Onions in the Stew Read online

  Don looked at me quizzically and said, “‘Hope not sunshine ev’ry hour. Fear not clouds will always lour.’” Don is a Scot.

  Anne and Joan celebrated our good fortune with a root beer float. Tuesday, Don and I moved in.

  The upstairs apartment was light and airy, had a wood-burning fireplace, a view of Mount Rainier if you had good eyes, two large friendly gray squirrels who lived in the maple tree outside the bedroom window, and a studio couch in an alcove for Anne and Joan. We were very happy and quite comfortable. Then came warm weather and the normally quiet hillside around us suddenly exploded with shrieking children, barking dogs, yowling cats and yoohooing mothers. Peddlers followed each other up our stairs like ants and when they weren’t banging on the back door they were leaning on the front doorbell. Don made a large sign: DEFENSE WORKER SLEEPING—PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB! which I hung on the door when I left in the morning. It didn’t help at all. The peddlers pushed it aside and knocked under it. Don grew very pale and much dourer. Each evening when I telephoned the girls they reminded me wistfully that school would be out in a few weeks “and where am I going to keep my bicycle, skis, shell collection?” etc. The man across the street began digging up his vegetable garden. The people next door to him got a puppy. I decided that I had better start looking for a house. Any house big enough for Don and me, Anne and Joan, Mother’s dog Tudor, my cat Mrs. Miniver, our several thousand books and records, Joan’s dried snakeskin and shell box of pretty rocks, Anne’s collection of Sonja Henie pictures and Alma Gluck records, their bicycles, roller skates, ice skates and skis, my office dress, my other dress, Don’s college bluebooks, his elk antlers, the brown suit he bought but could never wear because it had quite obviously been fashioned for a chimpanzee as the sleeves of the jacket were longer than the trouser legs, and the Jackie Coogan doll he had won at a carnival in Council Bluffs, Iowa, some twenty-two years before. The only trouble was that in Seattle, where we lived, there weren’t any houses for rent and none for sale for nothing, which is what we had. We did like the country, it is true, we still do, but we would have gladly moved into the police station if it had been for rent furnished. You see, in addition to no money, we had no furniture.

  CHAPTER II

  OWNER DESPERATE

  I STRONGLY suspect that most real estate salesmen have diplomas from that charm school whose other graduates are the complaint clerk in the tax assessor’s office and all room clerks in large hotels. The charm school whose motto is: “A kick in the groin for everyone—we don’t care who you are.”

  “I would like to rent a furnished house,” I said appealingly to Mr. Swanson of the Cozy Homes Realty.

  “And I would like a million dollars, ha, ha, ha!” said jolly old Mr. Swanson, his eyes behind his spectacles as merry as cold grease.

  “I would like to rent a furnished . . .” I said wistfully to Mrs. Wirts of the Country Homes Realty: Just Ask Us—We Have It.

  “Say, don’t you know there’s a war on?” yelled Mrs. Wirts from her desk across the room—obviously a renter didn’t warrant the unwedging of her large tweed behind from the swivel chair.

  “I would like to rent. . .” I said faintly to Mr. Evinrude of the Evinrude, Rillets, Wasket and Fester Realty Company: Waterfront Our Specialty.

  “Listen, lady,” said Mr. Evinrude jumping to his feet and digging the point of his Eversharp pencil into my thorax, “we haven’t had a rental in this office for fourteen months and we prob’ly won’t for another fourteen months. There’s a war on, in case you haven’t heard.”

  “I would like to rent. . . .” I said wearily to Miss Chunk of the Rural Realty Company.

  “There’s a war on . . . it’s Boeing . . . the shipyards . . . Alaska . . . Bremerton Navy Yard. . . .” It sounded reasonable. A war boom equals an influx of war workers equals no houses, but I wasn’t convinced then and I’m not now. Because after that war was over and those war workers had gone home one of my sisters wanted to buy a house with four bedrooms for $20,000. She went to at least fifteen real estate firms and was told over and over again that if she wanted such a big house with inside plumbing she would “have to go thirty-thirty-five thousand anyways.”

  A neighbor of hers had a four-bedroom house with inside plumbing she wanted to sell for $20,000. She was told over and over again that such a big house wouldn’t sell. That nobody wanted a big house. That they would be lucky if they could unload such a big house at $7,500. My sister and her neighbor had been to the same real estate agencies but they didn’t find it out for four months and then only through their milkman who introduced them and closed the deal.

  Having, during the course of the last twelve years, had dealings both as buyer and seller with about one hundred and ninety-seven real estate agents here and in California where everybody is supposed to be super-charged with enthusiasm and loyalty to the climate at least, I have a few simple warnings to post:

  1. Be prepared to answer all relevant questions such as: How old are you? How much do you weigh?

  2. Do not be misled into thinking food will improve a salesman’s attitude. “I never cared much for these rustic joints,” Mrs. Morks said frankly. “Say, would it be too much trouble if I had another tuna on white without the pimento, dear? It’s a long ways out here, you know.”

  3. If you say specifically that you want to rent a furnished house on the water, be prepared to spend the next few weeks looking at unfurnished houses for sale on dry hills. Do not expect even a view of the water in spite of the fact that any salesman connected with any real estate firm in the Pacific Northwest cannot take two steps in any direction without tripping over a lake or an arm of the Sound.

  4. Remember that: STATELY WHITE COLONIAL FAMILY HOME merely means painted white no matter how long ago. WIDOW’S PARADISE indicates owned by widow or should be owned by widow—obvious assumption being that all widows are bead brains. TERRITORIAL VIEW is phrase used for sewage disposal plants, walls of other houses, street car tracks, gasoline storage tanks, garbage dumps and telephone poles. It is to be distinguished from MOUNTAIN VIEW—any rise of ground, or FOREST VIEW—one spindly fir with two pickers near the top. RIGHT NEIGHBORHOOD FOR KIDDIES describes main highways, gas works, red light district, next door to tavern and all property on condemned water.

  In the Pacific Northwest, there are several hundred islands, varying in size from small enough to be cuddled in the crook of your arm to over a hundred miles long. Not one of them, no matter how small, has that discarded floating paper-plate look so often associated with the word “island.” These are young, virile, heavily wooded sturdy offspring who have so recently burst from the water they are still shaking the drops out of their high wooded crowns. Five of the larger islands are within commuting distance of Seattle. They are all ringed with beaches both sandy and rocky, and homes, both permanent and summer, some of which might be for rent, we thought. But when I tackled a reasonably intelligent-looking real estate agent and asked him about these islands, he treated me as if I had bounded in and demanded a snap decision as to the exact number of female seals in residence on the Pribilof Islands. “Vashon Island?” he kept repeating incredulously. “Bainbridge? Whidbey? What ever give you the idea to move over there? My gosh, I’ve lived in Seattle thirty-one years and I never even seen them islands. Now we gotta little six-on-one dream for sale on Highway 99. . . .”

  “We’d better look for ourselves,” I told Don after the tenth try.

  We investigated Bainbridge Island first because I used to visit there when I was a little girl and had pleasant memories of large, well-furnished houses with inside plumbing, electric lights, even grand pianos, all owned by darling people who would undoubtedly not only let us move in but would probably not let us pay any rent. All the houses, I remembered, were delightfully rustic, had orchards with yellow plums, sandy beaches with clams and gardens with bulbs.

  Don had also visited on Bainbridge Island. Smiling dreamily he said, “And then we chartered this boat and loaded on the beer, th
ere were about eighteen cases, and for three days Jack’s girl sat in the bathtub wearing the captain’s hat. We lost Bill overboard I don’t remember just where but I’m pretty sure it was near Bainbridge.”

  I decided to take the children with us because I wanted Don to see how much fun an island could be with a little family, all decent people, none in captain’s hats. Friday night I told Anne and Joan that the next day we were going to take a lovely picnic and go across the beautiful Sound on a funny old ferryboat and look for a cozy house where we could all be together. My voice oozed out of my mouth like molasses, and because of the sentimental picture of our all being together, I blinked up a few tears.

  Anne and Joan looked at each other knowingly, at me suspiciously, at Don belligerently and wailed at Mother, “But we always go to the movie show on Saturday, don’t we, Margar? We promised Patsy and Genevieve and anyway we’re having macaroni and cheese for dinner, aren’t we, Margar?”

  Don was frankly relieved, but I was hurt. Not as hurt, of course, as I had been when Anne was in the fourth grade and wouldn’t let me come to school on parents’ night because she was ashamed of me because I didn’t look like Ethel’s mother who had the general proportions and texture of a Sherman tank. Nor as hurt as I had been when Anne and Joan asked me not to walk to church with them because I smoked (though not on the way to church). Or as hurt as I had been when Joan explained sadly that the reason her friend Elma couldn’t stay all night was because we played the radio and kept Jesus out of the house.

  The big weakness in a working mother is that absence does make the heart grow fonder, even producing in her a half-baked tendency to remember the children as lonely little angels with great big Valentine hearts filled to bursting with goodness and love for Mommy. It was always a shock to be reunited with the truth, which is that a child is a young human whose natural instinct is to get her own way one hundred percent of the time, even if it involves moving the earth off its axis, or Mother off her rocker. My mother comforted me by explaining again and again that “Anne and Joan are too normal. All children like to do the same thing every day at the same time.”

  It was just as well that Don and I did go by ourselves as the day was gray and raw and we finally ate our lunch in the car in a nice warm gas station.

  We took the nine o’clock ferry from Colman Dock in Seattle. I told Don we wouldn’t bother about breakfast at home because they had such delicious food on the ferry.

  “Like what?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Like buttermilk hotcakes and little pig sausages,” I said, thinking of my happy childhood. “And the ferry ride takes forty-five minutes, so we’ll have plenty of time.”

  The ferry ride did take forty-five minutes, but a clammy doughnut beaded with moisture and a cup of coffee evidently just dipped out of the bilge were the only refreshments offered. When the ferry docked we drove off, and started looking for a real estate office. We found one, not too far from the dock. It was small and white with vines over the doorway and the proprietor, Mr. Haggerty, was so pleasant I had to go out and look again to be sure the office sign did say Real Estate. Not once did Mr. Haggerty say “there’s a war on,” but only that he didn’t have much to rent because of a shipyard operating on the island. “I’ll be delighted to show you what I have, though,” he said, getting some big old-fashioned keys out of a drawer.

  What he had was one large thin-walled rickety summer house, miles and miles and miles from the ferry, a store, a school or another house. It had no electricity and the bathroom was on the back porch. The house did have a fine view of the Olympic Mountains, a sandy beach, four bedrooms, adequate lumpy beds and enough sagging wicker furniture and it was for rent for sixty dollars a month. Don wanted to take it at once. But I, who had lived without electricity or friends and with the toilet outdoors, stood firm. By standing firm I mean that I started out in a well-modulated voice to point out the more glaring inconveniences, especially to a working mother, and ended up bawling about the hardships I had endured with my other husband.

  Even then Don gave up reluctantly and I really sympathized with him because in those days, giving up a furnished house for rent, any house, was like kicking aside a big package of new fifty-dollar bills with an elastic band around it just lying there on the sidewalk with nobody in sight who might have dropped it.

  The only other place for rent on Bainbridge, Mr. Haggerty told us with unparalleled honesty, was much farther from the ferry, had no lights either and was at the foot of a steep cliff. “It’s easy to get to at low tide,” he said, laughing. “The rest of the time you’d better be a fish.”

  “Let’s go see it anyway,” Don said, assuming a lifetime-lease look. I stiffened and got tears in my eyes and Mr. Haggerty winked and said he had forgotten the key.

  So then I told him about my happy childhood and the yellow plums and asked about my friends with the grand pianos and chintz couches. He said, “The Garsons? The Garsons. You mean the Garsons at Willow Point. Well, my golly, they haven’t even been on the island for fifteen years.”

  “What about the Emersons?” I asked.

  “The Emersons? The Emersons who used to live on Shady Beach? Why, Mrs. Emerson died twelve years ago and Mr. Emerson was so broke up he went to California to live.” We went through the Hedlunds, the Crawfords, the Wickhams, and the Taylors. If they weren’t dead they had all been gone at least ten years, more like twenty. So I brushed a few crumbs off my Civil War uniform and we all got in the car and left.

  We decided to try Whidbey Island next. This time we will take a picnic, I said, and invited Anne and Joan to go. They looked at each other and said, “Sunday? You mean this Sunday?” and I said yes and Anne wailed, “But I promised Marilyn I would go to her house right after Sunday School and try on lipstick with her.”

  Joan said, “But, Mommy, Johnny and I are fixing up a camp in his basement and anyway his mother’s baking cinnamon rolls. Why don’t you ever go on Saturday?”

  “I’ve already tried Saturday,” I said dryly.

  “But that was last Saturday,” Anne said accusingly.

  “Why doesn’t Johnny’s mother bake on Saturday?” I asked rather sharply.

  “Oh, she usually does,” Joan said, “but her stove was broken.”

  So Don and I drove north and took a ferry from an improbable-sounding place named Mukilteo. Whidbey Island is approximately ninety miles long, has hundreds of miles of beautiful sandy beaches, faces the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic Mountains on the west and Camano Island, Possession Sound and Saratoga Passage on the east. It is revered for getting less rain than Seattle and vicinity, but—and this should have loomed large to someone who had to be at her desk at seven-thirty in the morning after getting breakfast, fixing lunches, making the beds, arranging about dinner and perhaps a little mascara—its southernmost tip was at least twenty-five miles from Seattle and its most attractive beaches were at the northern ninety-mile end.

  But it was spring and the apple trees were sticks of pink cotton candy, dandelions were flung over the green-velvet fields like gold pieces, meadowlarks paused on fence posts to toss songs into the morning, and the bleakness of winter, with its dreary getting up and going to bed in darkness, seemed a long way off.

  Enthusiastically I said to Don, “We just have to find a place on Whidbey Island, it is so beautiful.”

  Just then the car got something caught in its throat and began gagging and coughing in a very last-gasp manner. We turned off the highway and came to a stop under a maple tree newly equipped with pale green shiny oilcloth leaves. Don got out, lifted the hood of the car and began poking around. “The fan seems to be broken,” he said finally, sadly. “I guess we had better go home, if we can.”

  We made it to the Mukilteo dock where with one last belch and shudder the car lost consciousness.

  We walked up to a large gray building, about a block away, with GARAGE across the front of its cap, and Don, in his low, quiet voice, told some striped-overall legs sticking o
ut from under a pickup truck what had happened. As Don talked the man hammered vigorously, loudly on something, tap, tap, tap. I didn’t think he could hear but he apparently did for after a few hundred taps he came sliding out, stood up, wiped his hands on some waste and walked down to the dock with us. He lifted up the hood of the car, looked at the engine, lifted up the trunk and looked at the two hundred or so books Don kept there and said, “I’d trade her in if I was you.”

  “All right,” said Don amiably. “What do you have?”

  “I got a Chrysler sedan that’s in awful good shape,” the man said. “Come on back to the garage and I’ll show it to you.”

  When we got back to the garage he pointed out a dark blue sedan dozing by the grease rack. “She’s a dilly,” he said. “Belonged to an old lady who only drove her on Sundays. Runs like a watch.”