| still at home volume 4 part 3 - 1961 september-october | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
Sept 1 There was a lot of wind and rain at work we had a power failure so I was off three and a half hours early. Sept 5 Sunday and yesterday were, combined and humped, one big breathless and both good and bad day. Sunday Frank came and met Uncle and Auntie and then we drove around Chilliwack, parked at the airport and talked, drove around Cultus Lake, ate peanuts and chocolate, had rootbeer and shared a Mama burger at the A&W, went to a wedding rehersal for the wedding Frank is best man at, went to a Brunk crusade meeting at MEI, met Grandpa and Grandma and Art Friesen, and had a lingering lovely good night. Also ate supper - pork chops - at a little café in Abbotsford, had a banana split at Danny's. "You know, there was a mirror in that café," he said. "Guess what I saw in it - a lucky guy and a beautiful girl." "Not beautiful, Frank, but if you think so that's all right" Sept 6 The phone doesn't ring and my fingernails are being bitten off. I'm struggling against being a scrambler. I'm feeling fear and desperation and bewilderment. I am being a scrambler I guess, in my heart. On Monday night when he was the distant and self-possessed best man I saw his eyes searching for me in the balcony and when he found me in my lavendar coat his eyes looked back again and again. When, in the receiving line, I teazingly shook his hand and told him I had a ride home, he made a face and said hurriedly, "I'll probably see you on Sunday. If anything develops I'll call you." Now it is Wednesday. I cried on Monday night and I cried last night, and I shall cry again tonight. I don't know. Won't he call me? He didn't last night, and he didn't tonight, and perhaps he won't - tomorrow, or Friday, or Saturday, or ever. I will go to Clearbrook on Sunday then, and probably will anyway. And then, on Monday night the bus will come and I won't see him again. If he doesn't say goodbye he won't write. Has something happened? Why did he say, "I'll probably see you on Sunday" so impersonally? Why "probably"? Why didn't he say, I'll see you Thursday night. Eight o'clock?" Thursday He hasn't called me yet. I will cry again tonight and tomorrow night. Maybe after a week or two weeks I won't any more. Friday
He wrote, and that was his P.S. I hadn't tho't of the writing angle, but today suddenly while plopping tin cans down, I said, there will be a letter tonight, and there was. I read it on the clover-starred park lawn and looked windblown and giggled and was entirely happy again. Sept 9 My last long day was 10 hours of work on the hot roof with Carol and Hazel, who both swore and threw things. Sept 10th, Sunday morning Wild wild music from the radio, lipstick pink, eyes wide, white heels, flashing skirts in a glowy blue; I feel like a vampire today! Tomorrow I go home, but today I shall have Frank all to myself for four hours, and shall say a bittersweet goodbye to him tomorrow night. I'm going home. I'll go to school again and scratch my brain where it itches. I won't have to work at York Farms any more. Yesterday I worked ten sweaty hours amid much expressive swearing from Carol and Hazel. But that is all over now and I've earned over four hundred. I've learned things about time there; I've wrestled with it some days, and other days I have let it roll over me like a river, and have let my mind and emotions die a little as it crushed them. But it's all over now, and my mind can live again for a long time. I took a picture outside of my blue aeropack and my pink poodle, and a red starry daliah, and my white journal and my black suitcase under a tree, and another of the flower and a mirror on a window sill with my reflection in the mirror. Now time is flashing past with music ("This nearly was mine," "How deep is the ocean") and stolen prunes which Grandma does so deliciously. The flower is in a glass on the table. I feel beautiful. It's lovely outside. My voice is in a good ringing mood as it follows the intricacies of a Spanish tune. Frank and I will have a good time this afternoon. Last Sunday night we sat in the auditorium and I was publicly thought of in connection with Frank. He was beside me and sang in his ordinary vice sometime but listened usually. We met Grandma outside the door and she was cordial - distance and absence making the heart grow you-know-what. Sept 11 Yesterday I was outside when he came. He walked up to where I was standing behind the half-shadow, half-sun big leaves and scooped his hands up under my hair. "You're pretty today!" he said. Well, I knew it but yet it was nice to hear him say it. So we walked down to a bench in a young grape arbour at the end of a row of raspberry bushes. The sun was sending heavy layers of luminescent heat down to us. We talked quite a bit yesterday. Then we went to Cultus, found a tree, spread the truck blanket under it on the grass, and unlaxed. He stretched out and said, "You've got to sit up because you're a lady" with some glee. So I propped up against the trunk with my dress bright against the green blanket and looked at his chin and his long eyes and his thin mouth. He read my "indecently long" letter (lettered, not numbered, so as not to seem so long. I got to either F or G) and when he had read the last page - my Abschied requests - he leaned his head against my shoulder - I and I could sense restrained feeling in his motion, and looking down at the top of his head I felt maternal and tender. Then we went to Chilliwack to look for the depot. After that we drove to Abbotsford. On the wide superhighway our truck edged over into the slow lane and I was forcibly edged over into - well - nearer proximity, which was alright. I always wonder what he is thinking when he holds me so very tightly. I forgot to explain why he felt peculiarly after page G. Item one was this: "People change and feelings change - please don't try to keep feeling something you just don't feel any more" and then he said, "Read number one again and say it to yourself." I read it. "S'a deal," I said. We were near emotionally. In Chilliwack we bought some fruit. In Abbotsford we had a huge chocolate dipped soft ice cream after we'd driven out on winding roads along the same route we took in the rain one morning with Janet and Brian. Then, in Clearbrook, Frank and I both winced when we noticed Grandma cutting cheeze and sausage in the kitchen. We were restrained in the living room and talked (that is, I did) with Grandpa. At the table we talked (that is, he did) about some of his mentally ill (runs in the family) relatives. He said once, talking about Dave, "He's a queer egg. We're all queer eggs, every one of us. And I don't know how such a queer egg ever got such a swell girl." "Just another queer egg, Frank." Outside we had another long goodbye, not for the usual reasons, because of broad-daylight gabbing. And after I'd had a chin-deep warm water bath (before which I had some ice cream with cherry jam) (my body is leaner now around the hips, I've lost weight) he phoned me. That was at 8:30. I was alone at home. I sat on the little red covered stool in my bare p.j.'s with my bare feet propped up on the door sill across the hall. We talked about poetry. We didn't talk much about what will happen tonight. It was 9:30 when we hung up. Today I bought 3 prs of shoes - a pointed pair of black flats for school, a pair of white cord sneakers, two (nearly seventeen dollars, sigh) pairs of black Sunday heels. I bought a black purse and some apricot lipstick. I bought a barette. I bought a sleek suit pattern. - There is a pretty negro girl with a lovely low voice sitting beside a boy - ("cute") - with a lovely deep voice in the depot near me. I'm watching them furtively. They're having a good time, laughing and teazing each other while waiting for the 7 p.m. Cultus bus. She's terribly attractive. I wish I could stare, but don't quite dare. I did dare something silly this afternoon. The Empress Hotel is across the street. I walked in, washed my hands in the washroom, and started up the red carpeted stairs as if I owned the place. "Just a minute," said the desk clerk. "Are you visiting someone?" "Um-m." "Who are you visiting?" "Oh! I'm just - walking " this said with a concealed grin. "But you can't just - walk, upstairs." "No?" I semi-pouted - oh - charmingly - smiling. She pursed her lips, half-smiled too, and said, "No." "Okay." I walked out leisurely, and giggled all down the street afterwards. A cute happening. Tonight at seven Frank should be here. Goody. I'll go for a walk now. I did, and then I came back, went to the Pacific Stages depot across the road, found a Good Housekeeping magazine, discovered when I was going to pay for it that I'd left my wallet somewhere - and discovered, to my horror, that it was not in the shopping bag, but in a phone booth! Some of F's incredible luck had followed me. So I got my mag and cleaned up - the new lipstick and the works - the last time I'll doll up for Frank, after all - and I'd leafed thru' about one quarter of the magazine (in the crazy Atkin's Stage Depot) when I heard clickers and there was Frank in his blue t-shirt, three minutes early. We had grilled salmon, ordinary enough, and with lemons and tasteless mixed vegetables and tomatoe juice, at the Peakes - no desert. ("Jell-o or cream pudding," she said.) We ate at a corner booth. I thought for once he might sit beside instead of across but he sat across anyway. Still, he hugged me, um, three times, on the street, (confessing meanwhile that it was bad manners). And we had a good time over the eating. We sat on a front bench and held hands and nuzzled to kill time and because this would be the last time. There was even a bit of dummheit. When he came in he walked around the bench. "Are you by any chance Ellie Epp?" I didn't say anything. "Or don't you know her?" I slid coyly away. "I'm sorry, I don't talk to strange men " But then I slid back over and asked how he'd made out at court. 23 dollars only. It was his incredible luck. And some scheming. Luck was involved in the fact that the cop had clocked him at 65 whereas he'd been afraid the word would be 105. The scheming came to this: he, a man, dressed for the occasion - workish pants and shirt with a sports jacket and work boots to look like a poor immigrant farmer! After I'd gotten my tags we sat on a bench in the dark behind, close. He was warm and it was beginning to be a cool evening. Close and warm, his hands on my back and touching my neck. Boy scouts walked past with some frisky "well, well"'s and things like, "Too bad you can't see the moon." I thought so too. But he doesn't care who sees him love me. He never has, even since the berry patch. And this was the last time. "You know, I don't think I really realize," I said quickly, "I think I will see you again next Wednesday or next Sunday." Close, close, warm. Finally I knew there could not be much more time. As he knew. His arm tightened until there was a queer squeezed out sound from me. It could have been a stifled crying. He slid his hand under my hair again. "Ellie," he said. "Yes," I thought, "say it. I want you to say it once more, before " "I love you. And my last words are remember the guy who remembers you." The bus roared in and its brakes hissed loudly ("Hate that sound," Frank said. "I'll hate it even more now.") We carried out my stuff and he stowed my suitcase away for me. And then in the narrow aisle he moved closer very quickly and just for an instant brushed my cheek with his lips. And then he was gone. The man across the aisle said, "Such a little one!" "Maybe if you'd looked the other way," I said lightly and then opened my window as wide as I could. He was below in the blue shirt that makes his chin and eyes a different color. He reached to the ridge above me and chinned himself so that my face was against his one last time. And then the bus moved forward and he dropped to the ground. (How he could hold himself there so long, I don't know.) I saw him then, looking back. He was waving like a small boy. And I saw him once more when we drove by his truck. He stood on the running board leaning out onto the road at an angle from the hand on the door handle. And he waved again. "I'm going to miss you - like crazy." That was the last thing I said to him. I will. I began to the minute after I saw him last. Warm tears, only a few, dribbled, but the drunk wizened man in the seat across made me giggle so that a bedraggled piece of kleenex cleaned up the evidence and I began to wonder about the e-ventures of today, tomorrow. Any girl with three new pairs of shoes in a shopping bag does not need to feel inferior to any one - and with four pairs! The only really wonderful thing so far is Sally. She is tiny boned and incredibly slender with narrow hips and a flat chest. I don't think she wears a bra. She has incredibly lovely ankles and very shapely legs. She wears square toed Italian shoes with heels like mine. She wears a loose and simple coat, a slim green cord skirt, a soft long sleeved blouse, a dusky-gold bracelet, and carries an enormous Italian made bag. Her hair is sleek and nearly completely straight and falls from a haphazard center parting over her face when she sleeps. Her eyes are wide and greeny-grey with short, straight lashes. Her eyebrows are unplucked and natural. She has a few freckles and a lovely complexion. Her hands are still and peaceful. She talks in a clear poised voice with a very sophisticated shadow of an English accent. I wanted to meet her very badly. At Hope she sat at a table all alone and had a coffee. I was tempted to join her. But when she walked back to the bus I did the next best. "Would you like to do me a favor and talk to me for a while to keep the gabby old man at bay?" She was wonderfully responsive. Her mouth, by the way, is wide and curved, and her lower lip is almost pouty. She smiles a quick warm smile with her mouth closed. I like it. I like her, very much. She wears green eye-shadow. I shall try to get some eye-shadow - blue - in Prince during my stopover. It's quite ridiculous. I found myself adopting her sophisticated accent and way of forming sentences. I'm a chamelon. And yet, isn't the chamelon personality even still a personality type in its own right, and a strong type at that? While I was sitting in the dark bus beside her last night I was thinking, this is what I want. And I will remember Sally. Her father is a journalist. She would like to write too, and I'm sure she can, beautifully. Her nose tilts up, and is beautiful. I did not know how old she was. She looked like a very sophisticated fourteen year old with a seventeen year old wistfulness. She is, actually, twentytwo. She knows what she thinks now. Perhaps when I am twentytwo I shall have found myself too. You're an American aren't you? Oh no! I'm English. I knew you couldn't be Canadian. You have too much chic for that. (& I pronounced the word as I know it should be) And in the dark, we talked eagerly of ideas & arts & feelings. It was wonderful. It was scratching the social half of my brain where it itches. She used lovely words. She & I thought alike in so many ways. In my magazine, which she was flipping through, there was a heading, "We must fight for our average students!" She made a little grunting sound. That we must not do, she said. Then I knew she had not been an average student. I told her about going through the stage where I called myself E-l-l-i. Oh, I know all about it, she laughed. I called myself S-a-l-i for a while. I told her about the tin cans and the soup. About the colors. In the tin cans [their linings] the rich mollasses and gold and rusty browns. In the other, the soup, of all things, which we ate last Sunday; a warm beige liquid with tiny squares of orange and yellow carrot and a lacy delicate leaf of parsley. I took out the leaf and the other colors went drab, but with it in; - a bowl of soup, absorbing, beautiful. Tell me about the things you've done that you like to remember, the places you've been, I said. Oh, I liked London, the buses, you know. And I remember the little boy in Paris who carried our bags. He kissed all of our hands. Oh, have you been to Paris? Not long enough to even glance around, re-a-lly. That was just on my way through to Spain. I lived there for about a month. My goodness gracious! After a while, I said, you know, I'm thinking right now of putting you into a story. And at a cool place in the dark I told her, you have exceedingly nice ankles. I could talk to her as I did to Elizabeth. She was lovely, lovely, lovely. You know, I'd like to do a sketch of her, and a photograph. The story I shall certainly do. She didn't talk about boys. She rarely laughed. She had more "class" than anyone I've ever met. "Class," I think is composed of dignity and simplicity and taste. I shall needs must acquire some. Taste I have. Simplicity I am learning. Dignity I need. In order to have this mysterious thing, tho', I'll have to find my own way as she has. I'll work on it this winter. [back in La Glace] September 12 The whole tribe met me at Hythe. September 13 Met Mr. Shattsneider who is likeable tho' uninspiring. The dirt and tiredness and lonelines are beginning to be depressing. September 14 The letter came from Frank and was concise, affectionate and fun. I'll be taking Psych 10 and French 20 as electives. September 16 Another letter from my friend in B.C. I shovelled grain and read a book and enjoyed the wind. Judy tried on my bathing suit and is inches taller'n'me and just as fat and wide-shouldered. Sept 17 I sketched a picture of her and it does look like her. In Prince George I left her at the depot when I went for my expensive creamy blue eye shadow. When I came back she was gone. The rest of the trip was fun. I got a seat right behind the driver, and the afternoon was sunny and drowsy and vague because I slept or dreamed or wrote. Soon we were at Chetwynd. I left the cozy seat with the pink poodle and the white pages of my journal and a letter to Frank and the rearview mirror I could see the back seat boys & my friendly handsome Frenchman in. In the depot I changed into the black skirt and blue bulky and nylons and white shoes, and then when I walked down the street I felt like a lady. I walked around, (blue eye shadow and orange-apricot lipstick) and when I got back was just settling down to write Frank & catch up on journal. It was going to be a lovely long evening. There was a too-young but good looking boy from Manning. I started a conversation with him but gave it the axe when it was found wanting. Then I stood by the cool door and another man, a man this time, began to talk to me. I didn't recognize him immediately. On the bus he had been a blond-red whiskered stranger in the seat across from me who had impressed me because he was reading Tom Dooley's "The Edge of Tomorrow." But this man was clean shaven and well dressed and rather good looking. He had asked when I "alit" if I didn't have another suitcase he could carry in for me. And then he reappeared after cleaning up in a Hotel, and looked really quite good. We stood in the doorway and talked. I was pink cheeked and excited by travel. He wore a hat because his suitcase was too small to pack it. I could tell he was wondering whether or not to ask me to dinner with him. And then we discovered that he was an ex-Mennonite and lived in Clearbrook and that I had picked strawberries there, and also know C.B.C. That settled it. We went to dinner together. I enjoyed it. We talked avidly about a lot of things and discovered that we liked each other. It was not until later that we introduced ourselves, "Ellie Epp, Harold Remple." He said he'd taken out the Foster girls from Beaverlodge. I smirked. The Foster girls and I, both. That is new. And he liked me. We had milk. During the wait before our plates came I asked about him, why after seven years of doing you-name-it, he had gone back to school and was studying to be a teacher. "I had a change in life." It was in '58. "Brunk?" "Yes, how did you know?" When our food came he said, "I'm accustomed to saying grace. You just go ahead." But it happens that I like to say grace too when I remember. Frank always does. I like it. So we both did. I told him about wanting to be a writer before we'd even gotten to the café, when we were just crossing the street. He was interested. It was dark when we went back to the depot. We talked about Vancouver and how pretty it is at night. "I love it," he said. "It's beautiful" I said, "at an indecently late hour when the streets are all wet and the neon lights are reflected on them." "Indecently late ..." he laughed reflectively. "Yes," he said, "you'll be a writer." I got the "best seat in the house." (quote the driver) and reserved it by putting on a suitcase. Then I went back to help Mr. Remple bring my stuff. [this incidentally was not the 1st man to carry my suitcase. At Prince George I was just hauling it down from the rack when a blond crewcut with a friendly grin who I wish I'd met happened by and said, "Would you like me to take care of that for you?" "Oh. Please, if you would. Thank you so much." I said. I've grown in graciousness. And he was not the only one. There is nothing like a heavy suitcase to make a little girl look feminine and helpless, and there are very few men who do not like a girl who is feminine and helpless. Then when my friend had stowed my stuff, and I was comfortable he brought his. He shoved the one suitcase into the rack and looked at me questioningly. I moved over and smiled as if to say "do sit down and keep me company." So he did. We leaned back in the seats with the wide windows all around us, and the cool night near. The bus was dark. There was no smoke, only a breeze from the windows. His face was quite near. There was rapport and eager conversation. The road from Dawson to Hythe was never so short. There was even a sort of attraction. "You're very good company," he said. "I wish you were going as far as Edmonton." I wished so too. Then we stopped at Hythe. I was anticipating a little ride yet, to Grande Prairie. But there was a tall lean figure wandering around outside. "Hey, that's my father!" I said. Reluctantly I went out. Harold helped to get my stuff and handed down my suitcase. I thanked him from below, he was in the dark bus; I could hardly see him; now I was Outside and he was still one of the privileged. It was cold, nippy and star-bright. I felt important and remote because Daddy had heard my casual "Thank you so much for the dinner. I'm glad I met you," and because of the four new pairs of shoes and a poodle and a lovely suitcase and a boyfriend in B.C. Rudy was glad to see me. Daddy had some new clothes, Judy new shoes, Mom a new blouse, and Paul was especially teazy. Everything was the same. The yard was more cluttered. The room was abnormally clean. I had some new clothes, new ideas, new ties with my other worlds and other selves. But it was the same. I had a feeling of being back where I started from. My new ties and new loves and my memories are still sharp. Memories are small & detailed yet. I remember sitting beside Sally in the bus with the window wide open and an exhilerating breaze sliding over our faces and our covered, tucked up knees. I remember the unending dark beside the road where the canyon was, and a glimmer of light like a wash on a painting far below. I remember hearing her saying "I liked London," and seeing her chin and mouth briefly fire-touched when she lit a cigarette. There is a big memory. It was a whole and complete day, the day we went to the P.N.E. For a long time before he, Frank, had talked of taking me there, even in the strawberry patch months ago. And when the day was decided on our anticipation grew. He was saying goodnight to me. "We'll go to the P.N.E. We'll have a wonderful time," he said. "Yes," I said. "It will be something to remember all our lives." It began at 6 am. on Monday, September 4, Labor Day. I crawled out of bed, into the orange skirt and brown and orange blouse, the blue sweater, the white shoes and was not ready with the makeup when the pink & white, wonderful Chevy came up the drive. I missed the truck tho'. He waited outside while I told Grandpa and Grandma and took out a pear because I was so hungry. I hadn't slept since 4 am and not much before either. Exitement I guess. We drove on our lovely back road, winding and empty and hilly. The Chevy took every hill at a full gallop without even a snort. I was on the half way mark but he drove, after a while, with two hands. Once tho' we became close and he squeezed me very hard. What is he thinking when he does that? (we were talking. He said he would come duck hunting and see me. I said, not if I'm a stiff. He didn't quite get it. I'll un-stiff you, he said. You mean fold me up like an accordian? I asked. I wouldn't care, even if your mother was watching he said) The land was still and half dark. They were just bringing the cows in to milk. In a few barns there was a light, but otherwise there was quiet. It was a nice time to be with him. We got Judy. I saw Mrs. Doerksen without teeth and in her nightgown on the steps inside. We drove to Vancouver. We got tangled up trying to find the Exhibition grounds. But we asked a gardener and an urchin and found the place. Our car parked, we went out into the brisk morning to become Exhibition Goers. One of many. Our walk down the Hollar Alley was embarrassing because every one in every booth vied for our attention. There weren't many people there yet. The air smelled horrible in a wonderful popcorn and hamburger way. The music was gay and skittery. On our empty stomachs we rode the roller coaster. In the first car with Frank (taking good care) beside me and a certain promise in mind, it was a lovely ride. "Oh-h-h my goodness, my goodness," was all I said when we slid right down into a fall that was like a dive into ice water. "That wasn't a scream. It was only a gasp," I explained hurriedly lest he think it had been a scream. It almost sounded like one. The whole ride and the next were windy and breathless and wonderful. Stupidly I nearly slipped on the gangway down. He was very protective after that. It was almost irking. Then we rode the ferris wheel, trying to decide which was the highest. All three of us were in one seat. The bar was snapped in, we moved slowly up and back. The view from the top was lovely - the bay, a beach, gay exhibition tents, lurid ads for the House of Harlem "See Jazza - dusky import from New Orleans." Feeling daring, Judy and I rocked our seat on top, calculating the right time to jump from our seat to the canvas roof of a tent below - in case it were necessary. In case there were a rabid murderer in the seat with us. On the ground again we wandered between empty bags and many people some of whom I exchanged happy stares with. The handsome and bored looking yeller from one of the booths teazed us every time we went by. "Hey curly, you've got two wives. That's not fair. I want the one in the blue sweater." Frank held my hand as we walked and very seldom let it go. We went to the cafeteria for breakfast-dinner. Because the dinner wasn't quite ready yet, we sat in a booth and watched the people, Judy making remarks about a dark-eyed busty waitress. A battle-axe waitress walked up. "You serve yourself here," she said. Frank explained. He looked wonderful in a light blue shirt I'd never seen before. He was piqued. "She must have thought I was some kind of country hick" he muttered. He almost sulked. I felt a bit irked. "Forget it, Frank," I said. He did after a while, but it rankled. That was one thing I learned about him. We looked at the horses. We looked at the honey and vegetables and the flowers. There was a bank of huge dalias in reds and oranges and yellows, all massed together. It was like an abstract painting, vivid and intense and a little unreal. It was beautiful. Now the sun was out and glorious. In the electric building, in a maze of exhibits, we lost Judy. But Frank thought that was all right. She's nineteen. We peeked into a Japanese style fabricated home. We saw an atomic shelter. We went down a ramp with many others into the Hobby show. I lingered over the paintings. I even remember a few: colorful and grotesque portrait of a Sasquatch; a water color study of a dear old man in overalls; a foggy ballet picture; a pen and ink horse, sketched in minute and lovely detail; a picture called "Invitation" - a study of the tilted face of a girl in black and white; a pencil head of a negro woman with enormous loveliness and dignity called "The Nigerian;" a Siamese cat; an impressionist semi-cubist study of chairs on a lawn in reds and blues; some drab landscapes which won all the prizes. After coins and electrical radio devices and wood carving and embroiderings and old cars we began to get tired. Then, in the middle of Indian Crafts Frank said, "I don't care," and took off his shoes. I watched delightedly as he picked them up and walked on in his green wool argyles. The clock in the atomic bomb shelter said half past four. We'd lost all sense of time. I thought it could be true. We panicked and walked out. There was a door man. We asked him. "Half past one," he said. I was surprized. We rode the monster. It was a ride with long octapus like arms holding seats. Snug in one of these seats with Frank's arm around me we dipped and soared and whirled. It was lovely. Two little boys behind us nudged each other and giggled. We had a chocolate coated ice cream bar. When it was about half past two we went to the milk bottle booth. Frank looked it over. A quarter a throw. He handed over a dollar. All four throws were wild. On the next dollar there were a few more wild ones and a few near misses. I stood a ways away, uncertain. I didn't want him to think I would mind too much if he didn't get one. I had visions of him trying endlessly and never hitting them while the stock of dollars beside the barker got bigger. Another dollar had just gone. This was the last throw. I neither hoped or despaired. I was looking away, not disinterested, but disinterestedly. There was a crash. The milk bottles were over. "What do you want?" said the barker. "That bear, the black and white one" F began. He turned to me. "Hey!" he said. "What do you want? It's yours." I deliberated, feeling deliciously important. "Can I have a poodle?" I said. "A pink one?" "Anything," said the barker, and fetched down a fluffy one with silvery eyes, a red lapping tongue, a red collar and a chain to hang onto. We walked away. He grabbed my hand and looked at me intensely. "You didn't encourage me or anything, and you acted as tho' you didn't care at all," he said flatly. I never can say the right thing when it needs to be said, but I explained to him later in a letter. I was touched that he minded. We sat on some steps at the pond; I cuddled my nameless dog ("Frivolity" is what Frank suggested) and we nibbled on melty ice cream bars. It was half past four. We had to be home early. He left me at the gate to watch and ran off to find Judy. I stood there in my pink skirt with the poodle crooked in my arms and watched the people coming and going through the gates. A little girl with long hair and a chubby face ran back and forth between her parents and me, chatting incessantly. I looked over all the pretty girls, the pretty faces, the pretty legs and was happy. I didn't hear Frank come back. Just suddenly he was there. He hadn't found Judy, so we went to the car to wait. I combed my hair immediately. It had been a hay stack ever since the roller coaster and this bothered me. We waited a long time. F became impatient. Neither of us said much. We remembered all the people, the barkers who'd howled at us (As I walked away with my poodle they hollared "Get her a twin! Get her a larger one! Get her another!" This attention was heady.) Two fellows in white shirts sauntered by with 2 dumpy looking girls. Frank stuck his head out the window. "Hey!" he said. The guys stopped. He got out to talk to them. The handsomest one looked at me and grinned. They stood in front of our pink & white Chevy ('58). Frank talked easily with them. They walked on. Frank came back to me. After some fuming we decided to leave Judy. Frank had to be back early for a wedding - Leona Seimens'. Frank was in a dilemma - blood was thicker than water, he said, Judy being blood and Larry being water. It was already quite late. We'd have to speed, he decided, in that Labor Day traffic. Town traffic was slow, tho'. A car load of boys hovered around us and I smiled at them coquettishly over my poodle. They grinned too and passed us in the next lane. When we finally left them they waved and I returned their wave through the open window. Outside it was pure sunshine, different from the clouds of the morning. After some kind of short cut we came to the Loughheed Highway. Across it was a road that looked strangely familiar. I felt as tho' I'd been there before. I knew I had. But how and when? A sign on the highway explained. "Entering Port Coquitlam" it said. So I had been there before, years ago, the day I met Gloria and Bob and tasted admiration. We began to speed in earnest, weaving and rocketing and swaying across the road around slower people. I prudently mixed enjoyment with smoke signals into the blue sky. Miles and close calls later ("if we had a flat tire now," Frank said, "there'd be headlines - 'Two young people killed instantly.'" "This would be a good way to die - with a pink, frivolous poodle ..." I said. "It isn't something to laugh about," he said soberly, calculating the time needed to pass a car ahead. "I'm serious," I said) A siren wrapped itself around us and a red light motioned us over. We dropped speed, slid into a driveway. The cop was tall and young and good looking. He scribbled down a licence number. "Wait here," he said tersely. "I'll be back." He folded himself back into his car and raced down the highway. Well! Frank's reactions were amusing. He wasn't repentant about speeding, only kicking himself for being caught. He was silent and tense. I was - as I said - amused, and yet sober because he was so worried. We waited a long time. Finally I touched his hand, briefly, covered it with mine. There wasn't any response and I was unsure. I took it away again, quickly, and dropped my eyes. With a sigh, he leaned me toward him, sadly. "Ellie," he said. The cop car came over the hill. Again, I was amused. Frank was so polite! All identification was handed over - info given, excuse given ("I was supposed to be best man for a wedding half an hour ago.") apologies made with appropriate gestures. ("I know it doesn't help to say so, officer, but" - gesture inserted here - "I'm sorry!") (Yeah - sorry you got caught!) We got a ticket, the first he ever got or I've ever seen. (If George had been here we'd have gotten out of that." "How?" "We'd have sworn up and down we weren't speeding. What could they do?") The date on the ticket was Monday, September 11. ("It'll be a bad day - first my summons and then you go home.") Finally we were ready to go. Shifting into second, Frank said, "You'll have to promise not to tell any one about this. Not anyone." "All right Frank, I won't tell anyone." We drove on sedately. Mission - Abbotsford - Clearbrook - and finally home to Doerksens. I was thrown to the mercies of the family while he dashed off into his suit and away in the car for taking pictures. Margaret and I chatted first in her room, tentatively began to like each other. She is small and slender with long eyes like a cat's, and blond hair. She has a square small chin, and a profile that is odd, unconventional. In blue jeans she looks a tom-boy. She is lithe, intense. We admired hairdos in one of Judy's fashion magazines, helped Mrs. D. get supper, chatted lightly, ironed my dress - forgot to polish my shoes ("You cheated! You didn't use the shoe polish.") Dave blew in, freckled, tow-head, merry. Surprizingly, he was also the perfect host. As I stood chatting with Mr Doerksen (who is so good-looking) I discovered how tired my feet were. "Ellie, why don't you sit down" Dave invited, and dragged out a chair for me. At the table he passed me this and that. Would I have more potatoes? How about cream for my pudding? ("He wanted to make a good impression on his big brother's girl.") I liked this family: little Jonathan with his blue eyes and white-gold hair; ("I asked him if he remembered you. He said, 'Yes. Bring her here, okay?' trying to get on my good side") Marg, just beginning to find herself; Mrs. Doerksen so calm and sensible, Mr. Doerksen, handsome and friendly but still formidible; loveable Dave (now if he were a few years older, say 10 years ...) who showed me his model planes. We did dishes - had to jump into our clothes in order to "just make it" for the ceremony. In changing, Marg admired lavishly my dress, my shoes, and me, my poodle (Jon loved it) my hair, etc. There wasn't even time to wear much lipstick. Somehow we got panicked to the car and away. Marg asked questions of a medical-surgical nature which I answered with no qualms. These were Frank's people ("she told me some of the things she asked you - weren't you terribly embarrassed?") I sat with Marg; she kindly adopted me. We sat in the balcony with some of her younger friends, (Esther Martens - "she mostly goes around with younger girls") and behind us the little boys "horsed" ("colted") around. The wedding march started almost immediately. Frank was in front, standing stiffly. His eyes flicked up and found me almost immediately ("the sobriety of the bestman was commended") and returned to me. Everyone seemed to know - they turned and grinned knowingly at me - he's looking for you they whispered behind hands. He was, of course. Then he sat down, and the rest of the time was spent in eager whispered chatter with Marg. She's a lovely person but she doesn't know it. There was so much about her that was me a few years ago. She gave herself so freely to me and bared her searching heart until I couldn't help but love her madly. They are a unique family, all of them so like me. The rest of the time was not too wonderful. In order to spare Frank the long drive home and Grandma the anxiety of having me gone until so late, I begged a ride from John Kroekers, Yarrow people, ex-P.R.D. Marg, because she was so unsure of herself, left me with Katie. This was not a good idea. Katie found some giggly buck-teethed friends and they stood outside. I was tears-bored. I wandered away after a while, and watched - went through the reception line. Frank was the first one - I shook hands with him gravely, said, "Hello Mr. Doerksen," said I had a ride home. He grimaced. Leona looked !!wow!! in her dress. I said so. Mrs Seimens had me introduce myself, then exclaimed "Hello neighbour!" and gabbed excitedly. I ate silently at one of the long tables. Frank sat at the head table and looked at me often. I studiedly avoided looking at him, ate a little, talked a little, watched mostly ("You didn't eat much, and you seemed to know everyone there") We went home early. I did not see him again. Marg told me wistfully of Frank's long before-going-to-bed talks with Judy. "I hear them sometimes," she said. "I think he likes you a lot. I hope you like him a lot." I did. I said something to the effect, casually. She is a lonely person - she told me of her self-consciousness, her dislike of her flat figure, her unpopularity. I wanted to reassure her, to tell you "you will become a lovely person. You are one now." But these are things I can't say when I should. I liked her. ("She was - ooo-oo - so impressed. She liked you very much") When Frank walked away to sign the register with the bridesmaid, she solemnly asked, "are you jealous." When I said no, I was not, she accused me gently of not liking him much. I wonder at the loyalty these kids have for Frank. We went home to a dark house. I crawled silently into bed, and slept. It had been nearly 17 hours. September 25 Monday morning I had read to the bottom of a letter on Friday after school. My feet were in the oven. It had been a warm letter. "If that one wasn't long enough for you," Mom said dryly, "there's another one from Abbotsford under your pillow." Both of them had news. The first one threw it out at me right under the salutation: "Image-in-mind, I will probably be coming up this weekend." The next one was written the day after, under the stimulous of a letter from me. One every day - and they were both alive and warm (I've used that word before, but it means what they are.) Warm. (It is a warm word) On Saturday night our room was strangely tidy. The kitchen was in a steamy panic. Mom and Rudy and the two cats had come in earlier to curl up on the bed and absorb peace. It was almost ten. I sat in the big chair brushing my hair. The lamp was behind me. Almost at the same time that Paul announced the fact with a shout from the living room I saw a light coming onto the yard. The lighted patch between the two headlamps was red. I bounded up, yanked a comb through my hair, and catapulted into the kitchen just in time to hear Daddy exclaim and Mom remind him to take it easy. ("Calm down. Leave everything as it is" - she didn't want all the stuff lying around to be shoved behind doors as it usually is.) I stepped out of the door, closed it behind me, walked slowly around the corner in the dark to meet him. He was at first, only a shape, and then became a voice, became Frank, altho' still not quite. He did not become completely Frank until last night. I felt smaller and more slender than usual. I was, perhaps, a mess, but he is only Frank and actually Frank. My blue jeans were rumpled and rolled up. Judy's shirt was pretty dirty. My white socks and sneakers were the utmost in dustiness. But yesterday he said, "You looked so good last night: I didn't even want to touch you." "Good, Frank? - blue jeans and a dirty ol' shirt and - " "Maybe, but there was a bit of moonlight." We only stood and looked at each other. I'd thought he might try to "pleat me up like an accordian" but he just stood and looked. Judy craned her neck - we could see her from outside, but she couldn't see anything. "You'll get heck for staying outside so long," he said. "Just cold. Are you going to come in?" He did, just for a moment. My feelings about him after he'd left were muddled up. I felt as though he were a queer stranger who seemed to know me quite well. When I dreamed that night I dreamed I deserted him for Paul Sylvester. He went to the café where he had an uneasy night. When asking for directions to us, he asked Myrtle in the café, "Where do Seimenses live?" "M-m-m, I don't know. Kroeker place, I guess." "Oh. Where do Epps live?" "You mean Ellie Epp?" "Well, yeah ..." Myrtle reported this morning that as soon as he'd come through the door she'd known he was "Ellie's boyfriend." She explained vaguely, "... oh, he just seemed sort of sophisticated. I just thought so." Friday night after choir practice and until noon Saturday was pretty bad, not because of butterflies but because of too much hamburger for supper and a 'flu bug. My mind felt stretched out into thin strings and then tangled into a skein of whirling colors. I stumbled to the can, "threw up" cerimoniously in front of the door, and then huddled in the cold. Uncle Willie on the floor was disturbed often by a bare-legged figure padding to the sink and back to bed. He told Mom all about it in the morning. About 10 o'clock I struggled out to go back to the can. The sun was hot and bright and it staggered through the sky. I sat shivering above the hole and it took hours and hours to find the courage and determination to stagger out again. I thought I was going blind. There were no details, no shadows, only flashing, swaying, intense color. I slept until noon, put on some lipstick and some eyeshadow, read Frank's last letters and was "all better." ("morning time") On Sunday I saw him through the window - tight blue jeans, his lovely new blue ribbed seater, curly hair and blue eyes - he looked good!! When he came back from stowing his stuff in the shack he had changed, disappointingly, into a suit jacket. But after all the church deal, when he came to lunch, he was back in jeans and the sweater and big camping boots. (Nice. His hands under the blue cuffs were brown and wide and somehow sensual. While we ate lunch I stared at them, and it changed my mood from an even non-caring to an intensity of some kind. We sat in the living room. The D's yakked with Mom and Dad in the kitchen. There was no one else in the living room with us. We sat, not close together and yet not apart, and did not think of much to talk about. I felt drowsy but still awake to the feeling between us. When I leaned my head against the pale blue cushion on the back of the couch he looked at me (I knew, tho' I didn't look up at him) and when he touched my hair or cupped his warm hand sideways and briefly, over my chin, the feeling rose. Any sound in the next room made him jump; I was amused. (Behind me Gerald and Ronny are giggling and plastering my lipstick on each other. The contrast in painful.) We got the cows, Paul, Rudy and Frank and I. Until almost to the cows we walked apart; I felt small beside him. When brothers dear were ahead he grabbed my hand. It was cold. His was warm and he warmed my fingertips in his pocket. (those boys are so revolting) He carried his gun. We had stopped in at the shack to get and load it. He emptied it carefully before he handed it to me for chasing the cow. I carried it over my shoulder on a ridge and imagined that I was a Macabee (Israeli) guerrilla sentry. Rudy stuck like an adoring leech. I couldn't shake him until, the cows all in, we went through the gate. Frank stopped, leaned his gun against the post. Rudy stopped also. I stared at him pointedly. He moved reluctantly after Paul. "Wanna see the Indian grave?" I asked Frank. "I already have, but I'll see it again with you." We walked up the hill. I remember being mildly jubilant. I have dreamed a long time of seeing this hill at night with a boy. Then I thought of Reiner, but now it is Frank. The moon was full, but there were thin rubbery clouds over it and trees between. The sky was red around us. A wind blew in from the lake. We passed the big rock. He knew the way as well as I did: the stone was leaning. I tugged at it. He pulled it straight. I was on the flat rock nearby. "I wonder if there's any dead Indian under here." I hopped on the rock disrespectfully. "Wouldn't be surprized." I stepped off. "They don't scare me after they've been dead fifty years." "No? and yet you got off that rock pretty quick." He closed in. Let's face it; it was a romantic evening. Even the cows hadn't spoiled it. When he zipped his jacket open, I wondered. He leaned my face into it. It was warm. He's really quite proud of it. "Day and a half's wages but as soon as I got into it it was worth it." I wasn't cold there. Lights sashayed across the fields below. "Who is it?" Frank was suddenly tense. "Want to get down a minute?" We crouched on the hill together. He searched my face. "Do you think they're looking for us?" "No, Frank, I'm sure they're not." They weren't. Oddly, we joined them in the car to listen (in the back seat) to "Anne of Green Gables" on the radio. I sat in one corner, he in the other. Tentatively, I slid my hand across the seat to him, only one small cold finger. He hooked it, and sometimes he squeezed when there was something we knew about. When Mathew soliliquized, "She's smart and pretty, and lovin' too," I wondered what he was thinking. Last night I felt again that he is Frank and still the wonderful guy he used to be. On the hill my mind repeated "warm and presious, warm, warm, and presious." He looked down at me. "I want you to promise something - promise you won't miss me." "Why?" "Because you're sixteen." "But you can't promise that. If you do, you do, and if you don't, you don't." "I guess you do. The way I do." When he ran back to lean his gun up against the shack I wanted to hide. It was dark enough so that I was hidden by just sitting on a rock. I waited for him. Our car came. He ran to open the gate. I waited. He was laughing and talking to Mom and Dad. I felt left out. I walked toward them into the light. They drove past leaving us behind. My Parent-type people get along well with him. Sitting in the living room I tried to reassure my friend. He has been uneasy. I explained this to Mom. "Frank, you don't have to be uneasy about coming over or living in the shack. Mom told me point blank that any friends of mine, boys or girls, were perfectly welcome at our place. So long as I don't elope. They won't kick you out. They aren't ogres." He wasn't uneasy after that. He left, after our late evening lunch with Blocks. He got up, shrugged into his touque and jacket, bolted. At the door, on hearing Mr Block shout after him, "It was nice to meet you again, Frank," he turned with a smile in his voice and said, "I was in such a hurry to forgot to say goodnight." I will ask him why. All day today people have asked, "Did you find the cows? Going cowherding again tonight? Was that your boyfriend, Ellie?" We did. I'm not. (It's raining) He is. I'm glad. Sept 26, Tuesday Yesterday was an odd day. I came to school expecting ribbing. I got it all day. I liked it until Gerald became a little too-too. All day I was remote from everyone around me. I always seem to be but yesterday was even worse. At noon and study period I scribbled journalations. As we got closer to the small house tilted against a hill I felt anticipation rising. His truck was on the yard. It was sleeting a little. I walked into the house expectantly with my smooth blue looseleaf on my head. The kitchen was empty. He came later. He and Dad sawed wood outside. He looked odd in his touque and his old jacket. His legs, tho', were appealingly thin (boys have lovely flat thighs) in tight jeans. I began to feel different, angry and resentful for some reason I couldn't recognize. I growled. When Frank came in for lunch I stuck my tongue out at him under the table. Cream splattered all over me when I butterred. The towel fell in the used oil and oil dribbled over my legs when I fished it out. I didn't talk to him and I didn't smile at him. When they were outside I cleaned up angrily. I needed fresh air, I decided. While changing after volunteering to help shovel grain I asked Mom why I was so cantankerous. She said she had a pretty fair idea. I asked to be told. She said, "better wait 'till you're in a better mood." I think I knew, too, faintly. She said, as I walked out, "they'll be taking their guns along to see if they can find a few chickens." "Oh, great," I snapped. "... when men get together with guns they never see anything else," Mom said. I detected amused understanding and sympathy. A "between us women" feeling. In the truck I carefully avoided touching Frank. To avoid his seeing my face, I yanked the kerchief down over my forehead as far as I could. He talked to Daddy. Paul was silent, as I was. I avoided him outside too, answered him briefly, crawled out the other side of the truck, talked animatedly to Paul, and did just everything I could, pointedly, to be distant. They went off to shoot. I shovelled vehemently, alone. A soft, pretty, grey mouse tumbled out of the oats near me, a dear little mouse with bright, frightened eyes. He stopped to stare at me. I touched his smooth back with one finger and crooned to him. He scrambled away into a pile of oats, desperate to get away from me. The men came back. Frank was not with them. I don't care, I thought. I don't care if he's dead. Then, contradicting myself, I mused, Today he is even more a stranger, a peculiar looking stranger with a European, sharp, face, whose hair is tumbled and whose eyes are bold and blue. He seems to know me well. He laughs down at me. He knows something is bothering me and he glances curiously at my tight face. He acts almost as tho' he will touch me. But I do not know him. I do not know who this strange man is. Why is he here? What does he want with me? This continued until long after supper. Mom and I laughingly referred to it as my "block." In the truck Frank tentatively pulled my kerchief back. Without looking at him I pulled it forward, further than before. "When you have your kerchief so far forward you remind me of a Turkish woman with a veil," he said mildly. I sat sullenly and wanted (yet not wanting to) to go to bed and leave him with Daddy, discussing guns and crops. I stood at the wall. The butter got made. Rudy went to bed. Judy read in our room. Paul dragged his books away. Dad went out, and then to bed. Mom took a lamp and disappeared. We were alone. His eyes began to thaw me slowly. They stirred me up gradually, and warmth began to move back into my smile. He held my hands, both, across the corner of the table with his square brown ones. Both of us sat with our heads on our arms, not touching, when his voice tautened and he said, "I didn't have any technique. It was all just natural. I didn't do anything. I don't know how it ever happened." There was a breathless feeling that always comes when we talk about love. He didn't say goodnight until long after, and he did it tenderly. It was the same again. Sept 28, Thursday - He has what all men should have, tenderness. When I told him that I could tell he has imagination, I was thinking of that. Tenderness, I think, involves quite a bit of imagination. He and I "went out" last night. It was fun. I remember the sharp wind and the darkness when I stepped outside with him. The bumps in the road that were cushioned by his jacket, and the blue sweater, and his shoulder. The wind driving brittle leaves down the street at Sexsmith. Walking down board sidewalks. The pretty white haired old lady with her curls and pink scalp and the smile that is identical to her great niece's. The warm, bright kitchen and the rocking chair. The enclosing coldness of the wind and the dry rustling grass as we clambered back into the truck. The row of greenish lights that was Sexsmith. A deep curve in the road (in spite of the fact that he was hugging the wrong curve, we always stayed on the road - only my back developed an S-curve) that dipped and tickled the bottoms of our stomachs. The musky yellow light on his face when he shaved. He says things that no one else could say. On the road, when we swerved sharply, he said, "relax! Do you think I'd land you in the ditch?" and fished me out of my cold corner. Clambering back into the truck out of the cold, he said, "We're going to have to make like the partridges; when it's cold they get together in little groups to keep warm." And so we made like the partridges and it worked very well - the heater hummed and soon it was hot - cognac warm! (I don't know what hot cognac is - not even what cognac is but it sounds warm, she said defiantly) "What do the partridges do when they get warm?" I asked. They spread out, of course. "They unzip," he said, and unzipped. - He is good for gemeinschaft. We sat in the truck outside our house with the lights on for a whole twenty minutes after making our 11 o'clock curfew. The motor was on, and we could feel its rhythmic pulse. We talked. He touched me and I thought, this is so natural, his touching me. This is so sweet it makes him something more than a stranger. I don't feel shy anymore about touching him either. Like now, I can touch his hair, curl a little around my finger and tug it down over his forehead (it is crisp and stubborn. Sometimes when the light is right it looks lighter, almost frosted, at the ends) I can tell him how much I like him without saying a word, by transmitting tenderness through my fingers - as he does. He said, "When the party is over I can pick up the pieces and burn them." "By then, you won't care any more." "Maybe you're right." It's a song, 'When the party's over, I'll be there to take you home' - if someone doesn't beat me to it ..." "And if someone does beat me to it, I'll pick up the pieces and burn them and say 'that's life,' I guess." "Maybe there won't even be any pieces. Maybe it will just be a vaporization. I think so, Frank. Probably quite painless." "No - I think I'll burn pieces." "You can roast weiners. Over the fire, you know. And marshmallows. You'll invite your friends " "Friends?" he interrupted. "... and have a gay old time. "No," he said. I watched his lips form the word. "There won't be much gaiety." "I don't know why I'm talking like this," he said suddenly. I don't know either. But maybe he's been wondering about it. He has perhaps been wondering about other things too. I have. About what he said on Sunday. I asked him as I'd wanted to. "I still haven't been able to figure out what you meant on Sunday when you said ..." "Said what?" "... said something about that I wasn't supposed to miss you. Whyfore?" "You just aren't supposed to miss me a lot once in a while. You're supposed to miss me a little all the time. I miss you a little all the time. And I think of you a little all the time." I found myself thinking continually, I love you. I love you. I love you but I can't and won't say it. I said, instead, "You're so nice," and my voice was very small and muffled in his collar. Sometimes the "feeling" at a "time like this" is almost like a pulse. It fluctuates. "Lightly, lightly," to "oh, oh, o-o-oh." Smoothly, back and forth from mood to mood. We will sit apart, or he will touch my face lightly, and then the other mood sweeps in and his arm tightens. My fingers on his neck tighten too, and the warm spot where his hand is spreads until my ribs crackle. (nearly.) And then again it is "lightly, lightly," as we look at each other and smile. He laughed once, last night, in a new way. He sounded about eighteen and happy. It sounded right and fitting because we both were - happy & young, but touched with knowingness. Sept 29 Mother & Judy went to a meeting; Paul & Rudy & Dad went to bed; Frank was tired; I was too. But we sat around in the kitchen anyway. There were millions of stars showing - it was a brittle night - clear & sharp edged & crisp, like a piece of ice over a puddle on a fall morning. It was cold by the windows where I kneeled on a chair to look out, but just a soft coldness mixed with the soft warmness of his personality & his tenderness & his touch. There was a disturbing note. His voice, which I like because it is much different from any of the "other voices", became low and husky from whispering. "Ellie, I want you. I don't want anybody else." "... you're going to be an educated girl. I hope some bright college boy doesn't get the same idea ..." I found myself thinking defiantly, I hope some bright college boy does. When I moved away and dropped my eyes he said, Ellie what's wrong? Frank, I thought, please. Please don't make any long-range plans with me in them. I'm sixteen. I have a future I want to work out and find. I don't want to belong to anyone, not even you, for at least ten years. In ten years you'll be 31. Uh-uh. But how can I tell you? How can I explain without hurting you? How can I say, "Frank, do not be so serious. Be eighteen instead of twenty-one. don't like me so much because I am frightened of such adult feeling. Don't think of me as always being as I am now. I will soon like someone else better than I do you, and I am a coquette to begin with. Think of now, not forever, not even tomorrow. Only now. But how shall I tell you? Oct 1 Sunday He is gone. Today he was handsome and we laughed a lot. He came home from church in his suit and helped us make the fire. He changed into the blue sweater for dinner. He sat in Daddy's chair & I sat in Mom's because they'd gone to Crooked Creek. The kids were all home. I made dinner but he made the coffee because I didn't know how - it was strong & creamy & exactly right. I liked this coffee, his coffee. After Judy had (slowly, painfully slowly) cleared the table we sat across it, not touching, & talking about insignificant things. I can't remember anything we said. Then he got up to go and pack the rest of his stuff. I put on more lipstick & more eyeshadow and was coming from "over the hill" when he arrived. He came in, handed around four cookies from Mrs Seimens. ("gives indications of being half-cracked") He watched me solemnly while I ate it & then said abruptly, "Well, the cookie's gone now. I guess I'll go." "Now?!" I asked. "Gotta go sometime. This isn't like a greyhound - they just leave. I've got to go myself." He went to the door. My mind shouted now? now? You can't go! Now? Already? No, no. He opened the door & he stepped out. On the step he turned, said goodbye to Rudy, Paul, (he said, "Goodbye Frank" solemnly) and Judy. (who grinned knowingly) Then he turned to me. He was outside. It was windy. I was still inside, but the door hid me from the kids. I could see the blue from my sweater reflected on my fingernails while he held my hand against his travelling clothes. (they had a dribble of partridge blood on them) We talked inanely. "What I have to do is shut this door slowly now." "My arm will stay on that side. What will you do with half an arm? If a cop stops you you'll have a bit of explaining to do " "He'll be looking around for a corpse." "and you'll have to bring it back to prove it matches." "You should wear more green the color of your blouse & your gloves." "No, Frank." "Yes." "No." "Yes. It makes you look the way you described Sally. Real good. Like a chocolated coated ice cream cone. Good." This morning while decorously in the vestibule before church he said, "you look sorta special this morning. You always look sorta special." "And you always tell me about it. I'm glad you think so." "Maybe if you tell a girl often she stays young longer." This relates back to a conversation we had in the living room while Ma'n'Pa bathed. He was telling me about how a girl loses that certain "something" after she turns 21, and about how men don't. "but sometimes I feel thirty already," he said. "I know. Sometimes I feel so old & tired & ugly." He cupped my face quickly. "Take that last part back," he demanded. "I didn't say I always felt that way, just sometimes," I protested. "Forget that last. Take it back. A girl is as pretty as she thinks she is." "Um-um, Frank. No. That's not quite it. A girl is as pretty as a guy thinks she is." "Oh. Yes." And his eyes told me I was almost, very nearly, beautiful. - Back to our tender apschied. "Goodbye," he said. "See you," I said. "See you. Sometime. Not for a long time tho'." I hadn't realized until then how long it really is going to be. Maybe I won't ever see him again. Maybe not for years, a whole year, when even a month is forever. (That would be twelve forevers. By then maybe I shall be caught up in my journal) Yesterday morning when we squatted on the warm hill with the sun being blown through us, he said, "Maybe I can help you celebrate your seventeen birthday." It will be long. The thought of how final this really is, was, is, a scratch across my heart. I bit my lip & hung my head so that he would not see my tears. He tried to lift my chin and when I held it stubbornly firm he stepped down a step or two & looked up into my face. He gathered me up & the moment momentarily blotted out tomorrow because he was crushing me until I gasped. I stepped out the door. His arm behind me pulled it firmly shut & I found my self being lifted violently down in a desperate grip. He is a strong man, & my strength is made weakness in his strength. His eyes looking into mine were always solemn & questioning. Mine dropped to let his pass them to my face, and right into my shivering heart. You can't go, it said again and again. You can't. But he did. "Wanna walk me to the truck?" he said, "I always walked you to the door. This is a little different." I did. The front seat was full of stuff & the door was open, ready to go. He wrapped his arms around me again. "I'll have to count to ten," he said. "One ..." he began, and his voice didn't even hezitate before saying "ten." "I'm going to be glad to see those miles slide away under my wheels" he told me yesterday, and in direct contradiction, "if anybody tries to persuade me I'd probably stay too long." He explained, "I will be glad to go home. Everything solid that I know is there. This is beautiful country, but I doubt that I'll ever live here." "What about your Nass River Valley?" "That's why." "I thought so," I said softly. Oh, I'm so glad I know Lloyd Frank Doerksen. I'm glad my solitude has been disturbed & unbalanced by his. - At "ten" he let me go & climbed in. I wanted to fly back to him but I stayed back a ways from the window as he started the motor. (No! no! My heart shrieked. I could hear it above the motor's sound.) He grabbed my hand. His fingernails are square & black & rough. His fingers are short & square. His hands are calloused but they speak in whispers, softly. My hands are long & thin. Sometimes I grip one with the other to see if they really do seem fragile & they do because the bones feel soft, like a kitten's bones. My fingernails are sophisticated now, & pink. His hand held mine fiercely. He began to move slowly away. Our hands were torn apart. He stopped to wave at the gate, & looked back continually. On the highway he looked back too, toward my alone-ly, tumble-haired (he messed it all up - for the last time) small figure beside the house. The sun was out for the first time today. It glinted on the red truck. Then Frank drove over the hill & he was gone. October 2 Got a heavy 20 lessons of French correspondence and also my psychology. Oct 2 Monday There are so many things to remember about this week. All the little things he said & we felt are skittering so quickly into the little far corners of my mind. Friday night was one of the times I must not forget. Already it seems long ago. We had supper early - I made it & Frank was amused by my scuttling around in the kitchen. While he was eating there was a knock on the door - Janeen & Marlys were there. They stood in the shadowy corner, & the lamps were't lit yet. Frank didn't look at them but stared straight ahead & kept eating. His back was toward them. Conversation was unimportant but not uneasy. Frank, tho', was uneasy. He was in his old clothes & not shaved & quite rumpled up. She was wearing a gold-colored jacket & a slim skirt & didn't look particularly anything. I did introduce them. There were few words & probably mutual disappointment. There was a new ring on her hand - a Sexsmith school ring - "Already!" I exclaimed. "I know it's terrible, but that's just how I am," she fluttered. Then they left. Frank made a few cynical remarks & was in a bad mood until he went & changed. He came back in his black pants and blue sweater & lovely black jacket. I had brushed my blue & brown jumper suit until it was sleek, & I was wearing a sheer & frilly green blouse under it. ("I'll confess it's Judy's, & was somebody else's before that" - he didn't mind & was amused that I told him.) He walked in gaily. "Ellie ready yet?" he asked. "She'll be down in about a half hour. Last time I saw her she was taking out her rollers. She should be up to her eyebrow pencil by now." "I can't wait that long. I'll take the girl in the mauve coat then." So he did. The truck was cold. On the way to the highway, he drove with two hands & we talked happily. At the highway he reached over & I was not at all cold after that. The greenish lights of Sexsmith were behind us, and Clairmont's too. We came to the top of the hill just before Grande Prairie & the lights below were gorgeous. I leaned forward & breathed deeply until we were among them. We parked just on the other side of Richmond. There were crowds & lights & it was exhilerating to walk past people & to meet people I knew with my hand (in short green gloves) in his hand. We asked for a hobby shop in the bookstore & bought a book binder for Paul & a one-year diary (Frank's). At Gumpy's Hobby Shop we spent a languid half hour buying model planes for Paul. There was a boy there who interested me - he was tall & lean & looked foreign. I thought of Stephen in "Prelude" when I saw him. He even looked a little like Van Cliburn. His hair was curly in the same way and his fingers were long. He had a sensitive face. He was wearing a suit with a sports shirt under it, which was the reason for his looking like an ausländer. (spelling?) He interested me because he was different. He didn't pay any attention to me tho', & had either a great deal of calm or a great deal of shyness. After we got out of Gumpy's we stowed our stuff. At the door, while he was putting things in, I said something silly - I can't remember what it was - but he closed the door calmly, & then calmly hugged me on the street, just off Richmond Avenue. We pushed through crowds outside the theatre, I found it exhilerating to be among them & pushed by them & near to so many of them. At the Bamboo Gardens we paused, walked back to Joe's, went in, bought a pkg. of gum just so he could "retire gracefully," walked out, & went back to the Gardens. It was a bit shabby, but the atmosphere was good, & the food too, when it came finally - a plate of shrimp rice, some steamed rice, and some kind of chicken something Chow Mein with almonds & all kinds of good things in it. M-m-m. A thin girl & a boy with quirked eyebrows were beside us at the very back. I dug into my plate enthusiastically & it was no trouble at all to polish off all the plates. He commented on my blouse, evidently liked that color on me. At supper he said "I haven't seen you in that color of green before, have I?" and after he'd written that day up in his diary he let me read it. "She was wearing a greenish blouse that gave her a sort of lassy quality." (also - "what a girl 'money can't buy you'") As a sideline - isn't it interesting that both boys I've ever dated more than once have fallen promptly & enthusiastically in love with me - and then started to keep a diary! It was good to be out with him again. We were happy with almost no reservations. I was. Maybe he wasn't - I don't know. At the door when we were at home again he wanted to get me in fast - it was pretty late. I was in no hurry, but he is so honorable. However - he did stop when we were outside, & closed in. We stood just at the tailgate in the wind and laughed. "You're a lucky person," he said. "Whyfore?" "Because you enjoy living." I clambered up onto the steps. I touched the top of his head. "I feel like a little boy when you do that," he said. I touched my lips to his forehead, & began to dart inside, meaning to have the last word but he caught me & got the last word anyway, as he has every night. I went inside & glowed. Mom was awake. I slipped in and tried the enthusiasm method, which worked well. And then I went to bed. Something just now made me think of last Sunday night, of the hill in the wind and the glorious sky and his cold, cold cheek. On Saturday morning everything was sunny all day. I was never sure until evening that he would stay until Sunday. When he was chopping wood energetically at the top of the hill I ran out in my rolled up blue jeans, white sneakers, the light green shirtwaist, & a pony tail to talk to him. The sky was blue & the leaves were blown & golden. We sat crosslegged on the earth amid chips & sawdust and were friends. Then I had to run back in to the house to clean my room & he went back to hacking wood up. In the afternoon we coaxed Daddy into helping us catch the horses so we could ride. He got onto Buck & we ran out to the field & chased them in, two heavy white mares, and Red. While Frank held Buck he lept to Red's back & rode him without a bridle. It was beautiful. When Red was bridled, Daddy gave me a boost up. Red sidestepped nervously as Daddy tried to hand me the reins. When I had them in one hand, Red suddenly rocketed away. I reached calmly for his mane as he streaked across the field. He was uncontrollable. Judy & Paul told me later that it had looked as if I had him completely under control & was calmly galloping him. I wasn't! I don't remember fear tho', only a small concern when he headed for the barbed-wire fence. As he began to swerve, his back became slippery and I catapulted off. A cloud of dust rose. Daddy galloped toward me on Buck. Frank ran toward me. I was on my feet before he got there tho' & he brushed off my dusty gold canvas (Daddy's) shoulders. My barrette was lying on the ground, open. Judy put it away for me. Nobody seemed very concerned. I wonder if Frank was worried at all when he saw me fly through the air? He quipped, later, "I didn't think you were hurt because of the way you fell. You lit on your back end." But I just wonder if his heart jumped a little. I saw him ride Buck; he clamped his teeth & held him with an iron gauntlet that I could almost see, (and a banner flying too) But he didn't stay on long - vaulted off & exclaimed how strong he was. "We'll go dig some potatos," he told Daddy. When Daddy was almost to the bush, he said, "He's far enough now. Come on." We ran up to the fence & set up a tin can. Paul shot about 11 times. I tried. It hit the can - but how could it have missed? I was sprawled flat ("right leg straight from the gun, left at an angle") with the 22 propped on a rock & Frank steadied the barrel the first time. I got it the second time too, & the third. ("deadly!") We sat in the grass & watched. He knocked a penny through a tin can. He hit a fence post at 90 yards. We dug potatos. I was his special plant-puller-outer. The kids picked up the potatos. Mom came after a while, & Daddy hauled in Frank & Paul to thresh. I didn't see him again until supper. After supper we sat in the living room to visit while Mom & Dad bathed. Paul & Rudy fell asleep. Soon the cats did too. Judy was in her room. Mom & Dad talked quietly in the kitchen. Soon they went to bed too. The house became quiet. Mom stuck her head out her door. Frank dropped my hand at the first squeak & looked so sober & righteous I could have giggled. "Let the cats out before you go to bed, eh, Ellie?" she smiled. When the door was shut Frank jumped up to go home. He watched me crawling around looking for cats, then "enfolded." I remember feeling my bones, all down my side, bumping his side. And then he got the last word very quickly and ran home to his cold shack on the hill among the trees. When Mom & I took potatoes to the shack in the afternoon I secretively snuggled my face into his blue sleeping bag. The lining was soft, and where his head is there was the intimate smell of his shaving lotion. He would have laughed had he seen me then. October 4 Mom and Judy got their hair done at Sheehan's. Finished a long essay. October 7 I met a boy last night in a dream who is a boy I want to meet in real life. Carl - tall and very lean, and blond haired. His eyes were a soft brown, and he had long tangled lashes like Alva Dommer. He was mysterious - I didn't know any more about him than that his name was Carl and he said he'd lived in Chetwynd and that he attracted me. He was casual about me - seemed to prefer Edith Janzen as much or more. He drove confidently with his long fingers holding the steering wheel easily. For the record - remember this & see if it's true, Ellie - I have I feeling that if I marry I will marry a blond man. It's just a strong feeling. Funny how I'm green-pastures minded about men. Even when I'm in love & all the trimmings with Frank - or somebody - my attention wanders to a blond crew cut and a square-jawed smile. I'm referring to, at the moment, Mr. Block's (one of them) brother Henry. But it is often someone else. Oct. 8 A car moves past slowly on the other side of a wall of rain and wind. Its lights glow out in the darkness like embers. I cannot see it but I know there is a car between those lights & that in that car are people. I think of times & people I have known and stare through the window into a nothingness. The window is misted over. I think of a patchwork of scenes - Steinbach in the sunlight; a strawberry patch; and people - Lothar Edigar, (the sunny last day I was at York Farms when I ran to the end of the railroad car and his head suddenly came over the top of the ladder - he was always golden haired and laughing. When I walked through the warehouse I'd look at his incredibly long body in blue pants & a blue plaid shirt leaning against the weight of a "basket" and the rediculous parody would come to me, "a thing of beauty is a boy forever.") and Grandma ( I see her always as walking toward the living room. Her thin body is very long and her shoulders curve forward. Her ankles move slowly, hypnotically, forward after each other under the hem of her long skirt. A long twist of thin hair lies down her back. She is old. I accidentally saw her once when she was dressing. She was bare to the waist and her skin was unwrinkled and white there. Her breasts were flattened, but still soft. Perhaps a woman's body is beautiful even when she is old) And I see patches of things I have dreamed & people I have been & things I wish for. The room is warm and my chair is soft. I feel tears in my eyes, and a strange restlessness grows in me. It is the beginning of winter. I thought of something today. Time isn't years and hours, it is just the space of living between high spots. I recognized the reality of time measured, not in months and moments, but in memories. Time is not real, it is not a thing. A clock does not tick out minutes and hours. Its ticking only keeps the rhythm, marks the time, of living. You do not think, "in July, 2 months and three weeks ago;" you say this but you translate time into something you can understand. You think "when I was picking strawberries. When the world was sun and green leaves and red berries. Frank." This is time measured in memories. Not "a month ago", but "Harold Remple." Not a week, but "when Frank was here." Not ten years ago in ten years, but "when I was sixteen and pretty." Time is not even-lengthed minutes. Minutes aren't standardized. They can be jubilant or dead. A week can be forever. The future isn't any further than tomorrow. The rest is "when" - when I grow up, when I become beautiful. Time is not future and past, it is "when" and "since" and now. October 9 Made pumpkin pie. Thought about Frank. My fingernails are getting quite nice. We're planning our new house. October 10 Had an amazingly good time at Nick Seibert's when I went over to play "Bid" Rook. We listened to music (piano) and "Murder at Midnight" and chewed candy and gum. Dark road.
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