A Fireproof Home for the Bride (19 page)

“Of course,” Ambrose said, sparking at the words. “But see, that’s just it. The war is long over. They can all go back home. There are many countries in Africa that would benefit from a population increase. There’s plenty of farmland there, and Negroes have learned well how to cultivate fields.”

Christian began to speak, but Mr. Utke put his hand on Christian’s arm. “Is this something you learned in Wisconsin?” Mr. Utke asked calmly.

“No, sir,” Ambrose replied, taking a folded newspaper from his back pocket and opening it up. Emmy saw the masthead
Citizens’ Council
above the headline “Violence Grips Integrated Schools.” “See, it’s all in here. It even says that there’s scientific proof that race mixing is wrong. There was no problem until people started desegregating. Everyone was happy.”

“Emmy, go help your mother,” Christian said without shifting his gaze from Ambrose.

“I can’t,” Emmy replied, showing him her damaged hand. She had no intention of leaving the table, even if she wasn’t in pain.

Christian nodded. “Look, Ambrose,” he said. “There was a time, many years ago, before you were born, when an organization much like your Citizens’ Council came round here and stirred up a lot of trouble. Curtis was part of it then, and I suspect he’s up to no good now. Stay away from this, son.”

The light in Ambrose’s face dimmed and he refolded the paper. “This is not the Klan,” he replied. “Curtis knows that what they did down South was wrong, but this isn’t about all that. This is about states’ rights, the rights of Minnesotans to keep their state the way they want it without interference from Eisenhower and the communists.”

Mr. Utke laughed sharply. “It’s communists now, is it? Son, I think you need to go back to college and learn some things the right way around.” He shook his head and stood, dropping his napkin on the table. “I’ve enjoyed this evening, Karin. Thank you for having me.” Karin returned to the table, wiping her hands on her apron.

“You are welcome any time,” she said, ushering him toward the living room. “Birdie, go get your things and Ambrose will drive you back to the farm.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Christian said to Mr. Utke, and Birdie smiled as though the fraught conversation had never happened, cleared a few more of the dishes to the counter, and slipped into the living room behind her parents. Suddenly Emmy was alone at the table with Ambrose. A tense silence fell between them as Emmy stared at the bandage on her hand.

“I think you should go now,” she said quietly.

“Emmy,” he said, all of his hubris gone in one word.

“Please,” she whispered. “I can’t. Not now. Not yet.”

“I will make it right,” he said. “If you’ll let me.”

She closed her eyes and waited, listening to the old clock tick on the wall, waited for the scrape of his chair, the fall of his foot. She didn’t flinch when he touched her shoulder, even though she could feel a bruise where his hand was. She pressed into the subtle pain, let him leave, the mild murmurings of her parents as he moved through the house, Birdie’s hasty footfalls on the stairs, the second funnel of cool air as the door opened and closed one last time for the evening. Opening her eyes, Emmy stood and cleared the salt and pepper shakers, the napkins, and the butter server from the table and moved around the kitchen, letting the welcome calm of restoring order descend. Her parents’ voices murmured from the other room, Karin’s slightly louder and more vehement than Christian’s.

The arguing stopped and Emmy heard the tired tread of her mother’s small footsteps go up the stairs and creak along the floorboards above. Christian grunted a little as he came into the kitchen, and Emmy took up scrubbing the roaster with her unbandaged hand.

“You can’t see any of the movies,” Christian said wearily. “And you will come home immediately after work is finished.”

Emmy looked up at her father. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, relieved.

“You’re eighteen,” he said, his brow creasing. “You don’t need our permission. Reinhold told me that Mr. Rakov is a fair and decent man. That’s good enough for me.”

She nodded, a lump forming in her throat. She wished she could ask him why he was so agitated by Ambrose’s cold diatribe, or tell him why she needed the job—end the charade of being strong—but she realized that if she was going to change the course of things, she would have to keep her own confidence for a while.

“Okay, then.” He turned from her and left the room. A minute later she heard the radio, and knew that by the time she finished wiping down the kitchen and putting everything away, she would find him sound asleep with his head tipped back against his armchair. She felt a pang of nostalgia for the way things had once seemed so simple, though to be honest, she knew that all of her current complications arose from exactly that simplicity: She’d been a simple girl, but she would not be a simple woman.

*   *   *

Emmy’s curiosity led her to the school librarian, who was more than happy to show her the long shelf of books that comprised the works of Josephine Randall. Her first book,
Candles in the Wind,
was one of Miss Lily’s favorites, written when Josephine was twenty-four. It took Emmy no more than two days to tear through the book, a process that felt like falling off a cliff and into a vast ocean of prairie grass, populated with roaming herds of buffalo, scores of Indians, and a handful of rugged settlers who were likely modeled on her own ancestors. Though she knew it was a work of fiction, Emmy couldn’t help wondering how much of it was true, and whether she fit the mold of sod-house builders, wide-hipped women undaunted by the locust-infested broiling summers or the endlessly dark and brutally cold winters. She traded that book for the one Bev had mentioned, finishing it just as quickly and with the feeling of having found in Josephine Randall a voice that rang truer than any of the ones she’d heard growing up. The delicately drawn romance between the cousins at the center of the book made Emmy miss Bev more keenly. Emmy decided to go past her house one more time, and with the Langers’ help, meet this unknown aunt—and maybe she would be able to contact Bev, as well.

The Langer house had a high, pointed roof, with two quaint windows protruding like the eyes on a bullfrog from the dark shingles where the attic floor would be. Unlike any other house in Moorhead, theirs was painted a robin’s-egg shade of blue, which cheerfully nested in the snow-dusted evergreen shrubs that surrounded the porch and lined the walk all the way up to the street. This is where Emmy stood, bracing for the conversation she would have with Mrs. Langer, a woman she hadn’t yet met and knew very little about. Emmy could only hope that Bev’s mother was less formidable than her own. The shades inside were closed, which for a moment made Emmy think that no one was at home. The sudden barking of a small dog suggested otherwise, drawing Emmy up the walk. She reached for the door knocker as she heard the latch slip its bolt on the other side.

There stood Bev. Emmy gasped. Her friend was not only rounder, but her condition lent her an ethereal air, as though the child growing within her had whispered some secret only Bev could hear. A jolt of elation overtook Emmy as her hand stayed suspended in mid-knock.

“Hallelujah,” Bev said, joy lighting her full face. A tiny white dog barked at her ankles. “Don’t just stand there looking goofy.” She pulled Emmy in by the sleeve, closing the door neatly behind them, wrapping her arms around Emmy, and rocking her back and forth. “It’s been too long, dear friend,” she said, her belly hard against Emmy’s. “Let’s go to the kitchen, I’m starved. I’m starved all the time!”

Bev led Emmy by the hand through the living room, which was decorated with emerald green wall-to-wall carpet and two gaily flowered davenports on either side of a brass-accented stone fireplace. They passed a large dining table stacked with an assortment of Bev’s schoolbooks and papers, looking as though she’d just left them in the middle of an assignment.

“That’s my desk,” she said, pushing open a swinging white door to the kitchen, the dog racing ahead and looping in a circle around a smaller table upon which sat a bowl of fruit. Bev bent the stem of a banana, stripped the peel, and took small bites while she talked. “Mr. Utke brings over my schoolwork twice a week. I won’t be at graduation, but I’ll get my diploma, all right.” Bev dropped onto a cushioned chair, and the tiny dog leaped into her lap. “This is Kitty. I know, stupid name for a dog, but that’s what happens when you let your ten-year-old brother pick the name.” Her hair had grown in a bit and softened her once-sharp features with new unfussed curls. “At first I wanted to go spend my time in New York with my mother’s sister, but then I realized I’d be miserable there, without my family and Howie. Now that I’m nesting, all the parents have come around. Once we both finish our studies, we’ll make it official. I’ll have the baby in July, and then we’ll move to Paris, where my uncle has a job for Howie all lined up at the embassy. No one there will even know that we’re cousins, if they were to care. I would have kept going to school, but my mother felt it would send the wrong kind of message, you know, about
s-e-x.
” Bev rolled her eyes, and Kitty jumped from her lap. “As if half the school weren’t already well aware of the outcome. It’s astonishing how stupid grown-ups are, thinking we don’t have urges until we graduate and marry.”

Emmy felt the blood drain from her face and her hands go icy, even though she hadn’t yet removed her hat or coat and was standing too close to the warm stove.

“What’s wrong?” Bev stood suddenly, alarmed. The sound of her friend’s pinpoint concern pricked at the bubble that Emmy had settled over the image of the truck parked on the deserted road.

“It happened so fast,” Emmy whispered, closing her eyes. “I’m not even sure what it was.”

Emmy felt Bev touch her cheek—the same one that had been bruised that night—and all of the strangled helplessness she had dammed up in the absence of maternal comfort pushed forth in a sodden rush.

Bev braced Emmy’s arms and eased her into a chair before carefully kneeling on the floor. “Tell me, please?”

The crying wouldn’t abate now that it had started, so Emmy did her best to work the words into sentences, to get the details out from where she had them hidden. “I tried to do it, to kiss him that way.… I even wanted to at first, but then I didn’t.… He pinned me down and tore my clothes, so I hit him … and then he hit me, and didn’t stop and … and … and,” she sobbed in a deep breath, stretching her hands toward Bev, who grasped them tightly. Emmy dropped her head onto their joined fists, fighting out the last horrible fact. “I couldn’t make him stop.”

“There now. You’re safe here,” Bev whispered in her ear, stroking Emmy’s hair and exhaling small shushes until the sobbing slowed. “Have you had your monthly visit since?”

Had she? Emmy sat up. “Yes.” She remembered. “Yes, of course I have.”

“Good. Then you’re going to be fine.” Bev crossed her arms, her tear-stained face full of anger. “What did your mother say?”

Emmy shook her head slowly. “I tried to tell her. She wouldn’t hear it.”

“What about your dad?”

“I could
never,
” Emmy said, humiliation filling her veins at the thought of it. She swiped at her cheek, done with crying. “Besides, I’ve decided to find my own way out. Mr. Utke’s helped me get a job, and when I have enough money, I’ll call off the marriage and find a place to live.”

Bev laced her fingers across her stomach. “Maybe you could live with Josephine. She’s got that big estate all to herself and has a reputation for taking in wayward souls.”

Emmy’s embarrassment intensified. “I’m ashamed to say that I came here to ask your mother to introduce me.”

“You’re a silly goose,” Bev said, swatting Emmy’s knee and moving from the floor to a chair. “Who cares
why
you’re here? You were absolutely right. Mother will know what to do.”

“Honestly, I don’t know how I’ve managed without you.” Emmy stood and buttoned her coat.

“You’ve managed just fine,” Bev said. “I’ll pass you a note through Mr. Utke.”

The mention of his name calmed Emmy enough for her to let go of one more fear, and she realized that no matter how much she might have felt alone, there were now at least two people she could count as friends.

*   *   *

A week later Emmy took account of her plodding resources while she waited at the theater for the main feature to finish. She had made some progress toward figuring out how much money she would need to strike out on her own, and at less than a dollar an hour, six hours a day, four days a week, it would take up to a year to make the move. On a good day she imagined living like a boarder in her parents’ home, coming and going with the hands of the clock. Other days she knew that breaking off the engagement would bring a swift end to this dream.

The days had nonetheless slid by in a blur of chores, school, work, home, study, sleep, and chores. Work was easy. She showed up Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday nights, went through the theater and down the aisle to a door that led to the basement, where she changed into her mustard yellow uniform, went back up to the concession counter, and surveyed the chaos left from the night before. The girl who worked the other nights wasn’t as meticulous as Emmy, and she only truly enjoyed setting up on Monday, when she found things perfectly ordered from her own closing the night before. Cindy was a college girl who sometimes worked the ticket booth on her off nights, and she had once worn Emmy’s uniform by mistake, spilling something on it that Emmy had to scrub out in the cold water of the sink in the basement, hoping it would dry in time for opening.

Next she turned on the popcorn machine, checked the fluid level in the pump, and loaded more of the thick coconut oil paste into the hopper if there wasn’t enough to get her through the night. Once it had melted, she pumped a small amount into the kettle and added a scoop of presalted kernels, waiting for the fluffy bits of corn to spill over and fill the glass box. She loved the smell of it all and even liked the way the oil slicked her hands and the salt stung her lips. Before long, the audience would start to trickle in, and she and the ushers would buzz around one another in a subtle ballet, darting to the popcorn, the candy counter, the cash register, the seats. Pointing out the ladies’ room and asking patrons to please put out their cigarettes before entering the theater, even though they knew some of them would light new smokes once inside.