I’ll walk you to the train in the morning.”
I can’t believe she’s offering such a thing. Janie hates getting up early. So now I know she truly has forgiven me. I’m giddy with excitement as I rush inside to tell Mother. It seems like so long since Janie and I have been together, and it seems like yesterday. We have so much to talk about! It’s good to have my best friend back.
The next day at work, I’m feeling happy, though a little tired. Janie and I stayed up way too late talking about John and Maxine and all the things that had been going on that summer. I told her about Mrs. Osthoff, and only then did I remember I’d promised to look in on her. I’ll do it this evening, as soon as I get home from work.
It’s unbearably hot in the factory today, and that has put Martha in a worse mood than usual. Nothing has changed in the past week. At first, I kept looking around for Mr. Kopek, expecting him to show up and reprimand Martha and Betty. From what I can tell, though, no one has talked to them, and Mr. Mueller is still nowhere to be seen.
I guess I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up so high. Maybe in the end, my conversation with Mr. Kopek was nothing more than a little girl complaining about some bullies. I’m embarrassed now that I took up his time that way. A man as busy as that has bigger things to worry about than a little teasing on one of his production lines.
By lunchtime, I’m sweaty and exhausted. After I eat, I head over to the drinking fountain and the salt tablet dispenser that sits beside it. The tablets dissolve quickly in your mouth and supposedly help prevent that heat lag that drags you down as the day wears on. Rita joins me at the drinking fountain, dabbing some water on her forehead and the back of her neck.
“Did you hear about Mr. Mueller?” she asks.
“No, what?”
“He’s been fired.”
My chest tightens as I wait for her to continue.
“Someone told on him, that he doesn’t walk the line like he’s supposed to. So they’ve been keeping an eye on him. He’s been gambling in the men’s room, but what’s worse, he’s been keeping black market sugar in the storage room. Apparently he sells it from there to pay off his gambling debts. One of the supervisors called him down last night and fired him.”
“Mr. Kopek,” I say excitedly, feeling proud of my role in catching a dirty crook. But Rita just cocks her head.
“How do you know that? Was it you who told on him, Helen?”
“Not just him. Martha and Betty too. Why are you looking at me like that, Rita? We’ve all been wanting things to change. I just decided to do something about it.”
Rita takes me by the arm and leads me over to a table. Ever since she got married, she’s been acting more like my mother than my friend, and I don’t like it. I yank my arm away, but I sit down with her anyway, and she puts her head close to mine.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have said anything, Helen.”
“Why not?! Don’t you want to win this war? Don’t you think we should all be doing our jobs? Our best jobs?”
“Of course, but it’s more complicated than that. Mr. Mueller has a wife and two little boys. The youngest is sickly. They have lots of medical bills, and with Mr. Mueller in jail, who’s to pay them? If his wife takes a job, who’s to watch their sons?”
“Well, I didn’t know that!”
“I know. I just think maybe you should have kept matters to yourself.”
“You certainly should have,” Martha says. I hadn’t noticed her sneaking up behind Rita.
Betty moves alongside her. Rita stands, making a kind of barrier between me and Martha, but Martha just pushes her aside and leans down into my face. “We know it was you who told on us. We got called down to Mr. Kopek’s office last night same as Mueller. Kopek laid it on the line. Said we better get our acts together, or we’ll be out on our fannies. You’ve got some nerve, little girl.”
“I’m not a little girl,” I say, standing up so I can look down on Martha instead of her looking down on me. “I didn’t mean to get Mr. Mueller fired, but I wouldn’t have minded one bit if he’d fired you.” My heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my throat. I’ve never spoken like this to someone older than me before, and now a few of the women from our line have noticed that something is going on and have gathered around, which makes me even more nervous. I’m not at all sure what to do next. I don’t trust my decisions anymore. It seems like every course of action I’ve taken this summer has reaped bad results. Even in this case, I did what I thought was right, but now I’m the one being criticized. I want to give up and run home, but I don’t, mainly because it’s Martha and I’ve had my fill of her. I stand my ground, waiting to see what she will do next.
“You think I’m lazy, don’t you, girl? Well I’m not. I could work as hard as a young thing like you any day.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“You just wait, little miss. When you’ve been here as long as I have, you’ll learn to pace yourself too,” she says, her voice rising. “You’ll learn to take things one minute at a time. It’s the only way you’ll make it through another sorry day.”
I’m surprised to see tears in Martha’s eyes, the same kind that are rising in mine, tears of anger and frustration and a little bit of hurt.
“Ah, leave it alone, Martha,” Betty says. “She’ll be goin’ back to school in a few weeks and that’ll be the end of it. Come on now.” She reaches for Martha, but Martha pulls away.
“You stay clear of me,” she says, wagging her finger in my face.
I want to say something strong or brave or even witty, but all that comes out as they walk away is, “How am I supposed to do that?”
Rita puts her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I’ll find someone who’s willing to switch places with you on the line. We’ll get you farther away from those two.”
I don’t want to accept her help. I want to handle this on my own, but I can’t think of a better solution than the one Rita has offered, and I certainly can’t stomach the idea of sitting between Martha and Betty for the rest of the summer. I watch Rita go off to talk to the other women and feel their eyes on me as they discuss the situation. I sink back down on the chair and consider going to the medical center to tell them I’m sick. I want to get out of the factory, but I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to face my family and tell them once again how I’ve bungled everything. I could hang out by the lake until dinnertime or stay in LaSalle and visit the shops downtown. Anything sounds better than going back into that assembly room and taking my place at the line.
So that’s what I do. I take myself down to the medical clinic and tell the nurse I have a terrible stomachache, which isn’t exactly a lie. I do feel sick about what happened and about how cowardly I’m behaving now. But it feels good to punch my time card out and walk through those double doors into the fresh air. I’m too afraid to go window-shopping, concerned someone from the factory will see me, and I don’t want to go back to Hayden’s Valley just yet. What I’d like to do is head over to the swimming pool, where so many kids are whiling away the summer. I want to do what the other kids are doing, something that won’t make me have to think, but I don’t have my swimsuit, and I’m afraid of being seen. I can think of nothing else, so I reluctantly catch the bus home. As I’m walking down the back alley, I hear voices—boys’ voices—yelling with excitement.
I run ahead, but when I get to Mrs. Osthoff’s house, I stop cold. Stanley Fuller and a couple of others boys are standing on Mrs. Osthoff’s roof pulling down her weather vane. In the yard below, several kids are watching, including Janie. And from a side window, peeking through the curtains, Mrs. Fuller is watching too.
“Stop it!” I scream, picking up a rock and throwing it at the boys. “Leave her alone.”
“It’s okay, Helen,” Janie says, running up and catching my arm. “Mrs. Osthoff’s gone.”
I stare at her. “What do you mean gone?”
“Mrs. Fuller saw her board the westbound train earlier today. She was carrying
a suitcase. She’s gone.”
I rush to Mrs. Osthoff’s kitchen window, stepping on the back row of carrots in order to see fully into the kitchen. The counters are clear, and the cupboard doors are closed tight. I run around to the front of the house, Janie following, and cup my hands around the front window. The furniture is covered in sheets. All the pictures are off the walls and off the side table in the hallway too. I try the doorknob, but it’s locked. I slam my fist against the door.
“I can’t believe she left,” I say. “It’s because of me. I was supposed to see her last night, but I was with you.”
“I’m sure that’s not it,” Janie says.
“You don’t understand. All summer I’ve been trying to prove how responsible I could be, and all I’ve done is make mistakes. I waited too long to tell you about Hal, and now he’s gone. I got Mr. Mueller fired, and now Martha hates me more than ever. And I broke my promise to Mrs. Osthoff. Every time I’ve tried to do the right thing, I’ve made things worse.”
“You didn’t know she’d leave,” Janie says, stroking my arm. Just then the weather vane hits the ground in front of the house, and Stanley jumps down off the roof with a jubilant shout.
“Leave me alone, okay, Janie?” I sink down on the porch and pull my knees to my chest, watching Stanley and the other boys carry the weather vane over to Stanley’s house. Janie hesitates, but