Carla Kelly (18 page)

ella changed her mind three times before settling on a simple green, polished cotton dress for her dinner with Dr. Isgreen. Mabli had thought the black bombazine too stern, and the voile better tucked away for summer next year.

“Green is just enough for dinner with Dr. Isgreen,” Mabli said. “I have an ivory brooch that will be perfect.”

Maybe she should call him Emil, instead of Dr. Isgreen. He had stopped in on Friday to the school, claiming to need to speak with Miss Clayson about students’ physical examinations, even though he spent most of the time sitting at a too-small desk, chatting and printing names on heavy cardboard.

“Dr. Isgreen, your printing is not very good,” Della said, looking over his shoulder.

He merely shrugged. “Free labor—it's worth what you pay for. Do call me Emil, because then I can call you Della.” He frowned at his own printing. “You could be right, Della. Tell you what: I'll cut out the place names and
you
do the lettering.”

When he finished, he gave Della a cheerful salute. “See you Saturday,” he told her and left. She watched him out the window, hands deep in his pockets, nodding to friends and making his amiable way down to the canyon's mouth. “My goodness, someone asked me out,” she murmured, her eyes on the doctor. She could count on one hand the times any man had asked her out, which invariably reminded her of Aunt Caroline's admonition about accepting such invitations. It occurred to her that he didn't have to know everything.

She walked home slowly that afternoon, relishing the balm of late summer, when the balance seemed to be tipping toward cooler, longer nights. She walked slowly on purpose, doing her best to get used to the higher elevation that still made her gasp for breath as if she were an old woman.

As she paused, she noticed a higher wagon road that wound up the canyon toward the ridge. Maybe she would take that road in a few weeks. She remembered Papa's never-flagging curiosity about such roads that meandered into the distance. “Oly, there might be something stupendous on the other side,” he had told her. “You'll never know until you look.”

Mostly she believed him, because she had never hesitated to walk with him to that ridge or high point. Generally, the view was more of the same, but Frederick Anders always had to look, just to make sure. She realized now that until his death in the Molly Bee, the two of them, odd adventurers, had followed many such trails, always looking for treasure on the other side.

You never were content to stay in one place, Papa
, she thought, her eyes on the road as it angled toward the ridge.
There was always going to be a silver strike like the Comstock Lode just ahead or some Lost Dutchman Mine waiting for you
. When his death forced her to go to Salt Lake, she had resented his wanderlust. She didn't now; that was just Papa, imperfect like most people.

By Saturday afternoon, everything was ready for Monday's first day of school. She had spelled “Welcome, scholars” on the pegged board, using Owen's wonderful letters. She had titled one bulletin board, “Nuts and Bolts,” which made Miss Clayson frown. Della just smiled, determined not to fall victim to the principal's pessimism.

“This is where I will post grades, and permission slips, should we need them, and notes that must go home—odds and ends, nuts and bolts,” she explained. She pointed to the other board titled, “Autumn Leaves,” with its bare-branched tree made of brown construction paper. “We'll add leaves with spelling words on them, some on the tree, and some in piles.”

No comment. Miss Clayson walked around Della's classroom, looking at the place names on her desk, running her finger along the chalk trough, and blowing imaginary dust off the row of books. “Be here early Monday morning,” was all she said as she left the room.

Della made a face at the principal's back, remembering all of the slights and criticism from Aunt Caroline.
You're too late to flummox me, Miss Clayson. I trained with Caroline Anders
, she thought.

After helping Mabli Reese in the boardinghouse kitchen, Della went back to Mabli's house. She pulled the tin tub into the kitchen, closed the shutters, and filled the tub from the cooking range's ample reservoir. When the water was just right, she took a change of clothing into the kitchen and closed the door.

The water was on the warm side, so she settled in slowly, happy the tub was large enough, or she was small enough to allow a welcome soak. Della figured Dr. Isgreen was worth her lily of the valley soap. She applied it generously, humming at first and then singing selections from Gilbert and Sullivan louder than she would have ordinarily, because coal was flowing down the tipple and she could hardly hear herself.

The coal quit roaring by the time she finished giving “… three cheers and one cheer more for the mighty captain of the Pinafore,” when someone knocked on the kitchen door. She gasped.

“That's lovely, Sister Anders,” she heard, as she stopped in mid-wash. “I need you in the choir.”

“You're a dead man if you open that door,” she threatened.

“ ‘What never? No never,’ ” she heard, sung in a magnificent baritone, which made her laugh, even as she slid down lower in the water and listened to him finish with, “ ‘What never? Well … hardly ever.’ I'm not really a dirty bird.”

She laughed in spite of her embarrassment. “This kind of subterfuge is
not
designed to get me into your choir.”

“I would never stoop so low,” Owen said. “Well, hardly ever … Didn't Mabli warn you?”

“That you're a rascal? No!”

“I told her I was going to put up shutters in your room. They'll help keep out the cold. Just finished them. May I go in your room?”

She thought a moment, remembering that her silk stockings were draped over the footboard and she couldn't recall where her corset was. She had left her bedroom door wide open too. Hopefully he was blind in one eye and couldn't see out of the other. “Um, could it wait?”

“Aye. I'll come back later. G'day, now. Do you know Yum Yum's solo from the first act of
The Mikado
?”

“I can only hit notes that high when the bath water is colder. Go away!”

She heard him set down shutters, if she could believe a man who recruited for the choir when she was sitting in bathwater. “I'm gone,” she heard, then footsteps, then, “Nice stockings.”

“You
are
a dirty bird!”

The house was quiet again. Della sighed and did sing Yum Yum's solo, but softer this time, since the coal was not competing.

She decided Dr. Isgreen was worth a French braid, and it turned out quite elegant, with Mabli offering comments and tucking in her curls here and there.

“Seems a crime to set a hat on it,” the woman said, as she handed Della her smaller hat. “Just this little one, and tip it forward.”

As she walked toward the hospital, Della was joined by the Parmley girls coming from the store, if the striped bag Maria clutched was any indication. “Mama gave us three cents each for candy,” Mary said. “Are you going somewhere with Brother Isgreen?”

“There's not a single secret in this canyon, is there?” Della asked. “He invited me to dinner. Is there really a restaurant in Scofield?”

“Two,” Maria chimed in. “Papa says only a starving man would eat at one of them; I can't remember which one that is.” She handed a spare Good & Plenty to Della. “Do you like Brother Isgreen? Your hair is so pretty.”

Mary glared at her little sister. “Maria! Mama says ladies like their privacy.”

Maria opened her mouth again, but Mary shook her finger at her. “I'm going to tell Mama you are prying!” She dropped a playful curtsy to Della. “I hope you have a lovely time, but don't stay out too late.”

“I promise I won't. Cross my heart,” Della said. “Thanks for the Good & Plenty, Maria.”

Dr. Isgreen waited for her on the porch of the hospital, walking out to meet her in the road. She told him about the Parmley girls, and he just shrugged. “I don't think I mentioned to anyone that I was taking you to dinner.”

“According to Maria, only one of Scofield's two restaurants is safe to eat in,” she said. “I trust you know which is which.”

“Heavens, so do I,” he said. He stuck out his elbow, and she crooked her arm through his. “Ground's a bit uneven.” He looked around. “This is far removed from the
glamour
of Salt Lake City, but I can't argue with the view here.”

She couldn't either. The broad expanse of Pleasant Valley spread before them, a marked contrast to the tight canyon they had just left, and the narrow canyons she remembered from Colorado. “It looks like the top of the world.”

“It really will in winter, when all you see is snow.”

“As for glamorous Salt Lake, I was a hardworking teacher there,” she said, after they were seated in the restaurant. She glanced around. After the waiter took their orders, she leaned across the table. “Dr. Isgreen …”

“… Emil …”

“Emil, kindly tell me what rumors are circulating about me.” She lowered her voice. “I'm a nine-day wonder, and I'm not sure why.”

His expression turned thoughtful as though he weighed each rumor and found it wanting in some way. “You really want to know what I've heard?”

“I do. I fear my Anders name has preceded me.”

“It has.”

Della sighed. “Don't stop there.”

“Well, everyone is convinced that you are rich and teaching here out of some exalted effort to uplift the poor miners.”

“Nothing's farther from the truth,” she replied, happy enough to have the matter out in the open. “My father was a hard rock miner in Colorado …”

“… who owned half the mines on the Colorado Plateau. That's the rumor!”

“He never owned a mine in his life,” Della said, dismayed that tales traveled at the speed of light in Carbon County.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, then the doctor put down his spoon. “I saw you in the Spanish Fork depot, talking to Jesse Knight. I
know
he owns half the mines in Utah.”

“His wife and my Aunt Caroline Anders are distant cousins,” she explained. “I was taking something to her from Aunt Caroline, and Uncle Jesse said he'd drop me off in Spanish Fork. That's all it was.”

There was so much more she could have told him about years of loneliness and humiliation, but she concentrated on her dinner instead. He seemed to sense her uneasiness and entertained her with stories of snakebites and lacerations from bar fights, which made her suspect he wasn't any better at small talk than she was. He stopped talking finally. “Are we the two worst people in the world when it comes to idle chatter?”

Della nodded. “It's a skill I never acquired.”

“In that case, let me turn a corner in this conversation and tell you why, besides just wanting to get to know you, I asked you to dinner.” He held up his hands in self-defense. “No need to be wary! It's this: I know you have a Finnish woman in your class.”

“Yes. Mari Elvena Luoma,” Della said, mystified. “She's newly arrived from Finland.”

“Would you try to get to know her?”

“I'll be glad to.” She peered at him. “Why her, in particular? I don't understand your interest.”

Emil waited until the waiter removed their dishes. “It will come as no surprise to you that I'm the one who signs death certificates in Winter Quarters. I've noticed a preponderance of infant deaths in the Finnish community. I have my suspicions why.”

“And they would be …”

“The families never call on me to assist in childbirth. Never. Granted, most women can do just fine without an attending physician, but not all. I've signed some death certificates I'd rather have avoided.”

“They don't come to the hospital?”

“Few women do here, but I am generally in attendance in their homes. What the Finns do is give birth in one of their saunas and the women help each other.” He interpreted her blank expression correctly. “It's a sort of bathing house, using heat to clean the body. Tough people, the Finns. The next step is to run outside and roll around in the snow.”

“Uh, bare?”

“I suppose. I apologize, for this is a less-than-delicate subject. Apparently, the Finns use saunas for birthing rooms because they are clean places.”