by Mary Razzell
Helga looked exhausted when she straightened up from her boat. She dragged her feet along the float and stumbled, almost falling when she reached the beach. I watched her ease herself down off the float and sit on a log.
Quickly I filled a glass with water to take to her, but I had no sooner got out the door and down the steps when she got up slowly and moved toward George.
She stared at him for a minute. He did look pathetic, sitting hunched up in a too-warm sweater and long corduroy pants. She put her hand out hesitantly and touched the top of his head lightly.
He looked up at her.
“What’s the matter, boy?” I heard her ask him.
“What are you doing? Leave him alone!” It was Mrs. Lawson shouting at Helga. She knocked over the chaise lounge in her hurry to get to George. I felt as though the brittle afternoon had broken into a thousand sharp pieces.
Helga took one look at Mrs. Lawson’s face and bolted for the trail in the woods.
By the time Mrs. Lawson had got George into the house, she was almost hysterical. I found myself giving her the glass of water I had brought for Helga.
“That crazy old woman,” she kept saying over and over. Her husband tried to calm her, but she pushed him aside angrily. “You’ve got to do something about her,” she told him. “I mean it!”
When I left for the day, she was still going on about Helga. I stopped at the store on my way home to tell Mr. Percy about it.
“I’m sure she’s going to make trouble for Helga. She was even talking about going to the other summer people and getting a petition or something. She says Helga’s frightening the children and ruining the place for the cottagers.”
Mr. Percy shook his head, exasperated.
“That Mrs. Lawson, she would, too. She’s just the type. And once she gets a notion in her head, there’s no stopping her. If she had her way, all the male dogs in town would be wearing underwear.”
“Is that why—?”
“Eh? Why what?” Mr. Percy demanded. “Mr. Lawson. He’s always...he’s got roving hands.”
Mr. Percy’s eyes chilled. They stared hard into mine.
“Oh, has he, now? That’s what I call interesting. Yes, sir, real interesting.”
When I left, he was looking thoughtful.
* * *
The annual regatta was coming up in a few days, and Nels and Mr. Bergstrom constructed the judges’ platform. Everyone was busy putting up banners and decorating the wharf with paper roses and twisted streamers.
Everybody, that is, except Mrs. Lawson. She was too busy talking to people about Helga.
I saw her in the middle of a group of women at the beach, gesturing angrily. She invited them into the house for tea and cookies, and from the kitchen where I was ironing George’s shirts, I overheard bits and pieces of their conversation—enough to tell me that Helga was in trouble.
On the day of the regatta I was given the afternoon off so that I could go to the beach and watch. Everyone was there: Nels and his father, my brothers. My mother had said she would come, but at the last minute she changed her mind. Mr. Percy was out on the store’s veranda, and I saw Mrs. Lawson leave her husband’s side and go to speak to him. I guessed it must be about Helga. That was all she talked about those days.
Then I did something that I didn’t consciously plan. Acting out of an impulse that suddenly hardened into a resolve, I moved over so that I stood in front of Mr. Lawson. Mr. Percy and Mrs. Lawson were still talking, but their heads were turned in my direction.
I leaned back toward Mr. Lawson as provocatively as I could. His hand reached around and cupped one of my breasts, briefly. It was only for a moment, but I could tell, by the fixed look on Mrs. Lawson’s face, that she had seen.
But so had Nels Bergstrom, who was leaning against the barrels at the head of the wharf. Now, of all times, he saw me.
* * *
I was afraid to go to work the next morning. I didn’t know whether Mrs. Lawson would refuse to answer the door, or fire me on the spot.
But it was as if nothing had happened. There was no yesterday with Mrs. Lawson, no hint of approval or disapproval in her eyes. If anything, she appeared more regal— standing straighter, her blonde hair more sculptured than ever. As for Mr. Lawson, he ignored me, and I did the same to him.
For the first few days after the regatta, I avoided our new house. I was afraid to face Nels. But I made up my mind to be like Mrs. Lawson—to pretend nothing had happened, and to look Nels Bergstrom right in the eye.
Walking down the grassy ruts of the new road to our house-to-be, the alder stumps on either side bleeding orange, I heard the staccato of hammering. Mr. Bergstrom and Tom were on the roof laying shingles. There was no sign of anyone else. I wandered through the rooms, smelling the fresh lumber, touching the clean yellow wood. Turning into what was to be my bedroom, I almost fell over Nels. He was on his hands and knees just inside the door, studying the blueprints.
“There’s no closet,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “What?” Being so close to him without warning, I found it hard to think.
“The blueprints. Look. They forgot to leave room for a closet.”
I bent over, as if I could read them upside down without any problem.
“Well, I want one. Couldn’t you put one in anyway?”
“It’ll stick out, even in a corner. I’d better check on it.” He stood up abruptly.
We were standing too close. I moved over to the window. I played with the catch, then slid the window back and forth. “You’ve put this in since I was here last. I like it.”
“They’re all right. A lot of work, though, making the casement and frames...How old are you, Sheila?” He finished rolling up the blueprints and put a rubber band around them.
“Sixteen. Why?”
He pushed his fingers through his dark hair in a gesture of annoyance. “Aren’t you kind of young...to be fooling around?”
I felt my face flood hot and the warmth go down my neck.
“I mean, the guy was old enough to be your father. Who was he, anyway?”
“Since when is it any of your business?” I asked, humiliated that he would talk about it at all.
“Hey, calm down. I just don’t like to see a kid like you being pawed over by some middle-aged man ...”
“It’s not like you think.”
“What is it, then?”
While Nels was talking, I couldn’t look at him. Now I forced my eyes back from the window, and what I saw in his eyes was interest. I found myself telling him in a rush of words about wanting to go back to school, how Helga had made it possible, why Mrs. Lawson was making trouble for Helga. I told him everything.
“Do you think it worked with Mrs. Lawson?” he asked when I had finished.
“It seems to. She’s so busy now being the perfect wife, she’s stopped talking about Helga.”
He stood there, half laughing at me, half serious.
“No wonder your brothers say one sister’s enough.” He leaned back with his hands on the window ledge and, still smiling, said, “So it’s settled then.”
“What’s settled?”
“That you’re going to the show with me on Friday night.”
“I am?”
“Walter’ll let me have the truck. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty. Don’t be late.”
“Walter?”
“Walter Bergstrom. My stepfather.”
“I didn’t know he was your stepfather.”
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know, yet, but I’ll tell you about it Friday night.”
He left then to talk to his stepfather about the closet, and I walked home, almost in a daze but sensing every quiver of every leaf on every tree along the way. Even the birds seemed part of it. The woods were full of their singing.
* * *
Friday night. I heard Nels’ truck turn into our yard, but he didn’t come to the door. Instead he waited for me to come out, the motor running. I found myself wishing he
would at least come to the door. What would my mother think? I felt apologetic when I told her, “That’s Nels Bergstrom. He’s taking me to the show.”
She scarcely looked up from the bank statement she had been worrying about ever since it had come in the mail. The money she had saved for the house was almost gone, and the inside was yet to be finished, the insulation put in. “All right, Sheila, don’t be late,” was all she said. When I left, she was adding up the debit side of the figures once again.
Nels leaned over from behind the wheel and opened the passenger door. I climbed in beside him, careful to keep my white pleated skirt down in place at my knees.
It was impossible to talk above the noise of the truck on the gravel road. Once in a while Nels caught me looking at him. Then he smiled, and I was glad we couldn’t talk—this was much easier.
He had on dark blue pants and a white cotton shirt open at the neck. He smelled of shaving soap and wood smoke and his own smell which came from his skin and hair.
The movie was shown in the Gibson’s community hall. The films were always old, usually Westerns or B movies. I had vague impressions of cowboys on horses flickering on the screen, but I was really only conscious of Nels.
Several times the film broke. The projectionist, one of the elementary school teachers, tried to repair the damage while young boys lobbed water bombs through the air. One bomb landed with a plop near the projectionist, but he went on with his work, absently wiping off the water as he peered at the reels with a flashlight. There were yowlings of dogs fighting on the steps outside the side entrance, and in a sudden fury they landed against the door, springing it open. They fell inside the hall in a tangle of tails and snapping jaws. This made the small boys howl with glee and egg them on.
I looked around. There was a girl from school, and she waved at me and made an O with her mouth as if to say, Who’s that? Nels pointed out his mother and stepfather who were sitting two rows ahead of us.
Mrs. Bergstrom looked very young to me, in her mid-thirties. Her hair was an unnatural shade of brown and done in ringlets, but only at the ends. It reminded me of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. She had on too much rouge.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Nels whispered to me, and I could only nod. “No one believes I’m her son, she looks so young.”
The projectionist went on trying to fix the film while the older boys at the back of the hall made loud and insulting remarks. I could see that they were passing a bottle of Vat 69 back and forth.
“I want to say hello to my buddies,” Nels told me, and he got up and went back to them.
When he sat down beside me ten minutes later, I could smell the whiskey. He draped his arm over the back of my folding chair.
We never did see the end of the movie. The film had broken beyond repair. On the steps outside the hall afterwards, Nels stopped to talk to his friends. The bottle was passed around again.
“You wanna drink?” one of the boys asked me.
“No, she doesn’t,” Nels answered.
“Too young, eh?”
When we were back in the truck again, Nels said. “It isn’t that you’re too young, although you are. It’s that I don’t like to see a girl drink. Okay? I’ll take you home.”
We parked just this side of the road leading down to my house. Nels switched off the headlights. He lit a cigarette, and I could see his cheek bones and eyebrows in the quick flare of the match.
“Sorry.” He shook the package toward me. “You want one?”
I took a cigarette and he struck another match. After I sputtered and coughed, he took the cigarette from my hand and stubbed it out in the ashtray.
“It helps,” he said, “when it’s a cork-tip, to smoke the right end. If you don’t smoke, just say so. I don’t like to see girls smoke, anyway.” But he was smiling.
“There’s a lot of things you don’t like to see girls do. Drink, smoke, fool around.”
“That’s because they’re cheap things to do. I don’t like cheap girls. Girls who go around with any guy...”
“Well...thanks for the movie, anyway.” I started to open the door.
He caught my arm and turned me toward him. “Don’t be in such a hurry. I just wanted to make sure you understand. If you’re going to go out with me, you don’t go out with anybody else. And my girl doesn’t act cheap.”
I shook off his hand. “Nobody said I was going out with just you. And I don’t act cheap, either. I’ve already explained about Mr. Lawson.”
“Jesus, you’re hard to get along with! All I’m trying to tell you is that if you’re my girl, you’ve got to act like it.”
“Who said I was your girl?” I could hear my voice rising.
He put his hand on the back of my head and kissed me slowly and gently.
“I said so.”
And in a minute, after I had got my breath back, I answered, “Yes. All right.” I opened the door and walked slowly toward the house. Nels put on the headlights and waited until I was at the door before he started the engine.
The house was in silence, the lamp turned low on the kitchen table. Everybody seemed to be in bed, although I could see by the kitchen clock that it wasn’t even ten-thirty.
I could smell cigarette smoke. Something was different. I went into the hall to the living room and could hear heavy snores coming from my mother’s bedroom. And I could see, near the door of her room, an air force duffle bag.
My father was home.
9
I WOKE to the teasing smells of bacon frying and fresh coffee. From the kitchen I heard my father’s voice, low and rambling, and my mother’s answering monosyllables.
Slipping on a clean cotton dress for work at the Lawsons’, I hurried out to see my father.
He looked different. It wasn’t only the air-force blue shirt that made his face look ruddy. There was a hardness, a leanness that hadn’t been there before. It showed in the slight tenseness of his shoulders as he sat, the sharp way he turned his head toward me.
Once I would have described him as easygoing. Now I wasn’t sure.
“Sheila!” he said, opening his arms. “You’re looking fine. All grown up in a year. Sit down and tell me what you’ve been doing.”
My mother set a plate of bacon, eggs and toast in front of him.
“When did you get home, Dad? How long can you stay?” I looked at his bacon. He picked up a slice, put it on a piece of toast and passed it to me.
My mother frowned. I took the bacon and returned the toast to his plate.
With his fork he broke the egg yolk.
“I’ve got a month’s leave. The war’s almost over, Toots. Any day now, and you’ll see Japan surrender.”
“What are you going to do then?” I wanted to know. My mother, who had just picked up the coffee pot from the stove, stopped, coffee pot suspended in the air.
“Oh, I’m not sure,” he answered. “Probably go up north to the placer mines. Gold mining. Yes, that’s where the money is.” He pushed away his plate and reached in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. My mother brought the coffee pot to the table and filled his cup carefully.
“Where would that be, Frank?” she asked, spooning three teaspoons of sugar into his coffee.
He stirred vigorously, slopping coffee in the saucer. “Around Williams Lake.” He lit a cigarette, and my mother fetched him an ashtray. Relaxing, he leaned back in his chair and smoked.
My brothers came to the table for breakfast. The two younger boys threw themselves at Dad, who held them off at arm’s length, pretending to be astonished at how they had grown. Tom stood, his grin joining his ears.
The boys were all talking at once—fishing, horses, the new house.
“New house? What new house?” My father leaned forward, suddenly alert.
“We were saving it as a surprise for you, Frank,” my mother broke in, brushing the crumbs off the table into her hand. “I bought that piece of land on this side of the creek. Paul and Tom have built a house on it
.”
“Well, I’ll say this is a surprise, all right. That’s the understatement of the year.” My father’s face was mask-like, expressionless. Only the slightest hardness at the corners of his mouth showed how he really felt. “Where did you get the money for all this,” and he waved his hand grandly, “land and new house?”
My mother’s voice was quiet.
“I saved it from the family allotment checks from the air force.” She moved to fill his coffee cup again, but he shook his head and covered the cup with his hand.
“That’s mighty nice, Agnes. Not many women can manage a dollar the way you can. Gives a man a real sense of security to be a home owner again.”
My mother began to clear the table. I moved to fill the basin with hot water to start the dishes.
“Jim and Mike are going to help me lay the water pipes today,” she told my father, “as soon as I’ve tidied up here.”
“You had no problem with the paper work? Everything’s squared away in that direction?” His eyes were half shut, but I saw that he watched my mother closely.
She turned to face him.
“It’s in my name, Frank, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Your name. Not even yours and mine?”
She didn’t answer.
He got up then and walked around the room. Sat down. Sighed. Pushed the ashtray back and forth on the table.
“We’ll see about that,” was all he said.
As my mother stood beside me, drying the dishes, I saw the moisture on her upper lip. Her hand, as she hung up a cup, shook.
I dared to look at my father. He sat at the table, playing with the cigarette package. The clock ticked loudly in the silent kitchen.
“Oh, no! Quarter to eight!” I’d never make it on time to the Lawsons’.
“Wait,” said my father. “I’ll walk with you as far as the new house. I’d like to take a look at it. That is, if it’s all right with your mother.”
“Now, Frank, of course it’s all right,” she answered, almost successful in sounding brisk and cheery. “We could use your help. I’d hoped we could move in by the time school starts, but I don’t know. There’s so much to be done yet and the money all gone...”