Wickett's Remedy

by Myla Goldberg

  The silence that followed was the same quiet that accompanies the witnessing of a red handprint surfacing on a slapped cheek.

  “I leave Sunday,” Lydia said.

  BRIDE IN GAS MASK AT UPTON WEDDING

  Queerly Robed Party at Bedside of Stricken Soldier

  CAMP UPTON, N.Y.—Sixty patients in the base hospital this afternoon bore witness of the fact that Love, which had hitherto laughed at locksmiths, was not to be baffled by Spanish influenza. There Private Walter J. McKenna wed Miss Lillian E. F. Anne, who traveled to the base yesterday from Westport, Conn.

  McKenna, lying ill from the malady complicated by pneumonia, is not expected to live. He had placed the facts before his family and that of the young woman. The arrangements were made for a wedding in the hospital, where masks were provided to prevent the possibility of contagion. When it was over the bride in the gas mask, whose wedding gown had been a hospital robe, left the hospital with the father of the man she had just married.

  Congratulations! Not everyone has what it takes to be a QD Tour Guide (QDTG), but those who do will find it a memorable and rewarding experience. QDTGs are very important members of our extended QD Soda family. Visitors to QD Headquarters come from all over the country as well as several foreign lands so it is important to think of yourself as QD Soda’s ambassador to Boston as well as the world! The following guidelines will tell you everything you need to know to be the best QDTG you can be.

  Please take the time to study this important list of QD Dos and Don’ts:

  Do

  Wear the Tour Guide Uniform (TGU)

  Follow the approved tour script and guide route

  Create your own special puppet voice (SPV)

  Smile

  Stand up straight

  Speak clearly

  Behave respectfully toward QD guests (QDGs)

  Have fun!!

  Don’t

  Wear sneakers, streetclothes, and/or conspicuous jewelry

  Improvise your tour

  Show disrespect for the puppet

  Allow others to operate the puppet

  Either directly or through the puppet express personal opinions about QD Soda or its operations

  Either directly or through the puppet solicit or accept tips

  Either directly or through the puppet flirt with QD guests (QDGs)

  Forget to have fun!!

  The following script and accompanying instructions should be memorized. You are neither authorized nor qualified to change them in anyway.

  Please arrive at the tour departure point (TDP) ten minutes before your QD Tour (QDT) is scheduled to begin. Remember: you are responsible for your TGU. Your smock should be clean and wrinkle-free. Make sure you retrieve the QD Puppet (QDP) from its cubby and stow it in your TGU BEFORE arriving at the TDP. Don’t be shy; promote your QDT! At three- to five-minute intervals leading up to the time of your QDT, say:

  It’s tour time, ladies and gentlemen! Don’t delay, get your tickets right away! Learn about the exciting history of America’s Most Beloved Soft Drink, QD Soda!

  Direct anyone interested in the QDT to purchase a ticket from the gift shop. Every QDG MUST have a ticket, including QDTG friends and family members.

  When the time of the QDT arrives, say:

  Hello! Thank you for visiting QD Soda Headquarters! My name is [your name], and I’ll be your tour guide today!

  Did you know that soft drinks are more popular than coffee, tea, and juice combined? Last year over 60 billion soft drinks were sold in this country! That means more than 53 gallons of soda for each and every American man, woman, and child, which averages out to more than one gallon per American per week!

  You know, you’re very lucky to have come today, because I’ve heard a rumor that we’re going to be visited by someone very special. I have a feeling that you’re going to get a chance to meet him really soon! In fact … [Pause and appear to be listening to something.] Ladies and gentlemen, do you hear something? [Look toward the door to Room 1.] I think I hear someone in there. I wonder if it could be our visitor. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I think you’re in for a very special treat! Follow me!

  As you lead your QDGs into Room 1, put one hand inside the QDP and remove it from the pocket of your TGU, while hiding it from view of your QDGs. For the rest of the tour, even when the QDP isn’t “talking,” remember to keep the QDP upright and alert. Lines in italics should be spoken in your SPV. Don’t forget to make the QDP’s mouth move when he “speaks”! Once you have entered Room 1 and the QDP is securely on your hand, turn to face your QDGs. Say:

  Why, ladies and gentlemen, it’s Quentin Driscoll himself! Hello, Mr. Driscoll!

  Hello there, [your name]! Hello there everyone!

  You’ve arrived just in time, Mr. Driscoll. I was just about to tell everyone about how you invented QD Soda, but now that you’re here, why don’t you tell them yourself!

  I’d love to! It all started when I was a young man of 22, just like this young lady here [point to an older woman in the group]. In those days soft drinks were made at soda counters right before your very eyes! I was working at a soda counter when, one night, I had a dream. An Indian chief appeared before me holding four plants in his hand. The very next morning I went straight to the library. In a book about native plants and herbs, I found the exact pictures of the plants the Indian chief had shown me, and that was when I knew they were the ingredients I’d need to make a very special soda. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how QD Soda was born!

  Open curtain using non-QDP hand. Say:

  And this, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, is the result of Quentin Driscoll’s efforts! This window looks directly into the QD Soda bottling facility, which was built in 1920 and which, to this day, produces delicious bottles of refreshing QD Soda. Mmm, just thinking of all those bottles makes me thirsty! It makes me wish I had my own glass of QD Soda right now! Well, lucky for us we’ll get a chance to drink some very soon! Everyone, follow me!

  Lead your QDGs into Room 2. Walk behind the counter. Say:

  Well, Mr. Driscoll, does this place look familiar?

  It sure does, [your name]! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Quenty’s, a genuine facsimile of the very soda counter where I was working when I dreamed up the recipe to QD Soda. Step right up for your complimentary soda sample!

  Using your non-QDP hand, give a cup of QD Soda to each QDG. Do not distribute more than one cup per QDG and do not give seconds.

  NOTE: Some QDGs, especially younger children, may not enjoy their free sample. In the case of a dissatisfied child smile and say (using your SPV): It’s a very unique flavor, isn’t it? Don’t worry, you’ll grow into it. In the case of a dissatisfied adult, smile and say (using your SPV): It’s an acquired taste.

  Allow five minutes for your QDGs to drink their free samples. Then say:

  Well everyone, we’ve got one more stop before Mr. Driscoll and I say our good-byes. Please deposit your cup in the trash receptacle to the left of the door as we exit.

  Lead your QDGs into Room 3. Say:

  As you can see, this room is devoted to the “QD Follies” and the famous “QD Comedy Hour.” There’s so much in this room to look at and appreciate that Mr. Driscoll and I are going to let you see it on your own, but make sure to take a look at the dress worn by QD Cutie Cara Blaine, as well as a suit worn by Preston “Hewey” Hughes, the popular host of the “QD Comedy Hour.” And save a little extra time for the special memorial devoted to the tragic fate of Quentin Driscoll’s first wife, Sara Lampe Driscoll—and their young son Ralph. Several recordings of the show’s classic radio broadcasts are available in our gift shop. Well everybody, it’s been a real pleasure having you here today, hasn’t it Mr. Driscoll?

  Why it sure has, [your name].

  Proceed to the gift shop. Retrieve a bottle of QD Soda from the display refrigerator and drink it slowly so that the exiting QDGs will see you enjoying the soda. The QDP should be looking at y
ou as you drink. From time to time, use your SPV to express his envy with phrases such as: Boy, does that look good! and It almost makes me wish I wasn’t a puppet! When the last QDG has exited Room 3, return the QDP to its cubby. If the QDP has become soiled or stained it is up to YOU to alert a manager to its condition.

  Remember: the QDP is YOUR responsibility. Treat it with the same respect you show yourself.

  When Sunday arrived, Lydia’s mother remained with Thomas—who was still too frail to leave the house—while the rest of them saw Lydia to the pier at Southie’s northern edge. To those who called Southie home, the pier was only ever a place to earn a wage. Anyone who set foot on a boat there was helping to load it. As Lydia made her way to the ferry that awaited her, she wondered if in breaking yet another unwritten neighborhood covenant she had finally exhausted Southie’s patience. Strange as it was to imagine her leave-taking, it was even more difficult to envision her eventual return.

  Cora would have gone along if Tom’s health had permitted.

  Tom recalls being well enough to look after himself The minute Liddie left for the pier, Ma started on the kitchen floor with a bristle brush, which he had not seen her do since the time he got into Da’s beer.

  The day’s clarity recalled the blue sky that had marshaled the Win-the-War-for-Freedom parade. Walking toward the pier, Lydia tried to recall whether those men had allowed their gazes to wander or whether they had stared ahead as they marched. Even without the distraction of onlookers, her eyes were drawn to either side. There was the doorstep where she waited for Margaret Kelly on the way to school. There was the curb where she and Michael found the one-legged pigeon. Here was where the hurdy-gurdy man had frightened her into believing that his monkey had once been a little girl. There was the building she once coveted for its green-painted door. That door had a black wreath on it now.

  She strode past shuttered corner groceries and apothecaries where masked pharmacists gazed wearily from behind wooden counters. She walked with her shoulders thrust back and her chin lifted. The benches in Commonwealth Park were empty of mothers. Its climbing trees and game fields wanted children. Though the specifics of her departure differed from that of the marching soldiers, Lydia felt her mission was much the same: she too was leaving to fight a war. By looking toward the cobblestones, she erased the difference between a street edged with cheering crowds and the one that now sponsored her solitary parade.

  Past the park, the street gave way to foundries and chemical plants and tanneries, their smells diminished only slightly by their Sunday sabbatical. Nearer to the pier the briny smell of the harbor took hold, and then she spied the small ferry tied off at the dock’s end.

  At the train station on the day of her brother’s departure the air had been alive with shouted endearments, the calls of conductors, and the huff of locomotives. Here the air held only the sound of the water, the creaking of the ship, the occasional gull, and the groans of the planks beneath the two silent men who loaded sacks and crates onto the ferry’s deck. In lieu of a duffel Lydia had her one suitcase, its West end dresses replaced with shirtwaists and the scant personal items she thought a few weeks away would require. Once they reached the pier, her father kept hold of the suitcase.

  “It’s not too late,” he told her. “You could still come back with us. I’m sure that Cory fellow can find someone else.” But his face anticipated her answer.

  “Are you mad at me, Da?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered, “but I don’t like it none. Better you stay here with us than go off where nobody knows you. There’ll always be some place needing a nurse.”

  She eased the suitcase from his grip. “I’ll only be gone a few weeks and then I’ll be home again. Consider it a short enlistment.”

  John—who until now had preferred the safety of his older brother’s shadow—shook his head. “It ain’t the same as enlisting,” he contended. “Girls don’t get drafted. You’re leaving because you want to.”

  “But doesn’t that make me even more brave?” she asked. In her mind, John was still the shy kindergartner who had led her wedding procession and not the ten-year-old boy who stood scuffing his shoes against the dock.

  John shook his head again. “Jamie says you’re going because you’re too sad to stay.”

  “I don’t think that’s the only reason,” James amended, “but I wish you’d listen to Da and wait a little longer.” To look at James was to see her mother’s eyes staring out from a young man’s face.

  “Look after yourself,” she urged. She wanted to say something they could take back to the flat as reassurance of some sort, but her search for the right words was cut short by a voice from the end of the pier.

  “You the one to Gallups?”

  Though her thoughts and actions since first spotting the newspaper listing had been in the service of this moment, its arrival—even as she walked to the pier—had seemed distant. Now the men who had been loading cargo stood on the ferry’s deck. The pier was empty save for Lydia and the family she was leaving behind.

  Her father pressed her to him, his hand spanning the back of her head as though measuring it to remember its curve. “You come back,” he pleaded in a hoarse whisper.

  James grasped her shoulders. “If you get sick,” he began, then shook his head. “Don’t get sick, Liddie. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Let’s none of us get sick,” she said. “Not you, not me, not Ma and Da, and not John.” Hugging him, she wondered when he had started wearing Michael’s cologne.

  John stood with his arms crossed, his eyes focused on the wood planks at his feet.

  “Can I hug you good-bye?” she asked.

  “If you’re coming back,” John answered, “then it ain’t good-bye.”

  “Can I hug you good afternoon then?” she compromised.

  John considered the proposition. “I guess that’s all right,” he shrugged, and allowed himself to be embraced.

  After that, there was nothing left but to board the ferry. As she approached the boat, she recalled her brother’s confidence on boarding the Devens-bound train, his body half turning to wave even as his legs had continued to stride forward. His fiercely proud expression was the last she ever saw of his face. Walking forward she dearly wished to turn and wave, but she could not bear to invoke her brother’s ghost. Instead she waited until she had boarded the ferry and then leaned over the railing, her tears blurring the world as she waved, rendering her father’s and brothers’ figures indistinguishable from the diminishing shore.

  It was startling how quickly all of Boston shrunk and then vanished as if it had never existed, the entire world nothing but water with vague shapes perforating its horizon. She wondered if her brother had been equally disconcerted by the sight of Boston unspooling into obscurity at the end of a lengthening strand of railroad ties. She decided this was one more experience they had in common.

  Mick does not recall his feeling one way or the other. He was awfully hungover.

  “Liddie get your gun, get your gun, get your gun,” she began. “Take it on the run, on the run, on the run,” but her voice was thin and the sound of it made her lonelier.

  Seaman Kurt recalls inviting the lady to do lots of things, joining him in the compass bridge being one of the less interesting.

  She had been placed at the front of the boat by the ship’s mate, where she and her valise were lodged between a large burlap sack and several wooden crates. Gulls hovered off the bow before swooping away with disparaging shrieks. The wind was more unkind away from land, and she shivered. When she looked over the water, she was overcome by dizziness imagining the depth of the harbor. The mate stood with the captain inside a small compartment toward the boat’s center, inside which she supposed she would not have comfortably fit even had she been invited. She would have liked to grip the rail with both hands, but could not bring herself to relinquish her suitcase and so instead spent the ride gripping both the rail and the suitcase handle so tightly that she
lost feeling in both hands, tormented by images of her and it sliding off the deck and sinking to the harbor’s bottom. She was ashamed of her faintheartedness: had her brother lived he would have been expected to endure not an hour-long journey, but a transatlantic passage.

  To distract herself she focused on the horizon, willing her destination to come into view. As she scanned the skyline she thought of the hansom cab that in a previous lifetime had carried her and Henry, newly wed, from the church. She remembered her fear at the sight of her family disappearing behind her and her decision to focus on what was to come. The act of facing forward and reaching for Henry’s hand had felt as significant as the vow sworn before the priest.

  She gripped the boat’s railing tighter and leaned into the wind. A few vague shapes in the distance were growing steadily larger—one of them had to be Gallups. The name Gallups Island conjured visions of a barren, rocky slice of land whose jagged and formidable shore was perpetually pounded by rough waves. As her departure had neared, the romanticism of such an image had been replaced by foreboding—but now as the ferry’s heading became clear, the swath of land that rose into view was larger and more hospitable than her bleak fantasies.

  Gallups was a place of sloping hills, the beach giving way to more trees than Lydia had ever seen. Southie’s trees were a leafy variant of street pole, green utilities arranged according to a city plan. Gallups’ trees clustered and spread according to arboreal precepts forever lost to their urban cousins. Save for a few crimson stalwarts resisting autumn’s end, their leafless branches swayed with the wind against the blue backdrop of the sky. These myriad fingers beckoned Lydia toward an unspoiled piece of land that made Commonwealth Park seem like a window box. She knew at that moment how the first arrivals to the New World must have felt, the lushness of the coast hinting at its limitless potential. For a moment she forgot her difficult leave-taking and uncertain future: the island was beautiful.