R My Name Is Rachel (6 page)

But I’m looking at the crate. What might it hold? Oranges and bananas? Cake with frosting? Strawberry ice cream? Ridiculous. “What is it?” I ask Pop.

“Eggs.”

“Eggs!” the three of us say together. It’s a bitter disappointment; I feel like the girl of the Limberlost in that book I read last winter.

Cassie looks as if she could burst into tears.

“Don’t be so … orange,” I tell her, trying to act as if I don’t care.

“You’re always talking like an idiot,” she says.

Pop puts the crate on the table. “Not ordinary eggs,” he says.

“Golden eggs,” I say, “laid in the land of King Midas.”

“I told you,” Cassie tells the ceiling. “She’s lost her mind.”

Pop throws up his hands. “Will you two stop so I can tell you—”

Joey is taking the top off the crate carefully. “I bet I know,” he says. “Eggs that will become chickens.”

“Exactly,” Pop says.

We crowd around him now and look at the twelve eggs nestled in straw pockets. Pop smiles at us as he moves the crate close to the fireplace. “We’ll have to keep them warm and turn them five times every day. They’ll crack open in three weeks.”

He runs his hands over them. “Later they’ll all go into the barn.”

I reach out to touch one of the smooth white tops. Inside are the beginnings of tiny chicks.

Pop looks really happy; I feel happy.

He begins to cut the potatoes. “Water?”

We’re supposed to take turns. We look at each other.
It’s the worst job on the farm. Cold and wet, lugging the full pots back from the stream …

Whose turn is it?

“Not mine,” Joey says. He’s right; he’s done it all week to give Cassie and me a break.

Cassie and I point at each other. She narrows her eyes. “I remember doing it last.”

“So do I.”

“You’re always trying to get away with things, Rachel. You don’t do the dishes, you don’t sweep up. You’re lazy.”

I feel a little guilty, but I won’t let her know she’s right. “You’re a pain in the neck.”

“Girls,” Pop says.

I pull on my coat and grab the pots by the handles. “Just remember, Cassie,” I say over my shoulder, “you owe me.”

“I owe you nothing,” she says.

I slam the door behind me. Outside, there’s still some light. It’s not getting dark as early as it did even a week ago. Birds fly overhead in a V formation.

I walk along the fence, breathing in air that smells like spring and remembering the snowy night with that mean boy. Where is he now? Halfway to the stream, I hear the door open behind me. It’s Pop.

“Cassie said she’ll finish the potatoes,” he says. “I’ll walk with you.”

He takes one of the pots and I put my free hand in his large pocket. Miss Mitzi comes into my head. “I think of her a lot.” I touch the locket around my neck.

He knows who I’m talking about. “I do, too,” he says without asking.

“I know she’d come in a minute.”

We reach the stream. Fringes of green are beginning to show themselves along the muddy edges. I wait for Pop to answer as we dip the pots into the shallow freezing water so they’ll fill.

“Pop?”

“We’ll catch trout here soon,” he says.

“We’ll have hens,” I remind him. “And I have enough money from my birthday for a goat. It’s the beginning of a real farm.”

“You’re a nice girl,” he says out of the blue.

Smiling, pleased to be a nice girl even though I’m a little lazy, I pull up the pot, the icy water sloshing onto my hands.

“Someday …” His voice trails off. Is he thinking about Miss Mitzi? He begins again. “We’ll need more than eggs and hens and a goat.”

“We’ll have a garden, right? We’ll grow our own potatoes. We’ll have vegetables … carrots and pole beans.” I try to think of something else. “Steak,” I say, and we both laugh.

“I wish I could work at a bank. It’s work I know.” He spreads his hands. “But I have to do something, anything, so that money comes in. This grocery store job is a joke. I worked all day for a bag of potatoes and a dozen laying eggs.”

We start back to the house. It’s almost dark now. Cassie has lighted the gas lamp in the kitchen and there’s
a glow from the window. We can’t see the peeling paint from here, and the house is much bigger than our old apartment. I’m surprised at the sudden warmth I feel. “Miss Mitzi would say it’s inviting. If President Roosevelt gets rid of this depression, maybe we could ask her …”

Pop turns to me. “Oh, Rachel.”

But I have a hopeful feeling. From now on, I’m going to do everything right. I’m going to get the garden ready as soon as I can. We’ll get that goat one of these days. We’ll get the barn ready.

Oh, President Roosevelt, please hurry
.

It’s a Tuesday morning in April. Outside, it’s beautiful; but it’s still cold in here. I rub my feet together in bed and angle my head to glance at the drawings that march around the wall.

I feel as if I know the artist, that corkscrew tail she’s given the dog, the duck with its beak high in the air. I can almost hear it quacking. The girl must have been smiling, maybe laughing, as she drew them.

Last night I finished my Rebecca book in one burst. I just couldn’t make myself stop turning the pages; it was wonderfully cozy reading by the gas lamp in the kitchen with my coat tucked around me.

Cassie is standing in the doorway. “Are you ever getting up?”

“This minute.” I throw back the covers and slide out of bed. The floor is gritty under my feet, but that’s all right.
I’ll sweep the whole thing as soon as I can get to it. I have more important things to concentrate on. I’m determined now to get this farm going, the way President Roosevelt is determined to get the country going.

As I walk along the hall, the back window darkens and the wall suddenly loses its color.

“Joey!” I scream.

Head covering the window, he hangs upside down from the roof. “They’ll hear you in Brooklyn,” he calls.

I see now that Pop is holding on to him from above. It reminds me of Joey reaching for money in the sewer.

I stand there watching as boards begin to cover the last holes in the roof. I listen to the sounds of the hammer. The hall downstairs is darker now, except for the light coming through the stained-glass window. The sun spears a yellow edge and the wall is a kaleidoscope of buttery lights.

In the kitchen I turn the chicks’ eggs, then cut a slice of bread. Yesterday Mr. Brancato gave Pop a jar of strawberry jam for payment. I spread some on the bread and a strawberry lands on the crust.

Fortuitous, Miss Mitzi would say.

I sit back taking delicate bites, then I crouch down and open the cabinet doors under the sink to see what is in there. In back is a large pot.

“What are you doing?” Cassie asks.

“Look at this. We can use this one pot for water at the stream instead of two. It might be easier.”

“You need two for balance,” she says.

I don’t look at her. I pull out the pot, gingerly holding
the wire handle. The inside may be filled with cobwebs and even a live spider.

But there’s no spider, alive or dead.

I sit back on my heels. The pot is filled with a small pile of drawings. The colored chalk has smeared a little, but the pictures are wonderful. There is one of the stained-glass window and a few of the field out back filled with cornstalks, their tassels waving in the wind.

There’s one of the roof. Why would anyone want a picture of a roof, even one with no holes?

The last one shows the house with its shiny rooster on top. It’s gray and lovely, without a shred of peeling paint in sight. A tray of seeds grows near the doorway.

Underneath the drawings is an envelope, a little dirty, and marked
marigold seeds
. I run my hands over the edges of the envelope. I can feel the bumps of seeds.

I grab my coat off the hook and put the envelope in my pocket. Outside, I look up at Pop and Joey crawling along the roof. My hands are clammy as I watch them.

I head toward the barn and spend an hour digging soil. I plant the seeds in a tray one by one. “Grow,” I tell them.

I can’t wait to tell Pop.

What a terrible surprise to go back into the kitchen and see him with his head in his hands. And is it possible that he’s crying?

Crying, my pop.

How can that be?

I don’t know what to do. I back into the hall before Pop sees me and tiptoe out the front door. I lean against the porch post and close my eyes. I raise my hands to run my fingers through my hair.

Pop must be thirty-seven? Forty? I don’t even know. But I want to know this: what could make him cry?

Joey comes around the corner, lugging something. “Hey, kiddo.”

He’s carrying some kind of iron thing. He begins to whistle that song “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

I put my hands over my ears. That’s the last thing I want to hear.

He stops when he sees my face, but he pretends that everything’s fine.

That’s Joey. He’s such a good egg.

He raises the iron thing in the air. “A pitcher pump. Pop and I found it in the barn.”

I nod a little.

He leans forward. “We’ll have water in the kitchen by this afternoon. You just move the handle up and down, and water comes out like magic.”

I touch his rough jacket, with its missing buttons. “Pop’s inside. And something’s wrong.” I stop short of saying he’s crying. I can’t tell on Pop that way.

Joey’s foot digs into the mud. “He was quiet before, really quiet. All he said was that we had to fix the roof right away and get the water in. He seemed to be in such a hurry.”

We walk around to the back and Joey peers in the kitchen window. He draws in his breath.

For a moment we’re quiet. Then Joey taps my arm. “You have to be the one to go in there, Rachel. You’re the best of us, the smartest.”

I’m horrified. Just horrified. “I can’t, but thank you, anyway.”

“What we can’t do is let him sit there by himself,” Joey says.

I swipe at the tears on my cheeks. What’s that word?
Fortitude
.

“You’re right.” I smooth down my hair, which is in corkscrews all over the place, and head for the door.

I slide into the chair across from Pop and look down at a brown paper bag. He’s scribbled numbers all over it. We sit there, not saying anything. Pop straightens the papers in front of him.

“What?” I ask after a while; my voice is so low I can hardly hear it myself.

Pop shakes his head. “We can’t—”

It must be the farm. Something’s wrong with it; everything’s wrong with it. But we can’t go back to the city; I know that. The city is forever away. And I realize I’m not ready to give up on this farm, bad as it is. There are the drawings; and the seeds, which won’t live without a few sips of water every day; and the eggs, of course.

And what about Clarence? I still bring food to the fence every day.

“Money,” Pop says. His voice is as low as mine.

“But the New Deal. President Roosevelt—”

“It will take time,” Pop says.

If only I could make him feel better. Should I remind him of the stained-glass window, of the chicks that will hatch someday soon, or of the frilly plants growing at the edge of the stream that Miss Mitzi would love?

Pop runs his hand over the brown paper bag, over all those numbers. “I don’t know what I was thinking. We’ll never be able to get electricity. It’ll be a dollar a month. And what about the rent? I just can’t imagine.”

“We don’t need lights. We certainly don’t—”

“We need coal.”

“We don’t need coal. We’ve got that fireplace. And sweaters.” I try to smile. “It’s getting warmer every day. And Joey says we’ll have a water pump.”

I see Joey then. He’s sneaked around the front door and tiptoed through the hall. Cassie stands right behind him, her mouth opened in a little round O.

Pop looks toward the doorway. “I’ve lost my job at the grocery store,” he says slowly. “It’s not the man’s fault. He has no money, either.”

“Nothing to fear but fear itself,” I try to say. Isn’t that what the president said? But Cassie begins to cry. It’s not the kind of crying I do. It’s loud and it grates on my ears. Joey looks at me. It grates on his ears, too.

But Pop feels sorry for her. He holds out his arms, and she runs to him. “Here’s the thing.” He pats Cassie’s back. “There’s a job. It’s a good job—”

“See?” Joey says. “I knew it would all work out.”

But something’s coming; I know it. Otherwise, what’s all this about?

“President Roosevelt wants everyone to get back to work,” Pop says. “And the town of North Lake will do what it can to help.”

“Nice,” Cassie says through her tears.

“They’re going to build a road straight over the mountain near Canada. And they need workers.”

I nod slowly. A job for Pop. But why would that make him cry?

Pop takes a breath. “A bus will take the workers up there.” He looks at the three of us and shakes his head a little. “They won’t come back for …” He hesitates. “A month. Maybe two months.”

I sit back in my chair. The breath goes out of me. I know it’s the only possible way we can get money. But still—being without Pop?

Cassie sees what’s happening, too. Her cries are even louder.

But Joey jumps right in. “That’s great, Pop. We’ll manage. We’ll get seeds going, the chicks hatched.”

Cassie looks at Joey as if he’s lost his mind.

Pop stares out the window. “How can I leave you alone? We have no neighbors nearby, and the town is far.”

Joey cuts in. “Not alone. There are the three of us. Fine and dandy.”

“I know you can take care of each other.…” Pop looks at each of us.

“I can’t take care of Rachel,” Cassie says. “And she can’t take care of me.”

“Cassie,” Joey and I warn her.

Nothing to fear.

But I’m afraid. I’m certainly afraid. We’ll have to stay here alone and, as Joey says, get things going.

I’m the oldest. I have to say something. “Don’t worry, Pop. We can do this.”

Joey and I glance at each other and then away.

Alone
.

What a terrible word.