by Elise Hooper
“Yes, ma’am, but I’ll need to leave work on July fourteenth to go to Chicago.”
“Chicago?” Mrs. Clark tilted a pillow on the emerald-green damask couch and stood back to check the effect.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be running in the national track championships.”
“You’ll run in a competition? Do your parents know about this?”
“Yes, they come and watch me when I run locally on weekends. We’re all keeping our fingers crossed that I qualify for the Olympic team.”
“My, my. Isn’t that singular?” Mrs. Clark had a way of making a compliment sound far from complimentary. “I had no idea girls did such things. Well, let’s see how things are working out with this situation here. No need to get too far ahead of ourselves.”
Louise was relieved Mrs. Clark hadn’t dismissed the idea out of hand, but also worried about the uncertain nature of her response. When she returned home that evening, she told Mama what Mrs. Clark had said. Mama sighed, saying, “I’m afraid that’s as much commitment as you’ll ever get from her, even if you had been working there for years.”
Louise’s days assumed a sameness, and she liked the predictability of her schedule and enjoyed playing with Beatrice while the baby, Ann, slept. She always cleaned their rooms so the white eyelet bedspreads looked smooth; toys lined the shelves with precision as if measured with a ruler; the windows gleamed, free of smudgy fingerprints; and colored pencils and crayons remained in drawers when not being used. She did everything with diligence in hopes of keeping her job secure. When Louise wasn’t working at the Clarks’, she continued to train during the week and race on weekends. During the winter’s indoor season and the spring’s meets, she raced well enough for Coach Quain to become increasingly optimistic about her chances for qualifying for the Olympics.
One evening in late May, she sat at the kitchen table at her home. Emily entered the room with her mending basket and a roll of powder-blue silk tucked under her arm. “What do you have there? Is there space for me to sit down and work with you?”
Louise didn’t answer immediately because she was busy signing her name. When she finished, she looked up at her sister, standing in front of her. “I just finished filling out my application for the National AAU Championships in Chicago. Coach Quain has acquired the funds for the Onteora Track Club to sponsor me to travel to race in them. I’m all done so the table is yours. Now I just need to focus on running.”
“This is your big chance, huh?” Emily brushed some crumbs off the table and reverently placed the blue silk on it, next to her basket. “You’ve been working so hard. I’m sure you’ll knock ’em dead.”
“Thanks, I hope so.” Louise looked at the fabric. “My, that’s pretty. What are you making?”
Delight dawned over Emily’s face, and dimples appeared on her cheeks. “I’ve got my mending work for Mrs. Jackson, but she sold me this fabric at a discount.” She held out a pattern envelope. “I’m going to make a dress for the spring dance at school. There will be a few changes to it, but I think this will be perfect.” Louise looked at the sketch of the dress and fingered the cool, slippery silk. The dress featured a sophisticated yoke above its flared skirt, a wrapped bodice, and shawl sleeves. It would be beautiful. Louise hadn’t ever gone to any dances, but Emily was a different creature. Outgoing and confident, she always had a busy social calendar.
“It will be lovely on you,” Louise said. “When’s the dance?”
“First Friday of June. I’ve got plenty of time to make it. I’m going with Doris and Mavis, but I’ve got my eye on Jackie Newton. I’ll bet you’ve seen him at church.”
“Doesn’t he have those pretty golden eyes?”
“That’s him. Did you ever go to the Spring Fling?”
“No.”
“You’re always so serious.”
“Well, I’m busy.” Running, working for Mrs. Clark, helping around the house—there was no time for dances. Louise edged away from her sister and began drying the dinner plates, placing them back on the shelves, and searching for the cutlery to put away, anything to hide the wistfulness she knew to be on her face. Was she giving up too much? It would be nice to go to a dance with a boy who had kind eyes.
20.
May 1932
Fulton, Missouri
EVER SINCE THE STOCK MARKET CRASH IN 1929, TIMES had gotten tough on the Stephens farm. When Helen was home on weekends, Pa often flung the newspaper down after reading it and stalked off to the backyard to smoke. Ma rarely played her harp anymore. The atmosphere in the house felt tense.
For as long as Helen could remember, the Stephenses had been boarding young women who came to town to interview for teaching positions with the district, and as the economy worsened, these boarding arrangements took on a new significance since every penny added to the household was appreciated. When they had taken in boarders while Helen attended Middle River School, she would sleep on the trundle bed in her room while the teachers slept in her bed. Helen always loved the arrangement. It was with great pride that she would escort the women back to her house to spend the night after a day at school. It gave her a special sense of ownership to host the visitors, a sense of claim and importance. It also made her a figure of interest with the other students, especially the girls. They wanted to know all sorts of things about these visiting teachers. Did the women tell Helen of any beaus? (Never.) Did they wear curlers at night? (Often, yes.) Did they snore? (Sometimes.) Did they smoke? (Rarely.) One evening after supper, a certain Miss Fecklemore had pushed open the curtains in Helen’s room and gestured her to follow her outside to sit on the shingled roof and join her in smoking a pipe. Truth be told, Helen had thought the pipe to be horrid, but she enjoyed the illicit thrill of smoking outside with an adult. Miss Fecklemore was never heard from again, which was probably just as well.
Since Helen had moved to town, she was rarely around when one of the boarders came to stay, but late that spring, Ma asked Helen to stop by Middle River School to walk one of these visiting teachers home with her. The following Friday, Helen trudged up the stairs to the schoolhouse, and the sharp scrape of a desk being moved across the floor’s rough planks made her cringe. Voices just out of range rose and fell. She paused and tilted her head to listen.
“No, Mr. Waddington, you don’t need to sit so close to me,” a woman’s voice said.
“But I wanted to show you something in this book,” Superintendent Waddington’s deep voice pleaded.
“No,” the woman said loudly, and then the sound of something crashing to the floor punctuated her protest.
Helen took the final step and entered the schoolhouse to find a woman hunched behind a desk as if using it as a blockade and Superintendent Waddington hovering across from her, red-faced, expectant, and out of breath. A globe rolled in lazy circles around the floor between them.
“Ah yes, Helen, here you are.” He cleared his throat. “Our visiting teacher, Miss Albright, had an idea for how to rearrange the desks.” A parenthesis of graying hair had fallen across his forehead and he pushed it back before straightening and smoothing the lapels of his jacket.
Miss Albright turned, an expression of relief crossing her face. She stepped back from the desk, away from Superintendent Waddington, and Helen gaped. Green eyes the color of pine needles, a slender figure, wavy honey-colored hair. Her skin, eyes, hair—everything seemed to glow.
“So, Miss Albright, as I was saying: I’d be more than happy to spend time with you this evening to explain more aspects of the job to you. Let me take you to dinner and give you more information about what to expect here.”
“Oh, you’ve given a very clear idea of what to expect. No, thank you,” the woman said, glancing at Helen.
Helen had never particularly liked Mr. Waddington. It had always struck her as odd that he ran the school district though he never showed much interest in its children. Whenever he visited Middle River School, he inspected the desks, the supply closet, and the building itself, but
his gaze traveled over the students as if they were obscuring his view of the furniture. She rarely saw him at the high school and when she did, he was always counting the number of students in each room and tallying them on a clipboard the way a grocer would take inventory of the goods on his shelves. “Oh, Mr. Waddington, my ma has made a special supper in honor of our guest. I’m sure she’d be disappointed to not have Miss Albright join us.”
“Is that so, Helen? Thanks for piping in,” he said in an irritated voice. “That being the case, Miss Albright, I’d be happy to drive you to the Stephens farm. I’m sure you don’t want to carry your suitcase all that way.”
“I’d be happy to carry it,” Helen said, smiling sweetly while enjoying the murderous look that darkened the superintendent’s face.
“I’ll bet. You could probably carry her on your back and heft the suitcase as well,” he grumbled.
“Now, now. I’m sure we’ll manage just fine.” Miss Albright lifted her suitcase and beckoned Helen to join her.
“I’ll be in touch about when you can start,” Superintendent Waddington said.
“If I decide to take the job. I already have another offer,” Miss Albright called over her shoulder.
“If?” he echoed, taken aback. “Well, I just assumed—”
But Miss Albright didn’t linger to continue the conversation. She yanked Helen out the door, and as they hurried from the building, Helen stole a glimpse of Miss Albright out of the corner of her eye; the woman appeared to be weeping. “Are you going to make it? Our house is about a mile away. Want me to carry that for you?” She pointed at the teacher’s valise.
“No need.” Miss Albright wiped her eyes, and when she turned to Helen, she was laughing. “Oh my goodness, I thought he was going to throw a fit back there. I would carry this all the way to New York City if I needed to. Anything to get away from that man. His views on educating young people struck me as very outdated and showed a real lack of imagination. I also didn’t appreciate how rudely he treated you—or me, for that matter.”
Helen liked how the woman seemed to stick up for her. “So, you don’t plan to teach here?”
“No.”
“Where’s the other school that already offered you a job?”
“There is no other school.” When she saw Helen’s confusion, she chuckled. “I just said that because I can’t work for him.”
“Yeah, Waddington’s a real drip. All of the kids have been making fun of him for years. He comes and gives an opening address to the school every year and rambles on forever. I think some of the speech is in Latin. None of us can quite figure it out. Back when I first started at that school, there was an older teacher and she fell asleep in the back row and we could all hear her snoring. That’s the only year that I can remember when he kept his speech relatively short.”
Miss Albright laughed. “He certainly does seem like the type who enjoys the sound of his own voice.”
Helen nodded. “But isn’t it hard to find jobs these days?”
“It is, but something will come along. I like to think I’m the kind of gal who can land on her feet. I’m from somewhere like here, and this is exactly what I’m trying to get away from.”
Helen’s gaze swept the farmland surrounding them before turning back to Miss Albright. “You’re from Missouri?”
“No, South Dakota. But trust me, small-mindedness can be found everywhere.”
AFTER DINNER THAT evening Helen led the way to her small room at the end of the hall and stood back to let Miss Albright go in first and settle her suitcase on the ground under the window. Before Helen followed her, she went to the washroom and wriggled out of her skirt and blouse before pulling on her plain light blue cotton pajama pants and top. All the girls at Miss Humphries’s teased her for wearing men’s pajamas, but she didn’t like how nightgowns bunched around her waist when she was in bed so she insisted on getting her sleepwear from the men’s section of the Sears catalog. As she finished buttoning the pajama top, she paused and peered into the tiny mirror over the sink. She frowned at a couple of the pimples scattered across her forehead. Miss Albright’s complexion was perfect. Helen imagined running her hand across the woman’s smooth cheek, and even in the gray light of the washroom, she could see her face flush a dark red.
She balled up her clothes and returned to her room, sank to her knees, and pulled the trundle out from under her bed. With her knees practically knocking into her ears, she sat on the low-lying trundle and brushed her hair to distract her from thinking about Miss Albright. She lowered her hairbrush and breathed in the mixture of something floral emanating from the teacher, perhaps rosewater, and though she longed to lean in closer to inhale deeper, she kept focused on the plain white sheets of her trundle bed.
But then she snuck a peek at the woman. She couldn’t resist.
With her back to Helen, Miss Albright unbuttoned her poplin dress and hung it on a peg on the back of the door, slipped off her brassiere from under her slip, and rubbed a damp washcloth over her face and neck, then dabbed it at her underarms. Helen flushed at the intimacy of the gesture and pretended to check the buttons on her pajama top, but out of the corner of her eye, she kept studying the woman. Tendrils of blond curls had fallen from Miss Albright’s French twist and clung to the soft white skin of her neck. The graceful ridges of the musculature of her shoulders rose and fell beneath the ivory-colored straps of her slip as she continued her grooming. Helen found her gaze traveling downward along the curve of the woman’s back. She swallowed and looked down at her own feet. Thin lines of dirt clung to the wrinkles around her toes as if sketched in black ink. From where her chest leaned against her thigh, she felt her heart racing.
“Want me to brush your hair?”
Helen startled. “What?”
Miss Albright gestured at the hairbrush lying on the floor beside Helen. “Your hair. Want me to brush it?”
“It’s not very long. All of the other girls I know have longer hair, but mine seems to work best short.”
“Short or long, it will still be good to have it brushed.”
“Um, yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And since we’re sharing a bedroom, you might as well call me Polly.”
Polly. Turning away from her, Helen mouthed the name, but couldn’t actually bring herself to say it aloud. “All right.”
Miss Albright—or Polly—bent over to pick up the hairbrush and lowered herself to sit on the trundle bed. Helen caught a glimpse of the pale swell of her breasts through the thin slip she wore and quickly turned away. The woman placed the hairbrush on Helen’s scalp and began to brush downward, slowly and smoothly. Helen felt the woman’s breath on the back of her neck and sat straighter, as if this could bring her closer.
“You have lovely hair.”
Lovely. Helen’s heart felt as though it expanded by several inches. A compliment such as this felt extravagant and she fumbled over how to respond. “I’ve started pinning it into curls at night during the week.” Her voice sounded deep and gravelly, more so than usual, but she continued. “But since I help Pa with chores on the weekend, it seems like a waste of time to get it all dolled up while I’m here.”
“Why wasn’t your pa at dinner with us?”
“He’s working. He’s doing everything himself. Well, mostly. I help too. When I can.”
“He’s lucky to have you.”
Helen pondered the way Pa always wanted her help, but never appeared satisfied by her efforts. “He doesn’t really see it that way.”
The brushing paused. “How come?”
Helen thought back to that time she’d overheard Pa talking with Dr. McCubbin. I never wanted her. She shook her head as if the memory could be knocked away. “He just doesn’t.”
“Hmm. I see.” Miss Albright sounded wistful. “Fathers can be like that.”
The brushing started again. Determined not to let thoughts of Pa ruin the moment, Helen closed her eyes and let her head roll with the stea
dy pace of it.
After several minutes of silence, Miss Albright lowered the hairbrush to the blanket. “Perfect, my dear. Your hair looks wonderful.”
Again, Helen savored the compliment, and the feeling of goodwill emboldened her. “Polly, shall I brush your hair too?” It felt daring to use the woman’s first name, a little risky and wild, but the woman appeared unfazed.
“My, what a treat. How can I say no to that?”
The two shifted on the trundle to switch places and Polly ran a hand along Helen’s hip to guide her past. Helen slowed, relishing the touch before settling into position. With the first downstroke of the hairbrush, a small sigh escaped from Polly. Helen reached forward to smooth Polly’s hair back toward her and allowed her palm to linger along the teacher’s cheek. It was smooth and warm, just as Helen had imagined.
After several minutes of quiet brushing, Polly gave a long yawn. “I suppose it’s time for bed.” The trundle shifted as she slid off to stand and switched off the light.
Helen slid down under her covers into the space warmed by where they had been sitting. “Good night.”
“Good night, my dear.”
Helen gazed upward at the woman’s standing figure, slatted with silver streaks of moonlight sifting through the window. Polly stretched her arms upward and—to Helen’s amazement—lifted her slip and held it overhead like she was using it as a kite awaiting a breeze. She dropped it to the foot of the bed and stooped to shimmy out of her underpants, then straightened—stark naked. Helen watched, mesmerized, as the woman crawled onto the bed and disappeared under the bedspread.
Helen’s face burned as if on fire. She never had been so grateful for the cover of darkness.
How much time passed? Later, when she tried to recall exactly what happened next, she could never be sure. All she could remember was that she startled at the touch of fingers grazing her forearms as they crept along her skin to her shoulders. Helen cracked her eyes open to find Polly leaning over her, a tender expression playing across the woman’s face.
