Jeb held his head in his hands and moaned. Mrs. Vigfusson ran back into the house, hissing all the way. Pugh dashed out of the house, the opposite direction, and passed her on the way.
“Ok, ok,” said Pugh with a red, wet face. “It’s my fault. My fault completely. I misunderstood Her Grace’s instructions. But it’s all fixed now. Mrs. Railer, the duchess of Sarlione wishes to extend to you her most cordial invitation to a tea party.”
Ermel watched him strain to make his solemn jowls look jovial.
“It’s all prepared, as we speak, in honor of you, Mrs. Ermel Sue Railer. Just like you wanted.”
“We’re leaving now, Mr. Pugh. I’m not interested in that woman’s tea party, and you can tell her so. Driver, take us home.”
“No! Driver! Stay where you are! You’re not going anywhere Mrs. Railer until you hand over that baby!”
“Sheriff, will you be so kind as to inform Mr. Pugh that he can’t have my baby and he can’t make us stay here neither.”
Pugh looked at the sheriff with pleading eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Pugh. The court order says you need a proper agreement. You saw it yourself. That ain’t proper. As it stands today, I can’t make her give up the baby. You work things out in court, and I’ll take care of it, but not the way things stand today. Driver, take these people home.”
“I’m warning you,” said Pugh, “if you leave without handing over that baby, I’ll take everything from you! I’ll take everything!”
Ermel smiled, looked him in the eye, and said, “But you won’t get the thing you want most, now will you? Dorthea belongs to me.” Then she closed her door and told Jeb to close his. As the motorcar rolled down the hill, she lowered her window and said, “Remember, Mr. Pugh, nobody shows up Ermel Railer. Not a two-bit lawyer and not even a duchess.”
Chapter 2
Within days of the baby exchange, every adult in town, up the hill and down, had heard the story. It made its way around the grapevine a few times before coalescing into a tale about the ignorant white trash wife of Jeb Railer who’d insulted a duchess and selfishly condemned her own child to a lifetime of misery. Babies Judith and Abigail had been spared; good fortune had prevailed, and they’d won a reprieve. Dorthea, on the other hand, had won the Railer surname and all the shame that came with it.
It didn’t end with that, though, because in that one day, without a word or an action of her own, Dorthea not only became a Railer irrevocably, but became the most pathetic and pitiable Railer of them all. She had literally made it to the threshold of a miraculous redemption only to have it snatched away at the last second in a freakish turn of events. For the rest of her life she’d lug not only a sorry name, but a pathetic story as well. That story would make her known to most everyone in Prospect Park: “There goes the rejected triplet. It hurts to even look at her”; “That’s her! I can tell by the eyes. And to think, she could’ve had everything”; “My goodness! The spitting image of her sisters, except, of course, they don’t live like animals.”
There is no denying that babies are born into bad circumstances every day of the year, but, seeing Dorthea’s life from beginning to end, a person still has to wonder how these things worked. How come one daughter of a mean alcoholic grows up to be temperate and well-adjusted while another turns out dissipated and troubled? Why does one grown son of a prostitute feed the poor and help the needy while his brother stalks the shadows, indulging dark impulses? Dorthea could’ve played a part in one of these enigmas had she turned out differently. She could’ve been good water from a bad well and left everyone scratching their heads. It could’ve happened, but nobody expected it. They expected Dorthea to turn out like all the others in her family. But what about a third possibility? What about the possibility that she’d turn out much worse?
Better or worse didn’t matter in the early years, though. If anyone had cared to look, they would’ve seen just another Railer child being trained up to be another good-for-nothing Railer adult.
~~~
Nobody had told Dorthea that she needed shoes to go to school. It they had, she would’ve found some. She’d found an old tobacco tin to use to carry her lunch and could’ve found shoes too. She knew how to find things. She also knew how to steal.
Dorthea had been looking forward to this day. The year before, Ermel had made her stay home to take care of the babies. She’d said the same thing this year but then a man knocked on the door and told her that kids have to go to school. So Dorthea washed her dress and stuck a sticky piece of tar paper inside the torn sleeve to hold it together. She scrubbed her elbows and behind her ears, grabbed her tobacco tin lunch box, and joined the other kids from Yucky D as they walked the two blocks down Pine Street to the little two room school house. When she got there, though, the lower grade teacher, Miss Parker, looked at her bare feet and told her she had to wait on the bench in the coat room. The kids laughed and whispered. At lunch time Miss Parker walked her back to Yucky D, where she waited by Dorthea’s front door and covered her nose with a hanky on account of the outhouses. Dorthea fetched Ermel, and when she came to the door, dressed in a dirty bathrobe and messy hair, she looked the teacher up and down and said, “Did she get in trouble already?”
“No, Dorthea’s not in trouble,” said the teacher, “but she didn’t wear shoes to school, Mrs. Railer. I know it’s hard to keep children in shoes…and if she doesn’t have any—”
“She’s got shoes,” said Ermel.
“I do?” asked Dorthea.
“Shut up, Dorthea,” said Ermel. “All my kids got shoes. Even the one that don’t walk.”
Ermel lied sometimes.
“Alright then, Mrs. Railer, if Dorthea puts on her shoes, I’ll walk her back to school.”
“That’s very neighborly of you, Miss, but since the day is mostly over, she can stay here with me.”
“Mrs. Railer…the Presbyterian Church up on Barton Road gives shoes to children.”
“I said she’s got shoes.”
“Alright then. I’m only trying to be helpful. I’ll see you tomorrow, Dorthea. Goodbye Mrs. Railer.”
Later, when her dad came home—she called him “Dad” but Ermel didn’t like to be called “Mom”—Ermel took Dorthea up to Skinner’s Mercantile to buy shoes. The good day that turned bad turned good again.
Skinner’s Mercantile had big jars of jelly beans and peppermint sticks and licorice whips. The barrels in front of the long counter held butter and crackers and pickles and stinky salted fish. At the back of the store, behind the big black stove, they kept long wooden boxes. Ermel said that’s where they put dead people before they went in the ground.
“Hello Mrs. Railer.”
“Hello Mrs. Skinner.”
“And how is little Princess Could’ve-Been?” asked Mrs. Skinner, but she didn’t wait for an answer before she started laughing her head off. The other ladies in the store laughed too.
“Dorthea is fine,” said Ermel. Mrs. Skinner talked to another lady and didn’t listen.
“Stay next to me and don’t touch nothin’,” said Ermel, as she led Dorthea to a rack of shoes against the wall at the far end of the counter. Ermel picked up a shoe, looked at the tag, and put it back. She picked up another and put it back. Then she picked up another, put it on the floor next to Dorthea’s bare feet, and said, “There. These will do.”
“I don’t like ‘em. The other kids got those there. They’re called Weatherbird shoes. I want those.”
Ermel picked up one of the shoes, looked at the tag, and said, “You ain’t gettin’ ‘em. You’re gettin’ these here.”
“Those are ugly. I want the Weatherbird shoes.”
“How ‘bout if you don’t get no shoes at all, and I just have your daddy cut the toes off an old stinky pair of boots and you wear those to school?”
“I don’t want that neither.”
“Then I guess you gotta take these now don’t you?”
Ermel dragged Dorthea over to the cash register. Mrs. Skinner, who st
ood behind the counter, came over. She put on the eye glasses which hung on a chain around her neck, looked at the shoes, and then looked at Ermel.
“And will that be cash, Mrs. Railer?”
“Charge.”
Mrs. Skinner frowned and put down the shoes. “Mrs. Railer, you know you can’t charge on accounts thirty days past due, and yours is over six months.”
“That can’t be possible. Mr. Railer settled our account months ago. There must be a mistake with your bookkeeping.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, I believe it is.”
“Well then, you have Mr. Railer come and show me a receipt and we’ll fix that mistake. In the meantime that’ll be a dollar-seventy-five—cash.”
Ermel grumbled and looked for money in her orange pocketbook. Dorthea felt her face turn red. She looked at the ground. Just then the sound of laughter filled the store, the doors flew open, and two little girls ran in, followed by their mother.
“Mommy, mommy, can we have licorice?”
“I don’t want licorice. I want corn candy. Can I have corn candy, mommy?”
And then the girls saw Dorthea and stopped in their tracks. They stared at her with their mouths open, just as Dorthea stared at them. Everyone else stared too.
“Hello Mrs. Railer,” said their mother.
“Hello lady,” said Ermel.
They had black, wavy hair, short like their mother, with a band of white and red beads wrapped around their heads with more beads hanging down by their ears. They wore matching rose colored dresses with no sleeves. On one side of the belt, which they each wore loosely around their waist, was a big bow. Dorthea had seen dresses like these in the magazine at the doctor’s office. She wanted to look at her sleeve to make sure the tar paper still held it in place, but she didn’t.
“Is that your mommy?” asked one of the girls to Dorthea.
“Yes,” said Dorthea.
“That’s our mommy,” said the girl, with a smile.
Dorthea looked up at their mother. She looked like a doll with a white face and red lips and big eyes. She didn’t have buck teeth or messy hair or dirty clothes.
“Your name is Dorthea. Do you know our names?”
“No.”
“My name is Judith and her name is Abigail, but everyone calls her Abbey. She doesn’t like to talk to new people. You used to be our sister. Did you know that?”
“Yes, I know that.”
“But we’re not sisters anymore, and my nanny says I should thank God every day for that.”
“Judith,” said their mother, “maybe we should let Dorthea and her mother finish their shopping.”
“Your Grace,” said Mrs. Skinner, as she came around the counter, “it is a true honor to welcome you to Skinner’s Mercantile.” Then she tried to curtsy and the two girls looked at her big rump. “How may I help you today?” she asked.
“Girls, tell this nice lady what you’d like.”
The girls held their hands together, hopped up and down, and said, “Licorice whips! Corn candy!”
“Well, Lady Judith, Lady Abigail, we have both of those, and if you’ll come this way, I’ll be more than happy to get them for you.” Dorthea wondered why Mrs. Skinner called them ladies when they were just little girls.
The girls followed Mrs. Skinner to a glass counter and watched as she waddled to the other side of the counter and put a scoop into the small barrel of candy that sat inside the case. “Now who wants the corn candy?” she asked.
“Me,” said the quiet one.
Mrs. Skinner scooped the yellow and white candy onto the scale, looked at their mother, who nodded, and then poured the candy into a white bag which she handed to the girl. “Now for the licorice whip,” she said.
“Mrs. Skinner,” said Ermel loudly. “You was helping me first and I expect you to finish helping me before runnin’ off to someone else.”
Dorthea looked around and saw everyone staring at her and Ermel. She wanted to hide in the dark space between the barrels and the counter.
“Mrs. Railer, in my store I run things—”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Skinner. I’m afraid we did come barging in. We’ll wait our turn. Won’t we girls?”
“Yes, mother.”
Mrs. Skinner handed the licorice to the girl and then marched over to the cash register. She pushed down hard with both hands on the buttons and it made a loud ringing noise. “A dollar seventy-five,” she said.
“Would you like a licorice whip, darling?” asked Ermel.
“Yes,” said Dorthea, surprised.
Mrs. Skinner breathed in loudly through her nose and went to get the licorice.
“Look mommy, they have Weatherbird shoes like the ones Nanny’s niece wears. Can we get them too, and then we’ll all match?” said one of the girls.
“I want Weatherbird shoes too,” said the other.
While they were still jumping up and down and tugging on their mother’s dress, Ermel walked right past them, grabbed a pair of Weatherbird shoes, and brought them back to the counter. The little girls watched the shoes pass before their eyes and then looked up at their mother.
“I’ll take these instead,” said Ermel.
“You most certainly will not, Mrs. Railer. You won’t be buying anything—”
“Mrs. Skinner,” said their mother, “when you have two pair of the shoes in stock, in that same size, can you send them up to the house? Along with the bill for the candy, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Certainly, Your Grace, but you can—”
“I think those shoes will look very nice on you Dorthea. Don’t you girls?”
They didn’t say anything as their mother led them from the store.
When the door closed and the little bell at the top of the door tinkled, Mrs. Skinner looked at Ermel and said, “I must ask you to leave, Mrs. Railer. We don’t need customers like you.”
“And I don’t need to shop where they don’t know how to keep their books,” said Ermel. She grabbed Dorthea’s hand and dragged her out of the shop, without the Weatherbird Shoes and without the licorice whip. The day had turned rotten again.
On the way back down to their house, as Ermel squeezed Dorthea’s hand and made her walk fast, Dorthea thought about Judith and Abbey, who used to be her sisters. They had pretty dresses and pretty beads in their hair. Why couldn’t they still be sisters? Then she’d get to have a pretty dress and wear pretty beads.
Judith and Abbey liked their mother, she could tell. Dorthea looked at Ermel. She kind of looked like a mother. Some mothers are pretty and some are ugly, but most are pretty sometimes and ugly sometimes, like Ermel. She was skinny, like a man, and had rashes on her cheeks, but when she put on powder and lipstick, the red rashes went away, and she looked good. She didn’t fix herself up very often, but if she did, she could be almost as pretty as Judith and Abbey’s mother, if she didn’t let her teeth stick out too much.
Then she’d look like a pretty mother, but she still wouldn’t act like one. Other mothers watched out the window and knew when their kids got skinned knees. When it got dark, they stood on the porch and hollered for their kids to come in. They got mad when their kids went out in the cold without jackets. They told them to brush their teeth and say their prayers. And they let their kids call them “Mommy.” Dorthea wondered why Ermel didn’t act like a mother.
Chapter 3
The screen door slammed, and the children looked up. Dad had come home. Their punishment was over. Tommy, the four year old, had spilled milk on Ermel’s gossip magazine, and they’d been restricted to the tiny bedroom that all six of them shared. It’s a good thing Ermel’s gin bottle hadn’t been knocked over or they’d be hanging by their thumbs. She got mean when she drank. They both drank, but only she got mean. He made long speeches and had a temper but not a mean one.
Now they had their freedom. Two of the older kids climbed out the open window and ran into the orange California twilight. The three younger ones ran out the
bedroom door, past the grownups in the kitchen and out the front door. They still hadn’t figured out that getting too close to the grownups at this time of day sometimes meant getting a talking-to, or getting sent to the neighbors to beg for cigarettes. Dorthea stayed behind.
The year was 1928 and Dorthea had turned twelve, old enough to know she’d had a rotten childhood and curious to know if things got better as an adult. To that end, she’d recently taken up listening in on the grown-ups. She quietly stepped over one of the two mattresses on the floor and edged over to the doorjamb, the best spot to listen in on Jeb and Ermel when they talked at the kitchen table.
“Is that it, just this hillbilly pop?” said Ermel.
“I don’t place no orders, Ermel, if you don’t like it, drink milk. It sure won’t do you no harm.”
“I’d drink milk before I’d drink rotgut that some dumb hayseed made in a dirty washtub.”
Dorthea heard Ermel open the squeaky cupboard where she kept her gin bottle. Every day it started out in that cupboard, like a rarely used spice, and every day she opened the cupboard two dozen times. Her own kids knew the sound of that squeaky cupboard better than they knew the sound of her voice. By late afternoon, the show ended and the bottle stayed on the kitchen table next to her cigarettes and ashtray. And if she ran out of the good stuff from Canada, she’d drink anything—whether it came from a washtub or not.
Dorthea heard her set the bottle on the table and sit down. And then her father sat down too.
“I seen Joe Tanner up at the market,” he said. “Of course he’s still puttin’ on airs. Now he’s tellin’ everyone how the rich folks wave to him when they pass by.”
“Puttin’ on airs don’t seem so bad to me, if you got somethin’ to put on airs about,” said Ermel.
“Joe Tanner ain’t got nothin’. Gettin’ a house like that ain’t so hard if a person puts his mind to it. And let me tell you, if it was me, you wouldn’t catch me strutin’ like a peacock.”
“Well, since it ain’t you, I guess we won’t never know for sure, now will we?”
Tea Cups & Tiger Claws Page 4
