by Julia Watts
“I don’t think Virgie’s dad gave out any government secrets,” I said. “I don’t think he knew any to give out.”
“He probably didn’t,” Iris said, exhaling smoke. “I know that loose lips sink ships, like all the signs around here say, and that the general attitude for the purpose of security here is that you can’t be too careful. But maybe sometimes they are too careful. Or at least too suspicious. But that’s another thing about war: innocent people get hurt.”
She put her free arm around my shoulder, and I scooted closer to her, comforted by her warmth and her smell of smoke and perfume. “Iris,” I heard myself saying.
“Hm?”
I wanted to say don’t ever leave me, but I knew this was a promise she couldn’t make. We were in a temporary place, after all, brought here by temporary circumstances that were way, way beyond our control. But maybe that’s the way it always is with people, and when a person promises she’ll never leave, it’s just the same thing as when somebody says everything’s okay even when it’s really not: a lie meant to make somebody feel better.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad you’re here, too,” Iris said, her fingertips lightly brushing my cheek.
“Mama!” came a voice from the next room.
“Sounds like somebody’s up from her nap,” Iris said, stubbing out her cigarette and running to Baby Sharon’s room.
When Iris came out Baby Sharon’s fuzzy hair was sticking out funny, and her eyes were still droopy with sleep. When she saw me, her face opened up into a grin and she said “Bee!” and spread out her arms for me to hold her.
I got up and took her in my arms. She was still warm from her nap and I held her close, inhaling her sweet baby smell, holding her tiny fat feet, trying to memorize her babyness because I knew that it, like so many things in life, was too sweet to last.
May 1, 1945
April was a month of loss. Our country lost its leader, and I lost my friend. But yesterday, on the last day of April, there was a loss that might turn out to be a gain. We were in student assembly and had just finished saying the Pledge of Allegiance when the principal said, “Students, I have an important announcement which impacts the future of the war and the future of our country.” He paused dramatically and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “It has just been announced on the radio that Adolph Hitler is dead.”
You know that part in “The Wizard of Oz” when the Munchkins first see that Dorothy’s house has squashed the Wicked Witch? It was just like that—everybody cheering and laughing and hugging. If everybody had burst into song, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
After a few minutes of whooping and hollering, people started to talk. “However the old bastard died, it was too good for him,” said a Kleen Teen in a letter sweater.
“I wonder if this means the war’s gonna end so we can all go home,” said a girl with poodle-curly hair.
“It ain’t over yet,” said a country boy in overalls. “Not while we’ve still got the Japs to deal with.”
Even after we went back to our classes, the mood was giddy. I don’t think anybody got much work done. The teachers seemed just as distracted as the students.
When I got to Iris’s, she met me at the door holding Baby Sharon, who was wearing a frilly light pink dress. They were both all smiles.
“Baby Sharon, you look like a princess,” I said, kissing her chubby cheek.
“It is a fancy dress, isn’t it?” Iris said. “Her grandma sent it to her, and I thought she should get dressed up since it’s a special occasion.”
I figured surely Iris wasn’t dressing up the baby because of Hitler being dead, so I said, “What’s the occasion?”
“The occasion,” Iris said, “is that Miss Sharon is one year old today. She’s my May Day girl.”
“Oh, I wish I’d known!” I said. “I would’ve brung her something.”
“Oh, I don’t think she’s old enough to get the concept of birthday presents yet anyway,” Iris said. “But we’d love it if you’d celebrate with us. With the hours Warren’s been working lately, Sharon’ll be asleep by the time he gets home.”
“I’d love to help celebrate.”
Iris set Sharon down on the floor, and she toddled toward a pile of wooden ABC blocks. “Well, it’s a good day to celebrate, isn’t it? The Führer kicked the bucket. The weather’s lovely.” She patted my shoulder. “But I’m sure you’re still sad about Aaron.”
I nodded. “And Virgie.” I didn’t know how to explain to Iris that I was sadder about Virgie than I was about Aaron. I wasn’t sure I could even explain it to myself.
“Well, maybe a modest birthday party will distract you from your heartbreak. Eva’s bringing a cake later. I bought the ingredients for it but asked her to bake it because I knew if I did, it would be a disaster. Oh”—she reached for some spools of colorful ribbon on the coffee table—“and I thought we could turn the pole from the clothesline into a Maypole.”
I didn’t know what a Maypole was, but I said okay.
Outside I helped Iris tie long pink and green and yellow ribbons to the clothesline pole while Baby Sharon played with the empty spools. Once all the ribbons were tied on, Iris clapped her hands and said, “Now we need music. Something light and airy. The Magic Flute, maybe?” She ran into the house and propped the door open, and after a couple of minutes, music filled the air. She picked up Baby Sharon and cuddled her. “We should be barefoot, I think.”
She pulled off Sharon’s white shoes and tiny socks, then stepped out of her own pumps.
I pulled off my socks and shoes and laughed. “Now what?”
“Now we dance.”
Iris grabbed the end of the yellow ribbon and started skipping around the pole. After a minute she set Sharon down, handed her the pink ribbon and said, “Dance! Dance!”
Baby Sharon laughed and toddled around the pole with the ribbon in her hand.
“Ruby,” Iris said in a mock stern tone. “You’re not dancing.”
“Oh, all right.” I grabbed the blue ribbon and skipped around the pole. It was the first time I’d skipped since I was eight years old. “I feel like I fool,” I said, laughing.
“Me, too.” Iris’s grin was huge. “Isn’t it the best feeling in the world?”
I did feel good. How could I not, hearing Baby Sharon giggle, seeing Iris’s honey blonde hair flying out wild behind her, hearing Mozart’s music, and feeling the soft cool grass between my toes? Sometimes people need to stop thinking and just feel.
We danced and laughed until the music stopped. Then Iris went in and turned the record over, and when we came back, we danced and laughed some more.
“What is this—some kind of heathen ritual?”
I turned around to see Mrs. Lynch, in a prim little flowered hat and white gloves, holding a pink-frosted birthday cake on a tray. Her little blonde daughter Helen was clinging to her skirt.
“No, just a birthday party,” Iris said. “The cake is beautiful. Thank you so much.” She leaned down to make eye contact with Helen. “Helen, would you like to dance with us?”
“Can I, Mommy?” Helen asked, tugging on her mother’s hem.
“It’s ‘may I,’ not ‘can I.’ And yes, you may. But just for a few minutes. And keep your shoes on. I don’t want you catching cold.”
Helen grabbed a free ribbon and started running like she was fleeing Japanese gunfire. It was too bad her mother had made her keep her shoes on because it meant it hurt more when she stepped on my bare foot. “Careful now,” I said. “Don’t go stomping around too much. Baby Sharon’s littler than you.”
“I’ll just go in and set this cake on the table,” Mrs. Lynch said, completely ignoring the fact that her daughter had just broken several bones in my foot.
“Somehow I’m not surprised she chose not to skip around the Maypole with us,” Iris whispered once Eva was out of earshot.
“Me neither,” I said. “I can’t imagine her
skipping, not even as a little girl.”
“I can’t imagine Eva as a little girl, period,” Iris said. “I think she was born a lady.”
After it became clear that Helen was going to clobber Baby Sharon if we kept up the Maypole dance, we went inside for cake. When we sang happy birthday, Baby Sharon clapped her hands over her ears like the “hear no evil” monkey. Once her piece of cake was set in front of her she slammed both of her fists into it. She lifted a pink frosted fist to her mouth and sucked it.
“What a mess she’s making, Iris!” Eva fussed. “Aren’t you going to at least make her use a spoon?”
“It’s her cake,” Iris said. “She should be able to eat it however she likes. And afterward I can always give her a bath.”
“Or you could have Ruby give her a bath,” Mrs. Lynch said. “That’s the kind of thing you pay her for, isn’t it?” She set the plate in front of Helen and put a spoon in her hand. “Show Sharon how to eat like a big girl,” she said.
When Iris handed me my cake, she cut her eyes toward Mrs. Lynch, then winked at me.
Baby Sharon got more cake on her than in her. Iris had to wipe her hands with a wet washcloth before letting her at her birthday present. Sharon tore into the red tissue paper to find a new teddy bear, then tossed the bear aside to play with the paper.
Iris laughed. “Well, clearly I could’ve saved some money and just bought the paper. More coffee, Eva?”
“That would be lovely,” she said. “Maybe Ruby could get it for us.”
Before Iris could protest, I said, “My pleasure,” and went to the kitchen for the pot. After I poured, I said, “You know I think I will go run Baby Sharon a bath, Iris. If you don’t, your whole living room is gonna be frosted pink.”
There’s nothing sweeter than giving a baby a bath. Baby Sharon sat up in her little pink tub, looking like one of those baby angels from old paintings. She smacked her hands down in the water over and over again, laughing harder each time she did it. “Who’s a splashy girl?” I said, slinging a little water at her round little belly.
“Pash!” she said, sending a big wave to hit me right in the face.
When Iris came into the bathroom, she said, “There’s my birthday girl in her birthday suit!” And she looked at me and said, “They’re gone. Thank God. I’ve been dying for a cigarette.” She sat on the lid of the toilet like it was a living room chair, sighed, and lit up. “I’m sorry about the way Eva acts toward you…like you’re Cinderella and she’s your wicked stepmother.”
I laughed. “Well, there’s no need for you to be sorry about it.” I used the washcloth to clean some pink frosting out of Sharon’s ear. “Besides, she doesn’t bother me one iota. She’s not better than me just because she thinks she is.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Iris said. “And if somebody asked me who I’d rather pass the time of day with—you or Eva Lynch—well, let’s just say the decision wouldn’t be in Eva’s favor.” She reached over to ash her cigarette in the bathroom sink. “Maybe that’s why she acts like she does around you. She’s jealous.”
I rubbed shampoo into Baby Sharon’s thin, fine hair. “Now why in the Sam Hill would somebody like Eva Lynch be jealous of somebody like me?”
“Because,” Iris said, “she knows that no matter what she says or does, she’ll never be as close a friend to me as you are.”
My face must have been as pink as Baby Sharon’s when it was covered in cake frosting.
May 4, 1945
As soon as I sat down in English class, Mr. Masters said, “Oh, lest I forget, Miss Pickett, I have a piece of mail to deliver to you.”
At first I wondered less about what the mail was than I did about the fact that Mr. Masters was the kind of person who could use “lest” in the course of normal conversation. But when I looked down at the envelope I saw the return address was from the Society of American Clubwomen. My hands shook as I tore it open.
I swallowed hard and looked down at the creamy white paper:
Dear Miss Pickett:
Congratulations! Your essay “A Spirit of Sacrifice” has been judged as the second-place winner in the state division of the “What America Means to Me” essay contest. While the second-place prize does not qualify your essay to compete at the national level, it does earn you an invitation to attend the state awards banquet at the Capital Hotel in Nashville on Saturday, September 1, at 6:00 p.m.
Also, through our association with the Tennessee Teachers’ College for Women, we are pleased to offer our first- and second-prize winners an exciting opportunity. Tennessee Teachers’ College for Women is prepared to offer a full scholarship to each of our winners upon her graduation from high school. While you are under no obligation to accept this scholarship, it is a generous offer, and we do hope you will consider it.
Please accept my most sincere congratulations on behalf of the Tennessee division of the Society of American Clubwomen. Young women such as yourself are the keepers of the flame of American liberty.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. Alice Nicholas,
President, Tennessee Division,
Society of American Clubwomen
The first thing I did after I read the letter was look over to Virgie’s desk. But then I remembered it wasn’t Virgie’s desk anymore.
“Well, Miss Pickett? What does it say?”
I hadn’t realized that Mr. Masters had been waiting while I read. I looked up at him. “I…I won second prize in the state contest. The Tennessee Teachers’ College for Women is giving me a full scholarship.”
Mr. Masters flashed a small, rare smile. “Well done, Miss Pickett. I imagine that Tennessee Teachers’ College isn’t exactly Smith or Wellesley. But if they can beat that infernal Appalachian accent out of you, you should make a fine teacher.”
It was the closest he had ever come to being warm. “Thank you, sir.”
Mr. Masters started writing notes on the board about our term paper, and I copied them down without really thinking about what he said. It was hard enough to stay in my seat, let alone focus on Mr. Masters’ droning voice. My heart was beating its wings in my chest, and my feet were dancing under my desk because ever since I was ten years old I’d been saying the phrase “if I go to college.” And now that “if” was a “when.”
Since today is Friday, I didn’t have to go to Iris’s to work, but I stopped there after school anyway to show her the letter. I wanted her to be the first to see it because I knew she’d understand what it meant.
She stood in the doorway, reading, and as soon as she looked up, she threw her arms around me. “Oh, Ruby, this is marvelous! I’m so proud of you!” She pulled away from the hug and looked at me, smiling. “I had pictured you walking the halls of Vassar instead of”—she looked back down at the letter—“the Tennessee Teachers’ College for Women, but a full scholarship to anywhere is an honor. And who knows? After you finish your two-year degree from the teachers’ college, maybe you could go on to pursue your bachelor’s somewhere more prestigious.” She clapped her hands. “Oh, Ruby, this is so exciting. The world is your oyster.” She crinkled her nose. “Though I’ve never really understood that saying—maybe because I’ve never really liked oysters.”
“I think it’s because of the pearls,” I said.
“I guess so. Well, speaking of Pearl—and your other jewel-named sisters—have you told your family the big news yet?”
“Not yet. I wanted to tell you first.”
“Oh, Ruby, that’s so sweet.” She reached out and patted my cheek. “And I’m sure your family will be just as proud of you as I am.”
I kept the letter to myself once I got home. I lay across my bed and read it till I had it memorized. I held it to my nose and smelled the paper and the ink. I studied every loop and dot in Mrs. Alice Nicholas’s signature.
I let myself dream about the Tennessee Teachers’ College for Women. I imagined brick buildings and green lawns and neat young women in sweaters and skirts clutching their books
to their chests. It dawned on me that I didn’t even know where the Tennessee Teachers’ College was. Was it in a big city or a small town? It didn’t matter. I was going there.
When Mama hollered that it was time for supper, I brought my letter to the table. After Daddy said the blessing, I handed him the letter. He held it up and read it silently, his lips moving. “Well, what do you know,” he said, handing the letter to Mama.
She read it, too. “Well, that’s good, I reckon,” she said, real calm, handing the letter back to me.
“What is it?” Baby Pearl asked.
“It’s a letter saying I won second prize in the state essay contest,” I said. “And they’re offering me money to go to the state teachers’ college.”
“How come they just give you second prize instead of first?” Opal said.
“I don’t know,” I said, adding some chow-chow to my bowl of beans. “But second prize in the whole school’s still pretty good.”
“So,” Mama said, crumbling her cornbread, “this here scholarship means that if you was to go off to teachers’ college your daddy wouldn’t have to pay a penny for it?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“So you want to be a schoolteacher?” Garnet said, like I’d just announced I wanted to be a murderer.
“I think I might,” I said.
Of course, what I really want to be is a writer, but I figure I could write and teach school, too. It worked for Jesse Stuart. Also, thanks to Miss Connor, I knew what a difference a good teacher could make in a kid’s life. I wouldn’t mind being able to do that for some kid.
“Shoot, if Ruby ends up being a schoolteacher, she’ll be an old maid for sure,” Opal giggled.
“Well, I reckon that’ll be all right as long as the rest of you girls has plenty of grandbabies for me,” Daddy said.
