Crossing the Tracks (9781416997054)

by Stuber, Barbara

  I smile. “We’ll try the massage instead.”

  “You’d better do that in red flannel pajamas with an acorn in your pocket.” He climbs in his buggy, circles the driveway, and stops. “Or there’s always tying a woolen string just below the knee, or rubbing a cow’s gall bladder on the afflicted joints…”

  I make a face. “Maybe next time. Thank you,” I yell as he wheels past the mailbox.

  “Seems Cecil’s rear end is what’s feeling poorly today,” I whisper to Marie as we go inside with our purchases. “What’s the folk remedy for that, I’d like to know?”

  I sort our unusually large and nasty pile of laundry. Except for the lipstick on Mrs. Nesbitt’s hankies, it looks like a load from a railroad repair crew—greasy rags, a frayed cook’s apron soaked with blackberry juice, even a hand towel caked with Marie’s muddy paw prints.

  “Mrs. Nesbitt?” I say as she and Henry step out by the washing machine. “It looks like we used these napkins for tea bags. And what did Marie get into?” I pinch the corner of an especially smelly scrap of blanket from Marie’s bed.

  “Sorry, dear.” She looks down. “We’re guilty.” Mrs. Nesbitt glances at Marie. “Both of us. I… we so looked forward to Dot having to do all this awful wash. Payback for the mess she made. A bit pathetic, perhaps… but”—her eyes light up—“the girl asked for it.” She points with Henry. “Oh, and look in the bottom, you’ll find the dishcloths we glued together with egg yolk. Not to worry. They’re all just rags you can throw out.”

  “Very clever,” I say the way Dr. Nesbitt would. I raise the Borax to her. “Well done.”

  Since I’ve dusted her glasses a hundred times without breaking them, Mrs. Nesbitt says she trusts me to massage her fragile fingers with the oil. We sit, turned toward each other, on a cushion in the old spring wagon seat by the birdbath—the place Mrs. Nesbitt likes to ask me hard questions in a soft way. I keep an eye on the driveway, for fear Cecil will come rolling up.

  Her hands across a pillow on my lap look like wilted hibiscus blooms.

  The Anti-Pain Oil brings the smells of the whole wide world into the palm of my hand. Marie sniffs it, sneezes. I tell Mrs. Nesbitt about the exotic ingredients. “Ah, the sweet life you might have had with a French or a Japanese hobo,” she says to Marie, who sneezes again. “By the way, do you two know what ‘hobo’ really means?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “It means ‘homeward bound.’” She sits back, closes her eyes. I fumble her fingers apart and begin to work the oil. Like tumblers inside a frozen lock, her joints loosen a little. “And,” she says, “that’s exactly how we felt—like hobos, when Avery and I came to live here after Morris died. We came home for Morris, since he couldn’t.” She grips my hand. “He was lost at sea… a German U-boat.”

  My thoughts travel to Morris, drifting and bumping forever across the floor of the Atlantic in his uniform, then to Mama, all dressed up in her earthly coffin home in Kansas. I shake the images away. “I’m so very sorry, Mrs. Nesbitt.” We gaze at the sturdy tugboat of a farmhouse Morris built, anchored in this sunny green ocean of grass and corn.

  She smiles sadly. “Would you like to know what I say to him?”

  “Morris?”

  “Yes, when I pace the porch and talk to him. May I tell you what I say?”

  “Yes, ma’am, please.”

  “I apologize for being so angry at the world for his dying, for being miserable and morbid for so long. I turned my angel into a ghost.” She wipes her eyes. “So Avery, bless his heart, who has had his own grief to bear, finally wrote a prescription for me. A folk remedy, so to speak. And here you are! He knew I needed a person, not a pill.”

  Mrs. Nesbitt places both her hands on mine. We sit silent for a long while.

  The words tumble from my mouth before I can stop them. “I have a person—sort of a friend—who might come visit me here, if it’s all right.”

  “From home?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” My face is hot. So are the soles of my feet and everyplace in between.

  “So tell me about her, Iris.”

  “Her name is… Leroy.”

  Mrs. Nesbitt turns with her mouth open.

  “P-P-Patterson. Leroy Patterson,” I sputter. I swear I have never said his whole name out loud before.

  “So she’s of the male persuasion.” Mrs. Nesbitt smiles.

  “He’s got three sisters. He knows a lot about girls.…”

  “Interesting.”

  “I don’t mean he’s known a lot of girls, I mean he’s…” I want to swallow every word, curl up, and die.

  “How old is Leroy Patterson?”

  “Almost eighteen. He’s good at lifting, or he could pull something heavy for you, like cement, or maybe help with chores, or…” Leroy sounds like a donkey, and I sound worse than Celeste would trying to sell a pair of used work boots.

  “Please invite him, Iris.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Maybe I’ll do that. Thank you.”

  “I’d like to go to Atchison with you sometime,” Miss Nesbitt says softly. “See your home.”

  I inhale sharply, shift on the bench. “My father is going to sell it.”

  The Anti-Pain Oil radiates across our hands.

  “I’m trying not to think about it,” I say. But longing washes over me. I want to go there this minute and dust it. There’s so much I can’t say right now. Too many empty places to fill. I want to ask Mrs. Nesbitt what she’ll do in September when I’m gone, but I don’t. I can’t think about that either. Clouds hover over the house.

  Her tone is halting, careful. “Tell me about your mother, Iris?”

  I slip my hands back. “I… she…”

  Mrs. Nesbitt seems suddenly interested in a jumble of elm branches dipping in the wind. She passes me her hankie.

  “She was always so sick. I wasn’t allowed to touch her.”

  “Did your father ever tell stories about her, or… ?”

  “Never.”

  Mrs. Nesbitt studies me. Her eyes are sea gray. I imagine Morris in them.

  Mrs. Nesbitt says, “You know, Iris—Morris, your mama, Marie, you, me, why even Pansy Deets, we’re all hobos. Homeward bound.”

  Dr. Nesbitt squats by a wagon rut in the grass and frowns. “Was Cecil by here today?”

  I shudder. “Yes, sir. And the narrow tracks are the Rawleigh man’s buggy.”

  “Did Dot come?”

  “No.”

  Dr. Nesbitt looks up at me, his face troubled, his white broadcloth shirt still neat as a pin after a long day at work. “Did Cecil act strange?”

  “Of course he acted strange. He’s Cecil,” Mrs. Nesbitt says. “Why?”

  “He came to my office.”

  “With Dot?” I ask. “She’s sick.”

  “No.” Dr. Nesbitt shakes his head. “Cecil didn’t say anything about Dot. He has a horrible case of hemorrhoids.”

  “Sir?”

  “This is a bit medical, Iris, but I know you can manage it. Hemorrhoids are a painful inflammation of the buttocks.” I swear I see a trace of mischief in Dr. Nesbitt’s expression. “The vessels of the rump.”

  I work furiously to fight off the picture forming in my mind.

  Mrs. Nesbitt screws up her face. “Is the inflammation everywhere?… I hope.”

  “Well no, Mother, it’s…” He squeezes his fist.

  Mrs. Nesbitt waves her hand. “Never mind. At least, for once, we’re not hearing your grisly diagnosis at the dinner table.”

  “So that’s why Cecil showed up this morning.” I shiver. “Why, he acted like a rooster trying to lay an egg. I thought he was after revenge for my hitting Dot.”

  I can’t tell them how he leers at me, how I think he might touch me if he thought he could get away with it.

  Mrs. Nesbitt’s eyes sparkle. “Did you treat the affected rump, Avery?”

  “Yes. Consider Cecil all tied up, at least for now. But”—his expression darkens—“Cecil’s spleen is enlarged too. M
ost likely he’s drinking again.”

  Mrs. Nesbitt sighs. “His drinking is even worse since Pansy left, isn’t it, Avery?”

  Dr. Nesbitt shrugs. “Mother, Cecil Deets’s moonshine habit is not your fault.”

  Mrs. Nesbitt looks skyward, bounces her fist off her lap. “Why didn’t Dot go with her mother?”

  “We’ll never know. That’s not your fault either.”

  I can’t help imagining Dot day in, day out, at home with Cecil—listening to him rant against Pansy, sneaking past his drunken gaze, bracing against his grip, growing as mean and sly as he is.

  One thing I do know: Cecil Deets makes my father seem like a sweet dream.

  CHAPTER 13

  Ghosts rattle the roof—Wake up!

  I sit up, still half in my dream.

  Your house! Read the sign.

  I untwist my nightgown, open the sheers, and gaze out the window. Hail hammers the shingles. Lightning turns the ice stones to a field of opals. But my dream-eyes focus on something else: my front yard back in Atchison with a FOR SALE sign on it.

  I drop my head. Dread creeps up from the cellar inside me, the place where every miserable, morbid thing lives. It’s crowded down there and locked. But Mrs. Nesbitt’s questions about Mama and my house forced the FOR SALE sign to escape through the dream door.

  Daddy’s selling our past. At least my nightmare of living with Celeste in Atchison won’t happen.

  I hug my knees, wanting the bedroom to fold in around me, to wall off the future.

  My fingers trace the imaginary ribs of my old chenille bedspread. I smell the faint bacon grease and coffee scent of our kitchen.

  Staccato pops of hail on the window glass force me back to Wellsford. Marie hops in my lap. “Maybe he’ll sell me with the house,” I tell her. “Why not?” She curls up while I shudder and sob. It’s storming inside, too. “Do you miss your hobo?” I scratch her ears. “He was loyal. At least you two worked together.” I light my lamp, a glimmer of mad beginning to mingle with morbid, and write.

  July 30, 1926

  Dear Leroy,

  Please answer immediately. Is there a “For Sale” sign in my front yard? I’ve got to know. I dreamed it was true, so the idea is stuck in my brain like a sliver. Daddy is not going to rent our house—he’s selling it, isn’t he?

  You always tell me the things I need to know, the truth. So be warned, I’m counting on you.

  Here’s a quiz—if it’s true about Atchison. (Which I’m sure it is.)

  Question: If you take mad, and multiply it by ignored plus tricked, what do you have?

  Answer: Guess who?

  Question: What’s the worst kind of homesick?

  Answer: Homesick for something you wanted that never was.

  Signed:

  Iris Baldwin, the shadow in her father’s palace of grand plans

  P.S. The Nesbitts are happy for you to visit. The sooner the better. They promise to have lots of dead weight for you to lift. Ha!

  P.P.S. I’ll make you a pie. Really! Blackberry or rhubarb. You pick.

  P.P.P.S. Write me back with the answer right now.

  P.P.P.P.S. How are you?

  I’ve counted on Leroy for the truth ever since the sixth grade, when he set me straight about virgins.

  “So, okay, what exactly is a virgin?” I had asked him. “Isn’t it a lady who hasn’t had a baby—like the Virgin Mary?”

  “Oh God, Iris.” Leroy searched my face, to see if I was kidding, I guess. “Did you look it up?”

  “The Bible doesn’t have a glossary!”

  “In the dictionary.”

  “Yes, but the definitions go in word circles. You have sisters, Leroy. You’re thirteen. You know the answer. So tell me!”

  He did. He just explained sexual intercourse and what a virgin isn’t. It was the bravest thing.

  “So no wonder Daddy blew like he’d eaten a tablespoon of pepper when I asked if his girlfriend was a virgin,” I had said. Leroy smiled. “Daddy dropped her on a dime—thought I’d heard rumors about her rep-u-ta-tion! Couldn’t stand the risk of a blemish on his.”

  “Well, at least you got his attention for once,” Leroy had commented.

  I scratch Marie’s back, thinking maybe I should ask Daddy about Celeste’s virgin status. I could get rid of her, too.

  Dot’s back.

  After weeks of feeling ill, she has her sack dress hiked up in the back and pulled tighter across her belly than Cecil’s overalls. She is definitely not over her poorly-ness. Already this morning she’s gotten sick to her stomach three times. From the chicken house I’ve seen Marie follow her between the clothesline and the grassy patch behind the shed. I’ve heard Dot retch, watched her wobble back to the laundry, her back soaked with sweat.

  I abandon my broom and exit the coop. The door bangs shut. Dot turns, glances at my hand as if checking for an egg, and yanks down her dress. She looks pale. Her hair looks dirty and there are dark circles under her eyes. When she reaches to shove a clothespin on the line, I see marks on her arms.

  Bruises.

  My stomach twists.

  Dot turns to face me, plants her fists on her hips, stretches her back, and sticks her stomach out. Then she lifts the hair off her neck with one hand, fans it with the other.

  More bruises.

  Without a word, she looks me right in the eye, rubs the fingertips of both hands back and forth across her belly, then glances toward the shed.

  A notion—a knowing—slips into my mind.

  Dot is pregnant.

  Marie barks at crows filling the telephone line.

  Dot turns away, bends over, and presses the heels of her hands on her eyes. Her shoulders raise and lower.

  Is she crying? “Dot?” My voice sounds unexpectedly soft, like Mrs. Nesbitt’s.

  “Shut up!”

  Dot spits, wipes her mouth, and after a moment snipes, “Oh, and by the way, you’re gonna be gone in a week.” She resumes pinning clothes as if giving me a generous moment of privacy to absorb my own nasty news.

  “I saw the letter.” Her tone shifts to poor, poor Iris. “Your replacement’s name is Gladys Dilgert. It’s right on the envelope. They’ve kept it a secret from you, but it’s in plain sight on the kitchen table.” She shoos me off. “Go see for yourself.”

  I glue my lips. I will not ask one question.

  “I know you’re wonderin’ if I opened the letter and read it.” Dot glances at the telephone line. “Didn’t need to. I know what’s in it.”

  I turn to Mrs. Nesbitt’s bedroom window, praying it’s open, that she and Henry will pop through and whack Dot in her lying vocal cords.

  “So…” Dot flaps a pudgy hand. “Toodle-loo, Miss Iris Baldwin.” She hums a mocking little melody.

  I walk, slow as molasses, back into the house.

  There’s no mail on the kitchen table, only a cold tea bag and Mrs. Nesbitt’s unfinished crossword. I know she has already taken the mail to Dr. Nesbitt’s bedroom desk, the one room in this house, besides the abandoned fruit cellar, I have never entered.

  I’m worse than Dot wearing two faces, because during Mrs. Nesbitt’s afternoon nap I do what I swear I wouldn’t. I sneak straight to Dr. Nesbitt’s desk to read mail that’s not mine.

  It’s tidy and nice. A gentleman’s room, I guess, with a polished mahogany wardrobe and a shaving set on the dresser. I avoid the mail stack for a moment, concentrate on his desk photographs. One man looks interesting—a handsome artist at his easel. The other picture is all doctors—graduates of Johns Hopkins Medical School. Dr. Nesbitt smiles amidst a sea of seriousness. There’s also a large picture of Morris, in a Navy uniform, and an older gentleman, who looks like Dr. Nesbitt and Morris combined. A silver rack holds ivory envelopes with smooth script. They must be from his lady friend in New York. I wonder why there is no picture of her, but I can’t ask. Dr. Nesbitt cleans his own room for a reason: to keep his private business private.

  The envelope is lost in plain sig
ht on the blotter. It’s got the return address of Gladys Dilgert, just like Dot said. I do not touch it.

  Beside it, tucked into the flap of a leather-bound notepad, I see a small newspaper copy of Dr. Nesbitt’s latest want ad, a solicitation for hired help to begin in September. The name Dilgert is written on the pad along with a number. He made the arrangements on the telephone and Dot must have overheard it, probably eavesdropping on the party line.

  I’m burning up. I hate Dot. She’s fat and cruel… and right.

  What’s the folk remedy for this feeling, I wonder? Goose grease on the heart? Swallowing a falling star?

  The old cellar ghosts rattle. “Feeling like a piece of furniture,” “Replaceable,” and “Homeless” line up. But instead they seep out of my eyes, which are still swollen later when Mrs. Nesbitt calls from the yard.

  It’s time for our hand massage.

  We sit on the bench. The lawn is littered with hail-shredded leaves. Our marigold patch is battered and muddy. The house winks at us—a flutter of lace waving from my bedroom, next to the dark parlor window shut tight.

  I’m sure Mrs. Nesbitt can tell I’ve been crying. She must feel the warmth drained from our massage today. She sits with her pretty, old, crinkly face and penetrating eyes, ready to chat. But I’m too sunk inside to talk. Being sold out by my father is rotten enough, but now the Nesbitts…

  I’m stupid for thinking they wouldn’t hire somebody else. Of course they would. Mrs. Nesbitt just needs someone, not me—Gladys or anyone could become the new goddess of the chicken house this fall. I’m doomed to Kansas City with Mrs. Charles Baldwin and her charming new husband. I need to quickly crawl in my trunk, ship myself somewhere far down the tracks.

  Still, I want to ask Mrs. Nesbitt: Why didn’t you tell me, warn me about Miss Dilgert? Gladys’s ghost, with its nimble fingers and projecting personality, has already moved between us on the bench. I had planned to tell Mrs. Nesbitt about my For Sale–sign nightmare, but I don’t. I just stare at my bedroom window. I can already see Gladys in there, wearing my Pompeian Body Powder.