IT WAS A QUARTER past six o’clock when Frankie steered Dixie to the backyard of the apartment.
Ten minutes later she had Dixie securely tucked away in her shed, harness unfastened and returned to the shelf. She untied Seaweed’s guitar string, wound it in a coil, and stuck it in her dress pocket. Dixie could not get to the water pail fast enough, and while Frankie was fumbling with the snaps, that pony was lapping up the water as if there were peppermints sitting on the bottom.
At half past six, Frankie was sitting on the stone steps that led to the alley alongside the apartment and thinking of what she would say to Mother and Daddy in defense of her whereabouts. Much of her thinking had to do with it all being Elizabeth’s fault. After all, Elizabeth was in charge and hadn’t been keeping an eye on Frankie as she should have. As everyone knew, that was one of the main responsibilities of a Number One.
A solid excuse, don’t you think?
Frankie hadn’t gotten very far along that line of thinking when Bismarck, who had been trying to keep cool under the shade of the side porch, caught her scent on the hot breeze—a mix of sweat and equine—and tracked her. He soon began announcing her arrival in the only way he knew how—howling and yipping, and licking at her face. Apparently, he wanted everyone in the neighborhood to know that he, and no one else, had found her, safe and sound.
Frankie tried to quiet him, but it was too late.
Mother was first out the kitchen door, followed by Elizabeth, and then Daddy. Frankie got to her feet and winced when she saw Mother with the cake turner in her hand. “I just took Dixie out for a bit,” said Frankie, getting to her feet, careful to keep her rear out of Mother’s reach. “She was in her shed all day. Elizabeth hasn’t taken her out for a while . . .”
“Don’t you dare pin this on me,” said Elizabeth, with her hands on her hips.
Frankie ignored her. “And since Joan is gone, it was up to me to do. And look”—Frankie pointed to Dixie and then to herself—“we’re fine. Except for a broken snap, which I fixed, nothing at all bad happened. We went out in the cart and everything.”
“You hooked up Dixie all by yourself?” said Daddy. “To the cart?”
Frankie nodded, and she thought she saw a trace of a smile cross Daddy’s face. “I can do a lot more than you think.” She cleared her throat. “Even at the restaurant. I can seat customers or something like that. I know it.”
“What does the restaurant have to do with anything, young lady?” said Mother. “We’re talking about your leaving home without asking your sister, all by yourself, where nobody knew where you were. What if something happened?”
“Like what?” said Frankie. For the life of her, she didn’t know what Mother was afraid would happen, only that there were fears of all sorts of things living inside her, fears that the worst could happen at any given moment, and then how do you go on when your worst fear comes true?
“Like what?” Mother said, her knees buckling slightly and throwing her off center, as if the ridiculousness of the question caught her by surprise. “That animal could throw you, leave you lying in an alley somewhere with your head cracked wide open. You could be run over by a car, kidnapped by Gypsies, roughed up by thugs . . .”
“Mildred,” said Daddy, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“You just ask Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh about getting carried away,” she snapped. It had been seven years since the baby boy of Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator, was kidnapped, held for ransom, and later found dead, but it still haunted Mother, along with much of the rest of the country.
Mother held up her hand, the one without the cake turner, and showed Frankie the very small distance between her thumb and index finger. “I was this close to calling the police. Don’t ever do that to me again, you hear me?”
“I won’t,” said Frankie, keeping to herself the fact that the police had turned up anyway.
“Good.” Mother took in a deep breath. “Now, you’re on punishment for ten days.”
“Ten days?” complained Frankie.
“Would you like to make it eleven?” said Mother.
Frankie shook her head.
“And I don’t want to hear any talk about it,” said Mother. “You’re to be at the restaurant all day and then come right on home. No pony rides, no playing out back, no roller-skating, and no radio.”
“No radio!” said Frankie.
Mother raised the hand with the cake turner ever so slightly, and Frankie relented.
“Supper’s getting cold.” Mother turned on her square heels and went back into the apartment without waiting for the rest of them.
Elizabeth followed close behind after shaking her head at Frankie, showing her disappointment—a classic Number One move. But it was Daddy whom Frankie was concerned about. “You gave your mother a real scare,” he said, linking arms with Frankie as they walked the alley. Bismarck stayed by Daddy’s other side.
Frankie nodded. “Daddy, I took Dixie to the restaurant to show you and Mother, but when you weren’t there, I went inside to get her some water. I overheard Mr. Stannum talking to Mr. Price.”
Daddy’s steps slowed a bit. “Overheard?”
“I was in the cupboard.”
“I see.” Daddy nodded but didn’t ask for any further explanation, as if being inside a cupboard was a very normal, run-of-the-mill kind of thing.
“Mr. Price was asking a lot of questions about the restaurant,” she went on.
“Was he, now?”
“He wanted to know how many people worked there, for one thing,” said Frankie. “And then he wanted to know how you had the money to start the business, you know, because of the Depression being on.” She was about to step up onto the porch, but Daddy placed his hand on her arm.
“Yes, well, the Chamber of Commerce likes to know those kinds of things,” said Daddy. “And Mr. Price thinks it’s his job to know everything about everything. Not for you to worry.”
But Frankie was worried. She knew she should tell Daddy about what else Mr. Price had said, about Hitler’s spies and about whether or not Daddy was really born here in America, but she was afraid. It’s not as though she believed those things were true. Of course she didn’t. But if she said them out loud, if she repeated them, she worried that maybe—just maybe—they could be.
Daddy gently pinched Frankie’s chin. “You run along now and eat your supper. You know how lima beans are when they get cold. Even Bismarck won’t touch them.”
Bismarck licked Daddy’s knuckles at the mention of his name, and Frankie opened the screen door to the kitchen. But she turned back when she noticed Daddy wasn’t behind her. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I’ll be along in a minute,” he said, taking a seat on the porch step. “Just catching my breath.”
“But the limas,” said Frankie.
“I said, go ahead now,” said Daddy. “Don’t keep your mother waiting any longer.”
Frankie did go ahead, and when she got to the dining room she found Grandma Engel, Mother, Uncle Hal, Aunt Edith, Ava, Martha, and Elizabeth all huddled around the table. “There she is,” said Grandma Engel with a wink. “No need to send out the cavalry.”
Frankie took her seat on one of the two empty chairs. The food was already on each of the plates: slippery potpie, boiled lima beans seasoned with ham, and buttered bread.
“Can we eat now?” moaned Martha, her face hovering just over the plate of food in front of her.
“Not yet,” said Mother. “We’re just waiting for Hermann.”
“You shouldn’t have gone off by yourself like that,” Aunt Edith told Frankie. “Don’t you care a thing about your mother’s nerves?” Aunt Edith was short, like Mother, but more round and just as nervous. She liked experimenting with makeup, and never left her house without a fresh coat of red lips, and eyebrows painted pencil-thin and so high on her forehead that she always appeared surprised.
“Aw, come on now, Edie,” said Uncle Hal. “It turned out all right.”
“My girls always were worriers,” said Grandma Engel. “You’d have thought they’d grow out of that.”
Aunt Edith pursed her dark red lips and neither one said anything more.
“Where’d you go?” asked Ava, all wild-eyed and eager for information. “To the racetrack? Or to the cinema? Naw, don’t say you went to the cinema. There’s been no good show there since Son of Frankenstein played last winter.”
Grandma Engel said, “So you say. That Young Mr. Lincoln picture is a good one, I’d bet. Henry Fonda is a fine actor, and nice looking, too.” She fanned her face with her napkin.
As Grandma Engel was going on about the likes of Mr. Fonda, Martha had her tongue out and was letting it dangle across the pile of boiled dough on her plate. Then she let it linger over the pat of butter on her piece of white bread.
“He certainly is,” said Aunt Edith. She reached across Ava and swatted at Martha’s arm.
Martha retracted her tongue and then started to tear up. “But I’m so hungry,” she sobbed.
Ava shook her head. “Henry Fonda ain’t no Boris Karloff.”
“Isn’t,” corrected Elizabeth.
“Remember the part when Baron Wolf von Frankenstein swings across his laboratory on a rope and knocks the monster into a fiery sulfur pit?” Ava sat back in her chair and smiled. “That was just about the best thing I ever seen.”
“Saw,” said Elizabeth.
“Where can you get one of those sulfur pits, anyway?” asked Ava.
“Just what would you do with a sulfur pit?” said Elizabeth.
“Let’s change the subject,” said Mother, who thought it best not to know too much about the inner workings of Ava’s mind.
Ava shrugged. “All right. So where’d you go, then, Frankie?”
Frankie took a drink of milk. “To the restaurant.”
“The restaurant?” said Ava, her mouth gaping. “The place where you were all day long?”
Frankie nodded.
“Man oh man,” said Ava, folding her arms across her chest, “what a waste of freedom.”
“And then down Jonathan Street,” said Frankie.
“Jonathan Street?” said Mother.
“To where the coloreds live?” said Ava, her eyes widening. She was clearly impressed.
“Frances Marie,” said Mother, “what have we told you about going to that part of town?”
Frankie started to answer, but Mother held up her hand. “Don’t say a word until your father gets here. I want him to hear this straight from the horse’s mouth.” She gave Frankie a grim look and then turned her head toward the kitchen. “Hermann? You out there?”
“He said he’d be right in,” said Frankie.
“I can go check on him, Mother,” said Elizabeth, removing her napkin from her lap.
“No, I’ll go,” said Frankie. She pushed back her chair and jumped up before Elizabeth had a chance to beat her to it. On her way to the kitchen, Frankie heard a remark from Elizabeth about her animal-like behavior, which only made Frankie grin.
Daddy wasn’t in the kitchen, though. Frankie checked the side porch and the alley. “Daddy? Are you out here? Everybody’s waiting to eat. And Martha isn’t going to make it much longer.” The alley and porch were empty, except for Bismarck, who was preoccupied with licking the long fur between the pads on his front paw.
Frankie ran to the gravel lot behind the yard. Daddy’s Studebaker wasn’t parked there in its usual place. On the way back inside, Frankie wondered what would’ve made Daddy disappear like that. One minute talking about cold lima beans, and the next, vanished. Was it because of what she’d said about Mr. Price and Mr. Stannum?
“Well?” said Mother.
“Daddy’s not here,” said Frankie. “He’s gone.”