A Fireproof Home for the Bride (24 page)

“It’s charming,” Emmy said, noticing a gabled nook where a foot-pedaled sewing machine exactly like her grandmother’s sat next to a stack of neatly folded cloth of varying hues. “Do you sew?”

“Not as often as I would like.” Josephine lifted the topmost cloth from the pile, letting the blue seersucker material drape to the floor in front of her. “I thought this might make a nice skirt for summer, though I don’t know why I would think that since I prefer to wear pants. I just can’t seem to resist buying beautiful fabric.”

“I could make one for you,” Emmy said, taking the cloth and carefully refolding it. “I made this dress. It was really hard right here, where it gathers at the waist, but I only had to rip out the seam once.”

“It’s truly beautiful,” Josephine replied, looking at her watch and going back down the stairs. “There’s a bathroom off of the kitchen,” she called in place of good night. “And fend for yourself for breakfast. There’s eggs.”

“Thanks, I will,” Emmy called back, suddenly feeling very alone. She sat on the edge of the blue chenille bedspread, not wanting to mess up the tightly tucked corners, and listened to the rain pellet down on the roof. It was a sound reminiscent of the years her family had lived in the migrant shack. Before she could think any more about the day, Emmy laid her head on the pillow, curled her feet up under the crinoline underskirt of her dress, and drifted into a restless sleep.

Eleven

A Goodly Heritage

The high-pitched sound of an animal shrieking jolted Emmy awake, and she rushed to the window, where the first light of day was breaking behind a tiny white house in the backyard. Another louder cry echoed on the other side of the main house, and Emmy hurried into her shoes and down the stairs, careful not to hit her forehead on the low overhang at the bottom of the flight. The screams were now coming from either side of the house. She opened the front door, and there stood a large bird with a dark blue body and a tail that stretched out far behind, dragging in the grass. At the sight of Emmy, the tail flipped up and fanned out until the feathers reached a height of nearly three feet, resplendent in their multicolored shades of blue and green. She’d never seen anything like it. The bird elongated its neck and let forth with yet another shocking scream, answered almost immediately by a softer yelp from the other side of the house.

“Oh, stop already,” Emmy cajoled, shooing the beautiful creature around after its mate. The two birds ran off into the trees, reunited. She looked down to see her Easter dress completely rumpled, and she caught a whiff of the smoke that clung all over her. The miniature abode behind the main house was dark, and the dampness of the grass caused a tremor to shoot up Emmy’s calves, making her run back to the house and into the bathroom, where she filled the tub with water as hot as she could stand. Looking in the mirror, she was dismayed to see the dark blue shadows under her eyes and a smudge of soot on her forehead. Her hair was matted all over, even though she had washed it two days before.

She peeled off her clothing and stepped into the rising water, sinking into the heat of it and closing the taps with the balls of her feet. The length of her body distorted under the rippled surface of the bath, her breasts two small white islands breaking the surface. From this vantage, her flesh became less important, more ordinary than it felt when covered with the conventions of clothing. Eve had left the garden like this, and Emmy had now bit into her own apple of knowledge. Somehow her transgressions didn’t feel like sin. She wanted to honor her parents, but she could neither make herself love Ambrose nor allow him to subjugate her body again.

It couldn’t be much past seven, she figured, as the room grew slowly lighter with the sun. Emmy closed her eyes and rested her neck against the porcelain edge, and tried to think of the words she could use to best explain to her parents the pain in her heart. No matter what she conjured, she knew that Karin would not listen, and fresh hot tears leaked down her cheeks and into her ears. A draft blew across her shoulders, a feeling as though someone had entered the room. She opened her eyes and sat bolt upright in the tub at the sight of Flossie crouched on the back of the toilet, staring right at Emmy.

“Oh, you gave me a fright,” Emmy said, covering her nudity out of instinct. “I thought you didn’t like people.”

Flossie licked a paw and then stepped down from her perch, passing Emmy with a flick of her tail. Emmy looked around the room for a towel, realizing too late that she hadn’t had the foresight to fetch one from the washstand in her room. A swell of loneliness rose in her heart as she realized she couldn’t simply yell out to Birdie to bring her one. “One small moment at a time,” she said to the air. “That’s how I’ll do it.” She hoisted her bright pink body out of the water and stood on the bath mat, wet and weary, waiting for her skin to dry.

*   *   *

The lunch bell rang, and Emmy rose from her desk in the study hall, passing by Mr. Utke’s darkened office once more before heading to the cafeteria. She had sought him out before school, and at least twice since, hoping he would have some suggestions on where she might find a new job. The pungent smell of boiled meat permeated the short stairway leading down to the lunchroom, and Emmy’s stomach lurched against the idea of the hot lunch that she had requested and paid for in first period homeroom. Josephine’s larder contained only coffee and eggs—no bread or milk, nor even a pat of butter—and Emmy had been unable to pack any sort of lunch for herself. She took her place in line, picking up a metal tray and utensils and moving along the service counter, where scoops of pinkish beef, orange macaroni, and slippery halves of peaches were loaded onto plates and bowls. Following the lead of the girl in front of her, Emmy selected her meal, moved down the line, and chose a small glass that she filled with milk from a large stainless steel dispenser. Turning, she momentarily froze at the sight of so many rowdy students swirling effortlessly among the tables and benches, free of the kinds of challenges she had brought to rest upon her own shoulders. She saw a half-empty table near the back of the room where she and Bev used to sit together, so she wound her way there in search of a quiet place to think. Though she’d eaten her bag lunch in this room all year, the weight of the tray balanced in her hands somehow made the atmosphere feel as though the gathering were a thing of the far-distant past, or a place where she might one day come for a reunion, her hair gray and teeth long. Her outsider status within the school walls was amplified in her head by the self-eviction, and yet somehow she no longer felt it set her apart. One class after another would pass, and one day after the next as well, until all was finished and she’d turn her books in with the scant memories of being a Moorhead Spud. If it weren’t for Mr. Utke’s support of her studies, Emmy would simply drop it all and find a job. She had no intention of returning home, even though she hadn’t quite figured out an alternative solution.

Once seated, Emmy drew from her book bag a copy of the morning’s
Fargo Forum,
which she had bought at the grocery across the street from the school. She had already mined every line of the article about the fire, and there wasn’t any sense of how the fire had started, though it was still assumed to have been a wiring malfunction. There was a passing mention of one girl injured, but beyond that, Emmy hadn’t been able to find out how Cindy was faring. Instead of reading the articles again, Emmy opened the paper and turned to the back page, scanning through the four items she had circled in the want ads. In Help Wanted, she decided the only option was a position open at
The Fargo Forum
itself, for a part-time switchboard operator. It probably didn’t pay much better than popcorn girl, but it was the only job where experience wasn’t required, and after-school hours were available. She had also found a small room for rent in Fargo, though the notion of calling the number and taking the bus across the river to look at the desolate space sat less satisfyingly than the small bites of vile-tasting beef she put past her lips while she contemplated her future.

Emmy glanced again through the other ads, and was about to give up on the meal and prepare for her afternoon English exam when she looked up to see Birdie standing next to the table, a brown paper bag in her hand. Her eyes were puffy, as though she’d spent a good deal of time crying. A ripple of regret swelled in Emmy, and she stood, hugging her sister tightly.

“I’m so sorry I left without saying good-bye,” Emmy said, releasing the girl. They sat opposite each other.

“I’m just happy to see you’re okay.” Birdie opened the sack and withdrew a large wax-paper-wrapped sandwich, the sight of which made Emmy’s mouth water. Birdie held it in midair, a peace offering. “Looks like it’s going to be ham all week. Halvsies?”

Emmy took the offered triangle and sunk her teeth into the familiar yeasty white bread. Her throat constricted with emotion and she had to drink milk to help ease the food down.

“They’re waiting,” Birdie said in her delicate way. “They think you’re coming back. Are you?”

“I don’t think so,” Emmy said. “No.”

“Well, Mother says this is all your fault,” Birdie said. “We haven’t heard from the Branns at all, not even Ambrose, and she’s frantic for things to go back to normal.”

Emmy dropped her sandwich, her appetite drained. How had Ambrose known about the note? “I’ve seen him.”

“You have?” Birdie’s face tensed, a slow half smile pushing across it like a wary snake. “Will you give him another chance?”

“I’m sorry, but I just don’t love him. No.” Emmy watched as the snake of her sister’s smile retreated, leaving behind a small, inverted crescent of relief mixed with what looked like wounded consternation.

“That’s all right,” Birdie said, her voice like the warble of a small yellow bird in springtime. “I don’t want you to.”

“You don’t?” Emmy could see it now: the limpid gaze; the high, fevered cheeks—the way she herself had looked in the mirror after reading Bobby’s second note. “Oh, Birdie, you’re too young,” she scolded, knowing full well it wouldn’t matter what she said if Birdie felt as strongly about Ambrose as it suddenly appeared.

“I wish I could help the way I feel.” Birdie bit the corner of her lower lip with a pointed tooth, looking as though she might start to cry. “But he’s really wonderful, Emmy, no matter what you may think.”

“What I think,” Emmy said slowly, “is that you should wait for your own beau.” Her memory pivoted through the drunken roughness, the indecency, and her face evidently showed this. She wanted to tell Birdie everything, but shame stopped the words.

Birdie folded the paper around her uneaten sandwich, her eyes cast down and brimming with tears. “I knew you wouldn’t approve,” she said, distraught. “I really haven’t told him anything, I swear. He doesn’t know how I feel. If you’d married, I would have taken my feelings to the grave.”

Emmy envied the easy drama of Birdie’s emotions, the childlike fluttering of her eyelashes and wringing of her dainty hands, as though the girl had stepped out of the kind of dime-store novel Bev always liked to read out loud, a hand thrown back against her forehead. Of course, this was the way Emmy felt every time she pictured Bobby in the movie theater lobby, slipping her that tiny folded square of paper. “Just don’t rush,” Emmy said with as much generosity as she could muster. “There’s no hurry for you.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Birdie said, a fresh glow replacing the ashen fear of a moment before. She shifted her eyes to a point over Emmy’s head as a hand lightly settled on Emmy’s shoulder. She tipped her head to see Mr. Utke.

“Ah, good,” he said. “I’ve been looking for both of you.” The bell rang, ending the lunch period. Birdie hastily repacked her lunch bag and sprang to her feet.

“Hello, Mr. Utke,” Birdie said, staring at her shoes. “I don’t want to be late for class.”

He cleared his throat. “Girls, your mother is parked outside, waiting to take you back to Glyndon High School. I did what I could to make her see otherwise, but it seems she doesn’t feel the atmosphere here is conducive to proper behavior.”

“But that’s not fair,” Birdie said. “My concert…” Her face crumpled and she started to cry.

“You’ll have to go without me.” Emmy stood and squeezed her arm, worried that her sister had set a course for the misery Emmy had avoided. “Maybe I can…”

Birdie wrenched herself away, sniffing back the tears. “You can’t, Emmy. Not anymore.”

“She’s waiting,” Mr. Utke repeated. “Go get your things.”

Emmy turned to her adviser as Birdie ran away down the hall. “I’m not going.”

“I surmised you wouldn’t,” he replied, watching the door to the cafeteria as though he expected Karin to burst through. “But frankly, I’d rather not know the whys, if it’s all the same to you. Your mother is remarkably capable of speaking her mind, and at great length. It seems that I’ve corrupted you by supporting your wild dreams and opening your mind to literature.”

“You have,” Emmy said, looking around the quiet room. She extended her hand to Mr. Utke. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He shook, bowing his head slightly.

“I wonder if there’s anything in your books about operating a switchboard.” She unfolded the newspaper and nervously showed him the advertisement.

Mr. Utke looked down through the bottom part of his glasses. “No, but your cousin works there—ask for Dorothy Randall. She should be able to get you in the door.”

*   *   *

At three o’clock, Emmy left the school grounds in her aunt’s wagon, and ten minutes later she reached the parking lot across from a grand five-story brick building, topped on one corner by a tall spire with the letters
F-O-R-U-M
stacked on all four sides. Emmy studied the colored lights that illuminated the sign and tried to decipher their meaning while she listened to the engine quietly ping and tick as it cooled. Her nerves were jumping, but in a way that propelled her from the car, across the street, through the front doors of the building, and rapidly up a flight of stairs that led to another set of doors with
FARGO
written on the glass rectangle of one, and
FORUM
on the right. Nodding to herself for courage, she pushed against the brass handle and found the large oak door to be lighter than she’d expected. The massiveness of the open room caught her by surprise. It encompassed most of the second floor and soared up at least two floors, with windows along two sides and offices on the third. Filling the space in between were rows of desks populated by a number of smartly dressed people, including two women in fitted suits.