“I’ve just got one dollar.”
“Gee, that’s too bad,” he said, lifting his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness and innocence.
“That’s okay, Mr. Nelson. I’ll go get the money from Mrs. Nelson.”
All the men laughed. “Give the kid the money, Axel,” Mr. Navarin said, and Mr. Nelson pulled two one-dollar bills from the wallet. He held them close and made me reach for them. Under the grin and the teasing, there was something unpleasant between me and Mr. Nelson. I was relieved when the two dollars were in the envelope. I didn’t like the feel of them.
Barney Finney had a half dollar out. “I’ll take a couple,” he said, “and that good-looker under the Studebaker’ll have a couple.” Sonny put down the wrench, wiped his hands on a rag, and pulled two quarters out of his trousers pocket.
I thanked everyone and smiled at everyone and drank deeply of the rich, dark primeval smell of the place. Feeling that I had not quite given them all they deserved, I assured them, “There’ll be food and games and prizes and everyone will be there.” Waving good-bye, I saw myself out, skipping to the corner and across the street. Sixteen tickets. I had sold sixteen tickets. I felt as though I could fly, or at least jump very high.
Where next? Mr. and Mrs. Grubb lived at the end of this block. I’d try Mrs. Grubb. She was young and pretty, and had a Pekingese named Baby. Mama called it a “yappy little devil,” but I thought it looked like a crabby little old man.
Baby danced around Sheila Grubb’s ankles, complaining and offering advice, as Mrs. Grubb opened the door to me. “Baby won’t bite,” Mrs. Grubb assured me, stooping to pick the dog up in her arms.
If I could look like anybody when I grew up, I might have chosen Sheila Grubb. She had short, blond hair that fell in a disarray of curls, wide-set gray eyes, and a mouth like a child’s: trustful and vulnerable. She always wore pink rouge and deep pink lipstick to set off her natural coloring, although Bessie Anderson in Mama’s bridge club insisted that Mrs. Grubb’s hair color wasn’t actually natural. Very few women in Harvester colored their hair. It was thought to be fast. But Mama said someday when she was feeling reckless, she was going to have her hair hennaed. Bessie Anderson had laughed at that as though it were the funniest and least likely thing she could imagine.
Baby alternated between licking Sheila Grubb’s chin and scowling at me. When I put a hand out to pet him, he yapped and nipped the air.
“He wouldn’t really bite,” Mrs. Grubb told me. “Would you like to come in?”
I followed her into the living room. “I’m selling tickets to the Knights of Columbus Memorial Day Picnic,” I said, and went through my entire speech.
“Twenty-five cents? I’ll get my purse.”
She put Baby down and left the room, and the minute Mrs. Grubb was out of sight, Baby was after my shoes, gnawing viciously on the toes. With his little mouth, it would have been tricky for him to get a good hold, but the tops of the shoes were decorated with tiny air holes in the shape of a bow, and Baby’s teeth punched down through these and into my feet. I didn’t just stand there and let him ruin my shoes without a struggle. I was doing a regular tap dance, trying to stay out of his jaws, but when I moved, he nipped my ankles. I didn’t dare kick him. It went against my upbringing and, besides, if Mrs. Grubb came back and saw me giving him a boot, she would not buy tickets from me.
The minute Baby heard her mistress’s footsteps, she dashed to the davenport, jumped up on it, cocked her head, and proceeded to go through her tail-wagging, innocent dog routine. I had known children who did the very same thing.
“Naughty Baby,” Mrs. Grubb admonished sweetly. “Get down off Mama’s brand new living room suite.” She had opened her purse and was sorting through it. Of me she asked, “Do you like my new living room suite? Isn’t it pretty?” She pronounced it “living room suit.”
“Yes, very.” The blue was too bright, and against the yellow walls, it turned the room green.
“I just got it Saturday over at Knoppler’s in St. Bridget.” She sat down on the over-stuffed blue chair and began emptying the contents of the purse onto her lap. “My coin purse is here somewhere. I had it this morning at Eggers’s.” She went on, “Mr. Grubb won a whole lot of money at poker Friday night, and I told him, ‘That’s like found money, and we’re going to go out and splurge.’ So we drove over to St. Bridget with the truck and threw our money away on this. But it is pretty, I think.” She was turning her purse upside down and shaking it. “I’ll bet I left my coin purse at Eggers’s. I’m real sorry.” Her child’s mouth was pouting. “I’d’ve been happy to buy a ticket from you, honey.” With her lap full of pocket-book trash, she couldn’t get up. “Can you open the door? Don’t let Baby out.”
As if on cue, Baby hopped down from the davenport and headed for my heels, leaping against my calves, scratching them with his sharp little claws, nipping at my ankles and shoes. I opened the screen door a crack and squeezed out. Baby still had hold of one of my shoes, and I had to jerk my foot out of his mouth.
“Oh, be careful,” Sheila Grubb called to me, “you might pull his little teeth out.”
Outside, I sat on the curb and examined my shoes. They were covered with scars now and torn in a couple of places where Baby had gotten his teeth into the holes. I’d had these shoes a month or so, and they were supposed to last through the summer until I got my new school shoes.
I started to cry. That blue living room suite of Mrs. Grubb’s was the ugliest living room suite I’d ever seen, and I hoped I never had to look at it again.
“What’s wrong?” Mama asked when I got home. “You’ve been crying.”
“Nothing. I slammed my finger in Mrs. Grubb’s screen door.”
As Mama cleared the supper dishes, Papa took my hands and laid them, palms down, on the kitchen table. “These nails are freshly chewed,” he said.
“But, Papa—”
“No ‘but Papas.’ You don’t seem to understand that when you promise not to do something, and then you do it anyway, it’s a sin. Biting your nails is a sin.”
“But, Papa …”
“Get the brush,” he told me.
“Please, Papa.”
“Get the brush.” His face was starting to flush. “How can you go to confession next year?” Papa asked, leaning close.
“What?”
“Doesn’t it bother you, having so many sins? What is Father Delias going to think of me when he hears your confession?”
I was trying not to cry. “Father Delias won’t know it’s me, Papa. There’s a little screen between us. He won’t know it’s me!”
“Are you stupid? He’s known you all your life, and he won’t know your voice?” he asked scornfully.
“No!” I screamed. That was my worst fear—that Father Delias would know it was me, would know that all those sins on the tablet were mine. I loved Father Delias, but how could he love me after he knew?
“Don’t scream at me, young lady,” Papa warned, rising and heading purposefully into the bedroom.
“Willie,” Mama said, “that’s enough.”
“You stay out of this. This kid is going to hell from being spoiled,” he shouted at her, accusing her of ruining me.
“Willie, she only bit her nails!”
But Papa was resolved. I ran into the living room and wedged myself into the corner of the davenport. A moment later he stood in the doorway, the brush with the wide, flat wooden back in his hand.
As he crossed the room and grabbed my arm, I screamed, “No! No! No!”
“For God’s sake, Willie,” Mama yelled, “everyone will think she’s being murdered. Stop it!”
“They will, will they?” he grunted, trying to hold me. I was kicking and thrashing and screaming. It was as though another child fought while I watched, unable to quiet her.
Shouting over my screams, Papa said, “If she thinks I’ll stop because someone’s going to hear, she’s wrong.” He shoved the brush at Mama, snatched me up with both ha
nds, and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Off he marched, through the kitchen, out the screen door, and around to the parking lot. “Open the back door,” he told Mama when we reached the Oldsmobile.
Into the backseat he tossed me, still screaming, unable to stop. “If she wants to scream,” he said to Mama as he climbed into the driver’s seat, “we’ll take her someplace where she can scream and no one can hear. Get in.” Mama got into the front seat.
Papa drove out of town with the windows rolled up. He didn’t drive far into the country, only to the gates of the Catholic cemetery. He pulled the car up to the gates, cut the engine, grabbed the brush from Mama, and got out. Opening the door, he pulled me from the backseat and began to spank me with the brush across my bottom and the backs of my thighs.
My screams continued, though they had nothing to do with the spanking. By now I felt nothing.
Papa paused, breathing hard, and asked, “Have you had enough?” I couldn’t stop, so he began again.
Again he halted. “You like it out here? Maybe you’d like to stay.” The only response was screams, and he took up his duty again.
The third time he held off, Mama shrieked, “That’s enough! She’s never going to stop. You’ll make her sick.”
“I can stay all night,” he panted. “She might change her mind when it gets dark. A night out here might do her some good.”
Mama slid into the driver’s seat, rolled down the window, and started the engine. “I’m leaving, Willie. You can walk back if you don’t get in now.” Papa stood very still for a long time. My screams had subsided. His grip on my arm tightened. The engine hummed, and mourning doves cooed in their nests along the cemetery fence. He released me and tramped away to the car, opening the door on the passenger side and dropping angrily into the seat.
“How will she ever respect me if you do this?” he hissed.
Mama reached back and opened the door for me. I climbed in and pulled the door closed as she put the car in reverse and backed onto the main road. At home, Papa left to prepare for the early freight. Mama helped me out of my dress and washed my face a little. She lowered my nightie down over my head and went to find an aspirin. I felt cold, except for my bottom, and I shivered a little. When I had taken the aspirin, she boosted me into the crib.
“Lie on your stomach,” she told me. Then I heard her in the kitchen, emptying ice cubes from a tray, dumping them into a basin. She ran water into the basin and carried it into the bedroom, setting it on the table beside the big bed. Dipping a washcloth into the basin and wringing it out, she laid it on my bottom for a few minutes, drawing the heat from my skin. She dipped the cloth again and again, laying it on my throbbing back. At length she sprinkled fragrant talcum on me, pulled my nightie down, and covered me lightly with the quilt.
“Try to sleep.” Skinning off her own clothes, she got into a nightgown and slipped into the other bed. In a minute she was up again, turning off all the lights in the house. It was still twilight outside, and pale light crept in around the venetian blinds. Mama settled back into bed for the night and, although she said nothing more, she did not fall asleep immediately. I could tell from her breathing that she was lying awake thinking. It seemed that if I held my breath and strained to listen, I would overhear her thoughts.
But I had thoughts of my own: sad, not wholly formed thoughts about fairness and justice and punishment. I dreamed of running away and knew I never would.
In the dark, I couldn’t see the banjo clock, but I knew its picture by heart, every flower and shadow. In that place, sunbeams danced on the kitchen floor as I sat sipping tea and milk.
Later I woke as Papa came home, put on his pajamas in the dark, and stood beside the crib. I pretended to be asleep.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Lark,” he said, giving me a little shake, “I’m sorry. We’ll go fishing next weekend, just you and me. Would you like that? Do you forgive me?”
But I kept on pretending to be asleep.
9
THE FOLLOWING NIGHT AT supper, Papa warned me, “Those nails had better look prettier next Monday, or it’ll be the brush again. And the cemetery.” To Mama he said, “I don’t know why I never thought of the cemetery before. It gives Lark a real good chance to exercise her lungs without an audience, at least not an audience that’ll complain about the noise.” He smiled at his little joke, and at me, in a genuinely jolly way, as if to share the humor with me.
I didn’t want to cry in front of Papa. Slipping from my chair, I ran into the bedroom and climbed into the crib. I covered my head with the quilt to keep Papa from hearing me.
“You get yourself right back to this table,” he called to me, “and finish your supper.”
“Let her go, Willie,” Mama told him, speaking in a low, distinct voice that meant business.
With the memory fresh in his mind of Mama with a ketchup bottle in her hand, maybe Papa didn’t want to cross her again so soon. In any case, he let her change the subject.
“I had a letter from Betty today,” she told him. “She’s sick most of the time, she says. The doctor wants her to stay in bed until after the baby comes.”
“When’s that?”
“Around the first of July. I worry about her in that little burg, with the doctor twenty miles away. She’s not a kid.”
Aunt Betty was Mama’s older sister. She lived a hundred miles away in Morgan Lake with her husband, Stan Weller, who traveled for a farm implement company. Last Christmas at Grandma Browning’s in Blue Lake, Aunt Betty and Uncle Stan had told everybody that they were expecting a baby.
“It’s about time,” Grandma Browning had declared happily. Aunt Betty and Uncle Stan had been married eight years, and Grandma thought they should have had a baby by now.
“It isn’t as if we haven’t tried,” Aunt Betty had told Grandma, smiling and acting embarrassed. Everyone laughed. I laughed, too, but I didn’t know why.
There was a lot about having babies that I didn’t know. For instance, if the stork brought the baby from heaven, why did the woman get fat and sick? Cynthia Eggers in Mama’s bridge club had had a baby a couple of years ago. Although I’d only been four, I remembered it very well because it left so many questions unanswered, questions I pondered again and again at nap time, lying in the crib listening to the sparrows in the parking lot, or at bedtime after my prayers.
I had asked Mama questions at the time, but the answers led me into wider circles of mystification. “How come Mrs. Eggers is fat?” She’s going to have a baby. “Where does the baby come from?” God. “But how does God get the baby to Mrs. Eggers?” The stork flies down from heaven with the baby. “What’s a stork?” A big bird. “How does he carry the baby?” The baby is wrapped in a blanket, and the stork holds the blanket in his bill. “Don’t a lot of babies fall and get killed?” No, I never heard of one falling. “How come you have to go to the hospital to get the baby?” Because the baby is tiny and helpless, and the hospital is a safe place to keep it for a few days until it’s stronger and used to being on Earth. “Why doesn’t God keep the baby in heaven until it’s stronger?” I don’t know.
I thought that God didn’t always use good judgment in the way He ran things. If Mama or Grandma Browning or Grandma Erhardt were running the world, they would never entrust a baby to a big bird.
“After school is out, I think I’ll take Lark and go stay with Betty until the baby comes,” Mama said.
“Can’t your mother go?” Papa wanted to know.
“With her broken ankle?”
“I forgot.”
I was excited at the prospect of going with Mama to Aunt Betty’s. For one thing, I would not have to worry about my fingernails and the cemetery while I was away. How many Mondays would we be gone? I wondered. Already I feared next Monday. I had been sore on my bottom all day at school. At recess I stayed away from the slide and even the swings.
Biting my nails was “a nasty, unattractive habit.” I was willing to admit that. And it r
uined the appearance of my hands. I could see that that was true. I yearned for long, shapely nails like the ladies in magazines had. Mama had said she would paint them with pale pink polish if I let them grow. I dreamed of resting my chin on the palm of a hand with long pink nails and having strangers remark to Mama, “Your little girl has beautiful hands, such long nails. She should be in a magazine.”
I couldn’t figure out why I bit my nails. I did it without thinking. Suddenly I would find my fingers in my mouth and not know how they came to be there. Papa found this hard to believe.
Papa wanted girls and ladies to be pretty and obedient and holy. That didn’t sound unreasonable, even if it was impossible. I got down from the crib and tiptoed to Mama’s bureau for a handkerchief. In the mirror I caught sight of my face, puffy and red from crying. My mousy hair hung in defeated remnants of what had early in the day been curls. I looked like one of Cinderella’s stepsisters.
But I was going to Aunt Betty’s, and while I was there, I might turn pretty. I ardently believed in such miracles. One time I asked Mama if she believed in miracles, and she said, “Oh, yes. That’s how God holds our attention.” Then she’d added, “It’s just the kind of cheap trick I’d pull if I were God.”
“What does that mean?” I’d asked.
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Forget I said that.”
But I didn’t forget. I memorized her words. When someone said something that I didn’t understand, something that I wanted to remember until I was old enough to understand, I memorized the words or I used to memorize the words. Now I printed them in the back of my first confession notebook. Once in a while I read them, just to see if I understood yet.
When she had washed the supper dishes and emptied the slop pails, Mama took me to the toilet before getting me ready for bed. Crossing the waiting room, I kept my eyes on the floor. I didn’t want to look at Papa or have him look at me.
“How long before we go to Aunt Betty’s?” I asked as Mama helped me into my nightie.
The Cape Ann Page 8
