The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion (12 page)

During his visit, they learned that he had flown over that morning from Grand Rapids. Wink was enthralled as he sat and listened to Billy tell tales about his flying exploits as a barnstormer and stunt flier. After lunch, they walked him back to his plane and waved as he took off to the east. They all agreed it had been the most exciting day of their lives.

It had also been a very good day for Billy. He had flown away with a large paper bag full of good Polish sausage and homemade candy that the mother had packed for him, plus something else. He had learned the names of all four daughters.

N
OT LONG AFTER
B
ILLY
’
S
first visit, someone heard the sound of a plane circling above the town. They all came out and looked up and saw that it was the skywriter back again, but this time, after he had finished, they saw he had written in large white letters across the sky,

HEY, FRITZI, HOW ABOUT A DATE?

Billy had a hunch. Fritzi was not the prettiest sister. Sophie, the youngest, was the beauty, and the other two girls were swell looking, too, but there was something about Fritzi that he liked. She had real spirit, and he was looking for a gal with spirit.

When Momma stepped out and looked up and saw the message in the sky, she shook her head. She had been concerned about something like this happening. She was afraid that of all her children, Fritzi would be the one who would run off from home, looking for some wild new adventure. And she could tell by the way Fritzi had pushed her way past everybody to sit by Billy Bevins at lunch and how she had hung on to his every word, this might be it.

T
WO DAYS LATER
,
WHEN
the family was having dinner, Billy Bevins called the phone number at the filling station, and Wink ran over to the house to get Fritzi.

After a few minutes, Fritzi came back to the kitchen looking flushed and excited and announced to the table, “Billy’s coming to get me on Saturday and fly me to Milwaukee for dinner and dancing!”

Momma turned to her husband, waiting for him to put his foot down and say no, but he just nodded and kept eating. Wink and the other girls were as excited as Fritzi and started jumping up and down. Wink asked, “Can I go, too?” so Momma knew she was outnumbered. And, besides, what could she do? Stanislaw was right. Fritzi was a new breed of American girl with a mind of her own, and nothing she could say would stop her anyway. All Momma could do was go to Saint Mary’s and light a candle to the Blessed Mother and pray Fritzi didn’t fall out of the plane.

The next day, when Fritzi told her friends about it, one girl said, “Oh, Fritzi, I’d be scared to go off with a stranger like that.” The other girl said, “Yeah, aren’t you afraid he might get you up in the air and then try to get fresh?” But Fritzi wasn’t worried. She had been on too many hayrides with over-six-foot-tall Wisconsin farm boys, and if she could handle them, she surely could handle him. Billy wasn’t much taller than she was.

The following Saturday afternoon, Fritzi, dressed in a blue suit, white blouse, white shoes, and a white hat, climbed into the backseat of the plane and waved good-bye to her family, while Momma stood there making the sign of the cross over and over again. “Oh, dear Mother of God, let her live through this.” But Momma knew, even if Fritzi did live, they were in danger of losing her. They always said that “Once you’ve been to Milwaukee, you’re never the same.”

P
OINT
C
LEAR
, A
LABAMA

I
N THE PAST WEEK
, S
OOKIE HAD GONE THROUGH ALL THE FOOD SHE
had stashed away in case of an emergency. She hadn’t stepped out of the house. But now even she couldn’t face another frozen shrimp. She really had to do a little grocery shopping. So she waited until noon, when she knew Lenore was safely at the Red Hat Society ladies luncheon. After she finished her shopping, she thought of something else she needed to do while she was out, so she whipped around the corner and parked in the back of the bank.

She went in and opened up their security box and removed the two letters she had written almost three years ago and reread them.

When Sookie reread the last letter, she was so glad Earle had not seen it. Marvaleen? What had she been thinking? Marvaleen was far too new age for Earle. Marvaleen wore thong underwear—not that there was anything wrong with that, but it would be a little too much for Earle. Sookie knew she really was the perfect wife for Earle. He had always said so, and now she could clearly see he was right. She knew exactly how he liked his corn bread: thin and crispy. He wouldn’t be happy with anyone else but her. She tore both letters up and threw them away.

Sookie realized that starting today, she was going to have to reset her thinking. For years, she had lived with the fear of the Simmons gene, but now that was a worry she didn’t have anymore. Of course, she didn’t know about the Jurdabralinski genes, but she was fairly certain nobody could be crazier than the Simmonses.

As Sookie drove home from the bank, she suddenly remembered it was Monday and ducked down in her seat and hid as she drove past the cemetery. Her mother’s car was there, but thank heavens, she hadn’t spotted Sookie’s car. That was another thing Lenore had put her through. It was so irritating to think that she had gone to all that hassle and trouble to move her great-grandfather there, and now it turns out she wasn’t even related to him. The man was a complete stranger!

She felt like such a fool. Lenore had made her do all that stuff, knowing full well she wasn’t a Simmons. Honestly!

And it wouldn’t be so bad if the woman had ever once said thank you or even appreciated it. Lenore didn’t even seem to have a clue or notice what all she had put her through.

Last year, after the mayor’s lawsuit, when she was driving her mother home from the courthouse, Sookie had asked, “Mother, do you have any idea how hard it is to be your daughter?”

Lenore had looked at her completely puzzled. “Why, what an odd question. Hard? In what way, hard? I think I have been a wonderful mother. I would have loved to have been my daughter. Haven’t I done everything humanly possible to see that you have every advantage?”

“Yes, Mother, you have. It’s just that you come with an awful lot of drama, and you are never quiet.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I’m not some dull and boring Sally-sit-by-the-fire. Yes, I talk a lot, but I happen to excel in the art of conversation.”

“It’s not just talking, Mother. It’s just that you always have an opinion.”

“Well, I should hope so.”

“But it’s always such a strong opinion.”

“How can you expect me to have a weak opinion? Would you go into a restaurant and order a weak cup of coffee?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I would.”

“You know what I mean, Sookie. Why have an opinion, if it’s not
a strong opinion? Oh, I know the Good Book says the meek shall inherit the earth, but I don’t believe it for one minute.”

“But, Mother, surely there is something in between meek and overpowering. Like … just normal.” Sookie knew the minute she said it, she had said the wrong word.

Lenore’s eyes suddenly got very big. “Are you suggesting that I am not normal? Granted, your Uncle Baby and Aunt Lily have their little quirks, but I’m as normal as they come. Really, Sookie, you hurt me to the quick.”

If Lenore thought shooting at the paperboy was just “a little quirk,” then there was no point in expecting her to ever think anything was wrong with her. Lenore had never been normal in her life. She certainly hadn’t been a normal mother or a normal grandmother, either.

One Christmas Eve, when the children had been quite young, she and Earle had left them with Lenore while they ran out and did a little last-minute shopping, and Lenore had served each child several cups of the Simmons eggnog, which was 75 percent rum and 25 percent nog. When they came to pick the children up, all four were stumbling around her living room in a drunken stupor. “I don’t know why you’re so upset, Sookie,” Lenore had said. “My word, a little eggnog never hurt anybody, and if we can’t celebrate the birth of our Lord on Christmas Eve, then I don’t know what the world is coming to.”

That year, they had been the only children in town who had opened their presents on Christmas morning with a hangover. And, of course, no matter what Lenore did, the children just adored her. Especially Dee Dee. Whenever she was punished for doing something at home, she would exclaim, “I’m going to live with Grandmother. She understands me!”

Lenore had been so hard on her own children, but to Sookie’s great surprise, with her grandchildren, she thought whatever they did or said was “Just darling! Just precious!” or “The cutest thing in the world!” She had given them all the candy they wanted, even though Earle, being a dentist, had asked her not to. So, of course, the children loved being with her. Why not?

But then, they hadn’t been raised by a woman who thought that Sookie and Buck were the only two things that had stood between her
and winning an Oscar. She had said, “Oh, Sookie, when I saw Barbara Stanwyck in the movie
Stella Dallas,
I just cried my eyes out. I could have played that part to a T. Oh, well,” she sighed. “Barbara Stanwyck had the career I should have, but it’s all water under the bridge now.” Oh, brother.

1938

F
RITZI DIDN
’
T LET ON
,
BUT SHE HAD ACTUALLY BEEN TERRIFIED AS
Billy taxied the plane over to the edge of the field. She had never been in an airplane in her life, and when he revved the motor, ready for takeoff, she shut her eyes and held on to her hat for dear life. As the plane started rumbling down the field, her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly breathe, but if this is what it took to impress Billy, she would do it. She had been dazzled by Billy at first sight, the way he had jumped down out of the plane and sauntered through the crowd. Besides, she wanted to see something of the world before she settled down. She didn’t want to marry one of the hometown boys and have five or six children before she was twenty-five. A lot of her friends had dropped out of high school, married, and already had a baby on the way. So when Billy had flown into her life, it seemed to her that she was to be rescued, not by a man on a white horse, but by one in a bright yellow plane.

A
FTER A BUMPY RIDE
, the plane lifted off the ground, and, suddenly, Fritzi felt the most amazing sensation. The loud roar of the engine
became more of a hum, and she felt as if she were floating. When she opened her eyes, she was way up in the air and looking down at the small world below. Her family, still standing by the fence waving, became smaller and smaller as she and Billy flew up way above the town, headed over to Milwaukee.

Flying to Milwaukee was a revelation to Fritzi. Billy followed the railroad tracks all the way, and from up above looking down, the silos and water towers looked like some of Wink’s old toys sitting on top of a patchwork quilt. Tiny tractors moved slowly through rows of corn and wheat, and the lakes that spotted the countryside looked like little round mirrors. The farmhouses, with sheets and overalls hanging from the clotheslines in the backyard, looked no bigger than the little wooden house pieces on a Monopoly set.