Vivian carefully laid the empty water glass in the middle of Violet’s pillow before easing herself onto the narrow bed. It had to be Violet’s bed because that was the one pushed against the wall between their room and Vera’s. Vivian held her breath and moved slowly enough so the bedsprings wouldn’t creak. Vera had ears like a bat. When she’d crawled herself into a comfortable crouch on her knees, she lifted the glass from the pillow and put the mouth of it against the wall, lining it up with the old faded plum-and-evergreen stripes of the wallpaper, and when she was pretty sure the glass wouldn’t move, she squished her ear right up against the bottom.
It wasn’t like being in the room with them, but the glass-against-wall worked just fine to help her eavesdrop on her older sister and cousins. They spent hours gossiping in Vera’s room about the girls and boys in their classes at school. Ruby and Opal went to high school in Apple Creek and Vivian didn’t know any of the girls or boys they talked about, but she still gasped quietly at the stories, which she could hear just a little bit better with the glass.
“. . . thinks he’s the elephant’s eyebrows, all right,” Vera sneered. “And he used to go with Mabel Fiske. Mabel Fiske!”
Mabel Fiske, Vivian thought to herself.
“I can’t believe you bobbed your hair,” Ruby said, unconcerned with Mabel Fiske and who she used to go with.
Vivian rolled her eyes as she heard Vera say, “Well, believe it.” Vera hadn’t been able to shut up about her hair since she’d done it. She thought she was sooooo mature now. Vivian could picture Vera on the other side of the wall, smiling coyly and fingering the edges of her fashionable hair.
“Sylvia Emerich bobbed hers,” Opal piped in. “And then she had to quit school to get married.”
Sylvia Emerich, Vivian thought to herself, and then wondered if Vera would have to quit school because of her hair. But she wasn’t getting married.
“Well,” Ruby added, “that wasn’t the only reason Sylvia had to quit school.”
“No.” Vera’s response was low and disbelieving.
“Positutely,” Ruby said.
“No!” Vera exclaimed again, this time so loudly that the word came through the wall as an almost forceful blow.
It was so loud that Vivian fell away from the wall and the glass bounced softly onto the quilt. She’d almost tumbled right off the side of the bed. Boy, is Vera ever loud. What was the other reason Sylvia Emerich had to leave school? Vivian steadied herself, then carefully crept back to her spot, picked up the glass, leaned back against the wall, and pressed her ear harder against the base of the glass. Ruby’d lowered her voice by this time, though, and Vivian couldn’t make out what she was saying. She narrowed her eyes into a squint.
“What are you doing?”
Vivian gasped and whipped around, causing the bedsprings to bounce and squeak crazily, as the glass again dropped onto the quilt behind her. Her older brother Henry was standing in the bedroom doorway with his thumbs hooked in his suspenders and a sly smile dancing around his lips. Vivian hadn’t even heard the door open.
“What are you doing?” she shot back.
“I asked you first.”
“None of your beeswax!” She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted around on her knees to make sure he couldn’t see the glass.
“Well, when you’re finished with ‘none of my beeswax,’ Mom needs to wash that glass.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of her right hip, before making an about-face to go back downstairs.
Vivian huffed and considered picking up the glass and throwing it at her brother, but knew she’d get the wooden spoon for that. Their mother knew exactly how many glasses, and plates, and bowls were supposed to be in the kitchen at any given time. She didn’t like it when they went missing, but she really hated it when they broke. “These things all cost money!” Vivian wondered how much it would cost to buy herself her own glass. I’ll have my own telephone before Vera does.
She listened and waited until she heard Henry’s shoes hit the tiled floor of the kitchen below before she put the glass back up to the wall. The girls had finished the conversation about Sylvia Emerich and now Vera was talking about the ring. But Vivian wanted to know the other reason Sylvia Emerich had to leave school.
“It’s Irish,” Vera explained to the cousins, who weren’t. “They call it a claddagh ring. It’s gold and—”
“Our mama has a gold ring, too,” Opal interrupted.
“Yes,” Vera said patiently, in the way she always did when she spoke to Opal, who wasn’t the brightest of the Cutter sisters. “But it’s probably her wedding ring, isn’t it? This is different. It’s gold—”
“She has other gold rings, too, you know,” Ruby said, quick to defend her sister and the contents of their mother’s jewelry box. Vivian could almost hear her crossing her arms over her chest.
“Fine, but I’m telling you about this ring. We can talk about yours after.”
Vivian recognized Vera’s irritated tone. It was two steps from her shouting tone.
“Anyway, there’s a heart in the center, with a crown on top of it, and then two hands that look like they’re holding the heart.”
There was a pause, to let the cousins picture the claddagh ring in their heads, or maybe Vera was miming with her own hands what the ring looked like, then she continued.
“If you’re still a spinster, you wear it right-side up, and then if you’re married you wear it upside down.”
No, Vivian thought. That was what was annoying about a know-it-all. They sometimes got things wrong, but didn’t know it. They never really knew it all.
“And my Aunt Catharine has one that’s been in our family for about a hundred years, and she’s going to give it to the first one of us girls who gets married.”
“Ah,” both Opal and Ruby said together.
“Since I’m oldest, it’s going to be me.”
“Positutely,” Ruby agreed.
Vivian thought that if Vera was going to get Aunt Catharine’s claddagh ring, she should at least know how to wear it properly. You wore it with the point of the heart facing up if you were still a spinster, but you wanted the point facing down, pointing at your wrist, if you were married. Vera was always so busy talking and telling everyone what they didn’t know, she never listened to anything. Vivian listened.
She took the glass from the wall and collapsed back onto the bed, the springs creaking again.
“Vivian!” Vera shouted through the wall. “Is that you? What are you doing in there?”
None of your beeswax.
“I’m resting!” Vivian shouted back.
She thought about what her wedding would be like, and pictured herself in a beautiful white dress with a lace veil that went all the way to the floor. Her husband was going to be so rich, he’d buy her all the gold claddagh rings she wanted. Maybe she’d get one for each finger, although you were really only supposed to wear them on your fourth finger, but Vera didn’t know the rules. She’d just see all those rings. How would Vera like that?
Uncle Frank, Aunt Emma, and the cousins never stayed past nine o’clock on Fish Fry nights, and at around quarter till, Aunt Emma called up the stairs.
“Girls! Time to go!”
The door to Vera’s room opened and Vera, Ruby, and Opal emerged, still chatting away, and walked in single file past Vivian and Violet’s room down the narrow hallway, making their way downstairs. Vivian climbed down from her bed holding the glass behind her back and followed them quietly.
At the front door everyone hugged and kissed their goodbyes, the grown-ups making plans for the next Fish Fry. Vivian’s mother pushed the screen door open and hustled the Cutters out, waving her arms after them so the mosquitoes and moths wouldn’t get in. The McGintys stood just inside the screen door and waved to the Cutters until the headlights of the Sheridan disappeared down the road. They all then retreated to the kitchen to sit around the table, and Pawpy would have just one more wee glass of whiskey while Mom scraped the
dried crud from the dishes and complained, “I told you it would all dry up like this.”
“What did you and the girls talk about up there, Vera?” Pawpy asked with a wink as he swirled the amber liquid around his glass.
“Oh, never you mind,” Vera answered, tucking her bobbed hair behind her ear and looking at her fingernails in a way Vivian thought made her look like the secretary from the office at school. “That’s girl stuff, Pawpy. You don’t need to know about that.”
Vivian hated to be left out of conversations, so she added, “Yeah, Pawpy, you don’t need to know anything about Mabel Fiske or what that Sylvia Emerich is up to,” and then crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her chair with a satisfied smile.
“Vivian!”
Vera’s shout brought all eyes to her, then to Vivian, who frowned and pulled her arms tighter against her chest. She liked attention, but not the bad attention.
“Mom!” Vera shouted again. “Vivian was eavesdropping on us!” and she lunged across the table and grabbed the collar of Vivian’s best weekday dress with her office-secretary fingernails.
“Vera Eileen!” Pawpy’s rebuke with middle name included was sharp, and he slammed his empty glass on the table, causing Vera to release her grip on the collar. “You do not attack your sister.”
Vivian was still frozen in place, her eyes like saucers. She very badly wanted to straighten her dress.
“But—” Vera protested.
“You let me talk to her.” Pawpy scooted his chair back, picked up his glass, and motioned with it for Vivian to follow him into the living room.
Vivian smoothed the wrinkled collar of her dress as she walked behind Pawpy, straightening the sailor tie and pulling down on the skirt that’d hiked up in the back. Pawpy seated her on the end of the sofa, in the farthest spot from the kitchen, before going to the liquor cabinet to refill his glass. He then returned to the sofa and crouched on the floor in front of her, taking a sip of whiskey.
“Vivy, love.” He looked into the blue eyes that matched his own. “You shouldn’t be listening in on your sister and your cousins, you hear me?”
Vivian’s lip quivered as she nodded at the index finger pointing at her.
“You just need to make sure to keep those secrets to yourself. And next time you won’t get caught.”
He finished his lecture with a scrunch of his red nose, reached out and gave hers a quick tug with his fingers, and then lost his balance, tipping over sideways onto the braided rug and spilling the rest of his drink.
Her mother heard the glass drop and came stomping into the living room, hands on her hips.
“Christ, Patrick,” she hiss-whispered at him. “Vivy, you go on upstairs now. Shame on you.”
Vivian wasn’t sure if the “shame on you” was for her or Pawpy, but she did what she was told and slid down from the sofa, pulling again at her skirt as she stepped over the spilled glass and across the braided rug. She then climbed the stairs to her room.
Later, Pawpy came to tuck her and Violet in. He steadied himself on the iron bed frame and leaned over and gave her a whiskey-smelling kiss on the forehead.
“You remember what I told you, love,” he said in a low voice, tapping her on the end of her nose with his forefinger. “Just don’t get caught.”
With that tipsy endorsement Vivian’s eavesdropping career had officially begun. She smiled and pulled the covers up under her chin, wriggling her toes under the blankets and hoping her dreams would be filled with secret conversations about high school girls getting married and scads of Irish claddagh rings. Instead, she dreamed that a fried fish with great big waggly eyebrows was chasing her around a huge water glass, and she’d forgotten how to swim.
Chapter 4
Betty Miller placed the telephone receiver back in its cradle and eased slowly back in the gold velvet chair, settling into the cushion like a satisfied cat. Her arms crossed over her bosom, her fingers with the shiny, scarlet lacquered nails tapping thoughtfully over her other arm. This was something new, now, wasn’t it? It wasn’t the everyday gossip they were used to in Wooster. No, this was better. More scandalous.
Betty didn’t spend a great deal of time being introspective, as she disliked the feeling it gave her deep in her stomach, and she didn’t know why she was so fascinated with the personal business of other people in town, but she also didn’t question it. Wooster was a small town. It was natural. Some of her detractors, and even some of her friends, might have said it was the opportunity for comparison. Comparison always reassured her that she was setting the grandest example for the people of Wooster, with her sophistication and carefully cultivated way of life. She supposed she just preferred that things operate the way she wanted them to, without disruption. You wanted Betty Miller to approve of you, and you wouldn’t want to get on her bad side, that was simply how it was.
Last December it had been Freedlander’s, with their foul, grossly inebriated Santa Claus, endangering the innocence and wonder of Wooster’s children, and polluting the very idea and spirit of Christmas. Jesus Christ was not born in a straw-filled manger in Bethlehem so that some filthy, drunken hobo could wreak havoc in the toy department of Freedlander’s and desecrate the holiness of Our Lord and Savior’s special day. That was what Betty had said to all her friends, who had then faithfully followed her boycott of the department store until Drunk Santa had been fired.
The year before that, Betty’s ire had been unleashed upon Wooster’s superintendent of schools for having the gall to consider integrating Quinby Elementary. The Negroes lived south of Bowman Street, and that was where they would be most comfortable attending school. It was positively ludicrous to make them travel outside their own neighborhoods, which had perfectly fine schools. It simply did not make sense. Betty and her husband, Charles, had also had to discourage the Hammonds down the road from selling their house to a black family in 1949. They just wouldn’t have fit in with the rest of the neighborhood, and Betty wanted to ensure that everyone in Wooster fit in where they belonged. That was just common sense when organizing a community. “Everyone has their place, dear,” she had said; surprised she had to belabor the point to Marilyn Dean during an afternoon tea party at Clara Weaver’s. And you wouldn’t want to get her started on the embezzlement scandal at her father’s bank this past summer. You simply would not.
And now she had just been presented with some extremely intriguing information about Vivian Dalton’s family. She had almost recoiled at Vivian’s waving to her through Freedlander’s window earlier. And in that Bechtel’s hat. Who did she think she was, waving to Betty so casually like that? Accidental eye contact did not always warrant a familiar greeting. But Vivian did sometimes have difficulty remembering her place. She often led her family to sit in one of the first five on Sundays. Betty had seen that happen at least twice in the past year. She didn’t think she should have to remind anyone that the first five pews should be reserved for the worshippers who donated at least a thousand dollars to Forest Chapel Methodist each year. Betty knew for a fact that the Daltons contributed far less than that.
Her family, Betty thought smugly, and then croaked out a hoarse laugh before slapping a soft, pale hand over her mouth. She didn’t want to wake the children. They were so hard to put to bed these days. They’d get all wound up after Howdy Doody, with the hooting and hollering and that demonic clown honking his horn every two seconds. “Clarabell, Mom, it’s Clarabell!” Now there was the added excitement about the upcoming school holidays and Christmas. She groaned, thinking of the increased noise level in the house, and the long days of sloppy wet snow, the children’s clothing and boots tracking dirt and slush onto her pristine carpet.
She glanced at the perfectly decorated Christmas tree that stood in the corner of the expansive living room. Little Bitty had told her how excited she was to make ornaments at school next week, so Betty needed to remind Charles to set up the children’s tree in the den. They could hang the clothespin Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Rein
deers, and crooked paper snowflakes, and all the other charming, but unsightly, decorations they brought home on that tree. It was nice, and made it special for them, and Betty got to display her beautifully symmetrical, glass-ball-bedecked noble fir for the annual Miller Christmas party. No one’s Christmas tree was more highly praised than Betty Miller’s tree.
“She just has such an eye for décor!”
“Absolutely perfect!”
“Not a branch out of place!”
Because, as everyone knew, everything in Betty’s life was always perfectly in place.
Her absent musings about people forgetting their place and the proper décor of Christmas trees soon shifted entirely to the Christmas party itself, and Betty spent fifteen minutes frowning over ideas for the hors d’oeuvres. As she imagined the silver trays floating about the living room and dining room, she tried to picture what the perfect tiny foods could be, with various free hands reaching for the offerings, while other hands were curled around festive holiday cocktails in the Waterford tumblers. She would have to remind Dolly to fetch the tumblers from the chest in the basement and give them a thorough washing. Although they had been wrapped in tissue paper and sealed in the chest, she wanted to make certain they were clear and sparkling for the event. The holiday tumblers were an entirely different set from the glassware the Millers used for day-to-day.
“Mommy?”
Betty turned her head to see Little Bitty standing on the lowest step of the staircase, hanging on to the post with one hand and rubbing her eye with the other. Her footie pajamas had started to pill and were looking worn. It was a good thing Santa was coming with a new set.
“Baby!” Betty cried in a hushed whisper as she rose from her chair. “What are you doing up?”
Little Bitty slipped down the last step with a thump and whimpered.
“Did you have a bad dream again?” Betty asked as she swooped Little Bitty up in her arms and hugged her close. Little Bitty was nodding and sniffing. She smelled slightly of the hamburger they’d had for dinner that night, and Betty groaned that she had forgotten to bathe her and Charles Junior. They always, always received a bath after any dinner that lingered in their hair.
The Operator Page 3