A Thousand Acres_A Novel

by Jane Smiley

  That afternoon, when Ty left to haul a bunch of hogs to Mason City, I cleaned up from helping him load them, and went into Cabot. Henry’s reluctance to disclose the gossip had inflamed me. I figured I could tell what was being said about us by how they looked at me and spoke to me. I toyed with asking Rose to go along, too, for another, more observant set of eyes, but Rose had always scorned such pursuits, so even when she called and asked me what I was making for supper, I didn’t say I was going anywhere.

  Cabot wasn’t much of a town, but it was on the only straight road between Mason City and Sioux City, so there were two antique stores and a clothing and fabric store along with the café, the hardware store, the Cool Spot, and the feed and seed. It was a nicer-looking town than Pike or Zebulon Center, either one. Those two towns had both once had hopes, or pretensions, so their main streets were four lanes and wider: old storefronts barely cast shadows a quarter of the way across the glaring expanses. Cabot, on the other hand, was built to the north of Cabot Street Road, and Main Street was lined with maple trees that Verlyn Stanley had donated when all the chestnuts were dying. Lawns in Cabot were big and houses were pretty—late Victorian, about twenty years older than the houses in Pike and Zebulon Center, but well kept up. Lots of farm couples aspired to retire there if it should come time to sell off the place on contract and move to town.

  Old Cabot Antiques was where Rose had sold the hall tree she’d found in our dump, so that was where I went first. Dinah Drake set her prices high. She didn’t expect to be selling to people from town, and though you never saw anyone in there, it was rumored that she had contacts in the Twin Cities and Chicago who bought her best pieces. She had a friendly manner, and she liked to show off her new things. A discussion of whose they were always shaded into a discussion of how they’d fallen into her hands. Her habitual manner was one of amazement—that some right-minded Zebulon County person would actually let such a piece get away from the family, or else that some city person would actually pay what Dinah asked for it. Fools on both ends, and Dinah in the middle, tsk-tsk-tsking.

  Dinah noticed me right away, and drawled, “Well, hi, Ginny. How are you?”

  I gave the standard reply, “I don’t know. Not too bad, I suppose.” I started down her center aisle, but stopped almost at once to look at some figurines sitting on a marble-topped chest. I turned one over. Dinah said, “Royal Copenhagen. Can you believe it? Old, too. When I lock up at night, I put those away.”

  The figure I was holding was a shepherdess in a gown rough with dainty china frills. Dinah seemed to expect me to say something, but I knew I would get farther if I kept quiet. I picked up a silver dish. She said, “That’s just plated. I’m sure it’s from the Montgomery Ward catalog. Rather pretty though, don’t you think?”

  She came out from behind the rolltop desk she used for a counter.

  “That Royal Copenhagen, though. You know Ina Baffin down in Henry Grove?”

  I shook my head.

  “She was a hundred and four. She got those from her grandma when she was a girl, and her own granddaughter said they didn’t interest her. Ina loved those, I’m sure. This granddaughter said they were just too simpery. Simpery! Something as valuable as that.” She lifted another figurine, a boy playing a flute, and gazed at it, then set it down with care. I moved down the aisle, smiling politely, lifting things and looking at them. Dinah picked up a rag and began to dust with a thoughtful air. There were some Saturday Evening Post magazines in a bin. I leafed through one of them. Dinah lingered near the front of the store, then slowly made her way back to me. She dusted each piece of a ruby-colored glass decanter set that was sitting on a dark-colored sideboard, then said, “People say your dad’s moving to Des Moines, now.”

  “Mmm.” I was noncommittal.

  “You know, sometimes people have me over to look at some of the older things, just to see if there’s a market for them. The market changes all the time—” Her voice faded, then strengthened. “I wish now I had all that Depression glass I used to see at farm sales, but nobody wanted it in those days. Reminded them of the Depression!” She laughed. “I always feel like I should buy everything and just store it, because sooner or later, it’s going to come into vogue.”

  “I never thought of that.”

  “Well, you know—” She wandered away.

  I picked up a stack of old crocheted antimacassars. Not in vogue. The most expensive one in the stack was six dollars, an elaborate pineapple design done in the finest thread. I held it up, imagining the work that had gone into it. Six dollars. It made me sad. Dinah came close again.

  “The thing is, what I do when I come to someone’s house is give them an idea of what can be done with everything. And there’s always so much stuff. You have no idea how much people accumulate over the years. I don’t guess your father’s going to be farming again. You might not realize, but there is a market for old farm tools—” She let her eyes rest on my face. I let my eyes rest on hers. She said, “It can be a touchy subject. But when they move to an apartment—even old clothes, or shoes. You don’t have to let everything go to the church or the Salvation Army.”

  I said, “I’ll talk to Rose. And Caroline, of course.” Her eyebrows lifted at this last. I handed her the piece of lace, and said, “I’d like this. This is pretty.”

  She turned and went back to the rolltop desk. I opened my purse and found some money. I noticed that my hand was trembling.

  At the café, Nelda served me a cup of coffee and an order of cinnamon toast without more than the most perfunctory politeness, as if she were angry with me but holding her tongue. Another sign, I thought.

  At Roberta’s, the clothing and fabric store, I thought I might buy some underwear or a belt or some stockings. Roberta herself wasn’t there, so I spoke in a friendly way to her niece, Robin, who was in high school. Robin seemed to know, or at least, to think, nothing. The merchandise was set out on the same wide wooden display tables that Roberta’s mother, Doris, had used when I was a child and the store was called Doris’s. It was easy to ramble from table to table, turning over price tags and unfolding things just for a look.

  Like a lot of village stores, Roberta’s had once been half of what it was now, and had expanded into the next building by breaking through an old wall. Roberta’s had two front doors, and on summer days, both of them were open, as well as the back door. There was no air-conditioning; Roberta relied on cross-ventilation for comfort. I was standing in women’s underwear, holding two blouses that I wanted to try on, when I saw Caroline enter the farthest door, followed by Daddy, followed by Roberta, followed by Loren Clark. Caroline was turned to help Daddy up the steps, Daddy was looking at his feet, and Roberta’s eyes met mine. She stiffened, and I slipped hurriedly into a changing booth nearby. I did not try on the shirts. I stood there holding them, immobilized.

  It wasn’t hard to hear them getting closer. Caroline was speaking to Daddy in a loud voice, and his tone matched hers. It was as if they both thought the other one was deaf. Loren must have left, because I heard him say, “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  Roberta said, “Is there anything in particular you need, Caroline?”

  Caroline said, “Daddy needs some things. Daddy? Mostly some socks and things. He made a list. Daddy? Have you got your list?”

  “I’ve got it.”

  There was a long pause.

  She said, “May I see it?”

  “Daddy? May I see the list?”

  Another long pause.

  Finally, he said, “You got money?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Let me see it.”

  “It’s in my wallet. I’ve got plenty. It’s okay.” I saw Roberta’s feet go by my curtained booth, pause, turn, pause, proceed. Caroline said, “Let’s look at the socks. You like white, Daddy? These crews are a good buy.” Her voice was falsely enthusiastic, the way mine had always been. Urging progress, trying to avert letting this small project mire itself. After a minute or two,
she said, “These are nice, Daddy. The heels are reinforced and they’re a hundred percent cotton. That will feel good on your feet.”

  “Let’s sit down.”

  There was a shuffling, stepping noise, then the scrape of a chair. He said, “Come sit down here.” His tone was equal parts commanding and wheedling. It gave me a chill. I noticed the two blouses I had taken off the rack. They were still clutched in my fist. I hung them on the hook, then shook out my hand.

  Caroline said, “Daddy, we should—”

  “Won’t you sit down? Come sit by me?”

  She gave a laugh, and said, “Oh, okay.” I peeped from behind the curtain. The chairs they had found were between me and the door. I drew back again into the gloom of the booth. There was no chair, and the gap between the bottom of the curtain and the floor meant that I couldn’t sit on the floor without being seen. I leaned against the wall. He said, “You were a little birdy girl. Remember that brown coat you had? Little hat, too. You were so proud of that. It would have been that velvet stuff.”

  “Velveteen,” said Caroline.

  “I called you my birdy girl. You looked just like a little house wren.”

  “Did I?”

  I set my lips together

  “You didn’t like it either, nosiree. You didn’t want any brown coat and hat. You wanted pink! Candy pink. You had it all worked out in your mind about that pink velveteen, and you took a pink Crayola to that coat, too!” He laughed a full, happy laugh. “Your mama had to spank you then for sure!”

  “I don’t remember any of that. I remember something red—a jacket with hearts round the—”

  “Couldn’t ever get you to stay away from those drainage wells! Didn’t matter how we punished you or whipped you, pretty soon, you’d be crossing the road and pushing bits of stuff down the holes! It was like a moth to the flame. Your mama would say, now do you understand, and you’d look her right in the eye and say yes, Mommy, and then off you’d go. I tightened down all the bolts. I knew the grates could hold three men, but it made me so nervous anyway, I got some U-bolts and went around and bolted ’em all down a second time. Then all I could think about was you crossing the road.”

  They laughed.

  I felt a kind of rushing pressure in my head, and the white walls of the booth changed color.

  Caroline said, “We’ve got to go talk to Ginny and Rose today, Daddy.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “We need to talk to them. I want to talk to them. I want to tell them—”

  He mumbled, wheedling, “We don’t need them.”

  “We don’t need them, Daddy, I know, but—”

  “All we need is this.”

  I leaned my forehead against the nubby cool wallboard.

  “But I think—”

  His voice was warm and low. “They’ll be jealous. You know how they are. You’re enough for me. Let’s go back to Harold’s, now. There’s Loren.”

  “We didn’t get—”

  “Take that stuff. Those things are okay.” Their chairs scraped, and Loren’s voice said, “Ready?”

  Daddy said, “Now he’s a good boy.”

  Ten minutes later, I was in my car heading east. My head was throbbing, and I barely knew where I was going. The air seemed intensely hot, though I remembered that it had been cool enough before. Even so. I had to keep my window rolled up so that I could lean my head against it from time to time. I saw Loren and his truck in Harold’s farmyard. The others must have gone inside. I sped up as I passed, and he did not wave.

  Rose was sewing on her machine. The girls were not in evidence, but even if they had been, I would have burst through the door with my question: “Rose, what color was your coat when you were five or so?”

  Rose, never startled, finished her seam, lifted her foot off the pedal, raised the presser foot, and cut the threads. Then she said, “The only nice coat I ever had was that brown velveteen thing Mommy got from some cousin in Rochester. Little billed cap, too. I hated that thing.”

  “What color of a coat did you want?”

  “Oh, pink, probably. I adored pink for years.”

  “Did Caroline get that coat?”

  “No. Mommy cut it up for glass polishing rags because I threw up something on it and she could never get the stain out.” She looked at me. She said, “Ginny, you look terrible.”

  I fell into an armchair. I said, “I was in Roberta’s and Daddy and Caroline came in. I can’t tell you the tone of voice he used to her. All soft and affectionate, but with something underneath that I can’t describe. I thought I was going to faint.”

  She set down her sewing and stood up. There was a fan sitting on the television, and each time it turned toward me and blew in my face, I felt calmer. Rose gazed down at me with utter seriousness, her eyes deep and dark, her mouth carved from marble. She said, “Say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “Say it.”

  “It happened like you said. I realized it when I was making the bed for Jess Clark in my old room. I lay down on the bed, and I remembered.”

  She went back to the sewing machine. She didn’t speak, but the methodical way she assembled her pieces, transformed them into a pair of tan slacks, was reassuring enough.

  Book Five

  35

  WHEN I WAS THREE AND A HALF YEARS OLD, Ruthie Ericson fed me twenty-seven baby aspirin while I was sitting on the toilet. I know that they were cube-shaped and yellow and sweet, and I know I lay on my back and was rolled under circular lights, which must have been at the hospital in Mason City. What I think of as a distinct part of this memory is that I suspected that eating the pills was forbidden, and somehow this was related to my sitting on the toilet. It must have been summer; I remember the yellow of my halter top, my pink stomach beneath that, the V of my thighs splitting above the dark basin of the toilet and the white semicircle of the seat running between them. I was wearing dark blue sneakers. Their rounded, rubber toes dangled above mottled gray linoleum. My shorts lay on the floor beneath my feet. I wonder if vivid self-consciousness was my normal state, or if the forbidden pills carried it into me, and thus imprinted my memory.

  When I contemplate this memory, I feel on the verge of remembering what childhood felt like, that its hallmark was the immediacy of one’s every physical sensation, and also the familiar strangeness of one’s parts—feet and hands, especially, but also chest, knees, stomach. I think I remember meditating on these attached objects, looking at them, touching them, feeling them from the outside and from the inside, wondering about them because there was wondering to be done, not because there were answers to be found.

  There must have been some component of anxiety in this wondering, because it was borne in upon me daily that I was “getting out of hand.” That was the phrase my parents used. Daddy would tell Mommy that I was getting out of hand, or Mommy would tell me that. I knew, too, whose hand I was getting out of, just as I knew what it meant to be in her hands. If Mommy wasn’t around, the hands were Daddy’s. We were told, when we had been “naughty”—disobedient, careless, destructive, disorderly, hurtful to others, defiant—that we had to learn, and I think that my self-consciousness might have grown out of that necessity. I think I must have been trying to keep tabs on those wayward parts of me that kept wandering into naughtiness.

  I remember what I looked like because I looked different from Mommy and especially Daddy. Daddy was never without his work clothes, usually overalls, and Mommy always wore a dress. In the privacy of my bed, under the covers, looking down the waist of my pajamas or unbuttoning the top, I saw that I was naked inside my clothes, and another thing I distinctly remember about being a child is that awareness of oneself inside one’s clothes. Pinching shoes, a prickling slip, a dress that is tight across the shoulders or around the wrists, ankle socks bunching in the heels of my shoes. Mommy and Daddy never complained of their clothes, but mine seemed a constant torment. On the first day of school, first grade, a dress that Mommy had made me wa
s too high and too tight in the waist. Every time I lifted an arm or leaned forward, the waist rode up against my lower ribs. At the last recess, when one of the boys wouldn’t vacate the swing, I bit him on the arm and drew blood. He had to go to the doctor and have a tetanus shot. At home, I was spanked and told to sit in a chair for an hour without moving. The dress had made me mad with irritation. I remember feeling my skin all over my body, feeling its exact surface against the world.

  Ty and I spent our wedding night at the Savery Hotel in Des Moines. I was nineteen. I had never touched my breasts except to position them in my brassiere or to wash them with a washcloth. As far as I knew then, my hands and my body had never met without an intermediary washcloth. Certainly much time was spent scrubbing; washcloths in our house were rough and soaps were heavy duty. Just as you didn’t want to let the farm into the house, you didn’t want to wear it, either, especially into town. That was a matter of pride. But the scrubbing went beyond that. In and behind the ears, around the neck, all over the face, the knuckles, the fingernails, the armpits, the back where you could reach, then all below. I suppose what I was afraid of was some sort of stench. It did not bear actually thinking about. I scrubbed just like that before my wedding, knowing that when we got to Des Moines and my going-away dress came off, Ty would be repelled if I wasn’t perfectly clean and odor-free.

  He wasn’t repelled, but he tried not to be overly curious, which meant that we disrobed with the lights out and confined ourselves, that first time, to hugging, kissing, and an insertion that seemed, more than anything, practical and hygienic. While we were doing it, I made a little prayer that my period wouldn’t suddenly come, mid-cycle, in response to defloration. There would be drops of blood, I had heard, so I kept one of the hotel washcloths beside the bed, and put it between my legs as soon as he pulled out. There were no drops of blood, only the wetness of our combined fluids, but I succeeded in preserving the sheet from it. The next day, I threw the washcloth in the trash chute at the end of the corridor. I remember that washcloth, obvious evidence that my midnight experiences with Daddy had lifted off me, leaving no trace in my memory.