by Ron Hevener
At the dressing table, she petted the hairbrush, a silver-handled token of her mother, and unlocked her secret treasure box. Hands shaking, she removed a tube of red lipstick, opened it and touched it to her lips. Suddenly drawing a quick breath, she pulled back. It was so bright!
Everyone would notice lips so red. Closing the box, she twisted shut the lipstick and tossed it into the bag she clutched under folded arms the next morning.
*
“Daddy?” she asked on the train as Lancaster County’s fields, trees and farms faded away. “Am I pretty?”
“You’re more than pretty, Ruthie,” he smiled. “You’re beautiful.”
Running her tongue across her upper teeth, she thought about this and pouted. “Well, if I’m beautiful, why don’t people like me?”
He considered his answer carefully before saying, “Who doesn’t like you?”
“Everybody. I see them in school. And every place I go in town. And I see them in church.”
“That’s a lot of people,” Ezra said.
“The whole town,” she said flatly.
“The whole town of Steitzburg,” he said, wondering how long she had felt this way. “Well, maybe it isn’t ‘hate’ but something else. Maybe it’s ‘envy’ instead—do you know what that is?” he asked, explaining the difference. “Envy is when you wish you had what somebody else does, and you’re sorry for yourself because you don’t. Some things you can work for, or you can make improvements in your life about and—after a while—you make those things happen in your life. Other things, you can’t ever have…no matter how much you hope, or pray or try.”
Perplexed, she rolled up the collar of the tweed coat and felt the colorful bandana she had snuck along to make a scarf. Daddies could be confusing sometimes but then hers was a banker.
“Want to trade places?” he asked.
“No. No, it’s OK.”
Only when he appeared to be waiting for more of an answer than that did she realize he was testing her. “I don’t envy you, Daddy.”
He still waited.
“I don’t envy anybody,” she laughed. “OK?”
Satisfied, he smiled and returned his attention to his paper.
“What are you reading, Daddy?” she asked, but she knew it was the financial pages.
“Stock reports,” was his dry answer.
“I like numbers, too,” she said. Fully aware that it was her father’s position at the bank that protected and set her apart from others in the community, Ruthie had discovered the power of money early in life. Understanding how numbers were the key to all banking, she had watched her father’s attention and loyalty to such things. Then, as now, she listened carefully for his answer when she finally said, “Can I ask you something else, Daddy?”
“You can always ask me anything, Ruthie.”
“The bank. Is it…ours? Does it belong to you, Daddy?”
He laughed. “I wish!” And he was answering in a fair way. “No, Ruthie. The bank isn’t mine. I just work there. To be honest, what I really do, is work for the people of this town.”
“But who does the bank belong to? Who owns it?” The look in her eyes, on her skin—all over her—said how important, how important above all else, this thing called ownership was; this control of something, anything, in one’s life.
“In truth,” he explained, “a bank is supposed to belong to the people who trust it with their money. But most banks have stockholders and they’re the ones who really put up the money to get it started. Then, they find somebody like me to run things and let them know how everything’s going. Understand?”
“I do understand,” she said. But her eyes were saying, so you don’t really run the bank, Daddy. They do. Studying her intensity and focus, Ezra wondered how he could have missed this part of his daughter’s character. Was she really growing up so fast? Who was this ambitious young woman? Where had his innocent little Ruthie gone?
“I know what you want,” he said. “You want to know who makes the rules,” he said, holding her gaze. “Ruthie wants to know where the power is.”
She didn’t even take the time to soften her answer with a shy smile or a nod. She just said, “What I want, Daddy, is to be so big and so strong, nobody can ever hurt me.” The coldness and determination in someone so young, and from his own blood, surprised him.
“It takes money to do that, Ruthie. And connections. It takes promises, and favors and secrets.”
“I know,” she said. And I know how to get it, she thought, looking at him.
Restless…Ruthless…Ruthie.
Just like they say, the beat rolled on.
CHAPTER 4
Glitter & Freedom
Off-camera, Sidney twitches and sips more wine in the kitchen. “She’s fifty!” she snaps in a harsh whisper to Sarah. “Fifty, if she’s a day!”
“Fifty ain’t what it used to be, girl,” Sarah says, placing a hand on Sidney’s arm. “But he’s got it under control.”
“Ben…” Diane leans even closer. “Tell us about your mother, Ruthie.”
“A singer,” he answers. “In New York. She has a nightclub there. She’s had it for years. Perhaps you know it,” he says. “The Temple?”
“Well, I live in New York, Ben. Of course I’ve heard about The Temple. Your mother owns it, and she performs there every night wearing a pair of rhinestone Rockette earrings. Shocks a lot of people hearing her sing gospel songs like that in a New York City nightclub. In some circles, they call her a legend,” She pauses before saying, “She’s certainly an individual. I don’t think there’s anybody who would question that.” She looks at Ben now, as if sizing him up. “You do know, of course, it’s been said in the press that you’ve never met her. Is she the kind of independent thinker you’re talking about?”
Surprised, he says, “Well, that’s very interesting, being called the son of a New York City legend, Diane. I don’t know how many of your listeners have had that ‘particular’ pleasure, but I can assure you it’s a very different kind of life. But,” he smiles indulgently, “never met my own mother? Come on,” he laughs. “That’s a little far-fetched. Don’t you think? How does anybody not meet their own mother?”
“I meant…”
“I know exactly what you meant,” he says. “It’s true, she left after I was born. I was raised by my grandfather and our housekeeper, and then later, Aunt Sarah. It was a great life. I didn’t lack for anything and nobody tried to hide my mother from me. She was—is, I should say—very beautiful and I’m sure I can talk with her any time we both want. It’s just that, well, she was very young when I was born and I was raised by my grandfather and that’s how they both wanted it.”
“Wanted…it.”
The camera moves to a black-and-white photo on a bulletin board covered in dark velvet. The face of a magnificent young woman fills the TV screen.
“How does a young boy cope with…not having his mother around?”
Unaware of the close-up of Ruthie’s picture as he speaks, Ben says, “Well, like I said, Diane, there was our housekeeper, Esther. A little rough around the edges maybe, but she was always there for me. And, later, my Aunt Sarah, who I adore. I mean, of course, I was lonely sometimes, for my mother. That’s healthy. And how could I not be? But I guess you just tell yourself and your friends, I guess you just say your mother’s all about love songs and movies and she loves you so much…she wants you to only be with the people she trusts most in the whole, wide world. You know? Happy talk. Like in the movies. Or, how movies used to be.”
Diane is listening. The whole room is listening.
“For you, she’s always smiling, always happy…and she can’t wait to see you, if only she could. And that’s your mother.”
“Why…can’t she see you, Ben?”
He reaches for a glass of water. “A child can think of a thousand reasons for that, Diane” he says. “Maybe some of them are right.”
It’s a satisfactory answer, for now, and Diane moves o
n. Perhaps she has discovered why Ben is perceived as emotionally detached. The oil of delicately revealed relationships was repelling her gentle rain. How could she get through? How could she make him more real for the viewers? Practiced and socially skilled, Ben Hoover wasn’t likely to reveal anything more than he chose to.
Diane leans back, straightens her notes and turns away. “Can we take a break here, guys?” she asks politely but in a way that means Time out. Now.
“Ten-minute smoke, everybody!” a voice of authority calls out.
Sidney and Sarah make a rush for Ben from their hiding places in the kitchen, but Diane is already placing a hand on his arm. “Come with me, Ben. Outside.” And he is following.
“Hold on!” Sidney calls out, ignoring the body language. “I think Bennie needs a drink!”
“How about a stiff one, honey?” Diane mimics, with a look that says she knows how old that line is and just doesn’t care.
“Wine?” comes Sarah’s quiet offer.
“Wine it is,” Diane replies with a nod in Sidney’s direction.
They gather in the kitchen and Diane speaks up. “Ben, you gotta work with me on this. Give me something to go on, you know?”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
Sidney butts in. “She means, Ben, she wants to tear you apart in front of everybody.”
He looks at Diane and tilts his head slightly. “Is that right?”
Diane sips her wine and doesn’t answer.
Sarah says what’s on her mind. “She’s thinking about ratings, Ben. That stuff about Ruthie? She just wants to rattle you. Shake you up. Right?” She gives the journalist a woman-to-woman look.
“Is that true, Diane?” Ben asks again, unruffled.
“Well, Ben…in my experience, a few tears here and there never hurt.”
“Save the band-aids,” he says, and Sidney can’t help a quick laugh. Sarah pours herself another glass and takes a long, slow sip. Like Bette Davis so famously said, it was going to be a bumpy ride.
* * *
New York City, 1945
“NEEEEEEEW YOOOOORK!” the conductor yelled. At his command, passengers shuffled for their luggage, bumping into strangers and weaving anxiously as the train grumbled past iron-clad cousins resting in the bowels of Grand Central Station. This was the part of their many trips Ruthie loved most now, the beginning of adventure. What her father had always said was right. The world really was a big, big place.
The clothes! The colors! The ladies’ hair! How beautiful the ones her age were and how much older than her they seemed. She wrapped her coat closer and hugged her bag as Ezra hailed a cab. Something was always different about him in the city. Something about this particular trip was different, too. Twenty minutes later, in the New York headquarters of Theodore Trimble, Esq. and seeing her father shake hands with his business friend, she knew how different.
“Ezra!” the brown-haired man with grey at the temples now and black-rimmed glasses was saying in his sing-song way that she had long since decided wasn’t quite Pennsylvania Dutch.
“Theodore,” her father responded in a dignified way, indicating he was ready for business.
The man looked at her. “Don’t tell me. This can’t be…Ruthie?”
“Growing up,” Ezra nodded. “A businesswoman in the making.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Ruthie said, pretending to be more sophisticated than she actually was, and taking in his navy-blue suit, fancy tie and shoes polished to perfection. Why was he staring at her?
“How are things in Europe, Theodore?”
“Not good, Ezra. I have all the financials and contracts,” the attorney answered, “ready for you to sign.”
Seated in Trimble’s office, Ruthie noticed how carefully her father studied the documents. Mortgages…leases…sales projections…the usual sort of thing for a busy banker, she imagined, as her mind wandered to framed photographs of Theodore Trimble and what appeared to be his loving wife skiing in the mountains—Theodore Trimble and his children building a snow man, Theodore Trimble and various people of dignity and importance whom she didn’t recognize. How could she know where those pictures were taken? How could she know in one of those pictures he stood beside a senator, in another he smiled while shaking hands with a publishing giant and in another he was rubbing shoulders with members of a national political party?
“I see from the new mortgages, we’re buying more farms,” Theodore said, handing Ezra papers to sign.
“Land is a good investment,” Ezra replied, getting out his gold pen. “Even in times like these.”
“But Ezra, these are not dairy farms, like the ones in Belgium or hotels like on the Riviera.”
“There can be other reasons to buy property, Theodore. You know that.”
“Of course. Of course. But even if the crop being raised is the very loan itself, Ezra, don’t you think it’s best to keep our investments within the boundary of certain industries we already know?”
“We’ve done enough of that,” Ezra reminded him. “But people always need homes to live in. They need gardens to grow food. To pay off our loans, they have to own something. No matter where it is, or what.”
“What happens when people know the truth, Ezra? What then?”
“Let us hope that day never comes, Theodore. Until then, lock your heart in a cold, steel vault in your beloved Zurich.”
“Even a frozen heart,” the attorney said, “can thaw with time. I remember—all too well—things.” The warning in his eyes was subtle, but clear.
“Yes, Theodore,” Ezra said, as they moved on to business reports for various acquisitions and mergers. “I remember, too. How are things going for the watch company we picked up last time?” he asked, changing the subject.
Theodore smiled at Ezra’s intended reference to time and decided to go with the flow. “There were layoffs,” he said, “but profits from the shoe company in England avoided bankruptcy. The founder didn’t like putting a shoe company together with a watchmaker, but it was the perfect marriage.”
“As they say, strange times make for strange bedfellows,” Ezra observed.
“Or strange headlines,” Theodore said. “What’s ahead for us, Ezra? What’s going to happen?”
“If you’re talking about the money, we’ll keep investing and paying dividends. Has anybody sent them back?” Trimble didn’t even have to shake his head.
“I didn’t think so,” Ezra said. “Nobody turns down money from Heaven that shows up in the mailbox every Christmas. Especially when it’s anonymous.”
“Nice touch,” Theodore said.
“Mary’s idea. Not mine,” Ezra said. “It makes for good community relations, don’t you think?”
“Without a doubt,” Theodore agreed.
Ezra went on. “About the money, we keep going like we are now. We keep investing in businesses like that shoe company with some profit that could help out a guy whose watches aren’t selling now, but are the best on the market. We’ll put them together with the wooden pencil factory that employs a whole town over in Germany and wood for those pencils will come from the lumber company in Latvia we bought. That’s what’s going to happen to us, Theodore. A bigger, better world.”
It was a grand plan. Even though its name wasn’t mentioned, it was business and not a word of the afternoon missed the attentive ears of Ruthie. Not a thought, suggestion or possibility escaped her vibrant mind.
As the meeting wore on, broken by phone calls and a steady flow of coffee, she finally heard Theodore say to her father, “You’re staying with us at the house, of course?”
“If you’ll have us,” Ezra answered. “Thank you.”
“It’ll give Ruthie a chance to meet Stacie and the children,” Theodore said, of the faces in the pictures that Ruthie already felt she knew.
*
The evening ride to Connecticut was made up of small talk about business, mutual acquaintances and political developments of a national, and to Ruthie’s surp
rise, international nature. Marveling inwardly at what her father knew of such things as he danced effortlessly from one aspect of the conversation to another, she wondered, when did he have the time?
Her question compounding the sense of mystery between her father and this man, she felt the frosty darkness wrapping itself around them in bluest black silk and she saw the elaborate stone entrance before them. Growing up, she had heard of Theodore, of course. She had known he and her father went way back, and he was the bank’s attorney with offices in Steitzburg and New York. She just didn’t realize he had such an interesting life. Theodore got out of the car to open the gate, and headlights cast their peculiar shadows at his feet. Fancy entrances go together with important lives, she thought. Someday she’d live in a big, fancy mansion, too. A mansion with fancy trees, flower gardens, perfect lawns and servants to do everything she wanted. Be careful of promises like that, Ruthie, someone should have said…they have a way of coming true.
The Trimble house, shingled in New England wood and soaked in moonlight, stood adorned with white trim, spicy-smelling boxwood bushes lining a flagstone walkway and white pillars. French doors of paned glass were set off by large bay windows on either side, and a pair of red-and-white Corgi dogs announced their arrival. Three children and a woman in apron and skirt greeted them. Smiling, she sent the kids back into the house while she slapped her arms briskly and blew frosty breath in the night chill.
“Hi, Honey!” Stacie Trimble called out as she opened the car door and gave Theodore a hug. She was petite, and the brunette hair was just a bit too bottle-black. “Oh, I hate these long weeks! Hate them!” To Ruthie, she said, “You must be exhausted! I’ll show you to your room. Hi, Ezra.” she winked. “There’s pot roast in the oven and the kids are driving me crazy for it!”
The house was crackling-fireplace warm, smelling like peppers, beef and tomato. Stacie led the way up a flight of wide wooden stairs to a guest room, saying “Make yourself at home,” and Ezra removed his hat downstairs.
“You’ve made a good life for yourself, Theodore,” he said, looking around. “Nice office, beautiful place in the country, wife, kids. It’s good.”
