South of Superior (14 page)

Butte had slid to the floor slowly, bolstered by the bed, and at first they thought they could get her Up and wouldn't even have to tell anybody. But after fifteen minutes, it became clear that Arbutus wasn't going anywhere without someone stronger to help. Gladys had tucked a blanket around her, propped a pillow behind her back, and sat down beside her. They'd been there for nearly an hour now. The fit of giggles they'd had when they realized their predicament was long over. The last of the fun had seeped out entirely when Arbutus admitted she had to pee desperately.

At last, the screen door banged. Gladys scrambled Up to hurry Madeline along. It wasn't Madeline, though. It was Randi, wondering if she could drop Greyson off for a bit. Gladys led her to Arbutus's room and together they got Arbutus Up on her feet.

 

 

That was how Madeline
found them when she got home—Randi holding Arbutus, angling her back toward the bed, laughing and teasing, telling Arbutus she had to stop living so wild. Greyson was standing by, patting the mattress solicitously, and Gladys was hovering, looking tense and gray. “Don't worry, Gladys,” Randi said as she eased Arbutus onto the mattress. “I'm strong, I won't drop her. And she's strong too, she's got a good grip on me. Right, Butte? The two of Us, we're survivors, aren't we?”

Madeline watched in confusion for a moment, feeling something suspiciously like jealousy, and then she hurried forward to help.

M
adeline wore Gladys's nerves out, asking Arbutus if she was all right. Finally, after Butte ate a good dinner and watched her favorite television program, Madeline seemed to believe her. She was still wound Up, though. She kept saying she should have been there, then this wouldn't have happened.

“Quit fretting,” Gladys told her after Arbutus was back in bed for the night. “It might've happened anytime, and she's perfectly fine, not even a bruise. You can't be here every living minute. Now, are you going to help me with these packages?”

Madeline started writing address labels, but she kept glancing at Gladys. Finally she cleared her throat and spit out what was on her mind. “I have to ask you something. Why didn't the Bensons cut off your credit? When they did everyone else?”

Gladys's first reaction was to clam Up, refuse to discuss it. But that was suddenly too much effort. She said
huh
in a mirthless way. “They want something from Us.”

“What?”

“The hotel.”

Madeline nodded and Gladys wondered at her lack of surprise. “But what will they do with it?” she asked, very intent.

“They'll tear it down, they've already said so. They want to expand the store and put in a parking lot.”

“That's a terrible idea. You can't let them.”

Gladys was touched by Madeline's dismay, but startled too. What on earth had gotten into her? Probably she was still worked Up over Butte's tumble. But Butte's tumble was right at the heart of the matter: they could not go on this way. “I don't have much choice. That's the truth of it, no matter how I fuss.” Gladys fiddled with a package, frowning. “Eventually this loot will run out. And I'm just scraping along. All my big talk is just that: talk. I swore Up and down I wouldn't sell, wouldn't this, wouldn't that, but—” She shrugged. “I don't see what else to do. Look at what happened today. If Butte gets hurt, really hurt I mean, we're finished here.”

“Oh, Gladys.” Madeline looked truly Upset, which was decent of her.

Gladys took a breath and then she said, “I went down to Crosscut the other day when you thought I was just at Mabel's. Went to see if I could get a loan against my house. They turned me down. Said I was too old, and no income.”

“Oh, Gladys. I'm sorry.”

“I didn't want Butte to know. Or you, either. The fact is I don't see what else to do but let the hotel go. It makes sense.”

She picked Up an old metal sign advertising tinned Moroccan anchovies. It was going to a woman in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, who had paid thirty-eight dollars for it. Gladys remembered the days when they Used to sell anchovies at the hotel. They'd sold all kinds of things, anything to bring a nickel in. Cigarettes, peppermints, matches, woolen socks, chocolate bars, newspapers. To her the sign was as real as anything, as common as a can opener (but not Unloved for that), a tiny gear in the business she once ran, but to some stranger halfway across the country, it was an antique, a curiosity.

“That's where you get all this stuff, isn't it? From the hotel?”

“Most of it. I sold all those alarm clocks, you know, but I didn't get as much as I wanted.” She shrugged. “The place is full of junk. Might as well clean it out.”

“It's not junk.”

Gladys made a face.

“Mary Feather told me that your parents ran it.”

“Yes, and my grandparents before them. They built it. Eighteen hundred and eighty-six they put in the cornerstone, it's cut into the cement, you can see.” Gladys began to tidy the wrapping paper, blinking tears away, furious at herself.

“So you ran it too?”

“Frank and I did. Hansen's General, we tried to call it, but that never took. The Hotel Leppinen it was and always remained.”

“I love the place, you know. I have to tell you, I've even—” Madeline broke off, picking Up the rooster pepper shaker and rubbing its red comb with her thumb. Gladys had done that a million times herself. Something about the dull glossy red of that comb, you just wanted to touch it. Madeline probably expected to be snapped at for prying into this business of theirs. Gladys knew herself. She had a sharp tongue. It was just her way. Some people were sweet, like Arbutus, and some were sour. It didn't mean she didn't have feelings. It just meant she didn't—couldn't—indulge them. But now she smiled wistfully.

“I love it too. I guess that's why I've hung on so long.”

“Did you close it when Frank died?” Madeline asked. She had set the rooster down and had her chin on her hand and looked all dreamy-eyed. As if this was a wonderful make-believe story.

“Heavens no, I had to make a living, didn't I? Mostly I ran it myself anyway, Frank was working in the woods. Oh, Arbutus came and lived with us for a spell, after Nathan's father died, but that was just for a while, before she married her second husband, Harvey Hill. It was when my Frank Junior was small. Those boys were the best of friends, back then. Hard to believe how greedy Nathan got as he grew Up.”

“Frank Junior?” she said, sitting Up straight, the dreaminess gone.

“My son. He was killed. In Vietnam.”

“Oh, God. Gladys, I don't know what to say. I had no idea—I'm so sorry.”

Gladys could not bear to talk about it. “It was a long time ago.” She picked a package Up, resmoothed the tape carefully. At last she could look at Madeline again. “I closed the hotel not too long after your grandfather died. I just lost heart, I guess. It seemed like it'd got to be too much for me. The roof sprang a leak and that was the last straw. I patched Up the hole but I couldn't see repairing the damage.” She shook her head. “I decided to cut my losses. I thought it might be nice for once in my life to not be so tied down and I wasn't making enough to shake a stick at anyway. I thought I might as well let myself have a little freedom.” She made the scissors cut the empty air. “But now where do I go? Nowhere.”

“Do you ever think of reopening?”

“Not a chance. Things have changed too much. Back in my day, and my mother's, the tourists weren't so fussy. They'd share the bathroom at the end of the hall and didn't need anything in the rooms but a bed and a dresser. It's different now. Of course, every generation says that. I put an electric sign in the window that said ‘Rooms to Let,' and my mother was fit to be tied. She thought it was tacky.”

“ ‘
Rooms to Let
,' ” Madeline repeated, as if that was the most wonderful thing ever.

“I was thinking I'd put it on eBay, I'll bet it brings quite a bit.”

“Oh, no, you can't sell it! Please don't.”

“There's no reason not to.”

“Of course there is!”

“And what would that be?” Gladys asked, giving Madeline the skeptical look she deserved for all this folderol.

“Well—I—it's your history, you just said so. And you might want to reopen. If you had help, say.”

Gladys aimed the scissors at Madeline and shook them a little to make her point. “No. There's too much that needs doing. I don't know what it would take to fix the water damage. More than I've got. Besides which the place needs cleaning like you can't imagine, and the plumbing needs work, and the outside painted. I looked into that, it'll cost a fortune. A real fortune. Then there's the roof, and the heat, and the wiring, and a dozen other things. What it would all cost boggles the imagination.”

“But it's so beautiful. You can just
feel
it wanting to reopen and run again. It's such a shame that it just sits there.”

Gladys gave Madeline a long, quelling look and shook the scissors at her again. “A shame? What it is, is old and out of fashion and expensive as Hades to keep open. And that's
after
repairs.”

“I suppose,” Madeline said, looking crestfallen, as if Gladys had blasted some cherished dream of hers out of the sky. “I guess you'd know.”

Gladys felt a little sorry then for being so severe. She had the same romantic notions about the place as Madeline, or she wouldn't have hung on to it all these years. “It would never bring in much and people want that nowadays, no one's content with just a living,” she said more gently. “It's a grand old building, but it's too much for Us. I'm tired of fighting it. I'm afraid the decision is made.”

“But, Gladys, how can it be that simple? That final? There must be some way—”

“It's got to be done,” Gladys cut her off. “And the Bensons seem very serious about their offer.”

“If it was
anyone
but them,” Madeline said. She seemed so worked Up. Gladys could only think it was nerves. The best thing to do about nerves was to ignore them.

“One good thing, I suppose they'll let the grocery bill go,” she said.

“So it goes.”

“But you've held out this long. What about your history?”

“Madeline, stop,” Gladys said, abruptly tired of the girl's naïveté. “I haven't a choice. I've been nickel-and-diming my way along for months now, and it isn't working. The summer taxes will be due in September. More money I haven't got. I only just got the winter taxes paid, and then they were late. And history?” She swept a pile of paper scraps into the garbage can that sat at her feet. “History doesn't pay the bills. History won't feed Us or keep Us warm. It's just something that's over and done with.”

Madeline seemed to have deflated in front of her. Again Gladys felt an Unexpected stab of sympathy. “Do you want to take a walk?” she asked. She knew how Madeline liked walking. Gladys liked walking too. Funny that they'd not done any of it together.

“Isn't it awfully late? And what about Arbutus?”

“Sound asleep,” Gladys declared. “And late? What's late? I'm an old lady, I don't sleep anyway. And you're a young one, full of vim and vigor.”

A reluctant smile spread across Madeline's face.

 

 

Main Street was empty
except for a dozen cars and trucks parked around the bar. The windows were open and Madeline heard the jukebox playing, the clink of glasses and silver, the jumble of voices, an occasional shout. Gladys was reminiscing about the old days and Madeline was half-listening.

“We made all our own rugs, every one, out of rags. Flannel shirts and dungarees and bedsheets that were beyond mending. Those things'll survive the next ice age. Lord, the
work
of it.
Bang!
that shuttle on the loom would go all evening long. My grandma could never sit without working. The loom's in the shed out back of the hotel. Dismantled, but all there. And the kicksled, why, I Used to Use it myself.”

“What is it, anyway?”

“It's for the winter, to get around in the ice and the snow, do your errands. See, look.” Gladys stopped on the sidewalk and demonstrated, grabbing at an invisible waist-high handle with both hands, making a kicking motion with one foot. “You pushed yourself along, carried your parcels on the seat. See?”

Madeline nodded. For a moment she saw it all—ice, snow, the wooden kicksled, a tiny, robust woman in warm woolen clothes out doing her errands. “Handy.”

“A man with an antique store offered Us a lot of money for it, but we said no.”

“Of course you did.”

“Now I don't know what to do. I had made Up my mind to sell it, but maybe I oughtn't. Maybe once the hotel's sold I'll wish I'd kept it. But once we're dead and gone, where'll it go?”

“You'll find somewhere. A museum, maybe? Or even Randi.” In her sadness Madeline was feeling beneficent and unjudging.

“Not Randi. She'd probably just hock it for the cash. Or worse.”

Madeline blinked. “Well, you shouldn't sell it, you'd never forgive yourself.”

“Probably not.” Gladys began walking again.

“The hotel is really wonderful,” Madeline said as they headed Up the street, the clatter of the tavern growing fainter. “It's—I've—” She meant to confess to Gladys, both her Unlikely daydreams and her unauthorized prowls through the place, but somehow she couldn't. The time wasn't right.