Drowning Ruth

  “All right,” Ruth said, although she knew she could never summon Ellen.

  “I'll see you tomorrow then? Or Imogene?”

  “Imogene, I think.”

  “Well, Rose,” she said, giving Ruth her cool hand again, “you've been a great help. Thank you.” And then she was gone.

  Ruth sat down to the typing. The paper she fed into the machine was luxuriously thick and soft, and a rich, creamy color, nothing like the nearly transparent stuff flecked with bits of wood and rag they had to use at Brown's. When she held it to the light, the watermark floated in the center like a secret kiss. Why hadn't she told Mrs. Owens that her name wasn't Rose?

  Dear Mrs. Schmidt, I was so plased

  Carefully, Ruth rolled the paper out of the typewriter and inserted a new page.

  Dear Mrs. Schmidt, I wzs

  Dear mrs.

  Dre

  Ruth yanked the fourth sheet of paper out with a sharp, satisfying zip. Anyone who did that at Brown's had to pay a fine for damage to the machine. Not wanting Mrs. Owens to see how many sheets of expensive letter paper she'd ruined, she folded her false starts and stuffed them into her pocketbook.

  She walked once around the room to collect herself and then sat down again. A hairpin poked her scalp. One by one, she drew pins out, searching for the culprit, until her hair hung freely down her back.

  Except for the typewriter, everything on the desk was decorated to suggest a whimsical, aquatic theme. She picked up a letter opener with a silver handle scaled like a fish. Beside that crouched a green enamel box shaped like a frog from whose mouth protruded a tongue of stamps. She tore several off, licked them and applied them to envelopes. She would type the addresses later. Then she turned to the appointment book, which was covered in bottle-green leather and had its own little gold pen stuck in a ring on the side. Ruth filled in each obligation from the cards and letters Mrs. Owens had given her. First she wrote in pencil in case she made a mistake, and then she traced over the pencil with the gold pen.

  The telephone rang, and she jumped. Was she supposed to answer it? She waited. It rang again, two rings, three, four. Why wasn't Ellen or someone downstairs picking it up? Finally, on the sixth ring, she lifted the receiver. “Hello?” But no one was there.

  Ruth flipped back and forth through the appointment book: Soldiers' Home luncheon, tea for St. Anne's, S. Lemon, Avis home, Garden Club, Library Benefit, Athletic Club, Red Cross, Women's Club, dinner at the Joneses'. She pretended to answer a call. “Yes, this is Mrs. Owens's secretary… Let me see… I can squeeze you in between two-thirty and three o'clock on Wednesday, will that be all right? Thank you. Goodbye.” She wished the telephone would ring again.

  Ruth closed the appointment book and stuck the pen back into its holder. She got up from the roll-top desk, moved to the table where Mrs. Owens sat, and reached for the fountain pen as if it were her own. She tried her signature on the back of an old envelope—Ruth Sapphira Neumann. Out the window, at the bottom of the hill, the lake like wrinkled tinfoil threw sunbeams in every direction.

  Finally she returned to the desk and rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter. “Dear Mrs. Schmidt,” she pecked, keeping to a slow but steady rhythm, “I was so pleased to talk with you last Thursday.”

  Silently, Arthur opened the door to his mother's study. It had become his habit to surprise Imogene when his mother was out, to sneak as close to her as he could before she detected his presence, or at least before she let on that she noticed him. His first reaction, when he realized it was not Imogene who sat typewriting with her back to the door, was embarrassment at what he'd planned. When he recognized Ruth, his blood jolted. From surprise, he assured himself. That was all that affected him—surprise.

  “Hello,” he said from the doorway.

  As she whirled around, her wrist struck an inkwell, but she caught it deftly before it could fly off the table and disgorge its blue-black innards onto the Persian carpet. She uttered only a startled “Oh,” then turned away again in confusion, reaching to set the ink far back on the desk.

  “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.” He took two steps into the room. He could think of nothing else to say.

  “Genie should be back tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest.”

  “Is she ill?”

  Ruth, struggling to put her loose hair back together, had stuck two pins in her mouth. “They won't let her walk on her ankle,” she said as well as she could through closed teeth.

  “Her ankle. Of course. Is it better?”

  “Not really. That's why they won't let her walk on it.”

  He was making her nervous. The way he looked at her could almost be described as expectant, as if he thought she might suddenly say or do something amusing. As far as she knew, she'd never done anything to give him that impression.

  “That's right, she shouldn't walk on it.” He picked up the stamp-box frog and set it down again. “It's very nice of you to fill in.”

  She shrugged. “Otherwise I'd have to go to Brown's, and I can't stand Brown's.”

  “Why do you go then?” There it was again, that little smile of anticipation.

  “Because Imogene thought I should typewrite, and they promised to teach me. Not that I've learned,” she added honestly, “but I don't think that's their fault.”

  He laughed. “Typewriting's not important.”

  “Not to you maybe. But to me it is, or at least it should be. Maybe you haven't noticed, but there are precious few jobs out there.”

  “And this is what you want to be? A typewriter?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Not really. But what you want doesn't always matter, does it?”

  “I guess not.” He crossed the room to look out the window toward the lake. “Next week I start work for my brother,” he said, drumming his fingers on the table. Then he turned back to her. “Say, we shouldn't be inside today.”

  “We shouldn't?”

  “Summer's almost over, isn't it? We have to take advantage.”

  Ruth looked doubtfully at the paper in the machine. “You go ahead. I have to finish these letters.”

  “But I thought you said you couldn't typewrite.”

  “I told your mother I'd do them.”

  He picked up the little stack of handwritten letters and counted the pages. “If I do these for you, will you go with me?”

  “You can't type!”

  “Of course I can.” He nudged her out of the chair. Then he rolled up his sleeves and adjusted the chair's position, as if preparing for great labor. “Ah, Mrs. Schmidt,” he said, rubbing his hands together as he examined the letter she'd begun. “What shall we say to Mrs. Schmidt?”

  He began to type with two fingers in swift, decisive strokes, every half minute or so returning the carriage with a hearty swipe. Ruth, watching the lines emerge from the machine, belatedly remembered to spread her fingers over the scorch in her skirt.

  “My father made me learn a few years ago,” he said as he started on the next letter. “He said I had to keep up with improvements. I have to say, I'm not sorry now.” He looked up at her, quickly, shyly, as the carriage bell dinged.

  She watched, fascinated by the certainty of his fingers and lulled by the clack of the keys, until he pulled the last page out. He joggled the finished letters together and tapped their edges on the desk. “Okay, so now can we go?”

  In that car with him, without Imogene pressed between them, Ruth leaned tentatively against the back of the seat, aware that there was nothing but space between her thigh and his. She kept her eyes on the sky, a washed-clean, hard blue, and the rough stubble of the recently cut fields. After a while, though, she began to relax. She opened the window as far as it would go and played idly with one hand in the streaming air. The wind teased her hair down again, and she let it snarl, only holding it back with one hand to keep the whipping tendrils from her face.

  “Too fast?” he asked, with the same, shy sideways glance he'd given her at the typewriter.
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  “No. I like it.”

  They passed fields and farmhouses and barns and little stores with the words GROCERIES BEER BAIT and BEER FOOD DRY GOODS and CHEESE CHICKENS BEER painted on their walls.

  “Where're we going?” Ruth asked finally.

  “I don't know.” He shrugged. “How about a picnic? You hungry?”

  “Starved.”

  He pulled over next to one of the all-purpose stores, a place made of whitewashed stone, with two tiny windows. Inside, Arthur started toward an icebox in back, and Ruth followed slowly behind. She liked this store; it was like a cave, pleasantly damp and cool after the dry wind of the road. As she moved along the row of shelves, examining the packages—blackberry, strawberry, raspberry jam, corn flakes, soap flakes, matches—she smelled first mothballs, then vinegar, then cloves, and then cigarettes and rancid sweat.

  “Whatcha doin' with him?”

  Ruth jumped at the raspy whisper behind her back, knocking a can of tuna to the floor. An old man whose head came only to her shoulder scowled up at her. “Nothing,” she said, diving to retrieve the can. She pushed it onto the shelf and backed toward the door. “I'll be outside, Arthur. Okay? I'll wait outside.”

  What gave that crazy old man the right to talk to her like that? She leaned against the warm whitewashed wall. They were friends on a drive, she should have said. They were taking advantage of the last summer weather. Honestly, she wished Imogene were with them.

  Safely back in the car, they pointed out pretty views and charming houses and were pleased to discover that their tastes were just the same. They talked about the people they knew, which reminded them of stories about people they'd known. Arthur told Ruth he'd been thinking he might want to learn to build bridges, and Ruth told Arthur about how Amanda had taught her to throw fits and bark like a dog to keep her out of school. “Let's see,” he said, and she demonstrated, and he laughed so hard he swerved the car.

  He turned onto a smaller road.

  “Do you know where you're going?” she said as the small road became a dirt track.

  “My father and I used to stop somewhere around here.” He leaned over her to look out the window.

  He led her finally to a little river, where he made a nest of rocks for the beer to cool. Then they sat on the grass, and he hacked at the salami with his pocketknife, while she tore the bread.

  “Imogene should be back tomorrow,” she said, piling haphazard sandwiches on brown paper between them.

  “Oh? That's good.”

  “Yes, her ankle really isn't so bad. I mean, it was bad, but it's better now. Her mother just wanted her to be careful.”

  “She should be careful.”

  He fetched the beer and watched her throat ripple as she swallowed. The condensation dripped off the bottle onto her skirt.

  “I hate to leave the lake next week,” he said.

  “But you wouldn't like it in the winter. It's bleak and empty as the moon.”

  “I don't mind that. You can do things outside here, not just scurry from building to building like we do in the city.”

  “Mostly, we scurry from building to building too,” Ruth laughed, “if we're lucky.”

  “Well, I hope I have a reason to come back for the weekends anyway.” He blushed and pulled a few bunches of grass from the ground. They made the light, tearing sound a sheep would make cropping.

  He means Imogene, she thought. He loves Imogene. Did this grieve her because he would have Imogene or because Imogene would have him? Both, she supposed. Both left her alone. But she was Imogene's friend, that was the important thing. And she would be Imogene's friend, with or without her. “Imogene would make a very good wife,” she said.

  “Yes, I'm sure she would,” he said seriously. “A man would be lucky to have her.”

  Suddenly he tossed the grass he'd collected into the air, so that it fell like confetti onto their heads. “Let's take a walk.”

  One blade dangled just above her eye. He reached forward to slide it from her hair, and she felt a tiny pang as his finger touched her forehead. Stop that, she thought. You mustn't feel that way again.

  Briskly, she stood up and brushed the grass from her dress. “No,” she said, “it's getting late. My aunt will worry. You'd better take me home.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Amanda

  I had to admit it was lovely there on the water with the fresh breeze shirring the waves and the sun's warmth soaking under my blouse. The morning had lured three sailboats from their docks, and they zigged and zagged on the dark blue water, their canvas brilliant white triangles against the light blue sky. Clement swam so close that the spray thrown up by his kicking wet my cheeks. Wasn't this enough, more than enough? Our happiness, after all, had once been real, even if he'd lied to spur it on. Why had I, in insisting that I be the most prized, the only beloved, hidden myself away from such delights?

  After his second lap, he hung onto the boat, breathing laboriously. Now that his hair was wet and plastered to his skull, I could see how much it had thinned. I wanted to reach over and take his hand. Shhh, I wanted to say, shhh, it's all right. Rest now. Come back in the boat and rest. It made me sad to see him diminished, a man who'd been so vital, but his weakness also made me fond.

  Of course, I'd been mistaken about what I'd thought I'd seen a few mornings before. Clement wasn't what he had been. He'd no designs on Imogene. My own suspicious nature had created my fears.

  I wanted to tell him about her. I wanted him to know that, in the end, he and I had produced such a one.

  “I want to tell you about Imogene,” I said. “Imogene Lindgren.”

  Squinting up at me, he sighed. Yes, I think he sighed. “She's lovely, isn't she?” he said. “In fact … if I weren't so old …” He looked away from me then, far off toward the other side of the lake, and then he looked back. He may even have winked, although maybe he was only blinking water from his eyes. “But who knows what the young girls like nowadays?” he said. “I might have a chance yet.” As he spoke, he turned and pushed off the boat with his feet, so his last words were nearly washed away by the swoosh of the water, but I know I heard them. Otherwise, why would I have felt such a cold horror prickling my skin?

  And then I felt the sun burning and raging in my veins. I wanted to ram him with the boat, to drive the propeller over his smug, white back, so that it shredded into ribbons like a worn sheet. I wanted to leap in and hold his head under with my own hands. But I didn't. Of course I didn't. I could never do any of those things.

  Instead, I stood up in the boat and shouted for the whole lake to hear: “She's your daughter! Your daughter!”

  But he didn't stop. I tugged viciously at the cord, and the motor growled. He must have raised his head at last when the whine reached his ears. Bewildered, he must have watched me go. But I did not look back.

  The motor was slow, so damnably slow, it seemed to take hours to crawl away from him across the water, days to reach the shore.

  Halfway home, I hurled the terry-cloth robe from the boat. It flung its arms into the air, settled on the surface of the lake, and then slowly, as it became waterlogged, began to sink.

  As I dragged the boat after me onto the muddy shore, I imagined Clement climbing out of the water, calling for a sandwich. He would be ravenous after such a long swim, and my fury would have done no damage to his other appetites either. At least he'd have had to push through those weeds. He was a monster! A monster! His smell lingered on my skin, and I waded into the waves to scrub my hands and to cool my face, which still burned with outrage.

  Nagawaukee is not a large lake; anyone can swim its width. How was I to guess he couldn't do what a ten-year-old child can do? I'd forgotten about his weak heart.

  Is that true? To be honest, I don't know.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Amanda

  I wasn't ready when the baby was. I wanted to stay forever in limbo, not going forward, not going back, just still. But the baby couldn't be still. W
e were going on whether I liked it or not.

  The pains began at noon on a bright, achingly cold day. Recklessly, I stood at the edge of the island for a last taste of air, daring the world to see. I exulted in the force of the wind, beating and gusting along the new green ice, cold enough to bring tears to my eyes. And then my insides squeezed again.

  My water broke around seven. I sterilized the scissors, stifling thoughts of that absurd vacuum box, and laid them out with string on a clean towel. I placed my shoes side by side under the bed in Mathilda's room, the one we'd decided to use. I took off my dress and hung it neatly on the hook behind the door. Mathilda, poor little thing, flew back and forth from kitchen to bedroom, sometimes carrying a glass of water or a blanket, mainly just to be doing something. But I was calm. I was ready.

  A contraction gripped me, and I made a sound that must have frightened Ruth. “Aunt Mandy hurt?”

  “Come on, sweetheart,” Mathilda said, holding out her hand to the child. “Let's go in your room now.”

  Ruth shook her head.

  “Yes, we have to go now. Be good, Ruthie.”

  But Ruth lowered herself to a crouch and, before Mathilda could scoop her up, scuttled under the bed, drawing the rag rug in after her as a barricade.

  Mathilda reached under and tried to pull her out, but Ruth clamped onto the leg of the bed and howled. I had a better idea. I slipped off the bed and went into the kitchen for a peppermint stick.

  “Look, Ruth,” I said, holding the striped stick as close to the floor as I could. “Shush now. Aunt Mandy's got candy.”

  But another contraction made me gasp. The peppermint dropped with a crack as I grabbed hold of Mattie. She helped me back on the bed, and we let Ruth be.

  Ruth floating face down, her body spread over the waves like a blue terry-cloth bathrobe. Reach, farther, reach, there—the hair, hold on, pull her up, pull her out. Amanda awoke, her fingers clutching the air, gasping as if she'd been the one trying to breathe under water. Ruth isn't drowned, she told herself firmly. Ruth is fine.