A Long Way From Chicago (16 page)

Grandma’s head appeared between Ray’s and mine. “What in the Sam Hill is that noise?” she said.

Ray indicated the radio.

“Shut it off,” she said. “Let’s listen to the country.”

So we did. Since a Terraplane is another thing with wings, I edged up to twenty-five miles an hour, watching the needle rise. Over the purr of the motor we heard a wind pump squeaking as it turned and a calf bawling and the katydids starting up in a grove of walnut trees. I see
us yet, chasing the setting sun down the ribbon of road between the bean rows, in the Terraplane. I thought it was about as fine a car as they’d ever make. I’m not so sure it wasn’t.

Grandma came to the depot with us on the day we were going home. But she wasn’t there to see us off. She was there to meet Mrs. Effie Wilcox, who was coming home to her house.

The Wabash Blue Bird didn’t exactly stop at Grandma’s town. It only hesitated. As we were struggling to climb on, Mrs. Wilcox was struggling to get off. Her valise was full to bursting, and her eyes were everywhere, so I don’t know if she spotted Grandma at first.

But then somehow Mary Alice and I and our suitcase were on board, and Mrs. Wilcox was on the platform, and the Blue Bird was pulling out. Grandma didn’t wave. Mrs. Wilcox was telling her something. But we waved anyway.

1935

I
was fifteen the last summer we went down to Grandma’s. Mary Alice was thirteen, so we both thought we were too old for this sort of thing. Next year I’d be in line for a summer job in Chicago, if I could find one. Mary Alice was about to sail into eighth grade, which put her in shooting distance of high school.

We both assumed an air of weary worldliness as we climbed down off the Wabash Blue Bird one last time. But the train hadn’t pulled out before we noticed a difference.

The depot was swagged in red, white, and blue bunting. Where the old
DRIFTERS KEEP MOVING
sign used to hang, a new billboard in fancy lettering read:

Welcome to the Centennial Celebration

A Century of Progress

1835–1935

See our Ladies’ Hospitality Committee
for a complete list of centennial activities
Gentlemen: grow a beard or pay a fine!

“You’re in trouble right there,” Mary Alice remarked to me.

We both sighed. We were still kids, so we liked everything to stay the same. Now the whole town seemed to be up to something.

“What’s it all about?” we asked Grandma when we got to her house.

“The Centennial Celebration? Nothin’ but an excuse for people to mill around, waste time, and make horses’ patooties of themselves. I hope I never see another one.”

Considering that the next centennial celebration would be in the year 2035, we didn’t think Grandma would have a problem with it.

Over dinner she added, “There’ll be a parade, of course. We can watch it from the porch.”

As we tucked into big slabs of sour cream raisin pie, Grandma observed, “They’re putting on a talent show. We might look in on that. We won’t have to stay till the end.”

Then after dinner she said, “You two are going to have to climb up to the attic and go through them trunks again.”

“What for?” said Mary Alice, who hated the attic.

“Well for pity sakes,” Grandma said, quite impatient, “you and me’s going to have to wear old-time long dresses.” She aimed a fork at me. “And you’re going to have to wear a historical getup too.”

At least she didn’t comment on the fact that I couldn’t raise a beard, though her glance skimmed my chin.

“Grandma.” Mary Alice clutched her head. “What’s happening?”

“It’s the Centennial Celebration,” Grandma said. “We’re all going back to the old days and the old ways for a week.”

“Grandma,” I said, “you never gave up any of the old ways.”

“Ha,” she said. “A lot you know. And while you’re up in the attic, look around for that old churn. It’s how we used to make butter. Bring it down.”

The attic was hot as hinges, and nothing had changed since last year. “For pity sakes, don’t mention those old coal-oil lamps,” Mary Alice whispered to me. “She’ll shut off the electricity and make us use them.”

We made a quick survey of the trunk full of dress patterns and the one with the buffalo robe in it. In old suit boxes under the eaves we found folded clothes that went back before the war, way back. Mary Alice’s forehead was greasy now, and we were both down on all fours, pawing through strange old dresses and funny shoes.

“What are you finding?” came Grandma’s voice from below.

“Grandma, you’re not going to be able to get into any
of these old clothes,” Mary Alice hollered down.

“No, but you can,” Grandma hollered back.

I grinned. Mary Alice wilted.

Then she came on another box with a lot of brittle old tissue paper inside. “Aha!” she said, drawing out an old black coat with braid around the lapels. Then a waistcoat with many buttons. Then a shirt with a high collar attached by another button. A pair of drainpipe pants. A string tie, a derby hat.

“Made for you!” Mary Alice crowed. She was beginning to enjoy herself, I was sorry to see.

“I’ll look like Broshear the undertaker in that stuff,” I said. “I’ll look like a horse’s patootie. I want to go home.”

Mary Alice burrowed under more tissue in the box.

“Oh, look.” She held up a dress finer than the others, white going yellow with age. It had a high collar of flaking lace.

“Made for you,” I said, but Mary Alice didn’t mind. She ran a careful hand over it. “Seed pearls,” she murmured.

In another box there was nothing but old cut-velvet curtains with fringe at the bottom. “Just curtains,” I said.

“Cut-velvet with fringe?” Grandma thundered from below.

“Yes,” we yelled back.

“Bring ’em down,” she roared. “And don’t forget the churn.”

After Mary Alice twice said she was so hot she thought she might throw up, we left. We took everything we’d found with us: clothes, curtains, churn—half the attic. Grandma was nowhere about.

“Let’s see if these clothes fit,” Mary Alice said.

Let’s not.

“Joey, you know we’re going to have to wear this stuff,” she said.

I went to my room and skinned off my shirt and pants. Then I put on the old white shirt with the stiff front. It came to my knees, but I could push the sleeves up. The drainpipe pants were a fit when I gave the legs extra cuff. It took me awhile, buttoning up the vest, and I liked the coat. It gave me shoulders. The string tie was like a bootlace, so I could tie it by looking in the mirror. Then I thought, why not? I put on the derby hat. It went down to my ears and balanced there.

I strolled out into the hall, and stepped back. Mary Alice stood there, posing in the old white dress. She was beginning to develop a figure, more or less. But the dress had a figure of its own. Narrow in the waist, generous above.

“I stuck in some tissue paper,” she said quietly, glancing down. Her chin balanced on the high lace collar, and she reached down into the folds of the skirt that swirled to the floor. “But there’s something wrong,” she said. “Behind.”

“Turn around,” I said. The dress fitted her like a glove, above the waist.

“What’s all this?” She patted an enormous artificial behind, swagged with seed pearls.

“I think they called it a bustle,” I said.

“But how did she sit down?”

“Search me,” I said.

Mary Alice turned back. “You look good,” she said. “The hat’s dumb, but you look good.”

“So do you.” Though I’d never noticed before, Mary Alice was going to be quite a nice-looking girl. I supposed boys would be hanging around her pretty soon. It was a thought I’d never had.

“Let’s go show Grandma,” she said.

With a dainty gesture, she lifted her skirts as she started down the stairs. I followed, sweaty in two wool layers. Grandma wasn’t in the kitchen or the front room. We found her in the little sewing room off her downstairs bedroom. She was bending over her old treadle Singer sewing machine, threading a bobbin.

Mary Alice rustled her bustle in, and I followed. Just before Grandma turned to see us, I took off the derby hat. I put it in the crook of my arm, like we were an old tintype picture in a fancy frame. Mary Alice held out the silky skirt. Grandma turned around from the sewing machine, and froze.

An instant of silence fell when you could hear a wasp on the windowsill. Then Grandma swept the spectacles off her nose. She wiped a hand quickly over her eyes. We quaked. We hadn’t seen her like this before.

“You give me a turn,” she said. She put her hand out to us and took it back. “I thought it was me and Dowdel on our wedding day.”

Of course—these were their wedding clothes. They’d lived together all these years, separate in their box together.

“How did you sit?” Mary Alice said, turning to show the bustle.

“To one side,” Grandma said, “on one of your haunches. Then you let the skirts fan out on the floor. I only wore it that one day.” She couldn’t take her eyes off us, and her eyes were full.