The Waiting

by Cathy LaGrow

  Finally, here came Jane across the field. Her arm was linked through her mother’s, and she leaned against her, giggling about something. Jennie was smiling. In this pressing heat, they moved slowly. Minka wanted to drag them forward. She turned and opened the truck’s back door. Its metal handle was hot to the touch, and the hinges squealed. As she climbed up, she banged her knee on the wooden crates that served as seats, and her handkerchief fluttered onto the metal floor. She’d been twisting the cloth so anxiously that it looked like a wrung-out chicken’s neck.

  * * *

  Minka stood at the mirror in her mother’s bedroom, trying on strands of necklaces. Despite growing up on a hardscrabble farm, she’d always loved pretty jewelry. Jennie had brought some simple accessories from Holland many years ago, and Minka had often capered around Uncle’s house wearing every strand she could find, all draped together around her neck. Jane and John had nicknamed her “Gypsy.”

  Jane wasn’t calling her sister names today. Minka’s younger sibling had been trying not to sulk ever since they’d arrived home from church. With excitement such a rare commodity in their lives, the sisters nearly always shared it; the night before, Jane had volunteered to help Minka bake cookies for the big event.

  But Jane was the charming “baby” of the family, unaccustomed to standing in the shadows, and now the sharing of joy stretched taut. Minka’s new dress was the best item in their shared closet. Only Minka would be going on the picnic. Jane’s steps had been heavy and a pout had crimped her pretty lips as she changed into work clothes for her usual afternoon of chores.

  The summer sewing class was made up of girls from Zion Lutheran. Although store windows now overflowed with finished goods, from ready-made clothes to canned food to toiletry items, sewing was still an expected skill for a future housewife. Like most farmers, the Vander Zees took care of their own animals, grew and preserved their own food, performed their own mechanical repairs, made their own soap and clothes.

  Jennie sewed skillfully and would have made a fine teacher if she’d had time, but she was too busy with chores. So Minka went off to sewing class, where she demonstrated an innate creativity and quick skill that surprised and pleased her. She produced the most immaculate stitches in the group—she’d heard her teacher praising her work to Jennie. Minka loved the feel of new fabric in her hands. Sometimes, while doing chores or riding in the car, she daydreamed of expensive silk in bright colors, falling like water over her shoulders and resting perfectly against her thin hips.

  For this first dress Minka had chosen a modern shift pattern with a dropped waist in a fetching green-and-white cotton. She couldn’t resist adding a decoration: an apple-and-leaf appliqué, cut from a contrasting fabric and stitched below her left shoulder. Compared to this fresh style, even her best church dress seemed dowdy.

  As Minka fastened a strand of beads behind her neck, Jennie came through the doorway. She covered her mouth when she saw her daughter, her quietest and most diligent child. The mirror reflected the woman Minka would soon become.

  “Je ziet er mooi uit,” she murmured. You look so pretty. Then, louder: “You are a fine seamstress, Minnie.”

  Minka savored the compliments. Since babyhood, her pretty sister had always been the center of attention. Minka was happiest out of the spotlight, but sometimes when she watched Jane fling herself into their mother’s lap, she longed to do the same. In a household marked by Dutch reserve, compliments were few and physical touch came only to those who demanded it. Minka was too shy—and too stubborn, really—to demand anything.

  “Dey are picking you up here?” Jennie asked, crossing the room to lift Minka’s overalls from the bedstead.

  “Yes, Mom.” Minka pushed at the bottom of her hair. She’d dampened it in the bathroom and attempted to make some finger waves, but it had dried too quickly in this heat and now looked straggly. She supposed the other girls would have the same problem today.

  “And you be back in time for de milking, ja?” That chore commenced at five o’clock at both ends of the day, and the cows’ full udders wouldn’t wait, picnic or no.

  “Yes, Mom, that’s what they said.”

  Jennie bent and wiped the tops of Minka’s shoes, then set them where Minka could slip into them. The clunky leather shoes would make her feet sweat, but they would have to do. Mary Janes did not come in a large-enough size for Minka. Jennie’s children had inherited a scattering of oversized genes from some unknown branch of the family tree—John would eventually stand well over six feet, much taller than his father had been. And at a time when most girls’ feet were a dainty size 4 or 4.5, Minka’s were twice that big.

  Minka’s hands were large too, although that was not the reason she made a concerted effort to hide them. She was most bothered by their disfigurement. Daily hours of milking had taken a toll, but the real damage had been done when she was a small girl. At Uncle’s, out of necessity, children had been put to work as soon as they could walk in a straight line. John helped with the horses and out in the fields, while Jane loved to hang close to her mother’s skirt, doing chores underfoot. As the oldest and strongest girl, Minka took on the most arduous household work. She toted buckets of water, hauled pails of animal feed, and lifted bulky sheaves of wheat at threshing time. Minka volunteered for these tasks, relishing the nod or smile from Jennie as she did so. It made her happy to help her busy mother. But by the time she was thirteen, Minka’s fingers were permanently deformed, the bones bent inward at the ends where her tiny joints had grasped and lifted a thousand heavy handles.

  Through the open window a noisy engine signaled the arrival of Minka’s ride. She glanced in the mirror once more, automatically pushing her hands into her sides so the folds of fabric obscured them. She was giddy enough to let a vain thought cross her mind: She had never looked better. She spun and hurried toward the kitchen, where her dinner basket waited.

  “Don’t forget these,” Jane called after her. She held out the cookie tin. After the whole batch had cooled last night, Jane had chosen the twenty most perfect cookies, enough to share with all the girls and chaperones. Minka had stacked and restacked them onto two big cloth napkins, which she neatly tied up and placed in the tin.

  “Danke.” Minka had nearly rushed out without the treats.

  “Tell them I helped,” Jane said, looking wistfully at the package. And Minka—even though this was her special day, and even though she’d spent her whole life on the sidelines watching Jane accept easier chores and more praise—felt sorry that her little sister couldn’t come along.

  * * *

  On the road to Scatterwood Lake, large plumes of airborne dirt billowed behind the caravan of vehicles. The cars trailed one another at quarter-mile distances to avoid being completely engulfed in dust.

  Three girls in the backseat made lively chatter as Minka stared out the front side window toward the hazy countryside. Agatha’s mother was driving her husband’s big Chrysler Imperial, gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles turned white. She’d made a couple of polite inquiries at first, asking after Minka’s mother and the dairy, but now she seemed focused on maneuvering the car past the occasional oncoming vehicle. Minka studied a flock of sheep bunched together in the shade of some cottonwoods, then tugged at the hem of her dress and silently practiced sentences. She was determined to join in the girl talk once they arrived at the park.

  The heat was stifling, almost made worse with the windows down. Dust-filled air swept against the girls’ skin and collected in their lungs. With a clean, embroidered handkerchief, Minka tapped at the sweat that flattened her hair along the edge of her face and against her neck. The other girls beat at the air with wood-and-lace fans. Minka didn’t own a fan, only handkerchiefs made from former dresses that had moved down the ladder from Sunday best to work dresses to scraps.

  The park at Scatterwood Lake drew locals from all around Aberdeen. In addition to dance pavilions, the grounds offered roller-skating, swimming, picnic areas, fishi
ng, and baseball fields, although the main draw today would be the water. Several years earlier, a young North Dakotan musician named Lawrence had played to a surprisingly large crowd there after rain canceled the county baseball championship and sent spectators running to the pavilions for cover. Years later, that singer would inspire Midwestern pride as he reached worldwide fame with The Lawrence Welk Show.

  The large size of the park and surrounding lake also appealed to travelers passing through the area. Drifters were as common as grasshoppers in a cornfield. Jobs that had been plentiful after the Great War were vanishing, although the coming Depression was still a mostly hidden threat.

  The caravan of vehicles pulled into a field to park, and girls spilled out of cars, smoothing hair and brushing at crisscrossed lines wrinkled into their dresses. Many continued to fan themselves as they came together, calling out names of girls from other cars. After a few moments of uncertain pointing toward various picnic spots, the group headed to an unclaimed grove of trees that provided patches of shade. It felt like they were walking through a hot oven.

  Minka spread out her blanket next to Clara, a quiet girl to whom Minka often gravitated. She uncovered her dinner: baking-powder biscuits Jennie had made that morning, a milk bottle filled with now-warm water, and fried chicken from a bird that had been scratching around the yard just the day before. Minka had plucked the feathers herself, first softening the quills by dunking the chicken in a pot of boiling water. She’d been dressing fowl for so many years, she could practically do it in her sleep.

  Underneath a sky bleached milky-white by the glaring sun, diamond patterns glimmered and danced on the lake’s surface. The roller rink, some distance away, appeared mostly empty that afternoon. Minka certainly wouldn’t skate even if the day cooled off. While several girls owned skates, wheeled contraptions that strapped over their shoes, Minka had never tried the sport. Her sewing teacher had said that skates were available at the rink, but Minka knew there wouldn’t be shoes to fit her, not in ladies’ sizes.

  Minka studied the other girls, and when it looked as though most of them had finished their chicken or sausages or roast beef sandwiches, she lifted the tin of cookies from her basket. The nervous pang that twisted her stomach made her feel silly. Rather than make an announcement, she decided to approach each girl casually.

  “Would you like a cookie? I made them. Jane and I made them.”

  Eager hands reached for the cookies. Not a single girl declined, and as they swallowed the first bites, they handed out compliments. “These are really good, Minka! Did you use butter in them?” They rearranged blankets and nudged each other over, and soon all the girls were in one big, lopsided circle. Minka sat down, her wide mouth curved into an irrepressible smile.

  The conversation bubbled all around Minka, mainly about people in town whom Minka didn’t know. Over the last two months, she’d heard enough scandals, rumors, and transgressions to make her head spin. She’d heard where the basement saloons or speakeasies were rumored to exist. It was hard to believe that regular people, not just criminals, gathered and broke Prohibition laws together—and in her own town. Perhaps some of them were the very people her family delivered milk to, although surely not anyone who sat in the church pews on Sunday morning.

  There were other whispered rumors on the blankets. One of the girls who came infrequently was said to skip sewing class to meet a boy from town.

  “You know what that means,” talkative Agatha had said one day, and the other girls’ faces creased with identical knowing expressions. To Minka, it made them look grown-up and wise, while her face burned. She had no clue what Agatha was talking about, but whatever it was, it was surely terrible. Growing up with a mother who never shared gossip or idle talk, Minka found the chatter both unsettling and titillating.

  In this way, sewing class had educated Minka on more than patterns and needlework. Her only other glimpses of the outside world came in occasional letters from her brother, John, which the whole family passed around and eagerly read, or from weekly visits from Honus’s friend Charlie. Each Saturday evening, the two men settled into the living room and spoke in Dutch about world events, the economy, and local businesses.

  Minka and Jane listened to these conversations. In recent months, the men had discussed the debate over whether tourists would truly be attracted to barren South Dakota for the sight of four presidential faces chiseled from some granite cliffs in the Black Hills. Many believed it was an enormous waste of federal money.

  Minka didn’t understand much about economics or tourist attractions or why people risked jail for a drink or why a girl would leave sewing class to meet a boy, but she was curious about everything beyond a world of cows and overalls.

  Today the girls’ talk turned more benign, probably due to the nearness of the chaperones. But Minka’s naivete was about to be shattered, and more thoroughly than anyone could have imagined.

  * * *

  With the picnic packed up, the group spread around the park so the girls could put their feet into the murky water, or mill around the skating rink, or remain in the shade, weaving more conversation. Minka heard the inner ticking of the day descending toward evening milking time. Soon her escape would end. She drew near Clara again.

  “Do you want to walk around the lake?” Minka was far more comfortable with a single person than with a group, and undemanding Clara was a good companion.

  They followed a small fishing trail that wove in and out of the trees and brush. Minka threw stones across the mirror surface of the water and wondered what it would be like to swim. She’d never learned.

  The lake made her think of her real father. She had no memories of him, just a single studio portrait taken when he was seventeen years old and a handful of stories that Jennie told time and again. Those scraps of information were precious to Minka, and she held them in her heart, paging through them like a journal when she felt lonely for the father she’d never known. She knew that his last day on earth had been hot like this one, although he’d died at a different South Dakota lake.

  Minka didn’t realize how far they’d walked on secluded trails until she and Clara saw three men, and realized with a start that they were out of sight of anyone else. The strangers were adults, perhaps thirty years old. They closed in on the girls with friendly smiles. Minka immediately felt the familiar shyness well up inside her. She dropped her eyes and stepped to one side.

  “Hi! What’re you girls doing on this hot day?” one of the men said. Another one wore a cowboy hat and stood without speaking, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

  Minka said nothing. Clara murmured a greeting and then turned to Minka with a hesitant expression. Minka felt herself inwardly shrinking from them, as though that would somehow send them away.

  “Come on, let me at least take your picture,” the talkative one called.

  Their camera brought the girls in close; what would it hurt to let them take a picture? Yet one of the men circled behind the girls and stood looking back the direction they’d come. The talkative one took hold of Clara and tugged her away, toward a thicket of trees. Minka stared after them, glancing into Clara’s panicked eyes. As Minka began to move toward her friend, the one with the cowboy hat approached her.

  He might have said his name was Mack, but now everything seemed to have slowed down, like a phonograph on the wrong speed; at the same time, Minka had the sense that events were moving away from her faster than she could run. She couldn’t understand whatever words Mack was saying. Her vision had telescoped. He looked tiny now, as though he were standing on the other side of a wide street.

  She couldn’t fathom what was happening, even as his hands pushed her down and lifted her dress. Shyness and shock kept her from saying a word in protest. She simply focused on his hat.

  Afterward, Minka knew that something dreadful had occurred. The pain, the intimacy of the act, the look on Mack’s face as he stood over her for a moment before turning and leaving without another word�
��all of these impressions were infused with shame. Somewhere to the right Clara was crying, but Minka was too paralyzed to go to her friend.

  Minka had drawn her legs up beneath her dress and wrapped her arms around her knees. Dry thistles poked through the fabric of her outfit and matted her hair. Her wrists and knees stung, as did other parts of her, places filled with a new, throbbing humiliation.

  She got to her feet. One of her shoes was under a bramble of weeds, and her dress was crumpled. Her fingers shook as she struggled to pull thistles from the skirt.

  Clara’s cries quieted after a few minutes, and then she came into view, walking hunched into herself, as though something was wrong with her back. She looked more horrified than Minka felt. Minka had the sense that Clara could shed some light on It, this thing that had just happened, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  What time is it? Minka wondered. Clara didn’t look her way, just mumbled something about having to get back. Minka hurried now, wincing with every move. She felt a stinging sensation, although she wasn’t sure where it came from. She brushed dry grass from her hair and swiped at her cheeks. They were damp. Her teeth seemed on the verge of chattering, even in the oven-like air.

  Minka felt the blood before she saw it. She touched the back of her dress, afraid a stain had soaked through, but found only thistles. She had nothing but dried leaves to try cleaning between her thighs. Finally, she followed Clara, who moved unevenly along the path. They pushed out of the shade of the trees and back into sunlight. To the right, swimmers splashed and called to one another. The sewing group girls were standing near the cars, holding grass-flecked blankets and empty baskets. One of them shaded her eyes with a hand, peering toward the trees.

  “There they are!” the girl called and waved.

  Neither Minka nor Clara waved back.

  Clara climbed into the backseat of one of the cars and pressed against the side, wiping her face. She ignored a concerned query.