by Karma Brown
“Fantastic,” he said. “I’m here for work gloves. Nate said you had a set for me?”
“Right. Let me grab them.” Nate and Steve were working on restabilizing the stone walkway and prepping the driveway for repairing. Alice and Nate had been in the house now for a week, and the list of what needed to happen was growing daily and at an alarming rate. “Here you go.” Alice handed Steve the gloves from the hardware store bag in the corner of the room, pulling off the price tag as she did.
“Thanks, kiddo.”
“Sure thing. Mom—I’m going to go grab the drop sheets. Be right back.”
Her mother hummed lightly, still lunging, and nodded with her eyes closed. Steve reached over and gave Jaclyn’s butt a light slap with the gloves and her eyes popped open.
“Steve!”
He laughed and kissed her deeply, and Alice left them to it.
Shortly after Nate proposed, Alice went to San Diego for a long weekend to visit and had asked her mom—both of them tipsy on crisp white wine, which was the reason Alice had opened up to her mother—what the secret was to her still-happy relationship with Steve.
“Twice-a-week sex, minimum,” her mother had said without hesitation, which made Alice wish she had never asked, followed by, “And choosing the right person.” Alice had nodded, feeling thoroughly confident and slightly smug that, unlike her mother, she had gotten that part right the first time.
* * *
• • •
“Nate, where did you put the drop cloths?” Alice leaned out the front door, the warmth of the day a welcome contrast to the chilliness inside.
“Basement. Left-hand corner, by the bikes,” Nate replied, swiping his arm over his forehead, already slick with sweat. He had a shovel in hand, and Steve was carrying a large square of stone over the grass like it weighed next to nothing. “Want me to get them?”
Yes, please, she thought, but then shook her head. Though the dank, dark basement freaked her out, she would have to go down sooner or later—the laundry hamper was overstuffed.
“You guys need anything? More coffee? Water?”
“We’re good,” Nate said, pointing to the small cooler to the left of the steps. The two were back to work before Alice had even shut the front door.
She flicked on the basement light and peered down the rickety stairs with trepidation. The single bulb cast barely enough light to see where she was going. Alice took a deep breath, the stale mustiness filling her nose as she stepped gingerly, the plank wooden steps groaning with age. As her feet hit the rough concrete floor, her phone’s flashlight beam picked up a scurry of something fast-moving and Alice yelped. A large silverfish slithered by as it searched for the safety of the shadows, finding solace under the washing machine. “Gross,” Alice muttered, a shiver moving through her.
The plastic sheets were stacked in the corner as promised, and Alice grabbed the packages, tucking them under her arm, eager to leave the damp chill and silverfish and whatever else hid in the basement of this old house. Her heart beat fast and her underarms were fear dampened, and in such a rush to get back upstairs, she didn’t see the wooden skid until she’d tripped over it.
Winded, she gasped and gulped on the ground. Otherwise she was okay, though she would have an impressive bruise on her shin by the next morning. She sat on the floor until she caught her breath, shining the flashlight over to what had tripped her. Three boxes were stacked in a pyramid atop the small wooden skid. Alice could tell by the sagging cardboard walls, the corners soft and losing their angular shape, that the boxes had been there a while. She kneeled and read the writing on the top one. Kitchen, someone had written in thick, flowing black-inked cursive.
They must have belonged to the previous owner. Alice considered leaving them as they were, letting Beverly know in case someone ever came looking for the boxes, and whatever they contained. But curiosity overruled, and Alice tucked her phone under her chin and gently lifted the flaps.
Shining the light into the open box, Alice ran her eyes along the spines of a slew of magazines, maybe two dozen—all Ladies’ Home Journal, with dates ranging from 1954 to 1957. Lifting one out, Alice sat on the edge of the skid and flipped through its pages, her basement fears forgotten for the moment.
There were advertisements for cigarettes, stockings, refrigerators, beer (“Don’t worry, honey, at least you didn’t burn the beer!”), all the colors muted, the ink matte, unlike the glossy magazines of today. She cringed when she got to an ad for Velveeta cheese, a picture of a casserole where corners of grilled cheese sandwich popped up through an orange soup like cresting icebergs. “That’s disgusting,” she muttered, flipping a few more pages.
Setting the magazine to the side, Alice looked back in the box. Some sort of book lay flat at one end, half-hidden by the stack of magazines. She pulled the book out and flipped it over so she could read the cover.
COOKBOOK FOR THE MODERN HOUSEWIFE
The cover was red with a subtle crosshatch pattern and distressed, the book’s title stamped in black ink—all of it faded with age. Bordering the cookbook’s cover were hints of what could be found inside. Alice tilted her head as she read across, down, across, and up the cover’s edges. Rolls. Pies. Luncheon. Drinks. Jams. Jellies. Poultry. Soup. Pickles. 725 Tested Recipes.
Resting the spine on her bent knees, the cookbook dense yet fragile in her hands, Alice opened it carefully. There was an inscription on the inside cover. Elsie Swann, 1940. Going through the first few, age-yellowed pages, Alice glanced at charts for what constituted a balanced diet in those days: milk products, citrus fruits, green and yellow vegetables, breads and cereals, meat and eggs, the addition of a fish liver oil, particularly for children. Across from it, a page of tips for housewives to avoid being overwhelmed and advice for hosting successful dinner parties. Opening to a page near the back, Alice found another chart, this one titled Standard Retail Beef Cutting Chart, a picture of a cow divided by type of meat, mini drawings of everything from a porterhouse-steak cut to the disgusting-sounding “rolled neck.”
Through the middle were recipes for Pork Pie, Jellied Tongue, Meat Loaf with Oatmeal, and something called Porcupines—ground beef and rice balls, simmered for an hour in tomato soup and definitely something Alice never wanted to try—and plenty of notes written in faded cursive beside some of the recipes. Comments like Eleanor’s 13th birthday—delicious! and Good for digestion and Add extra butter. Whoever this Elsie Swann was, she had clearly used the cookbook regularly. The pages were polka-dotted in browned splatters and drips, evidence it had not sat forgotten on a shelf the way cookbooks would in Alice’s kitchen.
“Alice?” Her mom was at the basement door, calling down the stairs. “Did you find the drop cloths?”
“Yes. On my way up,” Alice called back, placing the magazines inside the box and grabbing the drop sheets. She turned to go upstairs but stopped, deciding to take the cookbook with her. Maybe she could give cooking a try, like her mom had said. Tucking it under her arm, she maneuvered carefully back up the rickety stairs, relief coursing through her as she left the basement’s gloom. Setting the cookbook on the kitchen table, she took a last look at its cover, curious if this Elsie Swann was also the woman she had to thank for the many layers of wallpaper she was about to spend the next few days removing.
10
Nellie
OCTOBER 14, 1955
Chicken à la King
6 tablespoons butter
½ cup minced green pepper
1 cup diced mushrooms
2 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1½ cups rich milk, scalded
1 cup chicken broth
3 cups diced cooked chicken
1 cup cooked peas
1 teaspoon onion juice
¼ cup slivered pimento
&
nbsp; 2 tablespoons sherry
Toasted bread for serving
Melt butter and cook green pepper and mushrooms until tender. Blend in the flour, salt, and paprika over low heat until smooth and bubbly. Add milk and chicken broth gradually, stirring constantly over low heat until sauce thickens. Gently stir in cooked chicken, peas, and onion juice. Just before serving, add pimento and sherry. Serve with buttered toast points.
I think we should reschedule.” Richard sat at the kitchen table with a glass of stomach-settling albumen drink in front of him. His stomach was “off” yet again, but it wasn’t for this he thought they should cancel the dinner party. Nellie lifted the lid on the pot of chicken simmering in the lemon and parsley water, happy to see it was nearly cooked.
“You’re not up to this, Nellie.”
“I told you, the doctor said I’m fine to get back to things.” She tied her apron tighter around her narrow waist, puttered around the kitchen, organizing bowls and platters and checking off items on her list as she hummed to the radio. Plated canapés. Shrimp cocktail. Hollywood Dunk. Lettuce salad with Roquefort dressing. Chicken à la King. Baked Alaska. Canceling was not an option: they were expecting three couples, and the dinner had been planned for well over a month now. Before Harry Stewart died, before the car incident where Richard’s angry fingers had left a deeper bruise than Nellie expected. Before Nellie miscarried the baby.
It had happened while Richard was dining in the city with some bigwigs who boasted they could get Murdoch’s gum in every soda shop from New Jersey to California. It was only one day after the funeral, and while Richard had been hesitant to leave her, he eventually conceded when she assured him she was fine. His dinner had gone quite late, and he’d ended up staying the night at the hotel, so he wasn’t there when Nellie lost their baby.
When Richard arrived home the following morning and learned about the miscarriage, he had raged at Nellie. For going to the funeral, when he explicitly asked her not to, for not calling someone to take her to the hospital, for her general carelessness. Until he caught a glimpse of the bloodied towels balled up in the bathtub. There had been much blood, and it was so sudden and painful that Nellie had curled up on the towels in the bathtub, sobbing until sleep overtook her. She awoke near dawn still in the bathtub, shivering and heartsick, and had meant to clean up the towels before Richard came home.
“Oh my God, Nellie.” Richard blanched as he took in the scene, put one hand to his heart and the other to the bathroom’s doorframe. Was he thinking back to the car and perhaps blaming himself, remembering his forceful grip, the cramp that doubled her over? Nellie hoped so; it offered some solace to her heartbreak.
Later, Nellie would bleach the bloodstained towels white, except for one she would wrap up with satin ribbon and bury in the garden, under her pale blue forget-me-nots. “True and undying love, Nell-girl. Forget-me-nots are the flower of remembrance,” Elsie had said one late afternoon as they weeded side by side, singing church hymns in harmony (Elsie an alto, Nellie a soprano). She pulled back some heavy foliage, showed her daughter the darker, damper parts of the garden the delicate blooms liked best. “They thrive beneath the shadow of these more handsome flowers,” Elsie had said, fingering the joyful tulips perched above. Then she swept a hand across the blanket of miniature blue-skied blooms underneath. “Forget-me-nots may be small, but they are mighty.”
It was the truth the doctor had said she was fine to get back to things. Dr. Johnson was on vacation, so she’d seen a colleague of his, the ancient Dr. Wood, who wore a tufted toupee and seemed unable to remember her name. She’d made the appointment two days after the miscarriage, and while Richard insisted he was going too, Nellie—wanting to be alone—suggested his employees needed him more than she did. “I’m fine,” she’d said. “I promise I’ll tell you word for word what the doctor says.” So, while Richard caught the train to Brooklyn, believing she was being examined, Nellie instead consulted Dr. Wood about a barely-a-bother rash on her hand. After glancing at the mild rash, he suggested picking up some Mexsana powder at the pharmacy.
“That redness and itching should be gone in a couple of days, Mrs. Murray,” Dr. Wood said, eyes on his prescription pad.
“Murdoch,” Nellie said. “Mrs. Murdoch.”
The doctor glanced up, his toupee slightly askew. “Isn’t that what I said?”
“Oh, I must have misheard you.”
“Ah, well, that’s fine.” The doctor finished writing out the medical powder’s name, the pen wobbly in his shaky hand. “Mexsana is great for diaper rash, too.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The doctor, his bushy gray eyebrows knitting together as he handed her the note, asked, “How old are you again, Mrs. Murray?” She didn’t bother correcting him this time, tucking the paper she planned to dispose of later into her handbag. He knew precisely how old she was, all her pertinent information in the file in his hands. But being childless at her age, two plus years into her marriage, Nellie understood the prying; she was an enigma in her sewing circle and church groups, at the Tupperware parties full of women in various stages of pregnancy, young children hanging off their mothers’ skirts.
“Twenty-three.” She waited for the inevitable comment; something about not waiting too long to start a family. But Dr. Wood didn’t address it, nodded at her response before saying, “Almost twenty-four, I see here. I’ll leave a note for Dr. Johnson. I’d expect that rash to be gone in a few days.”
* * *
• • •
The dinner was a success, as it always was in the Murdoch house. Nellie loved hosting parties, especially themed ones, though her husband did not share her zeal. When she’d prepared a Hawaiian buffet earlier in the year, their guests had fawned over her efforts but Richard had thought it was tacky. “What’s wrong with a simple roast?” he’d said, scowling at the ferns and pineapples and bananas Nellie had decorated the table with to make it more festive. Reluctantly he’d put the lei, which she’d painstakingly made for each guest with crepe paper flowers, around his neck only after everyone else had done so.
Tonight, Nellie had put on quite a spread: a vegetable platter to start things off, with radish roses and olives pierced with embellished toothpicks and fresh tomatoes from her garden; canapés and shrimp cocktail and Vienna sausages and deviled eggs; then her Chicken à la King, and when they were all nearly too full to eat another thing, Baked Alaska for dessert. The conversation had been pleasant, the men discussing the upcoming election and General Electric–Telechron’s new “revolutionary” snooze alarm clock, the women swooning about Elvis Presley and gossiping about Marilyn Monroe’s recent wedding to Arthur Miller, which everyone agreed was an odd pairing.
The miscarriage wasn’t mentioned, even when the women were alone, huddled in the kitchen to peer at the Baked Alaska in the oven. Nellie was both grateful and blue about this. She desperately missed being with child: the roundness of her belly, the fullness from deep within, the thrill of what was yet to come. During the evening, not one of her friends said anything more specific than “You’re looking well, Nellie,” because no good-mannered guest would mire the merriment of a party with such unpleasantness.
After the meal, Nellie had taken the women through the steps in making the Baked Alaska as they sipped their gin-and-lime cocktails—“But how can ice cream go in the oven?”—while Richard plied the men with cognac-based sidecars and talked politics and business in the living room. The guests had left stuffed with good food and flushed thanks to the flowing alcohol, Nellie’s reputation for being the dinner party hostess all the wives wanted to emulate intact.
She was pleased by how nice a time everyone seemed to have, and even Richard had been lifted out of his earlier mood, the gaiety of company and the cocktails bringing out his renowned charm. And for the first time in weeks his stomach appeared not to turn on him after dinner—he even had a second helping of dessert, and req
uired no bismuth.
“Well done, Nell-baby,” Richard murmured, coming behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing her softly in the divot between neck and shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”
“Good heavens, for what?” Nellie asked, spinning slowly to face him, feeling warm from the gin.
“For all of this, after what you’ve been through,” he said, gesturing to the table, still cluttered with dessert dishes and half-drunk glasses of wine and crumpled napkins. He moved his body closer to hers, gently caressing her cheek with his fingers. “You amaze me, Nellie.”
She smiled and, disarmed by his genuine compliment, leaned in and kissed her husband. She didn’t typically initiate intimacy, and Nellie felt Richard’s body change against hers. “Did the doc say it was all right to, well . . . are you fine to, uh, get back to everything?” he asked.
One would think Richard Murdoch would have no problem asking for what he wanted. In fact, he usually didn’t ask. And Nellie found his hesitation, his uncertainty in this moment, oddly arousing, the way it had been early in their courtship. Back then being with Richard was intoxicating. He treated her like a prized rose, handling her gently, nurturing her delicate petals, proudly putting her on display in the fancy clothes and expensive jewelry he lavished upon her.
No man, including her father (perhaps especially her father), had ever fawned over Nellie the way Richard did in those early days. She had been young and naive, but she also wanted desperately to believe she was worthy of such affection.
Nellie nodded demurely, and Richard gave a sly smile. “Good, good. Coming up?” He leaned back to loosen his tie, but he didn’t take his eyes off hers. Nellie glanced at the table, taking in the mess.
“Look, leave the dishes for the girl.” Their girl, Helen (though Richard never referred to her by name), was scheduled for cleaning tomorrow. Nellie usually took that time to weed her garden, or visit with her neighbor Miriam, or do her marketing in town, because she was uncomfortable being in her home while Helen was there hard at work. Also, having someone underfoot all day was extra work in a different way—Nellie had things to hide.