Big Stone Gap

  “May I have some water, please?” I swallow hard. Inez enters with water. Lew and I look at each other. Inez goes.

  Mario came down to Bergamo to see me. My father found out about our friendship and forbade me to see him because I was too young to court. I did what no good daughter would do: I defied him and would sneak out to see Mario. I was so happy whenever I was with him. We shared such good, happy times. I knew I wanted to spend my life with him. We made a plan to run away together. He was to meet me at the Bergamo station and we would take the first train to Milan. I waited and waited but he never came. A courier arrived with a letter from him explaining that he could not meet me that day. I was going to tell Mario that I was expecting you so we could marry immediately. I am sure that he was not suspicious of my condition or he would have kept our appointment.

  I knew that I must leave my home or the shame of what I had done would never be resolved. I remembered that we had a cousin in Lake Maggiore. I bought a ticket to go there, hopeful she would take me in. When I arrived in Lake Maggiore, I could not find my cousin. I had no place to go. My heart was broken. But I thought of you. I had to take care of you. Then, something very lucky happened to me. I returned to the train station. Everyone rushing around, having somewhere to go, comforted me. I sat alone on a bench. I fell asleep. When I woke up, a beautiful lady was sitting next to me. I will never forget what she looked like. She was tall, slim, and wore a blue coat. The buttons were blue jewels. And on her head was a hat, exquisite blue velvet with peacock feathers and tiny gold stars. Her face was creamy pink; she smelled like garden flowers. She offered me a sweet roll. I was so hungry, I took it. She said, “Now, my dear, what shall we do?” “I have no place to go,” I said to her. “But of course you do. You’re coming with me. I am going to America. You will stay with me. And when we get there, we will find you a position.” I was so afraid. But this woman smiled at me and I knew we would be all right.

  I am crying. Lew stands and stretches. He comes over to me, puts a limp hand on my shoulder, and pats me like an old dog.

  I asked the beautiful lady what her name was. She said, “Ave Maria Albricci.” I told her that she had a beautiful name and she laughed. She thought it too ornate. I told her when I had my baby I would name her Ave Maria. She laughed again. She asked me how I knew I was going to have a girl. I told her I just knew. The ride on the ship was lovely. Ave Maria had a beautiful cabin. Servants laid our clothes out. The food was plentiful, even with the war on; I felt you healthy and happy inside of me. Four weeks passed and we arrived in New York City. Ave Maria’s relatives greeted us at the port. We took the train to Hoboken, New Jersey. Ave Maria bought the Italia Oggi, the newspaper. We read the want ads. In those days, immigrants were cheap labor and would work in exchange for room and board. “What is Virginia?” I asked the Albriccis. They laughed. I responded to the ad: “SEAMSTRESS WANTED: MINING TOWN: BIG STONE GAP, VIRGINIA. GOOD PAY.”

  Mama had taped the actual ad to the back of the letter to verify her story.

  I knew this job was a good opportunity. I wrote a letter. The gentleman that placed the ad owned a dress shop in the town. He hired me immediately based upon my letter. By chance, his friend, a merchant from Big Stone Gap, was in New York City on a buying trip. His name was Fred Mulligan, of the Mutual Pharmacy. Would I like an escort on the trip to Virginia? I was so happy. Fred Mulligan took the train to meet me. I was surprised. He was young, like me. He understood Italian, having studied it at the University of Virginia. I liked him. He told me later that for him it was love at first sight. In truth, he suspected my condition and knew it would be easier on me if I was married. I agreed to marry him. It was an arranged marriage; I arranged it.

  I never heard from Ave Maria Albricci again. I sent many letters to her family in Hoboken through the years; all were returned. I prayed for her every day of my life, though, never forgetting her kindness. Whenever I spoke your name, I thought of her and how she helped me. She was an angel.

  I felt you should know the truth. I hope I made the right decision in telling you this. I asked Mr. Eisenberg to be present with you. I love you, my darling girl.

  Mama

  I turn the envelope upside down and shake it to make sure I haven’t missed anything. A small, square lace-edged black-and-white photograph falls into my lap. In gold letters it says, “Ti Amo, Mario.” On the back, in my mother’s handwriting, “Mario da Schilpario Italia 1942.” The picture fits in my palm. The man in the picture looks to be about seventeen. He has black hair and a trim physique. He is laughing. This is my father.

  Inez stands in the doorway. “Ave, they need you up to the school. There’s been an incident.” The floorboards creak as Inez ambles toward me.

  “Ave, you need to get up to the school. Principal called.” Lew’s voice brings me back to earth. “They need the Rescue Squad.”

  Besides being a pharmacist, I am chief of the Rescue Squad. Doc Daugherty roped me into the job a couple of years back. We’re a volunteer emergency-response team—the team is the fire chief, Spec Broadwater, and me. We handle everything from car wrecks to removing buttons from kids’ noses, and once we even resuscitated Faith Cox’s cat.

  “Spec’s outside waiting fer you,” Inez says, a touch too impatiently.

  Spec is wedged into the driver’s seat of Rescue Squad Unit One, a white station wagon with bright orange trim. I don’t know why he’s called Spec; he is the opposite of a speck, he’s a giant, the tallest man in the Gap, at six feet seven. I climb into the car. Fleeta runs out of the Pharmacy and hands me my emergency kit through the window. Spec steps on the gas so fast, Fleeta practically loses her hand. I hear her curse at Spec in the distance as we pull away. Spec shoves a blue siren onto the roof of the car through the driver’s-side window.

  “Problem up to the school.” Spec offers me a cigarette. I must look like I need one. My face is puffy from crying.

  “It’s bad for you, Spec.”

  “Self-medication. When they come up with a healthy way for me to calm my nerves, I’ll quit.”

  Powell Valley High School is a stylish, brand-new redbrick structure that sits back off the main road, in a wide field. It is the jewel of this town, built with monies from the War on Poverty of the late 1960s. Spec ignores all traffic laws and careens up the circular driveway in the wrong direction.

  “Problem’s in the West Wing,” he explains.

  The principal, Dale Herron, meets us in front of the school. The kids call him Lurch. I sort of see why—he’s slope-shouldered and his head juts forward. Lurch leads us inside to a rest room marked BOYS. The building is dead quiet.

  “Where are the students?” I ask.

  “In the auditorium,” the principal says. “Miss Mulligan, I think you ought to wait out here.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Spec says, patting me like a Pekingese.

  The men disappear into the rest room. A few moments pass. I hear mumbling from the lavatory. Finally, the two men emerge.

  “Let’s go,” Lurch says, pointing toward the assembly down the hall.

  We follow the angry principal into the auditorium. Every seat is filled. The teachers line the side aisles like guards. There are some whispers but not many. Onstage is a lectern and two students squirming in chairs: the student-body president, a young man with a long Renaissance curl, and the chaplain, a pudgy girl with thick glasses. Lurch takes the stage.

  “Good afternoon, students. That greeting right there is for the ninety-eight percent of you who are law-abiding kids. I’ll get to the remaining two percent here in a minute. I have called this emergency assembly to alert y’all that there is a sicko among us. There is a sign outside this door which reads, UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL. The hijinks and shenanigans of a small percentage of us will cause the whole to suffer. To fall. Mike. Brownie. Bring up the evidence.”

  Two young men rise from their front-row seats and disappear backstage. They enter sheepishly from the wings. Mike is a small platinum blond. I re
cognize him as the point guard on our championship basketball team. The other kid is mousy; his diminutive name suits him. They carry a large tarp between them.

  “Dump it,” the principal barks.

  The boys dump the contents of the tarp. White ceramic chunks hit the stage with a clatter, making a cloud of dust. An intact toilet seat tumbles out, confirming my suspicions.

  “This is what someone setting right here in this auditorium has done. Destroyed school property. Committed a crime with evil intent. How? By rigging a sophisticated round of cherry bombs to a ter-let in the boys’ rest room in the West Wing.”

  A few nervous giggles escape the student body.

  “This is no joke, people.” Lurch searches the audience for the gigglers. Then he pauses. He pounds the podium. “Some unfortunate young man might have been sitting on that ter-let when it blew to high heaven. I ask you, what would have happened then?”

  “Jesus,” Spec says under his breath.

  “Anybody actually injured?” I whisper.

  Spec ignores me.

  “I’m scared,” a familiar deep voice says behind me.

  “You should be,” I whisper back. “The teacher’s lounge is next.”

  “Dinner tonight? After the show?”

  “I’d love to.”

  The deep voice, and now my date for the evening, is my best friend, the band and choral director of Powell Valley High School, Theodore Tipton, formerly of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Every once in a while the mines or the school will hire someone from the outside world. Inevitably, they move in and shake things up. Theodore brought our band back to life and simultaneously goosed the libidos of all the women in town. (“He’s a humdinger,” Iva Lou says with relish every time she sees him. “The man makes a pair of Levi’s sing.”) Theodore also stars as Preacher Red Fox in the Outdoor Drama. We became friends when he auditioned nine years ago and I cast him on the first round. I had to. His face reading told me that he was loyal and true and fiercely protective. I knew if I cast him we would spend lots of time together, and we have. His face is square-shaped, with a defined jaw. He has a firm chin with a dimple in it. He can look strong, like an Irish pirate, or intellectual, like a preoccupied poet. He is tall, with blue eyes and a red beard. Even though all the available women in town chase him (and a few married ones, too), he spends all of his spare time with me. We’re “feriners”—even though I was born here, I’m considered a feriner because my mother was one—but that’s just the start of what we have in common.

  The principal wraps up the assembly with a couple more threats for the student body. If the guilty party doesn’t fess up, he promises to suspend the smoking areas outside. This brings a groan from the students. The chaplain places a shoe box marked ANONYMOUS on the podium. Lurch tells the kids it will be placed in the gym so anyone with tips regarding the toilet incident can leave them in there. He dismisses the assembly. The student body rises. As the kids exit in an orderly fashion, most of them acknowledge Theodore. He is popular and respected, the perfect reputation for a teacher.

  Only one student stops to speak to me: Pearl Grimes, fifteen years old, a sweet mountain girl with a weight problem. She often window-shops at the Mutual. I walk down the hall with my arm around her.

  “My skin’s done broke out agin.” Pearl hangs her head sadly.

  “I got something for that. Come by the Mutual and see me.”

  “All right.” She shrugs. She doesn’t believe me.

  “Don’t you know the more pimples you got now, the less wrinkles you’ll have later?”

  Finally, Pearl smiles. Her face, heart-shaped, with a high forehead, tells me that she is emotional yet fair. Her nose is small and turns up slightly. Her cheeks are full and round—the cheeks of a monarch—which means she can handle power.

  Pearl blends off into the sea of students. Theodore takes my arm.

  “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “Sure.”

  “What’s new?”

  “I’m a bastard.”

  Theodore laughs, which gets me laughing too. “Did you bust a shoplifter or something?”

  “No. I didn’t behave like a bastard. I mean the literal definition.”

  “What?”

  “I settled Mama’s will today. She left me a letter. Fred Mulligan wasn’t my father.” Theodore is surprised but remains cool for my benefit. He knows everything about Fred Mulligan and me. When I shared all those stories, Theodore always got a look like he’d kill anyone who hurt me. This new information surprises him.

  Theodore leads me out the front entrance to the car. Spec sits behind the wheel.

  “Get in, Ave,” Spec grumbles, lighting a cigarette. “That was a waste of my time.”

  “See you tonight,” Theodore says as he closes the door. He touches my cheek. I look up to the second-floor science lab. Pearl Grimes stands in the window, watching us. From here, in the mellow afternoon light, she has a regal countenance, like a queen looking down on her subjects. I give her a quick wave good-bye. She smiles.

  CHAPTER TWO

  On top of everything else, my roof leaks. It needs to be patched, and fast. The town handymen are a pair of brothers, Otto and Worley Olinger. They drive an open flatbed truck around town and pick up people’s discards. Some days you’ll see them with a wringer washing machine strapped to the back of the truck; another day it’ll be a couple of railroad ties and a stuffed bear head. In some parts they’re known as the Are Y’all Using That? Brothers because that’s how they greet you when they want something from your yard.

  Otto appears to be the older of the two. He is short-legged and sturdy, with gray hair and a few teeth left on the bottom. He has a distinctive nose—it has a shelf on the upper bridge, which indicates he’s good with money. Worley has thick red hair and is tall and lean. His long face matches his long body. Nobody in town is exactly sure how old they are because they did not matriculate through the school system. But they seem to have been around forever.

  I join them up on my roof. I manage a Thermos of coffee and a few fresh ham biscuits for the boys.

  “Time for a break, gentlemen,” I say as I crawl toward them.

  “Miss Ave, you afraid of heights?”

  “Uh-huh.” I try not to look down as I answer.

  Worley extends his hand to me. “Don’t be. We won’t let you fall. Anyhow, the ground is soft. I fell off the post office when we was fixin’ an exhaust fan. Landed on my head. It weren’t so bad.”

  “That’s a lie,” Otto says. “I caught you.”

  “How bad is my roof, boys?”

  “I seen worse,” Otto decides.

  “I let everything around here go to hell when Mama was sick.”

  “It happens.” Worley shrugs.

  “I should be able to keep y’all busy through the winter.”

  “We need the work. We’ll do a good job for ye,” Otto promises.

  There is a long silence. I’ve never been on my roof. I can see pretty far. Fall has definitely moved in. The treetops look like orange and red feathers to the edge of town. I wish I had brought Mama out here. She would have loved being able to see so far. I check the pocket of my overalls for her letter. I manage to carry it everywhere with me, even though I don’t need to. (I’ve read it so many times that I’ve memorized it.) I wish she had left instructions. Why did she tell me this story? Did she want me to try and find Mario da Schilpario? Or did she just want me to know so I would understand Fred Mulligan? So much to think about.

  “If I had a roof like this, I’d set up here all the day,” Worley announces.

  “My brother don’t like workin’.”

  “Naw, I don’t. I like sleepin’ and eatin’. Workin’ wears me out. Wind up all tarred and ferget how I spent the day.”

  “That’s how I feel after a day of counting pills.”

  “Ye ought to git murried, Miss Ave. Womens ain’t supposed to work like ’at.”

  “Otto, I ain’t husband hunting. And I like my job. O
kay?” I say this flatly; inquiries regarding my marital status are an everyday thing for me. Folks always want to let me know—even though I’m not married—that I’m okay, certainly nice enough to have a husband.

  “Ye oughtn’t wait too long to git murried. Git set in your ways and then nobody’ll want you.”

  “What if they like my set ways?”

  “She’s done got a point there, Otto,” his brother says.

  “You ever been in love, Worley?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “How about you, Otto?”

  Otto doesn’t answer.

  “Otto was sweet on a girl once. You was, brother. You was!”

  “Keeping secrets from me, Otto?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Do tell, then.”

  “I done had me a true love, but it was many, many years ago. Well, it was summer. I was ’bout fifteen. Mama done made me go to town fer jars. She was canning her some chow chow. Walkin’ down, I passed a trailer. Lot of kids runnin’ around. Their people, I could just tell, was Melungeon. They had that dark color, and that look of them. There was a girl there. She had her some black hair, shiny and straight in braids. I ’member thinkin’ that the braids look like them garlands over the bank door. They was that long. And she had her some black eyes like coal. And she was small. Tiny, like a matchbox? Reminded me of that storybook about the fairy girl.”

  “Thumbelina?”

  “Yeah. Thumbelina.”

  “What was your girl’s name?”

  “Destry.” Otto looks away at the mention of her name. “Best name I ever heard,” he says quietly.

  “So what happened?”

  “The summer passed. And pert near every day she walked with me. I grew to like ’at and look forward to it. One day she couldn’t go with me, and I missed her bad. I knew then that I loved her. Turned out her pappy moved their trailer over to Stonega. I walked over there about five miles. I done had something to give her. My mama had a little silver ring with a red stone in it. And I loved Destry so much, I stole it and give it to her.”