Squashed (16 page)

I loved the days before the festival. It was better than Christmas. Wooden pumpkins sprang up on lawns and porches. Pumpkins of every size filled wheelbarrows and baskets near doorways and store windows. Blinking lights and harvest scenes framed Marion Avenue’s retail row. Phil Urice dressed like a pumpkin and walked the streets shouting, “Ho, ho, ho!” Even the streetlights were painted orange and repainted gray again in time for election day.

Rock River’s three hotels filled with returning family and old friends who’d come back to the scenic shores to clomp across Marion Avenue and sniff the smell of pumpkin in the air once again. Hotels within twenty-five miles bulged with visitors. The event had grown to almost the size of a small state fair, and accounted for 89 percent of the town’s yearly profit. It had produced one star, Freddy Bass—three-time winner of the festival’s statewide oratory contest, now a
television sports commentator for the second-place ABC affiliate in Boise.

Frieda Johnson sold cemetery decorations of orange and brown dyed carnations. Rock River’s dead population stayed in style throughout the year thanks to Frieda, but never did the gravestones explode with such gaiety as during festival days. Mr. Soboleski erected a five-foot wooden pumpkin by his dear mother’s grave across from Mannie Plummer’s father’s plot. Mannie complained the Soboleski pumpkin was in bad taste and blocked her father’s view of Founders’ Square below. Mr. Soboleski moved it one foot back, trimmed a bush to improve the view, and said if her father couldn’t see Founders’ Square now there was something wrong with him.

My mother was buried in The Roses Cemetery in Circleville, and she was surrounded by flowers. It was like a gentle meadow filled with color—perfect for a grower. Birds sang, a little stream flowed with clear water. People didn’t march through The Roses at festival time because everyone came to Rock River, where the action was. That’s why Dad chose it. Mother liked her privacy. In early spring she’d even tiptoed around her garden to not disturb her daffodil sproutings.

Nana had to go to town to decorate Grandpa’s grave. Richard and I went with her because we had a heavy load of homework and were looking for anything to postpone the pain. Nana was sensible about death and didn’t get emotional. She placed a huge basket of harvest flowers by his headstone, fixed it with a stake, and stamped her foot.

“If your grandpa were here he’d say that facing tough competition is what being a Morgan is all about,
that bad weather is part of the growing life—you handle it and don’t bellyache.” Nana patted the headstone and looked straight at me. “That man was a lion when it came to being ornery.”

Richard was uncomfortable in cemeteries, tried to look reverent, and spoke in hushed tones. He asked Nana if she wanted to sit with Grandpa for a while. Nana said good and loud that she’d sat with him for thirty-seven years and had better things to do.

We got pumpkin swirl ice cream from the 31 Flavors that was decked out with orange crepe paper and Indian corn. Outside on Marion Avenue, huge tables were being set up to hold the smaller pumpkin and squash entries that would start showing up Wednesday afternoon. By Wednesday the good food smells would float from homes and cottages as bakers perfected their prize pumpkin creations. Mannie Plummer would have tried and thrown out five batches of her pumpkin fudge because it always took Mannie seven tries to get it perfect. By Thursday morning at least 400 pumpkins, small to mammoth, would fill the avenue, circling the great scale Mrs. McKenna’s grandfather had donated to the Weigh-In. 150,000 people would fill the streets of Rock River, anticipating The Great Moment.

I left Richard and Nana and stood before the scale where the Sweet Corn Coquette contestants would gather and wave in their yellow chiffon dresses. That contest would not take place until early February, but Bob Robertson of Robertson’s Newsstand found that building up the anticipation was good for the contest and very good for business. I was not crazy about Max sharing the spotlight with Sharrell and her attendants. I was not happy that Big Daddy was completely hidden
from view and not out fighting like a man. I missed Wes, who would probably miss the Weigh-In and forget all about me.

I touched the scale that would make or break my future and wilted under the terrible stress of competition. Everyone was counting on me. What if I didn’t pull it off? “America doesn’t do second place unless it’s absolutely unavoidable,” Gordon Mott had said.

A man was hammering a sign in place: “Here lie the greatest pumpkins in the world.” I was getting nauseated. Nana pushed past me and threw her purse on the scale.

“Scale works,” she said.

“I know it works, Nana.”

“I figured you did. The hardest part is waiting.”

“Tell me about it.”

She sat down on an orange bench and motioned me over: “Know what’s wrong with our world, Ellie?”

I fidgeted and sat. There was plenty wrong with it that I could see: war, famine, politics, Cyril.

“What’s wrong with the world,” Nana explained, “is that people stopped listening to their hearts.”

Phil Urice was doing a little twirl in his pumpkin suit in Founders’ Square. Frieda Johnson carried a brown and orange flowered wreath up the hill to the cemetery.

“Not everybody stopped listening,” she continued, “but enough people did to make a difference. We’ve got so much in this life that all we know how to do is want more. So we concentrate on the wrong things—things we can see—as being the measure of a person. We think if we can win something big or buy something snazzy it’ll make us more than we are. Our hearts know that’s not true, but the eyes are powerful. It’s easier to
fix on what we can see than listen to the still, small voice of a whispering heart.”

Nana turned her eyes on me like a vet looking for fleas: “A heart will say amazing things if it’s given half a chance.” She leaned into me now. “How many pumpkins you figure you’ve grown over the years?” she asked.

I considered this, counting back to my earliest squashes eight years ago. “Fifteen that I named,” I said.

“Fifteen,” Nana repeated. “Which one of them defines you as a person?”

I was about to say Max, of course, but stopped. I remembered working and learning in the fields as a kid, agonizing over each sprout that didn’t make it, fighting like a cat for the ones that did, managing finally to grow Polly, my first thirty-pounder. Those were the battles that prepared me for growing giants; the giants before prepared me for growing Max.

“I guess they all define me, Nana.”

“That’s the right answer.” Nana stood up. “Winning’s a fine thing, Ellie, but it’s all the months and years before and after that make you who you are.” Nana patted my hand. “Grab hold of what your heart wants to tell you, honey, and you’ll be one rich young woman.”

We both got quiet. I pulled my coat tight and tried to listen to my heart. I heard something, all right: extreme pounding.

“You’ll know when it’s right,” Nana said.

This was doubtful. I didn’t know if I could even hang on till Thursday without melting my brain. I needed advice on
that.
“What’s your suggestion on waiting these things out?” I groaned. “What do I do not to go crazy?”

Nana grabbed her purse off the scale and smiled
that smile that made her look like God’s personal assistant. “You wait,” she said.

I was hoping for something more concrete. “That’s
it
? Aren’t you going to tell me to get lost in a good book? Spend time with my friends to take my mind off the pressure? Pray?
Something?
”

The sun gave up and set behind 31 Flavors. Nana took my arm and we headed up Marion Avenue. “You
wait
,” she said.

I
was waiting.
Doing the things mature growers do to ease the stress of competition. I baked a batch of triple chocolate fudge bars and ate thirteen of them. I organized my baking pans. I had a one-hour phone call with Grace on the subject of when a woman starts going to pot. Grace said it was around thirty-five, when the lines started showing, but some, like her sister Ruth, could go much sooner. I pointed out that Aunt Peg was already forty-four, looked great, and in my opinion always would. Grace said that’s because Aunt Peg had terrific cheekbones, which held her skin up. I counted the tiles on our bathroom walls (321). I counted the tiles on Nana’s bathroom walls (266). I almost trained a pigeon to fetch a raisin and bring it back to me in its beak. I spent two hours writing a casual yet caring get-well note to Wes. I dusted off two books on General Patton, the closest I came to beginning my midterm paper. I asked Dad if I could be excused from homework. He told me not to push my luck.

Mrs. McKenna was lukewarm about my fame. On the one hand, any press coverage for the festival was good press; on the other, I was
only
sixteen,
only
beginning my life as a grower, unlike her friends Gloria Shack and Louise Carothers, who had been limping toward pumpkin celebrity for years and who, in my opinion, would never make it big. They were cowards who cut their pumpkins off the vine before a storm. They didn’t have to listen to their hearts. They had Mrs. McKenna, who always took care of her friends, especially after the competition, when a decent-sized pumpkin could bring good money for its seeds. Growers knew that winning seeds spelled success. Gloria Shack and Louise Carothers sold their losing seeds at champion prices because Mrs. McKenna said
their
seeds had stood the test of time. I wouldn’t sell Max’s seeds for a million dollars because it would be like selling his children. Only a monster would do something like that.

I was not dealing with the pressure well and had started crying in school to relieve the stress. Richard said this was not good for my career because champions need to be composed in public even though they were cowards in real life. Gordon Mott’s second article came out and made things worse. Justin made sure the whole school got a copy because Gordon Mott quoted two entire paragraphs from the
Defender
, and Justin was in journalistic heaven. I liked the first article better because it talked about squash tending and deep courage. The second article just talked about me, a subject I was getting pretty sick of. Justin grabbed me in the hall and said I must be very proud.

“I guess.”

“
You guess?
” His eyebrows arched.

“It’s okay.”

“This”—Justin held Gordon Mott’s article high—“is the best thing that has ever happened to Rock River, Ellie!”

I told Justin I was glad he was excited and I hoped he would win a Nobel prize someday. Justin didn’t think journalists could win the Nobel prize.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, walking away.

Justin said it did matter because winning the Nobel prize was a great honor. “I think,” he shouted after me, “we can win it if we write about peace or disease!”

Two senior boys were drawing a mustache on the Thunderbird statue as I walked to my class. One of them put down his purple marker and shouted, “Way to go, Big Pumpkin Mama!” I sighed. My fans
were
everywhere.

I walked to phys ed good and slow. Before Ralphie, I was invisible in these halls. Before Ralphie, I would have given anything to be noticed and adored. Now I was stopped every two feet by someone, and it felt strange. Crash Bartwald and three defensive backs said hello and how was it go-go-going? Sharrell wiggled at me in greeting. The school nurse said I was looking pale and did I feel all right?

I didn’t feel all right, I felt rotten. What if I lost? Then what? Would all these people still be my friends? Would Miss Moritz call me “a creative thinker who always brought something to class discussion” even though it was a dark, black lie that God would punish her for deeply?

I went to the school nurse’s office with a pounding headache. She gave me Tylenol and said her whole family was rooting for me.

“I hope I won’t let you down,” I groaned.

The school nurse called Dad at his office, and he
came to take me home. She said I was going to be just fine and I owed it to all of Rock River to stay healthy.

Dad was worried as we pulled onto Bud DeWitt Memorial Drive, which had already been decorated with Frieda Johnson’s orange and brown pumpkin road wreaths. We drove underneath the great sign: ROCK RIVER, IOWA, HOME OF AMERICA’S GREATEST PUMPKINS. Signs directing visitors to the festival grounds were everywhere, including one on the Backfarb Road turnoff that said: NO, NO…YOU’VE GONE TOO FAR. An orange line was painted down the drive. This was traditional and, as Nana said, really got folks in the mood for all the fun right there on the highway.

“I’m not sick,” I said.

Dad looked at me. “You’re a little pale, honey. We’ll get you right home and—”

“I don’t want to go home.”

Dad pulled the car off the road. I looked down.

“I want to go see Mom.”

That knocked Dad hard because we had only gone to visit her grave twice together. I’d been with Nana a few times and once with Aunt Peg. Dad got pretty emotional both times we went. He couldn’t handle it, and neither could I.

“You mean now?”

“I want to get flowers first.” Dad stared ahead quietly. “I need to do this,” I said. “I need you to take me.”

He nodded and started the engine. He seemed stooped and tired.

“I don’t want to go to Frieda’s,” I said. “All she’s got are those wreaths and pumpkin things. That’s not right for—”

“No,” Dad said. “I know the right place.”

It was fifteen minutes to Circleville and Nielsen’s Flower Garden, a big, glass greenhouse filled with potted flowers and hanging plants—a grower’s place.

“Nothing orange,” Dad said, making his way through the aisles with the young saleswoman. “Nothing phony.”

We settled on a huge yellow mum plant in a basket. No bow. I held it on my lap as we drove past the Circleville bus stop where the commuter bus would run every two hours starting Thursday morning, delivering folks to the festival, since parking was impossible unless you were a friend of the mayor’s. We pulled into The Roses Cemetery and followed the road to a little pond packed with ducks and swans. The swans were there, Dad had told me when I was younger, because they mate for life and never remarry. Dad stopped the car.