A young pregnant woman planted this glorious oak tree as a small sapling in the early 1900s. She was scared and all alone. Her name was Gladys Roulston.
But no one ever would. The slim upper branches of the oak waved and dipped silently in the breeze.
I walked through the backyard, quickly past the shed, and into the kitchen, closing the door behind me. I could hear Norman’s voice coming from the study. The door stood open about two inches. I quietly walked over and listened. He spoke on the phone.
“Yes, I can have it here by then,” I heard him say. “All of it, do you think, or just the Canadian items?”
Now what the hell was going on? I tiptoed away and began crashing around in the kitchen.
In a minute, Norman emerged from the study looking pleased with himself. He came into the kitchen, got the pitcher of Glornics out of the fridge and a glass out of the cupboard, and sat down at the table and poured himself a big glassful. “Where have you been?” he asked. “I thought you went out.”
“No, I went up.”
Norman nodded and smiled, his mind obviously still on his phone conversation.
“So, Norman, what’s going on?”
“Not much. I’m arranging some things. Business, you know.”
“Oh yeah, like what?”
“This and that. You have a twig in your hair. Do you want to go out for dinner?” he asked. “Mr. H. and Whitman went to the Art Centre.”
Ha. Maybe my family counseling skills weren’t so bad after all. I sat down at the table across from Norman. He reached across the table, pulled the twig from my hair, and placed it on the table in front of me.
“Are you moving in?” I asked.
“What would make you say that?”
“You don’t show any signs of leaving,” I said.
“I have some business to attend to here. I can still move into a hotel if you like.”
“No, we wouldn’t want you resting your head on a four-star foam chip pillow.”
He smiled. “No, we wouldn’t, would we? Care for a Globnic?”
“Glornic. No thanks. I’m going to order pizza, want some?”
Norman and I not only ordered pizza, he went out and got a movie. We sat together on the couch, Norman in the middle and me leaning over the far right side, covered up with one of Miss Kesstle’s granny square afghans. Mr. H. called from the Centre to say that he and Whitman were going out for dinner together.
When the movie ended, I got up and stretched. “Well, to bed for me.
As I leaned over to pick up the pizza box, Norman stood and put his arms around my waist. I straightened. “Don’t.”
He kept his arms around me. “You were meant for me, Frieda. You have such potential and you were the only woman who didn’t care at all about my money. I want us to get back together.”
I could feel the heat of his hands on the small of my back. All I could come up with was, “Why?”
“Because I miss you. I miss making love to you.”
“I can’t do this,” I said. I lifted his hands off my waist, went upstairs, put on my sleeping clothes, sat on my bed, and cried. It wasn’t fair. I was lonely, but starting all that with Norman again? I just couldn’t.
The day before the art show, I went to the Centre to help Mr. H. set up the chairs and prepare the exhibits. We stayed there until after supper, downing coffee and donuts for nourishment. Mr. H. was determined this would be the best show ever. He was on the phone all day with the media. They wanted as much publicity as possible, to show how successful the centre was for their upcoming battle with the government. I wanted to tell him to let it go; David and Goliath is a nice story, but back then, Goliath didn’t have an army of high-priced lawyers behind him.
When we got home, I was beat. I hadn’t worked that hard in months. Mr. H. went next door to check on Miss Kesstle and try to convince her to come to the show the next night. He told me he thought it would be good for her to get out. I agreed, but I doubted she’d come.
I went straight upstairs and straight to bed. No sleep, though. My head was full of caffeine bees buzzing back and forth. Shit. I sat up and turned on the light and was happy to see Gladys slowly materialize in the armchair. “I can’t sleep,” I said. “Tell me more. What were you doing while Jack ran around with his fancy women?”
“I was getting ready to leave,” she said. “I saved every penny I could. If I asked Jack for a dollar to buy some groceries I only spent fifty cents and put the rest in the lining of the valise under my bed. I tried to sell what I could too, like the emerald brooch I’d inherited from an aunt, my only piece of real jewelry besides my wedding ring.”
“I’d have sold the ring first,” I said.
“I had to keep the ring or Jack would have noticed,” she said. “I had to be sly about everything I sold. Jack was tight with the men in town. I always told them Jack had sent me to sell whatever it was. I didn’t get much; the shops were filled with heirlooms being traded off, but I got what I could. If times hadn’t been so crazy, more notice might have been taken of a pregnant woman sent to sell off her belongings, but nothing mattered then, nothing but money and land.”
“It must have been crazy.”
She nodded. “It was. People were running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. Did you ever see a chicken with no head?”
“I have, actually,” I said. “My grandpa and grandma had chickens. I had to help catch them for butchering. I was totally traumatized. Wait. Shhh.” I heard Norman’s voice from the kitchen. “Norman’s back.”
“Are you going to say hello?”
“No, not tonight. I’ll see him in the morning.” I listened for a moment. The voices stopped. He’d likely gone to bed.
“I liked having chickens,” Gladys said. “Jack wanted to tear the coop down; it didn’t match his new elegant house. I convinced him that our chickens laid eggs superior to any he could buy in town, so he let me keep them. I sold some eggs for money too. I hid them in my shopping bag when I went out. Jack would have been mortified if he knew I was selling eggs like a common farm woman. He had an image as a gentleman to uphold now. It took awhile, but eventually I had enough for a one-way ticket. The only thing I had left worth any money was my ring and I imagined I’d take it off and throw it in Lake Ontario as soon as I arrived in Toronto.”
“Atta girl, Gladys, good for you. So when did you get there? Did you have the baby first?”
She twisted her mouth and frowned. There was a knock at my door. Poof. There went Gladys. I yelled, “I’m sleeping.”
Norman answered, “Are you talking in your sleep?”
“What?” I got out of bed.
“I heard you talking.”
I opened the door. “I was praying.”
“Praying?” Norman raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve decided to pray for everyone who makes me crazy. I’ve added you to my list just now.” I stared up at the ceiling. “And God, please help Norman, I fear he’s lost and can’t find his way home.”
“I wanted to apologize for last night,” he said. “I shouldn’t have put my arms around you. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s okay.” What was it about this guy that made me so darn forgiving? “By the way, where were you today? We could have used even your dubious handyman skills at the Art Centre.”
“I was taking care of some things.”
“This and that?”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded.
“Right. Well, no sneaking off tomorrow. Mr. H. says all hands on deck.
“I’ll be there. Frieda, are you sure you’re okay? Is there anything you want to talk about?”
“I’m fine. ’Night.” I closed the door behind him.
Mr. H. had us all up and going by 9 AM. We went straight to the Art Centre and worked all day. I was amused to see Whitman trying to hang pictures with a group of instructors who made him move the paintings an inch this way and a quarter-inch that way for hours at a time. I saw
his eyes widen several times, but he held his tongue and even smiled at them once or twice. Norman spent most of the day on a ladder hanging streamers. I helped arrange the refreshment tables and the sculpture and crafts tables. Sometime after noon, Girl arrived with her giant box balanced on a liberated shopping cart. True to her word, Ginny’s address labels had been changed, but rather than blacking them out, Girl had pasted new ones over top that read things like Ms. Rich B — ch. Too Good To Be True Street and A Fashion Hound. Where the Dogs Live. I hoped Ginny would have some sort of hangnail emergency and not make it to the show. I didn’t get a chance to speak to Girl; she dropped her box off and disappeared.
The staff had decided to not say anything to the students about the possible closure, but every time you went around a corner a little cluster of people stood whispering. Their words floated around the corridors like little anxious birds. I was pissed off. They’d all worked so hard to get the Centre established and accepted into the community, and now that they had a solid base of students they were about to be closed down. It figured.
When we went back home, Mr. H. asked me to come next door with him and talk to Miss Kesstle. She answered the door in her housecoat again. Her hair was covered in a kerchief.
“I’m not sure I’m feeling up to it,” she said to Mr. H. “I haven’t had my hair done and I just don’t think, I think I’ll just —”
“Frieda could help you do your hair,” said Mr. H. He smiled at me.
I could? How the hell do you do hair? I nodded. “Sure I could.”
“Good,” said Mr. H. “Come over for dinner after. We still have a couple of hours before we have to be back.”
I followed Miss Kesstle into the kitchen. She put the kettle on to boil for tea and then went to get her hair things. She came back with a small wicker basket of bobby pins and such. I made the tea and she pulled a chair out from the table and sat waiting. I stood behind her and carefully combed out the knots. Her hair was so fine it was like silk. . . I had a sudden flash of Mrs. Hernd sitting at my mother’s kitchen table. I realized that what I had taken for cheapness was actually perhaps some sort of womanly bonding.
“We don’t have time to put curlers in,” she said. “I don’t know what you’ll be able to do with it.”
“Don’t worry, darling,” I said in my best Angelico accent. “We’ll make you gorgeous.” My first idea was to put it all in a small bun at the back of her neck, but her hair was so thin and soft it wouldn’t hold the pins and the shorter pieces still fell down straight in the front of her face.
“You don’t happen to have a curling iron, do you?” I asked. The last time I’d spent any time on my hair, I was a teenager and it had involved curling irons and large amounts of hairspray.
“I do,” said Miss Kesstle. She got up and went into the bathroom.
“And hairspray,” I called.
I could hear her rummaging around and she returned with a vintage 1970s curling iron still in the box and a giant aluminum can of hairspray from the same era. So much for the ozone layer.
“I bought it and never used it,” she said.
Now we were in business. Within fifteen minutes, I had her hair done. She went to her room to change.
When she came back out, I asked if she liked it. I was pleased with myself. Who knew what other untapped talents I had?
“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t look. I’m sure it’s fine.” She patted her hair. “It feels a bit stiff though.”
“It’s supposed to be like that. Let’s go show you off.”
Next door, Whitman, Norman, and Mr. H. were already seated at the kitchen table. Whitman took one look at Miss Kesstle, quickly got up from the table, and went over to the fridge. I could see his shoulders shaking with silent laughter, as he stood with the fridge door open.
Norman managed better; he stood and took her hand. “Good evening, Miss Kesstle,” he said. “I’m glad you decided to join us. You look amazing, just like Farrah Fawcett.”
Mr. H. pulled out a chair for her. “Like an angel,” he said.
I looked at Miss Kesstle again. Okay, maybe it was a bit dated and young for her to have large grey wings of feathered hair on either side of her little face, but I’d have liked to see any of them do better.
I went upstairs to get changed. Tonight I had a fashion goal in mind: colour coordination. I put on a black dirndl skirt and a white button-up shirt, and topped it off, or bottomed it off, with an amazing pair of black and white men’s oxfords. I couldn’t believe I’d found them in my size and without golf cleats. The shopping gods had smiled on me.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Foggy Mountain Breakdown
The evening air smelled warm and green like the beginning of true summer. Norman held Miss Kesstle’s arm as we walked from the taxi towards the Centre. Cars were parked all up and down the street. The outside of the building glowed with spotlights carefully placed to illuminate the best of the kids’ murals, leaving the most misshapen superheroes in shadows. The ladies from the looms had arrived, some in a flutter of coloured saris like butterfly wings, others in sombre solid black. They smiled, nodded, and preceded us through the door.
A five-piece bluegrass band walloped and twanged in the largest lecture room. Students and their families, neighbours, other artists, and visitors filled the main rooms and the hallways. Several reporters with cameras over their shoulders stood at the refreshment table nibbling on the free cheese. Miss Kesstle clung to Norman’s arm and looked bewildered. By the time I’d gotten us glasses of warm white wine, the others arrived. Mr. H. and Whitman had picked Ginny up in the old green Valiant, which I’m sure impressed her greatly.
Ginny wore a red silk halter dress and strappy gold heels, Whitman a black suit jacket with a mandarin collar and jeans. Mr. H. greeted us.
“Great band,” said Norman. He adjusted his tie and tried not to stare at Ginny’s cleavage.
“It was a compromise between rap and big band,” said Mr. H. He looked around the room. “Excuse me,” he said, “Fever Buyer over that way.” He headed towards a man looking at an abstract painting on the wall.
“Fever Buyer?” asked Miss Kesstle.
Whitman said, “One of Dad’s word follies. Wealthy people who buy art to hang in their summer cabins or donate to hospitals. Cabin fever. Got a fever, go to a hospital.”
Miss Kesstle nodded. “It’s so sad.”
“Nice shoes,” said Ginny. “Going golfing?” Before I could show her they had no cleats, she took Whitman’s arm and they wandered off.
The next time I saw Ginny and Whitman, they were leaning against a wall together, watching everyone, the too-cool couple at the high school dance. Ginny was still smiling, so I assumed they hadn’t seen the exhibits yet, though Whitman’s presence might keep her from getting too hissified over Girl’s box and rude address labels. When I looked again, they were gone, either to the exhibits, or outside for some necking.
I knew in ten minutes. I was trying to decide which of the desserts at the refreshment table Miss Kesstle would like — creamy brown squares with tiny rainbow marshmallows, puffed wheat squares, butter tarts, or matrimonial squares with dates and layers of oatmeal that crumbled all over your front — when Ginny came and stood beside me. “Did you see what she did with the labels?” she asked.
“Who?” I scanned the room, as if she could be referring to anyone in the crowd.
“That vampirette freak. Pass me one of those Nanaimo bars.” “Well, she did cover your name up.”
Ginny huffed.
I gathered a plateful of squares. Ginny lingered by the cutlery section with her hand resting on the pile of forks and spoons. She looked over her shoulder.
“Don’t you dare,” I hissed.
She took her hand off the table. “What?”
“What? What is up with you and forks? Are you making a collection? You could go to Goodwill and buy a bunch of mismatched cutlery, you know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,
” she said.
“Speaking of you being rotten,” I said, “why did you tell Whitman that crap I said about Mr. H.’s and my relationship?”
“Because Whitman asked me if you’d ever said anything about it and that’s what you told me, that you’d decided to take your relationship to an advanced level of eroticism.”
“Did you tell him it was a joke?”
“I didn’t know it was. Did you see where he went?”
“Ginny —”
She was gone, sashaying through the crowd.
I took the plate back to Miss Kesstle, who managed a weak smile. Norman escaped to go and look at the displays.
“Oh my,” said Miss Kesstle suddenly, through a mouth full of chocolate puffed wheat. I quickly brushed off what I assumed were the offending oatmeal crumbs from my bosom. She wasn’t looking at me, though; she stared over my shoulder.
I turned to see Girl making a grand entrance. She wore an astonishing full-length dress, completely fabricated of Miss Kesstle’s doilies. Each formerly white crocheted circle had been dyed a different colour: vivid orange, purple, blue, yellow, red, all stitched together with silver lace. It was an Haute Crochet evening gown. On her head was the Phentex tea cozy.
She walked straight over to us. I saw with relief that she wore a black slip underneath her creation.
“I fixed the box, did you see?”
I nodded. “Girl, this is Miss Kesstle. Those were her doilies that you made into your uh. . .”
“You!” said Girl, turning to beam at Miss Kesstle. “That was the best thing ever. Too cool.” She held her arms above her head like a music box ballerina and did a complete circle. “Do you like it?”
Dance, Gladys, Dance Page 16