After the funeral, Aunt Celia had a reception for the mourners. Emily sat near me and talked about Tom’s dad — about the furniture store that smelled of wood shavings and beeswax. It burned down recently — had you heard? Then she dwindled to silence, and I thought maybe my notion of murder was woven from nothing. Maybe she did grieve for Tom.
“Remember the Christmas play our junior year?” she asked presently. “You played the part of the Christmas angel, and wore a holly wreath in your hair.”
“I sure do,” I said. “That wreath scratched something fierce.”
“Thomas never forgot it either. He planted a holly bush near the front door of our house, and every Christmas he made a wreath for the angel at the top of our Christmas tree. Once I found him standing in the yard, stroking a sprig of holly. He had a faraway look in his eyes, and I knew he was thinking of you.”
“Now, Emily,” I said, uneasily. “Just nostalgia for our childhood, I’m sure. After all, he married you.”
“Never mind,” she said, patting my hand. “It’s over now. Let me get you another brownie. I made them myself.”
Guess you’re right, Mom. I’m getting too old for all that sweet stuff. Stomach sure is bothering me today. Aunt Celia told Emily, who came over first thing this morning with a pitcher of milk.
“Cousin,” she said, when I opened the door. “I heard you were sick. Let me take care of you.” And she smiled her poet’s smile.
P.S. By the way, I didn’t drink any of the milk. Only pretended to sip, not wanting to hurt her feelings. You know how I hate the stuff. I made her eat the rest of the brownies. Told her I baked them fresh, but they were Emily’s own left over from the reception. I couldn’t have her thinking I hadn’t collected any womanly skills in the last fifteen years. She ate four more than I did and left a few hours ago, looking pale.
I’m much recovered myself. This evening I called to invite Emily for a walk beneath the walnut trees, and to listen to the cicadas sing. She didn’t answer the phone, which the hotel clerk thought strange — no one had seen her leave her room.
I’ll call again later. But first I think I’ll wander by the old house. And maybe leave a spray of holly on Tom’s grave.
A Train of Stars
by Dan Crawford
So we were off in a flurry of music, the scream of the train whistle, and the roars of the crowd. It gave me a dreadful headache, and there was all that fan mail to sort yet.
Our fan mail was hauled out to us at every whistlestop along the tour, big canvas bags bulging with envelopes. They dumped it out on a table, if there was a table: big stacks for the big names, little heaps for those players who fill in the gaps between kiss scenes and murders. But when the train pulled out again, we peons got all the fan mail. In all the hoopla, it got mixed up, see, so we had to sort it again and throw away the envelopes that were kind of grimy and load it all back into the proper canvas bags so it could be presented to us again at the next stop.
We had to write a lot of the letters, too, if the bags started getting empty. I liked to think of it as creating scrap for the next paper drive.
“Brrr,” said Olivia, when we were far enough from town to start moving from the rear platform back into the train. We had started this bond drive just after New Year’s, wearing fur coats issued by Wardrobe to make us look prosperous. But the vice presidents with us quickly decided we’d be more popular in our own cloth coats. That was supposed to show we were just folks, after all, and also making sacrifices for our boys Over There.
This fooled nobody. In one town I heard a fan growl, “They don’t know about stretching a pound of butter over a whole month.”
She was right, too. I know nothing about it because I haven’t bought a whole pound of butter at one time since 1935.
Anyway, as the least of the attractions, we were allowed to sneak off the platform first, collect our suppers, and carry them away to the club car so we could sort mail while we ate. We met George at the door of the car. He scowled but opened it for us and then grumbled away.
“My hands are still freezing,” Olivia said, squeezing among mailbags to sit at our usual table.
“I just dip mine in the gravy,” I told her. “That stuff has to be good for something.”
“Oh, Myrna!” Velvet slid on a fallen letter and had to put a hand on the table to balance herself. We’re a little too smart for that; Olivia relieved her of the bread she had pulled off Sissy’s plate when her hand came down.
Velvet flashed all her teeth but said nothing. We’d only just started talking to Velvet again this month. She never returned the bridal shower gifts we gave her, even after the groom’s lawyer found a loophole and called off the wedding.
“Careful,” I told Olivia. “You’re dripping gravy on that letter.”
She pushed it out of the way and set her plate down. “Just one of Eloise’s. She’ll never run short.”
“Ooh!” exclaimed Sissy. There is no way to look another direction when Sissy cries, “Ooh!”
“What?” I asked.
“I know what I was going to tell you.” She sat down with a little bounce. “Knock knock.”
“No,” said Velvet.
Two little lines developed in Sissy’s brow. “Wait,” she commanded. “I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to say.” She thought about it. “You have to say, ‘Who’s there?’ ”
“I won’t,” Velvet informed her.
“It’s not that hard,” said Sissy earnestly.
“Listen,” Velvet replied, leaning over her plate. “Those jokes are dead, and you never learned to tell them even when they were alive. It just never works.”
Sissy had been listening intently. When Velvet paused, she realized some reply was expected of her. “What?” she said.
“When you say ‘Knock knock.’ ”
“Who’s there?” Sissy asked, interested.
Velvet put a hand on her forehead. “I give up.”
“I don’t get it.” Sissy turned to me, opening wide those limpid eyes that made her a star at seven in Tender Kisses and would have made her a star again twenty times over in the years since. Only she’s handled by Cal, who couldn’t get Mickey Mouse a job at Disney.
Before I could answer, Olivia, more to change the subject than anything else, brushed the gravy from the envelope and said, “We’d better be grateful to Eloise; without her, we couldn’t afford to do all this pleasure traveling.”
The train jerked, nearly slopping all the gravy onto the letters. “You did say pleasure?” asked Velvet.
It was a so-so train, suited to our so-so studio, but at least it had fuel, since a bond drive is considered war work. If we sold more in bonds than the government spent in coal, it might make a certain amount of sense. But the coal was the extent of the government’s interest; the amenities were straight Mammoth Titan standard issue. The food was canteen stuff: a certain amount of gravy with a few lumps under it to keep us wondering. Edwin usually added something from his private stock and just drank supper.
“I think we’re sitting again,” noted Olivia, listening.
“I don’t like to eat standing up,” Sissy told her. We didn’t reply, realizing it was time to start eating before the gravy congealed. The train made lots of stops to let freight trains get by. We did hope the freight was something to be dropped on the Axis, and not shoes for Gloria Swanson.
But there were people having less fun in this war, so we sipped our main course and grumbled just a little. Even our sufferings were third rate; it’s the Mammoth Titan way.