My One Square Inch of Alaska (9781101602850)

by Short, Sharon

  I relished the thought of driving off without Hank, but then he got in the backseat next to Babs. I glanced in the rearview mirror, watched her resettle against his shoulder. Hank scowled but did not pull away, and Babs grinned up at him, like a whipped puppy grateful to be taken back by its master.

  The image of Trusty—the real one—flashed across my mind and I shuddered, but then Jimmy said, “OK, check to make sure no one is coming up the road, then nice and easy, put her in gear.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror past Babs and Hank at the road behind us, then ahead. Either way, the road seemed to go on forever. We were alone, in the middle of Nowheresville, and suddenly I was anxious to get somewhere, anywhere.

  While Jimmy talked me through, I eased the car onto the road and pressed a little harder on the accelerator, and then we were moving, slowly, in little jerks.

  “Am I doing it?” I clutched the steering wheel, feeling my stomach fall to the floorboard as the road started to slip away underneath us. “Oh my God—I am! I’m moving the car—”

  “It’s OK if you outpace the field mice,” Jimmy said, laughter in his voice.

  So I pressed a little harder on the accelerator. The car picked up speed, the road slipped away faster, and I felt a tingle, something akin to how my hand had felt at Jimmy’s touch, racing up my arms to my armpits, and something in me said, Go—go—go—just go! So I pressed the accelerator more.

  “Now you might want to slow up, just a little,” Jimmy said.

  But I couldn’t. Go—go—go—just go! pulsed in my head, and I couldn’t resist the command.

  Suddenly, around a slight curve, there was a tractor in front of us, growing quickly larger as we came up on it.

  “Donna, slow down, OK? You want to slow way down to go around this tractor.”

  I fumbled for the clutch and gearshift, then for the brake. At the last second, Jimmy moved the gearshift as I hit the clutch, then I pressed on the brake, slowed, swerved around the tractor just as we were heading into the big rear tires.

  But in the oncoming lane, another car came at us, head-on. Babs screamed. Hank cursed. Jimmy barked orders at me.

  And I tuned them all out. I swerved between the tractor and the oncoming car, overcorrected and hit the lip of the ditch, which for just a second sent us flying. Jimmy’s car skimmed the side of a wire fence, but then it landed in front of the tractor, and somehow, I shifted gears again and was driving up the road just fine.

  When sound came back to me, Babs was still screaming, Hank cursing, Jimmy talking.

  But that momentary sensation of flying stayed with me, and something welled up inside me and broke loose.

  Laughter.

  Finally.

  And I laughed and laughed and laughed.

  Chapter 5

  A few weeks before Labor Day, 1953, a classified advertisement had appeared in the Groverton Daily News: Wanted—One model, female, age 20–30, to sit for artist Nate Cahill, 2 times a week, 1–2 hrs. per session, $2.00/session, at 325 Plum Street, phone 21983.

  The advertisement had caused a scandal in Groverton, a distraction even from the rumblings about a possible strike at the mill. At Dot’s Corner Café, Grandma told anyone who would listen that she thought the new art teacher should be fired before he could corrupt the minds of Groverton’s youth, and why did the high school need an art class anyway, when it had gotten along for years without one?

  Babs told me that Mr. Cahill’s ad had turned into a real headache for her daddy. People called his newspaper office and even their home (I suspected, but never knew for certain, that Grandma was one of the callers) to complain about the disgraceful suggestiveness of the ad. I remember asking Babs if she thought everyone was so fired up because of what Senator McCarthy had to say about artists, but Babs just rolled her eyes at me and said if I’d actually ever read some of the novels she passed on to me for my real-life education, I’d know that artists sometimes wanted their models to pose nude.

  In any case, Babs’s daddy had yelled at the advertising manager to actually read ads before running them, and then pulled Mr. Cahill’s ad just two days after it appeared, but not before I read it and decided that I would secretly reply. I figured no one else would answer, so I’d have a pretty good chance at the job, even if I was younger than what he’d advertised for.

  I really wanted that two dollars a session. At four dollars a week, by the time I graduated, I’d have enough to go somewhere far away, and then I’d send for Will when he was old enough.

  After Babs and Jimmy and Hank and I got back to Groverton around four o’clock that day, I had Jimmy drop me off at the library, where I said I needed to study. I waited, then went out the back door and hurried through the drizzling rain over to the alley on Ridgeview, to a house just down the road from my grandma’s—thus the need to sneak over via the alley. The house had once belonged to Mrs. Bentley, until she’d died the previous spring. Her son had decided to rent it out rather than sell it, and that’s how Mr. Cahill ended up living there.

  Under the back porch awning, I took a few seconds to compose myself, sweeping my hair up into a ponytail with an extra ribbon from my purse. Then I took a deep breath and knocked on the back kitchen door.

  A madman version of Mr. Cahill answered.

  His hair stood out in spikes, like he’d run his hands through it many times. He was barefoot and wearing jeans and an undershirt, spotted and smeared with paint. I tried not to stare at his bare, muscled arms and shoulders, or the hair at his armpits and on his chest, curling over the top of his undershirt, and the effort of not staring made my face flame.

  A cigarette dangled from his lips, and he held a telephone receiver a little away from his ear as a woman’s voice shrieked on the other end. He held the cigarette from his lips. “Julia,” he said, then, louder, “Julia! I’ll call back. Someone’s at the door.” Mr. Cahill hung up.

  “That’s a party line, you know,” I said.

  Mr. Cahill nodded. “I know. I’m not sure if Julia does.” He squinted at me. “Let’s see. You are in one of my wonderful art classes.” Then his eyebrows went up. “Ah, yes! You’re the one who sketches clothing!”

  My face flamed even more hotly. “You’ve seen that?”

  He took a drag from his cigarette. “You sketch, someone else in your class does line drawings of cars”—my guess was Hank—“and other students doodle. One is particularly good at rendering comic book characters.” He shrugged.

  Then why don’t you actually teach us something? I thought.

  But it wasn’t my place to criticize a teacher, and I was there for a purpose. My secret plan.

  “I’m here to apply for your modeling job.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “What’s your name again?”

  “Donna Lane.” A gust of wind blew rain across the porch, striking my back and Mr. Cahill’s face.

  Mr. Cahill sighed. “Come in for a second.”

  As I stepped into the messiest kitchen I’d ever seen, he tossed me a dish towel—grimy, but I patted the back of my neck and arms. He shut the door, took another drag on his cigarette, and studied me with such a penetrating gaze that I had to look away again. This time, I focused on the “Home Sweet Home” cross-stitch sampler hanging next to the wall phone. I was sure Mr. Cahill hadn’t brought that sampler with him, that the home’s original owner, the late Mrs. Bentley, had made it. Sad that her son hadn’t wanted it.

  “Donna, do you know the scandal my simple little ad caused?” Mr. Cahill said. “This town is so small-minded.”

  Then why did you come to this town, anyway? There were rumors he was from San Francisco, or maybe New York, or maybe even somewhere really exotic, like New Orleans. “Well, are you still working on whatever project you needed a model for?” I asked.

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Yes.”

  “Then I’m here to apply for the job.”

  “Are you between twenty and thirty?”

  I frowned, wondering if he was just bei
ng snippy or trying to imply I seemed so dumb that I’d been held back that much. “No. I’m…I’ll be eighteen in January.”

  “Congratulations. But this is September, so you’re seventeen, so no.”

  I looked away from him, tears suddenly stinging my eyes. I needed this job. As I tried to blink the tears back, I caught glimpses of a sink full of unwashed dishes, of a counter covered with newspapers, books, mail, and more dirty dishes, of another burning cigarette balanced on top of an ashtray overflowing with crushed-out butts. At least the burning tobacco partially masked the reek of spoiling food.

  “Maybe you could just hire me as a housekeeper, then,” I said. “The town would probably thank both of us for that, especially if I save you from catching this house on fire with overflowing ashtrays, or from attracting rats. And if I model while I’m here, then…” I imitated his shrug. “Well, then, you’d have to pay me for both.” Mr. Cahill’s eyebrows were now above the rim of his glasses. I crossed my arms and looked stern like I did when I was reprimanding Will. “But no funny business while I’m modeling, and I won’t model naked.”

  Mr. Cahill stared at me for a second, then burst out laughing. I looked away, horrified, thinking I’d never again be able to look him in the eye in art class.

  “Donna, first of all, let me assure you that you’re in no danger of funny business with me. Trust me.” I believed my safety lay in his love for the shrieking Julia.

  While I considered that possibility, Mr. Cahill glanced at his watch. “Isn’t there a big football game tonight? Shouldn’t you be getting ready to go to that with all the other kids?”

  “I don’t do things like other kids. I work for my grandma and Miss Bettina—that’s Miss Bettina of Miss Bettina’s Dress Shop—and that money goes for my family.” I paused. “Well, most of it does.” I paused again, taken a little aback by the look of pity starting to cross Mr. Cahill’s face. I hated pity, and suddenly the last person I wanted it from was Mr. Cahill, who was, so far in my life, the most interesting person I’d ever met. So I squared my shoulders and said something I’d never shared with anyone else—I could barely whisper it to myself. “But I have a plan. Next summer, I’m going to New York City, where I’m going to be a seamstress, working on costumes. So I need another job. Just for me. Now, do you need a housekeeper and model, or not?”

  I was trembling when I finished speaking. Mr. Cahill frowned, looked like he was about to say something, and then seemed to think better of it. He shook his head. For a second, I thought I’d ruined my chances at this job.

  And then Mr. Cahill (who definitely hadn’t met MayJune, and never would) made his own life-changing-small-choice.

  He started muttering to himself, “Well, I thought I could do the work for the show without a model, but maybe…” He shook his head, ran his hands through his hair in a gesture of frustration, and suddenly grabbed my cheeks between his hands, turning my head this way and that.

  “Hmm. Good cheekbones. Too strong of a chin, but I can work with it.” He let go of my face and stepped back, but still studied me as he said, “All right. I guess you’ll do. Twice a week. Three dollars. Housekeeping, light…” He paused to gesture at the mess of a kitchen, while my heart started racing around in my chest like the mouse I’d set free that morning. And then he grinned. “And modeling. No nudity required.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Cahill,” I said, and put my book bag on the floor next to the kitchen table and rushed toward the nearest pile of dishes.

  “No, no, let’s start with the modeling first,” he said. And then the telephone rang.

  He pressed his eyes shut and groaned. “My studio is upstairs, first door on the left. I’ll be right up.”

  He turned his back to me, rested one arm on the wall and his head on his arm, then answered the phone. “Julia,” he said. But he didn’t sound happy, or even wistful, like Miss Bettina did when she said Daddy’s name.

  I walked through the dining and living rooms, where there was just a card table cluttered with papers, two folding chairs, a worn couch and matching chair I recognized as having been Mrs. Bentley’s, an old lamp, a bookshelf, and a few unpacked boxes that I guessed held books. Not much to clean in here.

  I caught a faint whiff of the licorice drops Mrs. Bentley always kept in a cut glass jar, offering them to me at every Grandma-enforced visit. But the cut glass jar, the doily-covered side table that had been its home, the other good furniture—all that was gone. Her son must have taken everything he thought he could sell.

  At the top of the stairs, I found the bedroom that Mr. Cahill had turned into his studio.

  His easel and stool were at the front of the room. At the back was an ornate settee, the carved cherrywood worn but the fabric still a beautiful deep burgundy velvet. Another castoff from Mrs. Bentley’s son.

  Suddenly, the strong smell of paint and turpentine hit the back of my brain all at once, making my head spin. I stumbled over to the settee and flopped onto it, nearly upsetting a small table.

  There I noticed a white bowl filled with fruit about the size of a plum, yet nothing like any fruit I’d seen. Still, my mouth suddenly watered. I hadn’t eaten much that day and I liked the way the pale green and orange fruit looked in the white bowl, the shine of the fruit’s taut skin, and I thought how that color and sheen would be perfect in cloth, a satin or silk, for a soft, flowing dress. Maybe, I thought, Mr. Cahill had shipped this exotic fruit all the way in from Paris, or from somewhere even more exotic, like, say, Persia…and I shouldn’t touch it.

  Then I thought that Mr. Cahill wouldn’t mind if I ate one fruit—and then I thought, Maybe I’m supposed to be eating the fruit; maybe he’s trying to get over the shrieking Julia by painting Young Woman Eating Exotic Persian Fruit on Settee.

  Much better than my earlier real-life pose, Young Woman Choking Down Tasteless Marvel Puffs for Little Brother’s Quest for One Square Inch of Alaska.

  So I picked up a piece of the fruit. I closed my eyes so I could focus on savoring the taste of the fruit, and then eagerly bit into it. A sharp, bitter taste filled my mouth. I yelped and opened my watering eyes, desperately looking for a receptacle into which I could spit the acrid pulp.

  Just then, Mr. Cahill came into the studio, saying, “Sorry, that was an important call—”

  He stopped talking when he saw my face and burst out laughing. I forced myself to swallow the bite.

  Mr. Cahill sat down at his easel and started sketching, staring at me, not even glancing at the paper or the charcoal in his hand, making big, sweeping strokes. My face suddenly burned and I longed for a glass of water to wash away the taste.

  “Persimmon,” he said.

  I glanced around. Did he want me to fetch a pastel, a paint pot, a pencil?

  “The fruit you just tried to eat,” he said.

  I glanced down at the fruit. “Persimmon is a color. Orange red. That”—I pointed at the fruit—“that is mostly green.”

  “It’s not ripe yet,” Mr. Cahill said.

  “I figured that out. I also figure you didn’t get them at the A and P. Or the old Pleasant Valley Orchard.”

  He just kept sketching. I wanted to throw the nasty green persimmons at him, like baseballs.

  “Well, where did you get them?”

  “From my backyard.”

  “I was just in your backyard and I didn’t see anything but an ordinary maple.”

  Mr. Cahill put his charcoal down with a purposeful snap, like I’d done that morning with my pencil when Will kept asking me questions.

  “I was clearing out brush and poison ivy along the back fence and came across a small tree with green fruit,” he said. “At first I thought it was a plum, but then I realized that fall is the wrong time of year for plums. And then I recalled I’d had this fruit before, in Japan.”

  Japan! Maybe he’d been a missionary. But no, I couldn’t imagine Mr. Cahill preaching the gospel like Pastor Stebbins every Sunday at Grandma’s church, sin and sorrow and guilt and redem
ption. Maybe he’d been in Japan as part of the occupation—he looked too young to have been there in the war—and he met a beautiful woman who became his Japanese bride and she took the name Julia for her life here but now she was unhappy, torn from her native land, and they separated and—

  “Different variety, of course,” Mr. Cahill said. “American persimmons usually grow farther south.”

  He wasn’t going to tell me why he’d been in Japan. Disappointment made me petulant. “Why would anyone want to grow a tree that puts out such terrible fruit?”

  He looked amused. “Ancient Grecians called persimmons the fruit of the gods.”

  I thought, He’s going to fire me on day one if I say more. But I couldn’t stop. I said, “Pastor Stebbins would say no wonder the fruit’s so bitter, coming from heathens.”

  “Then your Pastor Stebbins must not know that once the fruit ripens, it becomes a beautiful red-orange, sweet and tender. It just has to go through the first frost. I’m doing a series of pastels of persimmons—before they’re ripe, and then again when they’re at the peak of ripeness. Just for fun.”

  The question popped out of my mouth: “Why can’t we draw something like persimmons in class? Just for fun?”

  Mr. Cahill gave me a sharp look and held up his hand. “If you want to talk,” he said, “we can do that, after I’m done with my sketches. But it will be about your designs—and how you should think about that instead of sewing other people’s ideas.”

  Suddenly, I was mad. He didn’t know a thing about my life, or what I wanted. “That’s not enough?”

  He stood up, walked over to me, took hold of my left cap sleeve and fingered the hem stitching between his thumb and forefinger. His fingertips brushed my arm, and hot redness flared up my chest and neck and face, even though I tried to will it away.

  Mr. Cahill stepped back. “You want to be a designer,” he said.

  “No, I didn’t say that, I just—”

  “You do,” he said. “I remember more clearly now, your sketches. They are pretty good. And this dress, it shows potential.”