Prayers the Devil Answers (6 page)

After we'd lived in town for a year Albert bought us a big Atwater Kent radio for the parlor, and, with the coins he put in a tin box every week, he saved up enough to get me a secondhand sewing machine for Christmas. The machine had belonged to the wife of one of the railroad shop foremen. It was a good one, but it had stopped working, so instead of trying to fix it, the foreman's wife bought a new one out of the Sears Wish Book. The foreman let Albert have the broken machine for a couple of dollars, and Albert took it to the machine shop, where he and the other men got it running again, so it worked just fine. Eddie pined for a bicycle, and I wanted an electric refrigerator to replace the old icebox in the kitchen, but Albert was set on putting as much money as we could spare away in savings, so we knew that those things would have to wait.

After we got accustomed to life in town, our lives ticked steadily along for a while. I thought we were doing well, but then Albert got restless and bored at the railroad shop. He didn't like being cooped up indoors all day, and maybe he had caught a touch of ambition from living in the town. I didn't like the change in him as much as I thought I would.

Albert waited until the boys went to bed before he told me, but he had already made up his mind.

We were sitting together in the parlor, me mending socks and Albert fidgeting. Finally he turned down the music on the radio and motioned me into the kitchen. I poured him some coffee, and he
sat down at the kitchen table, rubbing the sides of his coffee mug while he worked out what to say to me. “Ellie, I'm fixing to quit the machine shop.”

I kept my eyes on the sock I was darning so that he wouldn't see the look on my face. “Are they laying men off then, Albert?” I kept my voice as steady as I could so he wouldn't leave off telling me. “I know times are getting worse for everybody.”

That Atwater Kent radio brought us music and even plays to help us pass the time in the evening when it could pick up the signals from distant stations, but besides all the entertainment, it also reported the news from all over the country, which was a mixed blessing. It let us know that we were not the only ones struggling through hard times, but it also proved that things were no better anywhere else, and, on account of the economic depression, there seemed to be nowhere to go to escape it, and no end in sight.

“Laying people off?” Albert shook his head. “No. Ain't nobody at the railroad yard said anything about cutting back on jobs, Ellie. Touch wood. But that doesn't mean that they won't decide to do it on a moment's notice, with not a thought in the world about what would happen to us next. But even if they don't cut jobs—well, the truth is, sometimes I wish they would. Working in that little shop is a waste of daylight. I reckon the job could pay more, too.”

“It's better than no pay at all.”

He sighed. “Well, I reckon that's true, hon, but I've decided that I wasn't cut out for working in a shop day in and day out. In the winter, I set off afore sunup and come home past dark. Every now and then I'd like to see sunshine somewhere besides on the other side of the window.”

I kept my eyes on the darning needle. “I'd like to keep seeing food on the table, Albert.”

He nodded. I knew he wouldn't be so selfish as to quit a job without giving a thought to the family he had to support. “I'm mindful of
that, Ellie. I've been chewing over this for a while now, and I wouldn't think about leaving unless I had somewhere else to go. You know that. I wouldn't do anything to make you and the boys go without, and I wouldn't live on other people's charity any more than you would. I do have my sights set on another job, though, and I promise you I won't leave the railroad shop unless I get it.”

Another job? That puzzled me. “But who else is hiring in this town? The railroad all but owns the place. And who but the railroad could afford to take on new help in times like these? You aren't thinking to
leave
town, are you?” I had never been anywhere else, so I don't know why I expected things to be worse in some other place, but the idea of going into flatlands among strangers frightened me more than staying here and going hungry. The only thing worse would be if Albert decided to go elsewhere to work, leaving me and the boys behind. I knew that some of the men who went to work in the car factories up in Michigan did that. Some might save up their pay and send for their families to join them. But some of them wouldn't.
Grass widows
was what people called women whose husbands took off and abandoned them. I didn't intend to be one.

I took a deep breath to keep from crying. “Are you fixing to go then?”

“No, Ellie. I am not. We're all staying put. And as for ‘who but the railroad could afford to take on new help,'
the answer is the same as always: the government.”

“What government? Washington?”

“ 'Course not. I mean the county.”

I stared at him while I took it in. What jobs does the county have to give? “Tax collector?”

Albert chuckled. “Well, no, hon, I ain't stooped
that
low. And I wouldn't know how to get blood out of a turnip anyhow, which is what tax collecting must be like nowadays. No thank you. I have applied to be hired on as a deputy sheriff. The job would give me a lot
of work outdoors, which I'd like, and it would be a step up in the eyes of the community, which would be good for both of us.”

I stabbed at the sock with the darning needle. “Well, I suppose it would be, if you call having folks scared of you a step up. I don't believe I do.”

CELIA

By the time Celia Pasten had completed her two years of college and then a year of teaching in a little county school, the memory of her mishap at the Dumb Supper had faded from her mind. The other girls might still be preoccupied with thoughts of love and marriage, but she was satisfied with the path she had chosen, and that choice had nothing to do with any possible curse arising out of the Dumb Supper. When people asked why she didn't get married, she told them that working for a living wasn't any harder than cooking and scrubbing floors for free. It might even be safer: even aside from the risk of dying in childbirth, there was the fact that more than one woman had settled for marriage and then found herself widowed or abandoned with no means of support. Celia thought she might marry someday—if she felt like it—but if so, she had no intention of being completely dependent on a husband for support. She never mentioned the fact that she had received no offers of marriage anyhow. And, sometimes at church, without quite knowing why, she prayed that someone would choose her.

Most of the other girls had been spoken for.

Shortly after high school graduation, golden Aurelia, and cunning Sarah, the minister's daughter, married their sweethearts—those same young men who had attended the Dumb Supper to make their intentions known. Their weddings took place in the little community
church on consecutive Saturdays in June. Once married, both brides settled into complacent domesticity, one in a wood and cinderblock cottage on a parcel of her in-laws' farm, and the other into a small town in Georgia, close to the army base where her new husband was stationed.

The childhood circle of friends didn't see much of one another after that. With little in common anymore, the girls drifted apart, going their separate ways. Celia, who was more diligent than gifted, received a scholarship to nearby Milligan College, where she studied education so that she could get a teaching certificate.

The Greer sisters, still spinsters and likely to remain so, stayed at home, tending to their ailing mother and taking on most of the farm chores. They turned up at the others' weddings, though, throwing handfuls of rice; one of them elbowing the guests aside, trying to catch the bride's bouquet, while her sister scowled at such foolishness.

Another of the Dumb Supper girls, Ann Durner, married in August. Some of her girlhood friends served as bridesmaids, but Celia was not among them. Nevertheless, she went to the wedding, partly to wish Ann well and mostly to show that she was not bitter or envious of the bride.

At the reception afterward the dour Greer sister, who was in charge of the punch bowl, beckoned to Celia. She smiled as she handed Celia a cup of apple juice and fizzy water, but there was more sneer than happiness in that smile. “Well, Celia Pasten, remember that Dumb Supper we put on when we were foolish girls? It seems to have worked for some of us anyway.” She nodded toward the bride, who had just finished cutting the wedding cake.

Celia smiled to show she didn't mind being slighted by fate. “Perhaps it did. Unless it's just coincidence.”

“Do you think so?” The Greer sister raised her bushy eyebrows. “Have you noticed that we three are the only old maids left of the
supper party? Me—and I don't care a bit for all the nonsense of romance; my sister, who is homely and desperate, a fatal combination for a spinster; and you. Now I find that interesting. I have given up expecting the two of us Greers to ever marry; by the time Mother passes away, we will be too old to try. We don't care much for the selection around here, anyhow, but we did think that you would have settled for somebody after all this time. You're not unattractive for your type, and some men aren't overly particular about looks.”

Celia blushed. None of the community's young men had ever shown more than a passing interest in her, but she couldn't bring herself to admit that to the mocking keeper of the punch bowl. “It doesn't worry me one bit,” she said. “Haven't you realized why I've stayed single? I can't be thinking about courting because I'm studying to be a teacher. The state won't allow lady schoolteachers to be married, so I guess it's no use for me to try to find somebody, unless I'm willing to give up my job and waste all that education.”

“Safer, too, don't you think?” The Greer sister's sour smile stayed in place, but now her eyes narrowed, completing the spiteful image. She picked up a knife from the refreshment table and, still smiling, let it fall from her hand. It clattered on the floor and spun once, ending with the blade pointing toward Celia.

Celia glanced at it and looked away as if she had not understood the gesture. “What do you mean, safer? Safer on account of not having to go through childbirth, you mean?”

“Oh, no.” The Greer sister shook her head. “There's some that go through that without ever getting married, and, wedded or not, most women manage to live through it, though I wouldn't care to risk it myself.” Leaning in close she whispered in Celia's ear, “You know what I really mean, don't you? It's on account of the Dumb Supper. Remember that night?”

“What about it? It was ages ago.”

“Well, I haven't forgotten any of it. You told me afterward that you had dropped your table knife on the floor, and then, when you were putting it back, you looked straight at the table. So I reckon you're cursed on account of that.”

Celia shrugged. “It was only a silly game.”

“That's as may be, but you can't deny that it came true for Aurelia and Sarah. Both of them married the boys who showed up for them that night at the Dumb Supper. Of course, Sarah was in the family way when she was wed, so I suppose the Fates had a little help in getting her to the altar.”

“And Aurelia is beautiful. She would never lack for suitors anyhow.”

“Well, those chocolate-box blondes fade early, so I think it was best for her to marry while her looks lasted. But you are another matter altogether. There's many a girl plainer than you who went to the altar at seventeen, and here you are past twenty.”

“I wanted an education.”

“Even so, I still think you were wise to keep clear of love and marriage. You broke the ritual. If you were to get married, there's no telling what might happen.” The Greer sister looked especially pleased about that, perhaps because she was red-faced and stout, with little hope of being a bride herself, while Celia, although timid and bashful, was slender and striking.

“Nothing would happen. It was all nonsense.”

“Well, I wouldn't chance it if I were you, Celia. You go on and be a spinster schoolmarm and keep out of harm's way.”

Because she could not manage a smile, Celia gave her a blank stare and backed away. As more wedding guests began to hover around the table asking for punch, she murmured something and slipped through the crowd as quickly as she decently could. For the remainder of the reception Celia went on embracing the old friends who insisted on it. She listened to news about their lives, without saying
much about herself. But she remembered very little of the occasion after that.

If someday she had a husband she would tell him about that silly courting tradition.

Someday.