Was (7 page)

Frances saw then that the two weren’t men at all, but teenagers. Frances didn’t like them. They didn’t know how to smile. Their smiles were all twisted, and their feet shuffled, and their hands were in their pockets. They looked like they could be rough. “Hiya, Kid,” one of them managed to say, with a voice with a catch in it, as if a string had been plucked.

“These are my other daughters, Mary Jane and Virginia.” They had just come up. Mary Jane hid slightly behind Jinny, but both of them looked scared, or something like it. Frances was going to say something to make them all happy. She was going to, and then decided not to. There was something nasty about those two men. Why did Daddy know people like them? Frances could see her daddy wanted to get away too. His voice went breathless, and he began to talk too fast and move his head a lot. “Got to be getting on.”

“Sure,” said one of the boys, his smile even more twisted, and Frances felt something she had no words for. She felt the contempt the boys had for her father. Her father turned and quickly walked away.

“Who wants a swing?” he asked as he turned. Why did he let them talk to him like that? Frances hugged his thick neck that smelled of aftershave and was prickly with stubble.

“Me,” said Frances, coyly, forgetting the boys in her affection for her father.

“Jinny?” her father asked, eyebrow arched.

Jinny said nothing but got into place beside him. Her father lowered Frances, and they each took a hand, and Frances felt a delicious tingle in her stomach.

“One . . . two . . . three!” they all said in a chorus and swung her over the movie-house carpet.

“Again,” she said and giggled.

“One . . . two . . . threeeeee!” Frances was swung up high over their heads, and Mary Jane had run ahead to push open the big glass door, and as if flying, Frances soared up out of shadow, and down into a blanket of hot Lancaster air.

“Now it’s Jinny’s turn,” Frances said.

“You can’t swing me, I’m too big,” said Jinny. “And besides, it’s too hot out here.”

“I can swing you,” said Frances and chuckled at the idea.

“No you
can’t
,” said Jinny, beginning to giggle too.

They all played a game. Daddy and Frances pretended to swing Jinny. One, two threeeeee! and Jinny would whoop. “Golly, that was some good swing,” Jinny said, joking. Mary Jane followed quietly. Frances didn’t want Mary Jane to feel left out so she turned and winked at her. Mary Jane smiled back, gently, her arms folded in front of her.

“Who were those boys?” Mary Jane asked quietly. Daddy walked on a couple of steps. “Those boys in the movie house?”

“Just some kids, honey,” said Daddy, walking on ahead. “They come in for the show on Saturdays. Nice boys.”

“They didn’t look nice,” said Janie.

“No, they did not,” said Frances, holding on to her father’s soft, fat finger.

“You don’t like anybody, Janie,” said Jinny, and there was enough truth in it for none of them to say anything else.

“Race you to the car,” said Daddy.

Only he and Frances ran.

“It’s too hot,” said Jinny, behind them.

The car was a special treat. Mom had driven to and from Los Angeles again, and she had left the car outside the theater, so the girls, particularly the Baby, wouldn’t have to walk home in the heat.

It was a Buick. Frances liked the word and said it over to herself. Big, beautiful Buick. Her daddy concentrated on opening the door, and she clambered in, hoisting herself up onto the large front seat. Janie came up, scowling in the sunshine, hand sheltering her eyes. Janie didn’t like Lancaster. She was always uncomfortable in it. Frances bounced up and down on the big seat.

“It’ll be cooler when we get going,” said her father. He pushed open the windshield in front, so that the air could blow in. The Buick had a little metal awning that hung out over the windshield like the brim of a hat. The hood was dusty again.

“We’ll wash the car tomorrow,” announced Frances.

“And I’ll turn the hose on you.”

“No,” said Frances. She loved washing the car and being hosed down in the heat. Janie reached forward and scratched the top of Frances’s head. It was a familiar game.

“Don’t,” said Frances and pretended to slap her hand away. Janie did it again. Frances squealed. “Don’t!”

Her father turned the key in the car and it started the first time, with a low rumble and a delicious smell of gas fumes. The Buick pulled away, with Frances giggling as both sisters tickled her from behind.

Daddy always drove quickly, to get the air moving. Suddenly the car roared and shot forward. It sped along Antelope Avenue, a current of air pouring in through the open window. Frances stood up on the seat to feel the wind on her face. The wind seemed to make her eyes shake. She saw the low flat buildings shivering past them, out to where Lancaster straggled to an end. It was late afternoon, and the shadows were long. The hills seemed to have more shape in the low slanting light, their clefts and gullies full of blue shadow, their blue crags kissed pink. The high desert looked more gentle, less bleak and blasted.

“Daddy, be careful!” said Mary Jane.

Frances realized something was wrong.

The car was going faster and faster, and Frances’s father had a strange, set expression on his face, and his eyes looked gray and blank. He looked angry. Frances giggled to make him turn to her with his eyes that could be so gentle. He didn’t. Frances began to sing—that almost always worked. But her father kept staring ahead and his face stayed grim, and the car kept roaring forward.

A jackrabbit suddenly darted across the road. He father blinked and tried to swerve, and the car skidded around on the sand and gravel that had blown onto the road. Mary Jane screamed. The car turned tight around in the middle of the road. Thrown sideways, Frances was lifted up and hurled onto her father’s lap. The car stopped.

Silence and sudden settling heat. Frances could feel her father. He was shaking. He put his hands on her head, as if trying to cushion it. “Sorry, girls,” he murmured. He helped Frances sit up and started up the car again. It coughed and shuddered. Very slowly, carefully, he turned the car around in a wide arc, back into its lane, back toward the town.

Frances stood up on the seat again. “Faster, Daddy, faster!” she said. Wordlessly, looking ahead, her father reached out and gently made her sit. The car moved slowly home.

One side of Antelope Avenue was lined with telephone poles, the other with tamarisk trees that made long, cool shadows. A woman walked under them. The car slowed and stopped, and Frank Gumm wound the window down, prepared, as he must be, to talk a spell. He always said if you were in business, you had to set and talk a spell with folks. Frances thought it meant he talked magic.

They didn’t know the woman. She looked quizzical as the car crept up to her. Frances’s father stuck his head out of the window and said loudly, too soon, to reassure her, “Hello, Mrs. Story, I don’t believe we’ve met.” He leaned out of the window, resting his arms on the sill of the car door. “I’m Frank Gumm.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Hello, Mr. Gumm. Pleased to meet you.” Her eyes flickered over him. Mr. Gumm was wearing a sporty checked cap and sporty checked jacket that didn’t quite match, and without doubt was also wearing golf trousers with long checked socks up to the knees. “How did you know it was me?” she asked.

Frank Gumm grinned widely. “Just a process of elimination, Mrs. Story. Mrs. Abbot tells me you haven’t been to see the show and you’re one of the few folks around here I haven’t spoken to yet. Can I offer you some free tickets?”

Definitely sporty, Mrs. Story seemed to think. A plump little man done up to look like he plays golf. “Well, I hardly . . .”

“These are my little girls, Mary Jane, my oldest, and Virginia—we all call her Jinny—and Baby Frances. They’re the ones who do all the work.”

Mrs. Story still looked uncertain. Frances thought she would pep her up.

“Howdy, Mrs. Story. I like your hat!” In fact she did. It was a nice felt cloche like Mom wore.

“Frances,” murmured Janie, embarrassed.

“Well, thank you, honey,” said Mrs. Story.

“It’s a good, clean family show, Mrs. Story,” smiled Frank. “And it’s the coolest spot in the valley. When it’s one hundred degrees out here, it’s seventy inside my movie house.”

“Well, it is hot, Mr. Gumm, I won’t deny.”

“Now you just do me a favor and take two of these, Mrs. Story. Good for any night of the week, just come and visit and take in the show when there’s something on you want to see.”

The tickets were held out.

“Well . . .” Mrs. Story took them. “Thank you very much, Mr. Gumm.”

“Terrible name, isn’t it? Frank Gumm. Just remember. Honest and sticky.”

“Daddy, don’t say that,” said Janie, wincing.

“I’m sure I will remember, Mr. Gumm,” said Mrs. Story, looking at the tickets.

“And say hello to Mrs. Abbot for me.”

“Will do. Thank you for the tickets.”

“Goodbye Mrs. Story!” Frances shouted as the car pulled away, and was flung back into the seat.

Frank Gumm kept smiling, looking in his rearview mirror, until Mrs. Story was well behind them. The smile fell then. “She’ll be pleased enough when she sees you girls sing,” he murmured. He chewed the tip of his thumbnail.

He stuck out his arm to signal and turned onto Cedar Avenue. They passed the grammar school. Whenever he stopped grinning, Frank Gumm looked worried. “The summer’s almost over,” he told his girls. “Janie, Jinny, you’ll be starting school again here soon.”

“I won’t,” said Baby Gumm.

“Ho-ho, no,” said Frank Gumm, darkly. “No, your mother has other plans for you, Baby.”

“Where did Mama go today?” asked Janie.

Frank Gumm didn’t answer. He didn’t say anything else until the car slid to a stop outside their new house.

It was painted white, two-story, on the corner across from the school. Grandmother Milne was on the steps waiting for them.

“Now come along, Frances, your mother wants you straight upstairs to wash. Mary Jane and Virginia, help me please to set the table.” She said nothing to Frank. He helped Frances down from the car, and walked with her. She held on to his finger.

“I’ll be downstairs, Baby,” he murmured to Frances. “You run upstairs and have your bath and get all pretty for the show. Saturday night tonight.”

Grandmother Milne held the door open with one hand, and took charge of Frances with another. But Frances stood her ground, in the hallway, turning to her father.

“Afterward can I show you my ballet steps?” she asked.

Her father smiled his huge, too-wide grin.

“Sure, Baby. I’ll be here,” he whispered.

“Come on then, Granny, let’s get this over with,” said Frances with a theatrical sigh.

“Cute as a button,” grunted Grandmother Milne. “Knows it too.”

Her daddy was left behind in the hall.

Upstairs, her mother was waiting. She knelt down in front of Frances to kiss her, as if coming back from Los Angeles were like returning from an even longer journey. “Hiya, Baby,” she said, smelling of makeup and lipstick and perfume. She was slightly damp with the heat. Honest and sticky. “Good picture?” Mama asked.

“Oh yes, it was about a man running around the skyscrapers.”

“Many people there?” Her mother’s face was crossed with concern.

“No,” said Frances in a small voice.

“Well, early days yet,” said her mother, her voice wavering.

“There were two boys talking to Daddy, but they didn’t look very nice.”

Mrs. Gumm went very still. “Were there? What wasn’t nice about them?”

“They looked funny,” said Frances, watching her mother. She had meant to cheer her up by telling her about people who had come to the show. “He says they come every Saturday.”

“I bet they do,” said her mother. She started playing with her daughter’s hair, rubbing it between her fingers. “You’re as dusty as a welcome mat,” she said, with a sudden wrench of emotion. “Honestly, this place! You need a brush just to walk down the street.”

Then she kissed her daughter, hard, on the cheek, and stayed there, on her knees for a full moment. Then she pulled back. She was trying to be cheerful, but Frances could see that she wasn’t. “How about a bath?”

“Will it be cold?” Frances asked.

“Yes, Baby, nice and cold,” said her mother, and stood up.

Frances skipped toward the bathroom. The bathtub was already full, and Frances held her arms over her head, dancing to have the dusty little dress pulled off. There were two kinds of clothes: ordinary clothes, which usually had once been her sisters’, and show clothes. Show clothes were nicer, but scratched more and were specially made.

The gray little dress was hoisted off. “Janie and Jinny start school soon,” said Frances, under its momentary shelter.

“Yes, Baby. Seventh and Fifth grade, if you can credit it.” Mrs. Gumm shook her head as she folded the dress. Frances shook her head too, at the unattainable heights of seventh grade.

“How long before I’m in the seventh grade?” she asked. It was the summit of her ambition.

“Oh, years and years yet,” said Mrs. Gumm, leaning over and testing the bathwater with her plump hands.