A Girl from Yamhill (19 page)

My teeth grew straighter. Claudine invited me to Puddin' almost every weekend. It was a summer of picnics, drifting woodsmoke, laughter, splashes from the river, dancing to the piano, an
accordion, or a “two-piece” orchestra. When the Canadian Legion held its picnic at the campground, the sound of bagpipes skirled through the trees while the dancers, in kilts, danced quadrilles.

When Claudine and I glimpsed stars through the leaves and fir branches, we recited

We had been required to recite this speech from
The Merchant of Venice
for dramatics. For me, the brightest gold in heaven was the lights of the mail plane from California coming in to land in Portland.

Mother said, “I don't think you should be spending so much time at Pudding River.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Claudine and her mother invite me.”

“You know why, don't you?” said Mother.

“No, why?”

“Because you keep Claudine out of Mrs. Klum's way,” was Mother's strange answer. This was ridiculous, and I knew it. Claudine and her mother had a relaxed, happy relationship. I continued to accept their invitations without Mother's approval. I was braver now that escape was near.

In between weekends, Mother taught me to
bake a number of cakes: potato caramel cake, quick chocolate cake, Arabian spice cake, Lady Baltimore cake, prize devil's food cake, walnut loaf cake. “Always sift flour before measuring it,” Mother said. “Otherwise, your cake will be heavy. Always add eggs at the last possible minute.” We ate a lot of cake that summer. Mother referred to it as “Beverly's college preparatory course.”

Then an outbreak of infantile paralysis spread throughout California. Mother worried. Perhaps it was not safe for me to go, after all. Dad and I ignored her worries.

Dad bought me a steamer trunk and meticulously painted my initials on the lid. I went by bus—or stage, as Grandpa called a bus—to Banks to say good-bye to my grandparents, whose store was such a social center it managed to stay in business in spite of a new chain store in Forest Grove. The customers, one after another, said to me, “You wouldn't catch me going down there to California with all those earthquakes and infantile paralysis.”

Bands and wires were removed from my teeth, which were almost, but not quite, straight. Dr. Meaney said I must return to his office the next summer. (I did not. I hope I thanked him.) After six years of increasingly tight wires, my mouth suddenly felt large and roomy. My teeth no
longer ached, and I smiled toothily whenever someone took a snapshot.

Gerhart resigned his job to become a Pilgrim for Jehovah's Witnesses. Prompted, I am sure, by Mother, he took me to see Leslie Howard and Bette Davis in
Of Human Bondage
, a movie I wanted very much to see and enjoyed immensely; he did not. Fu Manchu was more to his taste. As a farewell present, he gave me the box camera that had snapped pictures at the beach, on the river, and by mountain streams—pictures that often caught me in some awkward position, for this was Gerhart's sense of humor. I let him kiss me good-bye. He turned and left. I never wanted to see him again, ever. The long emotional strain had finally ended, and relief flowed through my veins.

Gerhart, three years of whose young manhood were three years of my youth—have I been fair in what I have written about him? As I look back, I can see that he was a young man who had had considerable grief and very little love in his life. He was happy to have a job, a car, and a girl. Although we spent so much time together, we understood almost nothing about each other. The difference in our ages was too great, our interests too diverse. I know that toward the end I made him very unhappy. For this I am sorry.

I should have defied Mother's manipulation of
my life, but at that time and place, parents did not tolerate rebellion from children. Gerhart, free from parents and older than I, should have let me go. We both would have been spared grief, and he would soon have found another girl, for he was a good-looking young man with a good job. And Mother—well, Mother would have found some other way to direct my life, which, in the narrow middle-class world of Portland during the Depression, had somehow become her life. She had no other interests.

My father. What did he think of this odd triangle? Even though he made an effort at conversation, his relationship with Gerhart was courteous, almost formal. Mother was right when she told me Dad did not like him, but any discussion about Gerhart took place when I was out of the house. Dad quietly observed Mother's relentless control over me, and my growing desperation. When escape was unexpectedly offered, he saw it as an opportunity, not only for a year of college, but as a way of ending my relationship with Gerhart. As I look back, I can see that my father, even though I did not ask, always understood what I wanted—roller skates, a hard sponge-rubber ball, a hemp jump rope, a bicycle, and now, freedom. I was leaving.

Because I was going so far, all the way to Southern California, friends, relatives, and
neighbors came to say good-bye, to ask if I wasn't afraid of going down to California where they had all those earthquakes. Wasn't I afraid of catching infantile paralysis? Displaying my toothy new smile, I said I was not afraid. This was considered either brave or foolhardy, depending on who was doing the considering.

Mother served ice cream and slices of my college preparatory course to every visitor. Everyone was hopeful about the future. Some of President Roosevelt's programs just might help, you never could tell. If Social Security actually passed, it would be a big help in old age, that was sure. Mother felt that the end of Prohibition would not do this country one bit of good, “and I can tell you that.”

Depression anecdotes were exchanged. Dad boasted that he had made one razor blade last an entire year by sharpening it on the inside of a straight-sided glass. Other men said they would try it, too. Friends laughed with Mother about her lavish use of almond extract. Mrs. Klum told of her struggles and failures in learning to knit up runs in silk stockings with a crochet hook. Mrs. Miles confided that oil discovered under her mother's house in Oklahoma City had been extracted and entitled the heirs to a small royalty; along with the homestead, it was helping to carry her family through hard times. Oil! We were im
pressed, and the mystery of how Mrs. Miles managed with five daughters was solved. With hope, we could laugh, even though the end of the Depression was not in sight. We were all in it together.

Departure day. My trunk was packed and sent to the Greyhound depot. My father gave me a five-dollar bill to roll in my stocking in case I lost my purse, something I would never allow to happen. My purse held, at last, a tube of lipstick. We reached the Greyhound station by bus and streetcar, talked nervously about nothing at all until my bus was called. My father kissed me good-bye; my mother did not. I boarded and found a seat on the station side where I looked down on my parents standing together, seeming so sad and lonely. We waved without smiling. We could not smile, any of us.

As the bus pulled out of the station, I looked back, filled with sorrow, as if I were standing aside studying the three of us: my gentle, intelligent father who had surrendered his heritage to support us by long days confined in the basement of a bank; my often heroic mother with her lively mind and no outlet for her energies other than her only daughter; myself, happy, excited, frightened, and at the same time filled with guilt because I was leaving my parents behind.
Somehow, I felt, I should have made Mother happy. I ached to love and be loved by her.

The bus turned the corner; I faced front toward California. The bus rumbled along through the Willamette Valley, on, on into the night, carrying me toward my future.