“I’ll bet it wasn’t,” he replied.
“I got two hundred dollars off. Imagine! Such a bargain.”
“That means you must have spent five times that much to get it.”
“But look what I’ve saved!”
“And look what you’ve spent! A thousand-dollar lion. I could get a real one for that.”
But he was pleased.
When Mother was happy a soft grin played around Dad’s mouth. She smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and he gave a deep, rumbling chuckle. I loved to hear him laugh. I can see them now, the two stretched on the couch watching the ten o’clock news. Whenever Dad yawned Mother quickly popped her finger in his mouth and giggled, at which Dad grinned and tightened his arm around her.
As I lay in the dark staring at the ceiling a thought entered my mind: here I was, lying in bed between the two most powerful and important people in the world, a coveted position, never mind the cause. I could almost be grateful for my good luck. But mostly I lay like a corpse, too terrified to stir, afraid of setting off a fuse that lay just under the covers, ready to explode at the slightest spark.
I woke up the next morning alone in bed. When I shuffled into the kitchen, Mother mentioned in a hushed voice that she’d had a nightmare, and to pay it no mind. Dad drove me downtown to a special lunch at his office, where his secretary commented that my dad was crazy about me. I knew he only said that because he felt badly about what happened. He had a strong conscientious side.
The episode was never spoken of again. It was something big, something adult—something I wasn’t to know about. Family life resumed and the midnight scene faded into a shadowy past. Evenings we continued to sit cozily together in the living room listening to the console radio, Dad with his paper, Mother in her chair kitting. It was home and I was content.
* * *
A wave from abroad crashed in and united us by its scope: The War.
Since Decmber 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing America into World War II, the family had drawn together. Mother taught me how to knit squares that I turned in at school, to be sewn into blankets for the troops. Dad took me with him everywhere, along with his rationing card, and I kept track of the amount of rationed supplies we were allotted—gasoline, sugar, butter, coffee, fuel oil, cheese, preserves, rice, canned fruit, condensed milk—the list kept growing. Even tire sales were restricted, as well as shoes and women’s nylons, the latter needed to produce parachutes. The patriotic need to contribute to the war effort drove us all, and we embraced a feeling that we were all in this together.
Riding the wave of enthusiasm, Dad decided to create a victory garden along a strip of our yard bordering South Tyrol Trail. He dug up the turf and hauled in rich black dirt, where we would plant carrots, cucumbers, and turnips. I worked next to him, breaking up dirt with my spade. Other times he helped me tie newspapers into bundles for the Meadowbrook School paper drive. I loved it when we bundled newspapers together, wrapping the string around each pile two ways and throwing them in the trunk of the car, almost in sync. I was proud of the way I kept up, never missing a beat, tossing my pile right behind his. “You’re doing a good job there,” he’d say. I could have gathered bundles all night.
Every evening we listened to news of the war. We heard of Hitler’s invasions of Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, and the U.S.S.R., of the London Blitz—there was no stopping this madman. Finally, the invasion of Normandy opened the possibility of an Allied victory. Finally, in May 1945, as Dad, Harold, and I were sitting in the living room we heard President Franklin Roosevelt announce VE Day. We froze as the familiar voice intoned, “Fellow Americans. The war in Europe is ended!” Mother rushed in from the kitchen clutching a dish towel, and Harold’s head jerked up. Dad leaned on his knees towards the radio speaker with an incredulous expression. We looked at each other excitedly as the voice droned on with details of the Allied victory, caught up in the knowledge that our fears were over and our boys were coming home. The exhilaration circled the room, linking us in joyful giddiness. We felt the same pride. We were American. We were family.
Dad, Judy, Susan, Mom, and Harold in Tyrol Hills. Circa 1947.
Now began the post-war drive to normalcy, an attempt to reconstruct regular everyday life, to conform to family ideals. Women dropped out of the workforce and returned eagerly to the home. People rushed to marry, have children, and patronize the church. The atmosphere was positive, and the economy radiated confidence. Prosperity driven by the manufacturing requirements of the war effort had penetrated every home and in a rash of optimism and unity Americans took up the good life.
Thus began the age of conformity. A conformity that a generation of young people two decades later would find stifling and strive to break out of, launching a cultural revolution to which I was irresistibly drawn.
* * *
We visited West Virginia often in those early years, primarily Pennsboro and Wheeling where the two sets of grandparents lived. While Pennsboro was laid back and leisurely, full of swimming holes, small-town picnics and country fairs, Wheeling was a grand city of majestic parks, country clubs, and corniced old downtown buildings.
Wheeling was Granddad Fought’s domain. Flamboyant, debonair, and domineering, he appeared to know everyone in town and greeted doormen and waitresses by name. When he took us to dine at the Oglebay Country Club, people stood up as we walked by and introductions circled. Of course, some of this was no more than the typical effusive Southern greeting. “How are you?” Chatter over chatter, kisses all around, accompanied by bright laughter. At the sight of Granddad maneuvering through a room, remembering each person’s name, everyone broke into smiles.
“Hey, there, Bob, you look lively. Been doing too much lovin’, I expect.”
“Margo, I heard the good news, and I hope it will be a nice fine boy with one upper lip.”
“I’m notifying you right now that I’m having a party on the 27th from 3:00 to 6:30—that’s all the time I’ll allow my guests to talk love and romance.”
“Emily, where were you on Friday? I suppose you would rather be with that ugly boyfriend of yours than with your loving friends.”
No one seemed to mind his acerbic remarks. His deflating skill was coated in bonhomie and charm and his friends loved it. Whether it was at his box at the Wheeling Race Track or at the restaurants he frequented, people would beam and address him by name. He dressed as jauntily as he spoke, in brown gabardine suits with matching vests strung with a gold watch chain, and colorful spats. His trademark was the selection of hats he had for all occasions, especially one wide-brimmed number with the brim tilting up in a side sweep that lent him a handsome, devil-may-care look.
Granddad’s business card read Gordon P. Fought. A member of the Freemason, Elk, and Moose clubs, and an active supporter of the Democratic Party, he was elected mayor of Wheeling, which was no simple job given the corruption that permeated local West Virginia politics in those years. His was the last “strong hand” mayoral term of the city; records show that after his tenure a management team was selected to run the city government.
When he died at age eighty-seven, his cane collection was distributed to family members. One still sits in an umbrella stand in my front hall—a black wooden cane with a screw top concealing a glass tube that holds several cigars. The brass spittoon that sat at the foot of his leather chair in the Hotel Windsor in Wheeling where he spent his last years stands next to the fireplace in my family room
He loved to visit his only child, my mother. On visits to Minneapolis, Granddad sat on his favorite arm chair in the den sporting a plaid vest, cane resting between his legs, square diamond ring gleaming on his manicured hand. I never saw him dressed casually. Even long after dinner, when the rest of us had slipped into pajamas and bathrobes, lazing comfortably in front of the television, he remained upright and suited. All during
the hot Minnesota summer, he wore a suit. He once swore he would never visit Minnesota in the summer due to the mosquitoes the size of crows, but I thought it was really because his suits were too hot.
Susan, Granddad Fought, me, Mother, Dad, Harold.
Granddad Fought, when I caught him alone, told stories of his multifaceted and varied careers. He had been, among other things, owner of an airplane company, a newspaper owner and publisher, an auto dealer, a druggist, and a realtor. But I always suspected he left out more than he revealed. His political experiences in West Virginia politics included harrowing episodes with shady characters, one of whom came to his front door one night and threatened him with a gun. (Granddad told him to make an appointment.) He never spoke of his teenage years, of how he ran away from home at thirteen, fleeing an alcoholic father and abusive stepmother, and the hardships and scrappy jobs he endured. Regretfully, much of his story went with him when he died.
Granddad loved the ladies and they were clearly attracted to him. At one point his wife, Grace, divorced him for philandering. Since divorce was a stigma in those days, he must have committed unpardonable offenses. It seems he repented, she relented, and they remarried and stayed together until her death from cancer at age forty-three.
My grandparent’s divorce was a dark family secret I didn’t learn until many years later when my own divorce loosened my mother’s tongue. After his wife’s death, Granddad married a wealthy widow named Bess Dancer and moved into her house in Forest Hills. When her first husband died, Bess managed Dancer Wallpaper and Paint, a successful business he had founded. On marriage to Gordy she sold the company and put herself in his hands. Granddad wouldn’t hear of his wife working—no one would claim he couldn’t support his own family.
Charming and attractive as he was to the outside world, at home Granddad Fought ruled with an iron hand. He wouldn’t allow Mother to ride a bicycle—too dangerous for a girl. He insisted she reject the prize for a local beauty contest, as well-bred girls weren’t to display themselves. Nor was she permitted to work. Females didn’t draw paychecks, fix sinks, use big words, smoke, or venture out in public alone. Their roles were limited to that of mother and homemaker, a caregiver who provided light relief from serious concerns. Nurturing, teaching, and keeping house, that was their realm.
Education was considered unnecessary for a young Southern woman. Marriage would take care of her future, although college would add a layer of polish. Mother attended Mary Baldwin Seminary, a junior college in Staunton, Virginia, for a year before moving on to Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. At the age of twenty she dropped out of Goucher to marry Dad.
Faced with a dominating father, Mother grew up compliant and obedient. She and her mother walked on eggshells to skirt his criticism. Although he doted on his daughter, his temper sent fear throughout the house. The fear of male fury that sent me shriveling into the corners must have shaped her as well. Maybe like me she detested her own timidity, a tendency to flinch at the mere echo of an angry word. Maybe, despite our different reactions—she became pleasing and crafty in the face of danger, whereas I became private and confrontational—we were more alike than we knew. Maybe, sensing the trait in me that she abhorred in herself, she couldn’t help turning her rejection on me.
* * *
When I was nine, Mother and Aunt Harriet, Dad’s sister-in-law, and I struck out for a week’s vacation in Oglebay Park. Created under Granddad Fought’s tenure as mayor of Wheeling, the park was a crown of the Wheeling landscape in the 1940s, covering 1,650 acres of rolling countryside. We stayed in a suite overlooking a turquoise-blue swimming pool surrounded with colorful umbrellas and white cabanas. Mother and Aunt Harriet lunched poolside, played golf, and took me to visit nearby beach shops, where we purchased white shorts and yellow and rose tops with thin straps.
One fine summer day, Granddad Fought, looking spiffy in a freshly cleaned suit and vest, picked up Mother, Aunt Harriet, and me in his new Pontiac, a long, crimson affair with black velveteen upholstery. We approached the Oglebay Country Club through a one-way drive bordered with tall hedges and drove around a tree-lined lawn until an imposing building burst into view, tall and dazzling white in the southern sun, framed against a cloudless blue sky. The wide steps led to a colonial style porch emboldened with white carved Grecian pillars. The lobby was moist with hints of fresh cotton and mint, and the curved ceiling was crossed with ivory trim.
The dining room was humming with the soft sound of low voices. Granddad teased the waiter about his bow tie and ordered a round of drinks and a Shirley Temple for me.
“Don’t you like your salad?” Mother asked as she watched me slide a lettuce leaf from one side of the plate to the other. She tried her usual tactics: quoting the doctor, appealing to my health, bemoaning the waste. The conversation focused for some time on my eating. Aunt Harriet was looking into her soup with a disapproving frown. She just won’t eat, Mother kept repeating. There were awkward glances in my direction. I felt a growing desire to shoot from my chair. Finally they gave up and resumed their pleasant Wheeling gossip.
I was used to being the fifth wheel. Children were to be seen and not heard. The adult world was not gained easily; you had to grow up. It wasn’t so bad, though. I was part of a family unit where I enjoyed physical well-being and security. But I couldn’t wait to be up in the world, at a grown-up level, a world made up of fun and activities with friends and stories and country houses and freedom to go wherever I pleased. To be a major player, enjoying the full range of privileges—that’s what I wanted.
I sucked on my straw and looked out the window at three statuesque Eucalyptus trees drinking in the sun in the distance, like a performing trio about to burst into song. I imagined myself floating over the white-covered tables and out the window, following an arc out over the rolling lawn where clumps of trees hummed sunshine songs and frothy clouds dozed on the edge of the sky. Out where I drifted under a blue quilt past the circumference of the earth.
Finally Mother turned to me. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, go ahead and run around. I can’t stand all that twisting in your chair.” I resisted an urge to touch her arm, draped in baby blue toile along the arm of the chair. I watched as she picked up her crystal water glass, ice tinkling as she brought it to her lips.
I wandered outside, across the wide lawn to the Eucalyptus trees. From the clubhouse I could still hear the chatter of voices, the tinkling of glassware, soft laughter. The sounds seemed to be coming from inside a drum and they beat in my head like a buried memory. I wondered if I’d made it all up: Mother, Aunt Harriet, Granddad Fought, the lofty dining room, the lawn, the distant voices, it all melted into vagueness. I leaned against the tree trunk, hands behind my back, and gazed at the feathered clouds overhead, white egret wings banked against the sky. So far away. Much too far for me to reach.
Back at the hotel, Mother, Aunt Harriet, and Aunt Dorothy, Dad’s other sister from Pennsboro, were preparing to go out. It had been an active morning. I had stained Aunt Harriet’s new polo shirt, refused to eat my stewed tomatoes, and tracked dog doo across the white throw rug. I had even kicked over a Chinese pole lamp while flipping cartwheels.
As the women put on their hats, I tore around the room monkey fashion, chasing a white soccer ball, falling on it and lifting it high in the air with my ankles in a shoulder stand.
“Stop! Not in the house.” Mother sighed. She apologized to the others. “She’s high strung, you know.” They assumed a passive look.
At nine I was a handful. That was Mother’s word, handful, and she invested it with a tone of distress and resignation. Aunt Harriet and Aunt Dorothy looked on as she bundled me into a chair and stood for a moment beside the coffee table, wringing her hands and gazing out at the hills as if a large hand might emerge from the vastness and save her.
“I don’t know why she carries on so,” I heard Mother say as the door closed behind them.
I ran to the adjoining porch and flung myself on a cushioned chaise, letting the heat of the summer air dissipate my feelings until I lay still and felt nothing.
The next afternoon was hot, and I was sent to the pool to cool off while Mother left with Aunt Harriet, and Aunt Dorothy to explore the antique shops, leaving me under the eyes of the lifeguard. I spread out a towel on the chaise, rubbed cocoa butter over my body, and stretched out.
The pool was packed with bobbing heads, the girls in white rubber bathing caps strapped under their chins. Several kids were throwing a red rubber ball back and forth in the water, yelling and laughing. A boy and a girl in red and navy swim suits clamored up the ladder and leapt as far as they could from the side of the pool and emerged side by side, sputtering. I opened my book and read a few chapters while the sun burned into my skin. When I finally looked up, my eyes were arrested by the sight of a red ball reeling high into the air. It spun quickly until it reached the apex of its flight, where, pressed against the blue sky, it became immobile for a long moment as if in a time warp.
During this pause I could see the red ball actually consisted of several sections resembling a torso, with a head and clusters of arms and legs. As I looked, the cutting blare of the sun charged it into a round, bubbly girl in a red dress, her mouth laughing with glee, sailing through the air and falling, finally, back to the arms of the kids. When it touched the water the mass curved back into a ball and the image vanished.
I wanted to leap into the pool, to catch the ball and hold it. I wanted to fly through the air to the cheers of the young bathers like the balloon girl in the red dress, wanted to know that girl, laugh with that girl, be that girl. I watched the flight of the ball from the chaise, arching from person to person, until the sun started to sink and the ball was lifted from the water, the pin removed, and the air pumped out by many hands. The last I saw was a red patch being placed in a picnic basket and carried off into the hotel.
A Penny a Kiss Page 7