The Cape Ann (3 page)

Hilly and the ice cream cones was a story for bridge club. At nearly every meeting, someone had a Hilly tale. Like Mama, many of the bridge clubbers were respectful of Hilly, but two or three of them reflected the general feeling in town. “It’s wrong to treat him like anybody. It gives him false hopes. The next thing you know, he’ll expect to get married… or something,” I once heard Bessie Anderson say. And Cynthia Eggers added, “He’s a grown man who’s been in the war. He could be dangerous. Charlie says I’m not to speak to him.”

But Bernice McGivern said, “It isn’t Christian to ignore him. Think of what he’s been through. Also, if he ever gets his brains back, I don’t want him looking at
me
and remembering that I crossed the street to avoid him.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” Mama mused. “Wouldn’t it just be swell if one day Hilly woke up and he was sane.”

AFTER MAMA LEFT FOR
bridge, I got into my nightgown and found the Hershey bar in the cupboard. Mama always left a treat when she was out at night. And I always ate it right away, then was sorry I hadn’t had any willpower. It would be smart, I told myself, to break the bar into its many little squares. I could eat some now, some at bedtime, and save two or three for tomorrow. That was the sort of wise thing Katherine Albers, who sat behind me in the first grade, would do. It was one of the reasons it was difficult to like her. Another was her blond, Shirley Temple curls.

Chocolate bar in hand, I climbed into my crib and gazed out the bedroom window. Across the tracks, the grain elevators loomed pale silver against the deepening lilac sky. On this side, half a block away, dim, yellow lights seemed miles distant in the ecru rooms of the Harvester Arms Hotel.

Climbing out again, I fetched the house plan booklets Mama had brought home from Rayzeen’s Lumberyard that afternoon, turned on the light beside Mama and Papa’s bed, and hoisted myself once more over the side of the crib. Devouring my chocolate two and even three squares at a bite, I turned the pages of floor plans and exterior sketches, marveling at how prettily the trees and shrubs were arranged around the houses and how deftly they were trimmed to resemble balls and cones and half-spheres. No one in Harvester had trees and shrubs like those.

I liked houses with shutters. And brick chimneys. I hoped we would have a house with shutters and a brick chimney. Maybe even a brick sidewalk, if it didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Houses with shutters and brick chimneys looked as if Katherine Albers lived in them. If I lived in a house like that, I would develop willpower and be a better person.

Mama had shown me how to make sense of floor plans; which little lines were doors, which windows or fireplaces. Fireplaces were grand. The few movies I’d seen had had fireplaces in them.
But fireplaces were expensive, Mama said, so we probably would not have one, not at first.

Now, here was a cottage (a cottage was what we were going to build) that had two bathrooms, one up and one down. The luxury of that made me shiver. I ate the last of the chocolate and closed my eyes to imagine being the little girl of the house in a house with two bathrooms.

This particular cottage (#127—The Cape Ann) had a front entryway with a coat closet so people didn’t need to step into the living room with snow on their boots. It also boasted a small den, which Mama was set on having for a sewing/guest room. Before I fell asleep, I would put the booklet on Mama and Papa’s bed, open to the Cape Ann.

While I sat studying house plans, the early freight pulled in. No cars needed to be switched to a siding, so the train was soon shrieking and grinding its way toward St. Bridget. As it drew away from the station, its great exertion caused the partition next to my crib to tremble, and the towering window in the room to vibrate. I reached my hand out between the bars of the crib and pressed it to the pulsing compoboard.

There were messages for me in the hissings and groanings of the trains as they stood before the depot; and in the deep succussion sent through the earth as they departed. “Hello. Missed you. Throw a kiss,” they jangled and snorted, rolling up to my door. Then, beneath the loading and unloading and the cries of trainmen, they whispered praise for my report cards and news of friends far away, like William Powell. Leaving me slowly, reluctantly, they called shrilly, “Sweet dreams. Don’t cry. I’ll be back.”

Soon Papa locked up the office and waiting room and came home. It was nearly nine. In the kitchen he washed his hands and face, then appeared at the bedroom doorway, wiping them on a towel.

“We’re going out,” he said, casting a sly, confidential smile at me.

“Where?”

“Herbie Wendel’s.”

“Why?”

“To play poker.”

“I don’t know how to play poker.”

“Not you, dummy.” He laughed. “I’m going to play poker.”

“Why am I going?”

“Because we don’t have a girl to stay with you.”

“But I’ve got on my nightie.”

“That’s okay. You can lie down at Herbie’s.”

“I don’t think Mama would want me to go in my nightie. I better put on some clothes.”

“There isn’t time. Come on, now. Get up. You don’t want me to miss this poker party, do you?”

“Can I put on my shoes?”

“Okay, but hurry up. I’m already late.”

“Mama said you should call a girl to stay with me.”

“It’s too late. By the time she got here, Herbie would think I wasn’t coming. You’ll have a good time, don’t worry.”

“You could call Herbie.”

“Look, don’t you want to go? I thought you’d be tickled. You’re always wanting to go places with me. Get your shoes on.” Lifting me out of the crib, he set me down on the big bed and handed me my shoes and socks.

“Mama’s going to get mad,” I told him.

“I’ll handle her,” he said, buckling my black shoes that had tiny round air holes across their tops in the pattern of a bow.

From the end of the crib, I took down the pink chenille robe that was like Mama’s Sunday robe, and was struggling into it as Papa hurriedly steered me out into the night.

“Should we leave Mama a note?”

“I’ll call later from Herbie’s,” Papa explained and swung me up onto the high truck seat.

Even wearing a nightie and robe, I shivered when my legs touched the cold seat. It was May and, while the days were warm and yellow, the nights were chilly.

The engine didn’t turn over right away, but complained in low moans, no happier than I to be going across town late on a Friday night. Papa gave it plenty of choke, and it trembled unwillingly to life, shaking just as I shook. We sat waiting for the engine to warm up, Papa rubbing the cold steering wheel, I hugging myself and letting my teeth click like castanets.

Well, maybe Herbie Wendel’s boy, Donald, would still be up. Donald, a silly boy with a rooster’s comb of hair at the back of his head and a relentless giggle, was in first grade with me. Maybe
Donald and I could color in his coloring books or cut pictures out of magazines. Maybe I could learn to play poker.

We rattled through silent streets, disturbing the dignified cold. There were several cars lined up in front of the Wendel house. Papa parked opposite. I was embarrassed to be walking around the streets in my nightclothes, but I hastened along behind Papa, anxious to get inside where it was warm. Papa didn’t knock, but just opened the door and walked into the living room. Mrs. Wendel wasn’t home or he wouldn’t do that.

“Had to bring my kid,” he told the four men at the dining room table. “Sorry. The old lady’s at bridge.”

Standing in the archway between living room and dining room, I asked Herbie Wendel, “Is Donald home?”

“No, honey. He’s gone for the weekend with his ma to her folks over at St. Bridget.” Mr. Wendel got up from the poker table and disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a big red bubble gum jawbreaker. “Donald likes these,” he said, handing it to me.

I thanked him and slipped it into my mouth, but when it was in my cheek, it stretched the skin so taut it hurt; and when it was between my teeth, it forced my jaws so far apart they ached. Donald Wendel was just the sort to be fond of a ridiculous treat like this. Hadn’t anyone told him about Hershey bars?

I hung at the edge of the dining room, shifting the jawbreaker in my mouth and observing the men peeking at their cards, tapping them with their fingertips and grunting, “Hit me,” and “See you,” and “I’m in.” It was a confusing game. Just when I was getting the hang of it, the rules changed.

I had begun making dents in the jawbreaker, when Papa ordered, “Stop that crunching. You’re making me nervous.”

“Leave her alone, Willie. She’s not hurting anybody,” Lloyd Grubb told him.

“I can’t think with that noise,” Papa said. Then to me, “Go on in the living room.”

“Can’t I watch? I’m trying to learn.”

“Poker’s no game for a kid,” he said. “Get in the living room.”

I sidled a couple of steps away and stopped crunching the jawbreaker. The only excitement in that house was at the dining room table. But when Papa started to get up out of his chair,
I backed away. I didn’t want him getting mad in front of the other men.

There was
one
magazine in the living room, something from the Knights of Columbus. I read as much as I could, which was most of it, but found not one interesting item. And there were no colored pictures. It had very few pictures of any kind.

In the dining room, the men pounded their fists on the table and swore at one another, and laughed loud enough to be heard across the street. Mr. Wendel dropped out for one hand and went to the kitchen to pour fresh drinks. I heard him call to Papa, “You drinking bourbon, Willie?”

“Yeah, that’ll do,” Papa answered, “if you haven’t got something better.” Then he laughed the way people do at phrases that are some key part of an old, shared joke.

I closed my eyes and fell asleep, dreaming that Papa left without me, that he forgot I was sleeping on the couch. I was panic-stricken. The four men at the poker table didn’t know who I was or where I lived. I knew who I was and where I lived but not how to get there. When I explained that I lived in the depot, they laughed and said I was mistaken, nobody lived in a depot.

“Go back to sleep,” they told me. “When you wake up, maybe you’ll know where you live.”

Well, I thought, I’m not going to stay here all night. Mama will give me a good licking if she makes breakfast and I’m not there. And what about the nuns? They’ll be waiting for me at eight o’clock for first communion instruction and I won’t be there. And hadn’t they said the first day, “You’d better be pretty sick if you’re going to miss instruction. Jesus is going to be upset if you don’t at least have pneumonia.”

Then I dreamed that I sneaked out the front door. It was black and cold outside. Pulling my robe around me, I turned right and headed south. Mama had taught me directions and told me that the depot was on the south side of town. If I kept walking down this street, headed south, I would come to the railroad tracks and then I would know where I was.

After several blocks I began to wonder, shouldn’t I see the tracks soon? I thought I knew what the streets in Harvester looked like, but these streets looked like streets in some other town.

Then, behind me but not far behind, I heard a sound which turned my heart to a cold little stone. A black dog, as big as a
pony, skulked at my heels, whipping the backs of my legs with his snarling and sending me flying headlong down the street. When I came to a corner, I didn’t stop to look both ways but hurtled ahead.

Now the sidewalk disappeared and I was stumbling down a rutted path between deserted, crumbling houses. And what was this—snow? Drifts of it were in my path. The giant black dog would tear me to pieces and eat me. And I would go to hell because I hadn’t made my first confession yet.

The dog was at my shoulder. “Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee,” I prayed. “And I detest all my sins…”

But it was only a hand at my shoulder, shaking me. “Lark, Lark.” It was Herbie Wendel. “We’re having homemade turtle soup. Would you like some?”

I was filled with such relief, I had to go to the bathroom. When I emerged, Mr. Wendel handed me Donald’s cereal bowl filled with steaming turtle soup. Little rabbits danced around the outside of the bowl. I was glad to have it in my hands because I was shivering. The house had grown cold while I slept.

Papa wasn’t at the poker table. “Where’s my papa?”

“He’ll be right back. He had to go out for a few minutes. Sit down here on the couch and have your soup. I’ll bring you some crackers.”

So Papa
had
left. It was almost like my dream. Where had he gone? It must be very late. Where would you go at this time of night? Mr. Wendel returned with a plate of soda crackers, which he set on the couch beside me.

“Do you like the soup?” he inquired.

I nodded.

“I made it myself.”

“Really?” I’d never heard of a man cooking. None of them in our family did.

“Caught this big old snapper out in Sioux Woman Lake. Fishing for bullheads and landed this instead. Donald’s ma doesn’t like to clean turtle, so I’m in the habit of making the soup.”

“It’s good,” I assured him. “When do you think my papa’ll be back?”

“Any minute.” He patted my knee and returned to the dining room.

A few minutes later, Papa came through the door carrying a
brown paper bag. “Damned old fool charged an arm and a leg,” he told the others. Then, noticing me eating soup, “What’re you doing up?”

“Mr. Wendel gave me some turtle soup he made himself. Where did you go?”

“Out. You haven’t been pestering Herbie, have you?”

“No. What time is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What does your watch say?”

“None of your business, Miss Nosy.”

“Did you call Mama?”

He didn’t answer, but headed toward the kitchen with the bag. I finished my soup, which was as good as Campbell’s. Setting the empty bowl and the cracker plate on the floor, I lay down again and once more fell asleep, this time slumbering deeply and not waking till Papa carried me out to the truck. The sky was light. The first gold peeped through the trees and between the houses on our left. The cab smelled of whiskey.