The Daughters of Erietown

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The Daughters of Erietown Page 8

by Connie Schultz


  Ellie was squirming in her seat. “What’s that?” he said, pointing to the corner of the magazine sticking out from under her skirt.

  “What’s what, Grandpa?”

  “Am I going to have to pull it out, or are you going to hand it to me?”

  Ada tsk-tsked as she cracked eggs into the skillet. “I’ve already told her no, honey.”

  He pointed at Ellie’s chair, and she rose just high enough for him to pull out the magazine. He sat down and flipped through the dog-eared pages full of makeup ads and girls in fancy pastel dresses. “So this is what you girls talk about.”

  “Grandpa, we were talking about prom dresses.”

  Ada set a bowl of home fries on the table. “And how we’re not buying one of those getups when I’m fully capable of making one.” She snatched the magazine from Wayne and handed it back to Ellie. “Put this away now, sweetie, and pour the juice. Time to eat.”

  “I don’t know, Ada,” Wayne said. “Maybe just this once, we should take Ellie shopping for a special dress.”

  Ellie set the glass jug of orange juice on the table and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Oh, Grandpa, do you mean it?” He laughed and pried her fingers off his neck. “Not if you’re going to choke me to death.”

  He stood back up and walked over to his wife. “We’re not going to argue about this, honey. This time, you aren’t staying up past midnight at that sewing machine. A girl only gets one prom, and Ellie is going to look as pretty as her grandmother did at the annual Spring Delight.”

  Ada’s shy smile surprised him.

  “Look at you,” he said, cupping her face with his hands, “looking as sweet as the day we met.” She batted his hands away.

  “Go sit down, Romeo. I’m not going to have everything I just cooked go cold.”

  That weekend Wayne drove Ellie and Ada to Brennan’s department store in Erietown, all three of them dressed in Sunday clothes. Ellie walked through the double doors and squealed. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

  “That makes two of us,” Ada said, clutching the handle of her pocketbook with both hands as she looked up at the vaulted ceiling. Wayne touched her elbow and steered them toward the directory on the wall. “Let’s find out where they hide those dresses, and then I’ll leave you to it.”

  * * *

  —

  Ellie stood in front of the three-paneled mirror and tried to smile as her grandmother stood behind her. She was wearing the third of four dresses that Ada had selected, all of them high-collared and made of sensible cotton. “I don’t think so, Grandma.”

  Ada tucked at her waist. “It’s your size but it’s a little snug. That’s the problem when strangers mass-produce your clothes.”

  The size is definitely not the problem, Ellie wanted to say. Grandma was trying, she knew that, but ten minutes into their shopping, Ellie worried that her first step through the door at Brennan’s department store was to be the highlight of this trip.

  The saleslady named Polly walked up holding a sky blue strapless dress. “Now, this is what the girls are wearing to prom,” Polly said, looking past Ada as she approached Wayne. “Is this what you had in mind, sir?”

  Ada turned to behold the guilty grin of her husband, standing by a rack of dresses with his hat in hands. “Wayne, I thought you were waiting in the car.”

  “I changed my mind,” he said. “You’ve been up here almost an hour. Thought maybe I could be helpful.”

  Ellie took the dress from Polly and held it up, fluffing the layers of taffeta flaring out from the beaded bodice. “Oh, Grandma. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

  Ada flipped over the price tag and put her hand on her heart. “Ellie, I could make three dresses with this much money.”

  “Ada.”

  Ellie, Ada, and the saleswoman turned in unison to look at Wayne, their row of faces a palette of emotions, from hopeful to horrified. He was standing by the dressing room entrance, his arms crossed. “I don’t care what the dress costs. Go try it on, Ellie.”

  In the dressing stall, Ellie stripped to her underwear and held the dress up in front of the mirror. “Oh, boy, Grandma,” she whispered. She would have to ditch the bra. She unhooked her bra and carefully stepped into the dress.

  Polly tapped on the doorframe. “Do you need any help with that zipper?” Ellie slid back the curtain just wide enough for her face. “I’m a little nervous,” she whispered. “I’m not wearing a bra.”

  Polly slipped into the room and tugged the curtain closed behind her. “We’ve got the perfect undergarment for this kind of dress.” She stepped behind Ellie. “Let’s zip it up and see what you think.”

  Her grandparents’ bickering ended the moment Ellie walked out of the dressing room. Wayne started fidgeting with the fedora in his hands. Ada clicked open her pocketbook and pulled out a hankie.

  Ellie swirled in front of the mirror. “I don’t recognize myself. I’ve never looked like this a day in my life.” She turned a somber face toward Ada. “Grandma, I know this isn’t the one you wanted.”

  “It’s going to need hemming,” Ada said. “All those layers.”

  Wayne walked over to his wife and put his hand on her back. “Go get dressed, Ellie. I think we’ve found your prom dress.”

  In the dressing room, Ellie held up her arms as the saleslady stood behind her and released the hook and eye at the top and unzipped. Ellie’s hands flew up to cover her breasts as the dress dropped to the floor, the stiff taffeta landing in a cone around her legs.

  “I’ll go put this in a garment bag for you,” Polly said, averting her eyes. “You’re going to be the most beautiful girl at that prom.”

  “Thank you,” Ellie said, cupping her breasts. Polly left with the dress, and Ellie dropped her hands and looked in the mirror. She’d worn that dress for less than ten minutes, but she looked different now, even naked. Aunt Nessa was right. Ellie wasn’t just Brick’s girlfriend. She was a woman now, with her own potential. She looked at her bare breasts and thought about how Brick’s face changed whenever he touched them. She touched her hardening nipples and looked up at her face. She was a woman with desires, too.

  She heard her grandfather’s voice, and the spell broke. She quickly fastened her bra and pulled on the dress her grandmother had made for her. In the silence of the dressing room, she could hear them talking.

  “She’s all grown up, Wayne. Are we doing the right thing here? Letting her go to the prom with Brick. In that dress. If she still thinks she’s going to marry that boy…”

  “No need to work yourself up over that, Ada. It’ll all be over soon. He’ll be gone by August.”

  Ellie smiled as she buttoned up the front of her dress. She would be gone by August, too.

  “Why yes, Doctor,” she whispered as she combed her hair. “Draw the patient’s blood? Right away, Doctor.”

  Ellie sat down on the edge of her bed and clutched handfuls of quilt. “I promise, I promise, I promise,” she whispered, rocking back and forth. “If you make it not so, dear God, I promise we’ll never do it again until we’re married. I promise, I promise.”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks as she rocked faster, kneading the quilt into folds. “Please, God. Don’t do this to us. To me. To Brick.”

  She stopped rocking and covered her face with her hands. Her fingers were frigid against her cheeks. Cold hands, warm heart, her grandmother always said.

  Grandma. Ellie started to cry.

  She walked over to the window. The snow had been falling for hours, and the clouds were still thick and gray as steel wool. On the ground, the daffodils and hyacinths in full bloom two days ago were invisible now. She stretched her neck to look farther down the lawn and jumped back, wincing from the pain of her breasts pressing against the window. They’d been tender for the last week or so, and swollen. She could barely fasten he
r bra.

  Five times. Five times she had given in to Brick. “No,” she said out loud. “To me. I gave in to me.”

  Everybody—her grandmother; her gym teacher, Mrs. Stenback; her best friend, Becca Gilley—all of them talked about how a good girl waits, but no one mentioned how wonderful it feels when she doesn’t. Ellie could not ignore the rising heat down there when she was alone with Brick, the bolt of lightning shooting up her spine. His breath became ragged and the only thing she wanted was him, all of him.

  “I am my mother after all,” she said, staring at the falling snow. “God help me.”

  She heard a light tap on her door and turned away from the window. “Ellie?” Ada said, opening the door just wide enough to peek in. “Oh, you are awake. Your light wasn’t on, and I didn’t hear any movement. I thought maybe you’d overslept.”

  “I woke up too early, Grandma, and then I lost track of time.”

  Ada opened the door wider but stayed in the doorway. “You’ll have to rush, honey,” she said, her brow now knitted with concern. “The bus will be here in fifteen minutes.” She closed the door softly, but nearly a minute passed before Ellie heard her grandmother walk away.

  * * *

  —

  Ellie stood in the school doorway and held her books lightly against her chest, blind to the early-morning swirl of students around her. Each time another red-faced classmate pushed open the door, the cold wind fanned the pleats of Ellie’s cheerleading skirt. She didn’t feel a thing, or hear it. Every “Hi, Ellie!” as another student rushed past. The slam of lockers in the hallways. The first warning bell. All of it was lost on her. She just kept looking out the door’s small square window, seeing nothing, barely breathing, as she mulled over last night’s exchange with her grandmother.

  “Well, what do we make of that?” Ada had said as she stood behind Ellie and tugged at the waistband of her freshly hemmed prom dress. “I wonder if that saleslady gave us the wrong dress. I remember thinking it was a little snug at the time, but not this tight. We can barely get your zipper up.”

  Ellie stood on the footstool in front of her grandmother’s vanity mirror and tried to hide her panic. “I’ve been eating a lot lately, Grandma,” she said, forcing a smile. “Maybe I’m just a little too happy these days, what with prom and other things.”

  Ada reached up and stuck two fingers into the side of Ellie’s dress, under her arm. “This feels a little tight, too. Goodness, I don’t remember that.” She smiled at Ellie’s reflection. “I must have been so stunned at the sight of you that I lost my seamstress head.”

  Ellie tugged on the top of the strapless dress, but it wouldn’t budge. “The saleslady said I filled it out just right, Grandma. It’s supposed to look like this.”

  Ellie stepped down from the step stool and took a deep breath to stave off another wave of nausea. “Thank you for hemming the dress, and trimming all the taffeta layers, Grandma. It fits perfectly. Really it does. Now I just have to wait two more weeks before I can wear it.” She had walked swiftly out of the room, barely making it to the bathroom before vomiting again.

  She turned around to look down the school’s empty hallway. Nope. There would be no prom for Ellie Fetters. No nursing school, either. She pressed her back against the handlebar of the door and pushed it open. The snow swirled around her face, stinging her cheeks and bare legs. She squinted at the snow-covered cars in the parking lot. She didn’t bother looking for Brick’s truck. What did it matter now? “Please forgive me,” she whispered.

  She loosened the grip on her books, and they tumbled to the ground. She’d spent hours covering them in brown paper and decorating them. The ink on the hearts of ELLIE + BRICK was slowly bleeding out under the kisses of snowflakes. Ellie tightened the wool scarf around her neck and started to run.

  She ran through the student parking lot, stopping at Brick’s pickup, noting the Kent State ball cap sitting on the dash. He was the one with the future. He had always been the one who was meant to get away. All her years of praying, but God picked Brick.

  Ellie ran toward the road. The snow was falling harder, and she could barely make out the berm. Her shoes were no match for the ice patches, and she fell on her bottom, her skirt fanning out like a parasol. She counted to ten to catch her breath, and stood up. She ran a few yards and fell again, this time landing on her knees. She stood up and started to cry. Her knees were bleeding. She patted them with her hands and felt nothing.

  She ran past the Jamesons’ house with the leaning shed that Grandpa kept saying should be torn down. The memory of his angry face, his certainty about right and wrong. “I’m sorry, Grandpa,” she yelled. “I’m sorry, Grandma.” She fell again in front of Clayton Valley Nazarene, where a lone man with a shovel waged a losing battle. She pulled off her glove to wipe her nose, then threw the glove in the snow. She started running again, but slowed at the sight of the drugstore. The inside of the shop glowed a warm yellow, casting a man in shadows as he stood by the window, a cup in his hand. She pulled up her collar, leaned into the wind, and kept going.

  The snow was coming harder now, and she could barely see her own feet. She was shivering, but she no longer felt cold. She slowed down and sat on the side of the road. She reached up and patted her head. She’d lost her hat, and the peaks of icy curls crunched beneath her fingers. She bent her legs and wrapped her arms around them, pressing her face against her skirt as she rocked back and forth. “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry, sorry, sorry…”

  She didn’t hear the truck screech to a stop, the creak of the door as it opened, the thud of boots barreling toward her. The only thing she heard was the faraway sound of Brick’s voice calling her name.

  Ada walked into the empty sanctuary of Clayton Valley Methodist Church and sat down in the seat that had been hers for the last thirty years. Fifth pew from the front, center aisle.

  She set her pocketbook beside her, folded her hands, and bowed her head. “Dear Lord…” she whispered. She sat in silence, waiting for the words to come. She was aware of her heart pounding under the gold cross of her necklace, the gentle heave of her bosom with every breath. She flexed her feet, cursing her decision to wear the tied oxfords rather than her more comfortable loafers. She shifted, straining the seams of the girdle that mocked her vanity. Why did she still bother with that thing?

  She snapped open her pocketbook, pulled out a hankie, and dabbed her eyes.

  Try again.

  “Dear Lord…”

  She unfolded her hands to grab the worn back of the bench in front of her and looked up at the crisscross beams of the ceiling. Dear Lord—what? What did she dare ask for?

  Muffled laughter hummed through the floorboards beneath her feet. She looked at her watch: 12:07. The Guild Bees were making lunch. She should be down in the kitchen warming her crispette squares for dessert. Not to mention the weekly gossip she was missing. She sat up straight and pressed her back against the hard wood. How her mind wandered lately, always to the wrong places.

  Ada had been a member of the church’s quilting guild for more than twenty years. For eight hours every Thursday, she joined nine other women around the large wooden frame. They arrived at eight and stitched until noon, when they broke for potluck. After dessert, they stitched for another four hours. The same ten women had gathered all those years, sitting in their chosen seats at the frame—Ada always at the northeast corner—and stitching quilts for the church’s annual bazaar. Last year they’d lost Helen Beard, to cancer. The Bees voted not to replace her.

  Wayne was right to tease her about the Bees’ gossiping, as she had always been a willing participant in unraveling the missteps of other people’s lives. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. It was only a matter of time before her Ellie would be fruit for the frame. Soon, everyone would know what she had already figured out about her granddaughter. They would never say anything directly to her, of cours
e. That’d be a breach of Bee etiquette. Instead, they’d greet Ada with sad, knowing smiles, and grab her hand. “How are you, Ada?” “You look so tired, Ada.” “Anything I can do, Ada?”

  Ada had committed this same act of superior concern countless times over the years. There was something sinfully satisfying about being kind to a person who knew how lucky she was to be on the receiving end of one’s good manners.

  Ada looked up at the painting hanging high behind the altar and locked eyes with Jesus, knocking on the door. How many times in the last thirty years had she stared at that painting, searching his face for answers? “I am the light of the world,” she whispered. “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

  What did Jesus know of this modern life? “Yes,” she said, staring at the painting. “You let Mary Magdalene wash your feet with perfume. But how does that help my Ellie? How does that help her in the here and now?” She pressed her palm against her chest, her eyes filling with tears. She’d just compared her granddaughter to a prostitute. “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed,” she whispered.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, cataloging the evidence she could no longer ignore. The new box of Kotex under the sink, never opened. Ellie’s retching behind the bathroom door. Her pale face and refusals to eat breakfast, even when Ada made her favorite hash and poached eggs.

  “I’m not hungry, Grandma,” Ellie had said just that morning, pushing away her plate. She’d grabbed her coat and flown out the door before Ada could even make eye contact with her. You forgot your boots, she wanted to say.

  Ellie was seven weeks from graduating from high school. Ada counted on her fingers, calculating the possible due date. Her eyes welled up again at the thought of her granddaughter dropping out of school, so close to being finished, having a baby no one wanted.

  And then what? Brick McGinty—he had to be the father—was leaving in August to play basketball for Kent State. She and Wayne had been so relieved when they first heard about Brick’s scholarship. Finally, a way to get that boy out of Ellie’s life. “So she can meet a decent boy who’ll take care of her,” Wayne had said to Ada in bed, the evening he found out about Brick’s scholarship. “So she’s got a chance at a better life.” Ada had said nothing. Their granddaughter had been an acquiescent child, but she was headstrong when it came to Brick, and determined to prove them wrong.

 

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