“That’s what he tells everybody if his clothes don’t hide them, but it’s just a cover. His brothers are mean. He’s the youngest and the smallest and they beat him up for not working hard enough. You know him, Dorothy. He works harder than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Gracie came out of the laundry, carrying clean uniforms on hangers, and broke into a trot as soon as she saw Mae.
“Oh, honestly, we miss you.” She leaned against the railing, wanting to get caught up. Mae and Dorothy were so quiet; she realized she had interrupted something.
Finally, Dorothy broke the silence. “Well, that Mrs. Rice certainly holds herself in high esteem.”
“Thanks for getting Isaiah out of there, Dorothy,” Gracie said. “I was sure he was going to blow his top.”
“Please tell me all about it.” Mae urged. “I miss the excitement of waiting tables.”
Gracie babbled on about Mrs. Rice, Isaiah, and how she didn’t get a tip last night.
“You should tell Mrs. Woods. That’s not right,” said Mae.
“Atta girl, Mae. Look who’s telling her to be assertive,” encouraged Dorothy.
Mae let Gracie feel her bulging abdomen. “Married life seems to agree with you. Twenty years old, married, and a baby on the way. I’m twenty-three and I still haven’t decided what to do with my life.”
“Oh my word, Gracie, you’ll figure it out. I was thirty-seven before I passed the teacher’s exam.
Lawrence
was a career man in the army, you know. I followed him around for eighteen years before he was shipped overseas. After he died I had to find a way to make a living.”
Mae asked how rooming with Bessie was going. She was still a spitfire, they said, but more sullen and cranky.
“You and Zeke should come to the ice cream slurp. You need a diversion from being down in town every evening. It’s very entertaining,” Dorothy said. “This week Isaiah told the whole staff the Mrs. Rice story. He went on and on about his
cassoulet
, how he sang over it and everything.”
“Does Bessie come? The only way I got along with her last summer was to stay away from her.”
“Bessie stays clear of most of us,” Dorothy said.
Dorothy wagged a finger at Gracie. “You haven’t been at the slurp for two weeks. What’s going on?”
“It’s a little uncomfortable with both PT and Eric there.”
“Oh?” Mae and Dorothy asked wide-eyed. “Who’s winning?”
“There’s no winning. PT and I are friends, that’s all.”
“Well, what about Eric?”
“He invited me for dinner with his parents. I think I should go.”
“You have such a bad case of the ‘
shoulds
’ Gracie. I know you’re attracted to him. And you love his parents. Go, if you want to. You don’t have to marry him. Have some fun, for Pete’s sake, and get off this hill for a while.”
****
“
Ya
hoard all this stuff and we
ain’t
even got room for our uniforms,” Bessie hissed and stormed out, slamming the door.
Her revenge was to be as messy as possible. Gracie was tempted to take all of Bessie’s clothes and pile them on her top bunk, but she warned herself not to do it. The dirty clothes Bessie hadn’t thrown in the bottom of the closet were strewn under Dorothy’s bed. Her nightgown, half stuffed under her mattress during the day, usually hung down over Gracie’s bunk. Her pillow often fell down and lay on the floor between the beds all day, with dirty intimates sticking out of the pillowcase. After washing the rayon stockings she was so proud of she hung them over the chair at the door, leaving them long after they were dry.
Gracie chided herself for taking over most of the storage. She should have known people would take offense. Even Dorothy was mad last week when she had brought an
Operaradio
back from home and there was no place to put it because Gracie’s sheet music was scattered all over the table. Their room was small and it would only be right for her to make more space for the others. But her stuff made her life feel more complete.
Well, then, it was time to do some creative magic. She snapped on the radio for inspiration. The harmony of a barbershop quartet filled the room.
The closet was a dual purpose affair, with a hanging bar about two feet wide filled with their uniforms and dresses, and three deep shelves on the right. She had taken over the bottom shelf when she moved in, leaving Dorothy and Bessie to share the middle one. The top one was too high for anyone to reach without a chair.
She wailed “Hard Hearted Hannah” with the vocalist on the radio and removed all of her things from the bottom shelf, temporarily storing them on her bunk. She dragged the chair over, carefully lifted The Ponselle, and wiped the top shelf clean. Making several trips, she stacked her records up there and topped her sheet music with her hat in front of The Ponselle. To show good faith, she’d let Bessie know the bottom shelf was hers if she wanted it. Maybe that would cheer her up.
Removing her pile of books from the table near the door, she put some of them in the red suitcase along with her
St. Louis
heels, and piled the books she was reading under her bunk. She sweated from the effort. She shut off the radio when she moved it to the shelf under the table because the Irving Berlin tune being broadcast bored her. Now someone could actually play cards on the tabletop.
Time to start on the dresser. Bessie would feel like the cat’s pajamas if given the top drawer, so Gracie switched her things to the bottom. A hymn she loved played itself over and over through her mind:
Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?
Singing it aloud lifted her out of the drudgery of rearranging the room. Stacking up garters on her arm like bracelets, she suddenly remembered Rosa Ponselle talking about raising people above their everyday struggles. She set down the garters and pulled out the letter the singer had written when she left. She reread
Rosa
’s words: “You will touch people the most when you sing what is meaningful to you.”
She stopped fussing about the room and lay down to rest on her bunk. Hopefully, Bessie and Dorothy would appreciate her efforts. Even with the window and the transom open, the lace curtains barely riffled with the faint breeze. As she dozed, Gracie dreamed of Mrs. Cunningham stacking her afghan strips, begging her to stay in Eagles Mere.
That was it.
The reason she never could fulfill her pipe dream of singing on the road was because something greater than herself stopped her. God never intended for her to sing popular songs on the road, but hymns. Right here. She fell asleep, realizing she was home.
****
Gracie paused on the porch of Evergreen Lodge before the evening bull session in the lounge. The air was sticky with humidity but a half moon managed to penetrate the hazy sky. She realized she was happy. The carefully crafted plan she had designed to keep her in Eagles Mere after her
Crestmont
summer gave her confidence.
The boisterous laughter tumbling down from the guests on the big house porch almost drowned out the cicadas and crickets. Excitement was keen before the August water festival. Guests banded together to make a float representing the inn and the competition with the other hotels in town was fierce.
The staff entered their own every year. This summer’s was called the SS Sundae. Eight of them had gone straight to the Sweet Shoppe to request sponsorship. The float would be decorated with huge painted ice cream cones and root beer fizzes. A lantern placed behind translucent paper would make the froth on top of the root beer float look fizzy. The crowning event would be to dock the float after the parade around the lake, and serve ice cream provided in coolers by the Sweet Shoppe to the children. Surely the
Crestmont
staff would win first prize for their ingenuity.
****
“Broadcasting to you on this beautiful Saturday evening from
Saratoga
,
New York
. They’re waving the flag…the shot…and they’re off. Razzmatazz taking the rail. Diamond Gypper one length behind. Jazzy Runner’s a bit sluggish, taking up the rear. Up comes Swanky Sue on Diamond Gypper’s left flank. They’re tight today, but the red silks of Razzmatazz’s jockey are clearly ahead of the other silks. Razzmatazz definitely pulling ahead. But wait, folks, no collecting your bets yet. Here she comes. Diamond Gypper is streaking by. Can she do it?”
PT, Otto, Hank, Isaiah and Jimmy crouched, heads together, around the radio. Hank’s hat was on the floor, stuffed with dollar bills.
“Diamond Gypper wins it…and takes the blue ribbon!”
“Knew I
shoulda
bet on that Gypper filly. Damn, there goes last week’s tips,” Jimmy slapped his cap on his thigh as Hank and Zeke dove into the money in the hat, dividing their winnings.
“Thanks for the spoils, boys. Hey, Mae, now we can buy baby stuff.”
“
Yer
too young to be a father,” Jimmy touted.
“Not too young if he made the baby, boys,” Isaiah laughed.
“Hey, Isaiah, do us all a favor and cut out that singing on the way to make breakfast tomorrow,” Otto warned. “I’m not bright and cheery like you at 5 a.m. I enjoy a good snore with my eyes closed until at least six. You’ve got no business singing that song about a roving gambler anyway. You lost bad today, too.”
Bessie was flopped on the couch, trying to nap. Dorothy,
Adelle
, Mae and Olivia played whist at the card table. They stopped when Gracie came in, followed by Peg and Eleanor. Everyone piled into the screened porch to get some air, safely away from the mosquitoes.
PT led the meeting. “Okay, we’ve got an idea and a name. Now who’s going to do what?”
Zeke blew on his fist and rubbed his chest proudly “I brainstormed the name. SS for the ship and Sundae for the ice cream.”
“I’ll help with the frame. I’m pretty
hep
with a hammer,” Isaiah offered.
They tossed ideas around. Hank piped up during a lull. “Did you hear
Swett
caught two huge trout right down near the foot bridge?”
“Isaiah’s going to put them on the menu as tonight’s dinner special.” Olivia proudly kissed her husband’s cheek.
“Mm, mm, mm. Butter and lemon sauce to mop up with bare naked bread.” Isaiah licked his lips.
“Ha!
Swett
.” Bessie finally got off the couch and flopped onto Hank’s lap. Jimmy scowled. “Bet his wife melts extra butter on top. Wonder if he has to lace her corset. One uh these days it’s
gonna
burst. Can
ya
picture it? What a sight. Hey, girlie, where’s Eric?” she teased Gracie. “Too holy to help with our float?”
“His church is making their own. He told me all about it like a secret,” Eleanor said, sitting on her hands to make herself taller.
“Cotton candy,” Peg announced. A room full of blank faces stared at her.
“We can’t paint the ice cream on; it won’t look real. The Sweet Shoppe has a cotton candy machine that makes different colors. Pink for strawberry. Green for pistachio. We could mound it up like dipped cones. And make a big banner saying ‘End your evening sweetly at the Sweet Shoppe.’ They’ll pull in even more business that way so they won’t mind the added expense.” Heads nodded in approval.
“I want a job on the float,” Eleanor pouted.
“I don’t mean to put the kibosh on it or anything, nincompoop, but everything is pretty much done.” Peg tugged on her sister’s ear. “You’re going to have to come up with something on your own.”
“Well, make that float strong, whatever
ya
do, or it’ll break
yer
heart. Listen to this,” Bessie jeered, waving a piece of paper. “I would hold your heart in my hands, but I am not strong enough, But in your hands, my love…”
The
Paperbag
poems. Gracie’s skin crawled as she pictured Bessie nosing around the room after she had rearranged it.
“Shut up, Bessie,” she growled, clenching her fingers around her wrist until she released the poem.
“That’s it. This meeting’s over,” PT said.
****
A week had passed and Gracie sat in shock on her familiar rock in the woods behind the steam room.
A flicker behind a maple tree roused her. Eleanor wound her arms around the tree and peered around from behind it. “Are you okay, Gracie?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“How did you know where I was?” Gracie wiped her wet cheeks hastily with the back of her hand. Eleanor came out from behind the tree, taking tiny steps as if she was afraid to break a twig on the ground.
“I follow you sometimes but I know you like your privacy, so I never let you know…but today I heard you crying and I wanted to help.” Moving shyly closer, Eleanor asked about the letter in Gracie’s hand.
“It’s from my sister.”
“Lily, with the pretty long blonde hair.”
Gracie nodded and looked vacantly off into the woods. Eleanor sat on the ground next to her. Finally, she asked, “What did she say?”
“My father died. The funeral was last month. If they had told me, I could have gone.”
“I love you Gracie.” Eleanor put her head on Gracie’s lap and listened to her cry for a long time.
Then she got up and dusted off her dress. “I guess you want to be alone now.”
She meandered back to the hotel campus, wondering if she should get her mother. Shadow meowed up at her and padded up the hill. Eleanor followed the cat all the way to the bowling alley, so she told PT instead. Excusing himself from the bowlers, he hurried down to find Gracie.
He cupped his hands around his mouth calling out her name through the woods until she answered. Sitting down on the moss in front of her, he wrapped his long arms around his knees.
“Eleanor told me. I’m so sorry.”
“I thought I could block them out, PT. I abandoned them when I left home. I feel so guilty.”
“Sounds like they’re the ones who abandoned you. I mean, somebody could have told you earlier so you could get to the funeral.”