Chapter Three

Grace promised Homer Emerson and the exalted members of the Franklin Hill RI school board that she would be available to begin regular office hours in November. Now in the second week of unpacking, arranging, and cleaning, she wondered at her reasoning. After all, she would have short hours with many days off in the summer and the school year in Franklin Hill ended promptly the Friday before Memorial Day. Those summer working days had made the job highly desirable. She imagined herself reading a book on her back porch or walking the long, well-worn path to the Petite River through the woods her grandfather had made his own. He had walked that path, frequently toting a stringer of catfish for supper to Granny Stillwell.

Halloween was upon her and she had no candy for trick-or-treaters. Did children still go house-to-house in Franklin Hill? She hoped so. In the City it had almost become a thing of the past with small children. Parents would load the toddlers up and take them to the nearest shopping mall to receive cheap hard candy from the retail giants. They would walk in circles around the mall showing off their costumes and never getting the pleasure of a real door-knocking trick-or-treat like Grace and her sisters had celebrated in their childhood.

She distinctly recalled Ellie, dressed as an Indian princess in a buckskin dress fashioned from an ancient and appropriately shabby suede coat of Aunt Mary’s which Granny Stillwell had rescued for the occasion. The tomboy Babe had insisted she would be an Indian chief and would entertain no other suggestions. Grandpa Stillwell had spent weeks searching for hawk, crow, and sparrow feathers which Granny washed carefully in the kitchen sink and then sewed by hand into what Grace remembered as an elaborate headdress.

Grace and Katy, the remaining sisters, had flatly refused to be Indian braves or pilgrims, hardening themselves to Ellie’s pleas and offered bribes of her own soon to-be-gotten Halloween candy. Granny mediated the case and chuckled with her usual good humor, “They did have witches in Salem, Massachusetts, Ellie girl. You’ll read about those soon in school. So we’ll see what we can do.”

True to her word, Granny searched through the attic and found Victorian mourning skirts and blouses that a cousin had packed away in a long-forgotten trunk. The heavy black georgette skirts with ribbon trim and shiny black Gibson girl blouses were soon dismantled and transformed into appropriate ensemble for two small witches, complete with pointed hats, one sporting a felt cat with a winking rhinestone eye. Grace opted to carry a broom as her accessory. Pressed by the clamoring girls, Granny sighed, “in for a penny, in for a pound,” and agreed to allow warts made from bread dough and the use of mascara from Aunt Mary’s cosmetic bag.

Granny loved the small trick-or-treaters that would come in droves to her door. A spiral pad sat by the candy bowl for Grandpa Stillwell to tally with a slash mark as the children cried “Trick-or-Treat!” and Granny doled out one piece of candy and sometimes a penny to each child. They would compare numbers to the year before, discuss the costumes and which child was hidden behind some of the more convincing masks. Many children were already in “store-bought” garb of glitter and plastic while most of the neighborhood kids from the Stillwell side of the tracks had constructed their own costumes from what they could scrounge at home. Granny laughed at a farmer and his wife, a set of young twins from down the street, one taller than the other. They were blonde demons who bickered up steps, down sidewalks and throughout the neighborhood.

“These boots are too big.”

“I wanted to wear the dress.”

“Why can’t we be princesses next year?”

Grandpa Stillwell shook his head and laughed in consternation, “Those girls are going to kill each other, Em.”

Granny and Grandpa Stillwell had ever been there for them, creating costumes, always the homemade kind, and laughing at their antics, enjoying the days of their childhood and all the Halloweens that would come and go.

Grace folded the last towel and put the stack in the tiny closet in the upstairs hall. She would spend Halloween with Granny. And just to put herself in the mood, she would go buy some candy and then maybe she’d have a look around Franklin Hill.

She drove through town toward the Bread House Cafe and the dime store on the corner. Halloween decorations littered the windows of the five and dime, with Thanksgiving turkeys quick to follow. It was the same now as it had been thirty-two years ago, the day her mother had put their clean underwear in paper grocery sacks and loaded four little girls into a beat-up Chevy station wagon to “go see Granny Stillwell for a while.” They had stayed with Granny Stillwell, happy to do so, but perplexed at the change in routine. There was no wearing the same clothes day after day at Granny Stillwell’s. One had to brush teeth and take baths, and do dishes. The trash had to go out, and go out often and a hot breakfast was provided every single morning, seven days a week, without fail.

Along with all those changes came fresh clean clothes, beds that were made unless you were in them, and a snack prepared and waiting when they got home from school. It had been a glorious trade, but one the little girls also feared, the questions of why? and what next? lingering in the fringes of their minds. The night their mother returned in an attempt to take them away with her, Ellie, the oldest, who was normally a quiet, obedient child, simply refused. She clung to the storm door, weeping. Afraid to go home with her unstable parent, Ellie was terrified of being left alone with her three young sisters in any one of a succession of grimy houses and shabby apartments while her mother waited tables at night and worked during the day. Or that is what she did when the insidious mental illness, manipulated by her brain chemistry, was at bay.

Emma and William Stillwell and the town of Franklin Hill were strong anchors in a sea of worry for a six-year-old child. Grandpa Stillwell, already dying at the hands of his favorite Prince Albert tobacco, had set another hand-rolled cigarette down in the heavy glass ashtray the night Marjorie Stillwell Phillips came to take her daughters away. Quietly walking to the door, he interceded between the small girls and his raging daughter. It was the only time in Grace’s memory of him that he openly challenged her spitting, cursing mother. She remembered the quiet that came after like a balm and Granny Stillwell’s steady assurance, “Everything is fine girls. Let’s get ready for bed, now.”

There had been jack-o’-lanterns glowing from the deep front windows of the Ben Franklin store the night the old Chevy drove down Main Street toward the comfort of Granny Stillwell’s dinner table. Grace was the girl in the back seat of that Chevy again, as she guided her own Toyota down the hill, reminded by the storefront displays and porch-step pumpkins. She passed Pilkin’s Drug store, where years before, Harry Pilkin, his tenuous grasp on reality slipping away, had lost his mind in a domestic disturbance. Harry was convinced, beyond all evidence to the contrary, that his wife Edith was sleeping with the postman. Business had suffered at the drug store after Harry’s suicide. Now the building sat locked and abandoned. The cracked windows dark, ice-cube letters spelling out “Air Conditioned” alongside the tattered, water-stained “Hand Packed Ice Cream – Root Beer Floats!” a silent commentary on small town tragedy.

There seemed to be a few more pawn shops on the North end of Main than had been there previously. The once-grand old Washington hotel still stood. In her childhood it had housed, with a quiet dignity matching that of its inhabitants, a small community of bachelor social-security pensioners. Grace fondly recalled two old gentlemen that sat in front-porch rockers every day in the cool of the spring and fall and the heat of the summer. The hotel had recently been set upon by a swarm of renovators who knocked down a wall for a tea room and slapped up a sign announcing “Bed and Breakfast”. Surprising everyone but the innkeepers, business thrived, encouraged by the local chamber of commerce and the city’s hunger for more tax revenue.

Busloads of retirees now descended into Franklin Hill to gamble at the riverboat licensed three years before. Once the state legislature had approved the casino boat, property values briefly rocketed up. Local churchwomen frowned on Sundays and tsk’d over their Monday papers, each silently hoping their own out-of-work son-in-law would reap some kind of job from the moral decay of those damned gamblers.

Turning the corner at Jefferson Street, Grace automatically rolled down her window and breathed in. The smell on Main Street was enough to stop a grown man in his tracks. Nearly any time of day, you could smell fresh bread coming from the Bread House Cafe. Darla Jinks would be baking at all hours to keep the Cafe stocked and the regular customers happy who came in to pick up “just a loaf of that punkin’ bread, Darla,” and walked out with the bread, six of Darla’s muffins, a box of cookies and a pie.

When the new supercenter and discount store opened near the highway, they immediately attempted to put Darla Jinks out of business with cut-rate baked goods, selling factory-packed, stamped out sugar cookies and glazed donuts in boxes with cellophane windows, the universal product code on the side. There was no reckoning with the loyalty of Franklin Hill local populace, however. The Bread House Cafe fired a volley in response, opening a half hour earlier and advertising “Free Apple Fritter With Your Monday Coffee.” No discount cookie could compete with the crisp, light pastry, stuffed with warm Granny Smith apple chunks. Darla Jinks just smiled and continued to produce pieces of heaven in her bakery kitchen every day of the week, reminding her clientele with the quality of her offerings that you do, indeed, get what you pay for. Granny Stillwell had been so offended by the whole supercenter debacle that when the store’s manager had the temerity to speak to her at church on Sunday, she had brushed past him, rapping her umbrella against his shin. He was not, after all, a local.

It was one thing to buy light bulbs cheap at a discount house, but taking money out of Darla Jinks’ pocket to save a few pennies on poor quality baked goods simply would not do. The supercenter manager sensed the wave of community disapproval, realized the error of his ways and wisely retreated, stocking a small selection of sandwich bread and bagels in an inconspicuous corner of his gleaming store. Darla emerged from battle triumphant, and using the steady income, invested in two espresso makers and a new blender. If the local teenagers wanted those fancy coffee drinks and smoothies, then Darla would brew, steam and blend to fill their orders.

The bell dinged as Grace stepped into the Cafe and the aroma of fresh coffee flooded her senses. So, Franklin Hill had stepped far enough into this century that Darla Jinks was serving espresso at the Bread House. Grace took a deep breath, inhaling the intoxicating blend of coffee, baking bread and fruit pastry.

“How’s the Bouche house coming along, Gracie?” Darla peered over flour-smudged glasses and smiled.

“Oh, well, it had been empty for a while—“

“Lord knows he could use somebody in there. Old Man Bouche doesn’t care a lick about that house. Not sure why he doesn’t sell.”

Grace took a breath to interject but Darla was a known talker.

“Lancelot Curtis tried to get him to sell, but Bouche wouldn’t have any of it. Could be because he’s a foreigner, I just don’t know. But that old man could give rude a bad name.” Grace nodded. Darla’s litany had begun and it was futile to try to get a word in.

“Now that’s someone you need to meet, that Lancelot Curtis.” Darla’s cheeks flared pink. “He came in here with a rose for me on Valentine’s Day, telling me I baked the sweetest pies in town...’course my Frank doesn’t know about that.” Darla laughed until one of her chins began to wobble.

“Who is—” Grace had another false start.

“Lance Curtis? Ohhh! He teaches English at the college and night classes at the high school. Quite a looker, he is. And that accent! All the girls in town are eyeing him.”

“How are the grandchildren, Darla?” Grace attempted to steer the conversation to safer ground as Darla paused for breath.

“Seven, now!” Darla exclaimed. “Little Jenny was born last month and we have a set of twins!” Grace managed to signal for an espresso in between Darla’s talk of diapers, cutting teeth, and bicycle accidents before she backtracked for more on the glory of Lance Curtis.

Sipping espresso, Grace walked back to her car. Not far from the Cafe, she noted the Draft Room’s darkened neon sign swinging in the blustery fall wind that tossed leaves down Main Street. The sign had been there as long as she could remember, lending a slightly seedy look to the otherwise pristine business district. In accordance with the town council’s stern liquor licensing, Maurice Gretz had agreed to leave the neon off until dark and close the Draft Room during the day on Mondays. Maury’s business did suffer slightly when the gambling boat opened, but eventually the populace tired of the casino and drifted back to the Draft Room for their companionable evenings of beers, pretzels and burgers.

Majestic oaks lined the street as she neared St. James’ arched windows. The church had been the pride of Franklin Hill’s German-Catholic populace when it was first built in 1850. A fire in 1890 had merely stoked the German propensity for hard work and the parish members had dedicated themselves to erecting the current church, a building of soaring ribbed vaults and flying buttresses, gilded plasterwork and elaborate stained glass. A testament to the glory of their God. Now, cracks appeared in the once-glowing windows where the leads had begun to fail. She slowed, gazing at the massive structure.

Grace remembered sitting with her grandmother, watching a wasp drift under the forty-foot ceilings against the intricate artwork depicting saints. The Stations of the Cross, chiseled into the heavy Gothic architecture were reminiscent of those in the churches the parishioners had left behind in Baden and Alsace. Mass had been a painful thing for a little girl. A good portion still in Latin, with a droning priest reciting in perfect cadence verses she would never understand. Great Uncle Joe attended faithfully only to snore through the service, to the delight of his nieces and beneath the scowl of Gerta Phillips, his forever-frowning sister-in-law. The highlight of Grace’s church experience had been the opportunity to wear one of her Aunt Lila’s mantillas, a black lace concoction the size of a small table cloth. She and her sisters draped their heads dutifully, batting their eyes like Spanish dancers as Lila took their picture one Easter Sunday morning.

That same picture had been stuffed in the bottom of a shoe box in her grandmother’s dining room closet along with the board games, a Fisher Price View-Master and mementos of a time when Marjorie Stillwell Phillips had been an involved parent, attempting to raise them in the traditions of the Catholic community. She and her sisters drifted away from the Phillips grandparents after the death of Grandpa Phillips, a stocky white-haired farmer who had doted on his four eldest grandchildren.

The little girls spent very little time in St. James Church and even less time devoted to Catholicism once their parents divorced. In those years good Catholics did not divorce and annulment was reserved for those with large checkbooks and connections in Vatican City.

Grace steered the Toyota away from the curb and drove slowly down the hill past the old Phillips house, now derelict. The current owner’s ’71 Buick LeSabre graced the front yard, parked in the middle of Gerta Phillips’s once lush-green elephant ears. The garage leaned like a tired old man, worn whitewash paint peeling, ramshackle and adrift in a sea of mint that had grown wild there since she was a child. She remembered sneaking down to strip the mint from the stem and chew it like gum. “Just like Wrigley’s!” Aunt Lila declared as they hid, giggling, behind the garage. Aunt Lila had only been fourteen when Grace was born and was more child-like at times than the four little girls who idolized her.

Looping back around the block, Grace drove up the bluff overlooking the River. These houses spoke of an era of affluence. With the exception of one lone three-story neglected to the point of crumbling, the homes were things of architectural wonder. Victorian spires anchored the large screened porches and round-arched temple-like entrances. The street was lined with pediment-topped porticoes, elaborate roofs with gables and dormers, now painted whimsical pastels of green and pink to copy San Francisco’s Painted Ladies.

Grace and her sisters had not visited here often. The established Franklin Hill families that had lived on Harper Street for generations did not socialize with ragamuffin children from the wrong side of the tracks. But she had loved those houses then and dreamed of sitting on those porches looking down at the slow moving river. Dreamed for a while of being one of those that “had” and living on the right side of the tracks.