The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay (23 page)

“You want you should meet Chocolate Milk, Miss Hillock?” Mr. Jensen spoke so softly. Like little songs, his voice was. “My horse that helps deliver the milk?”

“Oh, she don’t want to go see no horse, Jens. She’s seen horses. Isn’t that right, Idella?”

“We had one on the farm, of course. For work in the field mostly, but he’d take us to town in the wagon. I’d like to meet Chocolate Milk. What a dear name.”

“Oh, well, the children. They named her that. Used to be her name was Brownie.”

“I named her that. Brownie. That was the name I give her. ’Cause she’s brown.” Mrs. Jensen was measuring flour and baking soda into her sifter.

“But the children, coming around the wagon when I deliver the milk, they changed it to Chocolate Milk.”

“Silly name for a horse,” Mrs. Jensen muttered. She was sifting flour onto the breadboard. “You love that horse more than me, the way you go on.” As she turned to Mr. Jensen, flour sifted all over the floor. “Oh, oh, oh, look what you made me do! I’ll have to start all over measuring or the biscuits won’t be right.”

Idella stood clutching her lemonade. After what seemed like forever, Eddie came in with a basket full of peas. Mrs. Jensen looked up and scowled. “Them need shelling.”

“I can shell those,” Idella piped up.

“Let’s go sit on the porch. I’ll do it.” Eddie carried the basket out of the kitchen and sat on one end of an old wicker couch. Idella followed him and sat on the other end.

“Take the pot,” Mrs. Jensen called. “For the peas.”

“You want me to pee in the pot, Ma?” Eddie smiled at Idella.

“Eddie!” Idella whispered. She was glad he was back.

“I’ll come, too,” Mrs. Jensen called. “I could stand to sit a spell.”

Mr. Jensen took the pot in one hand and his wife’s arm in the other. He helped her onto the porch and over to her rocker. She hovered, then landed with a whoosh onto the dark green corduroy cushion. The chair set back with such a
thwop
when her weight hit it that Idella thought it might upend entirely.

“Are you comfortable, my dear?” Mr. Jensen asked as the rocking subsided.

“I’ll do.” Her legs were so short that only the toes of her black lace-up shoes touched the floor.

“Oh, a porch is so peaceful,” Idella said.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Jensen. “I sit here for a bit every day to rest my legs. Varicose veins, you know.” She looked at Idella.

“Oh, no. I didn’t know.”

“I got them something terrible. They throb. My legs are purple all up and down. I used to be skinny as a rail, like you. Not so tall, of course. You got the height on you to stretch it all out. Short legs like mine, you get squashed come time to put on the weight. And the varicose. They are a trial. All swoled up, my legs get. I shouldn’t of been on them so long today. But I had to make a special dinner.”

“I hope you didn’t go to too much trouble for me, Mrs. Jensen!”

“If I was younger, course, it would be no trouble. Not that it’s been trouble.”

Mr. Jensen sat down on a wicker chair next to his wife. “How’s that lemonade, Miss Hillock?”

“Oh, fine, thank you. Fine.” Idella smiled and took a sip. Her whole mouth puckered.

“We’ll just set out here on the porch awhile and get acquainted while Eddie shells the peas.” Mrs. Jensen took up a fan from a nearby table. She opened it, slowly waving it back and forth.

They all sat in silence, looking out the porch windows. There was just the
thud, thud, thud
of peas dropping into the bottom of the pot. Mrs. Jensen’s fan kept whooshing. Idella held the tall, smooth glass tightly and took a few sips for show. Mrs. Jensen nodded whenever she did, and Idella held the glass up and smiled.

The fan stopped. “There goes Mrs. Rudolf.” Mrs. Jensen leaned forward in her chair. “That’s her there walking down the hill. She lives up the road. She’s got no one to take care of her. Poor thing. No children, see, to look after her. All alone.”

Mrs. Rudolf, a tall, skinny woman who looked to be in her sixties, was walking straight along the sidewalk, not looking to either side. She wore a little white sweater across her shoulders, the empty arms dangling beside her.

They watched until she disappeared down the swoop of Fletcher’s Hill.

“Is she a widow woman?” Idella asked.

“Who?”

“Mrs. Rudolf.”

“He run off on her. With Lucy DuBois—a French girl, you know—about fifteen or more years ago. Worked together down at the mill sorting stacks of paper. Usually it’s the women do the sorting, but he was on some kind of disability that kept him from the big machines they got down there. They run off down to Biddeford. And not long after, that Lucy had herself a baby boy. Only ’bout four months after—five at the most.”

“I see,” Idella finally said. “That’s sad.”

“Mmmmmm. She got the house. Little green house. She still goes by the name Mrs. Rudolf. But there’s no more Mister.”

“Couldn’t of been too bad a disability he had.” Eddie stripped a pod of peas directly into his mouth.

“How about some ice in that lemonade?” Mr. Jensen asked her suddenly.

“I’ll get Idella ice.” Eddie shot up out of his chair. Finally, Idella thought, he was taking some notice. “I’ll cool it down for you.” He took her glass and went into the kitchen. They listened as he opened the ice-box and got the ice pick from out of a drawer and started hacking. A dog barked across the street.

“Them Mastersons should get rid of that dog. It barks like that half the day. I hear it at night, too—barking for no reason. It’s a nuisance.” Mrs. Jensen flicked her fan with quick little jerks. “That dog should be done away with.”

“Now, Jessie. It doesn’t really bother you. Those girls love it.”

“It does bother me, that dog barking all the time.”

Eddie came back in. “Here you go, Idella. That should be more refreshing.”

“Thank you, Eddie.” Idella took the glass, now cold from chips of ice, and sipped. She glanced quickly at Eddie, who had resumed shelling peas. He smiled and nodded his head just enough for Idella to know she was right. He had also put in whiskey.

“Did the ice help cool it?” Mrs. Jensen was smiling at her.

“Oh, yes,” Idella said. “Very much.”

Mrs. Jensen leaned forward. “Is that the Masterson girl, out raking the grass over there? I can’t see proper from this distance. Is it Susan, the older one?”

“Susan, yes.” Mr. Jensen stretched his long legs out in front of him. He couldn’t be very comfortable on that little wicker chair, Idella thought.

“Well, she’s putting on some weight, I can tell you. Can you see how thick she’s got? You see it from here. Do you know the Masterson girls, Idella? They live in that blue house there directly across.”

“No, I’ve never met them.”

“How would she know them, Ma?” Eddie reached down into his basket and took up another handful to shell. Idella longed to keep her hands busy shelling peas.

“Well, that oldest one is getting thick right through the middle. She was out there raking grass last week, too. And she was barefooted, with only a pair of shorts to cover her bare legs. The Larsen boys, they kept walking by one after the other, all four of them. They stopped and talked to her. More than one of them did.”

“People talk to each other, Ma. The Larsens live next door. They have to walk by there to go anywheres.”

“Eddie, don’t get fresh.” Mrs. Jensen turned toward Idella. “Do you own a pair of shorts, Idella”

“Well, no, I don’t. My legs have always been so skinny. Bird legs. Not that I would. They don’t suit me.”

Mrs. Jensen leaned back and resumed her slower fanning. “Eddie tells me you are in domestic service.”

“Well, yes. I’m a cook. I cook for this certain family, the Grays.”

“Imagine having a separate person that you pay just to cook your meals. Do you cook fancy?”

“Oh, no. Just regular. Regular meals like anybody else.”

“You went to school for it?”

“I had some lessons, is all. When I worked down in Boston, the two ladies I was working for sent me to cooking classes. It wasn’t fancy, more common sense, really. But it taught me . . . oh, how to make a certain sauce for a certain cut of meat, say. Or how to roast a chicken or make biscuits. Commonsense things mostly.”

“I never got schooled as a cook. I make things like my mother did.” Mrs. Jensen looked sternly at Idella over the rim of her glasses. “That’s been good enough for my family.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Plenty good enough. More than.” Idella, in her fluster, took a gulp from her glass. Dear god, the whiskey burned her throat.

“Well, I’d best get back to the kitchen and finish.” Mrs. Jensen closed her fan. “Take them peas out to the kitchen, Eddie. Help me up out of this chair, Jens. Nothing fancy, mind. I don’t know about sauces. Just panfried steak, is all. Potatoes and peas.”

“Simple is best, I think,” Idella said. “Steak cooked in a good black pan. That’s the best.” Idella had noticed the pan.

Mrs. Jensen smiled. “You two sit out here for a bit. You enjoy your drink, Idella. I’ve got things to do. Jens, come help me. You like plain mashed potatoes, Idella?”

“I love any kind of potatoes. I’m happy with potatoes only!”

It took some doing to get Mrs. Jensen up and off the porch. Idella concentrated on admiring the row of violets that edged the inside of the fence on the front lawn. “So pretty,” she said out loud, as though she had been in the middle of a conversation.

“What’s that?” Edward returned without the peas and slid close to her as soon as his mother had waddled out.

“The violets. So pretty.”

“Not as pretty as you.” He touched her knee.

“You shouldn’t have put that in my drink,” Idella whispered. “What am I supposed to do with it now?”

“Drink up. That’s what I’d do.” His eyes were so blue coming right at you.

“Eddie, I can’t get tipsy.”

“Who cares?”

“You had a nip while you were out picking the strawberries, didn’t you?”

“What if I did?” He started slowly to crinkle up the dress on her leg.

“Eddie, you need to help me through this.”

“She won’t bite. She barks more than the dog across the street.” Eddie’s voice was right in her ear. His mouth was just an inch away. The warm puff of his breath sent tingles down her back.

She stood and walked over to the screen door. “Let’s go look at the violets. I love violets.”

Eddie followed her out onto the front lawn. Idella took a deep breath. “It was getting a little close in there.”

“I like it close.” He came up behind her.

“Show me the violets, Eddie.”

“Nothing to see. Just flowers.”

They walked across the lawn, newly mowed and sweet smelling, to the corner of the fence. Idella scooched down and ran her hands lightly across the cool, dark, heart-shaped leaves. “They are so lovely.”

Eddie reached down and pulled a violet out of the ground.

“Don’t pull out the root, Eddie.”

“There’s plenty.” He handed her the flower, its thread of white root trailing behind it.

“Your mother don’t want her flowers pulled up!” Idella plucked off the trailing root.

“You can’t tell what will set her off. Gets mad over nothing. Holds grudges. People walking by, she calls them over and starts in telling things. Gossip. She makes things up, see, about people, and then believes it. They say it’s the scarlet fever she had.”

“You mean the fever affected her mind?”

“Christ, that was before I was born.” He shrugged. “She used to try and hang herself, right in front of me and Ethel.”

“No!”

“She’d get a stool and put the rope around her neck and pull up on it and say she was going to string herself up from the light. Me and Ethel were kids. Scared the hell out of us.”

“What made her do that?”

“Christ knows. Ethel didn’t fold the clothes. I didn’t pick enough beans. Hens didn’t lay eggs. Anything. I’m getting the hell out.” He looked through the fence and down the hill they had walked up together.

“Where do you think you’ll be going?” Idella twirled the violet stem between her fingers.

“Maybe into Portland. I’d like to sell cars. Something with a chance to make me some money. I’m not staying at the American Can Company.”

“I’m glad you’re not going far away.”

“Now, why is that?” He smiled.

“I’d like to see more of you.”

“You would, huh? Which part?” Eddie raised up his eyebrows.

“Eddie! I mean, you know, be with you more.”

“Uh-huh. I know.” Eddie took hold of her hand, smothering the violet in his grasp, and pulled her toward him. “Come on over here to the other side of this elm tree and kiss me.”

“Eddie, stop. Not here on the front lawn! She’ll see.” Nervous, Idella held up her glass. “Eddie, what am I going to do with this lemonade?”

“Drink it.”

“It’s straight lemon juice. And the whiskey. It’ll make me sick.”

“Jesus, no sugar?” Eddie laughed. “I hate to waste a good swig.”

“I’m going to pour it out. I have to.” Idella let go of his hand. The plucked violet fell into the grass. She scooched down and slowly poured the contents of her glass out into the ground. “I feel like I’m peeing in public,” she whispered, giggling.

She stood up. Eddie took her elbow, and she gave him a quick kiss, relieved to be done with the drink. They turned back toward the house. Eddie’s mother was standing in the porch doorway. She was holding a second glass of lemonade and watching the two of them.

“I guess you won’t be wanting another,” she said directly to Idella, then turned and walked back into the kitchen.

“Shit,” Eddie whispered. “Goddamn it.”

 

Idella and Edward stood mute in the dining room and stared across the table at each other, guilty as children about to get strapped, openly listening to the conversation going on in the kitchen.