A manila envelope came in the mail that morning shortly after my phone call. I ate a hurried lunch and made the climb upstairs to the dorm to open it before the other girls came up. Inside were Mama’s birthday card with a twenty tucked inside and a letter from Elvis.
I sat staring at Elvis’s letter. The shock of having been violated hit me. A small rip on the edge of the flap, as well as excess glue on the seal, betrayed that the letter had been opened. Neither Carmen nor Mama had said a word about having read it. Translated, that meant they didn’t want me to know.
Even though Mama usually asked what Elvis said in his letters, she had never, and I knew she would never open mail addressed to me. She’d read mail I’d already opened and hidden under my mattress, but to her, actually opening another person’s mail was tantamount to stealing.
Carmen was another story. I didn’t know her convictions about such things. Still, it might not have been Carmen. With me gone, maybe Mama had felt it her duty to censor what was sent to me at the home. No matter who it was, I felt violated. Someone had read my letter from Elvis.
I removed the little bag from my bra and stuffed the twenty in with the hundred-dollar bill. When it was pinned safely back in its place, I stared out the window by my bed, wishing I had enough to escape from this place, get on a plane, and fly to Memphis or California, wherever Elvis was, and pretend for a time I was the girl I used to be. The thought swelled my throat. Most likely I would never see Elvis again, except on the big screen. And no way under heaven would I ever again be the girl I used to be, for no amount of money would permit me to escape from myself.
My baby moved inside me. A surge of love so great it was indescribable went through me—overpowering the desolation I’d felt after reading Elvis’s letter and distracting me from thoughts of escape. No, I would stay here and have my baby, Farrel’s and my baby. There was no escape anyway, even if you did have a big movie star for a friend. I still had to live in my own skin.
“Julie, come quick!” Marty burst into the dorm. “Miss Oldenburg is doing a presentation in the dining hall, and everyone is required to attend.”
I set Mama’s card on my bedside table and stuffed Elvis’s letter in the drawer beneath it.
“Hurry up! She’ll pitch a fit if we aren’t there when she starts,” Marty said between heavy breaths as we hurried from the dorm. “I saw you put that letter in your drawer. Is it from Elvis?”
“Yes. I’ll show it to you later.”
Silence pervaded the dining hall. The girls had adjusted their chairs to see the screen Miss Oldenburg had set up at the head of the room.
“Tempus fugits, Julie and Marty. Make haste and take a seat,” Oldenburg said. “You’re holding up the works.”
The projectionist flipped the light switch, and the room was left with only sunlight leaking through the shades. The clicking of film threading through the projector sounded, and the screen lit up with a picture of a little boy running toward a jungle gym on a school playground. A male narrator pointed out that the child was dressed in the latest style of kids’ clothing. We watched other children playing in the background who were similarly dressed—all but one. Off to the side stood a little girl, watching with a wistful face. A close-up showed a rip in her dress and dirt on her cheek. She was alarmingly frail.
A man and woman, obviously husband and wife, waved to the well-dressed boy. Leaping off the jungle gym, he ran into their wide-open arms.
The scene shifted to a woman in a factory, working with shoes as they passed on a conveyor belt. Her hands moved so quickly they became a blur. Her hair was stringy, and her dress hung askew on her bony frame.
The scene faded to a shot of the husband and wife walking up to their front door, each holding a hand of the well-dressed boy between them. All three laughed with joy. The man tossed the child and caught him. The child crowed with delight. From that scene, a picture flashed on of the factory mother trudging home to a tenement building at the end of the day. As she opened her door, the skinny little girl could be seen placing knives and forks on a table cluttered with junk. She brought two bowls and a box of cereal to the table and filled the milk pitcher with water.
The film took twenty-five minutes to contrast the luxurious life of the well-dressed boy and his parents with the tattered child and her mom. When the dining hall lights came up again, several girls were wiping tears.
Miss Oldenburg stood before us.
“The man and woman you saw with the little boy were two heart-broken people who had received the fatal verdict that they could never have children. Then, a miracle happened. A girl, just like one of you, chose to do the right thing and give up her illegitimate baby for adoption. The factory worker represents you, if you follow the selfish path and refuse to do what is best for you and your child.”
Murmurings and whispers followed Miss Oldenburg’s next words. “Would you deliberately choose to hurt the child you are carrying?
“Most of you aren’t equipped financially to raise a child,” she went on, “and none of you are equipped morally. If you were, you would be married now with your condition acceptable to God, your families, and the world. But you are seen as lacking in character and moral values. And it isn’t necessarily your parents’ fault. I’ve met at least one parent of each of you. They are as different as night and day from you.”
Miss Oldenburg took a step toward us.
“Your parents are devastated by your careless actions. You have brought shame down upon their heads and upon your own. And when your baby is born, if you try to keep it, you will bring shame down on its head—shame and suffering. For ask yourself: what can you give a child? Your baby will be branded a bastard to all the world, and you will be branded a slut for the rest of your lives.”
Miss Oldenburg moved among us, touching various girls on the shoulder as she passed.
“If you think some nice man will come along and marry a fallen woman, you are sadly mistaken. You don’t even see the natural fathers of your babies asking to marry you and take care of the child, do you? What makes you think an adoptive father would do so? If you keep your child, you must prepare to rid yourselves of the idea that a decent man will marry you later. Your lives will be ruined.”
I gave an involuntary jump as she planted her hand on my shoulder. Looking up at her, I searched for something that would reveal what kind of person this woman was. A pair of brown, marble-like eyes looked back at me, eyes that held no compassion, no understanding. What they did hold was something I could not identify. I vowed to myself to make every effort to learn exactly what she was about—pressuring us like this to give our babies away—so that, God help me, I could make the right decision about the small human inside of me, whom I was growing to love more deeply every day.
Miss Oldenburg’s aspect changed abruptly. She fairly danced to the front of the room again. Her face took on a brightness I had never before seen in her. When she spoke again, her words were so filled with enthusiasm and joy she sounded as though she had seen the Rapture.
“If, however, you sign the papers to give your baby up,” she smiled upon us, “you can move on from this tragic occurrence, forget about it, and continue with your life as if it never happened. Think about it, those of you who are reluctant to sign. You are the ones this presentation is aimed toward.”
She wiped her nose with her handkerchief.
“Would those of you who have already signed please come forward and stand before the recalcitrants so they may see examples of true bravery and goodness and join me in applauding your willingness to do the right thing.”
More than half the girls straggled up and stood near her at the front of the room. Their puckered brows and anxious faces belied her promise of happiness and relief that was supposed to follow the signing of the papers. One raised her hand.
“Yes, Lucy?” Miss Oldenburg said.
“I don’t think I’m all that brave and good. I don’t want to give my baby up. I just don’t have any other choice.”
Miss Oldenburg beamed. “That’s entirely correct, Lucy. You don’t have another choice.” She turned to face us. “And the rest of you don’t either. I will be calling you one by one into my office during the following week and giving each of you the opportunity to prove your love for your baby. Prove it by signing the agreement to give it a good life, one that you can never provide.”
Many girls silently wept as we filed out of the dining hall. Marty and I shed no tears. Nor did Kay, the pillow pilferer, who wore a resolute face as she stepped along with us back to the dorm to get ready for our work details.
“All Miss Oldenburg and the owners of this home want is money,” Kay said. “Those adoptive parents are willing to pay big bucks to get a child. No one at this place gives a hoot about us or our babies. They don’t care how we feel. To them, we don’t deserve to have feelings.”
“Who else is there, besides Miss Oldenburg?” I asked.
“The doctors, the nurses, and the social worker who stops by every once in a while to help Oldenburg put the screws to us about signing.”
“Come on, Kay,” Marty said. “Let’s hurry it up so Julie can show us her letter from Elvis Presley before we have to go to the salt mines.”
Kay’s eyes grew large. “Elvis Presley? Is he your baby’s fa—?”
I cut her off. “No! He’s only my friend.”
They plopped down on my bed while I got out Elvis’s letter. I read it to them, then they each wanted to hold it.
“Just think,” Marty said when it was her turn. “Elvis the Pelvis wrote this letter. His fingers touched it.”
“It really bothers him to be called that,” I said.
“Nooo!” they chorused.
“But he said the worst thing was when they accused him of destroying us kids’ morals.” I gave a sad laugh. “It would take more than a beautiful voice like his to destroy anyone’s morals. I’ve been trying to sort this out in my head, and I’m almost there. I think moral standards are so slanted in favor of the boys that girls don’t have a chance to be normal human beings like God created us to be.”
“I like that,” Marty said.
Kay handed the letter back to me. “So do I. God created me to have sex and get pregnant.”
The two of them laughed.
“Well, He did, didn’t He?” I said. “And the boys. That’s all they think about. Why doesn’t anyone call them sluts?”
They stopped laughing.
“I mean, isn’t that one reason we’re here on this earth, to ‘be fruitful and multiply’?” I said.
Kay moaned. “Oh God, now she’s dragging the Bible into it.”
“Will you sign, Marty?” I asked.
She chewed on a hangnail and shook her head.
“I don’t want to.”
“Kay?” I said.
“I don’t want to either, but what choice do we have?”
I struggled to find the right words. “I mean, I live in this body, this skin. I know what I am, and I’m not a slut. I feel the same way I felt back when people saw me as a good girl—except for the shame. I don’t know if I can ever get past the shame.”
“We won’t, if we don’t sign the papers,” Kay said.
Marty nodded.
“But will we even then?” I asked. “What about the secret shame, never mind the pain we’ll bear for what I am afraid will be the rest of our lives because we abandoned our babies?”