“We’ll just set out here on the porch awhile and get acquainted while Eddie shells the peas.” Mrs. Jensen took up a fan from a nearby table. She opened it, slowly waving it back and forth.
They all sat in silence, looking out the porch windows. There was just the thud, thud, thud of peas dropping into the bottom of the pot. Mrs. Jensen’s fan kept whooshing. Idella held the tall, smooth glass tightly and took a few sips for show. Mrs. Jensen nodded whenever she did, and Idella held the glass up and smiled.
The fan stopped. “There goes Mrs. Rudolf.” Mrs. Jensen leaned forward in her chair. “That’s her there walking down the hill. She lives up the road. She’s got no one to take care of her. Poor thing. No children, see, to look after her. All alone.”
Mrs. Rudolf, a tall, skinny woman who looked to be in her sixties, was walking straight along the sidewalk, not looking to either side. She wore a little white sweater across her shoulders, the empty arms dangling beside her.
They watched until she disappeared down the swoop of Fletcher’s Hill.
“Is she a widow woman?” Idella asked.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Rudolf.”
“He run off on her. With Lucy DuBois—a French girl, you know—about fifteen or more years ago. Worked together down at the mill sorting stacks of paper. Usually it’s the women do the sorting, but he was on some kind of disability that kept him from the big machines they got down there. They run off down to Biddeford. And not long after, that Lucy had herself a baby boy. Only ’bout four months after—five at the most.”
“I see,” Idella finally said. “That’s sad.”
“Mmmmmm. She got the house. Little green house. She still goes by the name Mrs. Rudolf. But there’s no more Mister.”
“Couldn’t of been too bad a disability he had.” Eddie stripped a pod of peas directly into his mouth.
“How about some ice in that lemonade?” Mr. Jensen asked her suddenly.
“I’ll get Idella ice.” Eddie shot up out of his chair. Finally, Idella thought, he was taking some notice. “I’ll cool it down for you.” He took her glass and went into the kitchen. They listened as he opened the ice-box and got the ice pick from out of a drawer and started hacking. A dog barked across the street.
“Them Mastersons should get rid of that dog. It barks like that half the day. I hear it at night, too—barking for no reason. It’s a nuisance.” Mrs. Jensen flicked her fan with quick little jerks. “That dog should be done away with.”
“Now, Jessie. It doesn’t really bother you. Those girls love it.”
“It does bother me, that dog barking all the time.”
Eddie came back in. “Here you go, Idella. That should be more refreshing.”
“Thank you, Eddie.” Idella took the glass, now cold from chips of ice, and sipped. She glanced quickly at Eddie, who had resumed shelling peas. He smiled and nodded his head just enough for Idella to know she was right. He had also put in whiskey.
“Did the ice help cool it?” Mrs. Jensen was smiling at her.
“Oh, yes,” Idella said. “Very much.”
Mrs. Jensen leaned forward. “Is that the Masterson girl, out raking the grass over there? I can’t see proper from this distance. Is it Susan, the older one?”
“Susan, yes.” Mr. Jensen stretched his long legs out in front of him. He couldn’t be very comfortable on that little wicker chair, Idella thought.
“Well, she’s putting on some weight, I can tell you. Can you see how thick she’s got? You see it from here. Do you know the Masterson girls, Idella? They live in that blue house there directly across.”
“No, I’ve never met them.”
“How would she know them, Ma?” Eddie reached down into his basket and took up another handful to shell. Idella longed to keep her hands busy shelling peas.
“Well, that oldest one is getting thick right through the middle. She was out there raking grass last week, too. And she was barefooted, with only a pair of shorts to cover her bare legs. The Larsen boys, they kept walking by one after the other, all four of them. They stopped and talked to her. More than one of them did.”
“People talk to each other, Ma. The Larsens live next door. They have to walk by there to go anywheres.”
“Eddie, don’t get fresh.” Mrs. Jensen turned toward Idella. “Do you own a pair of shorts, Idella”
“Well, no, I don’t. My legs have always been so skinny. Bird legs. Not that I would. They don’t suit me.”
Mrs. Jensen leaned back and resumed her slower fanning. “Eddie tells me you are in domestic service.”
“Well, yes. I’m a cook. I cook for this certain family, the Grays.”
“Imagine having a separate person that you pay just to cook your meals. Do you cook fancy?”
“Oh, no. Just regular. Regular meals like anybody else.”
“You went to school for it?”
“I had some lessons, is all. When I worked down in Boston, the two ladies I was working for sent me to cooking classes. It wasn’t fancy, more common sense, really. But it taught me . . . oh, how to make a certain sauce for a certain cut of meat, say. Or how to roast a chicken or make biscuits. Commonsense things mostly.”
“I never got schooled as a cook. I make things like my mother did.” Mrs. Jensen looked sternly at Idella over the rim of her glasses. “That’s been good enough for my family.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Plenty good enough. More than.” Idella, in her fluster, took a gulp from her glass. Dear god, the whiskey burned her throat.
“Well, I’d best get back to the kitchen and finish.” Mrs. Jensen closed her fan. “Take them peas out to the kitchen, Eddie. Help me up out of this chair, Jens. Nothing fancy, mind. I don’t know about sauces. Just panfried steak, is all. Potatoes and peas.”
“Simple is best, I think,” Idella said. “Steak cooked in a good black pan. That’s the best.” Idella had noticed the pan.
Mrs. Jensen smiled. “You two sit out here for a bit. You enjoy your drink, Idella. I’ve got things to do. Jens, come help me. You like plain mashed potatoes, Idella?”
“I love any kind of potatoes. I’m happy with potatoes only!”
It took some doing to get Mrs. Jensen up and off the porch. Idella concentrated on admiring the row of violets that edged the inside of the fence on the front lawn. “So pretty,” she said out loud, as though she had been in the middle of a conversation.
“What’s that?” Edward returned without the peas and slid close to her as soon as his mother had waddled out.
“The violets. So pretty.”
“Not as pretty as you.” He touched her knee.
“You shouldn’t have put that in my drink,” Idella whispered. “What am I supposed to do with it now?”
“Drink up. That’s what I’d do.” His eyes were so blue coming right at you.
“Eddie, I can’t get tipsy.”
“Who cares?”
“You had a nip while you were out picking the strawberries, didn’t you?”
“What if I did?” He started slowly to crinkle up the dress on her leg.
“Eddie, you need to help me through this.”
“She won’t bite. She barks more than the dog across the street.” Eddie’s voice was right in her ear. His mouth was just an inch away. The warm puff of his breath sent tingles down her back.
She stood and walked over to the screen door. “Let’s go look at the violets. I love violets.”
Eddie followed her out onto the front lawn. Idella took a deep breath. “It was getting a little close in there.”
“I like it close.” He came up behind her.
“Show me the violets, Eddie.”
“Nothing to see. Just flowers.”
They walked across the lawn, newly mowed and sweet smelling, to the corner of the fence. Idella scooched down and ran her hands lightly across the cool, dark, heart-shaped leaves. “They are so lovely.”
Eddie reached down and pulled a violet out of the ground.
&
nbsp; “Don’t pull out the root, Eddie.”
“There’s plenty.” He handed her the flower, its thread of white root trailing behind it.
“Your mother don’t want her flowers pulled up!” Idella plucked off the trailing root.
“You can’t tell what will set her off. Gets mad over nothing. Holds grudges. People walking by, she calls them over and starts in telling things. Gossip. She makes things up, see, about people, and then believes it. They say it’s the scarlet fever she had.”
“You mean the fever affected her mind?”
“Christ, that was before I was born.” He shrugged. “She used to try and hang herself, right in front of me and Ethel.”
“No!”
“She’d get a stool and put the rope around her neck and pull up on it and say she was going to string herself up from the light. Me and Ethel were kids. Scared the hell out of us.”
“What made her do that?”
“Christ knows. Ethel didn’t fold the clothes. I didn’t pick enough beans. Hens didn’t lay eggs. Anything. I’m getting the hell out.” He looked through the fence and down the hill they had walked up together.
“Where do you think you’ll be going?” Idella twirled the violet stem between her fingers.
“Maybe into Portland. I’d like to sell cars. Something with a chance to make me some money. I’m not staying at the American Can Company.”
“I’m glad you’re not going far away.”
“Now, why is that?” He smiled.
“I’d like to see more of you.”
“You would, huh? Which part?” Eddie raised up his eyebrows.
“Eddie! I mean, you know, be with you more.”
“Uh-huh. I know.” Eddie took hold of her hand, smothering the violet in his grasp, and pulled her toward him. “Come on over here to the other side of this elm tree and kiss me.”
“Eddie, stop. Not here on the front lawn! She’ll see.” Nervous, Idella held up her glass. “Eddie, what am I going to do with this lemonade?”
“Drink it.”
“It’s straight lemon juice. And the whiskey. It’ll make me sick.”
“Jesus, no sugar?” Eddie laughed. “I hate to waste a good swig.”
“I’m going to pour it out. I have to.” Idella let go of his hand. The plucked violet fell into the grass. She scooched down and slowly poured the contents of her glass out into the ground. “I feel like I’m peeing in public,” she whispered, giggling.
She stood up. Eddie took her elbow, and she gave him a quick kiss, relieved to be done with the drink. They turned back toward the house. Eddie’s mother was standing in the porch doorway. She was holding a second glass of lemonade and watching the two of them.
“I guess you won’t be wanting another,” she said directly to Idella, then turned and walked back into the kitchen.
“Shit,” Eddie whispered. “Goddamn it.”
Idella and Edward stood mute in the dining room and stared across the table at each other, guilty as children about to get strapped, openly listening to the conversation going on in the kitchen.
“She’s uppity, that Hillock girl. Poured the lemonade all over the violets. The juice of three lemons. Not good enough, I suppose. Not good enough for her.”
“Three lemons?”
“She’ll be laughing at me. Making fun of me at that rich woman’s house where she works. And the steak all over gristle. I can’t make my biscuits now. She’s been to school. She studied biscuits.”
“Now, Jessie, you make the meal you planned. We’ll all enjoy it.”
Idella didn’t know what to do. She looked down at the table. The forks were wrong. She couldn’t help but notice, after all her time in service. It was her training. She saw that the dessert forks were switched with the main course.
“Should we sit?” She looked over at Edward, who was now staring out the dining-room window.
“Sit if you want to.” Idella didn’t know if he was angry at her or at his mother.
From the kitchen Mr. Jensen’s voice was like a radio playing music low. The clamor and scrape of pans on the iron stove indicated some activity now. There was a sudden loud sizzle when the meat hit the pan. Idella knew by the sound that the pan was too hot. Way too hot.
She felt ill. All that lemon juice was seizing up down there and puckering her insides.
Mr. Jensen stood in the doorway. “Sit, Miss Hillock. Sit. Soon we will be eating.” He placed a bowl of peas and a dish of pickle relish onto the middle of the table.
There was visible smoke now, coming from the kitchen. And Mrs. Jensen was calling Mr. Jensen to help turn something over. The meat must be glued to that pan.
Eddie had already set himself down across from her. He was silent, not even looking at Idella, sunk in on himself. Idella reached across the table to pat his hand. “Eddie,” she whispered, “it’ll be over by midnight.”
Eddie smiled. It was slow coming across his face, but it finally came. “Maybe it’ll just be starting,” he said.
“I mean the meal, Eddie. It’ll have to be over by then.” She giggled. “I need to be back to the Grays’ by then.”
“I was thinking of dessert,” he said, reaching to squeeze her outstretched hand.
“Shortcake?” she asked, smiling.
“Mmm,” he said. “With cream.”
“The potatoes! I forgot the potatoes!” A wail came from out of the kitchen. “Oh, there’s no time for them now. No time. Everything is ruined!”
Mr. Jensen came in, carrying a platter with the steaks laid out across it. They looked as dry as last year’s cow patties, Idella thought. There was no juice whatsoever under, over, or between them—just dry plate.
Mrs. Jensen came in at the very last, more composed than Idella expected, and took her seat at the head of the table. She carried a basket covered with a linen cloth and placed it on the table right up against her own plate, like she was protecting it. That must be the biscuits.
Idella praised each dish extravagantly as it was passed to her. When her plate was fully loaded, she set about to cut a piece of steak. It was challenging. Panfried, Idella thought—it’s more like tanned leather. She took a small bite. A bit of gristle would have added some sweetness. “Oh, this steak is so satisfying.”
“I’m sorry about the potatoes, Idella. New little potatoes, they were. So good right out of the ground.”
“These things happen,” Idella assured her. “We have so much good food here already.”
“With fresh butter and pepper. That’s how we were going to have them. Butter made right here. Jens whipped it up for them potatoes.”
“Ma, I think we should stop talking about potatoes, seeing as we won’t be getting any.”
“Don’t be rude to me, Edward.”
“Why sit there and talk about what we aren’t going to have?”
“Don’t you go blaming me. I tried. But it’s too much to do everything all by myself. It is too much!”
Mr. Jensen raised his hand up. “Eddie, Jessie, please. It don’t matter about the potatoes.”
“No,” Idella said. “No. We have no real need of potatoes.”
“If I had more help around here instead of doing it all myself, I’d of had time to remember the potatoes.” Mrs. Jensen was on the point of tears again. Those damned potatoes. Idella was ready to eat them raw.
“Tell me now, Miss Hillock, have you been in this country for long?” Mr. Jensen steered to a new topic.
“Just three years. But it was just . . . you know, just Canada. Not far. Not like coming to a foreign country.”
Jens smiled. “Yes, I know what that is like. When I came over, all of my papers for work were in Danish. You know—letters that people wrote about me as a worker. No one here knew what was in them. They could have said I was a lazy good-for-nothing and no one would know better.”
“I’m sure they didn’t say that.” Idella liked him so much. It was calming just to look over at him. His eyes spoke right to you.
“Of course they did, Jessie dear. I could read them.”
“Oh, yes, o’ course. I forgot.” She actually smiled. “I forgot that Jens can read the Danish.”
“What sort of work did you do in Denmark, Mr. Jensen?”
“Well, we had the farm, sure, we all worked the farm. But I also worked in a clothing store for men in Copenhagen. I enjoyed seeing the different people and helping them. It was a change from the loneliness of the fields.”
“Oh, yes, I know what you mean. Dad talks about how lonely it gets being out in the field all day. Course, he likes it, too. Nobody to bother him. That would be the other side to it. Nobody to tell him what to do.”
“Well, I tell Jens what to do.” Jessie was smiling. “I tell him what needs doing and when. Don’t I, Jens?”
“Well, nobody’s going to tell me what to do.” Eddie leaned forward. “I’m going to rule my own roost some day. And there won’t be any damn chickens in it, I can tell you that.” He laughed at his own joke.
“You’ll need eggs, Eddie,” Mrs. Jensen said. “You can’t have eggs without the chickens to lay them.”
“I know that, Ma. I know all about that.”
“Why, Edward.” Mrs. Jensen’s face flushed red.
“I can go get me some eggs down at Foley’s. I can let somebody else’s chickens lay my eggs.”
“This is no conversation for the supper table, Edward. Really. More peas, Miss Hillock?”
“Please!” Idella held her plate under the heaping bowl, to catch the peas.
There was too much food. Mrs. Jensen was fueled to animation by Idella’s ornate compliments. She blushed with pleasure at praise of her peas and gurgled happily when Idella asked for more of that homemade pickle relish, though she didn’t really think it went with the meal. The more Idella managed to eat, the chattier and happier Mrs. Jensen became.
“Look, Idella! It’s that Masterson girl!” Mrs. Jensen was pointing. “See, look out the window there. Pull back the curtain, Eddie, so Idella can see. There she is sitting under that tree over there on the lawn. See her? Right out there for all the world to see.” Mrs. Jensen lowered her voice. “She is in the family way. I know it. Looks high up in her, too. Could be turned wrong. They get that shape when the baby’s turned wrong. That’s what happened to Ethel with her first one. Breech, they call it. Almost killed her.”
The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay Page 18