The town grew.
Baker Twelve was mined around the clock. By its third year it employed six hundred men, two hundred per shift. At dawn, and at midafternoon, and again late in the evening, cars idled at the new bridge that had been built across the Susquehanna. White-faced men in the westbound lane, heading toward the tipple. Black-faced ones in the eastbound lane, driving home from their shifts.
Baker Towers grew taller and broader, their shape softly conical, like a child’s sand castle. In time they took over the old rail yard, where the coal cars had been loaded before the new depot was built. Rain eroded them. In winter they resembled alpine peaks. Each week they were fortified with truckloads of black dirt, the rocky entrails of the One, the Three, the mighty Twelve. In the summer of 1950, the Pennsylvania Department of Industry sent a field technician to measure the piles. It was the lead story in that week’s Bakerton Herald, the triumphant headline in two-inch letters: SIXTY FEET!
On a good day the air smelled of matchsticks; on a bad day, rotten eggs. When the local thundered down Saxon Mountain, its passengers held their breath. On breezy days the whole town closed its windows, but no one ever complained. In later years this would seem remarkable, but at the time people thought differently. The sulfurous odor meant union wages and two weeks’ paid vacation, meat on the table, presents under the Christmas tree.
The Herald increased its frequency to twice a week. More was happening, and more often, than a weekly paper could possibly report. The grammar school enrolled its largest class ever; the children shared desks and readers. A trailer was brought in to handle the overflow. A year later, a second one was parked behind the school.
A few things did not grow. In 1951, the Pennsylvania Railroad ended passenger service to Bakerton. After the war, business had dwindled. Nearly every family in town owned a car. Some people minded: those too young to drive or too old to learn, women like Evelyn Stusick whose husbands refused to teach them. Still, the coal trains continued to rumble through the town, reminding the old-timers of what had been lost.
A Town Improvement Committee was formed. They agreed at their first meeting that everything needed improving; the question was where to begin. A referendum was held to rank possible improvements in order of importance. The list included a water treatment plant, a public library, a job training center, housing for veterans, and a maternity wing for the hospital. Space was left for write-in suggestions, in case there was anything the committee had missed.
The referendum was held, the votes tallied.
That summer, a new baseball park was built.
Joyce Novak came home in September, in the last brilliant week of summer: hot afternoons fading early, the morning grass touched with dew. She had left on just such a day. The coincidence made the last four years of her life seem imaginary, the vivid dream of a late-afternoon nap.
But Joyce did not nap; for her, daylight made sleep impossible. On the train ride from Charlotte to Washington, the longer one from Washington to Harrisburg to Altoona, she stared out the window as the other passengers snored around her. With her she brought a hatbox and a suitcase full of civilian clothes, the skirts and blouses she’d worn as a teenager. In her pocketbook was a packet of letters from her friend Irene Jevic. Except for the letters and the hat, she’d acquired nothing in her years away.
Sandy met her train at the station in Altoona. They embraced awkwardly. He had grown four inches that year. His cheek felt rough against hers. He shaves now, she thought.
She followed him to where the car was parked. He had borrowed it from the Poblockis up the hill. “Does Mama know you’re driving?” she asked. He was only fifteen.
He backed smoothly out of the parking space, one elbow hanging out the window. “Sure.” He grinned. “It’s fine by her. She doesn’t even know you need a license.”
They drove past the diocesan cathedral, the bus station, Gable’s department store. Growing up, she’d considered Altoona a major city. Now she saw that it was just another town.
Sandy downshifted smoothly at a light.
“Who taught you to drive?” she asked.
“Nobody. I just picked it up.”
“Picked it up where? On whose car?”
“Everybody has a car. Everybody but us.”
They rode in silence, the lights of the town disappearing behind them. The sky had begun to darken; the road wound narrowly. On either side of it the corn had been cut.
“I can’t believe you’re back,” Sandy said. “You’re not really going to stay, are you?”
“Mama needs me.” She hesitated, not sure how much to tell him. She studied his handsome profile, the blond forelock curling over his forehead like some exotic plumage.
“You need a haircut,” she observed.
Sandy shrugged. “I like it this way.”
Twilight was falling as they came into town. A new traffic light had been hung at the corner of Main and Susquehanna, another at the bottom of the hill. A horn sounded in the distance. At the crossing they waited for the train to pass. A string of traffic formed behind them, headlamps bright in the rearview mirror.
“It’s quitting time.” Sandy glanced over his shoulder. “They’re going to West Branch. There’s a bunch of new houses out by the Twelve.”
They drove through the town and crossed the tracks to Polish Hill. A chorus of dogs announced their arrival: the tenor bark of beagles, the deeper baying of Ted Poblocki’s hounds. Sandy parked and honked the horn. The house looked small and shabby. The grass hadn’t been cut in weeks.
The front door opened. Rose appeared, barefoot, on the porch. She had grown fat; her hair was almost totally gray. She descended the steps carefully, as though her knees pained her. Joyce felt a weight in her stomach, as if she’d swallowed something heavy. She’s getting old, she thought. Her mother had worn the same housedresses since Joyce was a child. Seeing her change in any way was deeply unsettling.
She got out of the car and filled her lungs with the cool air, then accepted her mother’s embrace, an ordeal to get through as quickly as possible. Joyce had a horror of crying; tears caused her nearly physical pain. When she felt them coming—the warning ache in her throat—she rebuked herself with a single word: Don’t. A bald command, suitable for a dog, but it generally worked. She hadn’t cried in years.
“So thin!” her mother exclaimed. She’d said this every time Joyce came home on furlough, though her weight hadn’t changed since basic training.
Sandy leaned out the car window. “I’m going to drop this wreck off to the Poblockis. I’ll be right back.”
Joyce watched the car pull away, thinking, He shouldn’t be driving without a license. But that—like the shaggy lawn, the cracked pane in the front window—could wait until later. There was already so much to fix.
Her little sister appeared in the front doorway. Her plaid jumper was tight across her belly. Her glossy black hair hung in a braid down her back.
“Bella Lucy,” said Rose. “Come and say hello.”
The girl hesitated a moment, then came down the porch stairs. She walked awkwardly, thighs touching, her calves slightly bowed.
“Hi, honey,” said Joyce, clasping her briefly. The words sounded strange to her; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d called someone that.
The house was smaller than she’d remembered; it seemed incredible that her entire family had once lived there. The first floor had three rooms: a parlor, a dining room—never used for dining—and a large kitchen. Upstairs were three bedrooms and a tiny bath. The summer before his death, her father had hauled away the outhouse and installed the tub and toilet himself.
Joyce glanced around the rooms, noticing everything. The parlor furniture was worn and threadbare. There was another cracked window in the kitchen, patched with electrical tape.
She sat at the kitchen table while her mother reheated a plate of spaghetti. She wasn’t hungry, but refusing was more trouble than it was worth.
“How are you feeling, Mama?”
Rose’s eyes darted in Lucy’s direction. “Go and play, bella,” she said, handing her a macaroon from the jar.
Joyce waited until Lucy had disappeared into the parlor. “Did you make an appointment?” she asked.
Rose dismissed this with a wave, as though no doctor were worth the extraordinary bother of making a telephone call.
“I’ll go uptown and call tomorrow.” Joyce accepted the plate, twice as much spaghetti as she could possibly eat.
“And Mama,” she said. “Isn’t it time we got a phone?”
SHE SLEPT in her childhood bed, the mattress bowed in the spots where she and Dorothy had slept. Sandy occupied Georgie’s old room. Lucy—as she had her whole life—shared a bed with her mother. In the morning the house smelled of breakfast, scrambled eggs and fried toast. Her mother still kept hens, in the coop Joyce’s father had built.
The mornings were damp, smelling of fall. From the front porch Joyce watched the neighborhood children walking to school, girls in loafers and plaid skirts, carrying stacks of books. A strange sadness filled her. Her own girlhood had passed too quickly. She felt older than she was, lost and depleted. Nothing had turned out the way she’d planned.
Each morning she slept late, then walked to town for the newspaper. Reds Vote Japs Out of U.N. Senator Nixon Denies Wrongdoing, Admits Gift of Dog. The world seemed very far away.
One morning she walked across town to the Bell Telephone office, paid a deposit, and brought home a telephone. She had dressed in her uniform; walking down Main Street, she felt the gaze of shopkeepers, old women, night miners coming home from the Twelve. A man watched her cross at the corner. He turned and spoke to his buddy in a low voice, and laughed. Later, at home, Joyce hung her uniform at the back of her closet. She never wore it again.
She’d been a girl when she left, barely eighteen; she had committed herself to military life with a certainty that now seemed childish. She’d tried to convince Irene Jevic to enlist with her. Like Joyce she had no money, no boyfriend, no prospects; they both seemed destined for the dress factory. Irene’s sister worked there already. In a few years the place had transformed her into a stout matron with eyeglasses, broad in the behind from too much sitting, plagued by headaches and eyestrain. An example that should have persuaded anybody, in Joyce’s view; but Irene was both timid and stubborn. Only one argument could convince her. “There must be a hundred boys for every girl in the air force,” Joyce told her. “If you can’t find a fellow there, you might as well give up.”
Irene agreed, but lost her nerve, and in the end Joyce rode the bus alone to the induction center halfway across the state. The ride itself was a revelation; except for a class trip to an amusement park near Pittsburgh, Joyce had never left Saxon County. In her small suitcase was a leather-bound copy of Pride and Prejudice, the only book she’d ever owned. It was a going-away present from Miss Peale, who’d inscribed the flyleaf in the careful loops of the Palmer method: Good books are good friends. From your friend and teacher, Viola Peale. Joyce had read it in a single day. The story itself—a convoluted tale of young women scheming to find husbands—did not impress her. Of all the books ever written, she wondered why Miss Peale had chosen this one for her.
Poor Miss Peale. She’d seemed stunned when Joyce told her the news. “The air force?” she’d repeated, as if she’d never heard of it. “Joyce, are you sure?”
“It’s a fine opportunity for a young woman.” She’d been told this by the recruiter and had repeated it to her entire family.
“But it seems so—drastic.”
“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” Joyce assured her. The reaction disappointed but did not surprise her. Her mother, Dorothy, even her brother Georgie had failed to understand. There was no reason to think Miss Peale would be different.
Later, she saw that she hadn’t explained it properly. She wasn’t like Georgie, desperate to leave Bakerton; if she’d merely wanted to escape her hometown, any sort of job would have sufficed. File clerk or factory girl. Cleaning houses for money—or, if she managed to find a husband, for free. But Joyce longed to devote herself to something of consequence; of the paths open to her, only the military seemed meaningful enough. She was a Bakerton girl with no education and no prospects. Serving her country was her only chance, the only way her life could ever be important.
She’d considered herself, if not born to it, then raised for it. In every important way, the war had defined her childhood. Of all the Novak children, only Joyce had spent her evenings in the parlor with their father, listening to Lowell Thomas: the bombings and casualties, the daily movements of troops. As a youngster, she’d saved her gum wrappers, valuable sources of aluminum. Though she hated knitting, she’d made afghan squares for the Red Cross. Later, in junior high, she’d organized twice-yearly collection drives, gone door-to-door asking for old tires, used pots and pans, anything made of metal or rubber or tin. She was a proud girl, and begging was not in her character; but she had done the work gladly. Her small humiliation was nothing compared to the sacrifices of the soldiers. The same sacrifices she would make later, as an adult.
She was sixteen when the war ended, almost ready to enter the world. After the initial joy of the surrender, she was at a loss. Working in an office as Dorothy did, or in a store like Georgie, would have seemed a capitulation. Her whole life she’d imagined her future in uniform. She couldn’t picture it any other way.
One afternoon, coming out of the butcher shop in Little Italy, Joyce glimpsed a short, stout figure in a familiar plaid coat.
“Irene!” she called.
The girl turned and broke into a grin. The two friends embraced, laughing and exclaiming. For the first time in weeks, Joyce felt at home.
“Good to see you, stranger,” she teased. “Did you lose my address? I thought you fell off the planet.” She linked her arm through Irene’s. “Come on. Let’s go have a pastry at Bellavia’s. My treat.”
“Joyce, I can’t,” Irene stammered. “I need to get home.” Her watery blue eyes were bloodshot. There was a roll of extra flesh beneath her chin.
“Not even for a minute?” Joyce looked at her closely, shocked by how she’d changed. Irene wore rimless eyeglasses, and the left side of her face looked swollen. To Joyce she looked forty years old.
“Irene,” she said softly. “Is everything all right?”
“I have a toothache.” Her hand went to her cheek. “It’s driving me crazy. And I’m kind of in a hurry. I should have been home at four. My mother’s going to wonder what happened to me.”
“Are you still working at the station?” After graduation, Irene had been hired to answer phones at KBKR. The pay was lousy, she’d written, but it kept her in lipstick and movie tickets.
“Oh, no. I quit that ages ago. I’m at the factory now. Listen, I have to run.” She gave Joyce’s elbow a squeeze. “When do you head back to North Carolina?” She started down the street, not waiting for an answer.
“It’s great to see you,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll try and stop by the house before you leave town.”
Joyce watched her go. The factory, she thought wonderingly. A few years ago, Irene had been as horrified by the place as Joyce was. Now she’d quit a perfectly good desk job and—if Joyce was any judge—would work in the factory for the rest of her life. Bakerton did this to people: slowly, invisibly, it made them smaller, compressed by living where little was possible, where the ceiling was so very low. Joyce thought of her father, a big man whom Bakerton had diminished. After thirty years of mining he’d walked with a stoop. Once, to show her how he spent his workday, he’d crouched on his hands and knees beneath the kitchen table, the contorted posture of a miner in low coal.
How can I stay here? Joyce thought. How much smaller can I get?
“Tell me what you see.”
The doctor spoke in a deep voice. Joyce caught her mother’s eye, nodding encouragement. Rose was shy around strangers, self-conscious about her accent. The gaze of a stranger, a man especially, could render her speechless.
“Flashes of light,” Joyce interjected. “And her vision is blurred.”
“It’s like I look at everything through a veil,” Rose added.
The doctor made a note in a folder.
“Does she need glasses?” Joyce asked.
“No,” he said curtly. “That wouldn’t help.” He turned to Rose. “Have you been tired lately?”
“Sometimes,” she said softly.
“Any unusual thirst?”
Joyce thought of her mother standing at the sink, drinking two tall glasses of water, one after the other. She had never considered this odd. Rose had done it for years.
“Have you gained or lost weight?”
Rose explained, haltingly, that she cooked too much since the children had left. If she’d gained a few pounds, that must be why.
In the end a nurse came to draw blood. “What’s the problem?” Joyce asked the doctor.
“I won’t know for certain until I see the test results, but I suspect that your mother is diabetic.” Briefly he explained the nature of the disease: a problem with the pancreas, a hormone it failed to secrete.
“But what does that have to do with her eyes?”
He explained that diabetes puts stress on all the organs: the kidneys, the heart. The eyes were particularly vulnerable. “There’s another doctor she should see.” He wrote a name on a card. “His name is Lucas. He’s an eye specialist in Pittsburgh.”
Joyce took the card. She had never been to Pittsburgh in her life.
“One more thing,” said the doctor. “Mrs. Novak, could you take off your shoes?”
Rose bent and unbuckled them. The doctor reached for her foot and held it in his lap. He took a wooden tongue depressor from the table behind him and ran it along the sole of her foot.
“Can you feel this?” he asked.
Rose nodded.
“What about this?” He prodded her skin with the end of the stick, then repeated the test on her other foot.
“Diabetes can affect sensation in the extremities,” he explained. “Your mother might cut herself and not feel it, and the consequences could be serious. Diabetics are prone to infection, and their wounds don’t heal normally. What would be a minor abrasion in a healthy person could become gangrenous. The patient could end up losing a foot.”
“Is that common?” Joyce asked, horrified.
“It’s not uncommon. I’ve seen cases.” He turned to Rose. “I don’t mean to scare you, Mrs. Novak. But it’s important that you take care of your feet.”
Rose leaned close to Joyce and whispered into her ear.
“My mother has a question,” said Joyce. “Is there some kind of medicine she can take?”
“I’m afraid not. There are no easy treatments for diabetes. The most important thing is to keep an eye on her diet. No sweets. Cut back on bread and starches.” He reached into a drawer and handed Joyce a printed leaflet. “If she lost some weight along the way, that certainly wouldn’t hurt.”
Joyce took the paper. It was a list of foods, with calorie counts.
“Diabetes is a serious illness,” said the doctor. “Your mother will have to be very careful. If she can control her diet, it will add years to her life.”
LATER, AT HOME, Joyce made a tour of the yard, a pad and paper in hand. Two broken windows. The back screen door was nearly off its hinges. The front porch had several rotten floorboards. Someone as heavy as her mother could easily step right through.
She went around to the cellar door, down the steps to the basement. Water pooled near a crack in the foundation, another item to add to her list. The shelves were loaded with canned peppers and tomatoes, boxes of empty Ball jars. Broken glass crunched beneath her shoes. She thought of Rose in her bare feet, placing the jars on the shelves. How easily, and how often, she might drop a jar.
Her father’s toolbox was where he’d left it, on a low table in the corner. Joyce knew from her mother that Georgie seldom visited—he was busy with his fancy wife, his baby son, his job at the department store. When he did come to Bakerton, it clearly never occurred to him to fix anything. The toolbox was covered with dust.
She pried open the rusted latch. Inside, the tools were neatly stacked. One by one she lifted them out: hammers, wrenches, a framing square, several pairs of pliers. Exquisite, heavy tools, handmade by her uncle Casimir, who’d forged wheels for mining cars during the day and worked nights in his own blacksmith shop. The wooden grips were worn smooth from use. From her father’s hands. Tears stung at her eyes. She closed the box.
The upstairs door squeaked open. She heard footsteps on the stairs.
“Joyce?” Her little sister stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a macaroon in her hand.
“Don’t come down here. There’s broken glass on the floor.”
Lucy took another step. She peered into the dimness. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not.” Joyce turned away. “Go back upstairs.”
The door closed. Joyce fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. Her hands were dirty from the tools. I must look a sight, she thought. Carefully she replaced the tools. She blew her nose and went out through the cellar door.
She had come home to help her mother. That was the explanation she’d given her superior officer, her few friends in the service; it was the story she’d told herself. Rose’s letter—I don’t feel so good. Every day I get a headache. I think maybe I need glasses.—had come at a convenient time. She hadn’t asked for help. Joyce had simply volunteered. She was disillusioned with military life, fed up and furious; and here was an escape route, a way to save herself without losing face. A sick mother—she was ashamed to admit it, but she had even liked the sound of that. Explaining the situation to her CO, she’d felt noble and high-minded. She hadn’t stopped to consider whether any of it was true.
She thought of the games she and Dorothy had played as children: hide-and-seek, blindman’s bluff, duck-duck-goose. At the beginning of the game all players were equal, and anything was possible—every kid in the neighborhood running breathless and excited, like bees humming around a hive. Then someone found you, or pointed you out, or slapped your sweaty back, and like it or not, you were it.
Georgie and Dorothy had escaped the hand—whether through speed or calculation, or just the simple dumb luck of being older, Joyce couldn’t say. But the hand had landed on her shoulder. She, apparently, was it.
Duck, duck, goose.
THE EYE SPECIALIST was booked until November. Joyce took the first appointment available, a Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving. At the drugstore she bought a road map of Pennsylvania and spread it before her on the counter. She located Pittsburgh immediately, an agglomeration of bright yellow at the southwest corner of the state. Bakerton was harder to find, the name in faint italicized letters, the smallest typeface on the map.
She set out early the next morning, in sturdy shoes. In half an hour she had reached the edge of town, where a car dealership had just opened. She stood in the lot a moment, looking around uncertainly.
A boy in a suit approached her. “Can I help you, ma’am?” He was tall and gangly, his face studded with pimples. He looked barely old enough to drive.
“I need to buy a car.” She pointed to a blue sedan at the edge of the lot. “How much is that one?”
“That Plymouth over there?”
“Yes,” she said. “The Plymouth.”
He named a figure that seemed impossible. She had a small savings account, where she’d deposited her last check from the air force.
“That’s more than I can afford,” she said, embarrassed. Her own discomfort irritated her. Brush it off, she thought. He’s just a kid. Who cares what he thinks?
“Do you have one less expensive?”
He pointed to a smaller car. “That Rambler is four hundred dollars. It’s secondhand, but it runs good. You want to take it for a test drive?”
She looked him in the eye. “I don’t know how to drive.”
He stared at her, mystified. “Then what do you need a car for?”
Mentally she ticked off a list: the Wojick boys, the half-bright Poblockis, her brother Sandy, who’d “just picked it up.” Every male on Polish Hill knew how to drive. How difficult could it be?
“I’ll learn,” she said.
THE BANK WAS BUSTLING that morning. Tellers stood at their windows, silently counting. A half-dozen customers waited in line. Joyce approached a window.
“I’d like to fill out a job application,” she said.
The teller, a short round-faced man, eyed her briefly. “Hang on a second.” He resumed counting, then wrote a figure on a scrap of paper. He placed the paper atop the stack and wrapped it with a rubber band.
“Stiffler,” he said to the man at the next window. “This lady wants to fill out a job application.”
Two men turned in her direction. One, Irving Stiffler, was her brother’s age; he’d come back from the war missing a foot. Joyce had seen him around town and was amazed by how well he walked, with only a slight limp.
“Hello, Joyce,” Stiffler said, nodding. “You’ll have to talk to the manager. Have a seat, and I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Joyce sat on the vinyl sofa near the window, aware of the silence in the room. In a moment the clerks resumed counting. Two men in overalls came in the front door. The bank opened early on Friday mornings to accommodate the miners, the Hoot Owl crews who stopped to cash paychecks on their way home from work.
Half an hour passed. Finally, a portly man in shirtsleeves came toward her. He eyed her uncertainly, then sat beside her on the sofa, hitching up his trousers to preserve their creases. “What kind of a job are you looking for?”
“Secretarial,” she said. “I type seventy-five words a minute. I can do just about anything involved with running an office.”
“Have you tried over at the factory?”
She blinked. He seemed not to have heard her. She tried again. “Actually, what I’m looking for is an office job. A teller position would be ideal.”
He scratched his head. “The thing is, we generally don’t hire girls for those jobs. We did years ago, during the war, but these fellows”—he gestured with a nod of his head—“are all veterans.”
“I see.” She wished, for a moment, that she’d worn her uniform. “I’m just out of the air force, myself.”
A smile played at his lips. “Good for you,” he said. “But these men are combat veterans—wounded, some of them. With families to support. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Perfectly,” she said evenly. “I’ve got a family as well, sir. My mother is a widow, and my younger brother and sister are still in school.”
The man glanced at his watch. “Well, I can’t help you. We aren’t hiring right now.” He rose. “Try over at the factory,” he said again. “Good luck to you, Joyce.”
On Saturday afternoon she left the house carrying a tin of macaroons. Her mother baked them every Friday. Unless Joyce watched her closely, she’d eat half of them herself.
The Jevics lived in a dilapidated frame house, a big, barnlike structure near the Number One tipple. Irene was the third of ten children; every few years, it seemed, her father built another bedroom onto the house. As a little girl, Joyce had been intimidated by the place, not just its size but its strangeness. All her other friends had lived in company houses—three rooms upstairs, three rooms down. It had never occurred to her that a house could be built any other way.
In the Jevics’ backyard, boys ran and shouted. Joyce climbed the porch steps and knocked at the front door. She sensed a flurry of activity behind it: a radio playing, a baby crying, tiny voices raised in anger or joy. Then Irene’s mother opened the door, a dark-haired baby on her hip.
“Joyce Novak!” She held the door open. “For God’s sake, I didn’t know you were back.”
Joyce stepped inside. Shrill voices in the next room, the excited chatter of little girls. “I brought you some macaroons. I remember how you liked them.”
“You’re a sweet girl. Those Eyetalian cookies are delicious.” Mrs. Jevic shifted the baby to her other hip. She was a big, red-faced woman with wide, startled-looking eyes, the same watery blue as Irene’s.
She led Joyce to the kitchen. “Irene’s at the dentist, having that tooth pulled. She’ll be back any minute. Sit down and have some tea.”
Joyce sat at the table, its Formica top extended with a plywood leaf. Bottles and rubber nipples dried on a towel by the sink. Beside the back door was a metal washtub, overflowing with different-size shoes. The place was as chaotic as a kindergarten.
“Have you met little Susan?” Mrs. Jevic asked, smoothing the baby’s hair.
“No,” said Joyce. “She’s adorable. How old is she?”
“A year next month.” Mrs. Jevic filled the teapot with water. Susan squirmed and let out a squeal.
“Here we go again,” said Mrs. Jevic. “You won’t be quiet—will you?—until your mother comes home.”
Your mother? Joyce thought.
Mrs. Jevic wiped her hands on a tea towel. Then she saw Joyce’s face.
“You didn’t know?” She spoke rapidly, in a low voice. “Heavens to Betsy, I thought the whole town knew. She’s Irene’s baby.”
The kitchen seemed very warm. Sweat trickled down Joyce’s back. “I had no idea.” Her voice came out in a whisper. “Irene never said a word.”
“Well, she’s ashamed, of course. Can you blame her?” Mrs. Jevic sat heavily in a chair. “She’s had a hard couple years. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t excuse what she did. But she’s paid the price, I can tell you that.”
Joyce swallowed. “What about—the father?”
“An Eyetalian boy. No offense.” Mrs. Jevic checked the baby’s diaper. “He skipped town the minute she told him. He could be anywhere by now. And his mother’s a real witch. She won’t have anything to do with Susan. She blames it all on Irene.”
There were footsteps on the porch. Then the screen door slammed.
“Irene!” Mrs. Jevic called. “Joyce Novak is here.”
Joyce’s heart quickened. She wished, absurdly, for a place to hide. What do I say to her? she thought frantically.
They waited a moment.
“Irene?” Mrs. Jevic called.
She rose and glanced out the window.
“That’s strange,” she said. “Looks like she went back up the street.”
JOYCE WALKED HOME, her hands in her pockets. The air had turned cold. She’d waited another half hour, but Irene hadn’t returned. “I’ll come back another time,” she told Mrs. Jevic, after they’d each had two macaroons. She walked quickly, grateful to leave the noisy, overheated house.
Her whole life she’d heard of girls who had to get married; less often, girls sent away to convents, or to live with relatives out of state. At one time she’d believed, childishly, that these girls were wicked. Later she decided they were merely stupid. A boy would try to talk you into anything; he had nothing to lose. It was the girl who took all the risks.
Experience had taught her that life was not so simple. Irene wasn’t stupid, just a girl who’d seen too many movies—as Joyce had; as they all had. It was, she reflected, a dangerous pastime, mooning over the handsome, clever men on the screen. It doomed you to disappointment; it made you expect too much. Joyce had never been in love, but felt herself capable of it. She could love Fred Astaire or Clark Gable or Errol Flynn, an elegant, cultivated fellow who wore wonderful clothes and possessed all sorts of hidden talents, who sang and danced and even fought in a way that looked beautiful; who even when he drank was witty and articulate and gentle and wise. The harder job was loving what men really were—soldiers and miners, gruff and ignorant; drunken louts who communicated mainly by cursing, who couldn’t tell you anything about life that you didn’t already know. That was something Joyce wanted no part of. It seemed to her a waste of love.
Poor Irene. Joyce could imagine easily how it had happened. Stuck in Bakerton, answering phones at the radio station; Irene bored and boy-crazy, starved for attention. An easy mark for a fellow who wanted only one thing.
She crossed the tracks and began the hike up Polish Hill. Halfway up, the sidewalk ended; a narrow path wound alongside the road. The path was safer than the road, quicker than hiking through the woods. Still, it was a rough climb, narrow and winding and littered with red dog. One false step and you’d easily twist an ankle, trip and fall headlong down the steep hill.
Irene, Joyce reflected, had taken a false step, one nobody would let her forget: I thought the whole town knew. She herself had stuck to the path. As far as she could tell, it was the only logical route, even though it didn’t take her anywhere she wanted to go.
The days grew shorter. By suppertime it was nearly dark. The family ate at the big table in the kitchen. Lucy chattered about her day at school. Sandy hunched silently over his plate. Rose cooked enough for ten: huge vats of minestrone, piles of macaroni, pounds of eggplant baked with cheese. She herself took seconds and sometimes thirds. Joyce reminded her, gently at first: A serving of noodles is two ounces. She had saved the leaflet from the doctor’s office and pasted it to the refrigerator door. Finally she bought a scale at the drugstore and meted out the portions herself.
In the evenings they sat together in the parlor: Joyce reading, Lucy doing homework, Rose hemming skirts or trousers by hand. A tailor in town paid her a half-dollar per item. She sewed for ten, twenty minutes at a time, then stopped to rest her eyes.
Years later, looking back, Joyce would try to remember where Sandy spent those evenings. Often he barricaded himself in his room. “Homework,” he said, when Joyce asked what he did in there for hours on end. He said it with a twist to his lips, a smart-aleck tone that made her feel foolish. He seemed to be laughing at her.
Some nights a car would park in front of the house and honk its horn. Then Sandy would rumble down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Joyce would call after him.
“Uptown,” he’d answer, slamming the door behind him.
A few times she had gone to the window. Each time a different car—a green Plymouth, a Studebaker sedan—and a different girl. Sandy hopped inside, and the car tore away, scattering gravel. Music from the open windows, a silly song that had been popular that summer: Rag mop, rag mop.
JOYCE FILLED OUT APPLICATIONS at the phone company and the post office, the grocery store and the five-and-ten. She could run a cash register or serve customers at the candy counter. It wouldn’t be ideal, but she could do it. Still nobody called.
A month passed. The weather turned cold. The winter coal was delivered and paid for. Lucy’s parochial school tuition came due.
“She could try the public school,” Rose said hesitantly, but Joyce disagreed. She herself had graduated Bakerton High and considered her own education lacking. Unlike Sandy, Lucy was a good student. If the town had a better school, she deserved to go there.
In November Joyce went to work at the dress factory.
She was placed on the second floor, collars and facings. In the same department were two of her classmates from high school, Sylvia Fierro and Frances Scalia. Irene Jevic followed the other two like a lost child. Her first day on the job Joyce noticed them in the lunchroom, Sylvia and Frances chattering loudly, Irene chewing silently at her sandwich.
“Hi there,” said Joyce, pulling up a chair.
Irene looked stunned. “What are you doing here?”
“Collars and facings. I started this morning.”
“Holy cow.”
For a long time neither spoke. “Holy cow” pretty much covers it, Joyce reflected. There was nothing more to say.
“Sorry I missed you on Saturday,” Irene said. “I left my glasses at the dentist’s. I had to run back and get them.”
“That’s okay. I had a nice visit with your mother.”
Irene chewed silently at a thumbnail. Her fingernails, Joyce noticed, were bitten to the quick.
“I guess you met Susan.” She spoke very quietly; Joyce had to strain to hear her. “My baby sister.”
“Yes,” said Joyce. “I did.”
“The last of the Mohicans.” Irene smiled wanly. “With ten brothers and sisters she’ll be spoiled rotten. You can imagine.”
Joyce thought of the Punnett squares she’d studied in high school biology; then of Irene’s parents, with their watery blue eyes. Irene hadn’t taken biology. No one had told her that two blue-eyed parents couldn’t produce a brown-eyed baby.
“She’s a beautiful child,” Joyce said.
“I think so, too,” said Irene.
JOYCE’S TASK, at first glance, was a simple one. She was assigned to a machine and given two piles of fabric—one pile of collars, one pile of facings. She was to stitch a collar to the underside of a facing, then pass the pieces on to Mrs. Purdy, who fitted them into the bodice of a dress at a speed that seemed supernatural. One after another Joyce stitched together the curved bits of fabric, cursing her slowness. Around her the machines roared. The foreman, a big sullen man named Alvin Blick, watched her from the door. Twice she attached the collars backwards. Criminy, she thought. I’ll go crazy doing this.
By the end of her second day she had developed a system, a way of laying out the pieces on her table and folding the edges together so that the fabric fed smoothly into the machine. After that the work became automatic, and her mind began to wander. She remembered the interminable trip to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, three days by train. Basic training; the heat a constant presence, like a sleeping beast. Maneuvers at noon: the malevolent sun, girls collapsing on the parade grounds. The air force had provided salt tablets; the briny water turned her stomach, but still she kept drinking. It was impossible to drink enough. At night she slept deeply, the night loud with bugs. Sometimes, when the factory whistle roused her, she felt she’d traveled a hundred miles. Then she looked up from her machine and saw she hadn’t been anywhere at all.
She worked as part of a team. There were four girls who fused collars and facings, three older women who attached the collars to the bodices. To Joyce’s left sat Mrs. Purdy’s daughter, a big, slow-witted girl named Betty. Though she’d worked there for months, she was clumsier than Joyce. At least twice an hour her thread would break. Several times a day the fabric became caught in her machine. When this happened, Mrs. Purdy would get up from her own machine and lumber over to Betty’s. She moved slowly, rheumatism in her knees and back. Only her fingers were fast.
Blick, the foreman, began to notice. “You’re getting backed up,” he’d yell, and it was true: a pile of collars and facings would accumulate each time Mrs. Purdy left her machine. At those moments Joyce thought of her sister Dorothy, who’d lasted eight months before Alvin Blick fired her. Dorothy was as timid as Betty Purdy; Joyce imagined her trembling like a child whenever Blick glanced in her direction.
He’s a bully, she thought. She had strong opinions about bullies. The air force was full of them. She’d spent four years at their mercy.
One day after lunch she returned to her machine early and showed Betty her method for laying out the fabric. “It’s quicker this way,” she said. She felt Alvin Blick watching them from across the room.
The whistle blew; the women settled at their machines. Later, when Betty’s thread broke, Joyce reached over and quickly rethreaded the machine. Mrs. Purdy looked up, surprised.
“Thank you, dear,” she whispered.
Joyce became so skilled at rethreading Betty’s machine that she barely rose from her chair; most times Alvin Blick, busy barking orders at the cutters or glaring at one of the other girls, didn’t even notice. Over time Betty’s thread broke less often; only rarely did the machine gobble up her fabric. Free of interruptions, Mrs. Purdy attached collars to bodices at her usual blistering speed. Joyce was nearly as fast. In this way their section became the most efficient on the floor. The women downstairs, who assembled the bodices before sending them up to Mrs. Purdy, could scarcely keep up.
Lucy loved all holidays, but Halloween was her favorite. The festivities combined candy and compliments, her two favorite treats. Each year her mother sewed her a special costume. At different times she had been a fairy, a gypsy, a kitten with whiskers and a tail of fake fur. This year she would be Pocahontas, the Indian princess. Her sister Dorothy would come home from Washington especially for the occasion, to braid her long black hair.
In the past her costumes had gotten only two wearings: trick-or-treat in the neighborhood, and the children’s costume party in the fire hall uptown. But this year the third grade had an especially nice teacher. A Halloween party would be held Friday morning at school.
On Thursday afternoon Lucy sat at the kitchen table, flattening cookie dough with a rolling pin. Her mother padded around in bare feet, singing along with the radio: “Come on-a My House,” in a funny voice that sounded like her aunt Marcella. The song always made Lucy laugh. They were singing together when the back door opened.
“Mama, what are you doing?” Joyce stood in the doorway, her coat over her arm, a pinched expression on her face. A draft filled the kitchen.
“Making cookies.” Her mother stood with her back to the oven. “Your sister need them for school.”
Joyce sighed.
Lucy stared down at her floury hands, the circle of dough she had rolled flat on the counter. They had cut the dough into different shapes—a witch, a jack-o’-lantern—and dusted them with colored sugar. In between they nibbled at the sweet, buttery dough, which tasted better than the finished cookies.
Her mother took a pan from the oven. “I leave the sugar off these. See? They’re not so bad.”
“Mama.”
“Me, I just bake them. I don’t eat none.”
Lucy’s heart quickened. It was a lie; they had each eaten five or six. Her mother turned on the faucet and scraped at the bar of soap, to clean the black-and-orange sugar from beneath her fingernails.
Joyce turned to Lucy. “Honey, go upstairs and wash your hands. You’re all sticky.” She smiled then—an afterthought, it seemed to Lucy. Joyce was usually too busy to smile. Busy reading something, cleaning something, folding laundry with more energy than seemed necessary. When she picked clean sheets from the clothesline, the fabric made a whipping noise, like a flag flapping in the wind. She expected Lucy to be busy, too: to red up her room and set the table every night for supper, to gather the eggs each morning before school.
“After that you can start your homework,” Joyce called after her. “I’ll be up in a minute to see how you’re doing.”
AT THE TOP of the stairs Lucy listened.
“Mama, you can’t,” said Joyce. “The doctor told you. No more sweets.”
“I make for your sister. That school cafeteria, they cut corners. She don’t get enough to eat.”
“She doesn’t need them either. Lucy is overweight. She can barely fit into her uniform.”
Lucy’s hands went to her belly, swollen now with raw cookie dough.
“She still growing,” said Mama.
“We have to do something. It’s not bad now, but what happens when she gets older? She could have a weight problem for the rest of her life.”
Lucy backed away from the railing. A coppery taste in her mouth, from gnawing the inside of her cheek.
“Lucy is beautiful,” said Mama. “She’ll always be beautiful.”
SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL; Lucy knew this as she knew her eyes were brown. She’d been told it her whole life—by her mother and Dorothy, her Italian aunts, the Polish ladies who lived in the neighborhood. An Indian princess: this was how Lucy had come to think of herself. She was no blond, bland Rapunzel, cooped up in the tower; but a warrior in the wild, fast and strong. Born in November, just past the cutoff date, she’d been kept back a year and was the oldest in her class. She was also the tallest. She could run faster and throw farther than any boy in the third grade. At the noon recess they played stickball, dodgeball, frenzied games of tag and Red Rover. She came back to the classroom soaked with sweat, her blouse sticking to her back. If the other girls ignored her, she didn’t care. Pocahontas had no girlfriends either. Her braves were the only friends she needed.
Now, standing before the bedroom mirror, she examined the swell of her belly. She was getting bigger; lately her school uniform cut her under the arms. Each night after supper, she undid the top button of her dungarees. Her mother had always changed into her nightgown after supper, removing her girdle with a great sigh of relief. Lucy could see that the girdle hurt her, leaving angry red marks across her belly. Now she wore the girdle all the time. Since Joyce’s return, they had all suffered.
There was a knock at the door.
“How’s the homework coming?” Joyce called.
Lucy buttoned her dungarees.
“Fine,” she answered. Her mother never asked about homework; neither, when she visited, did Dorothy. Instead they listened to the radio after supper: first the news, then Gunsmoke or The Red Skelton Show. Fridays were the best nights, because of Mario Lanza. He sang in a deep voice, like a priest; his show was her mother’s favorite, a special occasion. Friday nights they shared a big bowl of buttered popcorn and a plate of macaroons.
Joyce came into the room and sat on the bed. “What are you learning in arithmetic?” she asked, peering over Lucy’s shoulder. “Times tables?” She took the book from Lucy’s hands. “Let me quiz you.”
Lucy felt sick. “That’s okay.”
“I don’t mind. What’s three times eight?”
Joyce led her through the threes and fours. By the fives she was struggling. By the sixes it was clear that she hadn’t studied at all.
“We just started the sixes today,” said Lucy, taking back her book. This was a lie. They’d already been assigned the elevens and twelves.
“Just the same, you don’t want to fall behind. If you’re not sure of the sixes, you’ll get all confused with the sevens.” Joyce glanced at the clock. “Give it another half hour.”
“But my program is starting.” Every Thursday she listened to Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. She had never missed an episode. “Can’t I study after that?”
“At nine o’clock? You’ll fall asleep on your math book.” Joyce rose. “Twenty minutes on the sixes. I’ll quiz you again tomorrow night.”
LUCY LAY IN BED, unable to sleep. Her stomach hurt, but it was anger that kept her awake. She glanced at the clock. Eleven-thirty, and her mother still hadn’t come to bed.
She crept downstairs and found Rose sitting at the kitchen table. Before her were three cookies on a plate.
“Whatsa matter, bella? How come you still awake?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Lucy sat. “Can I have a cookie?”
Her mother handed her one.
“What happened to the rest?”
“I had a couple. I make you some more tomorrow. Here.” She handed Lucy another cookie and took the last for herself. “We eat the last two. Don’t tell your sister.” She smiled, showing her gold tooth.
Lucy held the cookie, shaped like a witch. Like Joyce, she thought, but she knew better than to say so. Her mother wouldn’t stand for it.
“Your sister, she just trying to help,” her mother said, as though she’d read Lucy’s mind. “It’s okay for you. You still growing. Me, I’m an old lady. I got to watch what I eat.”
Lucy swallowed hard. She had noticed it already. Other mothers wore Bermuda shorts and lipstick. Their voices were girlish. They did not have gray hair. The girls at school had noticed, too. Once, when her mother had walked her to school wearing a scarf over her head, Connie Kukla had laughed at her. “Your mom looks like a stata baba,” she teased. Lucy hated Connie Kukla. It was the worst thing anyone had ever said to her in her life.
“Whatsa matter, bella? Come here.”
Lucy settled into her mother’s lap, the broad bosom dusted with cookie crumbs. She inhaled and wiped her running nose. “You’re not old.”
Her mother handed her the last cookie.
“You’re a good girl,” she said.
“I SEE WHAT you’ve been doing.”
Joyce looked up from her machine. The deep voice had startled her. The other girls had already filed down to the lunchroom. Alvin Blick stood before her, his hands in his pockets.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Helping that Purdy girl.” He smiled, showing bad teeth. His fat face was flushed; pink blotches stood out on his neck. Why, he’s nervous, Joyce thought.
“She was headed for trouble before you showed up,” said Blick. “She slowed down the whole line. I was thinking about letting her go.” He eyed the pile of finished collars in her bin. “Where’d we find you? Just out of school?”
“I was in the service.”
“A WAC?” His eyebrows shot up. “I thought they got rid of those after the war.”
“They did. But there are regular women’s units now in the air force.” Joyce sat back in her chair, feeling small. Her eyes were level with his belt.
“No kidding.” He leaned one large hand on the edge of her table. Its legs squeaked in protest. “I was in the army, myself. Bastogne. That’s where I got this.” He patted a beefy thigh. “Two bullets. One of them’s still in there. Leave it, I said. They just about killed me taking the first one out. It was worse than getting shot.”
Joyce smiled stiffly. Every man she met seemed to have a similar story. Those who hadn’t been wounded described their buddies’ wounds. A few had offered to show their scars.
“I have to get to lunch,” she said, rising.
“Okay, then.” Blick stepped away from her machine. “Dismissed.” He chuckled, giving her a clownish salute.
“Yes, sir,” said Joyce, her voice cold. “Thank you, sir.”
IT WAS A JOKE to him. To all of them: the recruiter who’d signed her up, the enlisted men who’d approached her at dances and mixers—back at Lackland, when she was green and foolish and still believed such events were worth attending. She’d been impressed with their uniforms and careful manners, believed them different from the crude miners who swore and chewed tobacco, the men who now laughed at her uniform in the street. She’d learned differently her third week of basic training, when a young private from South Dakota had walked her back to her barrack after a dance. Reeking of alcohol, he had bent to kiss her; when she pulled away he grabbed at her clothes and called her a name she’d never heard before. There was the officer who, examining a report she’d typed, laid his hand on her shoulder and slid a fat finger under her bra strap. When she flinched, he’d asked her if it was her time of the month.
There was Sergeant Theodore Fry, who’d overseen the recruitment office in Durham, North Carolina, where she’d been stationed her last ten months. He was married with four children; a stiff, reserved man who reminded her of her father. For six years he had run the office alone, until the air force decided a woman would have better success attracting recruits. He had complimented her efficiency, her quick grasp of office procedures. Yet in the end he failed her, too, a night when they both stayed late at the office. It was early December; by late afternoon the office was nearly dark. Together they sifted through boxes of recruits’ school records and half-completed forms, looking for a particular document Fry had neglected to file. Joyce was so horrified by the chaos, the laziness and indifference they represented, that she barely noticed him standing behind her, until the moment he grasped her hip and pressed himself firmly against her buttocks.
“For heaven’s sake!” she cried. “What are you doing?”
He apologized immediately, his face red. He talked about his wife, how he had not touched her in years; how he hadn’t thought about a woman in ages and might never have again, if the air force hadn’t sent him Joyce.
The air force sent me to sign up recruits, she thought. They did not send me to be your mistress.
“I appreciate that, sir,” she said stiffly. “But I’m not interested.”
He stared at her a moment, his fat face disbelieving. “Not interested,” he repeated. “Well, if you don’t mind my asking, Joyce, what did you sign up for, then?”
And in that terrible moment it had all made sense. Until then she’d tolerated the groping hands, the rude comments. The soldiers she’d once idolized had disappointed her sorely, but she’d been able to forgive them. They were, after all, just men. Some of them she’d even pitied: the eighteen-year-old private, away from home for the first time; the officer who hadn’t seen his wife in months. Brush it off, she told herself each time. She’d been slow to understand that the real humiliation didn’t come from these men, but from the air force itself, which had gone through the charade of creating women’s units for the simple purpose of keeping its real soldiers satisfied. She thought of the recruitment posters that decorated her office in Durham. SERVE WITH HONOR, they promised. The truth, she’d learned, was somewhat different. Serve in silence, she thought. Service the men who serve your country.
Quietly she served out her term in Durham. In July she notified the air force of her intent to separate. Two months later she was back in Bakerton.
Joyce arrived at the high school just after the final bell. The corridors were clogged with students: girls in socks and saddle shoes, awkward boys in plaid shirts. She ducked her head as she passed a group of laughing girls; she burned for an instant, an old feeling of loneliness and shame. They did not notice her; it took her a moment to realize why. In her hat and gloves she was invisible, as irrelevant as any other adult. The thought amused her, then filled her with relief.
She continued down the familiar hall, the linoleum with its alternating squares of green and gray. At the end of the hall was the principal’s office. She tapped lightly at the door.
A secretary, obviously pregnant, showed her to an inner office. Above the desk was a framed photo of President Eisenhower. Joyce studied his delicate features, his lovely eyes. To her he looked more like a handsome actor than a general.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said a voice behind her.
She turned. She’d expected a stooped, wizened man named Milton Campbell, who’d been the principal as long as there’d been a high school. This man was tall, with sloping shoulders. His sleeves and trousers were an inch too short. His fair hair had thinned at the temples, but his face was surprisingly young.
“Mrs. Novak. I’m Ed Hauser, the vice principal.” His hand was large and moist.
“Miss,” she corrected. The letter had been addressed to Rose, but she was too nervous to come. “My mother couldn’t make it. I’m Sandy’s sister.”
“Sorry about the letter,” said Hauser. “It says here that you don’t have a telephone.”
“How strange,” said Joyce. “I can’t imagine why.”
“I wrote to your mother once before, but she didn’t respond.”
“She’s been ill,” said Joyce.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
His voice was gentle, which confused her. She had expected a different kind of meeting. She was not prepared for kindness.
“Thank you,” she said briskly, keeping the tremor out of her voice. “Of course she’s concerned. We both are. Your letter took us by surprise. What exactly is the trouble with Sandy?”
“Did he tell you a truant officer picked him up last Monday?”
It took her a moment to respond. She was aware of his eyes on her. “No, sir,” she said automatically.
“Apparently he and another boy jumped on board the train as it was leaving the station. A man spotted them and called the police.”
“He could have been killed,” she said, feeling sick to her stomach. The coal trains were slow, but still.
“He’s a bright boy,” said Hauser. “All his teachers say so. But he doesn’t apply himself, and lately he’s absent as often as he’s present. If he continues like this, he’s liable to be left back again. Or worse.”
She frowned. There were worse things than failing a grade—being thrown from a coal train, for example—but just then she couldn’t think of many.
“According to his records he turns sixteen next month,” said Hauser. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he dropped out of school.”
Joyce thought of the evenings she’d spent at the kitchen table, poring over homework. Occasionally her father had looked up from his newspaper and given her a wink. He never would have let Sandy drop out of high school.
“This is terrible, Mr. Hauser. My father”—she took a deep breath—“was the disciplinarian in the family. He made sure we took our studies seriously. Sandy was just a little boy when he died.” She cleared her throat, sat back in her chair. If she kept talking, she knew that she would cry.
“What about your mother?”
“Sandy doesn’t listen to her.” Joyce thought of the green Plymouth idling in the street on a school night, the girl waiting in the front seat. “He does whatever he pleases.”
Hauser said nothing. He seemed to be watching her.
“I’m concerned about his future,” she said. “He’ll never find a good job if he doesn’t graduate. I’d never forgive myself if that happened.”
“Maybe you should tell him that.”
“I will.” Joyce’s mind raced. Sandy was rarely home in the afternoon; in the evening he appeared briefly at dinner. He got irritated when she asked about his day at school. Nothing happened, he’d say. Nothing ever happens.
“Mr. Campbell has spoken with him already,” said Hauser. “I can have a talk with him, too, if you’d like.”
“I’d appreciate that. I’ve been away for several years. I had no idea things had gotten so bad.”
Hauser smiled. “Were you away at college?”
“No.” She hesitated. “I was in the air force.”
“Where were you stationed?”
It was a reasonable question, one she herself might ask a fellow soldier. She waited for the joke.
“Durham, North Carolina,” she said warily. “Before that, Bellevue, Washington.” She waited for more—where and under whom he’d served, the bullet he’d taken, the medal he’d won.
“The Pacific Northwest. I hear it’s a beautiful part of the country. I’d like to see it one day.” He closed the folder on his desk. “Miss Novak, it was a pleasure to meet you. Have a talk with Sandy, and I’ll do the same. He needs to know we’re watching him. Sometimes that’s enough to straighten them out.” He stood. “Could I have your telephone number?”
Joyce felt her face warm.
“We should have it for the school records,” he explained.
“Of course,” she said, embarrassed. She recited the digits slowly, hoping she’d remembered them right.
VIOLA RECOGNIZED her from the other end of the hall. A tiny thing, plainly dressed, with excellent posture. Her movements were quick and precise.
“Joyce,” she called, surprising herself. In thirty years she hadn’t raised her voice inside the school. “Joyce Novak!”
Joyce turned. “Miss Peale?”
They met halfway down the corridor. “What a surprise to see you,” said Viola. “Are you home on holiday?”
“I separated in September. I live here now.”
Viola smiled uncertainly, unsure whether this was good news or bad. “What brings you to school?”
“I had a meeting with Mr. Hauser.” Joyce colored, as though she herself were in trouble. “About my brother, Sandy.”
“Oh dear.” Viola paused delicately. “Nothing serious, I hope.” She had taught Sandy a few years before. A poor student, she recalled, but pleasant and polite.
“Oh, no,” said Joyce. “I’m sure everything will be fine.” She glanced at her watch. “Miss Peale, I hate to run, but I’m due back at the factory. I’m on my lunch hour.”
“Of course, dear.” She took the hand Joyce offered and impulsively kissed her cheek.
“It was lovely to see you,” she said. “Good luck to you, Joyce.”
BACK IN HER CLASSROOM Viola ate lunch alone. She remembered the girl as she’d once been, her blond head bent over a textbook. Joyce was interested in everything: world events, biology and chemistry, the strange diet consumed in the Philippines. It was this quality, Viola later realized, that had distinguished her from all the others. From Viola herself.
I want to see the whole world, she’d said, trying to explain why she’d joined the air force. Had she seen anything at all? Viola wondered. Or had she perhaps seen too much?
She had tried back then, timidly and ineffectually. You’re an excellent student, Joyce. Have you considered some kind of school instead?
Joyce had looked at her as if she were senile, a foolish old woman. My mother is a widow, she said simply. Those few words had ended the discussion. Mortified, Viola had wished her luck; they had never again spoken of her future. All these years later, the memory still shamed her; the arrogance of her suggestion, as though a college education were something a coal miner’s child might realistically afford. For years she had blamed herself for doing nothing. For failing the most promising student she had ever known.
In the distance the factory whistle sounded. Viola paid no attention. She heard it every day but had never wondered what it meant.
Across town, Joyce Novak hurried to her sewing machine and went back to work.
HAUSER SPOTTED HIM from across the street. He stood in the school parking lot next to a green Plymouth. With him were two girls, a brunette and a blonde. They were all smoking cigarettes.
“Novak!” he called.
The girls dropped their cigarettes and furtively stamped them out. Sandy Novak met Hauser’s gaze.
All right, pretty boy, Hauser thought. Drop the damned cigarette.
Sandy took a leisurely drag, a long exhale. Then slowly, deliberately, he ground out the butt with his heel.
“No smoking on school property,” said Hauser, approaching them.
“I put it out,” said Sandy.
They glanced uncertainly at Sandy.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll walk home.”
The girls got into the car. Sandy stared expectantly at Hauser.
“Your sister was here this afternoon.”
Sandy didn’t speak, just raised his eyebrows.
“We’ve been sending letters to your mother, but I understand she is ill.”
Still the boy said nothing.
“Your sister gave us your phone number. You said you didn’t have a telephone.”
“We didn’t,” he said at last.
“The point is, I told her about the stunt you pulled at the train station. Scared her half to death.”
“You told her that?”
“She had a right to know. As far as she knew, you were coming to school every day like a model citizen. She couldn’t believe how many days you’ve missed.”
Sandy avoided his eyes.
“The thing is,” said Hauser, “we don’t want any surprises. When you flunk the tenth grade, at least your family will know it’s coming.”
Sandy kicked at the ground with his shoe. “I turn sixteen next month. I can quit then, if I want. You can’t do anything about it.” A smile tugged at his mouth. For a moment he looked like a little boy.
“That’s true,” said Hauser. “But the mines won’t take you until you’re eighteen. That’s the law now. And you can’t join the air force like your sister did. You need a high school diploma.”
His smile faded. “You do?”
“That is correct.” Hauser wasn’t sure about this, but it sounded right. “Look, I don’t care if you quit. I’ve got five hundred other kids to worry about. But your sister wants you to graduate. You could do it easily, if you cut out the funny business. All you have to do is show up.”
Sandy waited.
“Can you do that much, Novak? Come to school every day and get yourself to class on time. You do that, and I’ll make sure you pass.” He paused. “Do we have a deal?”
Sandy shrugged lazily. Then grinned, a million-dollar smile.
“Sure,” he said. “It’s a deal.”
They sent Sandy to the butcher’s uptown, and he came back with a twelve-pound turkey. Rose stationed Joyce at the sink to peel potatoes. Dorothy, home from Washington for the holiday, sat at the table chopping onions for stuffing.
“That’s some mighty wasteful peeling,” Sandy teased, looking over Joyce’s shoulder. “You’re throwing away half the potato.”
“Let’s see you do any better.”
“Don’t look at me. I’ve done my part.” He thumped his chest, caveman-style. “That bird’s heavier than it looks.”
He was in unusual spirits. Joyce couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile, let alone clown around in the kitchen. She had tried talking to him about his problems at school; he’d cut her off with a rare apology. I’m sorry, Joyce. I’ll straighten up. I promise. Since then he’d been pleasant, even affectionate, the way he’d been as a boy.
“Is this enough?” Dorothy asked. She had accumulated a pile of chopped onions.
Rose clomped over to inspect them, in the new house slippers Joyce had bought her. “Try to get them all the same size,” she advised.
Sandy frowned. “Mrs. Novak, these females have no business in the kitchen. No wonder they can’t find husbands.”
“Who says we’re looking?” said Joyce.
“Well, what are you waiting for? That’s what I’d like to know. Neither one of you is getting any younger. I’ll bet Lucy beats you both to the altar. There will be two of you dancing in the trough.”
“Eeee, the trough!” Rose clapped a hand over her mouth. “When your aunt got married I couldn’t believe it. Her sister in the trough like a pig.”
“Not an ordinary pig,” said Sandy. “A dancing pig.”
“She must have been humiliated,” said Joyce. “To think her own family put her through that, just because her sister got married first.”
“Them Polish, they crazy people,” said Rose.
“I think it’s a splendid tradition. I’m already looking forward to Lucy’s wedding. Dorothy and Joyce will bring down the house.” Sandy rose and performed a little jig, daintily lifting an imaginary skirt.
“Stop!” said Dorothy. She was flushed from laughing. “You’re a terrible boy.”
“I’m never getting married,” said Lucy.
Sandy raised an eyebrow at Joyce. “You see the example you’re setting?”
“Oh, honey,” said Dorothy. “Why not?”
“I don’t want to go away. I want to stay here.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Do you ever hear from Georgie?” Dorothy asked.
“Once in a blue moon,” said Joyce.
“He’s not much for writing,” said Dorothy. “Maybe I should get a telephone.”
“He don’t like the phone neither,” Rose observed. “He call maybe once a month.”
“He must be very busy,” said Dorothy. “The baby and all.”
They had never seen the child, Arthur Quigley Novak, but several times a year George sent photos. The first few had been dutifully framed and placed on a bureau in the living room. More recent shots were tucked into a drawer. In Bakerton Arthur remained an infant. In actual fact he was nearly four years old.
Rose’s face darkened. “It’s that girl he marry. She don’t like it here. She get a headache that time they come.” After that first visit, Georgie had always come to Bakerton alone. The family hadn’t seen Marion in years.
Silence fell over the kitchen. Joyce glanced at Dorothy. Her eyes were moist.
“What’s the matter?” said Joyce.
“Onions.” Dorothy rose, dabbing at her eyes with her wrist. “I should wash my hands.”
Joyce watched her head upstairs. Dorothy had always loved Georgie too much. Every year she was devastated when he didn’t come for Christmas, though by now no one else expected him to show. She didn’t understand that Georgie had left Bakerton completely, as Sandy soon would; that neither love nor obligation nor concern for their mother would be enough to keep the Novak boys in Bakerton. It seemed to Joyce that men were made differently, that love and guilt didn’t work on them in the same way. She didn’t blame her brothers for this. She envied them. She herself had tried to leave. She probably would have succeeded, if she had been born a boy.
AFTER DINNER Joyce and Dorothy stacked the dishes beside the sink.
“Blick,” said Joyce. “A heavyset fellow, with a red face.”
“That’s the one. I still have nightmares about him.” Dorothy swiped at a plate. “Joyce, how can you stand it? I know what that place is like.”
“It’s not so bad.”
“Did you ever think of coming to Washington? Mag Spangler is a supervisor now. She’s the one who got me in at Interior, after all those wartime jobs were eliminated. Maybe she could find you something.” She stacked a roasting pan in the drainer. “I wouldn’t mind the company. It gets lonely down there.”
Joyce studied her. Dorothy’s face had aged. The skin beneath her eyes looked thin and bluish, as though she slept poorly. “Maybe you should find a roommate. Didn’t you have one once?”
“I did, years ago.” After the deaf schoolteacher retired and moved back to Georgia, Dorothy had taken over her tiny single room. “Never again. Let me tell you, living with a stranger isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Dorothy hung her towel on the rack. “We could get ourselves a little apartment. It would be a treat to get out of the boardinghouse.”
Joyce had visited Dorothy the summer before, on a brief furlough from North Carolina. Dorothy’s cramped little room had struck her as grimmer than the barracks. It seemed impossible that she had lived there almost ten years.
“I know you hate to leave Mama,” said Dorothy. “But she’s got Lucy and Sandy. It’s not as if she’s alone.”
Joyce smiled, thinking of Sandy’s dance in the kitchen. He was no help, but at least he was company. Meanwhile Rose had become more vigilant about her diet. Most days she wore her slippers without prompting. After dinner she’d refused a slice of pie.
“Maybe,” said Joyce. “We’ll see what the doctor has to say.”
JOYCE AND ROSE left early the next morning with a lunch Dorothy had packed, sandwiches of stuffing and leftover turkey. Afterward Dorothy sat alone in the kitchen. She heard movement overhead. Lucy appeared on the stairs in her nightgown.
“Where’s Mama?” she asked.
“She just left,” said Dorothy. “Joyce took her to the doctor.”
“Is she sick?”
“No, honey.” Dorothy rose and poured her a glass of milk. “She went to get her eyes checked.”
“Does she need glasses?”
“Maybe so,” said Dorothy.
“I don’t think she does.” For as long as Lucy could remember, her mother had been perfectly healthy. She had eaten whatever she wanted. There had never been anything wrong with her eyes. All these problems had begun when Joyce came.
“Mama’s getting older, honey. These things happen when people get older.”
Lucy didn’t respond.
“Come on,” said Dorothy. “Let me make you some breakfast.”
IN THE WAITING ROOM, Joyce flipped through a two-year-old magazine: Reds Sign Pact with China. Rose glanced nervously around the room, her pupils dilated from the eyedrops the nurse had given her. In one corner, a boy sat next to his mother, his eyes covered in bandages. An old man walked awkwardly with a white-tipped cane.
Finally the nurse called Rose’s name. She clutched Joyce’s arm as they walked down a long corridor.
The doctor, a wizened old man named Lucas, shined a flashlight in Rose’s eyes, then turned off the lamp and had her read a backlit chart on the wall. He made her look into a large machine and asked her what she saw.
“How long have you been diabetic?” he asked.
“We found out last month,” said Joyce.
“Are you controlling your blood sugar?”
“She’s working on it,” said Joyce.
He turned on the light. “You are suffering from a condition called diabetic retinopathy. Your blood sugar has been high probably for years and in that time an important nerve has been damaged, the nerve that connects the eyes to the brain.” He paused. “When did you first notice a change in your vision?”
Rose hesitated. “Maybe last year,” she said. Then considered. “Maybe two years.”
Mama! Joyce wanted to cry. Why didn’t you say anything? She thought of the broken windows at the house, the rotten floorboards on the porch. It was just like Rose to ignore the problem, and nobody else had been around to notice. Joyce gone. Dorothy and Georgie gone. Left to her own devices, Rose had simply pretended. That nothing had changed. That she wasn’t going blind.
“This is a degenerative condition. Once it has begun, its tendency is to progress. How quickly, we do not know.” The doctor paused. “Mrs. Novak, how old are you?”
“Fifty-three,” said Rose.
His mouth tightened. “It’s hard for me to judge. I can’t see precisely what you’re seeing. But it appears that your condition is quite advanced for a woman of your age. Do you live alone?”
“No,” said Joyce. “I live with her.”
“Good,” said Lucas. “She’ll need your help.”
THE TREATMENTS, called radioactive retinography, would be fourteen in all. Lucas scheduled them two weeks apart, which meant seven months of trips to Pittsburgh. The morning after the doctor’s visit, Joyce sat at the kitchen table with pencil and paper, calculating the cost of bus tickets. A single round-trip ticket was ten dollars. But Rose’s vision had deteriorated dramatically; she could not travel alone.
There was no way around it. Joyce would have to buy a car.
She walked to the dealership that Friday night, with fifty dollars in cash withdrawn from her savings account. The same salesman was on duty, the pimple-faced boy in the ill-fitting suit. “I’d like that car,” she said, pointing. Her voice held a certainty she did not feel. “That Rambler.”
The boy’s eyes widened, stunned by the ease of the sale. He hadn’t even said hello. “Don’t you want to take it for a test drive?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “May I use your telephone?”
Sandy answered. She knew he would; he always raced for the phone on Friday nights.
“It’s Joyce,” she said. “I need your help.”
HE TAUGHT HER in six lessons. She drove hesitantly, with much grinding of the gears, but well enough to pass the licensing exam the second time out. The first failure, a mercifully brief humiliation at the hands of an avuncular state policeman, she did not allow herself to register. Brush it off, she repeated each time the engine stalled. She had never failed a test of any kind.
The officer wouldn’t let her drive home afterward. Sandy took the wheel instead. When Joyce returned from failing her test, he was leaning against the registration counter joking with the clerk, a stout, matronly woman who’d held up the line to bring him a cream-filled doughnut.
“Weren’t you nervous?” she asked him later. “She could have asked to see your license.”
“Nah. I’m a good driver. I don’t need a stinking license.”
She watched him weave expertly through the Saturday traffic. He’s probably right, she thought. Her brother seemed to have an instinctive gift for steering around obstacles. Because of his charm or his looks, or simply because he expected them to, people liked him. And if military life had taught her anything, it was this: if the right people liked you, the rules often did not apply. The realization had stunned her—its unfairness, its cruelty. Joyce had never charmed anyone in her life. It had never occurred to her to try.
Sandy hit the gas and raced through a yellow light. If he weren’t her brother, if she’d met him somewhere out in the world—at school or in the service—she’d have disliked him on sight: his slouching posture, the palpable male confidence that hummed around him like an electrical field. His laziness would have infuriated her; his contempt for authority would have seemed a personal affront. But he was not a stranger. Lazy or not, cocky or not, Sandy was hers. Even his charm was forgivable. In some way it, too, belonged to her.
LICENSE IN HAND, Joyce faced other hurdles. The drive itself, for one, a nerve-shattering experience that left both her and Rose sweating and irritable. They were an hour late for Rose’s first appointment. Joyce had stopped twice to ask directions; she had taken a series of wrong turns and nearly collided with another car when she drove through a stoplight. The parking garage mystified her; she had parked illegally on the street and would almost certainly get a ticket. Still, they had made it. We’re here, she thought.
The treatments themselves were not painful. Rose sat for forty minutes in a tiny room, in what looked like a dentist’s chair, her lap draped in a lead apron. A nurse instructed her to keep her eyes closed as the room was bombarded with brilliant light. Afterward she had a slight headache, but felt much like herself. The misery came the following day, a violent nausea that left her trembling and soaked with perspiration, so weak she could barely stand. This lasted for several days. When the nausea left her, she was extraordinarily tired. By the time she felt better, it was time for another treatment. Joyce helped her into the car, which they had both come to view as an instrument of torture. Rose had lost much of her sight. She complained that everything looked fuzzy, even her hand in front of her face. She had lost weight and was sick with dread of what lay ahead of her. What am I doing? Joyce thought. What am I doing to my mother?
The appointments were mostly on Saturday afternoons, but twice Joyce had to miss a day of work. This attracted some attention at the factory. Finally she explained the situation to Alvin Blick.
“Well, now,” he said, scratching his head. “They are called sick days, but the idea is that you’re the one who’s sick. You can’t go taking them when other people are sick.” He smiled, showing his bad teeth. “Can’t your mother get to the hospital by herself?”
“No,” said Joyce. “She’s—” She had never said it aloud before. It seemed a terrible betrayal. “Going blind,” she finished.
Blick nodded, as though this were to be expected. “Mine’s hard of hearing. Old age is no picnic.” He rose. “I don’t know what to tell you, Joyce. You’re one of my best girls. I’d hate to lose you.”
She watched him go, thinking how she was already lost.
SALVATION CAME in a phone call.
“Miss Novak?” said a deep male voice. “It’s Ed Hauser, at the high school.”
In the next room, Rose and Lucy were eating dinner. They’d set a place for Sandy, but he hadn’t come home from school. Joyce had no idea where he could be. She prepared herself for the worst.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, her voice small.
“Oh, yes. In fact, I’m hoping you’ll consider this good news. I have a proposition for you.” It took her a moment to absorb what he was saying. The school secretary was in the hospital—her baby had arrived sooner than expected—and he needed a replacement immediately. He was offering her the job.
“Why me?” said Joyce.
“You come highly recommended. Viola Peale was in my office today singing your praises. She can’t say enough about you, which is fairly remarkable considering she hasn’t spoken a word to me in five years.” He paused. “I’m hoping you can start Monday. Are you interested?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “But don’t I have to have an interview, or something?”
Hauser laughed. “The school day begins at seven-thirty. Interview at seven-fifteen.”