Runny03 - Loose Lips (35 page)

“You pushed him away. When he crawled back here you could have made peace. We could all have made peace. You wouldn’t even talk to him.”

“He was a broken-down old leech and he got what he deserved.”

Cora, a welcome breeze ruffling her skirt, felt very calm now. “In the end, Josephine, we all get what we deserve.”

“I’m glad he’s dead.” Josephine certainly didn’t want to hear that she might get what she deserved. She already had. She was unloved, isolated, barely tolerated by her sons and her husband. Clearly, Rupert took his marriage vows seriously, for better or for worse He’d gotten worse.

Cora drew herself to her full height, which couldn’t have been more than five feet two inches, but something about her made her appear larger and Josephine seemed to shrivel in comparison. “He repented his sins. He died thinking of others before himself. He died a man. You loved him once. He was worth it.”

“You never loved him.”

“Not so’s you’d notice.” Cora half smiled. “But I loved him.”

Josephine felt weak in the knees. Her anger was transforming to some terrible pain that she’d kept at bay for half a century. She pushed the emotion back but it boomeranged on her with a force that knocked her flat. “He forced himself on me,” she whimpered.

“No, he didn’t. You’ve told that lie to yourself so many times you believe it. Hansford didn’t need to force himself on any woman and well you know it.”

Stricken, Josephine’s mouth hung agape. As though struck from behind with a .38 slug, she dropped to her knees.

Cora ran up and put her hands under her arms and lifted her up. Josephine moved her lips. No sound. She looked like a fish.

“Come on, Jo, it’s hot out here. Let me get you inside.”

As Cora dragged her bitterest enemy toward her own front door, the phone lines were already humming. Caesura Frothingham, cruising by in her fancy car, glimpsed the drama, and Frances Finster, across the street, had seen it all.

Josephine struggled to put one foot in front of the other. Cora helped her inside, then found the kitchen and poured her a cool drink. Josephine, hand to throat, hunched over in Rupert’s easy chair.

“Here, a little swallow will help.”

Hands trembling, Jo, the once-pretty woman, grabbed the glass, water dripping on her chin. She hesitated, then drank a little more. A tinny squeak—like an unoiled brake—was the only sound she made as she handed the glass back to Cora, who put it on the table.

“Jo, we’re old but there’s a lot of life left. It’s easier to be happy than unhappy. God didn’t mean for us to be unhappy.”

“I died those long years ago,” Josephine whispered.

“Well—you’re struggling to be born again.” Cora tried to hand her the glass, which Josephine refused, as she was feeling better. “I always thought that’s what Jesus’ coming back from the dead meant. Not so much that graves are gonna open but that we can come back to life. Don’t you know I’ve felt the way you felt?”

“You couldn’t.” Jo nearly strangled on her own voice.

“Maybe not for the same reasons, but just about every single person you pass and repass in Runnymede has felt in terrible pain or near to dead. They came back.”

“Who are you to tell me how to live?” A sudden flare-up enlivened her.

“Nobody.”

“Leave me alone.”

“All right.” Cora turned toward the door. “But if you can’t come back, Jo, don’t hurt the children, don’t be cold to them. They need you.”

“Nobody needs me!” Josephine exploded in rage and grief.

Cora quietly closed the door, glad to be in the sunshine, no matter how sultry.

Other things happened that summer. Cora laid into Louise about her hatefulness toward Hansford. She did that the same night she had confronted Josephine Smith. Louise blew up like a poisoned dog. She didn’t want to share Bumblebee Hill with Julia. True, she was selfish, not that she’d admit it, but her argument was that Julia was a spendthrift and having to share property with her younger sister would be a hop, skip, and a jump toward bankruptcy. Cora said they’d have to learn to work together. After all, they’d done that when they owned the Curl ‘n’ Twirl. Louise’s response was, only because she’d kept the books. So, Cora declared, keep them again. However, Cora extracted a promise from Louise that if she couldn’t forgive her dead father she would try and forget. It did no good to carry hate about. Louise said she’d try.

Money was a problem for everyone except the very wealthy, such as Ramelle, the Rifes, the Falkenroths, and the spanking-new-rich Mundises. The cost of living skyrocketed over thirty percent. Returning servicemen, finally mustered out, couldn’t find jobs even though women who had filled in during the war were being fired right and left.

Extra Billy, after struggling to farm on his own, agreed to go into Pearlie’s business. Like many combat vets, he awoke night after night to hideous nightmares. Mary took a job with the telephone company but was pregnant again in no time.

Aunt Dimps hired Doak Garten, back from the Navy, to help her in the flower shop. People might have pinched their pennies, but funerals, weddings, anniversaries, and births dictated flowers.

Everybody was having babies.

Nickel, determinedly nonconversational, was now allowed to
visit Josephine and Rupert Smith on Tuesday nights with Chester
and
Julia Ellen. Word got out that Josephine spent many an afternoon in prayer and consultation with Pastor Neely. He advised her to listen to the words of Jesus: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” She struggled in her soul but did see the light. Not that it made her friendly or warm, but she had to crawl before she could walk. Nickel was even more silent at the Smiths’ than at home. She sat in the corner and looked at the pictures in
National Geographic.
She wanted desperately to read. In the company of Yoyo and Buster, she would climb up, get the family Bible from a shelf, open it, and pretend to read aloud to the cat and dog. They were quite impressed.

T
he change” became a subject of furtive, intense discussion among Louise and her best friends. Ev Most giggled with Juts over such a subject. Juts and Ev, classmates, weren’t experiencing any symptoms yet. Having tiptoed over the forty-year-old line a few years ago, they were in no hurry to move along faster.

Hot flashes, unexpected flooding, crankiness, and confusion reigned among the slightly older set. Juts had never found female plumbing remotely interesting. If she didn’t care about her own tubes and innards she certainly didn’t care about someone else’s. This did not prevent Louise from launching into exhaustive descriptions.

This particular Friday in September 1948, the Hunsenmeir sisters indulged in a food-shopping spree at the York market. Rows of succulent squash—pattypans gleaming white, yellow crooknecks, round green acorns—tempted them. Boxes of late blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries were so perfect they glistened. Marbled flanked steak, sides of ham, and juicy lamb chops rested on shaved dry ice divided by dark green parsley.

The Amish women wore head caps and aprons; the men nodded as the sisters approached their counters. Potatoes, corn, carrots, radishes red as rubies, okra, beans of every variety, and peas filled bushel basket after bushel basket. Nickel couldn’t see over the counters but she could smell the produce. Occasionally a cat working at a booth would catch her eye and she’d stop to chat with it. Then Juts would notice the child was missing and backtrack until she found her, usually hunkered down petting the kitty.

“There you are. Sorry, Mrs. Utz, Nicky loves cats.”

Mrs. Utz’s broad face widened farther in a smile. “I do, too.”

“You will come with me.”

Nickel observed the commanding tone and also Aunt Wheezie hanging out at the corner of the aisle, waiting. She bowed her curly head, following her mother.

As they caught up with Louise, she launched into another report of her condition. “—as I was saying, there I was sitting at the table with Paul and all of a sudden—well, it was too much. No warning, no anything, and poor Pearlie—you know how men are about these things, I thought he’d faint. It’s a good thing they don’t have babies. They’d die from the sight of all that blood.”

“Makes you wonder how they can stand war, doesn’t it?” Julia said dryly.

“Yes. Oh, and I forgot to tell you. Frances Finster told me that when she was my age she had fainting spells.”

“From all the formaldehyde at the funeral parlor.”

“Julia, that’s not true. Someday you’ll go through this, too.”

“If I do, you won’t know about it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That I don’t want to hear about the change. Why talk about it?”

“Because it’s a new experience. I like to share my experiences.”

“You don’t share them, you ram them down my throat.”

“And what do you talk about? Julia Ellen Hunsenmeir. Julia Ellen Hunsenmeir. Julia Ellen Hunsenmeir.”

Juts shrugged. “I’m interesting.” She turned around. No Nickel. “Where does that child go? She’s like a little weasel, she just slips away. I don’t remember Mary and Maizie being like that.”

“No.” Louise’s reply was clipped.

“I hate that tone of voice.”

“My girls behaved like girls. They were obedient. And Mary’s boys—they mind their mother. Nickel has entirely too much freedom. You don’t discipline her.”

“The hell I don’t. She gets up at the same time every morning and she goes to bed at the same time every night and she eats her meals at the same time Chessy and I do. She’s taught right from wrong as much as she can understand right now. She’s not a loud kid. She listens pretty good.”

“She wears jeans and T-shirts. That’s not proper.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Juts, exasperated, broke off the conversation to search for her daughter. She walked down the aisle. No Nickel. She walked back to the market’s center aisle. No Nickel. She walked along the side where there was a small restaurant with oilcloth tablecloths. Nickel stood on a chair, hands on the table, and “read” the back side of
The York Dispatch
while an elderly gentleman read the front side. He wasn’t the least disturbed by his visitor. His broad-brimmed black hat reposed on the wooden chair next to him.

“I’m sorry.”

He glanced up. “We’re enjoying each other’s company.”

Nickel pulled on her mother’s hand, pointing to the headline with the other one. “Truman.”

“Honey, come on. Aunt Wheezie is impatient today.” She turned again to the gentleman. “Thank you for teaching her a new word.”

“I didn’t. She read it right off the headline.”

“Truman.” Nickel pointed to the paper again.

“She must have heard someone mention it.” Julia smiled and lifted Nickel off the chair by her one arm.

“No.” Nickel swung out at her mother with her feet.

Juts dropped her hard. “You do that again and I will give you a lesson you’ll never forget, young lady.” She nodded to the man, who had his nose back in the newspaper, and hauled off an upset but silent child.

On sight of Wheezie, hands on hips, waiting, Juts said, “She was reading the paper.”

“Sure, Mike.” Wheezie used an old expression between them that meant, “Not on your life” or “I agree” or anything you wanted it to mean, depending on your tone of voice.

“Nickel, Mommy thinks it’s wonderful that you like words, but you can’t go off without telling me.” She turned to Louise. “I think she heard someone say ‘Truman.’ She kept pointing to the paper, saying ‘Truman.’ She’s a curious little bug.”

“Especially since you’ve never read a book all the way through in your whole life. But”—Louise inhaled, a whiff of superiority fraught with implication—“that’s to be expected.”

“What the hell does that mean, Wheezie?”

“Oh”—her thin eyebrows rose and her voice rose with them, in an air of phony nonchalance—“nothing.”

“Balls.”

“Julia, don’t talk like that in public.”

“Rounded objects.” Juts forced a tight little smile. “Rounded objects like turdballs.”

“Will you stop—and in front of your child, too.”

“She’s not going to say anything. It’s hard to get two peeps out of this kid.”

“You need another baby. She needs a sister or a brother.”

“No,” came a rather loud reply from Nickel.

“Don’t contradict Aunt Wheezie, she knows what’s best for little girls.”

“I don’t want to be a little girl.”

This complete sentence stopped them both. “I beg your pardon,” Louise finally said.

“Truman. I want to be Truman.” Her legs were placed wide apart, her arms were crossed over her chest.

Juts peered down at this small animal. “I think she wants to be president.” Then she burst out laughing.

“Don’t encourage her, Juts. You’re going to make a kegful of nails, if you do.”

“Will you stop being so serious? If she wants to be president, by God, let her have her dream.”

Louise smiled down, sickly sweet. “Nicky, girls can’t be president. You can be a nurse. That would be nice. Lots of little girls grow up to be nurses. You would help people. Or you could play an instrument. Maizie plays the piano.”

“No!”