?”

  His attention made her shy, a sensation she’d rarely felt. Seldom could she think of anything to say, but it didn’t seem to matter. It was enough to be in the room with him. Like Do
rothy she was dumbstruck, a silent moon in his orbit.

  Only one thing could break the spell. Joyce came home on Fridays with a great commotion. “Hello, all,” she’d call, plunking down a bag of groceries in the middle of the table, blocking their view of one another. She turned on the overhead light and made a big, noisy show of starting dinner: chopping celery, opening soup cans, putting water on to boil. After a few minutes of this Angelo rose and excused himself. Dorothy walked him to the door.

  “What’s the hurry?” Lucy asked Joyce once, after Angelo had left. “You’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”

  “Ed’s picking me up at six. We’re seeing the early show.”

  This ended the conversation. Joyce must have known it would. Nobody, Lucy reflected, wanted to hear about stupid Ed.

  Ed Hauser was waiting for Joyce in the car. As they did every Friday, they would see the early show at the Rivoli. Joyce liked to be in bed by ten. On Saturday morning she had an eight o’clock class at the Penn State branch campus, an hour’s drive away. Ed had urged her to complete the paperwork, and to her surprise, he was right: her military service entitled her to the same educational allowance as any other veteran, a hundred and ten dollars a month. After Rose’s death, she had enrolled in summer school. She hoped to become a teacher. She was six semesters away from a bachelor’s degree.

  “Dorothy has company,” she fumed, slamming the car door. “He was sitting there when I got home.”

  “He must have Fridays off.”

  “Ed, that’s not the point.”

  He shrugged. “I saw Dorothy uptown the other day. She seemed relaxed and, well, normal. Maybe it’s good for her. You know, having someone.”

  “Good for her?” Joyce stared at him. “He’s a married man.”

  “Divorced.”

  “That’s even worse.”

  “You sound like your mother,” he joked.