Wonderland Creek (4 page)

On Sunday I sat with my mother in church instead of with Gordon for the first time in nearly a year. Everyone in town would know about our breakup now. All around me, I could see the gossip mill starting to grind as heads bent close, whispering, nodding, tilting in my direction. It was unbearable. The moment my father pronounced the benediction, I fled into the vestry, my cheeks betraying my embarrassment, and ran out through the back door.

My parents gave me a week to mope around and feel sorry for myself and sleep late every morning. By the second week they’d had enough. Mother breezed into my bedroom at seven o’clock on Monday morning and rolled up the window shades, flooding the room with light.

“It’s time to stop moping, Alice. I know you’ve had some difficult losses, but you won’t get over them by sleeping late and reading books all day.”

“There’s nothing else to do,” I mumbled, my face buried in the pillow.

“There’s plenty to do. Your father and I have drawn up a list.”

This was terrible news. My parents were veteran list-makers, believing that every problem in life could be solved with an adequate list. No matter how daunting the task, they believed the impossible could be accomplished by breaking it down into items and checking them off, one by one. If my parents had drawn up one of their lists for President Roosevelt, the Depression would have ended by now.

“Put on your robe, Alice, and come down to breakfast.”

I did as I was told. Did I have a choice?

“Your mother told me about your rift with Gordon,” my father said as I slouched into my chair at the kitchen table. “I was sorry to hear it. Would you like me to talk to—”

“No!” My father and Gordon’s father were friends, being close associates in the death and grieving business. I suspected that they had conspired to put Gordon and me together in the first place. “Don’t talk to anyone about us. Please!”

He sighed and gave me his soft-eyed, pastoral gaze. “If that is your wish, Alice. But—”

“Please, Daddy. I can handle this on my own.”

He munched on his toast for a few moments, shaking his head sadly before saying, “Your mother and I have compiled a list.”

It was a declaration of war. He would try to recruit me for one of his Christian good-deed tasks—always a high priority on any of his lists. I had to avoid those at all costs.

“I can make up my own list. I’ll have it on your desk by noon. I promise.”

He didn’t seem to hear me. “Now that you’re no longer working at the library, I know of many unfortunate people in our community who could use your help.”

“I don’t like working with unfortunate people. They make me uncomfortable.”

“Alice Grace!” Mother said with a gasp. “What a thing to say.”

“I’m sorry, but the way they look at me with their big sad eyes makes me uneasy, as if it’s my fault that I have everything and they have nothing. I don’t know what to do or what to say.”

I could tell by my father’s drumming fingers that he was running out of patience. “How long do you plan on wallowing in self-pity, Alice?”

I gulped down my glass of orange juice and stood. “I’m all done wallowing. I’m fine now. Really.” His drumming fingers stopped, and I could see that he was about to preach a sermon on how self-pity was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. If I added up all of the sins that my father claimed were part of the Deadly Seven, there would be seven hundred of them. I was fairly certain that self-pity wasn’t on the original list, but if I challenged him on it, he would make up something flowery and philosophical-sounding, like,
Self-pity is the younger sister of sloth, dining on the same bitter foods, sleeping in the same sordid bed
 . . . or some such wisdom.

“Here is our list,” Father said, handing it to me before I could escape. “You might want to use it as the basis for your own. And since your mother and I are both going out on errands today, we have agreed that you should accompany one of us. No more lying around all day.”

I took the list from him and folded it in half without looking at it. “Where are you going?” I asked him, dreading his reply.

“I’m delivering donated food and clothing to Chicago’s near West Side. They’re calling the area ‘Floptown’ since so many people are forced to live on the street.”

I quickly turned to my mother. “And where are you going?”

“I promised your aunt Lydia I would pay her a visit before she leaves.”

“Where is she off to this time? Patagonia? Bora Bora?” Mother’s younger sister was as odd as a cat with feathers. A visit with Aunt Lydia was like an hour spent in a windstorm, and I usually avoided it at all costs. But today it seemed like a better choice than a place called Floptown. At least I could bring along a book to read.

“I’ll go with you, Mom.”

W
hen we finished the breakfast dishes, Mother put on her visiting hat and a pair of clean white gloves and we rode the streetcar to Aunt Lydia’s house. I brought along an empty bag. These days, you couldn’t travel two blocks without running into a poor person selling apples on the street, and I knew that by the time we traveled to my aunt’s house and back, my softhearted mother would have purchased enough fruit to make a dozen apple pies.

Aunt Lydia and Uncle Cecil had no children—and the world should be thankful for that. They lived in an enormous house in the fashionable Beverly neighborhood and had vaults and vaults of money, even during this Depression. No one seemed to know what line of work Uncle Cecil was in or where all his money came from. I was convinced that he was mixed up with one of Chicago’s notorious gangsters.

Mother always referred to her sister as “fragile.” To me, Lydia was as jumpy as a cricket in a chicken yard. I never understood how my grandparents had managed to produce two daughters as drastically different as my saintly mother and my loony aunt Lydia.

A maid answered the door and led us inside Aunt Lydia’s house. Her décor was a wild jumble of expensive, tasteful pieces of furniture perched alongside outrageous souvenirs and gewgaws from the many places she had traveled. In the sunny morning room where we sat down to chat, for instance, she had hung a stuffed moose head from the wilds of Canada above an antique Louis XIV writing desk. The moose, as glassy-eyed as my aunt, wore an embroidered scarf from Morocco tied around its head like an immigrant woman in a kerchief.

We chatted and sipped coffee for a while before Aunt Lydia announced her latest travel plans. “We’re going to a spa in the Appalachian Mountains. The fresh mountain air is supposed to be
marvelous
for the lungs. So invigorating.” My aunt carried a cut-glass tumbler of golden liquid in her hand at all times, ice cubes tinkling as she gestured. On the rare occasion when she wasn’t holding the glass, she looked naked.

“Don’t people usually go to the mountains in the summertime?” I asked. “Won’t it be cold there in March?”

“Oh, but we simply
must
get away. The spa has a hot spring. I’ll be taking a water cure.”

“Drinking it or bathing in it?” I asked. Mother poked me with her elbow in warning, but I ignored the hint.

“Why, both, of course. They have a
very
rigorous schedule at the spa—we’ll be eating a special diet, taking exercise, communing with nature. Cecil and I are looking forward to it
immensely
.”

“Cecil is going, too?” Mother asked.

“Yes, we’re driving down there together. He needs to get away as badly as I do.”

I pictured a mob of gangsters chasing after him, car tires squealing, tommy guns rattling.

“We’ll be driving down through Kentucky,” she continued, and the moment I heard the word
Kentucky
, an idea struck me like a gong at the carnival after someone swings a big hammer and hits the target. Why not ride to Kentucky with my aunt and uncle and deliver the donated books I had collected, in person? My uncle’s car was the size of a small steamship, with a trunk large enough to stash a couple of dead bodies. Surely it would hold my five boxes of books and the magazines. Best of all, I could get away from Blue Island—the gossip and humiliation. I could disappear!

“May I go with you, Aunt Lydia?”

She and my mother stared at me in unison.

“Alice Grace Ripley!” Mother said, when she finally found her voice. Her outrage could be measured by how many of my names she used. If I had been given a fourth name, she would have used it now. “You know better than to invite yourself. And you also know that we can’t afford to send you to a spa.” I’m sure she would have added that we weren’t the sort of irresponsible people who frittered away money on useless luxuries like water cures and hot springs, but she would never insult my aunt to her face.

“If you need to get away,” Mother continued, “why not spend some time on the farm with one of your sisters? I’m sure they would have plenty for you to do.”

I made a face. “They’ll make me chase their kids and round up their chickens. Besides, there’s not a decent library for miles and miles out where they live.”

“What has gotten into you?” Mother asked.

I looked down at the polished parquet floor, tears stinging my eyes. “As you may recall, I’ve been laid off work at the library because of the Depression.”

“Then why not marry that strapping young beau of yours?” Aunt Lydia asked. “A rollicking good honeymoon will cheer you up in no time.”

Mother’s face turned the color of a ripe tomato at the mention of such a taboo subject as a rollicking honeymoon. My cheeks felt sun-warmed, too. “Alice and her young man have had a falling out,” Mother said in a whisper—although I don’t know why she needed to whisper. Aunt Lydia’s maid didn’t understand English and the rest of the world already knew about my breakup with Gordon, thanks to the diligent ladies in my father’s congregation.

“Oh, that’s too bad, darling,” Aunt Lydia said. “Have you thought about taking a lover?”

Mother’s face went from red to white in an astonishingly short time. Her ability to speak vanished completely. “It’s a little too soon to look for another beau,” I said quickly.

“Who said anything about a beau?” Aunt Lydia said with a wink. “What you need is—”

“Lydia, please!” Mother begged.

“Well, it sounds to me like Alice could use a few days at a spa. Of course she can come with us. Cheers, darling!” She lifted her glass in salute.

“I wouldn’t be going to the spa,” I explained, “just to Kentucky. I’ve been collecting used books and magazines for the poor people down there, and since you and Uncle Cecil are going that way, I thought maybe I could tag along and deliver the books in person.”

“How would you get home again?” Mother asked, being annoyingly practical.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just stay there, and Uncle Cecil can pick me up on the way home. I’ve been corresponding with a librarian down there, and I’m sure she must have some volunteer work for me to do while Aunt Lydia is taking her cure. I could help her catalogue all the donated books.”

“I still think you’d enjoy the spa more,” Aunt Lydia said, winking at me again. “But of course you’re welcome to ride along, Alice. A nice road trip will cheer you up in no time.”

I wondered if I might regret my rash decision later. Uncle Cecil’s cigars smelled like burning tires, and for all I knew, nasty men with prison records might be chasing him all the way to Kentucky. But how wonderful it would be to simply vanish, leaving everyone to wonder where I’d gone.

On a cold, misty morning in March, my road trip to Kentucky began. We would travel the Dixie Highway, which ran all the way from Chicago to Miami and passed right through my hometown of Blue Island. I had been eager to leave, wanting to get away from the pitying looks and prove to Gordon that I didn’t care about him anymore—although I had no idea how leaving town would actually prove anything. But the moment Uncle Cecil’s car arrived at the parsonage and I saw Mother’s tears and Father’s worried frown, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I felt homesick, and I hadn’t even left home. I had never traveled far from home before and had never been separated from my best friend, Freddy, for more than a week. My parents didn’t take vacations.

Before I could stop them or say that I’d changed my mind, my father and Uncle Cecil had shoehorned the donated books and my one measly traveling bag into the car’s trunk alongside Aunt Lydia’s countless suitcases and hatboxes. “Lydia packed her entire wardrobe,” Uncle Cecil grumbled.