Jane Smiley - Some Luck

In the meantime, Eloise had gotten out of the newspaper business and was working for the WPA in San Francisco. She had rented some kind of duplex there, and Rosa was in a school with all sorts of children, including Negro children and Italian children and maybe even some Japs, though Eloise was very coy about that, and Rosanna had thought that all the Japs were sent away to camps — there was one in Kansas, Rosanna thought she had heard that, but maybe not. No one talked about it. There was a POW camp up in Algona, and another one over in Clarinda, and those POWs worked the farms around there, but Rosanna thought that Joey, John, and Walter were doing fine. POWs in the neighborhood would have made her nervous.

Lillian wanted to go out to San Francisco and get a job when she graduated from high school in the spring, and Rosanna was against it, but not for the reason Walter was, which was that San Francisco was impossibly far away — three days by train. Was she going to sit up the whole way? If not, a berth was very expensive. Rosanna knew that Lillian was not quite ready to tell Walter that she could pay the fare herself. He had no idea how much she had been paid at the drugstore (he would be amazed and a little disapproving — he would certainly not have factored in tips, because Walter thought waitresses only got good tips for flirting). No, Rosanna didn’t mind the thought of Lillian having a little bit of an adventure — she would be nineteen this year, for Heaven’s sake. Rosanna was married and then pregnant when she was nineteen. What Rosanna minded was the idea that, when Lillian got to San Francisco, Eloise was not going to be the one to take her places where she could meet the right sort of man. Rosanna was sure that Eloise was continuing to consort with Jews and Italians and even Negroes, just as she did in Chicago, and what she would most likely do for Lillian was take her to some low-class neighborhoods and have her hand out leaflets about unions and meet pipe fitters and men like that. Rosanna had no beef with pipe fitters per se — every man she had ever known got his hands dirty every day of the week and most Sundays, and if her father owned a pair of shoes rather than boots, she had never seen them. However, even though Lillian was too good for that life, she was sure to throw herself away, and Eloise wouldn’t stop her.

Rosanna had always called Lillian an “angel” and a “saint,” and so she should not have been surprised when Lillian turned out to be that very thing, but the result was that she was kindest to all the wrong girls and dated all the wrong boys. Who took her to the Christmas Dance, for example? None other than Otis Olsson, the most backward boy in the senior class, who could not drive and had to be driven by his older brother, Oscar. Why did she go with Otis? Well, she felt sorry for him. The other boys who asked her could date whoever they wanted, but Otis didn’t dare ask anyone. And why did they come home early? Well, Otis got carsick on the way over, and threw up beside the road, and that was that. And then there was the Riemann girl, who came over sometimes. Lillian helped her with her homework while the girl gazed open-mouthed at her — adenoidal for sure. Yes, Lillian had other friends, better friends, but these were the ones she seemed to value, and with only Eloise to guide her, she would surely marry someone of just the same type.

Of course, Joey was going to marry Minnie as soon as Mrs. Frederick passed away and Joey could convince Minnie to have him. It was written all over his face and body that he thought the world of Minnie, though she did look used up for her age, twenty-six now, but looking thirty if a day. And Joey not even twenty-three, but every time Rosanna saw him, it was Minnie-this and Minnie-that, and, kind boy that he was, he helped out over there, not to mention that he was practically farming the whole place. Roland Frederick had gone downhill all of a sudden, and couldn’t do a thing. Minnie would get the farm, and Joey would marry her, and so he would have the farm, and nothing wrong with that for a boy his age. But it was about as exciting as a hard frost, as Oma used to say.

Probably the best she could hope for with Frank was that he did not bring home a war bride. But she hardly dared think about it.

ON THE FIRST of March, Hildy showed up. Hildy Bergstrom, in a blue Dodge, wearing a navy-blue suit, a stylish white hat with a navy-blue grosgrain band, a beaver coat, and warm snow boots. She parked in the drive just off the road, made her way through the late-winter mud to the front porch, and knocked. When Rosanna spied her through the window, she thought the young woman was lost, or selling something.

She was a beautiful girl, very like Carole Lombard had been (what a sad thing that airplane crash was, still), but with four or five more inches of height, and not quite as square a jaw. She held out her hand and said, “Oh, Mrs. Langdon, I’ve been wanting to meet you for such a long time. I was in the neighborhood, and I couldn’t resist stopping by. I’m Hildy. Hildy Bergstrom. I’m Frank’s fiancée.”

Well, of course Rosanna’s eye snapped straight to her ring finger, but she had gloves on — nice ones made of white cotton with a bit of cutwork around the wrists. Rosanna took her hand, shook it, and said, “Would you like to come in? It’s rather cold out here, isn’t it? We can have some tea.”

The house, of course, was perfectly clean and neat, and not terribly ramshackle. At New Year’s, Rosanna had slipcovered the sofa with some nice green chenille, and her best afghan — ivory lace in a fan stitch — was folded over the armchair. Henry had some books around — not even thirteen, and deep into something called The Woman in White . Rosanna picked the book off the sofa, turned down the corner of the page, and set it on the lamp table. She saw Hildy glance at it and said, “Frank’s brother Henry is an avid reader.”

“Oh, I am, too. I love books.”

Rosanna left her looking around politely and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Making the tea took all of four minutes, just because the range was already hot, and she had boiled the kettle half an hour before. She even had sugar, cream, of course, and some lemon left over from the lemon pie she had baked over the weekend. Rosanna glanced into the windowpane beside the back door. Did she look anymore as though it was possible for her to produce a specimen like Frankie? Not much. She repinned a couple of hairpins and carried the tea and the cups and saucers into the front room. She set them down on the coffee table and sat on the sofa. Hildy gave her a bright smile. Rosanna said, “So — what brings you to our neighborhood? We’re a little out of the way.”

“Frank maybe has told you that I live in Kansas City now. Anyway, I had to go to Albert Lea, and I thought that I wouldn’t have a better opportunity to say hi, so here I am.”

“What do you do in Kansas City?”

“Oh, goodness. So many things. I love Kansas City. I’m a buyer for Halls. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s part of Hallmark Cards.”

“Is there something they need in Albert Lea?” Rosanna poured the tea. Hildy took sugar, not cream.

Hildy leaned forward. “Not on your life. I’m going to visit my cousin. He and his wife just had a baby, so I took a few days off. We’ve already bought our spring collections, so it’s a little bit of a quiet period.” She gave Rosanna another big smile, then said, “Frank talked so much about his family and the farm. I’m just thrilled to meet you. I do hope Joe, Lillian, Henry, and Claire turn up.”

That was good, Rosanna thought. She did not believe for a moment that Frank had a fiancée — not because he would have told her, but because it just wasn’t like him to be so conventional. But the young woman knew something.