“I definitely don’t have time for that stuff.” Dennis stood up and kissed the top of my head. “I’m sold. If you can handle it that would be swell.”
I took the streetcar over to a printer’s office on Walnut Street. My arms trembled in the seat en route, the Gunnison manual like a security blanket in my lap. Surely I could follow directions as well as anyone.
Standing before the sign that read BERGMAN AND SONS PRINTERS, I straightened my shoulders. A bell tinkled as a businessman who was leaving held the door for me and tipped his hat. The shop smelled of paper and glue and ink and wax. Examples of the shop’s work covered the walls: party invitations, posters, flyers in every color. I stood at the counter while the clerk served another patron. Both men. They glanced at me as if they were unaccustomed to seeing the fairer sex bring in projects, although I’d worn a skirt with pumps and a blazer—like a professional secretary in a Cary Grant movie.
“May I help you?” the short, balding clerk said as the other customer left.
“Yes.” I willed my hands not to shake. I opened the manual to the page I’d marked. “I have a template. For producing a postcard.”
A few hours after, I returned to inspect what the clerk had called a proof. “Wait,” I said, pointing. “The name of the company is misspelled.” I was appalled at the shoddy workmanship that would type Gunnison as Gunnisom. Did he think me dimwitted?
“Dear me,” said the clerk. “My apologies. The apprentice missed it.”
“Quite,” I said, my lips firm, my confidence growing. “I trust you’ll correct this for no extra charge. Now shall we discuss quantity?”
“The more you order, the lower the price per piece,” he said, sliding a rate sheet in front of me. I scoured the costs to be sure I wasn’t being bamboozled. I ordered a little more than I would need for the list of addresses I’d obtained.
When the final piece came off the presses, I couldn’t stop staring at it. I taped the postcard to our refrigerator at home, so I could admire it each time I passed. I mailed one to my mother and one to Mother Glenn. I, Millicent Glenn, had produced a real publication. I was so proud.
The postcard featured a color rendering of the model house and the Gunnison manual’s text:
Picture your family in a house of tomorrow, today. Here is everything a woman dreams of: security and a place to call her own. Come learn what a Gunnison home would do for you every day in new comfort, luxury, economy, security, and family happiness. And you can own for less than paying rent.
I spent half a day licking and sticking purple one-cent stamps on the mailers until my tongue adhered to the roof of my mouth. I could barely taste the chicken and dumplings I fixed that night for supper. A feeling of accomplishment was my reward for working so hard, eating so little, sleeping so lightly, and having no leisure. We’d not gone to a matinee in weeks. But we did have one form of free entertainment.
“How am I supposed to eat this meal with you flitting around here looking so pretty?” Dennis had said the last time we got in the mood.
“You have to have your nourishment, to keep the pace you’re working,” I said, standing beside our Formica-topped table.
“So nourish me,” he said. With one long, slow blink of his eyes that man could arouse me.
Dennis swept our plates and glasses aside with his arm. I pulled up my apron and lifted my polka-dot shift to my waist. I bent over our table before him. Then he unhooked my stockings and slid them down, slowly, one leg at a time, bringing fire to my skin with the tips of his fingers.
After each time we made love, a thought niggled in the back of my mind: Why wasn’t I getting pregnant? My parents had been married years before I came along. Might something be wrong with me, the same thing that had been wrong with my mother? The thing she never spoke of . . . or something worse? Not that Dennis and I had hours in the day to raise a family yet anyway, I reasoned. We had lists upon lists of things to do.
Three days before our grand opening, a black Chevrolet parked in front of the model home site. Dennis and I were in the living room measuring the picture window for draperies.
“What are Nathan and Abbie doing here?” I asked.
“Nathan wanted to see the place before the crowds came. Didn’t I tell you?”
Would I be wearing my dingiest denim pants and a scarf wrapped around my hair that’s overdue for a wash if you’d told me I’d be seeing the perfect Abbie Glenn? I brushed sawdust from my blouse, which was splattered with the bedroom’s green paint.
“You guys have about got it licked,” Nathan said as they entered. “Proud of you, baby brother.”
Abbie was neat as a pin, radiant in her starched red slacks and bright print blouse. She smelled of White Shoulders cologne. Little Margaret hugged my leg, and I caressed her soft cheek.
Abbie said, “Nathan, you need to pick Margaret up. There are metal screws lying all over.”
As the boys and Margaret made for the kitchen, Abbie said, “Have you heard the news, Millie? I’m expecting again.”
She had a smug cat smile that seemed to ask how I could stand doing men’s work in a filthy hole like this. Why wasn’t I doing a real woman’s job, anyway—keeping the hearth fires burning somewhere clean and making babies every night? Was the work I did so different from her spreading manure in a garden on their acreage?
But how I wished I at least had on some lipstick.
Forty-two hours before Gunnison’s grand opening, as we readied ourselves for bed, Perry Como sang “Prisoner of Love” on the radio. The telephone rang.
“What’s wrong?” Dennis said into the receiver. I turned down the music and wiped the cold cream off my face over a washbasin.
“What does that mean exactly?” The corners of his bottom lip were tucked in. He was mad. Or upset. Was it his family? Was everything okay?
“I had understood the timing would work.” Dennis lit up a Camel and took a deep drag.
It had to be the house. Our investment. Fright overtook my body. I didn’t want to live in a one-room flat the rest of my life. I couldn’t go back to the slums. Why hadn’t I gotten a real job—one where the boss actually paid me a wage?
“But that delay will cause—”
My heart raced faster. Was it the electricity hookup? The plumbing connection? We couldn’t put off the launch of the open house. The mailers had gone out the week before. In addition to my getting the postcards printed, I’d worked with the Cincinnati Enquirer’s classifieds department to place three advertisements. The ads showed the dates and address for the house—and they’d already run.
“Look, I really want that shipment,” Dennis said, firmly but not unkindly. “I’m afraid I need it by noon tomorrow.” Shipment?
“Thank you. Whatever it costs.”
Turned out Dennis was talking with the Gunnison factory in Indiana about shutters and flower boxes—accessories that weren’t furnished with the basic home package, but which were items he’d ordered last minute. It wasn’t the end of the world after all. But Dennis wanted the place to look like the brochure. He expected perfection.
“Come hell or high water. We only get one chance at a first impression,” he said. The weight of the business was getting to him, too.
At midnight on the eve of the grand opening, by the light of a crescent moon, Dennis installed green shutters on the white house, while I planted pink and purple petunias in the window boxes—the first time I’d planted flowers all by myself. We’d cut it that close.
At noon on grand opening day, Dennis dangled the key on a cord and unlocked the door with a flourish. It was as if the Land of Oz awaited us. And though this house would never be ours to live in—it would be sold, and we’d use the money to reinvest—my handsome husband swooped me into his arms and lifted me across the threshold. He was so strong. So mine.
“Mrs. Glenn, with you at my side, we’re gonna go places,” he said, lowering my feet to the welcome mat inside. My heart warmed at his recognition of my role in his enterpris
e. In fact, it was beginning to feel to me more like our enterprise.
How different this moment was from the day Mama and I had stepped inside our new, shabby flat above a defunct saloon, while Opa lugged our cart up the steps. I had been in second grade and carried my drawstring bag filled with my most prized possession, my game of tiddlywinks. When Mama opened the door, a rat ran out and skimmed the toe of my shoe, and I screamed.
A man with greasy hair and bristly whiskers had leered from across the hall and said, “Well, look at you two sweet things. Don’t worry about rats, they don’t eat a lot. But I sure like to.” He licked his lips and then whistled as Mama slammed and locked the door behind us.
My Dennis had little idea how far he and I had already come compared to where I’d been. And I’d make sure I didn’t go back. In the next week we’d bring Mama and Opa for a tour.
“One hour till our future customers arrive,” Dennis said.
We dashed about getting every last-minute detail marked off the list. I put the lid down on the toilet seat in the bath with its walls of pink tiles, because Dennis never remembered to. He set the doors ajar in the closets and switched music on a radio at a soft timbre. I touched droplets of vanilla extract on warm bulbs in the lamps, a trick to entice a wife into imagining herself baking in this very house. I fanned out pamphlets atop the sink’s chip-resistant porcelain enamel drainboard. The kitchen had other features that young wives would love: a bright tone and sunny pictures; white enameled cabinets that easily wiped clean; a durable linoleum floor in blue with small geometrics in red and white; a drop-leaf table and red vinyl stools—and gingham curtains, a canister set, and a metal breadbox with a cherry motif.
The beautiful living room would greet potential customers. It was clutter-free, which was important; young couples needed space for their children. It had a summer rug and ample furniture: a streamlined blue sofa with striped throw pillows, a stand-in cabinet and table of blond wood, a flowery upholstered chair with an emphasis on red. Postwar families still valued patriotism, and new homes reflected the flag’s colors.
Dennis and I had everything in place. Then we waited.
Beneath my cheery face, my jaw ached and my neck ached and my shoulders ached—all from clenching my teeth so tightly during what little sleep I got. What if my promotional campaign flopped? What if no customers came? What if Dennis didn’t make a sale? He had to sell house kits for other lots in the neighborhood, or this dealership wouldn’t last the summer. Had starting this business been a mistake? A waste of his parents’ funds? Why hadn’t I gotten a real job?
“Millie,” Dennis said. “Look out the window.” I peeked between the curtains, and goose pimples sprouted up and down my arms.
A steady stream of cars was creeping up the street, going both directions. Four-door Chryslers and Fords were parking in front of yards on both sides for as far as we could see. Families with fathers carrying toddlers and mothers carrying pocketbooks made their way by foot, casting huge bouncing shadows as they crossed our drive. One couple had already stridden past the petunias I’d planted in the window boxes.
Dennis shook the hand of the first husband to arrive. I smiled at the wife, whose mouth was open in awe as her gaze flitted about the room.
“Welcome to Gunnison Homes by Glenn,” I said.
By the close of the fiscal year’s second quarter it was November 1946, and we’d been married just under two years. Hundreds had toured the house in the first six months. Dealerships that promised the highest success closed three home-building deals in the first two months, the manual stated. Dennis and I had sold ten prefab houses in six months. Ten. We celebrated our good fortune at the Empress Chili parlor downtown.
My ongoing campaign had been a hit. I hadn’t conceived a child yet, but I’d helped launch the business that would be the foundation of our future. It made me feel as if I could do anything—like Rosie the Riveter or Eleanor Roosevelt.
At Empress we ordered five-ways. This Cincinnati specialty had spicy meat chili simmered with cinnamon and allspice. Our small oval plates were mounded high with spaghetti and covered in chili, red kidney beans, chopped white onions, and heaps of finely grated cheddar cheese.
Dennis said, “I couldn’t have done it without you, Mil, you know that, right?”
My cheeks warmed. I knew it.
“Your mother told me once,” I said, “how when she was a bride she would labor in the cornfields if needed. She had once driven a team of horses when hay had to get to the barn.” Mother Glenn and my mama had taught me that a wife does what she must.
“A farmer and his wife are partners,” Dennis said. Indeed, this was the exact way I’d come to think of it, the way his mother had described it, too. I’d seen how farm wives gathered and cooked or sold the eggs. Husbands kept the coops in prime condition to protect the hens from thieves. “The farm isn’t only my folks’ home,” Dennis said. “It’s their business.”
I liked the concept of our marriage being a business partnership, too. I could do meaningful work as I’d longed to do for some time. I would be fulfilled in being useful and actually contributing to our stable future—and contributing to our income. I could put money aside for a rainy day, the way Mother Glenn did, the way Mama had wanted to . . . the way I wanted to for myself.
I said, “Your mother was a business partner, and she raised the babies, too. She did both. Just as I hope to do.” I hoped that more than anything.
Dennis sprinkled a handful of oyster crackers onto his five-way. I wasn’t sure he’d heard me. Or was it that after being married so long, Dennis, too, quietly wondered if a baby would ever come?
The next day after Dennis left for work, I crawled into the dark corner of my side of our one tiny closet and slid out a wide-mouthed, blue clay jug the size of a cantaloupe. Mother Glenn had given it to me. It stowed the money I’d saved from being frugal with my housekeeping budget and the money I’d earned when we had a house sale. I didn’t mind if Dennis knew about the stash so much as I needed the security the cash brought me. It belonged to me. I needed provisions in the event disaster struck—a landlord kicked us out without notice, or one of us got hurt and needed medical care, especially Dennis. I prayed my mother’s history did not repeat itself with my husband. I poured all the cash into a heap on the rug. Down on the floor I meticulously counted every dollar and cent and recorded the totals on white, lined paper. I sorted the one-dollar bills from the five-dollar bills from the tens, making sure the presidents’ heads were all facing up the way a bank preferred them. I separated the pennies from the nickels.
Soon I stood at Third and High Streets in Hamilton. My gaze followed up the eight stories of a limestone building that had an enormous sign atop: 1st. That alone was enough for folks to know this was the First National Bank and Trust Company. Dennis’s family had used this bank for years. I’d been here a few times with him or alone while handling matters on his behalf.
Today I was here on my own behalf.
I strode toward the row of tellers, who stood behind barred, marble cubbies—all the men in white shirts and wearing vests. I acted as if I knew what I was doing.
“I’m here to open an account,” I said to the teller. He looked at me as if I’d just asked him to zip his fly. “A savings account.” I wanted my money to be more secure and to grow by earning interest.
“And in whose name would the bank account be?” he inquired. He wasn’t that much older than Dennis, but he had the manner of a high school principal.
“Millicent Glenn.”
“That’s you?” he asked.
“Correct.” Was there a problem?
“Excuse me a moment,” the teller said. He unlocked himself from his cubby and scurried to the back.
There I stood with other patrons glaring at me from the end of the line. I was the dreaded customer who had a special need, who was taking too long. My attention drifted to my left and to my right. A woman about my age was seated by a window across the way, presumably w
aiting on her husband. A child wiggled on her lap, a boy blowing spit bubbles. A pang of jealousy hit me. The baby was probably two years old and poked his index finger into his mother’s mouth while she made sounds, pretending to chew his finger. Giggles from deep in his belly curtailed his bubble blowing. His other hand went for his mother’s hair, and he coiled a lock around his finger. I wanted what that woman had. I wanted every bit of that.
The teller returned at last and asked that I follow him. I did so. I wanted to get this over and go home. I soon found myself sitting across the wide swath of wood that topped a businessman’s desk.
“Mrs. Glenn, how are you?” I didn’t know the man at the desk, but he apparently knew me.
“I’m wonderful,” I said. “I’m here to open a savings account.”
The man’s desk nameplate said MR. HATTER, and he said, “We at First greatly appreciate the business your husband’s home dealership brings to our bank. We have a longstanding relationship with all the Glenns.”
“I know. I’m a Glenn. That’s why I’m here, instead of at the bank down the street,” I said jovially.
“You’ve come to the right place. I’d be happy to open a savings account for you. Right now, as a matter of fact. Can you show me your written letter of authorization?”
“What do you mean by ‘letter of authorization’?”
Mr. Hatter cleared his throat. “You’ll need your husband’s permission to open an account in your own name.”
“But I have my own money. Money I earned and saved.” I had neatly arranged it in a drawstring bag in my purse.
“Perhaps Mr. Glenn is near a telephone?” Mr. Hatter said. He lifted the black receiver off his desk and poised a finger to dial. “Shall I place a call? Given our longstanding relationship, I’m happy to accommodate your request with his verbal consent.”
“I’m sure Dennis would approve, though he’s on a building site right now,” I said, annoyed. “I can try down the street after all, I suppose.” If this bank didn’t think I was good enough, I’d find a bank that would.
Millicent Glenn's Last Wish: A Novel Page 5