Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All

by Laura Ruby

  Just as they were passing the girls’ cottages, the boys’ line passed them. Before she knew what was happening, Sam plucked a flower from the basket Frankie held. His fingers brushed her hand a little before he took that flower and put the stem between his teeth so that the bloom hung out of his mouth. Frankie had to clench her own teeth to keep from laughing out loud.

  Loretta poked her arm. “Where’s your sister?”

  “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere,” Frankie said, staring at her hand where Sam’s fingers had touched it.

  “Frankie, I mean it. I don’t see her anywhere in the line. Do you think she’s sick?”

  “She could be,” Frankie said, but even as she said it, Frankie knew that Toni would have to be very sick to miss the parade. And if she was that sick, someone would have told Frankie so that she could go visit Toni in the infirmary. “We probably can’t tell who she is because we’ve all got the same dress on, you know?”

  “Yeah,” said Loretta. “You’re probably right.”

  As much as Frankie wanted to be right, she kept her eyes peeled as they circled back toward the main building. There were so many of them, so many yellow dresses, how could she tell anyone from anyone? That was when she saw Toni sneaking away from the line of kids, a boy right behind her.

  “Aw, hell,” she said.

  “What?” Loretta said.

  “Toni just ducked behind that building with some boy.”

  Frankie slowed down her pace to a crawl and Loretta did too. A couple of kids behind them thumped them in the back to get them moving again, but when they didn’t, streamed around them. They edged closer and closer to where Toni had disappeared, then slipped out of the line and around the brick wall.

  Nothing. An empty patch of grass running between buildings.

  “She’s not here,” said Loretta.

  “Well, she wouldn’t just stand here, waiting to be caught. She’s not that dumb. No, she’d be hiding somewhere with that boy.” Frankie pointed ahead. “Let’s try over there. Around the next corner.”

  “We’re going to get caught,” said Loretta, but she followed her anyway.

  They rounded the corner and there they were. Toni and a boy Frankie hardly recognized, snuggled up against the wall, nuzzling like newlyweds.

  Toni looked up, smirked. “Why, it’s my sister, Frankie!”

  Frankie grabbed the boy by the collar and peeled him away.

  “Hey!” he said, pinwheeling his arms, probably surprised that a girl as small as her could be so strong.

  “Just what in the name of Pete do you two geniuses think you’re doing?” Frankie said.

  Toni put her hands on her hips. “What does it look like, Frankie? God, you are such a pain!”

  Frankie still had the boy’s collar in her fist, and she shook him a little. “I’m a pain? I’m a pain?”

  The boy reached around for Frankie’s hand and yanked it off. “Would you mind not doing that?”

  “Who the heck are you?” Frankie demanded. She thought she’d seen him around. Blond hair, pale skin, blue eyes.

  He straightened his collar. “I’m Guy.”

  “A guy named Guy,” Frankie said. “That’s like something out of a children’s book.”

  “You’re a barrel of laughs,” Toni said. “Why don’t you two just get out of here?”

  “Sure,” Frankie said. “But you’re coming with me.”

  “I don’t have to,” Toni said, crossing her arms over her big bosoms.

  “You do too,” Frankie said. “I am not going to get stuck scrubbing out all the toilets on account of you!” She took a step forward and stuck her big nose in Toni’s face. Part of her wondered why she was so mad, part of her knew she had no right, but the larger part of her was just too mad to care. “I am not going to be thrown out of the orphanage on account of you!”

  “Come on, Frankie,” Toni said. “You hate the orphanage.”

  She hated the orphanage, she didn’t hate the orphanage, it didn’t matter either way. “We don’t have anywhere else to go!” she spat.

  Loretta tugged at Frankie’s arm. “Simmer down, okay? We don’t want anyone to hear you yelling like that.”

  Frankie took a breath and said more quietly, “We have nowhere else to go.”

  Toni shrank back against the wall. “We could go to Colorado and be with Dad—”

  Frankie cut her off. “He doesn’t want us. We have to stay here, we have to get diplomas, we have to get jobs. We have to learn to do things for ourselves, you got that?” She turned and jabbed a finger at the blue-eyed boy. “You listen up, Guy. You stay away from my sister, you hear me? Or I’ll tell. I swear on my mother’s grave I will.”

  He kicked at the grass. “I hear you.”

  “Good.” Frankie looked at Toni. “I hope you hear me too.”

  Toni tossed her head. “Go to hell, Frankie.”

  Sam’s kisses burned on Frankie’s lips, her skin. “I guess I’ll see you there.” Frankie could not feel guilty, she wouldn’t. What she had with Sam was different, special. She wasn’t trying to get attention, like Stella, or showing off, like Toni. Sam was her future. Who had brought Sam to her if not God?

  But the devil had his tricks; he played them on us all. I followed as Frankie hauled her sister around the brick wall and back into the sunlight.

  “Let go, you dumb ape!” Toni said, yanking her arm away. “You want something to boss around, why don’t you go yell at that dog over there?”

  “Dog?” said Loretta. “What dog?”

  In the middle of the sea of yellow dresses, a flash of red fur.

  Red fur.

  Loretta said, “Is that a fox?”

  The fox, that stupid beautiful thing, wove through the crowd, heading right for us. For me.

  What are you doing? I yelled at it. Go home!

  “Why would a fox come out during the day?” said Frankie.

  “Do you think it’s sick?” said Toni.

  I waved my arms, I stamped and shrieked, but the fox kept coming, ignoring the gasps and shouts of the orphans, who had by now noticed the wild animal in their midst and were backing away.

  Behind the fox, the nuns bellowed orders. The girls in yellow dresses scattered like chicks. The fox dodged and darted, evading outstretched hands, as if they were nothing but branches and brambles, insignificant and harmless.

  NO! I screamed at it. Get out of here! GO! Don’t you understand? Don’t you understand anything?

  It kept coming, the silly, beautiful thing, determined to break itself, ruin itself. Whatever power had knocked the pictures from the table, whatever power had burst the light in the library, was nowhere to be found. I could do nothing when Sister George ran up behind the fox, a shovel poised over her head.

  Light, More Light

  I SAT IN THE MIDDLE of the table at the library, every ounce of my energy focused on the light bulb.

  Burst, I thought. Burst. BURST.

  Who’s your friend? said a voice.

  The golden girl stood on a desk just a few feet away. Unlike the bright yellow dresses worn by the girls at the orphanage, this girl’s dress burned like the sun right before the sunset, fiery and furious and sad at the same time. Or maybe that was just the girl herself.

  Hello? she said.

  I wanted to ask her where she’d been for so long. I wanted to know what she’d been doing. I wanted to hear more of her stories. I wanted to know if she’d been lonely as I’d been. But all I said was, What?

  Your friend, she said, pointing to the fox curled at my side. Where did you find him?

  As soon as the shovel had come down, the spirit of the fox rose up, trotted right to me as if nothing had happened. I didn’t know if he recognized the difference. He probably did. Or if he didn’t, he would by now. The only smells here were remembered ones.

  I didn’t find him, he found me, I told the girl.

  What’s his name?

  I thought about the wolf pup I’d been so determ
ined to find in the woods of my home. But Tarzan didn’t seem like the right name for such a wretched thing, a stupid beautiful thing, a truly wild thing and not a pretender.

  What’s your name? I asked her.

  I can’t tell you, she said.

  Why not?

  It will give you power over me.

  Nonsense, I said.

  She said, Well, what’s your name?

  If you won’t tell me your name, I’m not going to tell you mine.

  See? she said.

  I rolled my eyes and focused on the light fixture.

  Are you trying to burst it again?

  Don’t worry about what I’m trying to do, I said.

  You are trying to burst it. She leaped up onto the table with me. The fox raised his nose and sniffed at her hem out of habit. She said, What did you do the last time?

  What do you mean?

  Right before it burst, what happened? What were you thinking?

  You were making me angry.

  So we just have to make you angry again. That shouldn’t be too difficult. You are very angry, generally.

  I already told you, I said. Getting angry doesn’t help anything. I was angry when . . . I trailed off and pointed to the fox. I was angry when he got hurt. He still got hurt.

  Hurt?

  You know what I mean, I said.

  Whoever promised you that you would never get hurt was lying, she said.

  No one promised me anything.

  Oh? she said. That’s a shame.

  Why? Did someone promise you something?

  She pursed her lips, didn’t answer. She jumped from the table and drifted out the door. I scrambled to catch up. The fox loped beside me.

  Outside, it was as bright and sunny as it had been the day of the Corpus Christi parade, but much warmer now. Men had their collars open. Women wore dresses in shades of candy. Looking at the bustling streets, the lines of coupon-bearing women at the bakery and the butcher, you would never know that some people were still poor and desperate enough to sell their own children for a few dollars. That black men signed up for the service in droves but were assigned the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs and weren’t allowed to be officers. That America had turned away so many Jews trying to escape the Nazis before the borders were closed. And if not for the posters advertising war bonds, you would have never guessed that across the ocean, bombs crashed into buildings, bullets tore into bodies, men with shadows for souls shot their arms out in mindless salutes and ordered the deaths of thousands.

  I caught up to the girl in gold at the end of the block. I said, Where are you going?

  I walk sometimes, she told me.

  Where?

  Nowhere and everywhere, nowhere and everywhere.

  Fine, don’t tell me, I said, desperate for her to tell me.

  I used to walk with my father every evening, she said. We lived downtown, in Bronzeville. Twenty-Second Street. The house where I was born.

  In that moment, I remembered our first meeting, when she’d said the words “I reckon” with the slightest drawl woven into them.

  As if she could read my mind, she explained, My parents came up from Georgia.

  Why did they leave?

  There was no work. And it was awful. You had to step off the sidewalk to make room for a white person, you couldn’t vote, you couldn’t testify in court because no one believed a black man, she said. Her eyes cut to me, a slice of a knife. A man or even a boy could be lynched just for looking at a girl like you.

  No one ever believed me about anything, I said.

  A girl like you could murder one of those men, one of those boys, she said, as if I hadn’t interrupted. All you’d have to do is cry.

  I wasn’t the type to cry, but I didn’t tell her that. I reached down to pet the fox. I imagined I could feel the rough fur beneath my fingers, the scrape of his teeth against my skin.

  My father was a learned man, she went on. He and my mother started a pharmacy. He had a head for numbers, but she was the one who compounded the medicines, she was the one who knew how to heal. She was . . .

  What?

  Everything. She was everything.

  You miss her, I said, not a question.

  By the time I came along, she said, they owned two pharmacies. Some people considered us rich folks. Not rich like you, of course, but richer than some.

  You can call me Pearl.

  Her eyes cut to me again, but this time, they lingered. Pearl? It suits you.

  I was named after my mother’s favorite jewel.

  A treasure, then, she said.

  Oyster spit, I said.

  Her fine brows flew up, opening and softening her whole face. Then she said, I’m Marguerite.

  Lovely to meet you.

  She gave me a rueful smile. I haven’t introduced myself in a very long time, she said. I wondered if I would ever do it again. The people here . . . She trailed off. Well, you know.

  I know. Not a lot of people to converse with, Miss Marguerite.

  For a moment, she stopped drifting, stared at me, the not-fabric of her not-gown floating around her like a golden cloud.

  What? I said.

  She shook her head and then began to move again. Said, You can call me Marguerite. Just Marguerite. Though I have—had—many names. My father always called me Marguerite Irene, always had the time to say the whole thing. My mother called me Margie. My brothers and sisters called me Mags or Magsy, especially when they were teasing me.

  Did they do that a lot? Tease you?

  Yes. I am—was—the baby. The last of five.

  Where . . . ? Are they . . . ?

  She glanced away, running a hand through the passersby, none of whom noticed. My family is fine, she said. They’re all fine without me.

  I wanted to ask her what that meant, how she would know if they were fine, if she visited them sometimes and watched through the windows, if she chose what to witness, but then, I was sure my family was fine without me, happy, even, that the devil had taken me.

  I died from the flu in 1918, I told Marguerite. I wouldn’t be surprised if my family had a party to celebrate my passing every year.

  She laughed, a bright chirp of surprise. Do you always give everything away so soon?

  Never, I said. Then: Always.

  Me too, she said. Me too.

  We walked through the streets of Chicago with the crowds of candy people. Every once in a while, a ghost performed his or her ritual, tripping into traffic, breaking a neck in the gutter, choking on a sweet. We didn’t try to talk to them, we didn’t mention them. We admired the dresses and the hats on the living ladies, marveled at the men’s suits, so plain and narrow now that wool was restricted. Because all the young men were away, few couples strolled about the streets, but we did notice a handsome older gentleman helping his pretty blond wife from a cab.

  I wonder if she knows, Marguerite said.

  Knows what?

  That man is passing.

  Excuse me?

  He’s black, she said.

  He is? You can tell by looking at him?

  Yes, of course.

  Marguerite watched the two walk arm in arm down the street, watched as he opened the door of a nearby restaurant, put a hand on the small of her back to guide her inside. I watched Marguerite.

  I said, Did you have . . . someone?

  My parents had a young man in mind for me, she said. A fine, upstanding man. He went to our church. He was a lawyer so skilled that he had both black and white clients. He was bound for great things. My parents thought he could be a senator one day.

  Marguerite had her hand out again, wafting through the passing people. But hearts sometimes want what they shouldn’t, she said. Such is the way of hearts.

  She told me that though the lawyer was tall and brown and safe and right, though everything about him made sense and wasn’t she a sensible girl? Marguerite opened the door one day and on her front porch stood a white boy so stunning it was as if he�
�d been carved from marble. He had a petition for her to sign, he said. He was from a long line of abolitionists and ministers, he said. He didn’t see the color of her skin, it didn’t matter to him at all. Not at all.

  Until it did.

  Until it did.

  Another door, I said.

  What?

  Doors can be dangerous. You never know what’s on the other side, what you’re letting in.

  True, she said.

  In stories, girls are always opening doors, always the wrong ones. Always crossing thresholds thinking they’re getting away free. Nothing is free.

  Marguerite ran a finger down the side of her face, as if remembering someone else’s touch. It doesn’t matter which door you open, she said. Three or ten or thirteen doorways, there are wolves behind them all.

  We had walked all day and into the night. We sat on the beach, my favorite haunt, or one of them, and watched the ships come in, their winking lights making the skin of the lake shimmer and sparkle. The dying words of Goethe, Marguerite said after a while, and then she sang:

  “Light! more light! the shadows deepen,

  And my life is ebbing low,

  Throw the windows widely open:

  Light! more light! before I go.

  “Softly let the balmy sunshine

  Play around my dying bed,

  E’er the dimly lighted valley

  I with lonely feet must tread.

  “Light! more light! for Death is weaving

  Shadows ’round my waning sight,

  And I fain would gaze upon him

  Through a stream of earthly light.”

  Not for greater gifts of genius;

  Not for thoughts more grandly bright,

  All the dying poet whispers

  Is a prayer for light, more light.

  Heeds he not the gathered laurels,

  Fading slowly from his sight;