The House on Seventh Street (10 page)

1954

WINNA WAS
ALLOWED
to read movie magazines and
Seventeen
, but she kept the romance magazines she had borrowed from Kate—who had borrowed them from Maggie—a secret from her mother by smuggling them in and out of the house inside her coat and hiding them under her mattress. She believed the stories in
True Story
were written by young women just about her age, that these romantic confessions, which included “going all the way” and always ended in disaster and remorse, were real. In every plot, young girls were abandoned by the young men they had loved and trusted, or if they got pregnant, were disowned and banished from their families. The moral of these tales was that girls had sex at their own peril, but they did it anyway because it was impossible to resist.

At a slumber party one night, Winna and her friends washed and rinsed color into their hair. Winna hennaed her brown hair to look like Rhonda Fleming. Blonde Maggie became raven-haired Linda Darnell. The house filled up with ecstatic redheads and dark-haired sirens giggling, twirling pin curls, anxious to see themselves transformed by morning. At another party, Maggie brought makeup and the girls made each other up to look like movie stars. They curled their eyelashes, piled on the mascara, plucked each other's eyebrows, and painted their lips ruby red. Into the wee hours, Winna and her friends swooned to songs on the radio where hearts cried, sighed, and died for them.

By eighth grade, Maggie Hart had taken over Winna's world. She lived downtown not far from the junior high school and sometimes Winna's mother allowed her to walk home with Maggie after school. Sometimes on weekends, Maggie came for a visit to the country. Maggie was a good student and popular at school—a favorite of all the girls. At sleepovers they listened to “The Night Owl” on radio KEXO. The disc jockey played songs all night long, reading dedications from mailed-in postcards. Side by side in Maggie's double bed, they listened for hours. Under her hot pink chenille bedspread, the soft glow of her frilly white lampshade overhead, the disc jockey's low voice saturated the dusky room. The drums would beat or the violins would swell and their hearts responded, but Maggie and Winna didn't move, or else the bobby pins would fall out of their pin curls.

His voice low, seductive, the disc jockey said, “Tommy's got a message for Maggie.”

“That's you!” Winna cried as they both popped straight up in bed. “That's gotta be you!”

The girls hugged, then Mario Lanza's voice crooned,
Be my love...

How romantic, Winna swooned—wishing, hoping, longing someday to have a boyfriend like Tommy, a football player, who stood strong and muscular behind his little boy smile. She had a boyfriend, but she didn't love him like Maggie loved Tommy. Someday, she thought deep into the night, finally falling asleep to Guy Mitchell's tuneful sobs.

During the summer between eighth and ninth grades, Maggie and Winna spent hours practicing for the day they would be allowed to go out on their first date. With a portable radio as their constant companion, they danced on Mrs. Hart's big old kitchen floor. First Maggie would lead and Winna would follow, then they would switch parts. They held each other close, pretending that they danced in the arms of a boy.

That fall, Maggie and Winna had a sleepover in the Harts' attic. As strong moonlight poured in through the bare window, the girls sat on the old mattress they had made up into a bed. Brushing their hair, they talked about how they couldn't wait to have boyfriends with cars.

“Only one more month to Tommy's birthday,” Maggie sighed, a thought so divine that her hairbrush slipped dreamily from her hand. “His father already lets him drive around out back in the vacant lot. When he's sixteen we can go everywhere together.”

On her way to pinning three rows of curls that would transform her already curly hair into a fluffy golden halo, Maggie used her front teeth to open a bobby pin.

“Are you going to park with him?” Winna asked, pinning her last curl into place.

“Jeez, I guess so. Yes,” she said, twirling her fingers around a free lock.

Winna settled carefully on her pillow. “Are you going to let him pet?” She was trying to be funny.

“No!” Maggie protested, flopping on her back. “I'd be all shy. I wouldn't want him to see me,” she said, unbuttoning her pajama top. “Look at them, do you think my boobs look all right?”

Maggie lay flat on her back in moonlight streaming through the window, her breasts small hills, her eyes closed.

“They're pretty,” Winna said.

Maggie shone white in the moonlight, like she'd been carved from marble, her breasts smooth and round as a pearl. Knowing how it felt to touch her own, Winna reached out with one finger and slowly, lightly traced smaller and smaller circles around Maggie's breast, stopping to rest at its peak. The dark attic seemed to vibrate with a blurry light, as Maggie caught her breath and turned to face Winna.

Winna stopped breathing. Embarrassed, she tucked her hand under the covers.

Maggie looked away as if she had just seen something move across the room and closed her pajama top over her breasts.

“I have a guardian angel,” she murmured. “He protects me—watches over me,” she sighed. Her drowsy blue eyes, half hidden under the lids, fixed on the moon in the window.

“How do you know?” Winna wondered if Maggie had ever seen him and if he spoke to her.

“He's over there,” she whispered, languidly nodding her head, indicating that Winna should look behind her toward the foot of the mattress. “He's watching us now.”

Frightened by the possibility that Maggie was right, that they weren't alone in the attic, she looked anxiously in that direction.

“Don't be afraid, he'll keep us safe,” Maggie yawned, rolling onto her stomach.

A tall, shimmering, El Greco-lean figure stood in the shadows, just outside the range of the moonlight. Instead of white, the color of angels, it radiated violet and blue, but looked exactly like an angel to Winna. It gave her just a tiny glimpse of itself before it vanished—just enough to leave Winna wondering if she had really seen it.

“I think I saw him,” she said, unafraid and suddenly very sleepy. She yawned, and as if angels had the power to put spells on young girls, closed her eyes. “Why don't I have a guardian angel?”

“You do—everybody does. Watch for him,” Maggie mumbled, her voice trailing off to sleep.

1955

BY THE
TIME
she was a sophomore in high school, Winna was already interested in photography. She had grown up drawing and painting alongside her mother and sister, but the camera fascinated her. She liked the discipline and following the rules. The camera would yield only as much as Winna's mastery would allow. Then there were the happy accidents and trying to understand them. She received great pleasure from working with a machine, manipulating it for effect as she tried to make sense of it. Winna volunteered her services as a photographer to the school newspaper.

She was a good student in every subject but biology and would have been better if she had not been as pretty, not so busy dreaming about what she was going to wear to the weekend dances and parties.

School dances, held in the high school gym, sometimes had live music in the form of a small student band called the Starlighters. At the first dance that fall, a disc jockey played records—songs from the hit parade past and present. The kids danced to Frankie Laine, Bill Haley and his Comets, Patti Page, and Frank Sinatra among others. They were not immune to the great dance music of the forties and jitterbugged to Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Count Basie, and Tommy Dorsey.

Winna had gone to the dance with Greg. They had been dating for about two weeks, since the night of Maggie's birthday party where they had noticed each other for the first time.

As music poured out of the big speakers, Greg asked her to dance. After their second dance, Winna was worried. She had tried her best to follow, but Greg liked to talk. Every time the conversation got going, he would forget his feet and just stand there and sway. Once, he stopped all motion except for the gestures he made with his hands while trying to explain how he had fixed his little sister's bicycle. When he was silent and the music took over, he tried his best to dance, but more often than not, his indecision led him to change direction midstep. His apologetic sighs confirmed her belief that dancing was not his gift. Looking miserable, Greg asked if they could stand out the next dance and they wandered off to chat with one of Greg's friends and his date.

Johnny Hodell must have spotted Winna on the sidelines looking left out, her eyes focused enviously on the dance floor. Greg had turned away to talk to a group of boys. The piano beat out the first slow strains of “Unforgettable” as Nat King Cole's voice made her dizzy with longing.

A big smile on his face, Johnny approached in time to the music. He took her hand and swung her out on the dance floor, then pulled her close. They floated together like two feathers on a millpond. By the time the violins swelled, Winna was in love and they had not said a word.

He changed his moves to a slow swing, bringing her in for long close embraces, ending the dance with a low dip. When he pulled her up into his arms again, she was his. He returned her to Greg, thanked her for the dance, and hurried off to dance with Maggie.

The evening wore on and Greg did his duty. Finally, using his skill for words, he opened up to Winna about his need for dancing lessons. Winna suggested they get together after school to practice, but Greg declined. He seemed ready to accept his fate as a non-dancing man. As the evening wore on—for Winna “wore” was the right word—they stood on the sidelines during the fast dances watching other kids jitterbug and boogie and they bumped around together to the slow music. Winna liked the boy but she wished the evening would end—she wished Johnny would ask her to dance once more.

It was getting late when drums sounded the urgent opening rhythm of Benny Goodman's “Sing, Sing, Sing
.”
Greg dragged Winna to the sidelines. Within seconds, Johnny was at her side. He said nothing, just grabbed her hand and swung her out onto the dance floor.

“Don't you ever
ask
a girl to dance?” she shouted above the music.

He shook his head “no” and, smooth as butter from his spot on the floor, whipped her around his tall agile body, spinning her into kicks, pushes, and underarm passes. The music and his moves worked hard on her and she let herself go. Whirling, swaying, her head, shoulders, and hips swung to the music. She could feel herself fly. All the other dancers had circled around to watch. Her face shone with the joy of it all. At the end of the dance, Johnny swung her out and pulled her back into his arms; breathless, she collapsed into the heat of his body and the whole crowd clapped and cheered.

WINNA ASKED JOHNNY to the Sadie Hawkins Day Dance. She dressed up as Daisy Mae in short cut-off jeans. She had sewn colorful patches to the seat and made a peasant blouse from a piece of dark blue cotton with large white polka dots. Johnny dressed up as Li'l Abner with a straw hat, white T-shirt, jeans, and big work boots. After the kids voted for the couple that looked most like the comic strip characters, Johnny and Winna were crowned king and queen.

After the dance, they parked outside the Grummans' house on Peach Tree Ridge. Following a torrent of passionate kisses, he leaned back in his seat. “You are trouble,” he sighed, then looked into her eyes. “I love that about you.”

“I love you, Johnny.” Winna meant every word.

“Let's go steady,” he said.

Winna did not have to think about his offer, she had dreamed about it. She reached out to touch his cheek “yes.” He kissed her and, when they parted, tugged the class ring off his finger.

“It's too big for you.”

“I'll wear it around my neck on a chain.”

He took her right hand in his and gazed at her emerald ring, turning it in the light, making it sparkle. “Are you going to give me your ring?”

Winna did not want to give him the ring, her grandmother's gift. He had just given her a ring and she felt embarrassed by his question. “Girls don't give rings to their steadies.”

He did not appear offended and coaxed with a smile. “We could start a new tradition.”

Winna laughed. “My grandmother would kill me.”

Even though her mother had said that she would not be allowed to go steady, her parents did not protest. Her father and Johnny's father were brother Kiwanians and friends. Winna was fond of Mrs. Hodell, a tiny French woman who owned her own dress shop and seemed genuinely interested in her son's new girlfriend. Mr. Hodell looked at Winna with a twinkle in his eye, as though he wished he were sixteen again.

Johnny called her every night. At school, they walked from class to class holding hands. He drove her home from school every day and asked her out to the picture show. Suddenly he was everywhere she was. It felt good when he kissed her—like he wished they would never part. She liked being his girl. No one had ever adored her the way he did.

1999

THE OAK-PANELED
LIBRARY
at the house on Seventh Street held hundreds of books on floor-to-ceiling bookshelves tucked under Moorish arches. The library table with the tall cloisonné vase still stood in the middle of the room. Juliana had kept the vase full of flowers—often from the rose garden. A collection of small antique oriental rugs were scattered on the parquet floor. For light, marble torchieres had been placed at intervals. Brass reading lamps hovered over leather club chairs. The only other seating was a small French tufted loveseat set between the two tall windows overlooking what had once been a beautiful lawn and the rose garden—once, Juliana's collection of Boston ferns had flourished in the light there.

Winna had settled in with a cup of tea and a small book she had discovered in the library the day before,
The Awakening
by Kate Chopin. She had picked it up almost absentmindedly and turned to the opening sentence. She didn't stop until she had read the entire first chapter. That night she read a few chapters before she fell asleep. Published in 1899, this well-worn edition of the novel smelled musty from all those forgotten years. Someone had marked the passages devoted to the married heroine's desire for freedom and the love of a young man. It was the story of a woman trapped in a respectable yet predictable marriage with a husband who was unfailingly good to her. He did not rouse her passions, neither intellectual nor carnal. Servants and friends cared for her children, leaving her idle. Winna guessed it was her grandmother who had marked the pages and that she had returned to them again and again.

Winna didn't have long to sit and read. Chloe and Todd had actually offered to help and might arrive at any minute. She turned the page and found a thin, yellowed newspaper clipping tucked close to the binding. It was a poem titled
The Silent City of San Rafael
by Juliana Smythe Grumman. She put the book down and read her grandmother's poem. In blank verse, Juliana described a San Rafael Mountain scene in late afternoon light—its “rooftops, turrets, and minarets” outlined in misty light as if the ruins of an ancient city lay under the setting sun. The verse went on to say a painter, try as he might, could never capture what she saw or what God had created there. Winna read the poem twice and was considering this new glimpse of her grandmother when she heard a huge racket coming up the driveway—the bass from a car radio made the old windows rattle.

A shiny black pickup truck with dual wheels pulled up to the back door. The thundering stopped and a tall blond man wearing a cowboy hat on the back of his head got out of the driver's seat. As she wondered who it could possibly be, she saw her sister hop down from the passenger seat. Winna shook her head and laughed to herself. So, that's Chloe's Todd and the truck is his very manly vehicle. Before she could move, she heard the kitchen door open and their voices.

“I'm in the library,” she called.

With the energy of an eight-year-old, Chloe burst through the door dragging the handsome young man with a six-pack of Coors in his hand. Her introduction was offhand.

“You both know who you are?” she asked, flopping into one of the leather chairs.

“Howdy there, Winnie,” Todd grinned, showing a row of perfect white teeth. “I'm pleased to meet you.” He extended his hand. “Chloe here's told me all about her big sis.”

Winna laughed, dazzled by his smile. “Her mean old sister?” she asked, going to greet him.

His eyes invited her to like him. “Ah, now Winnie, she's said nothin' but good things—'bout how you was a life-saver when you gals was kids and all.”

With a Travolta cleft in his chin, Todd's face was as open as the front page of the newspaper, his baby blue eyes as innocent as the morning sky. Just then, Winna felt quite willing to overlook his grammar, his accent, and the fact that he'd called her Winnie. He stood over six feet tall in his eye-catching python and black leather cowboy boots, a shock of curly blond hair peeking out from under his hat. Was it bleached? His face and muscular neck and arms were tanned from working in the sun. His black Levi's looked as though they would keep his shape even on a hanger.

“My goodness, Chloe,” Winna said, dragging her out of the chair for a hug, “look at you two—as handsome a couple as I've ever seen.” And they were both radiating with—was it lust?—for one another.

“He's as sweet as he is pretty,” Chloe said, punching his hard belly playfully, “and the best thing about him is everything.”

Todd blushed. “Listen, ladies, I come on over here to work, and I plan to stay as long as you need me. I'll put the beer in the icebox—for later. Now where do I commence?”

“I like your attitude, Todd. Let's start in here,” Winna said. She couldn't place his accent. “Where are you from?”

“Texas—moved out here 'bout five years ago.”

“Well there's at least a week's work in here alone,” Winna said. “Chloe, if you'd like, you can help me go through the books. I've got plenty of packing boxes. And Todd, see that old secretary over there? I don't know why, but it's blocking the door to a closet. Would you pull it out so we can get in there?”

Chloe approached the bookshelves as if she was searching for treasure. “When I was a kid, I never even looked in Gramma's library.” She pulled out a book and read the title. “
Strong Poison
by Dorothy L. Sayers. That sounds ominous.”

“Gramma loved mysteries. Wow, look at this big beauty.” Winna pulled out an oversized picture book,
A Thousand Years of Jewelry
. She sighed and shoved the book back on the shelf. “I'm at it again. Every time I pick up anything in this house, I want to sit down and spend time with it. This is my curse.”

“Hey, you gals,” Todd called from across the room. “I can't budge this here desk. Give me a hand? This thing's taller than Shaquille O'Neal and wider.”

Winna and Chloe came to his aid and helped push the old secretary desk away from the door. Winna stood just outside of a closet full of things she remembered very well: old puzzles, family games like checkers, Parcheesi, and Scrabble, shelves full of outdated cameras and camera cases, old flash units, a slide projector, an 8mm movie projector, and several pairs of binoculars. Juliana's postcard collection, scrapbooks, and Poppa Ed's coin and stamp collections lay on the shelves just as they always had. The old chess set sat within easy reach.

Chloe took it down for a look. “Lordy,” she said, holding a white knight aloft. “He's beautiful.”

“Would you like to have the chess set?” Winna asked.

“Yes! I'll teach you to play, Todd.” She winked at him.

“I'm a seven card stud kinda guy, Clo.”

“Don't tell me,” Chloe said, “real men don't play chess?”

Todd winked and stuck his head inside the closet. “You gals, there's this old wood box—full of papers, and some of them looks like they might could be stocks.”

Chloe looked at Winna with a huge grin. “This is more fun than Christmas morning!”

Todd pulled the carved chest into the light. The sisters knelt as Todd handed Winna a stack of stock certificates. Some were silver and gold mining stocks, others public utilities and assorted company stocks.

“I wonder if these are good anymore?”

Todd read the name written on the face of one. “This one belongs to Edwin Werner Grumman—your dad?”

“Our grandfather,” Chloe said.

Rummaging through a small box she had found in the chest, Winna unearthed a creamy white envelope inscribed with the following words:
To be opened only after my death, Juliana S. Grumman
. Under the envelope, she found a packet of letters, poems, and a notebook with what appeared to be a story written in Juliana's hand.

Someone had opened the envelope. The letter was dated December 12, 1918. Winna read it aloud.

Dearest Edwin,

I hope you will let Mother and Daddy raise the baby until you marry again. Dear, you must try to understand my parents better than you ever have before. Remember that they love me and adore the baby and will love you if you give them half a chance.

Dear, you must marry again. You must not go through life without a woman's companionship. I only ask three things—that you will take your time about doing it, three or four years even—that you will choose your new wife with one thought uppermost in your mind, that she will make a good mother for Henry. Last, you must not let her entirely supplant me in the life and affections of yourself and our son. Please don't let the baby forget me, dear. It seems as though I could not bear that. And won't you please study and think how to be a better father to little Henry?

Be wise and patient, dear, in governing him. Don't make the mistake of thinking the rod the only method of punishment. Try to teach him cleanliness of body and mind. Try, yourself, to cultivate some of the little attributes of a gentleman so that you can be an example to him. It has been a grief to me, dear, that you have considered good grooming, proper table manners, and the little attentions to women of so little importance. Those things are important—they are a stranger's only means of judging you. They are a human being's marks of good breeding, not unsimilar to the distinguishing marks of a pedigreed animal.

Let our son choose his own vocation, following his natural bent. I would like him to have a college education. Encourage him in letters. I shall not live to become the writer I was meant to be. Let him know I want him to be a writer. Bring him up with a love of good books, paintings, and music. I need not speak of the outdoors, I know. You will expose him to nature's beauties and lessons.

Let him live in our home. I've made your house into a home of beauty and refinement. I've not been as good a wife to you as you deserved. Our up-bringing, cultural backgrounds, differing values, and desires, all seemed to foster antagonism rather than harmony and unity. So it has not always been easy for me, dear. You have been good to me, though, and patient and generous, and there have been happy moments.

Love me always, won't you, dear, and keep my memory green in our son's mind. I wish I might have lived to cuddle my grandchildren.

I love you both, oh, so much.

Your own wife,

Juliana

Her handwritten last will and testament, a list of her possessions, and how she wanted them disbursed, followed. The will closed with, “Please do carry out my wishes in these matters with all good feeling. Juliana S. Grumman.”

Surprised by her grandmother's wishes, Winna read the simple list remembering her husband, son, aunts, uncles, brother, mother and father, and someone named Daisy. “Please give Daisy my wrist watch. She hasn't been a good friend to me and she has hurt me dozens of times, but I'm fond of her anyway. When the watch is given to her, I want her to know that she hurt me.”

Winna did a mental calculation. “She was in her twenties when she wrote this. Why would one so young expect to die?”

“Trying to control everyone—even beyond the grave,” Chloe said as she took the letter from her sister's hand. “I love the part where she asks Poppa to let his son follow his natural bent and then she turns around and says, ‘I want him to be a writer.'” Chloe was pacing, fuming at the letter in her hand. “God, are these tear splashes in the ink? At least she showed some emotion, even if it wasn't genuine.”

Looking utterly baffled, Todd asked, “You didn't like your grandma?”

Chloe turned on her heels. “The real question is why my grandmother didn't like me.”

SOMETHING HAD TO be done about Chloe. Winna felt that her sister had suffered too much. She had no idea why she was the favored grandchild and, in the end, her father's favored child. When she was young, she had imagined her grandmother's preference had something to do with birth order. She was the first. All that undeserved adoration had always felt like a curse.

After Chloe and Todd left, she opened a can of soup and ate it in the kitchen, then hiked up the stairs to Juliana's bedroom, bringing with her the notebook she'd found with the will. Exhausted, she quickly dressed for bed, pulled back the pale satin coverlet, and climbed into Juliana's tall walnut bed. Winna always felt like a queen as she snuggled in under the high headboard with its raised panels, crown-like flourishes, finials, and dentils. Intending to read the short story written in Juliana's hand, she turned on the bedside lamp and put on her glasses.

She had already wasted much of her time reading
The Awakening
and the letters Juliana had saved from people like her father and brother and Laura, a best friend who had moved to California. Winna had looked through everyone's marriage certificates, some going back to the 1820s.

The story, in an old notebook filled with yellowing paper, was written in pencil and had no title. Remembering that her grandmother had wanted to be a writer, she lifted the notebook into the lamplight.