A Woman's Place (32 page)

“Is that what you think?”

He shrugged again, then fiddled with a loose straw on the bassinet, not meeting her gaze.

“I’ve learned a lot about myself these past few months,” she said. “I found out that I’m capable of doing more than I ever believed I could. I’ve been growing, Harold—
burgeoning out
. I think that’s a good thing, to know myself a little better, don’t you? Maybe men prefer women who are weak and helpless, but I’m ashamed of the way I used to let Betty Parker and the others push me around. I used to hear such vicious gossip from the club women and I was afraid to say anything. A year ago I never would have had the courage to speak up for Thelma and the other Negroes at work, but that’s wrong. My crew chief, Jean Erickson, isn’t even twenty years old and she’s leading the way. I want to stand up for what’s right, too. I don’t want to go back to the way I used to be.”

He looked at her and she saw sorrow in his eyes. She wondered if he still wanted the old Ginny back. Once again, the thought occurred to her that he was preparing to leave her.

“I love you so much, Harold. I wish I knew that you still loved me.”

“Of course I do. You’re the one who is moving away from me, not the other way around. You left our home, you’re always working … Sometimes it seems like you care more about the people at work than you do about the boys and me.”

“That isn’t true.” She reached to take his hand. “If I learn new things about myself, then I’ll have more to offer you. I’m becoming a better person. I’ll have more to give the boys, too. I showed them one of the ships I built. They said they were proud of me. I wish you felt that way, too.”

“I do.”

The two words had been barely audible, but they were music to her ears. Ginny knew they were all Harold was capable of. She leaned toward his chair to hug him, and he pulled her onto his lap and kissed her with a passion that had been missing from their marriage for a long time. When he finally pulled away, he rested his forehead against hers.

“Are the boys in bed?” he asked. Her mouth opened in surprise. It was what he always used to ask whenever he felt romantic.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Let’s go upstairs.” He slid her off his lap, then stood and took her hand. Ginny could have floated up the stairs. She wondered if she would glow in the dark. Maybe things would be different between them from now on.

But on Sunday morning Harold acted as
aloof
as usual. “There’s another article about the racial strife in Baltimore,” he said as he read a section of the newspaper at breakfast. He lowered the page to face her. “The unrest is bound to spread. While I agree with what Earl Seaborn is doing, it’s extremely dangerous. I don’t like it that he wants to put a Negro woman on your crew. I wish you would consider quitting, Ginny.”

“He hasn’t hired Thelma yet. Rosa is going to continue working for a few more months.” Harold made a face. “What’s wrong?”

“Women don’t belong in a place like that, especially if they’re in the family way.” He folded the paper and stood. But he surprised Ginny by kissing her before he went upstairs to dress for church.

She watched him go, feeling happier than she’d felt in months. Then, as she cleared his breakfast dishes from the table, she suddenly had an astonishing thought:
What if I got pregnant last night?

Ginny leaned against the sink as she tried to absorb it. Had that been Harold’s plan when he’d decided to get romantic? Was he manipulating her, letting her have a baby so that she would finally quit her job?

She was still sorting through her feelings when Allan walked into the kitchen. “What’s that thing doing here?” he said when he saw the bassinet.

“It’s for Rosa Voorhees, from work. She’s going to have a baby.”

A rush of joy and hope welled up inside Ginny. Even if those were Harold’s motives, she didn’t care. She might have another baby! Maybe it would be a little girl this time.

CHAPTER 27

* Helen *

Sunday had become a very boring day after Helen stopped believing in God and attending church, but tutoring Rosa now helped fill the long afternoons. It surprised Helen to discover how much she enjoyed teaching her. They had spent nearly every Sunday afternoon for the past few months seated at Helen’s massive dining room table, studying geometry and geography and grammar.

“It’s time to take the examination,” Helen told Rosa in August.

“Oh no, I don’t think I can—”

“You’re ready. You passed this practice test with a score of eighty-nine percent. The equivalency exam is being given next Saturday morning at the high school. I’ll drive you there.” Rosa sputtered in protest, but Helen remained firm.

On Saturday, Helen hung around outside the school, pacing like an expectant father while Rosa took the exam. “How did it go?” she asked the moment Rosa emerged from the building. She looked like an exotic flower that had wilted under the strain.

“I don’t know. Some parts of it were really hard. I had to figure out the volume of a cylinder and I think I messed it up.”

“We’ll study some more. Don’t worry. You can always take it again.”

“They wanted to know where to send the results,” Rosa said as they walked to Helen’s car, “so I gave them your address. I hope that’s okay. I don’t want Dirk’s folks to know how dumb I am.”

“Rosa, for heaven’s sake. You’re not dumb.”

“I didn’t finish high school.”

“There’s a big difference between being uneducated and being dumb. Jimmy was uneducated but he certainly wasn’t dumb.”

“Whatever happened to him? Did he die or something?”

“I’d rather not talk about him, if you don’t mind.”

“Sorry … Maybe sometime you could teach me how to stop asking nosy questions. I think Ginny gave up on me.”

“Children usually learn manners from their parents.”

“Well, that explains it, then. I never had a father, and my mother didn’t teach me nothing—I mean anything.”

Helen watched the mail, waiting for Rosa’s test results. One afternoon a letter arrived from the principal of Lincoln Elementary School. An uneasy feeling writhed through Helen’s stomach as she ripped it open. It should have been good news: The school needed a sixth-grade teacher for the coming fall. The principal wanted Helen to call him right away if she was interested. But the unsettled feeling persisted.

A teaching position. Helen could teach again.

She called the school and set up an appointment for tomorrow after work. She would come home and change her clothes, then drive to the school. “We’re eager to fill this position right away,” the principal told her, “before classes start. We know how highly qualified you are.”

But after Helen made the appointment, she felt as though she were walking around in lead shoes. Why should that be? She should be jumping up and down with excitement at this opportunity. Her career was in teaching, not working in a shipyard. She had enjoyed tutoring Rosa, hadn’t she? And she was good at it. Helen didn’t understand why there was even a question in her mind about returning to Lincoln School—but there was. Where had it come from?

Helen pondered these questions all evening and slept restlessly that night. It was the same anxious, dreamless sleep she’d experienced when her parents had been ill and she had awakened dozens of times to listen to the dreary old house creak and groan. In the morning she rose before dawn and paced the floor as if waiting for a loved one to return home. By the time she left for work at the shipyard, she felt exhausted. The day seemed endless.

At five minutes to four that afternoon, Helen parked her bicycle in front of Lincoln Elementary School. The two-story brick building looked as solid and uninspiring as always. The principal was waiting for her in his office, and they chatted about the war and the fall of Italy’s dictator for a few minutes before he suggested that she visit her sixth-grade classroom on the second floor.

“You might want to look over the textbooks you’ll be using. Take them home with you, if you’d like.”

Helen plodded dutifully up the squeaky wooden stairs, even though she knew the classroom well. The school smelled of disinfectant and floor wax, scents that would evaporate quickly once the students arrived with their sweaty bodies and bologna sandwiches. The building was clean and ready for fall, the desks sanded, the floors polished, the chalkboards scrubbed, the erasers cleaned. Helen walked into the classroom that would soon be hers and looked around at the bulletin boards waiting to be decorated, the textbooks waiting to be distributed, the desks waiting to be filled. She thought of all the young minds waiting to be shaped and felt weary before she even began. She leafed through one of the teacher’s manuals on her desk, but the pages may as well have been blank.

Why couldn’t she get excited about returning here? She had fought so hard to become a teacher, defying her father, who’d considered teaching a commonplace profession, far beneath a wealthy, Vassar-educated woman. She had been forced to battle the prevailing notion that it was a father’s duty and right to make decisions for his unmarried daughter.

“It’s a new world, Father,” she’d told him. “I’m a grown woman, capable of making my own decisions. It isn’t up to you to choose where I’ll work or who I will marry; it’s up to me.”

She had successfully broken through barriers in her life and in society’s way of thinking—the same way Ginny Mitchell was now fighting the notion that a woman’s place is in the home. The way Jean Erickson would fight stereotypes to study something other than nursing or teaching. Even Rosa was doing battle, fighting against her upbringing to get a high school diploma and choosing to continue working when she was nearly five months pregnant.

The schools hadn’t been integrated when Helen had begun to teach, and she’d further outraged her father by teaching in a oneroom schoolhouse in rural Michigan. Her students were nearly all Negroes, children of tenant farmers and migrant workers, children who deserved a good education, too, she’d believed. She had encouraged them to get as much schooling as they could, to reach for the sky. Many of them had, and Helen was proud of them all. She had moved to Lincoln School not by choice, but because the rural ones eventually consolidated. Helen had loved teaching. Why did she hesitate now?

She closed the classroom door and went downstairs. In a few weeks the other teachers would arrive and put their rooms in order. Helen recognized most of the names stenciled on the doors, but she didn’t know any of these people very well. She had always remained aloof, to use one of Ginny Mitchell’s favorite words.

Helen smiled fondly when she thought of the girls from the shipyard—then she caught herself. How had she allowed herself to become so fond of them? She suddenly realized which emotion she had felt last night when she’d been unable to sleep: loneliness, something she hadn’t felt for a long time. She would miss Jean and Ginny and, yes, even Rosa. Helen would be lonely again after she quit. In that case, she had better quit right now before the ties tugged any tighter, before she ended up getting hurt.

The principal had a contract ready when she returned to his office. “It’s pretty standard. You’ve seen one just like it before. Do you have any questions?”

Helen couldn’t bring herself to sign it. “May I take it with me? I’d like to give it some more thought. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

She found the envelope with Rosa’s examination score in the mailbox when she returned home. Helen could hardly wait to bring it to work tomorrow. She spent another restless night thinking about the decision she needed to make, trying to imagine herself standing in front of the chalkboard in the sixth-grade classroom. She dreamed of Jimmy Bernard.

Before punching the time clock the next morning, Helen took Rosa aside and gave her the envelope with the test results. They both held their breath as Rosa opened it. “I’m scared to look,” she whispered.

“It doesn’t mean anything, Rosa. Don’t let a test score tell you who you are.” Helen watched as she pulled the letter from the envelope and scanned it.

Rosa let out a squeal of delight. “I passed!” She hugged Helen, jumping up and down. Helen felt Rosa’s baby like a hard little ball between them. “Look! Ninety-two percent!”

Helen forced back happy tears. “That’s excellent. You have a right to be proud, Rosa.”

“You helped. I couldn’t of done … I mean I couldn’t
have
done it without you.”

Helen held Rosa at arm’s length and met her gaze. “Listen, I don’t want to hear you putting yourself down or acting inferior anymore, understand? You’re a bright young woman. As good as the next person. Shall we tell the other ladies?”

“I really want to, but I think we should wait. Ginny is pretty upset today. I saw her crying in the locker room.”

“Oh. Then we’ll wait for a better time.” Ginny’s problems were none of Helen’s business, she told herself. But of course Rosa thought everyone’s business was her own.

“I did the nosy thing and asked Ginny what was wrong,” Rosa whispered. “She said she’d been hoping that she was pregnant, but she just found out that she’s not.”

“That really isn’t our business,” Helen told her.

“But Ginny is my friend, and I figured that if she’s happy, then I’m happy—like you and me when I got this good news. And if she’s sad, then I’m a little sad, too. Wouldn’t you have felt bad if I had flunked? Ginny wants a baby so bad, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Then if we’re friends, why is it nosy to—”

“We’d better punch in, Rosa. We have a lot of work to do.”

Helen watched the clock all day, thinking about her decision, wondering if she should sign the teaching contract or not. Who knew how long it would be before another teaching position opened up? Near the end of her shift she saw Mr. Seaborn escorting a solider and a crew of blue-clad prisoners from the interment camp along the assembly line, the letters PW stenciled conspicuously on their backs.

“What are they doing here?” she asked Jean Erickson.

“Earl told me that some German POWs might be coming to work here. Mr. Wire has been negotiating all the details with the state officials. He said that a lot of the prisoners worked on area farms this summer and they did a good job. We sure could use the extra help here. We’re falling behind on our quotas.”

“They make me nervous. How can we be sure they won’t sabotage something?”

“The crew chiefs will have to inspect their work, I guess.”

Helen made up her mind to come early and help Jean doublecheck all their work if any of them got jobs as electricians. Then she remembered that she wouldn’t be working here much longer. Once again, the thought made her feel a little sad.

As Helen stood in line behind Rosa to punch the time clock at the end of the day, the Germans and their guard suddenly halted a few feet away from her. The English-speaking prisoner, Meinhard Kesler, was among them. To Helen’s dismay, he recognized her.

“Good day,” he said with a shy smile. “You are Miss Kimball, right?”

She didn’t reply. It galled her that he was here instead of behind barbed wire, and she was appalled that he would have the nerve to speak to her.

“Yeah, she’s Helen Kimball,” Rosa said, butting in. “How’d you know?”

“We met before when she comes to visit our camp. They tell me you are a schoolteacher, Miss Kimball, yes? I did not know you are working in a factory.”

“She is a teacher—and a good one, too,” Rosa replied. Helen turned her back to punch her time card, then walked away. Rosa caught up with her a moment later.

“Hey, what’s the matter? Why didn’t you want to talk to that guy?”

“I have nothing to say to him. I toured his camp because I was trying to get it closed down. I wanted him and all the rest of them out of Stockton, remember? Unfortunately, they’re not only still in town, they’re here in our factory.”

“Mr. Seaborn says they might work here from now on.”

“That infuriates me!” she said, turning on Rosa. “They won’t allow honest, respectable colored people like Thelma to work in production, but they’ll allow Nazis? That’s absurd!”

“But Mr. Seaborn said—”

“Excuse me, Rosa. I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to go home.” She needed to cool off before she snapped at Mr. Seaborn or Mr. Wire the way she was snapping at poor Rosa. And she could no longer delay her decision about the teaching contract.

Helen felt much more calm by the time she arrived home. The contract lay waiting for her on the coffee table in the den. Beside it was a pile of newspaper clippings she’d collected that mentioned some of her former students who were away at war. Four of them had been killed in action already, including Larry Wire. It seemed like a lot of casualties for a small town like Stockton.

Helen remembered taking the job at the shipyard to support young men like them and to do her part for the war effort. She had helped fight the war by working there—not only against the Nazis and the Japanese, but she had fought for equality for the Negro workers. She had started all the unrest in the first place by recommending Thelma, so it seemed wrong to stop fighting for her now. And for her other friends, as well.

Helen would need to help Jean keep an eye on the German prisoners, she told herself. She needed to help Ginny remain strong and not give in to her husband’s pressure. And Rosa still needed Helen’s guiding hand, too, even though she’d passed her equivalency test. All of them would need to work together with Earl Seaborn to help Thelma get the job she deserved. How could Helen desert everyone now when the battle had just begun? It would mean another year at the shipyard, maybe more. Who knew how long the war would last? In the meantime, Helen’s friends needed her.

Her friends. Yes, that’s what Jean and Ginny and Rosa and Thelma and Earl were—her friends. Helen might be making a huge mistake, but she tore the teaching contract into pieces.