A Fireproof Home for the Bride (7 page)

“I thought it was girls’ night,” Emmy said, stopping on the walk and glancing back to see if her mother was watching. Bev turned and gave Emmy a dazzling smile, her arm reaching into the car and her black-gloved hand ruffling the boy’s thick wave of upswept bangs.

“Never mind Howard. He’s my cousin. Right, Howie?”

“Sure thing, Sophie, whatever you say.” Howie nodded to the backseat and looked at Emmy. “Get in.”

“Sophie?” Emmy asked, but Bev just giggled and shook her short curls. Emmy slid across the smooth leather as Howie put the car into gear and jerked it an inch forward before gliding away from the curb.

“Like Sophia,” Howie said. “As in
Loren
.”

“Oh,” Emmy said, surprised by how low the car sat on the road; it was almost like sinking into a plush, comfortable couch. The space was warm, friendly.

“It sure is a beautiful night to be out, Emmy, don’t you think?” Bev asked, and then answered herself without waiting for Emmy’s response. “Yeah, just beautiful. We’re going to get an early spring this year. At least by Easter.” They drove down Eighth Street, and at Main Avenue Howie put on the signal to turn left.

“Isn’t
Ten Commandments
at the Fargo Theatre?” Emmy asked, attempting to sit forward on the seat in order to be heard.

“Oh, sure, kid,” Howie said. “We’re just going to pick up some more gals before going over to the Bison for a bite.”

Emmy reached into her pocket and pulled out the slip of paper her mother had given her. It was a two-dollar bill. Karin must have taken it from her egg money, and meant for the girls to share it. Emmy would do what she could to spend only her half.

Bev and Howie chatted away in the front seat as Emmy watched Moorhead fly past. So this is what it’s like to be a regular teenager, she thought, and felt a sudden nervous thrill. The air around her body took on a charge as the car started to go faster, and though she wanted to tell Howie to slow down, something about the way he gripped the steering wheel suggested he never would. Before she knew it, they had turned onto Highway 75, leaving the city limits behind. Emmy scooted to the middle of the wide seat in an effort to balance her increasing vertigo and could see in the near distance the winter-darkened arrow of the White Spot Drive-in. She’d heard about this burger joint for years and had driven past it once, but her family had never eaten there. In fact, they had never eaten out at a restaurant of any kind, only Sunday dinners at the church, where everyone brought a hot dish to pass.

In class Emmy thought Bev looked up to her, admired her even. But in this large car so far out of her element, Emmy felt again like a child, her legs barely touching the floor, as though the two in the front seat were parents about to take her out for ice cream. If it wasn’t already more than apparent that Howie was not Bev’s cousin, on the sharp corner turn into the drive-in Bev slid across the seat and curled up under Howie’s arm, causing Emmy to feel more keenly her solitary place in this equation.

Her loneliness didn’t last, though, as two girls from Emmy’s school burst into the car on either side of her. She recognized them instantly—Donna Kratz was in her English composition course and her younger sister Paula was in choir with Birdie.

“By golly, Bev, it’s about time,” Donna exclaimed, dropping onto the seat on Emmy’s left. Her soft blond hair fell in enviable waves from the edge of her thickly knit woolen hat to her shoulders. “Heya, Howie,” she said, then looked sidelong at Emmy for a moment. “Emmy, right?” she asked. Emmy nodded. Donna’s bright red wool coat was thick and fluffy, cutting the draft the girls had brought into the car. She removed her hat and worked at smoothing her hair back into place.

“Hey, aren’t you Birgitta’s sister?” Paula asked, pulling shut the other door and mirroring her sister’s grooming.

“Yes,” Emmy said. Birdie had taken to using her formal name around school, it seemed. The sight of Donna with her little sister caused in Emmy a feeling of regret that she had been so quick to jump into the car without even hesitating to wait a few minutes longer for her own.

“We were about to freeze out there, you know,” Donna said to Bev. “The keeper dropped us off centuries ago.”

“Centuries,” Paula agreed, fixing her lipstick in a small mirror. Though also gifted with thick tresses, she wasn’t as pretty as Donna—her small brown eyes were hidden behind heavy-rimmed glasses—but Paula had an air about her that promised something unexpected, something fun.

“So sorry!” Bev yelled over the grinding sound of the car backing up and tearing out of the lot. “We had to pick up Emmy.” Howie revved and then gunned the engine, flying down the few miles back to Moorhead. Emmy held on to her cute little crocheted cap, even though it was tied under her chin. Donna scooted Emmy aside so she could lean over the seat and talk to Howie and Bev.

“How about that drag last night?” she asked. Howie barely moved, but Donna didn’t seem to notice. “Crazy! Two Fargo South hotties blew out over at Hector Airport. Wish I could have seen the patch they laid on the tarmac.” She leaned all the way into the front seat and switched the radio station, turning to a song about a girl named Peggy Sue. “Buddy Holly just kills me!” Donna exclaimed. The hitch in the singer’s voice sounded to Emmy like a boy in stuttering love, his urgency causing her to feel just the slightest bit light-headed.

“Ix-nay on the ag-dray,” Bev said to Donna. “Howie wasn’t there, were you, darling?”

“Well,” Paula’s voice squeaked from Emmy’s other side. “Karla Kindlespire told Frannie Peterson that you were one of the rods.”

“This car?” Donna purred, stroking the top of the seat as she whispered something in Bev’s ear. The two girls giggled and Bev slapped at Donna’s hand playfully. Emmy suddenly realized that “best” did not mean
only
when it came to friendship.

They reached the Fargo side of the river, sailed onto Broadway, and joined a stream of cars that were slow moving and beautiful. An array of chrome-bright boats passed them as they looped around a parking lot in the middle of Broadway and started making their way north on the strip, past Herbst’s, Woolworth’s, and the Hotel Donaldson. When they reached the Bison Hotel, Howie eased the car into a recently vacated parking spot right in front of the building. He jumped out of the car and ran around to open Bev’s door, offering her a hand up to the curb. They walked into the café in front of the other two girls, and Emmy lagged a step behind, pulled by the seductive magnetism of these beautifully confident people. This was not at all what she had been expecting from the evening and she began to feel anxious with the swirl of possibility around her. She’d never felt this free or this scared in her life.

Passing through the door and smelling the hot fryer oil, hearing the clinking of silver against china, the chatter of a dozen or so happy voices—all of it made Emmy question her sense of reality. She knew her hunger was real, though, and as she sat down at the table, she found she couldn’t summon a single word. There was a piece of paper in front of her with letters and numbers, and slowly it dawned on her that it was a menu, but her eyes were too jumpy to make out anything on it other than the prices. Howie took the laminated cards away from the girls and insisted on ordering something called a “buck-nine” for everyone. The Kratz sisters giggled and Bev smiled with benevolent pride. The four friends chattered away about people Emmy didn’t know and about events that had transpired either before she moved into town or outside of her purview. She didn’t mind being left out of the jokes, and instead smiled and laughed along with a genuine spirit of belonging—a feeling she couldn’t remember having felt anywhere before.

“Oh, my Lord,” Donna sputtered as the plates of food were swiftly dealt to each place. “Did you hear about that girl who’s gone on a murder spree in Nebraska?”

“Caril Ann Fugate,” Paula answered, her long lashes nearly brushing the lenses that framed them. “She’s only fifteen, but she fell in love with a boy who’s older and he murdered her parents and baby sister. With a knife. Starkweather something.” She leaned in closer, her voice hushed for effect. “The radio says they’re on the road, headed north.”

“It’s crazy,” Howie said, one arm slung over the back of his chair, chewing a fried potato with his white teeth. “What if they’re headed up here?” He raised his eyebrows in mock horror, and Bev swatted his arm.

“Stop,” she said. “It’s not funny when people are scared.”

“That’s right,” Donna said. “They’ve been on the lam for three days. That’s long enough to drive here from Lincoln if you don’t stop.”

Paula dabbed at a spot of ketchup on her chin. “Can you imagine, the girl’s a whole year younger than me. They say it’s like Romeo and Juliet meets Bonnie and Clyde.”

Howie shook his head. “You all have some imagination.” He turned to Emmy. “What about you, kid. You scared?”

Emmy chewed and swallowed the bite of meat in her mouth and wiped her lips carefully while everyone looked at her. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” she said, trying not to sound stupid. “I can’t begin to imagine taking another life, much less what you’re saying.”

Bev’s eyes sparkled as she looked at Emmy. “You are by far the sweetest person I’ve ever met,” she said. “But you really do need to start living in this world, Emmy. I’m afraid of what it might do to you if you don’t.”

Emmy blushed and fell back to eating, chewing every bite carefully, as she’d been taught. The buck-nine was the best steak she’d ever had—small, about the size of a flattened baseball, and probably taken from the sirloin of the cow, but she couldn’t be entirely sure. She attempted to tune out the continued banter about the young murderous lovers, but the sordid details of one person stuffed into an outhouse and the baby sister being stabbed to death grabbed Emmy’s imagination and she hung on every horrible word.

When the waitress slapped a small slip of paper on the table, Emmy panicked. She didn’t see how she could possibly afford food this good. Her heart quickened and she drew the two-dollar bill out of her pocket, fumbled, dropped it on the floor, bent over to pick it up. She sat up in her chair as Howie pulled a long wallet attached to a chain from his back pocket and walked over to the till with cash in his hand. The other girls continued their conversation as though this was the natural order of things. They rose from the table and drew on their coats, collected their purses, and headed to the door like a flock of birds driven to casual coordination by instinct. Emmy remained in her chair, watching Howie pay a man at the counter. Howie began to leave, and then suddenly looked back at the table as if he had forgotten something. He slowly grinned and tipped his head toward the door, regarding Emmy as though she were a newly discovered species. Emmy leaped to her feat, ducked her head, and walked under his arm as he propped open the door. Catching a whiff of his earthy leather jacket and hair pomade, she closed her eyes against the draw of it and stumbled over the threshold. He caught her, the same hungry grin now one foot away from her face. Beads of sweat collected at her collar as she ran to the open door of the car, where she scooted into her place behind Bev and patted away the moisture, out of breath.

Howie moved the car onto Broadway, and just as quickly swerved out of the way of a pickup truck that had swung around the corner from Fourth Avenue. Emmy yelped as the brakes shuddered and she saw that the other vehicle was the Branns’ truck. Emmy caught a glimpse of Ambrose and the long dark hair of a girl sitting next to him. Some other girl out on the town, in a place that was meant to be Emmy’s. It seemed so casual and normal for young people to be out on a Saturday night, and yet her mother had kept their courting to parlors and the church basement. Even so, Ambrose was brazenly ignoring the customs of their courtship. Emmy felt as though she might be sick as the car swayed back into traffic.

“Get bent, Clyde!” Howie yelled out his window. At the next stoplight, Emmy watched the truck pull away as the girl’s head leaned closer toward Ambrose. Emmy coughed to try to quell her confusion.

“You okay, kid?” Donna asked, slapping her gently on the back.
Kid
had become Emmy’s name in this new crowd and she didn’t really mind its connotations of naïveté. She
was
naïve—about everything and everyone.

“I’m fine,” she said, smoothing her lap as the car bumped onto the highway.

“What a nosebleed,” Howie said, shaking a cigarette out of a pack, then handing it off to Bev. “Did you gals see that? Goddamn bumpkin.” Howie’s cutting assessment made Emmy slouch into her coat. She had to admit that from this swell car, Ambrose’s pickup truck looked rustic and mud splattered, his checked flannel cap a thing out of pace with the hatless boys with slicked-back hair who prowled the road in their showboats.

The cigarette pack made it to Emmy and she took one without pause. This seemed like the kind of thing that would move her forward into the company in which she rode, and besides, her parents had never prohibited her from smoking. Emmy tried to hold the dry white paper between her index and middle finger, the way she’d seen her father hold his, as she waited for the lighter to pop in the dash. Bev held the red coil to Howie’s as he drove; he inhaled and blew an enormous stream of smoke out of the window. She then lit the girls in the back and stuck the lighter in the dash to reheat it for herself. Emmy drew slightly on the smoke, holding it in her mouth and blowing out with the fear of looking useless. Nobody seemed to take much notice of her in any case, so she slowly began taking deeper and deeper inhales, the sweet tobacco scratching her throat in a way that made her want to pull in more.

The smell in the car was increasingly foreign—the combination of perfumes and Howie’s scent mixed with the smoke made Emmy’s head expand until she felt bigger than the girl she’d been two hours earlier, a girl who had been preparing to commit herself to marrying a man she clearly hardly knew. The ease with which the evening was unfolding lifted her thoughts to a higher plane. It would only be fair to give Ambrose a chance to explain his actions, but until he did, Emmy felt free to enjoy her evening as a grown-up woman without promises to be kept or made. If he was outside the limits set forth by their tiny society, so was she.