The Sisters of Summit Avenue

by Lynn Cullen

  Ruth watched the entire performance over her library copy of War and Peace.

  After breakfasting on a grapefruit half in the morning (as recommended by starlet Gloria Swanson), June nervously bid Ruth farewell and had Ned drive her downtown in the store delivery truck so as not to mess her hair with a walk. She had told her mother that she didn’t have to come to see her. The show was nothing. Really. Don’t come.

  She arrived before any of the other girls and presented herself to the director, a Miss Gerding, a clipboard-clutching blonde whose chic beauty was somehow enhanced by the shiny mole above her lip. She looked June up and down.

  “Hm. Nice eyes. Cat-like. Here.” She lovingly pulled a midnight-blue gown from a rack and held it out. “Get dressed over there. When you’re in the window, no talking, no gum-chewing, no laughing, no smiling. You’re a mannequin, remember? We’ll do something about that hair when you get out. Do you know how to put it in a psyche knot?”

  June gawked at her dress. She dared not believe her good luck: with its yards of deep blue draped georgette crepe, sheer straps and back, and loose satin sash, it was a movie star’s gown, a New York socialite’s dress. She had never dreamed of wearing something so extraordinary. A quick glance at the rack proved it to be the showstopping garment of the event.

  The other girls clattered in on strapped shoes, trailed by proud mothers and sisters, and were assessed by Miss Gerding before receiving their assignments. Soon the dressing room was abuzz with female relatives giving advice amid the rustle of clothing.

  June swished out of her booth.

  One of the mothers was fanning herself in an overstuffed flowered chair. “Why, dear, that dress looks lovely on you!”

  “Thank you.” June threw a bashful glance in the full-length mirror. Who was that sophisticated woman in the Hollywood gown? The dark blue set off her golden skin and brought out the honey in her hair, waving down her back.

  A dressing curtain parted for a stylish mother in low-waisted silk. One glance at June, and she tapped the arm in which Miss Gerding carried her clipboard.

  “Excuse me, Miss. I apologize for telling you your business, but in all honesty, that dress would look better on my daughter Elizabeth.”

  Miss Gerding’s chic mole rode up and down as she examined June. “I think it looks swell where it is.”

  The mother smiled regretfully. “Elizabeth. Elizabeth! Come here.”

  A girl came out of her dressing room, her lower lip drooping like the black tights of her knit bathing costume. June knew her from school—Elizabeth Adams, the only girl who had her own automobile.

  “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth’s mother said to Miss Gerding, “but Dr. Adams would never approve of this.”

  Elizabeth plucked at the heavy knit tunic. “Daddy would hate it.”

  One of the other mothers laid a hand on Miss Gerding’s arm. “You do know who Dr. Adams is?” She didn’t allow Miss Gerding to answer. “Sweetie, you cannot put Elizabeth Adams in a bathing suit. It just won’t do. Who is this other girl?”

  The mothers looked at June, then traded glances. One of them gave her head a tiny shake.

  Minutes later, June was tugging up droopy black stockings in her dressing room.

  Her whole life, June had quietly taken whatever knocks had come her way. Discomforts, embarrassments, injustices—she took all with the same stony resolve. According to Mother, as a toddler she wouldn’t cry in her crib when ill but would patiently lie in her own vomit. In kindergarten, she’d stared blankly when a pigtailed classmate screamed at her for using the girl’s handkerchief to wipe a doll’s bottom. She let her eighth-grade teacher wrongly accuse her of cheating when she’d scored perfectly on a difficult test. In high school, when she heard people whispering about Mother, she stood by, her heart blazing, with a smile on her face. She had said nothing in defense when people spread cruel rumors about Ruth and a boy. Why protest so bothered her, even traumatized her, she couldn’t say. But it did. She preferred abuse to conflict, even if she were seething.

  Not today. As she filed out in her scratchy suit with her fellow dummies, she shook with thoughts of revenge. How to punish her tormentors? How to make them pay?

  She took her place in the window. And then she knew: she would marry a doctor someday. No, better than that. She would be somebody. Somebody big. Somebody everyone admired, even Mrs. Doctor Adams. Everyone would wish they were her. And then she would snub them.

  But for now, all she could do as she itched and smoldered at the end of the dummy line was to not look at the crowd gathered below. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing their smirks at her and her lumpy suit. She stared through the plate glass at the brick storefronts with their flapping awnings across the street, as if by some trick of nature, not seeing the crowd meant that they couldn’t see her.

  She felt a small irritation as she trained her sights above the sea of hats and heads. Something was niggling at her with the mild pressure of a collar turned wrong-side in against your neck. Someone, she realized, was staring at her. She commanded herself not to look.

  She looked.

  In the front row, next to a farmer-come-to-town in bib dungarees, was Ruth. Her plain teenage face was tight with pride and admiration.

  June’s heart filled and softened like a sponge in warm water. Dear baby sister. My truest friend. How I adore you.

  It hit her like a punch to the arm. She wasn’t the only one who needed her to be somebody. Odd Dorothy had two daughters.

  She squared her shoulders and caught Ruth’s gaze. I’ll carry you, little sister. I’m not leaving you behind.

  * * *

  “You look comfortable.”

  June opened her eyes to her husband, his thick butternut hair combed back in an expensive cut.

  He leaned across the aisle to raise his voice over the roar of the propellers. “Sorry, darling. I didn’t realize you were sleeping. I asked you if you were excited to see your hometown and then you got quiet.” He laughed. “I wondered why it was taking you so long to answer.”

  June gripped the armrests of her cushioned seat to brace herself against the vibrations buzzing up through her feet and legs to her internal organs. At least, so far, this leg of the journey had not been as treacherous as the one last night. During that nightmare jaunt, the plane had alternated bucking and shuddering like a Conestoga on a rutted trail with sudden plunges in altitude. A cry would go up from the eleven other mortals trapped in the tin tube whenever they suddenly plummeted—hats, bags, blankets flying. She’d been so terrorized that she’d hardly gotten in a wink once they had arrived in Chicago, in spite of the plush bedding and linens at the Drake. She must have fallen asleep just now from exhaustion.

  “Aren’t you glad that I insisted on flying?”

  She was astonished to find that he wasn’t joking. They’d almost died last night.

  “Yes, darling.”

  Terror aside, it seemed like a tremendous extravagance. June had seen what he’d paid at the ticket office in Chicago—$17.40 a person just for the leg to Fort Wayne. The entire round-trip from Minneapolis for the two of them came to $106, more than Dad had cleared over several months in his store. Dad, with his love for science and invention, would have loved an airplane trip—he deserved an airplane trip for all of the good he did for people—but since when did being deserving count?

  “Go back to sleep, darling. We’ll be in Fort Wayne soon enough.” Richard shook open his newspaper.

  She peered out the curtained porthole, past the riveted aluminum wing and through the shreds of clouds, to the fields sleeping far below. Cows dotted green pastures; windmills and silos marked the homesteads of honest farmers. At this distance the earth seemed such an innocent place, a peaceable kingdom where nothing could ever hurt you.

  The stewardess, a young woman with a side cap jauntily perched on her springy auburn curls, balanced herself between them with a tray clattering with dinnerware. “Breakfast!”

  Richard look
ed up. “Hello, sweetheart.”

  She bent down to place the tray in front of him.

  “Oh, no, honey.” He crooked a finger at the stewardess. She stooped closer to hear his pretend-whisper, those curls near to his lips. “Give it to my wife. We want to be nice to her. She’s Betty Crocker.”

  June forced herself to smile as the stewardess did a double take.

  “Oh, my goodness, you are Betty Crocker! You look just like your picture in the advertisements.”

  Richard laughed. June flashed him a frown before refixing her smile.

  The stewardess laid the tray on June’s portable table then stood back, her hand to her Peter Pan collar. “Oh, my goodness, I love your radio show, Miss—?”

  “She’s actually married.” He turned to June. “Don’t you tell people that?” Before she could answer, he said, “I guess she keeps me a secret.”

  “I love your show, Mrs.—Crocker?”

  Richard winked. “Bingo.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know who you were. I was told you were Dr. and Mrs. Whiteleather.”

  He lowered his voice. “She has to travel incognito. You understand.”

  Her curls bounced in a nod. “Oh. Yes. Certainly. You must be the most popular woman in America!” She bunched her shoulders with giddiness. “All those stars that you know! Tell me, what is Fred Astaire like?”

  June maintained her smile. “Very nice.”

  “I’ll say! Not like that bachelor you had on last week, talking about what he was looking for in a wife. I’m sorry, but he made my blood boil. Imagine—wanting a girl to cook on a wood-burning stove just like his mother! His wife would not “cheat” by using modern conveniences. The nerve! I’d like to take away his modern conveniences—see how he does without a car!”

  Richard winced. “Ouch!”

  “The only bachelor more insufferable,” the stewardess said, warmed up now, “was that mechanic you had on. Can you believe that his requirement for a wife was that she smile, no matter what? In these times!”

  “That’s what I require.” Richard grinned up at the girl.

  The stewardess’s smile wavered as she looked to June for confirmation.

  Anger flared up. When Richard made fun of Betty Crocker, he was demeaning June’s work. He was demeaning her. “A smile goes a mile,” she said lightly.

  “That’s just what my mother says!” The stewardess nudged her cap. “I’ve served a lot of stars on this plane—Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford—but you’re my very favorite. You’re the only one who understands.”

  “She does pretty much know everything,” Richard said.

  “She does!” the stewardess agreed. “This might sound silly, but when I get in a pinch, I try to ask myself, ‘What would Betty do?’ ”

  June glanced away. Heaven help us, Kitty Hunter was right.

  “I ask myself that, too,” said Richard. “All the time.”

  When the stewardess wove her way back to the rear of the airplane, June said, “Please don’t tease about Betty.”

  “You or the girl?”

  “Both. You insult us.”

  He cocked his head at her. “I do believe you’re serious.”

  “I am.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The stewardess returned with Richard’s meal. After setting it before him, she turned to June. “May I ask you something?”

  June prepared herself. So many of the women who wrote to Betty asked personal things in their letters, as if Betty’s knowledge of flour and women extended to matters of the heart. The truth was, in most situations, June hadn’t the slightest idea what to do. She needed her own Betty to solve her problems.

  “Of course.”

  “My cakes are always overdone. I follow the recipe perfectly—I don’t even tap down the flour in the measuring cup, like you say not to do in your little booklets. Still, they’re tough.”

  June inwardly sighed with relief. Cake diagnosing she could do.

  “I wonder if it has to do with the pan. Are you using modern, standardized-sized ones? Measure them and see. If they are bigger than the standard eight or nine inch for layer cakes—some of the older pans are—it can make all the difference. You could be overbaking.”

  “Thank you! I’ll check my pans.”

  Another passenger beckoned. The stewardess turned then stopped. “What a life you must lead, Mrs. Crocker. Do you have any funny stories about the stars?”

  Richard sugared his grapefruit. “Tell her how Joan Crawford travels with a gun in her purse.”

  The stewardess gasped. “She does!”

  June shook her head.

  “Oh, my goodness, I hope not! She was on this very plane!”

  “Did you check her purse?” Richard looked up innocently.

  “He’s teasing,” said June.

  The stewardess, reluctantly, left.

  “Richard,” June scolded when she was gone.

  “You have to see the humor—”

  “I don’t.”

  He picked up his spoon. “Where’s the girl who used to laugh at all my jokes? You’re turning into your sister. Why is everyone in your family so grim?”

  “My father wasn’t grim.”

  “Old Bud? He was a good chap, I’ll grant you that. But let’s face it, darling, he had a terrible sense of business. He literally gave away the store.”

  “He was trying to help people!”

  “Well, he hurt his own loved ones while he was at it, didn’t he? Making all of you scrimp and scramble and live like paupers. He died young from worrying about it, too.”

  Pain welled up in her chest. She couldn’t bear a word said against her father. Dad was the one who had her ride her bike to the store to meet him for lunch. He was the one who took her to the library so that she could gather precious armfuls of books in a quiet room that smelled of binding glue and dust. It was he who enrolled her in swimming lessons at the YWCA downtown, where he rented her a musty red wool bathing suit and a dingy white rubber cap so that she could jump into the echoing depths of the indoor pool; he who got her dressed when she was small, once forgetting to put on her underwear when readying her for church when she was a toddler, a mistake only discovered when she could . . . not . . . budge . . . down the metal slide in her Sunday School room; he who brought baby squirrels or birds in his pocket for her and Ruth from his walk home from the store; who helped her with her math homework; who lent a patient ear when she needed advice about her friends. It was he who, after she’d told him, sheepishly, that she’d first bled, silently brought her some of Mother’s flannel pads and her sanitary belt. June had to figure out on her own how to wear them. She never thought of asking her distant mother.

  Of course it was him to whom she’d gone in a panic the week before her wedding to Richard. She’d wanted to call it off. She told Dad that she’d never fit into Richard’s world, that she would never know their manners, their customs, just how to be, and worse, much worse, that she wasn’t sure she loved him. Dad had told her that she was just having cold feet. Everyone did. She’d get over it.

  “Did you have cold feet with Mother?” she’d asked.

  He’d smiled. “No. Never.”

  An odd hot feeling had overcome her. She would have almost said it was jealousy.

  Richard reached across the aisle. “I’m sorry, darling. That was thoughtless of me. Are you angry?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, I have something that might put me in your good graces again.” He nudged the medical bag at his feet. Squat, brass-clasped, and clad in pimply black-dyed ostrich flesh, the bag went with him everywhere by day, then crouched like a fat black toad by their bed at night.

  “In your bag? What, Richard?”

  “Now, darling, you must be patient. But it’s a very good surprise, I promise.”

  “You truly do enjoy torturing me, don’t you?”

  “Not as much as you enjoy torturing me.” He dug into his grapefruit.


  He was kidding her. She watched him eat. Was he kidding her? Maybe he did feel tortured. She didn’t know why he loved her. With a stab of surprise, she wondered, did he actually love her anymore? How was it possible to share a table, a bed, a life with a person for eleven years and be so completely ignorant of his mind? Maybe the failing was with her. Maybe other wives understood their husbands better than she knew hers. Maybe even Ruth, even prickly old Ruth, knew hers, before he had taken ill. Maybe Ruth knew John better than June ever had.

  She glanced at Richard. He raised his eyebrows.

  “What?” he said.

  Richard gave her a home, a reputation, status, everything that she thought she had always wanted. He kept her safe. In exchange, he depended on her to at least be a decent wife.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For being good to me. You are, you know. I don’t deserve it.”

  “Where’d that come from?” He sat back in his seat with a grimace.

  She gazed out her porthole. He was right. Her thank-you was not enough, not when there were nurses, patients, friends at the club, who would be glad to give him more than thanks. Then what would she do?

  She thought of him turning away from her at night.

  The skin tingled on her arms. Maybe the time had come already. And she had brought it on herself.

  TEN

  Indiana-Michigan Line, 1934

  Six-thirty in the morning, and the sky was the color of blood. Already Ruth was hot. Baking-inside-your-own-skin hot. All night long, Ruth had twitched around her little bed next to John’s with her nightie hiked up around her belly to snatch any stray breeze that might come limping through the screen, to no avail. She had not been able to get six winks, although John slept like the dead, as usual. When she’d come out for breakfast, Mother was waiting in her bedcap and robe for the stove to heat. “This weather’s going to come to tears,” Mother’d said. Ruth thought that she might be right.