by Elise Hooper
“I don’t fully understand myself either. I don’t know how to move forward.”
“You used to be so motivated . . .” His voice trailed off.
So accomplished, she thought with a bitter twinge.
“I wish I knew how to help you,” he said.
“Well, I think I need to help myself now.”
He frowned, looking dubious, but sighed. “I’ve been dreading to tell you this, but my father’s business is struggling. I suppose it was just a matter of time. We wanted to believe it had deep enough roots, but it’s not going to survive. We’re broke.”
Betty felt as though her lungs weren’t working. Two years ago, she would have said money didn’t matter, but it did. Her injuries made that painfully clear. “I’m sorry to hear this.”
“I know we’ve been better off than many people, but still, it’s sad. It’s hard to watch my parents come to terms with this.”
Betty thought of her own parents’ helplessness as they confronted her health problems. “So what’s next for you?”
“Well, since I can’t work for my father, I’ll find something new.”
Of course. If anyone would land on his feet, it would be Bill. His optimism almost made her smile, but it also confirmed why their relationship was over. While she struggled, she wanted to get stronger and feel independent, not scared and angry that she was relying on him for everything.
“I’m sorry it needs to end like this between us,” she said.
He turned his back to her to gaze out the window again. “So am I.”
The disappointment in his voice made her throat thicken.
This was it. She would be on her own, and though it frightened her, for the first time in a year, she felt free. There would be no more running because it felt too much like she was clinging to something from her past. She needed to find her own way into a new life.
31.
THE FULTON CRIER
May 22, 1933
Fulton—Have you noticed anything unusual about the boys’ track team lately? Yes, they’re wearing bright new uniforms and training togs thanks to the Callaway Emporium, but that’s not what has us looking at the team twice. How about that tall runner leading the pack? If you look closely, you may see that it is none other than Helen Stephens. Yes, you’ve read that right: Miss Helen Stephens. Turns out the girl is as fleet-footed as Nike herself.
According to Sally Mayfield, who attended a 50-yard time trial organized by Coach W. Burton Moore last month, Miss Stephens tied the world record of 5.8 seconds set by Chicago’s Betty Robinson, the Olympic gold medalist. “Helen was a blur! I could barely see her,” Miss Mayfield gushed.
Now we are unable to get Coach Moore to confirm or deny this report, but we plan to keep our eyes peeled for this rising track star. And in the meantime, those boys better pick up the pace or they are going to find themselves being left in the dust by a girl!
Coach Moore groaned. Wasn’t there anything more pressing in Fulton to report? This article about Helen was the last thing he needed. He stood, tossing the paper into the trash bin next to his desk, but before he reached for his jacket and hat, he glanced at the latest interval times for each kid listed on the clipboard lying on his desk.
In the weeks since Helen had started training with the boys, her progress had been nothing short of astounding. He experimented with different distances to determine where her strengths lay, but no matter what format he tried, she excelled. The previous week he had given all the boys a generous 100-yard start ahead of her for a one-mile time trial and she still finished a few strides ahead of the fastest boy.
“Stephens, are you winded at all?” D.W., one of the faster boys, had asked. When she laughed, he shook his head and grinned. “Jeepers, Coach, how about making her carry a sandbag on each shoulder during our next time trial?”
All the boys chuckled. If anything, Helen’s speed seemed to have ratcheted up the boys’ intensity and concentration. Coach Moore didn’t need to tell any of them to stop goofing around anymore, that was for sure. In the couple of meets the boys had raced against other teams, their times were all faster than anything from past years. He had worried the boys might be sore with Helen, but they were good-natured and no signs of trouble from within the team appeared. Unfortunately, outside the team was another story.
After the kids finished running their mile time trial, Coach Moore had stayed behind another hour or so completing paperwork for upcoming meets. When he finally walked out the school’s front door toward the parking lot, a man in faded overalls and a sun-bleached cotton work shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows stepped from the shadow of his battered jalopy.
“Evenin’, Coach,” the man said, leaving his hat on.
“Good evening.”
“My boy’s Dexter Ginty.”
“Ah, Dexter is a fine young man. He did real well in last week’s meet.”
“He tells me a girl has joined the team. That right?”
“It is.”
The father worked a lump of chewing tobacco in his lower lip. “That allowed?”
“There are track and field events open to girls, yes. She’s proven to have remarkable talent so I’m giving her a shot.”
The man spat a long stream of dark tobacco juice toward the tire of a nearby car. “Nothing good comes out of girls thinking they’re something special.”
“With all due respect, sir, I’d say the team’s going to enjoy a strong season and it might be partly because the boys are very motivated and challenged this season. We have a good shot at State.”
“I don’t like that the girl is whipping all of them boys in your time trials. It ain’t natural.”
“Like I said, she’s remarkable.”
“Well, how about that girl go be remarkable somewhere else?”
“If she continues to improve, she will,” Coach Moore said evenly. “My guess is that the AAU team out of St. Louis will try to steal her from us and groom her for some big races.”
“I reckon that might be for the best.”
“Sir, if you come out and watch the kids run, you’ll see that nothing unnatural is happening out here. They want to run. I’m helping them get better. That’s all.”
He snorted. “I don’t got time to come watch a bunch of kids run. Some of us work. I hope I don’t have to come see you again about this.”
“You shouldn’t have to. Everything’s fine.”
The encounter with Dexter’s father was enough to make Burton’s blood pound in his temples. He had taken leave of the man, climbed into his automobile, and sat clenching and unclenching his fists on the steering wheel for a few minutes before driving away.
And now this newspaper article.
Again, he groaned and reached for his clipboard and stopwatch. When he opened his office door, he found himself face-to-face with Mrs. Stephens.
“Why, Mrs. Stephens, what a surprise. It’s a pleasure to see you. What can I do for you?”
She clutched her purse in front of her with both hands and turned her head to look over her shoulder before she stepped closer.
“Have you seen today’s Fulton Crier?” she whispered.
His heart sank. “I have, but everything’s fine.”
She pursed her lips but said nothing.
“Honestly, our team practices are going very well,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
She bit her lip and looked at the floor.
“Would you like me to take you upstairs to Miss Schultz’s room for those concert tickets she mentioned when we visited? I heard the band playing the other day and those kids sounded top-notch.”
“No, thank you. You see, my husband is furious about this article. He’s forbidden Helen to train with your team.”
Coach Moore went rigid and was about to remind her of the scholarship possibilities, but one look at the despondency of her expression and he knew her disappointment outweighed his. He sucked on his teeth for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear t
hat.”
“I need to go fetch her to bring her home for the weekend.”
He pointed to the girls’ locker room. “She’ll be in there. If you and Mr. Stephens change your mind, she’s welcome back any time.”
Mrs. Stephens turned and hurried down the hallway to retrieve Helen. Once she pushed through the girls’ locker room door and disappeared, Coach Moore pulled on his jacket, feeling numb. When he stepped outside, he watched the boys gathered in a knot on the edge of the track. Normally this time of the season, every practice felt promising, but now with Helen gone, everything would change. The sharpness of the grief tightening in his chest surprised him. With a sigh, he walked toward his team.
32.
February 1934
Fulton, Missouri
ANNOUNCEMENT OF SALE—FULTON SAVINGS BANK IS OFFERING 115 ACRES OF ARABLE LAND IN SOUTHWEST FULTON FOR SALE IN PUBLIC AUCTION SCHEDULED FOR FEBRUARY 28.
On her way home from school, Helen ripped the auction sign off the post at the edge of their land and chucked it into the drainage ditch running alongside the road. If the bankers wanted to advertise the sale so badly, they could come over and fish it from the icy water themselves. She pictured a banker wearing a fancy suit wading around in the stream to salvage the poster and smirked, wiping her hands on her canvas work jacket. A cold wind howled across the fields, whipping through her clothes. Clumps of snow patched the fields. She jammed her hands into her pockets and trudged toward home, casting a final glare at the crumpled sign lying in the muck. Similar auction announcements were posted all over town, but that didn’t make her feel any better.
It was a Friday and her parents expected her to spend the weekend crating her belongings and helping her father clean the tools and equipment being auctioned the following Tuesday. Helen pushed her hair out of her face as she stared at their farmhouse, her eyes watering from the sharp wind. She’d miss this old place, but not as much as she would have expected. For every good memory of some high jinks with Bobbie Lee, she had three of Pa making her feel lousy. Ever since moving into town, she had felt lighter, free of the pressure of Pa’s constant criticism and tirades. School was hard, no doubt about it, and some of the kids were mean as badgers, but her grades were good overall. If only she hadn’t been forced to quit the track team. Getting a taste of what it felt like to be good at something and then having it taken away still left her feeling crushed when she allowed herself to think about it.
For that month she had trained with the track team, she had been someone. Someone important and valued. When Coach Moore would spot Helen walking toward the track, his handsome face would break into a broad grin every time without fail. She had never forgotten the first article in which Betty Robinson’s father described his daughter as the best girl in the world. Helen liked to think that Coach Moore might say something like that about her. In fact, sometimes she lost herself in imagining that Coach Moore was her father and it made her feel like a million dollars.
Before Christmas, all the girls in school had flown into a tizzy with the news that Coach Moore and Miss Schultz would be marrying before the holiday. Apparently they all believed they had had a shot with the handsome coach. Such foolishness. Helen knew better. She had discovered a water fountain just outside the music room’s door, and if she leaned over it to take a drink and angled her head just right, she could watch Coach Moore when he stopped in to visit Miss Schultz. The two of them would stand close to each other, talking conspiratorially, both looking pleased as punch. Miss Schultz’s green eyes always trailed Coach Moore when he left the room, a happy expression dancing across her features. Watching them always made a wistful sense of longing come over Helen. Would anyone ever make her feel like that?
The final afternoon of school before the Christmas break, Helen had found Coach Moore in his office. He leapt from his chair to come around the desk to greet her, his eyes twinkling. “Helen, please come in. What can I do for you?”
His unabashed enthusiasm to see her made a lump rise in Helen’s throat, but she dug the fingernails of her left hand into her palm to keep from getting sappy. “I heard you and Miss Schultz are getting married.”
“We are.”
“I brought you a wedding gift.”
He accepted the small package wrapped in brown paper gently, as if handling an infant. “This is very thoughtful of you, thank you.”
“It’s nothing fancy,” she mumbled. The way his eyes crinkled kindly when he smiled reminded her of Richard Arlen from The Island of Lost Souls. “I made a lot of jars of strawberry preserves last summer. Figured you and Miss Schultz might like a jar of it in your new home. It’s good on toast.”
“I happen to know for a fact that Miss Schultz adores strawberries. Whenever she gets a milkshake, she always picks strawberry. She’ll be delighted.”
Helen swallowed and spoke quickly before she could change her mind. “I really miss the track team. I know it was just a month, but it was the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m writing for the school newspaper now, but it’s not the same.”
A look not easily identified flickered across his face. Sorrow? “We all miss you too and would be honored to have you back any time.”
That had been several weeks ago, before her father had defaulted on the deed of trust for the farm. Now any hope of returning to the team was long gone.
As she walked toward the farmhouse, her boots crunching against the layer of icy snow crusting the yard, a dark gap showed in the porch stairs where a plank had gotten loose and fallen off. The steps groaned as she stomped the snow off her boots on her way to the front door and let herself inside.
“Helen? Is that you?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t wait to see her mother but climbed the stairs, not caring that she was still in her boots, trailing mud and snow. They were in this house for only a few more days. Let the bank clean up her messy footsteps. She entered her room and collapsed onto her bed, breathing in the metallic scent of cold air rising from her coat, and she then reached for the small porcelain jewelry box on her dresser, lifting the lid to peer inside. A cluster of Doogie’s yellowed puppy teeth lay in one compartment, a locket passed down from her grandmother lay in the other. She put the jewelry box in a wooden crate on the floor. That was it. The last of her stuff. She stared at the dark rectangles tiling the wallpaper from where she had removed her newspaper clippings about Betty Robinson and Babe Didrikson. Now everything was gone.
THE NEXT DAY she worked in the barn alongside her father to clean it out. He grumbled as he tossed a manure-covered rake down next to her to wipe clean. “You have no idea what it feels like to lose something that you’ve put your blood and sweat into.”
“’Cause you didn’t give me the chance,” she muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing, sir.”
He placed his hands on his sides. “Give you the chance to what?”
“I just meant that I was ready to put my blood and sweat into that track team, but you made me quit.”
“What’s the point of running around a track anyway? It’s a waste of time, I tell you.” He tugged at his suspenders to hitch up his trousers. “Put all that physical activity into something useful.”
“I was good at it. Coach Moore and those other boys on the team looked at me like I was important.”
“Who cares what a bunch of pimple-faced roughnecks thought?”
Helen scrubbed at the filthy rake, but then stopped. She had an idea. “You know, they weren’t all hicks. I was leaving John Harris in the dust.”
“Harris? The banker’s boy?”
“That’s right. I’ve been thinking, I’ll bet it was Harris who told all that stuff to the newspaper. I think he wanted me off the team because he didn’t like being beaten by me, a lowly farmer’s daughter.”
In truth, John Harris had been perfectly nice to her, but she had a suspicion of how to get her father’s attention.
He narrowed his eyes. “You were beating the tar out of the banker�
��s son?”
“Yeah, I had all of those fellas choking on my cinder.”
He grunted and headed off to the pegboard to bring her more tools that needed cleaning and oiling. They didn’t speak any more about track. That evening, he was preoccupied at supper and barely spoke. When they finished eating, Pa sat back with a pipe and played checkers with Bobbie Lee while watching Helen and Ma washing dishes out of the corner of his eye.
Eventually, he cleared his throat. “This is going to be a busy spring as we get the new farm up and running. Helen, I reckon I’m going to need you to come home a few afternoons a week to help. We’ll be closer to town, though, so it won’t be a long walk. I’ve been thinking that once we’re settled, maybe next year you could go back to running on that track team, but only if you keep up with your chores.”
Ma’s hands froze in the sudsy water, and she turned sideways to look at Helen in surprise.
Helen kept her own face blank as she dried off a pan and placed it in the crate of kitchen supplies they’d be taking with them. “I’ll keep up with everything.”
Her father nodded, stood, and left the kitchen to head out to the living room to read the newspaper.
Helen lifted the crate of kitchen goods and hefted it out the kitchen door to the spot on the porch where her mother had started organizing what needed to be moved to the new farm they’d be leasing. She put the crate down and straightened, smiling into the darkness. Though the air was cold and her breath left vapor trails swirling up into the darkness, she didn’t even notice. She was already thinking ahead to the next spring.
33.
May 1934
Riverdale, Illinois
BETTY DECIDED SHE WOULDN’T RELY ON HER FATHER to pay off her medical bills. She would do it herself. Jim, her brother-in-law, helped her find a job as a secretary in an architecture firm. The straightforward nature of the work suited her. The clarity of the daily schedule. The project deadlines. The clean angles and precision of the measurements on the blueprints. She enjoyed watching the projects take shape from schematics on crisp white sheets of paper to photographs of the final structures. Even with the stalled economy, new buildings were sprouting up around the city.
