by Jamie Zeppa
Grace put down the phone and stood in the kitchen of Mrs. Barr’s boarding house. Through the French doors, at the other end of the dining table, Mrs. Barr was making a note in a ledger. Today she wore a lime green robe, long and silky, with a matching scarf holding up her tower of black hair. Smoke trailed her cigarette. “Sign here,” she said, and pointed to the entry under Grace Turner: March 15: Telephone. Ten mins.
Grace wrote her name. Her arms were heavy and she was afraid she would cry. She shouldn’t have come. Danny was there and she was here. He would look for her and she would be gone. He wouldn’t understand why, and she couldn’t even tell him.
“Who’s Danny?” Mrs. Barr asked, and Grace looked up, startled.
“You kept asking for Danny on the telephone.” She twisted her lower lip sideways so that she didn’t blow smoke directly into Grace’s face. “Is Danny your fella?”
Grace laid the pen down and closed the ledger over it. Yesterday, Mrs. Barr had told Grace, “I treat my girls like my own,” but Grace didn’t want to be one of Mrs. Barr’s girls. There were pillows of soft flesh under Mrs. Barr’s eyes, but the eyes themselves were hard and glittery. Also, Grace knew she hadn’t been on the phone for more than five minutes.
“No,” Grace said. “I don’t have a fella.”
Mrs. Barr steered another line of smoke sideways. “Well, you certainly seemed worried about him, whoever he is.”
Grace shook her head. “I’d better have a bath and get to bed so that I’m rested for tomorrow.”
“Actually, it’s not your bath night,” Mrs. Barr said. “Your night is Tuesday. But I think Connie’s out tonight, so you can have one if you want.” She peered at Grace through the smoke. “Do you want to have a bath?”
She didn’t want a bath; she wanted to get away from Mrs. Barr’s flickering eyes. She said, “All right. Yes.”
Mrs. Barr opened the ledger and wrote, March 15: Bath.
The morning before work was not as bad as the evening after work. The evening was bad because after she had washed out her underwear and sponged her coverall and brushed her teeth, there was only the dark tunnel of night and the deafening wind that roared through it. In the morning, she had breakfast at the table with Mrs. Barr and the other girls, which was unpleasant but not nearly as painful as the long, empty night. Grace said please and thank you; Connie and Noreen, who worked at the cereal factory, exclaimed at everything Mrs. Barr said. “You’re the bee’s knees, Mrs. B.,” they said. “You’re the cat’s pyjamas.” Mrs. Barr told them how she kept her hands so white and her skin so supple, and how all the fellas were stuck on her in her heyday, before she married Mr. Barr, god rest his soul. But her favourite topic was the horrible Ruth Ellis and her horrible boarding house. Ruth Ellis also rented out rooms, but she was an old maid who taught high school and had a very odd manner and went around in odd getups with her nose in the air; her boarders were hussies and floozies who went about in trousers and ran around with married men. Connie and Noreen had seen one of her boarders just yesterday standing outside in a short little nightdress up to here, talking to some man over the fence! Grace pretended to listen, eating as much as she could and folding an extra slice of bread and jam into her pocket so that she wouldn’t have to buy lunch at the canteen. Every dollar she earned would go into the envelope under her mattress, and when she had enough to get a place of her own, she would go home and get her son.
The walk to work was not as bad as breakfast, especially if she walked fast. At work, she waited in the courtyard with the others, listening to their cheery calls and bird-like shrieks. One would start singing “My Melancholy Baby” or “Don’t Cry, Baby” or some other song with a baby and a goodbye in it, and the others would join in, layering their voices in harmony. When the door opened for them, everyone groaned except Grace, who exhaled in relief. She hung her coat in the cloakroom and hurried to her place. Her mind was blank now, a long white field like the garden under snow, and her hands became eyes. She made clocks. Fit, snap, adjust, press. Snap, press, snap. At lunch, when the others rushed to the canteen to buy tea and ham rolls, she went to the cloakroom to eat the bread and jam she’d wrapped up at breakfast. She drank water cupped in her hand from the sink. Once or twice a day, Mr. Vanderburgh came through and nodded at them. “Good, good,” he said in his chocolate voice.
The walk home was bad, because every step brought her closer to Mrs. Barr’s dinner table. The dinner table was bad because Mrs. Barr wouldn’t let her be: “What do you think, Grace? Are you listening, Grace? You know, when you knocked at the door, I thought you were a boy with that haircut. That must be the style in Sault Ste. Marie. Is that the style up there, Grace? Oh, I think Grace must be thinking of a fella—are you thinking of a fella, Grace?” Mrs. Barr flashed her eyes at Connie and Noreen, and they dabbed at their smiles with their napkins.
Most of all, dinner was bad because it ended with night.
Night was the worst. In the dark, panic came over her, pinning her to the bed until she lurched upright, struggling to draw in a complete breath over the galloping of her heart. He is fine, she told herself. He’s safe, he’s warm, he’s fed. He is asleep right now. In her head, she walked down the stairs from her attic room to Danny’s bedroom and sat by his crib. She saw the moonlight on his face and heard him breathe, and then she could fall asleep. Sometimes she woke up crying from nightmares. Danny was lost down by the creek; he was crying for her. She was on her way home to Danny, but she was on the wrong bus. She found the right bus, but when she got home, the doors were all locked. They had taken Danny and gone.
Danny, she thought, squeezing the hard picture frame to her chest. She was a tiny figure, standing below a towering wave of grief. Any moment it would come thundering down on her. Again. She was living in dread of drowning while drowning. Danny, she thought, I’m coming.
But how would he know that?
Frank wrote, just as he promised. Danny was walking now. He fed himself carrots and apples and chicken cut up into cubes. He was playing with his toys, his wooden blocks, the woolly lamb and the bear, but he really loved that dog in the shoe. When the dog popped up, he laughed and laughed. Dr. McCabe said he was the healthiest baby he’d ever seen, and Mrs. McCabe told Vera she had never seen such a good-natured baby. We’re taking very good care of him, Gracie, don’t you worry, Frank wrote. He doesn’t want for anything, I can promise you that.
Every word of the letter cut her and healed her and cut her again. Danny could walk! He loved the toy she’d bought for him! He laughed and laughed! She carried the letter with her and couldn’t stand to read it, couldn’t stand not to read it, read it and wept.
Sometimes Frank’s letters went on about nothing: April was coming in like a lion, Vera had gone for an x-ray for possible female troubles, Mrs. May’s daughter had gotten married in Niagara Falls. Grace’s eyes skittered over the paper until they landed on Danny’s name.
The best time was while she worked, because there was only work. Then there were no letters to wait for. There was no envelope under the mattress, waiting to be filled. There was no needling Mrs. Barr, no sneering Connie and Noreen. There was not even a Vera, a Frank, a Danny, a Grace. There were only pieces of a clock, and then a clock. Pieces, clock. Pieces, clock. There was no time to think, because time was not yet assembled.
They were paid in the courtyard on the second Friday after work. Grace stood near the brick wall, listening to the others talk about the dance out at White Pines, the sale at Kinny’s. Theresa appeared in the yard, her coat unbuttoned, her copper curls free of their kerchief. Grace had only seen her a few times in passing; she supervised another section. When she saw Grace, she worked her way through the crowd.
“Grace, right? How are you settling in?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“You know, you’re the first person who put the clock together the first time. Usually we have to do it twice to get one person. Were you good at making things as a kid?”
Grace shoo
k her head ruefully. “I think I was better at breaking things.”
Theresa laughed. “Where are you staying, Grace?”
“At Mrs. Barr’s.”
“I’m at Ruth Ellis’s. Listen, you want to go to Mike’s Lunch after and get something to eat?”
Grace was startled. “No, no, thank you,” she said. “I mean, I can’t.”
“Are you sure? My treat.”
Grace didn’t know what “my treat” meant. “No, thank you,” she said. She heard her name, and Theresa pointed with her chin at Mrs. Thurman. “That’s you,” she said.
Grace hurried over, and Mrs. Thurman handed her a clipboard and said, “Sign, please.”
Grace found her name, G. Turner, and signed beside the number. Thirty-five dollars. When Mrs. Thurman handed her the envelope, Grace felt her face stretch strangely and realized she was smiling, perhaps crazily. “Thank you,” she gasped, and she thought Mrs. Thurman smiled back, but it was so brief it was hard to tell.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. It was Theresa. “Try not to let Mrs. Barr get all of it,” she said.
In the end, Mrs. Barr got every cent of it and more. “I don’t understand,” Grace said. “My sister-in-law said the room would cost eight dollars a week.”
“And so it does,” Mrs. Barr said. She was sitting at her kitchen table with the ledger open. “But I advanced you the first two weeks, which you have to pay now, plus the next two weeks in advance, which is how I operate. Plus board and incidentals.” Under Grace’s name was the list of board and incidentals: Tea, tea, bread and jam, dinner (extra potatoes), phone call, bath, bath, bread and jam, dinner (second helping), bread and jam, bread and jam and butter.
“I thought it was included. Room and board.”
Mrs. Barr laughed merrily. “Oh, Grace! Room and board means room and board. If only I could offer room and board for eight dollars! No, it’s all separate, because different girls want different things. Take Noreen, for instance. She has nothing but tea for breakfast. If room and board were included, like at Ruth Ellis’s, then Noreen would be paying for food she doesn’t eat. No, at my place, you pay only for what you use, which is much fairer, don’t you think?”
Grace blinked hard to drive back tears. “I didn’t have dinner the first night.”
“No, but you didn’t tell me in advance that you wouldn’t be having it.” Mrs. Barr patted her hand. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you $2 back so you have some pocket money, and you can pay it next time. I don’t like to see my girls without pocket money.”
Ruth Ellis’s house, set behind a weathered wooden fence, was orange brick with creamy trim that reminded Grace of butter icing. On the front door was a knocker shaped like a snake eating its tail, with a brass plaque underneath that said, KNOCK AND THE DOOR SHALL BE OPENED. Beneath the plaque, someone had stuck a note: Lucy, if you’re reading this, it means you forgot. AGAIN!!!!
Grace lifted the snake and knocked. The door opened almost instantly, and there was Theresa, looking surprised over a half-peeled banana. “Grace! Did you change your mind about Mike’s?”
“Does Ruth Ellis have a room available?”
Theresa said, “No, not at the moment. But come in.”
Ruth Ellis was a teacher. Her parents had also been teachers, and this had been their house. Ruth rented out rooms, Theresa said, not because she needed the money but because she liked the company and she believed in young women being independent in the world. Inside, books were stacked everywhere, on end tables and the floor, and the bookcases were full of carvings and masks and little stone statues of women with huge breasts and hips and no feet. On the dining table a glass bowl of water sat on a black cloth.
“What’s that?” Grace asked.
“Lucy’s homemade crystal ball. Here, sit here.” She pushed a cat off an armchair. “Do you want some coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
“Tea? A banana?”
“No, thank you.”
“Are you sure? There’s no charge for it,” Theresa said.
Grace said, “You know that’s what she does, charges for everything? Mrs. Barr?” It was odd to want to talk. Her sentences sounded like they were being shaken out of a sack.
“Everyone knows. She’d charge for the air you breathed, if she could.”
“I won’t be able to save anything,” Grace said. “I have to find another place to stay.”
“We’re full here right now,” Theresa said. “There’s the YWCA, but that’s also full. You could check the notice board outside the church, because sometimes people have a room. If I hear of anything, I’ll let you know.”
Grace stood up. “Thank you.”
“Wait, are you sure you won’t have coffee?”
Grace hesitated, then shook her head. She had to go over to the church and then stop at the grocery store to buy her own bread and jam. “Maybe another time,” she said.
Buying her own bread and jam and having only tea for breakfast meant she could save three dollars a month. She didn’t buy clothes, like Connie, or magazines and nail polish like Noreen, or go the hairdresser like the girls at work. When her hair started to fall into her eyes, she simply tied it back with an elastic band. She stopped taking baths and washed standing up at the sink, even though Mrs. Barr complained loudly about the backwards habits of country bumpkins. When a crack opened up in the sole of her boot, letting the slush seep through, she lined the inside with strips of newspaper and cardboard and wax paper snatched from Mrs. Barr’s garbage can when no one was looking, and after a month, the snow was gone and the sidewalks were dry and her boot was fine. After another month, the trees unfurled luminous new leaves, and the forsythia bushes outside the factory were a blaze of yellow against the wall, and in the courtyard, the women talked about straw hats and sang “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” and Grace had eighty-four dollars in the envelope under her mattress. At lunch, she went to ask if Theresa had heard of another room to let; she found her sitting on the floor of the cloakroom, her knees pulled up, crying into her hands.
“Theresa?” Grace crouched beside her. “What happened?”
Theresa shook her head but did not look up.
“It’s me, Grace. Should I call somebody?”
Theresa’s curls shook more vigorously.
“Should I go get Mrs. Thurman? Mr. Vanderburgh?”
“No!” Theresa wailed and looked up. Her face was wet and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.
“What should I do, then?”
“I wish I were dead.” Theresa hiccupped loudly.
Grace said, “I’ll be right back.”
She raced to the canteen and looked frantically for the coffee urn. The girl at the cash scolded her for trying to take china out of the canteen when she should have used a paper cup. “I didn’t know,” Grace said. “I’ve never come in here before,” and the girl said, “No kidding.” When she got back, Theresa was standing at the sink, splashing her eyes with water.
Grace handed her the paper cup of coffee. Theresa sipped it and shuddered. She handed the cup back to Grace. “Help me drink that, Grace. I was only kidding when I said I wanted to die.” They passed the cup back and forth until it was empty. “I look a fright,” Theresa said, running her hands through her curls. She looked at Grace in the mirror beside her. “I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you were thinking.”
“I have a baby,” Grace said before she could stop herself. The words scorched her mouth, and she had to swallow hard to continue. “At home. Back home. With my brother and sister-in-law.” She looked at Theresa’s face, but it told her nothing except that she had been crying and now she was listening. “That’s why I came down here,” she said. “To earn enough money to get a place of my own. Being away from him is killing me. And Mrs. Barr is taking all my money.”
“You poor thing,” Theresa said.
Grace shook her head violently. She didn’t want Theresa to say “poor thing,” because she didn’t want to cry. “I can�
��t sleep because I miss him so much. I can’t think about him, and I can’t stop thinking about him.”
Theresa sighed. “I know.”
Grace stared at her. “Do you have a baby too?”
“No,” Theresa said. “I have a bad boyfriend. I just make myself unhappy.”
The whistle blew, and Theresa said, “Wait for me here after work.”
Ruth Ellis was wearing what Mrs. Barr must have meant by an odd getup: loose pale yellow pants with a tight band of gold braid at the ankles, a long silky tunic and an orange scarf with tiny mirrors sewn into the hem. It was from India, Theresa said, where Ruth Ellis had travelled with her parents one summer. It was beautiful. As for her odd manner, it turned out that, unlike Mrs. Barr, Ruth Ellis did not pepper people with questions that couldn’t be answered or tell long stories about her heyday. She spoke because something needed to be said, and what she said always made sense.
She was putting together a bicycle on the front porch when Theresa brought Grace home. Theresa said, “Ruth, this is Grace,” and Ruth didn’t look up because her eyes were locked into the frame of the bike, but she said, “Hello, Grace. Theresa tells me you need a new place. Can you hold this wheel for me?”
Ruth Ellis asked her to stay for dinner, and afterwards, they took their coffee onto the porch and sat looking out over the lawn. On one side, an enormous maple tree cast a long shadow into the yard. One of the branches was low and sturdy enough to hang a swing from. The grass was green and soft; if a child fell off the swing, he wouldn’t be hurt. “This is a nice place,” Grace said. Ruth said the only thing she wanted to change was the fence: she wanted to tear it down and plant a hedge. “A flowering fence,” she said, “instead of a wall. Nicer on the eye. What do you think, Grace?”
Grace said, “A wall would be safer.”
Theresa explained why she had been crying: she was in love with Mike Vanderburgh. Grace said, “Mr. Vanderburgh?” which made both Ruth and Theresa laugh. Theresa said she couldn’t account for it. He wasn’t that smart. He was nothing special to look at, as Grace herself could attest to. And yet, whenever he spoke to Theresa, she just melted. “He does have a nice voice,” Grace said, and Theresa looked radiantly happy for a moment. “He does, doesn’t he?” Then she looked miserable again. She said she wanted to be with him so badly she felt sick, and she never really could be, because of Mrs. Vanderburgh.
