Chapter 5 - 2

“Depends.”

He tilted his head back to look up at her—like Mr.Royce, he was shorter than Bea; unlike Mr.Royce, Joe didn’t bristle about it. “You bring any more of those muffins? Or are they Lina’s?”

he added belatedly.

Bea tossed him one underhand, like she was lobbing an easy grounder to first base. “Yes, but they’re pretty good. Lina finally stopped mixing up the baking powder and baking soda. I think it’s the new glasses—she wasn’t really able to read the labels before, poor kid.”

Grace had been the one who took Lina to the eye doctor behind her mother’s back, then passed the hat around the Briar Club to cover the bill. Bea had been fairly broke that week after a trip home to Boston, but she’d still kicked in her last few dollars. The insurance covered the glasses , Grace assured Doilies later, wide-eyed. Isn’t that wonderful? The American experiment in action!

“Huh. Tasty,”

Joe said around a mouthful of corn muffin, and he pulled Bea in with an arm around her waist. His room was strewn with sheet music and spare reeds and smelled like fresh bagels and black coffee from Rosenberg’s Deli downstairs. “Come on in, Fort Wayne.”

He always called her that, ever since he’d helped her wrestle her mattress upstairs when she moved in next door, and he learned she’d played for the Daisies in the town where he’d grown up. “Only one thing to do when you grow up in a place like Fort Wayne, Indiana,”

he’d said, “and that’s move east the minute you can figure out how to read a compass.”

Bea hooted, and they’d been rolling around on that mattress pretty much as soon as they got it horizontal and onto the frame.

“You don’t have anyone else dropping by, do you?”

she teased after coming up for air from a long kiss. She knew Joe fooled around plenty, but so did she. Why not? They weren’t going steady and never had been. The only difference was, Joe could fool around with all the women he liked, and Bea had to be sneaky about it. But if you’d learned to get around the razor-eyed chaperones hired to keep the league girls in their hotel room beds at night (hah!), getting around Mrs.Nilsson was easier than catching an infield pop-up. “I’d hate to mess up your busy schedule...”

“Only thing on my schedule is opening set at the Amber Club at ten.”

Joe’s fingers fluttered the length of her spine like he was stroking saxophone keys. “We got time.”

It was a good couple of hours, and it got Bea out of her head for a while—nothing like working up a sweat if you needed to stop thinking. But as she sauntered back next door, humming “I Got Rhythm”

and feeling as nicely played as Joe’s sax, the sensation of flatness came back. Her third-floor room, her favorite bat leaning up against the door, her old Rawlings mitt in the drawer... At the bottom of her bureau, wrapped in tissue paper like a wedding gown, her skirted uniform and cap. And on top of the bureau, the home economics textbook she’d half-heartedly been perusing for Monday. She opened it at random to a table-setting diagram like the one Arlene had lectured them about. “Dessert spoon above the cake fork,”

Bea read aloud. “Bread plate to the left, above the salad fork and dinner fork, butter knife placed at ten o’clock across the plate.”

The clock ticked loudly as her voice trailed off. Downstairs, Mrs. Nilsson was coming home from her bridge game, scolding Pete for leaving a pan on the stove. His mumble: Sorry, Mom...

Bea’s voice startled her as she spoke aloud. “I have got to get the hell out of here.”

Harland’s Fried Chicken

5 pounds chicken parts, preferably dark meat or breasts cut into halves 1 to 1 1 / 2 quarts buttermilk

2 quarts vegetable oil 4 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons salt 4 tablespoons paprika 4 tablespoons garlic powder 4 tablespoons black pepper 4 tablespoons white pepper 1 tablespoon cayenne 1 tablespoon onion powder 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1 tablespoon baking powder

Place the chicken parts in a large mixing bowl, cover with the buttermilk, and place in the refrigerator for at least 1hour. In a large, deep frying pan, add enough oil to cover the bottom 2inches of the pan and slowly heat. Do not allow the oil to smoke.

Combine the flour and all remaining ingredients in a large mixing bowl, and mix well. Prepare a landing zone for the floured chicken, usually a large baking sheet, and a rack for the chicken once it’s fried.

Remove a piece of chicken from the buttermilk bath, shake the excess buttermilk off, and dredge it in the spiced flour mixture, then use tongs to set it aside on the baking sheet. Repeat until all pieces are dredged in flour and coming to room temperature.

Once the oil reaches 350°F on a cooking thermometer, or when a piece of bread fries golden when dipped in the hot oil, re-dredge 1piece of chicken in flour to ensure an even coating and place it into the hot oil. If there is excessive splattering, remove the pan quickly from the heat and turn the heat down for a few minutes. The oil should sizzle, not splatter and spray.

Allow the chicken to cook approximately 4 minutes per side, a little longer for larger pieces. Once done (it should just slip off a fork), remove it to the prepared rack to rest and keep warm. Repeat with all remaining chicken pieces. Do not allow the chicken to cool too much (if it does get cold, refry it quickly in the oil), but chicken should rest at least 10 minutes before serving. Eat among friends, without caring whether the table has cake forks or bread plates, as long as there are plenty of napkins and Eddie Fisher singing “Wish You Were Here”

on the radio.

“Lousy—goddamn— March ,”

Bea muttered on her way home from work. February was bad enough: the time of year when her body really started yearning for activity, yearning to throw off the winter coat and run down ground balls—yearning, in short, for spring training. And now it was March, and in the Midwest the rest of the Fort Wayne Daisies were limbering up for the season: brushing off rusty double-play moves, taking practice swings in the batting cage, running laps with the springtime zest of a body that had rested all winter, shaken off last season’s nagging shoulder strain or bruised kneecap, and come back ready and eager to play.

Bea’s body hadn’t learned yet that she wasn’t going to spring training, that all her spring fever energy had nowhere to go.

“Say, MissBea!”

Pete called excitedly as Bea came through the garden gate. He was clearing the weeds out of his mother’s vegetable patch, rearing back on his heels as she paused on the path up to the house. “Did you hear the news? Joseph Stalin is dead!”

Good for Joseph Stalin , Bea thought grumpily. Right now she envied him. She’d spent six weeks thinking I’ve got to get out of here , and that thought had led exactly nowhere; no ideas at all about how a failed baseball player could conceivably reshape her life once her playing days were over. Why didn’t she just go ahead and drop dead like Uncle Joe?

“They’re calling it a crippling blow to Reds everywhere as the Kremlin totters,”

Pete said, clearly quoting the radio. “I can’t remember who they said is going to succeed him. All those Russian names sound alike—”

“Pete, it’s a beautiful spring afternoon. Go throw a baseball around the sandlot like every other boy in America, and let the Reds handle themselves.”

Bea knew she was being a pill, but right now she hated anybody who had the ability to play ball who wasn’t doing it. Come to think of it, she hated the ones who were doing it, too.

“I have to get the tomato plants going in the greenhouse for Mom.”

Not enough for Doilies that her old Victory Garden took up most of the yard; she’d had Pete laboring a full three weeks after Christmas this winter putting up a small greenhouse out back so she could get her seedlings going before anyone else in the neighborhood. Or rather, so Pete could get them going for her. Not that he’d get to eat any of those early tomatoes once they ripened, Bea thought, oh no. Mrs.Nilsson would sell everything to the corner store this spring at a stiff markup. “My dad used to play catch with me every spring when the nights got long,”

Pete said, looking wistful. “He’d throw and throw for hours...”

Bea felt her snappishness subside. “Maybe he’ll come home this summer for a game or two,”

she said, trying to sound encouraging.

Pete’s face shuttered. “Don’t want him to,”

he said, bending back over the garden patch and yanking a weed out with unnecessary force. “He hasn’t been around for years. I don’t want him around now.”

Yes, you do , Bea thought, but didn’t say aloud. “Come knock on my door when you’re done with those seedlings, then. I’ll get my mitt and we’ll play some catch.”

“After the greenhouse chores I have to trim the backyard hedge and take the garbage out,”

he rattled off. “Then find that candy dish that went missing from the parlor, or Mom’ll get mad.”

Pete, Bea had often thought, was really batting zero when it came to parents. “Tell you what, I’ll tell your mom I lost that candy dish and that’ll buy you some time. Knock on my door when you’re done in the garden.”

Boys his age thought themselves too tough and manly for a pat on the shoulder, so she punched his arm encouragingly and headed inside.

Where she saw Grace March passed out dead drunk at the foot of the stairs.

“ Grace? ”

Bea whispered, flabbergasted. She’d never even seen Grace tipsy before: the woman could drink a stevedore under the table without slurring a single word. But Grace was very definitely drunk now, curled up on the floor in her green print skirt and ballet flats, head pillowed on the very bottom riser of the staircase, stinking of brandy. Bea rushed to her side, saying, “Did you fall?”

“Mmmm.”

Grace looked up, muzzily. “No... I came in the back door so Doilies wouldn’t catch me. Hic. Too many stairs, so I thought I’d take a l’il nap...”

Her head started sinking. “Oh, no you don’t.”

Bea caught her arm and began hauling her up. “If Doilies catches you smelling like a brewery, there’ll be hell to pay. Come on—”

“She’s gone,”

Grace whispered, letting her arm flop bonelessly over Bea’s shoulders. Her mascara was smeared down her cheeks as if she’d been crying. “Bea, she’s gone —”

“Mrs.Nilsson? Never mind, just get up the stairs—”

Bea managed to haul Grace’s dead weight up to the second-floor landing when Claire came down the stairs in her stocking feet, looking rumpled despite her secretarial blouse and skirt. “Whew,”

she whistled, sniffing the alcohol fumes. “Did she take a bath in Old Hennessy?”

“Help me get her back to her room before Nilsson sees.”

Together they managed to wrestle Grace up the stairs. The staircase was light and airy now instead of drab and ill-lit—Grace and Pete had painted it up a bit at a time, that warm buttercream color she’d cajoled Mrs.Nilsson into approving, and the Briar Club was gradually extending the flowered wall vine down, daisies and violets and roses flowing over the line of the banister. Right now, the vine had grown just past the third-floor landing. “Of course she’d have to live on the top floor,”

Claire panted as they heaved Grace up the last flight.

“This is nothing,”

Bea panted back, thinking of the time she’d hauled a passed-out right fielder up to the sixth floor of a Chicago hotel in a fireman’s carry, without the chaperone suspecting a thing. The three of them fell through the door into Grace’s green-walled room, Bea and Claire managing to flop her gently onto the narrow bed.

“She’s gone,”

Grace kept mumbling, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “She’s gone , and now he’s gone...”

“Who’s she talking about?”

Bea wondered, grabbing a dish towel and heading for the bathroom.

“Who knows?”

Claire looked speculative. “We don’t exactly know very much about Grace, do we?”

That was true, Bea reflected, wringing out the dish towel. The hostess of their weekly suppers always listened, but never seemed to require listening in turn. “‘She’s gone,’”

Bea quoted, coming back in to lay the wet cloth over Grace’s forehead. “Nora said she saw Grace with a picture of a kid once, a little girl. I wonder if—”

Bea broke off as Grace rolled onto her back, catching her by the shoulder and turning her back on her side. “Got to keep her on her side in case she chucks up all that brandy in her sleep.”

“You’ve looked after a few drunks in your day,”

Claire said with some amusement. A tendril of red hair escaped its coil and she jabbed it back in place.

The first year my team won the championship, we all went out and got absolutely snockered after the game, Bea thought. Twenty-four women tearing up the town, blitzed out of their minds, even the ones who didn’t usually drink. By morning they’d all been holding back each other’s hair and passing out... God, that had been a good night! Elizabeth Bandyk climbing on a tabletop to sing the “Victory Song”

at the top of her lungs; a shy brunette center fielder from Peoria dragging Bea into a kiss like a python, nearly swallowing her down. Bea didn’t usually go for girls, but she’d kissed back and kissed back hard, absolutely blotto on champagne and victory. What a night. Screw the hangover.

“One of us should stay and watch Grace,”

she said, pushing aside the memories as Claire headed for the door. “In case she rolls over again.”

“Feel free. I’ve got things to do—”

“You know she could choke. I’ll sit for half an hour, then I promised I’d run to the park with Pete. Spell me then?”

Claire looked over her plump shoulder. “I already helped you get her up the stairs, and that was just so I didn’t have to hear old Nilsson shrieking and carrying on—”

“I’ll see you in half an hour,”

Bea overrode her. Because the thing about Claire was that she bitched a lot whenever she was asked to help, but she still tended to show up and actually help . She’d pitched in for Lina’s glasses, too, just like the rest of them. “You’re more of a team player than you like to let on, Hallett,”

Bea told her.

“I am not.”

Claire’s voice drifted back as she vanished into the hall. “I am a lone wolf and I walk alone—”

“Just walk your lonesome rear back up here in thirty minutes,”

Bea yelled after her, then looked back down at Grace. “What on earth got into you today?”

she wondered aloud.

“She’s gone,”

Grace was still mumbling, three-quarters asleep.

“Who is she?”

Bea asked. Why did they all know so little about Grace? No family visits in these past few years; no references to sisters or brothers or parents; no photographs in this tiny apartment—not the picture of the little girl Nora claimed to have seen, not a single image of Grace’s dead husband. Did anyone even know his name? Bea, looking around this cheerful room with its crisp curtains and flooding sunshine, didn’t think she did. Grace made her environment so colorful and welcoming, it took you forever to realize she also kept it a complete and utter blank slate. “Who’s she , Grace?”

Grace opened her eyes slowly, blinked even more slowly. Didn’t answer.

Bea tried again. “Who’s he , then? ‘She’s gone and now he’s gone—’ You mean your husband?”

Grace’s whisper-thin smile cut like a razor. “Oh, him,”

she mumbled. “Good riddance.”

And she passed out.

“MissVerretti?”

Bea turned, digging into her paper bag of roasted peanuts. “G-man,”

she greeted Harland Adams, who looked ready for work in his narrow tie and gray suit but wasn’t at work at all—he was here in Griffith Stadium, presumably to watch the Senators play the Yankees. “Playing hooky?”

Bea asked. “Or are you ferreting out Communist plots in the bleachers?”

“Playing hooky,”

he admitted, taking off his sharp-brimmed fedora and running a hand over his close-cropped hair.

“Not a very nice day for it.”

Bea tilted her head back at the swirling clouds overhead, threatening rain. Cold wind tugged at her jacket (it was April now) but the stadium was still a beauty even without sunshine: compact and irregular, the grandstands smelling like peanut shells and chewing gum, the field smelling of grass and chalk. The best perfume in the world , Bea thought.

“It’s gusty, but it feels good to me.”

Harland Adams sniffed the wind like a fox. “The bureau offices get mighty stuffy on an April day. You playing hooky too?”

“Grace’s new fling works for the Senators somehow, so she said he could get me in anytime. And with my entire PE class apparently on their period and half the sewing machines in my home ec class on the DL with the Singer equivalent of pitcher’s elbow, you’re goddamned right I’m playing hooky.”

Harland looked startled at the word period , and even more startled at her language, but Bea just grinned. “I’m also here to hex the Yankees,”

she added. “I don’t want them winning a fifth consecutive title, and I figured I’d need to get the ill will going early this season. Last year I waited till summer, and three months of spite was just not enough to derail that win record.”

“Lordy, MissVerretti. What have you got against the Yankees?”

To Bea’s surprise, he fell in beside her as she began making her way toward her seat.

“I grew up in Boston. North End.”

Bea twisted sideways to get around a cluster of men fiercely arguing batting averages. “You’re born within a hundred square miles of Fenway Park, hatred for the Yankees comes in with your mother’s milk.”

“No Sox hat, though.”

He nodded at her well-worn cap with FW in the center. “What team is that?”

“Fort Wayne Daisies,”

Bea said brusquely and got absorbed finding her seat. She expected Arlene’s beau would tip his hat and scram, but he lounged along behind.