Broken Ground Read online

  I find a young, snub-nosed attendant, who does some scrounging in the Lost and Found, then checks my ticket again and nods knowingly. This happens all the time, he says, with passengers who’ve switched trains over the course of a trip as long as mine. Another train from Los Angeles will pull in about an hour from now. Most likely my suitcase will be on it. “Most likely,” he repeats. “Not a promise. You’ll have to wait and see.”

  Suddenly, I am exhausted. The Lost and Found has gone a bit foggy. I pass my hand over my eyes, but the fog, which holds my own particular gloom, doesn’t seem inclined to fade away.

  The attendant points at a nearby bench, suggests I take a seat. When I don’t muster myself, he takes me by the arm and escorts me there. He regards me for a moment, his brow furrowed with worry. “Where are you heading?”

  “Union University. I think.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.”

  “New student?”

  I nod.

  “Know how to get there?”

  I shake my head.

  He pulls a tablet from his pocket, rips off a piece of paper, and draws a little map. “Turn right here and then head straight down here.” He traces the way with his finger. “Can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you.” At least there’s this: a map to follow.

  “If I’m still here when you leave, I’ll give you a ride.”

  My skin prickles. This is the kind of situation Mother always warned me about. “No, thank you.”

  The attendant shrugs. “Skittish, huh? Probably wise, country girl like you.” And then he strolls away.

  I’d close my eyes, but yes, I’m skittish—so skittish that I tuck my pocketbook beneath my rump and clutch Mother’s empty basket like a shield to my chest. I grow increasingly weary, and, at the same time, increasingly edgy. It’s an unpleasant combination—my bones like lead, gravity pulling me down. Even as my nerves ping, I strain to glimpse any questionable stranger.

  Perhaps a quarter of an hour into the waiting, a burst of activity causes me to leap to my feet. Here it is—whatever bad thing is going to happen. Several official-looking men in suits and hats stride into the depot and take up posts outside the entrance to the train platforms. They are followed by two policemen, blackjacks drawn, leading perhaps thirty people. Two other policemen bring up the rear of this group. When an elderly couple falls behind, they prod them forward. There are men and women of all ages, boys and girls, babes in arms. They fall into an uneven line, all the while remaining strangely silent. Only a few murmur exchanges, and these are shared so sporadically that it takes me awhile to realize many are speaking Spanish. The people are well dressed, well groomed, and brown-skinned, not sunburned. Mexicans, I suppose they are, given the fact that this is California. Watching them, I can’t help but think of the circle of people I saw with Mother and Daddy late last spring, soon after my return to Alba. The people were gathered together in a field near the Thorne place. We heard the sound of their drums before we saw them dancing. It was Good Friday. We were driving to a nearby town where a church was presenting a reenactment of the Crucifixion. “Some kind of powwow,” Daddy said scornfully as we passed the gathering in the field. He blared the horn in an effort to disrupt their meeting. As we drove on, I watched out the rear window, unsettled by the dancing, the drums. The whole affair seemed of another time, another world altogether. When the gathering was finally out of sight, I sank back into my seat, vaguely comforted that I was me, not one of them.

  What would Miss Berger have thought of such comfort? What would she think about the comfort I’m feeling now? Whatever bad thing is going to happen is not going to happen to me after all. What would Miss Berger think of the line of people before me? I shiver, though the air is anything but cold, and sit down again on the bench.

  The people begin to shuffle toward the platform entrance. As they pass beneath the archway, the adults in the group hand slips of paper to the official-looking men, who make notations on thick documents clamped to clipboards. “Step on it!” a police officer occasionally snaps, or “Vámonos!” At this, some of the people start, casting anxious glances to either side or over their shoulders. “No dallying!” “Don’t waste time!” a police officer says. “Eyes forward.” Lot’s wife, turned to salt all because she looked back—the story from Genesis flashes through my mind. But this is no hurried flight from fire and brimstone. This—whatever it is—is conducted with practiced efficiency by the officiators and docile resignation by those officiated.

  The last people pass through the platform entrance, and porters soon follow, pushing trollies stacked with luggage, trunks, and crates. The group’s belongings, I gather. There are surprisingly few items for so many people.

  There’s a sharp whistle and the now-familiar screech of brakes against metal wheels. A train is approaching; there are its last gasps of steam. I glance at the clock on the wall and leap to my feet. The porter’s promised hour has come to pass. This must be the train that may—will—hold my suitcase. Maybe it’s the same train that will take these people away. But I don’t want to think about them now. All I want is my suitcase—retrieving it, and what’s inside: my clothes and toiletries, the photographs of Charlie and me, my wedding dress and veil, the bright quilt beneath which we slept. Find my suitcase and I’ll be so relieved that a late-night walk through this unfamiliar city will be a breeze. I have a map, after all. Finding a place to sleep—my dorm room, I hope—most likely waking a sleeping roommate I’ve never met . . . all this will seem no real challenge at all once my suitcase is in hand.

  I head toward the platform, intent on locating what’s left of my life. I’m almost there when one of the officials spots me. He rushes over, blocks my way. “What do you think you’re doing, Miss?”

  Mrs., I almost say. Or ma’am, if you prefer. But then I remember what I want and consider my best plan: Make him a certain ally. I smile at the man. Beneath the brim of his snappy hat, his features reveal themselves as those I’ve come to think of as particularly Californian, handsome yet generic, like the Hollywood stars I’ve seen on cinema posters throughout the years. His face has the broad appeal of buttered bread or vanilla ice cream—deliciously palatable, easily digested. Still smiling, but suddenly aware of my disheveled state, I pass my hands over my hair, gone lank from the long trip. “My suitcase might be on that train. I need to find it.”

  “Well.” The man flashes what I suppose is his winning smile. “There’s government work going on here. Can’t let you interrupt that.” To my amazement, he chucks me under the chin. “FDR wouldn’t like it, see. I’d have to tell him about you, and he’d take real offense.” As proof of his connection to the president, he flashes a document bearing a government seal. “So take your basket, Little Red Riding Hood, and hurry on back to your seat. I’ll rustle up your suitcase if it’s there. But we got to get these people boarded. They’re going back to where they belong, courtesy of the United States government. Back to Mexico.”

  “Why?” It’s risky to ask—I might irritate him. But I’m curious.

  “Repatriation, that’s why. It’s what these people have wanted and needed for a long time—a free ride back to their Mother Country. We’re giving it to them. And we’re making more jobs for Americans to boot.”

  I think of all those people in the Hoovervilles, U.S. citizens with nowhere else to go. The old man sprawled on the train platform. Edna Faye. “Oh. Well, that’s good, then, but . . . you won’t forget my suitcase?” I try not to sound pushy. Needy, maybe. But not pushy.

  The man glances at something behind me. “Looks like you’re missing something other than a suitcase. You might want to scoot on back there before you lose that, too.”

  I whirl around. My pocketbook. I sat on it to keep it safe—the insurance check inside, along with my earnings and Alice Everly’s address—and then I left it right out in the open for anyone to steal. You can’t tell from looking. Anyone might need extra loot. Anyone might be desperate enough. Any of
the Mexicans. I bolt back to the bench.

  That’s where I’m waiting some twenty minutes later when the Mexicans begin to board the train, and the man, handsome as a movie star, friend by proxy of FDR, swaggers toward me, my suitcase in his hand.

  PART II

  September 1934–April 1935

  FOUR

  My dorm room door bangs open and my roommate bursts in, her soft blond curls a tangle of leaves and twigs, her suntanned arms filled with flowers. Helen St. Pierre inclines toward theatrical entrances, and exits, too; makes sense, as she’s a member of the drama club. Like me, she has declared herself an education major, and she hails from Oklahoma (albeit Heritage Hills, a posh Oklahoma City neighborhood). Our home state is where the similarities between us end. Just look at us now. I’m in my nightgown, working at my desk, which faces Helen’s by our turret window, hot tea gone cold in my cup. The room and I smell of nothing so much as dusty books and stuffy air. Dazed and bleary, I’ve been studying all morning. I’ve forgotten to eat lunch again; I may have forgotten to wash my face and brush my teeth. My hair, raked by my fingers as I work, is most certainly a frizzy brown mess. Helen, decked out from head to toe in blue and gold (school colors, down to her saddle shoes), smells of citrusy perfume and fresh air. Her green eyes glisten; her red lipstick smacks of freshly applied. Except for the fact that Helen’s hair has turned nest, she could be a poster girl: Union University Freshman Coed.

  “Up and at ’em, Ruth.”

  I twist my wedding band around my ring finger. Sometimes, faced with Helen’s enthusiasm, I briefly forget who I am. I forget, for instance, how much older I am than Helen and the rest of the freshman class. The three years’ difference typically feels like three decades, except for those rare times when Helen’s energy turns contagious. Take right now. Her enthusiasm, like strong coffee, makes my knees jiggle nervously beneath the desk. In a flash of blue and gold, she’s distracted me; I’m discontent, sitting here like I have every Saturday since school started, my nose in a book, a pencil in my hand, notepaper at the ready.

  “I’m up.” I press my knees together to stop their jiggling. “And at ’em, for that matter.” As a testament to this, I tip my textbook, Introduction to Educational Practices, toward my roommate.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Helen strides to my desk. She slams my textbook closed, plucks a pink carnation from her bouquet, tucks it behind my ear. “We’ve got things to do and places to go. And I won’t take no for an answer.”

  It’s happened before; it could happen again, right here and now. She’s spirited me away several times. And then in the middle of doing who knows what, who knows where—going for sugary coffee or a lazy stroll, playing badminton or Chinese checkers, baking angel food cake in the dormitory kitchen, listening to a conservatory student’s oboe, viola, or tuba recital, riding in cars with boys whose names I can never remember; in short, playing the typical freshman coed—memories will descend with a vengeance. Empty, I’ll think. And encroaching in an instant, the black fog. There goes my desire for the present and my hope for the future, both of which are bound up in the work I’m supposed to be doing. Reading, studying, learning—that’s what I can count on to keep the black fog at bay. Not play.

  I pointedly reopen my textbook.

  Again Helen shuts it. She pulls such a clownish grimace that I can’t help but smile. Heaven help me. Smile and next thing I know, she’ll have me laughing, and next thing after that, we’ll be off. I force my expression into a disapproving glare. “You raided the chapel’s flower beds again?”

  “Absolutely not.” Helen tosses her head as if insulted. “I raided other gardens this time. I am nothing if not equitable in my thieving.”

  Hel Fire is Helen’s nickname. She and I have lived together for nearly a month now, and I can attest that she takes on life with red-hot zeal, her will expressed more often in impulsive rampages than intentional choices. Already, Helen is notorious for her ability to wreak havoc on campus with her clandestine pranks and shenanigans. (Can freshmen steal the senior bench, layered with decades of painted signatures? At Helen’s prompting, she and her friends can. Should anyone even think of making off with laboratory mice and releasing them onto the stage during an all-school meeting? Sure, why not.) Helen’s nights, extending far past curfew, and multiple flirtations are becoming the stuff of legend. College, for Helen, is nothing more than a wild ride. And she makes no bones about the fact that, in addition to a BA, she is intent on earning an MRS degree by the time she graduates. I don’t imagine she will have a problem achieving either. Helen is smart enough to earn her BA—possibly with honors, if she would only choose to study and attend classes. And she is winsome and lovely enough to find a husband, if that’s what she desires. She quickly captures everyone’s affection. The first time I saw her, standing at the entrance to the Student Union, flanked by two clearly smitten fellows, she captured my affection. “Ruth Warren! Comrade in arms!” she cried, abandoning the boys and running down the steps to where I stood. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you, and finally, here you are! Why, you’re wearing exactly the same cute blouse as in the photo on our dorm room door! How smart of you, to make it so easy for me to pick you out in a crowd!” I didn’t mention that I don’t have many blouses to choose from; Helen figured that out soon enough.

  Now she drops her messy bouquet of flowers on top of my desk, scattering leaves and petals across my book and papers, then sashays over to her closet and takes a crystal vase from a shelf. She goes to the little sink in the corner of our room and fills the vase with water, then returns to my desk and carelessly arranges the flowers, tossing broken-stemmed and wilted castoffs to the floor.

  “It’s homecoming.” She says this almost as an aside as she dusts my cup of tea with a lily’s pollen.

  “I’ve heard.” I take the carnation from behind my ear, breathe in its spicy scent, plunk its stem into my tea, and then bury my nose in my textbook again. I will be prepared for Monday morning’s exam. It’s my most important class, Introduction to Educational Practices. I don’t want to disappoint myself or the teacher, a man by the name of Professor John Tobias, who is nearly as charismatic as Helen—at least to me—but for entirely different reasons. Professor Tobias radiates intelligence. He’s taught me more about teaching in this past handful of weeks than I dreamed I’d ever know. Helen, who’s in his class with me, says I hang on his every word. She, on the other hand, hangs on his every physical feature. His good looks, she’s told me, are the reason why Introduction to Educational Practices is the one class she never skips.

  She gives the flowers a final fluff. “It’s the biggest game of the year.”

  “And that holds some appeal?”

  Helen ignores me. “Last night’s spaghetti supper, fine. You were allowed to miss that. But not this.” She sets the flowers on top of her dresser, then returns to her closet and takes down one of my favorites of her many, many articles of clothing—a belted blue dress that is both too short and too fully cut for Helen but fits me just right. She lays the dress across my unmade bed. “There is only one freshman year, and it has only one homecoming football game. You will attend. There’s an open dorm afterward, and I’ve told everyone the best party is happening right here in our room.” She dusts her hands together as if every problem has just been solved. “It’s a kind of mountain-and-Mohammed setup, don’t you know. Go to the game and join the party, Ruth. You might as well. Or soon enough, the party will come to you. I don’t care if you’re still in your nightgown. I don’t care if this room is still a pigsty. I’ll make you join in, one way or another.”

  Heaven help me, I’m eyeing that dress. Its beautiful color makes everything else look dreary, dull, and drab. Everything but Helen and her bouquet of flowers. I force my gaze back to the book; the words swim before my eyes. “I need to study.”

  “If you come to the game, Ruth,” Helen blithely continues, “I will spiff this place up while you get dressed. That way you won’t be embarra
ssed. Because, unlike me, who couldn’t care less about the state of things, you will suffer acute shame when our slovenliness is made public. I know you will, and you know you will. Might as well give in.”

  In the face of hard times, keep a neat house, Mother always said. Monday, Wash; Tuesday, Iron—I’ve let things go. Shucks, if Helen isn’t right. I don’t want anyone but my roommate to see me in this state.

  “Cruel girl,” I say.

  “Terrific!” Her face brightens as if I’ve paid her the finest compliment. “I’ll get the room ready. Once you’re dressed, I’ll get you ready.”

  “I’LL SAY THIS.” Helen gives me the once-over outside the football stadium, adjusts the blue dress’s belt buckle so that it’s centered on my waist. “You clean up real nice.”

  “I should.” I duck my head, dodging the compliment. “You only spent an hour on me.”

  “Not so. I spent twenty minutes on the room and thirty minutes on you.” Helen tosses back her shining hair, free of twigs and leaves. “I spent the other ten minutes on me. Really, though, you should let me dress you up more often.”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “Every morning, for instance.” Helen is as good at ignoring things as she is at taking things by storm. She gives a nod to the group of upperclassmen eyeing her, and me, too. “Just look at the attention you’re getting.”

  Not even on my wedding day did I wear lipstick, as I am now (Helen’s, waxy-tasting). On my wedding day, I simply swept my hair up into a loose bun. Whereas today Helen, having combed through the rattails, has crimped it into loose waves that “frame my face and graze my shoulders,” as she put it.

  Charlie never cared about such things. Charlie loved the way I looked, plain and simple. I wipe the back of my hand across my lipsticked lips, suddenly ashamed.