Confessions to Mr. Roosevelt Read online

  Nancy was well aware that her crowd of friends thought Franklin a bit of a bore. He preferred playing bridge to an evening of dancing. He’d rather listen to opera than swing music, and his interest in Egyptian archaeology left people baffled. So did his willingness to let Nancy manage their lives. What her friends said didn’t matter to Nancy. To her, Franklin was the smartest, most interesting man she had ever met. For his part, Franklin was besotted and quite willing to let Nancy make plans for them both. She had it all laid out. They would marry after she finished law school and Franklin had his medical degree. She’d already decided on what sort of house they would buy. As for children, she thought three would nicely round out their family.

  “Don’t tell me a thing until I get these to the table.” Nancy placed chicken salad sandwiches on two plates, plopping two small bunches of grapes on each as an afterthought. Ellen filled glasses with iced tea, and the two settled into chairs opposite each other.

  “Now! I want to know everything. Don’t leave out a word.”

  Between bites, Ellen eagerly recounted the meeting with Mrs. Fletcher.

  “It’s a good thing I didn’t use any of your nail polish.” Ellen pointed to Nancy’s red-lacquered nails. “According to the WPA, that’s a sure sign of a loose woman, and I wouldn’t have gotten the job.”

  “Good Lord!” Nancy threw back her head and laughed. “Hasn’t this Mrs. Fletcher heard about the modern woman?”

  “Evidently not. Liquor and cigarettes are out, too.”

  “Well, we both know cigarettes are no great loss. You almost puked trying one.”

  Ellen groaned. “Don’t remind me.” She leaned back, her face serious. “I have to say, I feel as if a huge burden just slipped off my shoulders. If this didn’t pan out, I was thinking of taking the money Uncle Frank and Aunt Viv gave me for graduation and hopping a train. Maybe go to Hollywood and see if I might get into the business of writing movie scripts.”

  Nancy believed her. Ellen could be quite stubborn once she’d made up her mind. “I can see you going to New York. But Hollywood”—Nancy shook her head—“it just chews people up and spits them out. Look what happened to the Kansas Wheat Queen.”

  Veronica Batts, the girl who traveled from town to town promoting Kansas wheat, looked like the girl next door in her newspaper pictures. But Ellen and Nancy remembered a different Veronica, the one who sauntered into that college dance wearing a clingy, white-satin evening gown that showed off every curve. She was on the arm of Jason Davis.

  Nancy watched Ellen’s reaction at the mention of the Wheat Queen. She hadn’t meant to bring up Jason, even indirectly, but she still thought Ellen had made a monumental mistake when she abruptly broke up with him. Nancy was sure that if Ellen had given Jason time, he would have come to accept Ellen’s drive to write and earn a living from it. That’s how Nancy saw it, but Ellen said she wasn’t up to trying to work it out with Jason and get on with a career at the same time.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to mention Veronica. I was just thinking of the scuttlebutt my brother picked up from one of his lawyer friends.”

  Ellen shook her head. “Look, Jason is over and done with. He was gone from my life even before he showed up with Veronica. Now spill the beans: what happened to the Wheat Queen?”

  “Well,” Nancy leaned across the table, lowering her voice, “the farm group that sponsors the contest wants to sue the queen. Under her contract, she’s supposed to represent the state’s wheat industry for a year—you know, visiting fairs and going to community events. But she took off for Hollywood. Going to be a big star.”

  Nancy made a harrumph noise. “She must not be too bright, or maybe she’s just too full of herself. It probably never occurred to her that hundreds of pretty girls who’ve been queens of something or other show up thinking the movie studios will grab them up. Word is that she barely found work as an extra. Now she’s back home. Her folks are furious, and the neighbors are whispering. She’s lost her crown and the prizes she won. On top of that, she’s got a bunch of farmers ready to take her to court.”

  Ellen wondered if Jason knew. And would he care? She’d been angrier with herself than Jason when he showed up with Veronica. It had been her idea to end things, but it hurt to see him with someone else. She’d liked him from the day she walked into the college’s newspaper office and saw him sitting at the managing editor’s desk. A casual cup of coffee at the Student Union led to a movie date, which turned into meeting after classes and away from the school paper. Ellen would never admit it, even to Nancy, but she was crazy about Jason. All the more reason, she decided, to call a halt. If they kept seeing each other, the career could go out the window. She didn’t want to look back when she was fifty or sixty years old and wonder what she could have done, who she might have been, if she had stuck to her dreams when she was twenty-two.

  Ellen thought she explained this to Jason in a mature, reasonable manner. Looking back, she could see how wrong she was to think he would simply see things her way. She was not prepared for his reaction, which began with disbelief and ended in an explosion of anger before he walked away. They’d left things at that. Only a glance across the aisle at graduation marked their goodbye. Nancy told her more than once that it was a shame, but Ellen wouldn’t budge.

  Nancy began to clear the table. “Now, I’m going to bring something up you probably don’t want to think about, but how are you going to tell your family? Telephone?” An impish grin crossed her face. “How about a postcard? That way, the mail carrier will see the card, and if he’s anything like our Mr. Jenkins, who can’t help but look over what he drops in the box, half of your hometown will know about your job before your family. Of course, your mother will have a fit—not just because everybody will know her business, but because she had another plan for you.”

  They burst out laughing. Over the past four years, Ellen had regaled Nancy with tales of the men, most of them unsuspecting, thrown in her path by her mother.

  “The job starts a week from Monday, and I should get settled beforehand in the boardinghouse the WPA picked out. Still, there’s time to go down and see the family. I should give the news in person. Dad will be happy for me. He may not understand what I’m aiming for—sometimes I don’t, either— but he’ll back me up. So will Eddie and Maryanne, although it will have as much to do with getting my bedroom for the baby they’re expecting. I think we can predict what Mother will say.”

  “She might surprise you. People can be unpredictable.”

  Ellen hoped her mother might come around, but she was doubtful.

  CHAPTER 4

  OPAL’S GROVE, 1936

  AGATHA AND IVY

  The two women sat rocking on the front porch. Half-finished glasses of lemonade sat on a table between them. The two had been friends for over seventy years. It seemed a mismatched friendship to those who knew them in the old days. Agatha, wife of a banker, moved in the social circle of women who had maids and cooks. Ivy, married to a farmer, often worked alongside her husband, raised chickens, and did her own housework. Their differences in social standing hardly mattered these days. To anyone catching a glimpse of the women sitting on Agatha’s porch, they were simply elderly widows enjoying the late afternoon breeze.

  If truth be told, Agatha’s house was the plainest one in what was considered the fashionable part of town. The house was attractive and well cared for, but it lacked the stained-glass windows, turrets, and gingerbread decoration seen on other homes. The simplicity was intentional. When Thomas Bright built the house for his bride in 1869, he wanted the townspeople to know that, as a banker, he stood for financial stability, not overindulgence. Agatha was new to the town, but she understood the value of appearances.

  Agatha glanced at her friend and smiled. She didn’t have to say this was her favorite time of day; Ivy knew. All the sharp angles of the noonday sun were gone. The light was softer now, dappling grass and leaves in shades of light and shadow.

  They were silent. Ther
e was no need to make constant conversation, although Ivy had something on her mind. For a good part of the last hour, she had put it off, but it was getting late. Her daughter-in-law would arrive soon to drive her home. She took a deep breath, but before she could utter the first word, the quiet was interrupted. The jarring sound of something being dragged along the sidewalk was accompanied by boyish voices, one complaining that it was his turn to pull the wagon.

  The women exchanged surprised looks. “What on earth?” They both leaned forward, trying to look beyond the big locust tree in Agatha’s front yard. In just moments, ten-year-old Jimmy Picketts and his younger brother, Timmy, came into view. Jimmy pulled a faded red wagon, the front wheels wobbling badly from one side to the other. A pouting Timmy followed behind.

  “Hey, Miss Agatha. Miss Ivy.” The boys trailed along the white picket fence until they reached the open gate. “We brought you a pie, Miss Agatha.” Jimmy grinned and beamed with pride. Timmy pointed at the wagon and gave the women a big smile. A front tooth was missing.

  “My goodness! What a wonderful surprise!” Agatha brought both hands up to the sides of her face to emphasize her amazement.

  “Mama said to thank you for the roast you sent over, and she baked you this pie.”

  “Well, you tell your mama that I was just glad she took that roast off my hands. I don’t know what got into Martha, making such a big Sunday dinner when she knew there was just going to be three of us.” Agatha began to push herself out of the rocker, her cane in one hand. Ivy motioned for her to stay put and made her way down the front steps to the sidewalk where the boys waited.

  “I’ll take it up to her,” she half whispered to the boys like a conspirator. “She just got that cane, and she’s still learning how to use it.”

  The boys peered around Ivy to stare. “Did she break her leg?” the older one asked.

  “No, no. She’s got arthritis, and the doctor said she has to use the cane.” Lifting the pie out of the wagon, she gave the boys a look. “Can I peek under the cloth?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s a strawberry pie. The berries came out of our own patch in the backyard,” Jimmy answered.

  Ivy held the pie with one hand on the bottom of the tin and pulled the cloth up at one corner. “Well, it’s just about the most perfect pie I ever saw.” She turned back to Agatha, carrying the pie with both hands as she climbed the steps. “I may have to stay for supper just to get a slice of this.”

  Agatha folded the covering back for a look and made appreciative noises, but the boys were already moving down the street. Ivy opened the screen door and headed into the house, where she was met by Agatha’s cook halfway down the hall. Martha showed no surprise. Inevitably, families that received Sunday dinner from Agatha, accompanied by the lame excuse of Martha overdoing, sent something in return. Once it was a sack of turnips. Another time, a bunch of onions.

  When Ivy rejoined Agatha, she gave her friend’s hand a little pat as she settled back into her rocker. “That was a real nice thing to do.”

  Agatha shrugged. “The father fell off a stack of pallets at work and broke his arm. They’re keeping him on halftime doing little jobs, but that’s not enough to feed a family of six. It’s a ticklish business sending over food, but I don’t think I hurt anyone’s pride when I accept what they bring in return.”

  She straightened stiffly in her chair and wagged her finger at Ivy. “And you’re one to talk, sending Thelma out into the night to leave a sack of clothes at one place, a bag of underwear or a pair of shoes at another.”

  “I’m sending Thelma?” Ivy shot back with a smile. “While she’s delivering my goods, she’s also leaving the bags of groceries you give her.” Ivy shook her head. “We’re quite a pair, trying to ease away the problems this Depression brings people.”

  “More like that story of the Dutch boy trying to hold back the floodwater with a finger in the dike.” Agatha rocked for a moment, letting Ivy get settled.

  “Now, before Constance shows up to cart you home, you better tell me what’s on your mind. You’re fretting over something, and that’s not like you.”

  Ivy sighed. “It’s those interviews Iris Hewitt talked to us about. I’ve been thinking about Wheat and feel bad no one will hear the things he could have told them. Your Thomas, too.”

  Agatha nodded. “Thomas and his family lived in a tent until they got a house built. His father opened his first bank out of a wagon.”

  “I just wish the WPA had picked some other place. I’m not sure I’m up to talking about the past.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” Agatha interrupted. “Somebody asks you a question, and you answer. If you don’t want to answer, don’t. You tell what you want, and leave out the rest. I certainly will, and I’ve never known you to be shy about saying just what’s on your mind.”

  Ivy had no argument for that. She’d always been plainspoken, an attribute not everyone admired.

  “I’m worried about Nettie. There’s no telling what will come out of her mouth.”

  Agatha gave her friend a long stare and bristled. “I don’t give a fig about Nettie Vine, or anything she might say. I learned how to deal with her long ago. But it just galls me that my husband, and now my son, ended up being guardians for that old woman. I don’t know what possessed Sylvester Vine to put that in his will. And another thing . . .”

  Ivy laid a hand on Agatha’s arm. “Settle down. It was a credit to Thomas and to the bank that Mr. Vine trusted them with Nettie’s affairs. Goodness knows neither she nor her mother could have managed things.”

  Agatha was only slightly mollified. Ivy was sorry she’d given voice to her misgivings. It was just all this sudden talk about the old days. Ivy remembered much of those times with fondness, but some things were better left unsaid and forgotten.

  “Ivy, I don’t think anyone will give much credit to anything Nettie says. People here abouts know her and her ways. Every town has to have an eccentric, and she’s ours. I doubt most folks ever give her a moment’s thought unless Stella Castle— who in my book is a saint and should have a stained-glass window named for her at the Baptist Church—has to go hunting for her. Last week Stella called the police when Nettie was nowhere to be found. Martha told me one of the deputies found Nettie sitting in that ramshackle building that used to be John Featherstone’s store.”

  Ivy felt a chill. John Featherstone. Nettie remembered him well enough to end up at his old place.

  Agatha eyed her friend. “Don’t fret. That sort of behavior only proves—as my grandson would say—that she’s not all there.” Agatha tapped a finger to her forehead.

  Despite herself, Ivy laughed. “How in the world did she get to Mr. Featherstone’s? It’s almost out of town.”

  “She walked. She was always quick on her feet.”

  “Wandering around town like that.” Ivy frowned. “That’s what I mean; she’s unpredictable. She still does whatever she likes, and she could say anything.”

  “And no one would believe it, even if it was true.” Agatha banged the cane. “Forget Nettie. We promised to talk to these WPA people, and we will.”

  Ivy gave in. “By the time we’re finished, people will think we were the bravest and smartest pioneer women this country ever saw.”

  Agatha’s laugh was low and throaty. “Well, don’t overdo it. Think of it this way: it’s sort of like us handing out food and clothes. We’re fighting Old Man Depression. Those people being hired to do the interviews will have their jobs just a little longer if we talk to them.”

  “True enough. I guess we have to think of our children and grandchildren, too. They’re expecting us to take part. They’re proud of us being ‘old settlers,’ and Constance is already counting on using my interview as her stepping-stone to being president of Kansas Daughters. She’s been wrangling for years to get that position. This just might do it, or so she thinks.”

  The two women burst into laughter. Ivy’s daughter-in-law was a source of amusement, and sometimes exaspe
ration. When their children were young, Agatha and Ivy talked about how wonderful it would be if Agatha’s daughter married one of Ivy’s two boys. But the children only seemed to notice each other when they kicked at one another under the kids table during family get-togethers. Agatha’s daughter married a lawyer in Topeka. Ivy’s oldest boy got a job with the railroad, moved to Santa Fe, and married a woman there. Ivy’s other boy, Dell, married Constance soon after he came home from business school.

  As if the mere mention of her name caused her to materialize, Constance pulled to the curb. The car screeched and lurched before coming to a complete stop.

  “And they say I’m a hazard behind the wheel,” mumbled Agatha. It still rankled that her son sold her Oldsmobile after that one tiny accident. Anyone could have wound up crossways on the sidewalk blocking the steps to the Methodist church.

  Constance got out of the car, gave a big wave, and joined the women on the porch. A tall woman in her fifties, Constance carried herself with an air of importance and purpose.

  “Sorry I’m late, but the meeting just went on and on.” Constance was on practically every committee and board the town could devise. Her parents had once thought that her purpose in life would be as a missionary to China, but when Constance met Dell, she decided all those people in foreign lands would have to hear about the Baby Jesus from someone else. Being the best wife to Dell and improving the town of Opal’s Grove became her mission field. Since the death of Ivy’s husband, Constance had made Ivy one of her special projects.

  Ivy eased her long, thin frame out of the rocker, took the covered plate of sliced pie from Martha, who had suddenly appeared at her elbow, and followed Constance down the steps. She turned back to Agatha and shimmied her skinny behind. “Do you think anyone will believe I used to dance at the Hurley-Burley?”

  Constance gaped in shock, sending the two old friends into a paroxysm of laughter.

  The Hurley-Burley had been notorious. Located outside the city limits and just barely inside the law, the place was a saloon with gaming tables and a stage where three or four dancers of various sizes and talent entertained the fellows. Although respectable people weren’t supposed to know about what went on there, they did. Just as they knew the crowd favorite was Arlette, who could walk across the stage on her hands, do a flip, and end up in the splits.