Doing My Part, Page 3

her breath, but the line starts moving and doesn’t stop again until we break for lunch. I look up at Rita every now and then, trying to catch her eye, but she keeps her head low. She looks more tired than ever.

  At four o’clock, my workday is done. I meet Janie in the lobby, and we walk a mile to the bus stop to catch a ride back to Hayden’s Valley. The bus leaves earlier than the afternoon train. I tell Janie what Martha and Betty did to Rita, and she shakes her head. “Why are those two so mean?” she asks.

  “Rita says Betty was married once, but her husband left her and that soured her on life.”

  “What about Martha?”

  “Oh she’s just ornery. Grandpa says some folks are just born mean. It’s as much a part of their make- up as the color of their hair. I guess that’s Martha.”

  “Well, I think you should tell your foreman.”

  “I would if I could find him.”

  “What do you mean? Doesn’t he walk the line now and then?”

  “Not more than once or twice since I’ve been there. In the morning I sometimes see him dozing in the corner. In the afternoon, he disappears for long stretches. They say he’s gambling in the men’s bathroom.” I shouldn’t repeat something I heard only from Betty, but I’m frustrated now and I don’t care what I say.

  “Honestly!” Janie says. “It’s a wonder he’s kept his job.”

  I consider this for a moment. “I guess they have no choice,” I say. “With so many men off to war, maybe there aren’t enough good men to work as foremen.”

  “Well, even I could do a better job than him,” Janie says as we arrive at the bus stop. I pull her aside so no one can hear us.

  “It’s not what I expected, Janie. I thought working at Westclox would seem so grown up. But these people don’t act grown up at all. I don’t know if I like this job.”

  “Just wait, Helen. You’ll get used to it. You’ll see. Don’t quit on me now. Not because of a couple of old cows.”

  I laugh in spite of myself. I don’t remind Janie that I can’t quit no matter how bad things get. My family needs me now, at least until Mother can get back to work, and I’m not about to let them down.

  Janie changes the subject. She starts going on again about the floral dress with matching handbag she wants to order when she gets her paycheck. Maxine Land has one just like it, and Janie thinks Maxine is the height of fashion in our small town. I’m only half-listening, though. I’m still thinking about Betty and Martha. It’s gonna be a long summer if I don’t figure out how to deal with those two. But how?

  3 - Mrs. Osthoff

  A few days later, the bus drops me off downtown after work, and I wave good-bye to Janie. I have just enough time to get to Anderson Hardware before they close to buy the Mixmaster for Grandma Kate. I got my first two-week paycheck today for fifty-five dollars, and not even Martha or Betty could ruin my excitement. I’ve been holding my paycheck tightly the whole way home, afraid it might blow away or fall out of my pocket and slip under the seat. All day long I’ve been thinking about that Mixmaster. Grandma Kate looks at it every time we go into the store. She runs her hand along its smooth, white surface and sighs. I know she wants it, though she’d never buy it for herself. I’m going to get it for her as an early birthday present.

  “Good evening, Mr. Anderson,” I say, a little out of breath. “I want to buy that Sunbeam Mixmaster.”

  “Do you now?” He grins. Mr. Anderson has always liked me. He says I remind him of his daughter, but I can’t really. We both have chestnut- colored hair and brown eyes, but she’s much prettier than I am.

  “May I buy it on credit?” I ask. “I can pay you back as soon as I get to the bank to cash my check.”

  “Credit, huh? Well, I suppose I could start you an account in your own name. I can trust you, can’t I?”

  He’s teasing, but I know he wants me to answer him anyway. “You sure can, Mr. A.”

  I’m positively full of myself as I leave the store, carrying the mixer in its box with the picture facing out so everyone will know what I bought. Grandma Kate does most of the baking in our house. In fact, she does most of everything, and she’s always telling me I don’t help out as much as I should. Maybe this will make up for that.

  I’m balancing the box carefully to keep it safe, but I nearly drop it when Hal runs up behind me and pinches my sides. He steps in front of me, barring my way and grinning like a king’s fool.

  “Hal, you idiot,” I say. “Can’t you see I’m holding something?”

  Hal is Janie’s brother. He’s older than her by a little more than a year. I like him, when he’s not acting up. I like the way he lays his arm across my shoulders, as if I were his sister too, and says, “Hiya, Lanie.” He’s the only one who calls me that.

  “Oh come on, Lanie,” he says, pushing up his glasses. “No harm done. Here, let me carry that.”

  He takes the box, paying no attention to what’s inside it. I wish he would ask me what I bought so I can tell him how I used my own money, but he doesn’t. He’s wearing his blue, striped coveralls, and he must have just finished his shift pumping gas at the station. He’s worked there every summer since he was my age, so maybe making money doesn’t seem so special to him anymore.

  We talk about lots of things as we turn down Jefferson Street.

  “Gerald Schultz joined up this morning,” Hal says.

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, and Cindy Wittman is getting married.”

  “But she just turned seventeen!”

  “Well, lots of girls are thinking about it. Pretty soon their boyfriends will all be gone, so they gotta marry ‘em now,” Hal explains.

  “And all this happened today?” I ask.

  “Yep.”

  “I’m missing everything,” I groan.

  “Well, that’s the life of a working girl.”

  As we’re cutting down the alley that runs behind my house, Hal is telling me about the box of Hershey’s bars Mr. Simms has locked in a closet in the service station. Since they started rationing chocolate, a Hershey’s bar has become a precious thing. I’m about to ask if there’s any way Hal can sneak us one when I hear it — a high, piercing wail I’ve heard a dozen times before. It’s not like any sound a human would make, yet it has to be human. It’s coming from the open back window of Mrs. Osthoff’s house. There’s a short pause and then a long, low moan that pushes me closer to Hal. I grip his upper arm.

  He looks at me, his eyes blinking quickly behind his thick lenses. “Come on,” he says, leading me forward.

  I unlatch my backyard gate and hold it open with my hip as I take the box from him.

  “You know what they say about her, don’t you?” he asks.

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Osthoff. They say she’s a recluse. She never, ever leaves her house. Not even to get food.”

  “Oh Hal, that can’t be true.”

  He leans in closer. “Toby Willis says she cries like that because she killed her husband and his spirit torments her.”

  I hug the box tighter and look hard into Hal’s eyes. After a moment, he breaks our gaze and laughs. “You’re such a scaredy-cat,” he says.

  If my hands weren’t full, I’d hit him. As much as I like Hal, I hate being teased. It comes from being an only child, I suppose, not having older brothers and sisters to tell me tales and play tricks on me. I like to think I’m above that sort of thing. “Honestly, Hal. You’re such a child,” I say.

  He laughs at me again and lets the gate bang shut as he jogs back down the alley. As he passes Mrs. Osthoff’s house, he throws out an arm, shuddering like some invisible force is pulling him toward her house. I shake my head, though I can’t help smiling just a bit. All is quiet now. The yellow curtains inside Mrs. Osthoff’s window are fluttering out into the breeze, but no sound is escaping. Now that I think about it, though, I’ve never heard much about Mrs. Osthoff’s husband or how he died, and it does make me wonder.

  I carry the box up to the porch and catch my
toe under the screen door to pull it open. I wipe my feet and cross the screened-in porch to the back door, which is standing open. I see my grandmother bustling around the kitchen getting dinner ready. Mother is sitting at the table, a recipe book propped open in front of her, her arms in casts. A little over a week ago she was coming down the stairs at the zinc plant where she works when she lost her footing and fell forward. She put her arms out to stop her fall and broke both of her wrists. The doctor says it will take at least ten weeks for the bones to heal, which is most of the summer.

  Mother jokes that if she’d known all she had to do was break a few bones to get a summer off, she’d have done it years ago, but she doesn’t mean it. It’s hard for her being unable to work or even help around the house. It’s harder still thinking she’s a burden to Grandma Kate, who now must help her do even simple things like bathe and dress. There was never a better time, I realize, to bring a Mixmaster home, and before I know it, I’m bursting into the kitchen yelling, “Surprise!”

  “Merciful heavens,” Grandma Kate scolds. “Haven’t I told you not to yell in this house?”

  “What have you got there?” Grandpa George asks as he comes in from the dining room. He was tall once, like me, but his shoulders are stooped now and his knees bent, as if his weight is almost too much for him. But his eyes are a clear blue, and his hair is still thick, with hints of dark brown showing through the grey. And he’s still the smartest man I know. Grandpa is a good ten years older than Grandma,