Miss Route 66

by Michael Lund

  The first phase of the evening was dinner. Mrs. Winchester brought out trays of tuna and chicken salad sandwiches and a huge bowl of a fine German potato salad. There was ice cream for dessert, which we all wanted to decline, thinking of those extra pounds going into our swimsuits the next day. But the party atmosphere won out, and most of us figured we'd burn off extra calories with nervousness. anyway.

  Then the games began--charades with four teams. Sally had arranged the groups, and I was surprised that she'd put herself with some of the weaker players. I had assumed she would want to win here, as with the pageant tomorrow. But she and her partners were the slowest at guessing even easy ones like "Jail House Rock," "Wake Up, Little Suzie," and Gone With the Wind.

  Whether giving the clues or guessing, Sally was repeatedly off the mark, but entertainingly so. She squealed at her mistaken conclusions, laughed at her own inept hints, whooped in praise of the other teams. In the end she insisted on a mock award ceremony, giving everyone a party favor for playing, even her own losing group.

  Her parents left us to go to bed about 11 o'clock, but of course nobody was prepared to sleep right away. Somebody called for ghost stories, and Sally turned off most of the lights. We were scattered about the family's spacious den, some on sofas, others on camping cots, a few on easy chairs pushed together. Mary Dunkin said she knew a good scary story.

  "This girl was at home alone one night. Her parents had gone to a party at the country club that would linger into the wee hours of the morning."

  "Uh-oh," one of the other girls said.

  "Turn on all the lights," cautioned another.

  "That girl should call her boyfriend right now," a third insisted.

  Mary went on. "Everything was fine until she shut off the TV and got ready to go up to bed."

  "She heard a noise in the basement?"

  "There was a scratching at the door?"

  "The phone went dead?"

  "No," Mary said, looking around mysteriously at the faces peering out from the darkness. "No, it was worse than that! Standing at the foot of the stairs, she heard moaning, someone in pain. 'Oh-oh-oh-oo-oooh!' It sounded like someone who was sick or hurt bad. 'Oh-oh-oh-oo-oooh!' And it came from the master bedroom! 'Oh-oh-oh-oo-oooh!'"

  "Don't go up there!"

  "There's a murderer in the house!"

  "Call the police!"

  "She stopped at the foot of the stairs and listened." As Mary talked, her voice got softer and softer. So we all leaned toward her to hear. "The moaning got worse. It was terrible! 'Oh-oh-oh-oo-oooh!'"

  I could see girls pulling covers around them, pairs holding hands. Mary seemed to shiver herself.

  "'Who's there?' the girl asked in a timid little voice. The moaning stopped." Mary paused. We were all still. "Then it came again, 'Oh-oh-oh-oo-oooh!'"

  I saw eyes wide around the room, girls holding their breath.

  "'Who's there?' she asked and started up the stairs, one step at a time. One step. Two steps. Three steps."

  "No!"

  "Go back down!"

  "Run!"

  "Top step!" Mary announced. We all held our breath. When she suddenly spoke out in a loud, husky voice, pretending to be a man, we all jumped. "It's just your mother, sweetie. We've been doing that new dance, the dirty dog, and she likes it!"

  And that led to an immediate pillow fight, several girls swinging at Mary, who was convulsed with laughter.

  I teamed up with Liz Rogers in the melee, I guess because she was sitting beside me when the first blow was struck. We tried to protect each other and sometimes attacked in tandem. It was all in fun, of course. No one gets hurt in a pillow fight, although, if a pillow breaks, there's a mess to clean up.

  The odd thing about it was that the girls ended up pounding Sally, burying her under a dozen pillows. I thought it a victory for us underdogs, an expression of our resentment that she had the title sewn up. But the next day I learned that the pillow fight had actually gone precisely according to Sally's plan.

  After it was all over, I found myself lying beside Liz. As most of the other girls finally began to drift off for a few hours of sleep before dawn, she and I talked over what was to happen tomorrow evening. Although she was younger than I, she had had more experience in beauty contests. So I listened carefully when she gave me some key pointers.

  "Don't hold a judge's gaze," she cautioned. "They want to be looking at you, not the other way around."

  "Ah!" I remembered the fact that she'd once been very much an object for boys to look at, when her breast had flopped out of her track suit at that meet in Licking. She knew what it was like to be scrutinized!

  "And when you come out on the stage, don't walk directly toward one of the judges. That's too forceful. Point yourself a little to one side or the other."

  "OK." Of course, she was being pretty forceful herself right here, giving me clear directions about how to proceed. She was a talented musician, but also a strong person.

  "And one last thing." But then she hesitated, giving me a questioning look.

  "Yes?"

  She glanced around to be sure no one else was too close to us. She smiled and kind of ducked her head. "I'm not sure I should tell you this," she said. "After all, you're older."

  "Well, yes, but you've done this before. And you've played so many concerts, when I'm really performing in public for the first time."

  "Yeah, but this is about experience in other areas, and I don't know what you've . . . if you've . . . oh, hell, here goes!"

  Whoa! Liz used strong language, too! I decided this was slumber party talk, and, since I'd never been to this kind of event with a lot of girls, I shouldn't be surprised. The only sleepovers I'd had were with Sandy, just the two of us.

  "Now you know what those judges are thinking when you play the flute, don't you?" Even in the dim light, I could see a twinkle in her eye.

  "They're listening to the music?" I really didn't have a clue what she was suggesting.

  "They're watching your hands. . . ." She paused, leaned closer to me, and lowered her voice to a whisper.

  "And your lips. . . ."

  "My lips. . . ."

  "And they're thinking. . . ." I could barely hear her now. Leaning closer, I put my ear almost to her lips. "They're thinking of what it would be like if you were playing them!"

  She paused, then added one final instruction. "Be sure to let them think you'd like to!"

  It took a moment for the image in my head to transform itself, from a flute to a mouth organ. But there it was. I was back where Randy had wanted me to be months before! Could this be so?

  Then I thought of Mr. Pierce and decided that it could.

  8

  I think I probably got about three hours of sleep on the night of Sally's slumber party. But, when you're young, that's plenty for the next day, especially if you believe you're coming up on a life-changing event.

  Oh, I think I snuck a short nap in there somewhere, probably late morning. And, even though I was supposed to be practicing my music later, some parts of that afternoon were surely spent resting. This all occurred long enough ago that I don't remember all the details.

  True, the big events of that year in my life stick out in my memory even now. But there are also some gaps, even on crucial days, where I can't recall what I was doing or even, in some cases, where I was.

  The major events followed one another in a pattern that seemed almost inevitable at the time: buying a flute, having a concert, deciding to enter the pageant; practices, the competition itself, and the final result. Of course, now I see another pattern hidden beneath this apparently seamless chain, one thing following another along a buried sequence of causality. And when I review it all from the perspective of several decades later, I find a finished cycle that may satisfy my desire for order even as it frustrates my sense of justice.

  One place I do remember being on the day of the competition is Fanny's Dairy Delite. I'd come by there in the middle of that Saturday
afternoon, probably taking our usual cruising route through town, to make sure my best friend was going to be out in the audience for me.

  As I pulled into the lot at Fanny's, I studied for a moment the structure of Mrs. Hamilton's and Miss Powers' building. It looked kind of like a miniature airplane hangar, with vertical side walls and an arching metal roof.

  I knew that it had originally been a small warehouse for the shoe factory in Fairfield. They made Buster Brown shoes. Packing supplies had been stored here until the shoe business outgrew both factory and warehouse. As they negotiated with the town for incentives to construct a larger plant in a location just south of town, the company's main office abruptly decided to move the entire operation to South Carolina.

  "Of course, I'll be there," Sandy told me, almost insulted. "I'm going to see you wear the crown." She was at the counter, but there were no other customers, so she could talk with me.

  Fanny's had the standard "Order Here" and "Pick Up Here" positions at the counter. At one point, these had been windows in a front wall of the building, and customers stood in a little enclosed porch. But the business had done well enough that the owners later added an entire front room with booths and tables. The windows and the surrounding section of wall were removed.

  "Well, I don't know about receiving the crown," I said to Sandy.

  "Blind Bill Martin said you might win." I stirred the Coke I'd bought with a straw and looked back at the empty customer area. As I think about it now, the lack of business probably meant I was there in the middle of the afternoon.

  "Bill Martin did? When was that?"

  "He was in here a few days ago. Talked about how nice you were." Uh-oh, this sounded like I was still "sweet." But Sandy went on, "And you play the flute really well, he said."

  "My mom thinks I've come a long way, and that I should keep playing even after the pageant. I guess I will."

  The realization that I wanted to continue playing had come to me more than once recently. I'd found considerable satisfaction in working on my solo, Nelhybel's "Passacaglia." Although it wasn't the only thing I played every day, I'd taken about six weeks to really perfect my performance.

  My mom insisted I still play regular exercises to warm up, and she kept finding old pieces she'd learned years ago for me to attempt. At the end of each session, I'd practice the solo, concentrating on a particular section each time. In the last few weeks, even I could see how I'd gone from mechanically playing each note to feeling and expressing the music, the underlying idea that gave life to the whole.

  At Fanny's, I had to step away from the counter for a mother and her two children, who were out for ice cream even on a cold day. I overheard her explain to Sandy that her daughters were going to share a banana split to celebrate good six-week report cards from second and fourth grades. I wandered back to a corner booth, where I could watch what was going on but also think through some of my own concerns.

  My mom, by the way, was still playing the flute, too. It wasn't just that Tricia was away at school and I generally took care of myself, giving her more time in her housekeeping routine. She'd deliberately dedicated a portion of her day to music. She claimed this was just so she could keep instructing me, but I'd realized pretty quickly that the return of her own skills gave her special pleasure.

  Watching Sandy build those banana splits made me realize she, too, was enjoying what she did. She had a bounce to her step as she moved around the kitchen area, and there was flair in her pouring, dipping, and sprinkling.

  Using soft ice cream, Sandy had to work faster than she would have with the traditional stuff. She didn't want the three scoops along the length of the banana to melt before they were well covered with strawberry sauce, hot chocolate, and caramel and the whole was topped by whipped cream, chopped nuts, and the traditional maraschino cherries.

  Sandy was a whiz at peeling and slicing the banana for a banana split. She capped it with a swift slice of the paring knife, then slit the whole lengthwise while its skin was still on. After prying it open with her hands inserted along the cut, she flipped it over and bent back the peel so that the clean fruit fell in two pieces into the dish below.

  "Say, Sandy," I said when she was done with the lady's order. She was due for a break and had slid into the booth with me. "You know, not long ago I asked you about Mr. Pierce?"

  "You did?"

  I thought back. "Well, I tried to. But you ended up telling me the history of soft ice cream."

  "Yeah. It's neat, isn't it?"

  "OK, but some of the girls have said some things about him, about. . . ."

  "Now that you mention it, I did hear something . . . odd."

  "Oh?"

  "Actually, Miss Powers said some of the teachers she knew had been talking about him. I overheard her telling this to Flora."

  "What was the question?"

  "Well, one of the teachers thought she saw Mr. Pierce at the Banner Hotel."

  "A lot of people go there to eat. I hear it's got a good restaurant."

  The Banner, of course, was the big Route 66 establishment in Fairfield. I had to learn its history for the Miss Route 66 Pageant.

  A grand construction, especially for this relatively remote community, it had been built in the 1930s to host the more prosperous travelers sightseeing along Route 66. The Banner became a major stop between St. Louis on the eastern edge of the state and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

  Meriwether Clark, a successful St. Louis automobile dealer, purchased fifty acres and put up the luxury hotel along the Ozark ridge that bordered one side of Fairfield. The rooms were large, the furnishings elegant, the service first-class.

  Fanny's Dairy Delite was a much more modest roadside attraction, though it was probably more popular with locals. And it had a very busy summer season.

  Sandy continued with her gossip about Mr. Pierce. "The teacher thought she saw him there with someone, not his wife."

  "Not Mrs. Pierce?"

  "She was smaller and younger. Or so the woman thought. Smaller and younger and prettier. Weird, huh?"

  9

  Well, it wasn't so weird if you'd seen Mr. Pierce lean over a booth at Fanny's and drool at you. Or if you'd heard wise Mary's hints that he was someone to watch out for.

  So I was getting more and more reason to keep my distance from Fairfield High's assistant principal, even as events were drawing me closer and closer to him. We would meet that night at the college auditorium, the night of the pageant competition. And I would hear from him even before then.

  As I was getting ready to say good-bye to Sandy at Fanny's and go home to dress, who should drop in but my mother?

  "Mom! What are you doing here?"

  "I might be looking for you! Shouldn't you be at home getting your things together?"

  "I was just leaving. Um, how did you get here?" I had been driving the Rambler, and it was unusual for her to take our big car, a Ford Galaxy.

  "I've got the Ford. Your Dad went with Mr. Robinson to play golf. And I had several errands to run."

  Golf? There was another surprise! True, my Dad had told me about his days on a course close to his base in England, back in the war. But the day he'd swung a club out by the bomb shelter was the closest he'd come to actually playing since those days.

  Then Miss Powers came up to my Mom. "Hi, Margaret. Glad you could stop by." She opened the little door in the counter by which workers passed through into the kitchen area.

  "I'll see you at home soon, Susan," said my mother. They disappeared behind the ice cream machines.

  Now what in the world was going on here, I wondered. I didn't even know my mother was friends with Miss Powers. Nor could I think what project or interest they shared that would lead to their meeting here.

  Of course, my mother did have a life of her own. I didn't really witness her daytime activities while I was off at school, so who knew how she filled her day?

  For years, when Tricia and I were younger, she had worked hard at housekeeping--laundry, cookin
g, cleaning. But over time those chores had become less time-consuming, both because we were older and did our share, but also because new household appliances saved time and labor.

  I wish, by the way, I'd kept a record of the dates such new products entered our home: the washer with the wash-rinse spin-dry cycles replacing the old wringer model; the stovetop pressure cooker that shortened the preparation time for many dishes; the dishwasher that attached to the faucet at the kitchen sink, which, though cumbersome to move in and out of place, still reduced the effort of cleaning up.