My One Square Inch of Alaska (9781101602850)

by Short, Sharon

  “Whore,” Hank hissed. “Just like your mother.”

  “Shut up!” I said. “How dare you speak of my mother that way!” Hot, furious tears streamed down my face. Somewhere in the back of my mind a voice whispered, He’s still angry. Angry that Mr. Cahill got him to say how Ansel Adams’s photography made him wish he could go somewhere, someday, other than here, when he’s supposed to be the big football star around town, the current pride of Groverton.

  “Oh, I’m just repeating what I hear the women of town say. That sure, it’s a shame your mama got so sick and died, but before that, it was also a shame that a whore like that snagged an upstanding man like your dad—well, he was upstanding. Now he’s the town drunk, and you’re nothing more than a whore and Jimmy here—”

  Jimmy unfroze and socked Hank in the nose, sending blood spurting down his face. Hank stumbled back, shocked, and put his fingers to his nose. “What the hell…why…?”

  “Walk away, Hank,” Jimmy said. “Just walk home.”

  Hank started to protest, but then turned, stalking away, mumbling to himself.

  For just a moment, I thought all might be saved. Jimmy would understand what had happened—and what hadn’t happened. I’d be forgiven. Maybe, even, I could study with Mr. Cahill after all….

  But my heart felt like I’d been stabbed when Jimmy looked back at me. His face was as still as stone, his eyes glinting with anger and betrayal.

  “Nothing happened,” I said yet again. “It’s not like that…. Mr. Cahill isn’t like that…. He’s not interested in me—”

  I stopped, my hand flying to my mouth. I might understand that Mr. Cahill was a confirmed bachelor, but I realized Jimmy wouldn’t.

  And, after all, I hadn’t said that I wasn’t interested in Mr. Cahill. I could see from Jimmy’s crushed expression that he understood, if nothing else, that if there had been any return interest, I would have eagerly, willingly responded.

  “Jimmy,” I said, tears suddenly falling down my face. “Jimmy, I—I’m sorry….”

  “Get in the car,” he said. “The neighbors have had enough of a scene to keep them talking for weeks.” It was the harshest thing he’d ever said to me.

  I did as he asked, miserably holding my book bag, trying to explain between sobs and hiccups that my modeling had been purely innocent, that I hadn’t ever been unclothed, that I had only modeled and cleaned house a few times, and just because I wanted to save money for leaving Groverton at the end of my senior year, for traveling to New York, to become a seamstress. I explained how Mr. Cahill had been reluctant to let me work for him, how just that afternoon he’d insisted he would only let me keep working for him if my father agreed.

  All the way home, Jimmy said nothing. Finally, I was out of things to say, too.

  At my house, he turned to me. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I just can’t…we can’t go out anymore.”

  He turned, hands gripping his steering wheel, staring straight ahead, waiting for me to get out of his car.

  Chapter 17

  The next morning, Daddy was at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. Coffee steamed in a cup. A plate held a half-eaten piece of burned toast. The smell was a bitter reminder of the day I’d met Jimmy.

  The afternoon before, after Jimmy had dropped me off at my house like a sack of trash he couldn’t wait to dispose of, I’d made a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and put them out on the kitchen table for dinner for Daddy and Will. Then I’d gone to my room and cried myself to sleep.

  “Come sit down, Donna,” Daddy said.

  His voice was even, steady, and his calm command scared me more than any drunken rant.

  I tried to compose myself by squinting my blurry eyes until I could make out the headlines on the front page of the Groverton Daily News—MCCARTHY CONTINUES ARMY SIGNAL CORPS INVESTIGATION—ALLEGES SPY RING LED BY JEWISH ENGINEERS—and below that, FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST PIE SALE SETS RECORD. But then Daddy lowered the newspaper to the table and looked at me.

  I didn’t expect to see that his eyes were red and puffy too. Another bender, I thought. But no. He’d been crying. For a selfish second, I thought, He’s crying because I’ve so shamed the family.

  His first words seemed to confirm it: “Word travels fast in this town.” But then he went on. “It’s not in the newspaper yet, but Frederick McDonnell was found dead last night.”

  It took a second for me to make the connection. Daddy meant Strange Freddie. It was the news of his death that had moved my father, at last, to tears.

  “Why—how—” I stuttered.

  Daddy shook his head. “No one will know for sure. He was found just outside of town, along the road. Looked like he’d been beaten. But who knows if it was a routine fight? Or because some union men got word of Freddie letting it slip to the boss’s son that Local Eighty-three was planning to expand and then join with the other locals to strike.”

  Of course, I thought. Daddy was management. He’d blame the union men. I had a different view of “management” since working for Grandma.

  Then he muttered angrily, “More likely, it’s old management tricks, bringing in thugs to scare people, send a warning, and things went too far.” He shook his head. “Things are about to get ugly in this town,” he said. “We’ll never know the exact circumstances of Mr. McDonnell’s death, but one thing is certain: It will frighten some, anger others, and I can’t see how a strike will be avoided.”

  My eyes pricked, hearing Daddy call Strange Freddie by his proper name just like Jimmy had. Daddy mistook my expression. “Ah, but you have troubles of your own, don’t you?”

  Daddy was right, I thought. Word traveled fast in Groverton.

  “Donna, baby girl, there is no man—or boy—worth your tears if he purposefully makes you cry.”

  I stared at my father, even more stunned than I’d been by his news about Mr. McDonnell. I looked for something, anything, I could say…but the gulf between us was just too great.

  “Your grandmother needs you back at the café,” he said in a tone that now offered no sympathy, no opening for discussion.

  He lifted the newspaper back up.

  That was my punishment, then. I was being sent back to work for Grandma, supposedly to help our household, but really so that she could torment me.

  I stood up, moved to the counter, and began fixing French toast for Will.

  Later that Saturday night, Grandma stopped me as I came out the swinging doors at Dot’s Corner Café, nearly knocking the blue plate specials—turkey hotshots, green beans, applesauce, roll and butter—from my hands.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped, her face a tight clot of tension.

  “Taking Mr. and Mrs. Leis their dinners,” I said. I’d arrived at work just ten minutes before, while Grandma was still in her tiny office in the back.

  I looked past Grandma to the dining room. Mr. Leis was again busy with the Dutch boy and girl salt and pepper shakers, while Mrs. Leis smiled and waved at me. She had been happy to see me, said she’d missed me.

  “I was reluctant to bring you back,” Grandma said, “but your father begged me to so I can keep an eye on you while the poor man works himself to an early grave for you and Will.”

  I wanted to interrupt and say, You mean while he goes to AA meetings with Miss Bettina so he won’t drink himself to an early grave. Even though Grandma knew that Ace Hardware closed promptly at six o’clock, she always referred to Daddy’s evening activities as “working.” She could no more admit that he was going to AA than she had admitted he was drinking before that.

  But of course I didn’t say any such thing. I said, “Ma’am, Mr. and Mrs. Leis’s dinners are going to get cold if I don’t take them—”

  Grandma snatched the plates from me. “I will take their dinners! Your scandalous behavior is not going to cost me business. Go back to the kitchen.”

  She put a big, fake smile on her face, turned, and headed to the Leises’ table.

 
I stood in the kitchen, trembling, annoyed because if I couldn’t wait on tables, I couldn’t hold back a little tip money. I was planning more than ever my escape from Groverton as soon as I graduated high school. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to wait that long. My long night of crying over Jimmy—and over Mr. Cahill—had also included bouts of anger, when I’d counted and recounted the money I’d saved, nearly seventy dollars. I figured if I could get to about two hundred by the end of my senior year, I’d have more than enough to buy a one-way Greyhound ticket to New York, find a boarding room, cover cheap sandwiches and bus fares while I went looking for seamstress work….

  I hadn’t seen Miss Bettina since the previous day’s drama. Maybe she would give me extra work if I wasn’t going to get tips at Grandma’s café. I had to believe some of Daddy’s new, softer attitude came from her.

  My eyes started to fill again, as I wondered how disappointed Miss Bettina might be in me. It didn’t matter that nothing had really happened between me and Mr. Cahill; by now, with Hank’s big mouth, the whole town thought it had.

  Grandma came back into the kitchen, the smile falling away from her face as soon as the doors closed behind her. She reached up and plucked the cap off my head. “Ralph, you can wear Donna’s hat.”

  She walked over to Ralph and held the cap out to him. He stared at her, gaping.

  “You’ve said for years you’d like to be a waiter. Well, here’s your chance. I’ll train you.”

  “But—the dishes—”

  “That’s Donna’s new job.”

  Ralph looked at me, pain in his eyes.

  I nodded. It’s OK.

  He said, “Well, just let me see if there are some dishwashing gloves for Donna—”

  “No need for that!” Grandma snapped. “You don’t use them.”

  “But, she’s a young girl, and the water is—”

  “Not hot enough!” Grandma turned the tap all the way over to hot. Ralph jerked his hands out.

  I went over to the sink. I nodded again at Ralph, who turned his eyes from me. For just a little while longer, I told myself, until I have the money to leave, keep the peace. I plunged my bare hands and arms into the sink, biting back the urge to cry out as the hot water scalded me for my sins.

  By the time Dot’s Corner Café finally closed that night, my hands and forearms burned with pain from the hot water. I yearned to get home, to carefully slather Jergens lotion over my red skin.

  But Grandma found me, grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my tender skin, and said, “I guess you won’t need to buy that homecoming dress now!”

  Of course. She wanted her twenty dollars back, now that I obviously wouldn’t be going to homecoming with Jimmy.

  My response was automatic: “I’ve already bought cloth and supplies to make the dress, and cut up the cloth. I can’t return it.” I smiled.

  My victory was short-lived.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll just let your father know that I need to hold your pay until you’ve earned the twenty dollars back.”

  It had finally turned cold, a swift rain pummeling me on my walk home. Inside our house, I shed my raincoat and hung it on the coat tree. I walked as quietly as I could up the stairs, longing for the warmth of my bed. Of course, the third step from the bottom creaked. Still, I tiptoed past Will’s room but stopped as I heard his voice call my name. I pressed my eyes shut and thought about going on past, but he called again.

  I went in. He sat cross-legged on his bed, fussing with something inside his Alaska diorama. He held it out to me. “Hey, Donna, guess what? I’ve added one of the Matchbox cars I got the other day for my birthday, and some people—that’s me, and you, and Jimmy—” He stopped, a look of worry coming over his freckled face. “What’s the matter? Did you have a crappy date with Jimmy?” Then he waggled his eyebrows and grinned, the boyish tease in him coming back. “Did he try to get to second base?”

  I grabbed the diorama from him, holding either end like I was holding an accordion. “No,” I said. “Jimmy and I broke up.” I sounded hateful, even to myself, but I went on. “I guess the news didn’t make it down to your little set of friends just yet.”

  Will looked hurt and confused. “You’re not going steady with Jimmy now? But—why?”

  And even in my little brother’s voice I heard—or thought I did—that he suspected the breakup must be my fault, that somehow I was to blame, and all the anger I’d pushed down came welling up in me, and my hateful voice went on: “Because, Will. Your big sister is a whore. That’s what everyone thinks, anyway. Including Jimmy. And guess what else, Will?” I was pressing too hard on either end of the shoe box, but I couldn’t get my hands to stop, couldn’t let go, couldn’t get myself to shut up, even though by then Will was staring at my hands and arms, fear on his face, saying, “Donna, stop, don’t say that; Donna, your arms, what happened to your arms and hands?” while I said at the same time, “Guess what, Will? You’re not going to Alaska. I’m not going. Trusty isn’t going. Dreams don’t come true for people like us, Will.”

  Suddenly, the shoe box diorama crumpled between my hands, just like an accordion, but of course it didn’t make a sound like a chord or like music, just made a crunching sound, like air whooshing out, at the same time that Will’s eyes widened and his mouth opened as if he wanted to scream. But like Trusty, he’d been struck mute.

  Chapter 18

  The following Friday night, October 9, while Daddy and Miss Bettina were at an AA meeting and Will was at Tony’s to watch the next episode of Sergeant Striker and the Alaskan Wild and then spend the night, I went down to the basement to finish my homecoming dress.

  Of course, I knew that I wasn’t going—not with Jimmy, not with anyone, not even in a group of friends or by myself.

  Earlier that week, the first day back at school after my breakup with Jimmy had been painful, although Jimmy was the only kind soul, saying hello to me, making it clear to everyone that I was not to be pestered. And other than judging looks, I wasn’t. I was left utterly alone. Even Babs avoided me and my teachers didn’t call on me as they normally would have.

  By art class, I wanted to break out of my own skin, run away from being Donna Lane, somehow ostracize myself from me. If I could have willed my chest to crack open and release my soul to fly away, I believe I would have.

  But Principal Stodgill waited for us in the classroom. He announced that Mr. Cahill had resigned and left town but had left behind a letter that he requested the principal read to his art class: “Dear students—as you may know, I have written several letters to the editor of the Groverton Daily News in which I expressed my concern about our current political climate, in which the persecution of those with different ideas—or even the hint of ideas contrary to what our fine government would have you believe is the norm—is deemed appropriate and patriotic. I have been told by your school board that I must refrain from expressing my views, either in the newspaper or in person, if I am to retain my position as your art teacher. I cannot continue to serve under these terms, and so have tendered my resignation. I am moving to New York, where I will pursue completing several projects for submission to an important art show. Should my work be accepted, this will be a dream come true. I hope that I have taught you enough about art and expressing yourself that you will all continue to think about your own dreams, and pursue them. Sincerely, Mr. Cahill.”

  At first, my classmates tittered with laughter. Such formal phrasing sounded funny delivered in Principal Stodgill’s dull, wispy voice. But then the class became quiet; those same words and phrases would have sounded so eloquent, so right, delivered in Mr. Cahill’s voice. But he wasn’t here. He was gone.

  Whatever his letter said, everyone, thanks to Hank, knew why.

  Everyone turned and looked at me, suddenly angry and sad. The most interesting teacher most of us had ever had was gone, and it was my fault.

  Principal Stodgill called out our seventh-period reassignments; I was relegated to home ec, where I’d have
to make fussy little tea towels. At least school was a little better than work at Miss Bettina’s Dress Shop, where women gave me disapproving stares, or at Dot’s Corner Café, where I kept dishwashing. At home, Will wouldn’t speak to me because of what I’d done to his diorama, but Monday afternoon, he came home from school with a black eye, explained when Mrs. Baker came to our house to complain that he had fought with her little Howard when Howard had called me a hussy. Daddy simply listened, nodded quietly, and shut the door (with Mrs. Baker still talking). I was so relieved that I nearly cried when Daddy didn’t whip Will but simply sent him to his room without supper. The next morning, when a box of Playtex rubber dishwashing gloves appeared at my place at the kitchen table—a gift from Daddy—I cried after all.

  And then attention turned away from me. On Wednesday, the locals of United Paperworkers International Union at Groverton Pulp & Paper joined together to strike for better safety measures.

  I found guilty relief in my sudden obscurity, even though I, too, was caught up in the tension the strike had suddenly spread over the town, as thick as the sulfur stink that spewed from the smokestacks. I’d never seen Groverton so divided, its social niceties cracked open, the underpinnings of fear and resentment laid bare.

  Still, my personal drama hadn’t ended. Where I had been annoyed that Will called me into his room night after night, I now missed that. I missed talking with him and fussing over him.

  I missed Jimmy. I missed talking and laughing with him. I missed his touch.

  And I missed Mr. Cahill. I missed art class and cleaning his messy kitchen and his lectures about my potential. I also yearned for what I knew I had missed out on, his guidance about my designing.

  On Thursday afternoon, Miss Bettina looked at me sadly as I was leaving to go to Grandma’s diner and said if I ever needed to talk, she’d be glad to listen.