by Rand, Naomi;
It was a useful skill, one she’d forced herself to learn early. The first time she and Muriel stayed at Grandmother Otis’ house on their own, the nightmares began. Amelia was six when the witch arrived. She’d trap Amelia in the hayloft, her grandmother’s bedroom, or that cave where she and Muriel went spelunking. Grabbing Amelia by her hair, she’d emit a cackle as she dragged her off to shove her into an oven. Smoke filled her lungs. Gasping and screaming, Amelia woke and discovered she’d woken the entire household. Muriel was at her side, hugging her tight. Grandmother Otis had run to see who was screaming bloody murder. Even Grandfather was there, stroking his moustache. It was so humiliating.
And went on for a full week.
Finally, Amelia decided she’d had enough. She told herself that as soon as the witch appeared, she would force herself awake. That night, the hideous creature showed up on schedule. She looked even worse than usual, with a horrid snaggletooth and breath that reeked of onions. Amelia pinched her arm until it felt sore. Even though she was dreaming, it turned out she’d done it. Waking, she saw the outline of the witch fade away on the bedroom wall. Relief buoyed her. She’d made good her own escape! Her victory was a turning point. After that, she tested the limits. She let the witch touch her before waking. Then let her stuff Amelia into a dungeon. Once she felt confident of her power, she even let the creature wrap her stringy hands around Amelia’s neck. “You’re not real, now go away.” The witch was amused, but Amelia knew better. “Shoo.” She made a triangle with her fingers and flicked her away like a mosquito. On cue, the witch dissolved.
Amelia blinked. She was here. Here in Muriel’s house. And positive she could leave whenever she wished. Where was the harm in staying put?
The bookshelves had evidence of pivotal family events. Her niece and nephew grew older, wearing caps and gowns, claiming trophies, marrying, holding children of their own. So the soldier in the uniform was her nephew. Look at Muriel and Albert dressed to the nines! Muriel wore red satin, Albert sported a tux, his gut swathed in a cummerbund. Muriel’s hair was white. That was a shock. And Albert was going bald.
Amelia struck a habitual pose. Her hands slid effortlessly into her trouser pockets. She felt the lighter and next to it, what felt like a pack of cigarettes. Luckies! Amelia lit one and inhaled, greedily.
There was a horrid squealing noise like old pipes releasing dead air. Curious, Amelia traced the source. Down the hall in the kitchen, a woman was heating a kettle. Her white hair was pinned atop her head. As the burner lit, flame coursed out. She turned round and Amelia saw it was Muriel writ old. This dream was Dickensian. Was it meant as a vision of things to come? Muriel opened the icebox and retrieved two large, perfectly formed white eggs. She cracked them into a bowl, mixed them to froth, then poured the liquid into a frying pan. After unwrapping a rectangular package of Wonder Bread, Muriel selected a slice. There had never seemed to be anything remarkable about the bread, but then again, there had never been much truth in advertising. Muriel dropped it into a sleek, silver toaster. Amelia’s stomach rumbled. In her present, near starvation condition, it was torture watching the preparation of this modest meal.
Amelia had smoked her cigarette down to the nub. She dropped it on the floor, meaning to stamp it out. As the butt hit the black-and-white tile, it fizzed and vanished with a pop. Now that was different. Come to think of it, so was the kitchen. The avocado icebox she’d sent as a surprise Christmas present was white. The cast iron stove was gone, replaced by a smaller, four burner model. The color scheme was now off-white.
Muriel scrambled the eggs. As the scent coiled out, Amelia’s knees wobbled. Dizzy from hunger, she leaned against the icebox for support. The metal gave underneath her, and she plummeted. Suddenly, she was admiring a chicken carcass and browning salad in a Mason jar. If she kept going, there was no telling where she’d stop.
That scared Amelia. She managed to right herself. On her way out, she spotted a lonely twig of wilted celery.
Muriel sat down at the breakfast table. In front of her, the window framed a busy birdfeeder. A blue jay perched, shoving sparrows and chickadees aside.
“Pest!” Muriel tapped the glass. The bird gave her a hostile look. She banged again and it finally took wing. Satisfied, she turned the dial on a rectangular metal box. Music poured out. It was Brahms piano concerto number two. So this was a radio. Muriel adjusted a long telescoping metal rod and the fuzzy reception improved. That had to be an antenna. Muriel was admiring her garden. And what a garden it was, chock-full of dahlias, asters, red, pink, and yellow roses. Pidge had always had a green thumb, but she’d outdone herself with this stellar display. The hardy oak was gone, in its place a cast iron table with matching chairs.
Muriel ate her breakfast and then set the dirty plate in the sink. She refilled her teacup and headed down the hall to the spare bedroom. Like everything else in this topsy-turvy world, it wasn’t a bedroom. It was an office, complete with desk, bookcases, and an oak filing cabinet. Muriel sat, opened the top drawer, and withdrew a piece of parchment paper. She reached for a fountain pen. After uncapping it, she held it aloft like Damocles sword. Time ticked on.
Amelia surveyed the room and found her image everywhere; a framed advertisement for that ill-conceived clothing line she had started, the Steichen portrait of her from Vanity Fair, a corkboard layered with fading snapshots, the photo Pidge had taken of her at the wheel of her old car the “Yellow Peril.” She stood next to Neta Snook, her first flight instructor. She was in rolled-up shirtsleeves, poring over maps at her house in Toluca Lake. Framed front pages proclaimed her newsworthy achievements: First Woman Flies Atlantic; Sails Blindly Through Fog Blanket to Coast of Wales, Ireland Greets Earhart After Solo Hop Across Sea from Harbor Grace, Amelia Makes Oakland Ending Hop From Hawaii. There was even a wall dedicated to amateur renderings of her likeness. Some were in pen and ink; others, pencil. One had the title “Saint Amelia.” Hardly a saint, she thought wryly. Funny that she would dub herself one in her own dream. Well, not funny as much as egotistical. What was more unlikely, that she was a saint, or that Muriel was the keeper of the flame? Both were a wry bit of wish fulfillment. She turned to the far wall and read the boldface headlines. Amelia’s Sister Not Worrying, She Says. Amelia Earhart’s 7-Year-Old Nephew Worries in Medford at Letter’s Fate. Planes Poised for Hunt. Last Gift From Amelia Arrives. Navy Gives Up Its Hunt For Amelia, Lost Pair Declared Officially Dead by Authorities.
“Oh!” Shock gutted her. Here was the trick ending. Time to return to reality. Better to be alive, stranded on that beach. Better a chance at rescue than this. In this dream, she was gone.
Amelia pinched her right arm.
The pain was real, but nothing changed. She was still here, standing behind Muriel who had finally decided to set pen to paper. The nib made a scratching sound. Amelia tried pressing down hard on the tender spot where her hand met her wrist. That always worked.
Not this time. What to do? She slapped herself. Her cheek stung, her eyes watered. Yet she stayed put, planted firmly on the hardwood floor.
“Done!” Muriel announced. She set her writing utensil aside and read aloud to her captive audience. “Dear Professor Price, It was a great pleasure to speak with you. I look forward to visiting New York and trust that my talk will not disappoint. I am positive my sister would have been honored to have this scholarship given in her name. She looked back at her time spent attending Columbia with great fondness.”
Muriel signed with a flourish, folded the notepaper into thirds, and then tucked it into an envelope. She affixed a stamp. Gripping her now empty teacup, she rose and spun to face Amelia. Only scant inches separated them. Muriel had shrunk. They’d been exactly the same height. They used to, literally, see eye to eye. Now her younger sibling’s nose pressed against Amelia’s clavicle. Amelia dodged and feinted but Muriel walked right through her, bisecting her body. Amelia shut her eyes, bracing for the pain.
And felt nothing.
She spun round to
catch Muriel slip out the door. She was humming a song Amelia knew. It was from Freddie Astaire’s movie. Why, she’d been at the premiere and shared a booth with him at the after-party. “I love the way you dance, it looks so effortless,” she’d told him.
“I love the way you fly a plane,” he retorted.
A joke. But he understood. Years of planning and practice went into making something look this easy. He clicked his heels in midair. She soared off toward the horizon.
That night she’d written a letter to Muriel, telling her about the premiere, about Astaire and their tête à tête. Reading it over, she’d decided not to send it. She’d torn it up. Amelia thought Muriel would see it as a boast, that the confidence would encourage jealousy. Why stir that pot? And to think, they’d once shared everything.
Muriel was singing that same song. And here was Amelia; trapped in this “Mudford” prison, trapped in the town she’d fled from a lifetime ago. The words taunted her.
Nothing’s impossible I have found, for when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again.
5
Sam
September 1980
“LOOK WHAT CAME for me today,” Lucy said. She took a baggie stuffed to the brim with marijuana buds from a cardboard box, gaily decorated with postage stamps.
“You had that sent to you at the dorm? We’ll get busted. That’s crazy.”
“Don’t be so paranoid.”
Lucy’s confidence was incredible. Sam was positive it had to do with her looks. Sam assumed that when you were as attractive as Lucy was, you believed the world was your oyster. Sam was good looking enough. She got her fair share of male attention. But she didn’t consider herself a great beauty. And she certainly saw the world in a wholly practical light. For one thing, she knew that drug-sniffing dogs were immune to beauty, and that when it came to striking a deal, it would be too late for Lucy’s looks to work their undeniable charm. She also knew better than Lucy what could happen if you were caught and ended up on the wrong side of the Rockefeller drug laws. Win was an excellent teacher. He had friends who were doing hard time, so he took every precaution, renting three different post office boxes under assumed names and wearing a different elaborate disguise using a wig and moustache as well as a hat when he picked up his mail. The drugs he received were packed inside teddy bears lined with impermeable plastic. They’d been made specially so even bloodhounds couldn’t sniff through. The floor of his closet had a secret hatch for his metal lined stash box. Win sold the best cocaine, pot, and hash that money could buy. The drugs were the reason for his ongoing popularity with the sons and daughters of New York’s Upper East Side upper crust.
Lucy constructed the perfect joint, dropping the crumbled remains of the bud onto EZ rolling paper. She made a straight line with the debris, then rolled, licked, and lit it. After drawing in, she handed it over.
“This is strong,” Sam said, her throat already burning.
“Hawaiian,” Lucy noted. “We were posted there for a while.”
“You’ve lived everywhere. I’m so jealous.”
“Don’t be. Naval bases are full of pre-fab housing and military brats. My dad would throw a fit if we went off the base. We had to sneak around or toe the line.”
“And you toed the line? Come on.”
“I was the youngest,” Lucy said. “I didn’t have a lot of choice.”
Lucy squatted cross-legged on her own pink bed. Sam leaned against it, her legs making a v on the floor. They shared the joint in companionable silence. The crack underneath the door was stuffed with a towel, just in case someone in authority wandered by. There. They were done. Lucy swallowed the roach. The evidence was carefully tucked away.
Lucy thumbed through the milk crate that held her records. She selected one and set it on Sam’s KLH turntable. A woman’s voice emerged, her quaver ripe with longing. Before meeting Lucy, Sam had had contempt for country music. Then Lucy played Patsy Cline for her. Sam was now officially addicted. In return, she had introduced Lucy to Elvis Costello and his angelic red shoes. Share and share alike was their motto. It was grand bunking together in this room that was fast becoming Sam’s sanctuary.
Classes officially began today. Being pre-med meant Sam took two lab science classes, trigonometry, an English seminar, and advanced French. Sam’s Bio professor had wasted no time. Their first lab was due in two weeks. They’d been given cages and fruit flies and were supposed to prove or disprove Mendel’s laws of inheritance. Everyone knew what the results should be, but that didn’t matter. You still had to test it out. Superior genes trumped inferior. It felt morally reprehensible to be proving this when Sam considered the bastardization of genetics and how a simple biological law had been used to justify the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, and various other non-Aryan members of German society. Sam and Lucy got thick milk shakes and French fries at a place everyone called the “survivor’s coffee shop.” The owners’ tattoos were souvenirs of their other life. The wife had bleached blond hair and she joked with everyone. Her husband was quiet and dour. There were questions everyone who saw those tattoos wanted to ask, yet who could bear to hear the answers?
Grim.
Patsy was wooing Sam, singing about her sweetest dreams. Moral issues were important, but they would keep for another day. Sam sank down onto the floor. From there she admired the infinite variety of patterns made by the cracks in the ceiling. She was so incredibly high. That had to be why she was certain her fortune was up there waiting to be read.
Sam spent Monday and Friday afternoons perched at a desk in the windowless alcove outside of Professor Price’s office. She filed papers, typed up his research, and answered the phone. Some would call it her work-study job, but Sam knew it was destiny that she’d been given this post. Literally her first day there, she’d typed up the announcement inviting applications for the Amelia Earhart Scholarship. Sam mentioned to Professor Price that Earhart’s younger sister, Muriel, was still alive and well and living in Medford, Massachusetts. He lit up. Did she think that Miss Earhart’s sister would come and speak at the ceremony? Sam said, “Why not write her? I’ve got her address.”
Generally Sam believed that luck meant you ran down the steps to get the IRT into Manhattan, and the doors were just opening as you hurtled through the turnstiles. There. You would be on time after all. The idea that she had written an entire paper on Amelia Earhart for her Feminism class last year, that Muriel Earhart Morrissey had actually read it, then sent back her comments, and that now Sam was instrumental in getting Muriel invited down to Columbia to speak was a lot closer to destiny. Or so the pot said.
Of course, Sam was applying for the scholarship. That was a no-brainer. Or rather, she was hoping someone would nominate her. Muriel had been nice enough to critique her paper. Now Muriel had agreed to come speak. It had to be significant.
Winning the scholarship would be incredible. It would spare her ever having to hear another conversation like the one she’d listened in on when Sam received the acceptance letter to Barnard. Brooke starting off proud as punch. But, within minutes she was reduced to begging. Pleading. “Mother, don’t you think she deserves a chance at a great education? No, I don’t think going to City College should be enough. It wasn’t for you or me, was it? Look, father always told me he would help out. Yes, I know I’ve been a disappointment to you. I’m not expecting it. I don’t live my life hoping for charity from you. Sam is your granddaughter. What do you need all that money for anyhow? You have everything anyone could ever want. Yes, I understand it’s your money, not mine. Yes, I certainly understand why I am not worthy. But Sam isn’t me. God, why do you have to be such a cunt?”
With that, Brooke slammed down the phone. Sam could have told her it would end this way. Brooke knew it too, but she kept going back to the dried out teat. Sam hated her grandmother in principle, but principles were hard to hold onto when you actually had to interact with the person. Katherine was vain and cruel, but s
he had also made it clear that Sam was her favorite. She would take Sam aside and tell her how special she was and gift her to prove it. Sam owned a pair of ruby earrings, a Navajo necklace, and an antique sculpture of an ancient Chinese warrior astride an ivory horse. All were tucked away in Sam’s safest place. The last thing she needed was for Win or Brooke to know that she’d been given special treatment. If Brooke had let Sam ask Katherine, things might have turned out differently, but instead it was Brooke on the phone demanding her due. Then the two of them went spinning off until it ended in the usual, painful free fall.
Sam was already busy ingratiating herself with the Professor. It couldn’t hurt. After all, he was in charge of organizing the scholarship committee. Was it wrong to do it? Yes, and no. Sam wasn’t naïve enough to believe that you got anywhere on talent alone. You also had to have luck. And know the right people. Amelia Earhart’s career was a lesson in all of that. Professor Price’s wardrobe gave him a slightly homeless air. Shirts were stained. Jackets missed buttons. While he worked, she cleaned the stains off his jacket. She found his lost pens. She kept faithful records of all his calls. He’d already told her she would have to do research. She said she looked forward to it. He was a dear sort of man and on Friday she’d had a horrible urge to clip the stray tendrils of white hair growing from the edges of his earlobes.
This pot was way too strong. There was a prickling in the back of her neck. It felt as if an alien were taking her over. “Did you ever see Invaders from Mars?” Sam asked Lucy.
