Wild and Distant Seas, page 21
I couldn’t spend all my money. That seemed to be Polly and Patience’s plan, though. Patience’s mother bought her whatever she wanted—as long as it was on her list of acceptable feminine interests. Hats or hair ribbons or pretty trinkets for her room. Polly said her folks considered it a stretch to feed her. The two of them bought piles of treats. Soda floats, pastries, candies, ice cream. Patience wanted to get her portrait taken downtown. Polly wanted a pair of good boots that hadn’t belonged to one of her brothers. They talked about saving up for train tickets, but just to go up to Spokane and see a vaudeville show. I hadn’t told them I was getting out of Idaho as soon as I could. How could I explain why I was running, who I was looking for? At best they’d tell me my new plan was impossible. At worst they’d tell Mama. Part of me worried that if I told them, I’d curse myself. I’d wind up stuck forever.
By the time fall arrived, I’d met every girl in town, and every girl had met the Astonishing Annie. I didn’t need to feel nervous about my first day of real school. Mama made pancakes before leaving for work. I said I wasn’t hungry, even though they made the whole house smell like butter. She declared she had to go in early to organize her desk and left, slamming the door.
Tia did my hair while I fed pancake scraps to Magpie. She’d gotten better at the Gibson Girl style, though my waves still resisted too much order.
“I would give you advice, but it wouldn’t be much use, considering how I was educated by a nun who didn’t make me stay at my desk,” she said as she wrestled in a few extra pins. “And my only classmate was a bit of a show-off.”
That got a smile out of me. I wasn’t so mad at Tia anymore for not trying to find us a way out of Moscow. I knew even she couldn’t reason with my mother. But ignoring Mama, and running around with Polly and Patience, naturally led to less time with her.
“If you figured out how to read two languages and do sums in the Brazilian forest, I think I’ll figure out how to do geometry and read Shakespeare on the Palouse prairie.”
“There’s more to school than education, you know.” She patted my dome of hair, testing whether it would hold up to the wind. I could feel her pause, her hands tense. “For example, friends. Boys.”
I gritted my teeth. Mama and Tia had always been plain about what people did behind closed doors. That didn’t mean I wanted to talk about it any more than I had to. The only boys I’d met in Moscow so far were Polly’s shy, sturdy brothers, who seemed to talk less among the five of them together than she did by herself. Patience was desperately in love with the youngest, Kristian, the boy who drove the wagon for Mrs. Aster. Her mooning was enough to scare me off any ideas about romance. Besides, I had more important things to focus on.
“I don’t care a lick about boys,” I said.
“What do you care about, then?” Tia arched her eyebrow. That always meant she knew more than she was letting on. But I wasn’t going to satisfy her, knowing she’d go straight to Mama.
“My education, of course,” I said.
A lie. And I was sure Tia knew it. But Polly started banging on the door, and I grabbed my book bag and fled.
I was greeted with squeals and hugs in the schoolyard. My classes were crammed with my customers. They jostled to sit next to me at lunch, but Polly and Patience shepherded them away. Polly’s latest plan was to announce that I was too exhausted from my studies to use my clairvoyant powers. At least for a few weeks. I could use the time to draw information from the boys and teachers at school. The Astonishing Annie could reemerge with even more mysterious insight. And we could start charging a dime.
The higher price was my idea. After a whole summer as the Astonishing Annie, I only had a few dollars stashed in a jar in my bottom bureau drawer. I’d need a lot more than that to carry out my plan. It started as the faintest outline, driven by my need to never end up looking like a fool again. My need to prove to my mother that she couldn’t stop me. I could buy my way out of Idaho. First purchase was a train ticket to New York, then a ship back across the Atlantic. Steerage if I had to, as long as they gave me a bed and a bucket. I wasn’t looking forward to another sea journey, but I told myself I’d do what I must. I’d need enough to pay for a boardinghouse until I could find work. Enough to feed and clothe myself. Enough to move on to a new city, or a new country, if the trail took me there.
I was going to make it on my own, even if it took years. I’d complete the mission Grandfather gave me. Sail to London and hunt down either Ishmael or his grave. Without Grandfather’s letter to tell me more of the story, I couldn’t know whether London held any clues unless I looked for myself. Mama had said Grandfather was swindled there, but she could have been lying to throw me off the trail. I’d learn who Ishmael was, why he’d lured my grandmother away. Find out every facet of my family’s great mystery and answer the questions that had gnawed at me since that night in Grandfather’s study. Fill myself up with the pride of knowing.
Chapter 21
Our first winter in Idaho stretched well into what I thought should be spring, shutting down the high school when the prairie winds shoved feet of snow across every road and peeled the skin off your cheeks if you went out unprepared. I spent those days with the entire set of the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Mrs. Aster had ordered it over the years from a catalog. I’d read about anything, though tropical islands tended to rise to the top of the list. I could pretend I was dreaming of warmth while tucking away more information about ships and trade winds and whaling ports. Anything that might come in handy in my search for Ishmael. Even if the search was hard to believe in on the days the house shook from drifts slipping off the roof, and I couldn’t walk across the yard, let alone sail across the world.
One day I was thumbing through the entry on London for the dozenth time, daydreaming about the route Grandfather and his whale’s tooth had taken. And I remembered the short stop they’d made after London. The Faroe Islands. I got out Volume IX, FAL–FYZ, and found the listing. I fell in love as I read. They everywhere present to the sea perpendicular cliffs. The climate is foggy, and violent storms are frequent at all seasons. The cod fishery is especially important.
I’d sketched out my search, but this new step appeared bright and clear as a photograph of those tall, jagged cliffs. A way to wrap up the story to my satisfaction.
It wouldn’t be easy. My voyage would be wretched. But if Mama cared about me at all, if she really couldn’t live without me, she would have a chance to prove it. Once I’d found Ishmael, I’d sail for the Faroe Islands. I’d write and tell Mama right where to find me. She would know she hadn’t been able to forbid me anything. She would know she couldn’t drag me around or lie to me or trick me anymore. And because I refused to be like her, I wouldn’t force her to do a thing. I’d give her a choice. If she ever wanted to see me again, she’d have to choose to come to me.
I planted the vision of the Faroe Islands deep in my gut. I watered it with resentment. Let it choke out all the compassionate thoughts I’d felt toward Mama on the ship across the Atlantic, any soft memories I had left of her. I told myself those didn’t matter. I could fulfill Grandfather’s mission and prove I wasn’t powerless, all at once. Grandfather had seemed convinced that finding the man would help my family. Fix my mother, somehow. I wasn’t so sure. She was blind to the ways she needed fixing. Blind to the desperation for control that defined her every move. Mama had controlled the story of Ishmael my whole life. Maybe I couldn’t fix her. But maybe I could break her control over me for good.
I liked to imagine her pausing outside my little moss-roofed house overlooking the stormy sea. Tia behind her, a hand on her back. Mama wincing as she prepared to knock. I’d open the door before she could. Welcome her in. Tell her I knew everything.
I wasn’t making short-term plans anymore. I realized I needed far more money than I could make as the Astonishing Annie. Plenty of skill, too, if I was going to make it in the harsh environment of the Faroe Islands. So I turned my attention from the encyclopedias to their owner.
Mrs. Aster had no family that I’d ever seen. She often went out to visit with friends, but the only companion she kept in the house was Magpie. She had money, but not too much, otherwise she wouldn’t have bothered with boarders. Still enough that she could order fancy clothes and stuff her house with leather-bound books and gilded clocks and chairs that were for looking at, not sitting on. A whole wall of her bedroom was hung with hats. Her book collection never had a speck of dust. She was self-assured in a way I’d never seen before. The artist types Mama and Tia tended to favor always seemed to be performing. Grandfather’s editors and journalists always seemed to be competing. Mrs. Aster only went about her business, and she knew more than anyone I’d ever met. She could command respect in any room. Discuss any topic from the newspaper, which she read every single word of each morning. She followed the prices of crops and the patterns of weather and business that changed them. She knew how to track down edible plants and mushrooms, even in town. She trimmed her own roses, cleaned her own toilet, hemmed her own dresses, made her own bread. I was pretty sure she could climb up on the roof and patch the shingles if she had to. I needed her to teach me everything I didn’t know.
I waited for a soggy morning when it was only Mrs. Aster and me in the house. Mama and Tia were shopping, Patience was practicing her piano, and Polly was doing chores. Mrs. Aster read the newspaper on one of the pink velvet sofas, her boots swinging a few inches off the floor. Magpie sprawled beside her. I worked on a map of the university’s Administration Building, that cathedral-like building on the hill, in my latest notebook. I had half a dozen by then, stacked under the bed in my room. Some still came in handy for the Saturdays I was Astonishing Annie, though the act was losing its novelty. Mostly they kept me occupied. Kept me focused. Once a week I practiced the cliffs and fjords of the Faroe Islands, pulled from the descriptions in the encyclopedia and my memory of the whale’s tooth.
“Can you teach me something practical?” I asked Mrs. Aster.
“If you insist,” she said, still looking at the open newspaper. “What, exactly?”
“I’m not sure. What do you think a person needs to know to get by in the world?”
“Fighting men and wrestling bears.” She laughed at herself as she folded the paper and stacked it by the stove. “Or making your own food. Ever done that?”
I could boil an egg, on occasion. Put together a sandwich. “Not really.”
“Perfect place to start, in that case. And what would you like to make?”
Of course I thought of desserts. All the things Polly and Patience bought at the shops that I denied myself. What, if anything, would I want to make to enjoy? What might I be able to sell, if I had to? I remembered the dinner on the SS La Loire.
“How about charlotte à la russe?”
She let out a whoop and started for the kitchen. “I am woefully out of Bavarian cream, so we will be making gingerbread. Then we can discuss other things.”
She clattered around and came up with a pan, shaking her head. “Charlotte à la russe, for Pete’s sake. Get yourself over here and measure out the flour, if you can manage.”
I figured it out, with a little correction on smoothing the top. Soon I was covered in a dusting of ingredients, my hands sticky with molasses. But the pan was full of brown batter, going into the oven.
“And now we clean,” Mrs. Aster said, handing me a damp rag.
She supervised, standing beside me since she was too small to look over my shoulder. Pointing out spots I’d missed. When I was hot and tired and ready to flop back on the couch, she flung open a cupboard.
“And now we set the table for supper,” she said.
“Can’t we wait until later?” I stretched my arms, surprised at how sore I was from stirring.
“Later has work of its own.” She handed me a stack of plates. “I can help you learn that rather quickly, at least. If you want to be practical, I can help. You need money, I suppose.”
I fumbled the dishes, barely managing to keep a grip on them. How had she seen so clearly what I was after?
“Kristian reports you’ve been running a business of sorts with his sister,” she said, straightening the plate I’d just set and reaching up to pat my arm. “Not in so many words, exactly. But I know that Bloomquist girl. Always looking to make a penny. It was her convinced me to hire a wagon driver, when she wasn’t more than ten. Her papa sent her brother, of course. But she’s a smart one.”
“It’s just a game,” I said.
“And plenty of things pay better than games. Though I’m not sure about charlotte à la russe.”
She was never going to give up that joke. But it was a decent trade for what she offered.
“I’ll learn anything you think might allow me to make a living for myself. Wherever I want to go. But please, don’t tell my mother.” I searched for an excuse and landed on a truth. “She says she had to work too hard as a girl.”
“I assumed not telling your mother and aunt was a given. I am accustomed to keeping secrets.”
She led me back to the couches, then patted the cushion beside her. “What do you know about Mr. Alfred Aster?”
The question seemed out of the blue. I hadn’t thought much about her husband, beyond the fleeting idea that he must have been the source of her money.
“I suppose he worked for the railroad? Or the lumber company?”
Her smile was bright and mischievous. “There is no Mr. Alfred Aster.”
“So he’s . . . dead?”
Her grin stretched larger, smoothing out the fine lines of her face. “There never has been a Mr. Alfred Aster. Sounds impressive, though, don’t you think?”
I realized then that I’d never looked at her closely enough. I’d been awed by the bearskin and silk and feathers. The bulletproof charm. But I’d assumed her path was simple. I focused my sense on her, chasing back through the years in the white house. And then something happened that I’d never seen before. The path stopped. Not at birth or origin. But as if I’d hit an invisible wall, and everything beyond it was somewhere distant and soft. Somewhere I couldn’t follow.
She sat, smiling. As if she knew what I was doing.
“What I’m trying to tell you, Miss Sweet, is that if a woman wants a thing of her own in this world, she’s got to work for it.”
She sniffed the air and rose. I’d been so intent on her, I hadn’t noticed how the room had filled with cloves and cinnamon.
“But she’d better be sure it’s worth the work.”
the end of my junior year of high school marked three years in Idaho. Mama and Tia laughed with their friends now about their shock when we rolled into town, gawking at the fields and quiet streets. They painted Dr. Brighton, the lying professor, as some kind of folk hero, his exaggerated letters unexpected gifts that drew them to a place they’d never have gone otherwise. They’d learned so swiftly to love Moscow. I’d heard Tia say it was a happy medium between the tiny village of their youth and the sprawling cities of mine. A place they could sink into, spread out roots. We learned the ebb and flow of the Palouse. The times the swallowtail butterflies emerged and the huckleberries ripened on Moscow Mountain. The tides of college students and harvests. The town grew enough to change, so we always had new people to meet. New streets and stores to add to my books of maps. Mama and Tia still talked about other places in the world, but they became places they’d visit someday. Not live. They seemed to be content, for the first time in my life.
I might’ve looked content. That spring, I went to school dances and garden parties, church picnics and ice cream socials. I joined the standing ovation on the opening night of The Titaness, Tia’s play about the Greek goddess Mnemosyne reappearing in modern Europe. Patience played the title character, dazzling in her green robes. She’d grown up to be bold and hearty. Not petal-delicate like her mother wanted. Sure, Mrs. Fisher was over the moon that Patience was marrying Kristian Bloomquist, even though he wasn’t a Methodist. But after the wedding, Patience and Kristian were moving all the way to San Francisco to make her a star. I liked to think my first summer in Moscow, helping her stack up nickels to get something she wanted for once, was the start of that.
In the seat next to me, Polly stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled. She was still a farm girl in a ratty dress and braids, but she’d grown up, too. Despite her parents trying to talk her into leaving school to work, she was set to graduate in a year. She wanted to go to the normal school a few towns away, if she could earn the money for it. But her big dream was to become the librarian at the new Carnegie library being built in Moscow. She said a person could get into all sorts of trouble in a library.
I’d been telling everyone I had my heart set on becoming a college woman but was still dreaming of places to go. I could attend several excellent literature programs within a few hours’ train ride. I told my teachers I liked the idea of the women’s schools, especially Mount Holyoke or Smith. Right there by Grandfather’s alma mater in Amherst, Massachusetts. Tia approved of such a leap, but Mama pushed for the University of Idaho, of course. She said it was convenient and affordable, but I knew she just wanted to keep me in her orbit, as always. I was amazed she was letting anyone entertain the idea of me going elsewhere at all. I’d let myself settle into an outward balance with Mama. Learned to have civil conversations, mostly about books and school. It might have looked like warmth between a mother and daughter. But while Mama had built a home on her lies, I’d been constructing plenty of my own.
My college plans were all fabricated. I had no intention of going, or even attending my last year of high school. I didn’t care about studying literature. I did well in school because it was easy. An interesting enough way to pass the time. But my mind was always somewhere else. Everyone knew I was hoarding money, once I started working at the big hotel on Main Street. Mama allowed it because I said I was saving up for college. I was pretty sure Mrs. Aster knew I had other motives. She kept on teaching me things, even when I didn’t ask. I’d learned to cook, sew, forage, wash, garden. Do elaborate accounting and math well beyond what they taught at school. Repair anything. The roof had sprung a leak that winter. She did not climb up to fix it, but she shouted directions from the ground as I did. I couldn’t understand why she gave me so much time. I’d tried more than once to ask her more about her past, her money. Her name. But she always deflected, offering to refine a skill or instruct me in something new.
