“Oh, right. Well, you like Ursie Vance and Franny.” Frances Finster’s granddaughter was named for her.
“I don’t like Ursie anymore.”
“Why is that?”
“She said if I don’t say my prayers I’ll go to the bad place when I die.”
“You say your prayers.”
“I leave out the die part. I don’t like that.”
At bedtime, Nickel refused to say, “And if I die before I wake.” She just would say, “I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
“Don’t worry.”
“And Ursie is always stopping the teacher when she’s telling Bible stories. She wanted to know what colors were in Joseph’s coat. I hope she looks behind her and turns into a pillar of salt.”
Juts wasn’t pleased about four-and five-year-olds learning about Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Tell me that story.”
Nickel sighed. How could her mother not know? “Lot and his wife ran away from bad people. And Lot’s wife wasn’t supposed to look back.” She paused, concentrating on the details, then happily finished her story. “Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night.”
65
Nineteen fifty was the year Wheezie discovered shocking pink. Festooned with shocking-pink plastic earrings, matching bracelet, and lipstick against a navy-blue sweater and skirt, she would occasionally offset this color scheme with lime green. She was also fond of pale pink and black. Julia retaliated by wearing yards of aqua and white.
Runnymedians, putting the war behind them as best they could, erupted in an explosion of music, building, big cars, and endless gossip. But then nothing could stop the gossip. If Hitler had won they would have gossiped about him and the German gauleiter sent to whip them into shape.
Nickel was in kindergarten and loved it. Chessy had reorganized the store and had hired an assistant. He had begun advertising too, and had bought the family a brand-new refrigerator because business was so good. He moved the icebox to the garage, using it for tool storage. Maizie’s future remained cloudy and once when Wheezie pressured her about it said, “Gobble, gobble, gobble.” Louise buttoned her lip.
Juts and Nickel continued their riding lessons. That and gardening were the two pastimes they shared, although it was not lost on Julia that Nickel preferred spending time with Chessy. She couldn’t understand why the child would defy her but do anything her father asked.
Louise, ever the maternal expert, declared that girls stuck with their fathers, boys with their mothers. Other people echoed the thought and it certainly seemed true, because Lillian Yost’s little boy screamed bloody murder when she took him to kindergarten for the first time. His eyes almost bugged out of his head, and his face went red, not a pretty sight, when it was time for his mother to leave.
Mrs. Miller, the teacher, told Lillian she had to leave … just leave, no matter how hard it would be. After all, the world does not shine on a mama’s boy. The junior Yost pounded on the door, he kicked, he peed. Nickel pulled him from the door. “Shut up, bawl-baby.” However much this sentiment endeared her to Mrs. Miller, it grated on Lillian Yost’s last nerve when she heard the story. She flew all over Juts, who surprised everyone by not losing her temper.
Nickel and Peepbean Huffstetler fought at the stable, at school, anywhere. Three years older than the curly-haired girl, he could whop her. She’d get even on horseback. She literally rode rings around him, thereby ensuring further attention from O.B. and further hatred from Peepbean.
Juts had taken Nickel to see a Walt Disney movie showing in York. The projectionist, possessor of two brain cells, ran a newsreel that showed gangs of children foraging in the rubble of Dresden. A dead dog lay by the side of the road. The voice-over intoned about the suffering endured in the part of Germany controlled by Russia. Nickel sobbed over the dog and the children until Juts had to take her out of the theater. How could you explain to a five-year-old that other five-year-olds used to be the enemy? No matter how hard Juts tried on that cold January day, she couldn’t condemn anybody’s children, not even those of the Japanese, whom she still hated with all her heart.
She told Nickel that adults make wars and cause innocents to suffer. Nickel couldn’t understand. For weeks afterward she asked everyone if she would die. And if there was a war, could she save Buster and Yoyo? Juts would find her rummaging through old copies of Life magazine at Mother Smith’s; Josephine never threw out anything except kindness. Pictures of war fascinated Nickel.
Juts didn’t recall being so concerned as a child during the Great War, but she had understood, finally, that Nickel was not a carbon copy of herself.
Juts, on hands and knees one afternoon, scrubbed the kitchen floor. Yoyo, grown plump, lazed on the countertop. Buster watched from the hall. The radio played “I Love Those Dear Hearts and Gentle People.” Juts sang along, her soprano quite lovely.
Juts finished out the song: “‘ … that live and love in my hometown.’”
A light rap on the back window brought her to her feet. She walked on the balls of her feet to the back door.
“Rillma?”
Rillma Ryan, ravishingly beautiful now as she approached thirty, nodded.
“Hi, Juts.”
“Come on in.” When Juts opened the door, a rush of cold air followed. Buster barked at the visitor.
“I don’t want to step on your wet floor.”
“I’ll mop up the prints. I didn’t know you were coming home.”
“I hadn’t planned on it, but I earned a bonus at work so I thought I’d come see Mom and—the baby.”
Raw fear seared through Juts. She liked Rillma. Everyone liked Rillma. But what if blood proved thicker than water? What if Nickel somehow recognized her mother and abandoned Juts? Then again, how could she refuse Rillma the common courtesy of inviting her in? After all, she had given Juts her child.
“Can I get you something to eat or drink?”
“Oh no, thank you. Is Nickel at school?”
“Kindergarten. She’s only there a half day but I sure enjoy those three hours. Each week one of us takes turns walking the kids to school. It works out pretty good.”
“Mom says she runs on twelve cylinders.”
“That’s the truth. Come on, let’s go in the living room.”
“I should have called, Juts, but I was afraid you’d say no. You know I won’t do anything out of the way.”
“I hope not.”
“Mom said Louise is about to turn forty-nine and she’s having a hissy.”
Juts crossed one leg over the other as she sat in the deep chair. “She doesn’t even admit to forty.”
“I saw Mary briefly. She looks real good—a little tired, but good.”
“She’s happy.”
“How’s Chessy?”
“Same old guy. He loves Nicky. She’s the center of his world.” Julia paused. “I think he’s the happiest he’s been since I’ve known him, and that’s saying a lot with that battle-ax of a mother.”
“I know, Mom told me all about that, too. She said Cora marched right on down to Josephine’s house and had a set-to and Josephine wouldn’t see anyone or talk to anyone for days and then she snapped out of it.”
“She endures Nicky. Nicky hates going over there but I told her once that we had to do this for Daddy, that no matter how much we didn’t like Grandma, Daddy loved her. She was fine after that.”
The front door flew open. “Buster, Yoyo!” The animals rushed over to Nickel. “Hi, Momma.” She stopped hugging and kissing the cat and dog as she stared at the beautiful stranger.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Rillma replied. It seemed to Juts she was trying not to choke up.
“Nicky, this is Rillma Ryan and she came to pay us a visit.”
Nicky bounded over—she never walked when she could skip or run—and held out her hand as she had been taught to do. “Hello, Miss Ryan.”
“Hello, Nickel. You may call me Rillma.”
“Ne
at name.”
“My brother named me that.”
Nickel couldn’t remember a Ryan man about Rillma’s age. By this time she knew everyone in South and North Runnymede. “Momma, how come I don’t know Rillma’s brother?”
Rillma replied, “He died of spinal meningitis when I was about your age.”
“Did I do a bad thing?” Nickel, chagrined, asked Juts.
“No, honey, you didn’t know.”
Nickel threw off her coat and her scarf, dutifully taking them to the mud room off the kitchen. When she reappeared she smiled at the visitor. Although they had the same coloring and the same eyes, Nickel couldn’t see it. She had the Ryan voice, too, but her high cheekbones, full lips, and athletic body were from the paternal side.
“Do you like school?”
Every adult asked this question.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tell her what you like best,” Juts encouraged her.
“Horses.”
“No, your classes.”
“Drawing. Mrs. Miller lets us use finger paints!”
“That’s nice.”
“Where do you live?” Nicky asked. The rudiments of making conversation were being taught to her by the Wednesday Tea ladies as well as her own family. Wednesday Tea was the precursor to junior cotillion and then cotillion, and attendance was mandatory for children whose parents revered good manners.
“Portland, Oregon.”
“Oh.” She had no idea where this place might be.
“That’s all the way across the country on the Pacific Ocean.”
“Oh.” Nickel concentrated to come up with more to say. “Do they have horses in Portland?”
“Yes. The city is famous for its roses, though. It’s right on a big river, which flows into the ocean. Maybe when you’re bigger you’ll visit it.”
“That would be nice.” She became quiet. She had exhausted her line of conversation and was dying to play outdoors even though it was cold. “Momma, can I put on my pants and go outside?”
“Yeah, sure.” Juts lit up a Chesterfield after offering a smoke to Rillma, who refused.
“It was nice to meet you, Rillma. Do you have a little girl or a little boy I could play with?”
“No.” Rillma smiled.
“Bye.” She scrambled up the stairs to her room, followed by the cat and the dog. She changed in a flash and ran back down and out the back door.
The two women waited until the back door closed.
“She’s getting better about slamming the door.”
“She’s a sweet kid.” Rillma smiled tightly.
“She was born to be my baby.” A rush of color flooded Julia’s cheeks.
“She was.”
“Anyone know out there in Portland?”
“No.”
“No reason to.”
“No. I don’t even know if I’ll tell my husband. That is, if I ever get married.”
“A beautiful girl like you will get married.”
“I don’t trust men.” Rillma’s voice lowered.
“Who said anything about trusting them?” Juts exhaled through her nostrils.
“How can you love someone you don’t trust?”
Juts shrugged. “You just do, Rillma. They can’t help being what they are, any more than we can help being what we are—I guess.”
“I put my foot in it, didn’t I?”
“God, Rillma, this is Runnymede. Everybody knows everything about everybody. I survived. You survived. You just go on.”
Rillma lowered her lustrous brown eyes to the floor and then raised them again. “I’d rather be by myself.” She sucked in her breath. “You know how things flit across your mind? When all this was happening I thought my life was over.” She paused. “But it all worked out somehow.”
Rillma stood up and held out her hand to Julia, then hugged her instead. “Thank you. I was afraid you wouldn’t let me in.”
Juts held her cigarette away so she wouldn’t burn Rillma. “You can write me. I’ll write back.”
“I will.”
After Rillma left by the front door, Juts watched her walk down the sidewalk. Juts exploded into tears but she didn’t know why as the graceful silhouette receded into nothingness.
66
You did what!” Louise paused, her fingers on the lace of a brassiere, for she was standing in the middle of Bear’s department store on the square in York.
“I let her visit Nickel.”
“You can’t do that.” In the next breath she said, “Does Chester know?”
“Sure.”
“And he wasn’t upset?”
“No.”
She dropped the bra. “Then you’re both of you out of your heads. Blood calls to blood. You’re asking for trouble.”
“Nicky couldn’t have cared less. She was polite and then ran outside to play.”
Louise hit the serious register in her voice, accompanied by a telltale shake of the head. “She has no business around that child. She gave her up. Nickel is yours.”
“I didn’t have the heart to turn her away. Anyhow, she can’t take care of a child, and Chessy and I have legally adopted Nickel. There’s nothing she can do.”
“What if Nickel looks at her and sees herself?”
“Nicky doesn’t look like Rillma.”
“She talks in spurts, long silences and then boom,” Louise said. “That’s unusual. Maybe there’s something wrong. Maybe inside she knows she’s not blood.”
“She talks about horses, Louise. You can be such an ass.”
Surrounded by lace panties—pink, yellow, white, and dangerous black—Louise and Juts got a hen-on. The customers at the lingerie sale hovered around the merchandise and the unintended entertainment.
“An ass, an ass? Who rode all the way to filthy Pittsburgh on borrowed gas-ration coupons to get your baby? Who wrapped her in a blanket and held her close during the blizzard? Who took turns driving with Chester? You are one brick shy of a load! You don’t know anything about being a mother.”
“Shut up,” Juts threatened.
“Furthermore, you should never, ever have let Rillma Ryan see that child!”
“Stop telling me what to do.” Juts slapped her with a brassiere.
“Free speech—this is America.”
“For Chrissake, Wheezie, shut up.”
Wheezie tossed her head as another bra flew at her face. “You’re trying to deprive me of my rights as a citizen.”
“No, I’m trying to shut you up! I’m sick of you.”
Louise grabbed a handful of underpants and dumped them on Juts’s head. One hung on her ear. Lingerie floated down like little silken parachutes. The floorwalker, a mincing twit in a brown suit, charged down the aisle.
“Ladies, ladies.”
“Stay out of this.” Juts threw a brassiere at him.
He pulled it off his face, his wedding ring catching the overhead light for an instant. Sales clerks deserted their posts to help him. Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered and women were scooping up the silk goodies. Most intended to pay. A few did not.
The two sisters, pulled apart, were dumped out on the street. A pair of pink underpants was lodged in Louise’s blouse between the top and second buttons. She stormed down the street.
“Thief!” Juts pointed at the pink protrusion.
Louise stopped, saw the underpants, and turned around. She opened the front door of Bear’s, grandly dropping them on the floor, then she headed across the square for George Street.
“You can find your own way home.”
Juts, color high, tagged after her. “Gum flapper!”
“Don’t be so childish.”
A familiar face, though fatter now, smiled at them as Bunny Von Bonhurst came down the sidewalk from the opposite direction, waving at the sisters.
“Bunny.” Louise, switching into social gear, forced a smile. “I haven’t seen you in years.”
Bunny, in a smart beige suite, hugged Louise and then Juli
a. “Why, I came on over from Salisbury to visit Rollie and the kids.” Rollie was her son. “How are you?”
“I can’t complain,” said Louise, who usually did.
“You look good.” Juts lied because she thought Bunny Von Bonhurst was fat as a tick.
“I hear you’re a mother now.”
“Yes, she’s a handful.”
“They all are.” Bunny laughed heartily. “Say, I sure thought of you girls back during the war, when I read the article in the paper about the German planes. You must have been scared to death.”
“We were,” Louise truthfully replied, smiling reflexively.
“That was some night.” Juts decided to add to Louise’s distress. “Louise had the binoculars and we heard something. Naturally, we never assumed it could be the enemy, even though we were trained to look for them. Anyway, the clouds were big rolling ones so she had to really follow this high, faraway sound and then she saw them coming straight on in a V. My heart stopped.”
So did Louise’s, because she was sure that her angry sister would rat on her with an unvarnished account. “Really, Julia, Bunny doesn’t want to hear the details.”
“I do so!”
“Well”—Juts licked her lips—“Wheezie screamed ‘Germans’ and I swung the big light up on the aircraft, but they were really high up. Wheezie cranked the siren. It was the middle of the night. People ran out of their houses; Caesura Frothingham, you remember her—” When Bunny nodded that she did, Juts continued, “—hollered so loud she could have awakened the dead, ‘We’ll be killed!’ then she ran around like a chicken with its head cut off until she finally dove under her car. A lot of good that would have done. And—”
“Julia, really.” Louise checked her wristwatch in an obvious manner. “Bunny, I’m so glad to see you.”
“You know what was odd about those Germans, though, was that they disappeared. Must have been heavier clouds farther west, or maybe they turned and flew back out to the ocean.” Juts maliciously smiled at Louise and then sweetly smiled at Bunny.
“Pearlie always swore they came out of Newfoundland.” Louise clipped her words.
“That’s a long way away.” Bunny wrinkled her brow.
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