by Pete Hautman
“Oh.” Stuey had no feelings one way or the other about Jews, and as far as he knew, neither did his mom. It was just another religion, like Catholics and Lutherans, except instead of Christmas the Jews had Hanukkah. “I don’t get it.”
“She said the golf course wouldn’t let Jewish people join, and that it was your family’s fault.”
“But you guys didn’t even live here then!”
“My mom’s grandpa and his brother did, but my mom’s parents moved to New York. Last year my mom’s uncle died and left us his house. That’s why we moved back here. Then, when my mom was talking to your mom, she found out that your family had owned the golf course. My dad thinks she’s being silly, but that just makes her madder. Grown-ups like to argue about stuff.”
“Like the preservation society. At least my mom and your dad are on the same side.”
“Yeah. My mom thinks the woods are dangerous, but my dad says it’s okay to play out here if I don’t go too far.”
“I saw the Mushroom Man,” Stuey said.
Elly’s eyes went wide. “Was he humming?”
“Yes!”
“I’ve seen him twice.”
“Did he see you?”
“One time, I think. But I ran away before he could get me.”
“Did he chase you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t look back. And I didn’t tell my mom because if she knew about the Mushroom Man she wouldn’t let me out of the house.”
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t see me.”
“That’s good. He has a knife, you know.”
When Stuey got home he found his mom in her studio staring at the same half-finished crow painting she’d been working on for a week.
“Mom, does our family hate Jewish people?”
Stuey’s mom lowered her paintbrush and gave him a careful look.
“Of course not! Why would you ask me that, honey?”
“Elly Frankel says that’s why her mom is mad at us.”
“You talked to Elly?”
“On the phone.” Stuey was surprised when the lie popped out of his mouth. He was afraid that she wouldn’t like him and Elly meeting in the woods.
“I see.” She sighed, rinsed the brush in a jar of water, wiped her hands on a rag, and turned on her stool to face him.
“Stuey, do you remember when Grandpa Zach was talking about his father? About how he built the golf course and how he was being prosecuted by a man named Robert Rosen?”
“Because he was a bootlegger,” Stuey said.
“Among other things. I never knew your great-grandfather — he was gone long before I was born — but I know some things about him that Grandpa Zach didn’t tell you.”
“Like what?”
She pursed her lips, as if carefully considering what she was about to say. Stuey started to get scared. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.
“Grandpa Zach always wanted to believe the best about his father, but the truth is, your great-grandpa Ford cut a lot of corners.”
“What does that mean?”
“He wasn’t just a bootlegger, honey. Even after he gave up smuggling, Grandpa Ford still did business with his gangster friends. A lot of the equipment he used to build the golf course had been stolen, and he ran an illegal gambling operation out of the clubhouse. He bribed the police and politicians to overlook his crimes, but Robert Rosen, the district attorney, was determined to put him in prison.
“One time Rosen tried to serve him papers demanding that he testify in court. Grandpa Ford punched him in the face, grabbed the papers, and tore them up. Even the police he’d bribed couldn’t overlook that — Grandpa Ford spent a week in jail before his lawyers got him out. He was furious — so angry he called Rosen and threatened his family. Or so Rosen claimed.”
“If all that happened before you were born, how do you know it?”
“From my grandmother. Grandma Ford was a tough old lady, and she liked to tell stories about the olden days. When I was a girl, I thought it all very romantic, very Wild West. Of course, when my mother found out Grandma Ford was telling me about our family’s criminal past, she put a stop to it.”
“Like you didn’t want Gramps telling me about the bootlegging.”
“Well, yes, I suppose.”
“So how come you’re telling me now?”
“You asked me about Elly’s mom being mad at our family. The reason is that when Grandpa Ford opened the country club back in 1937, he thought that the club should be just for Christians. Jews weren’t welcome.”
“Why?”
“Prejudice, bigotry, racism, fear, ignorance . . . I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It was the way things were back then. People of color weren’t welcome either — unless they were groundskeepers or caddies. The wealthy, white, Christian people who joined the country club felt that by excluding others they could make themselves more . . . special.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes, it is. We’ve become a better people, in some ways. At least I hope so, but we have a long ways to go. Even today there are people who say bad things about Jews, Muslims, people of different races — anyone who isn’t like them. I like to think that Grandpa Ford never actually hated anybody for being Jewish. I think it was just a business decision for him. A very unjust decision. There were several Jewish families in Westdale, and a lot of bitterness over the club policy. Who could blame them? Especially after World War II, when millions of Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. The district attorney, Robert Rosen, was Jewish. I suspect that he would not have been so intent on prosecuting Grandpa Ford otherwise.”
“He was mad because he couldn’t join the club?”
“I think it went beyond that. The two men were so different. Grandpa Ford was an uneducated man who grew up poor and had to fight and steal to build his fortune. He saw Robert Rosen as a privileged, self-righteous know-it-all. And Rosen thought Grandpa Ford was a good-for-nothing crook.
“When the two of them disappeared, things got even worse. Mrs. Rosen was sure Grandpa Ford had killed her husband. Your great-grandmother claimed the opposite, even though there was no proof that either man was dead. Grandma Ford took over the club after Grandpa Ford disappeared, but she didn’t change the policy — Jews were still not welcome at Westdale Country Club. The matter wasn’t resolved until the golf course closed two years later and Mrs. Rosen moved away.”
“But that was so long ago. Why is Mrs. Frankel mad at us?”
His mom’s shoulders slumped. “When Daddy died, I thought this would all go away. That family history he was writing . . . maybe it was a good thing he never finished it . . . but he was right. The past doesn’t go away. It lives on in people’s hearts. We all pay a price for the sins of our ancestors.”
Stuey was confused. He didn’t get what that had to do with anything.
His mom put her palm on his cheek and looked at him sadly.
“I suppose you’ll find this out sooner or later, so I may as well tell you. Maddy Frankel’s maiden name was Rosen.”
Stuey still didn’t get it.
His mom compressed her lips, then said, “Robert Rosen was Elly Rose’s great-grandfather.”
Every chance he got, Stuey went to the deadfall. Sometimes Elly was there and sometimes she wasn’t. He gave her the picture he’d made of Grimpus — a gray cat with one yellow eye and one eye covered with a black patch. Elly looked at it for a long time without speaking.
“Do you like it?” he finally asked.
“It doesn’t actually look like Grimpus,” she said.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s more like what Grimpus would look like if he was a pirate.” She grinned. “I love it. Grimpus will love it too.” She tucked the drawing carefully into her bag. “You’re a really good artist.”
Stuey never told his mom that he was meeting Elly, and Elly kept it secret from her parents. At Castle Rose, they were in their own secret world.
“What on earth do you do in those woods?” his mother
asked one day as he was putting on his backpack.
“Nothing. Just explore. I saw a weasel once. Sometimes I see turkeys.”
“I used to go out there when I was a girl,” she said. “It wasn’t so much of a woods back then — the trees were smaller. There weren’t so many animals. You could still see the old fairways. But Daddy didn’t like me playing out there.”
“Because of what happened to his father?”
“I suppose.” She smiled, her eyes losing focus as she looked into the past. “I miss Grandpa Zach.”
“Me too.”
“This house seems so big now. Sometimes I think it’s too much for just the two of us. The orchard is overgrown, the house needs paint, and I just don’t have the time.”
Stuey thought about all the hours she spent lying on the old sofa in her studio, staring up at the ceiling.
“I can help more,” Stuey said.
“Honey, you’re a huge help just by being here.” She put her hands on each side of his face and smiled sadly. “I don’t know how I’d go on without you.”
“I could mow the orchard.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think you’re old enough to operate the mower,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what you can do.”
She went back to her studio and returned with a small camera. “Here.” She showed him how it worked. “If you see that weasel again, you can take a picture. Or any other animals you see. Maybe I can use them for my paintings.”
As he made his way into the woods, Stuey felt as if the trees were closing ranks behind him, as if he was leaving behind the unpainted house and the overgrown orchard and his mom’s sadness, entering another reality. At the Castle Rose, everything was possible.
On the way there he took pictures for his mom: a jack-in-the-pulpit, a cone-shaped snail, and a spiderweb beaded with dew. At the hollow log where he had seen the weasel he stopped and waited quietly for a few minutes, but the weasel did not appear. Stuey wasn’t surprised — in the woods, things only show up when you don’t expect them. Every time he went out he expected to run into the Mushroom Man, but he had only seen him that one time.
The grasses around the deadfall were trampled from his and Elly’s many visits. He knew she wasn’t there — he could always tell. Maybe she would show up later.
Getting in and out of the deadfall was easier now — he had enlarged the opening by breaking off a couple of small branches. Inside, Elly had tied some of his pictures to the walls with colored ribbons. The smaller nook — Elly called it their cupboard — now held two plastic mugs with matching plates, a bottle of water, and several juice boxes. They had swept up the scattering of leaves and other forest material. Underneath was a layer of hard-packed white sand.
Stuey remembered what Gramps had told him — that the old golf course had twenty-seven greens. He went outside and walked around the deadfall, kicking aside leaves. After a few minutes he found it. A patch of green, about the size of a manhole cover. It looked like moss, but when he knelt down and ran his hand over it he could tell it wasn’t. It was creepy bent — a little bit of golf green that had survived.
Gramps stood here, he thought. Right here, on this spot. And so had his great-grandfather the bootlegger.
“What are you doing?”
Stuey jumped up, his heart pounding. Elly was standing behind him.
“I didn’t hear you,” he said.
“I came under a spell of silence. What were you looking at?”
“Fairy grass,” he said, pointing. “I bet this used to be a golf green.”
Elly took off her backpack and bent over to examine the patch of green. “The fairies here must be extra small.”
Stuey wanted to tell her how his grandpa and his great-grandpa had been here many times, right where they were standing. He hadn’t said anything about what his mom had told him. He was afraid if she knew how much their great-grandfathers had hated each other, she might hate him too. But he could feel it building up inside him, the pressure of a secret wanting to get out. That was how secrets were — the longer and harder you held them in, the more they wanted to get out.
Elly stood up and said, “My mom has her book club. I’m supposed to be over at Jenny’s. I don’t have to be home for a couple hours.” She lifted her backpack. “I brought pie.”
Stuey followed her into the Castle Rose.
“My mom made it from our cherry tree.” She pulled out a paper bag stained with cherry juice. “It got kind of squashed.” She transferred the slices of slightly squished pie onto two paper plates and handed him one. “I forgot to bring forks.”
“That’s okay.” They sat down on the slab facing each other. Elly’s lips twitched into a smile; a coil of hair fell from behind her left ear onto her cheek. Her dark eyes glittered in the half light.
What went on inside her head? They’d spent hours and hours talking about everything, but Stuey still couldn’t figure her out. In a way it was like they were from different planets, and this was a magical place where they could be together.
He forced himself to look away so she wouldn’t think he was staring at her.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“You were looking at me weird.”
“I was just thinking about aliens,” he said.
“You think I look like an alien?”
“No! I mean, I think we’re both aliens. I’m from a planet where everybody is blond and chunky and we don’t talk much. I think you might be from Planet Opposite.”
“Because I’m skinny and have curly hair and I talk a lot?”
“And your mom makes pie. My mom never makes pie. She’s like, Eat your brown rice!”
“Does she make you eat kale?”
“Sometimes.”
“I think I like my planet better,” Elly said. She picked up her slice of pie in both hands and took a small bite. Cherry filling squirted onto the corner of her mouth. She laughed and licked it off. Her tongue was like a cat tongue — long and pink and pointed. Stuey’s tongue was blunt and pale. She was fast, he was slow. His fingers were short and thick, hers were long and nimble. If Elly Rose was an elf, he was a troll.
She was waiting for him to taste the pie. He picked up his slice and took a bite. The cherry filling was achingly tart and astonishingly sweet. The buttery crust crumbled and melted in his mouth. Stuey closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the dizzying textures and tastes and smells. He swallowed, opened his eyes, and said, “Wow.”
“You like it?” Elly said.
“It’s the best thing ever.” He ate the rest of the slice in three huge bites — he couldn’t stop himself. Elly watched him, grinning.
“On your planet, people eat really fast,” she said. “If you ever invade us you’ll hog all our pie.”
“Only if it’s cherry.”
“On my planet all the pies are cherry.”
Stuey watched her finish her pie.
“I don’t really think that,” he said.
“Think what?”
“That you and I are that different. We have the same birthday.”
“We both like pie,” Elly said.
“Our moms are both weird.”
“We have Castle Rose.”
A sound from outside caught his attention.
“Shhh!” Stuey went to one of the openings and looked outside. “He’s here,” he whispered. The Mushroom Man was standing about twenty feet away, looking at something on the ground, humming da-dee-dah-dah, dah-dee-dah. Stuey took his mom’s camera from his pocket and aimed it through the crack. He pressed the button.
Click.
The sound of the shutter seemed terribly loud — the Mushroom Man stopped humming and looked toward the deadfall. He smiled, showing a mouthful of startlingly white teeth, then turned away and walked off through the woods.
“That was a close one,” Elly whispered. “He almost got us!”
“I think he heard the camera.”
“I’m glad he’s gone.�
��
“Maybe he’s a ghost,” Stuey said.
Elly’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Stuey liked when she looked at him that way, as if he was the only real thing in the universe. “Sure. My grandpa used to say there were ghosts here.”
“Did he ever see any?”
“He said he did.” Stuey felt something inside him give way. He couldn’t hold it in. No more secrets. “One of them might be my great-grandfather. Or yours.”
Elly tipped her head, giving him a quizzical look.
“It’s ancient history,” Stuey said, quoting his mom. His voice sounded strange. “But I think it might be why your mom is mad at my mom.” He sat down on one end of the slab. His heart was pounding. Elly sat across from him and waited silently for him to continue.
Stuey took a deep breath and looked down at his stubby-fingered hands. The stone beneath him felt as if it was sinking and turning, a sense of moving without actually going anywhere.
“Do you feel that?” he asked.
Elly nodded, eyes wide, hands flat against the slab, bracing herself.
Stuey told her the story of how his great-grandfather was a bootlegger, and how the district attorney had tried to catch him and failed.
“The district attorney was your mom’s grandpa,” he said, looking up at her. Elly was staring at him, swaying slightly. She looked small. She looked scared.
“My mom told me my great-grandfather was killed by a gangster,” she said in a tiny voice.
Stuey shook his head and looked down at his hands. “My great-grandfather wasn’t a gangster. He was a bootlegger.” He told her about how Robert Rosen kept chasing after Stuart Ford even after he quit bootlegging, and how the two men had hated each other, and how one evening they met on the golf course and were never seen again.
It was the longest he had ever talked without Elly Rose interrupting him. He looked up at her again. His eyes wouldn’t quite focus. He blinked. Her image seemed to waver, as if seen through water. He wiped his eyes, but the blurriness did not go away. He looked back at his hands. He could see every detail, every crease, the fine blond hairs on the backs of his fingers, the dirt beneath his nails, the smears of cherry pie filling.