Finding My Own Way (7 page)

“Not for money,” he admitted. “Traded what was left of the old frames and got that and two new tires.”

I took a little spin around the driveway, Ernie at my heels. “You two are the best neighbours,” I grinned, braking in front of them, wanting to hug them both.

“None of that, now.” Mrs. McIntyre waved her apron at me. “Henry'll put your bike into the pickup and run you home.”

“He will not! He's tired. I can put the milk and eggs here in the basket, see? C'mon, Ernie. Race you back!” My heart felt as if it would burst.

The next day, as soon as I was satisfied that the inside of the little house was in reasonable order, I tackled the job of pulling weeds from the flowerbeds. Nan's perennials had bloomed again in spite of our neglect, the overblown peony blossoms spent now and weeping silky petals. The irises too were finished, and I spent a frustrating hour trying to yank out the grass that choked them. Finally, I fetched the scissors, trimming the iris, grass and all, down to four inches. The sun was scorching the back of my neck, and I decided to leave the gardening until later in the day. I returned instead to Alex's writing table, where I'd left my journal earlier.

A glass of water in one hand, I opened the journal and read what I'd written that morning. “I feel like Robinson Crusoe, an adventurer on my own, having to make careful plans.” I wrote about what I hoped to do tomorrow and the next day, about the kindness of friends. In the back of the book I'd begun an account of expenses. The McIntyres, I was determined, were not going to keep me in milk and eggs indefinitely. I'd spent nearly eight dollars of the thirty Irene had given me to get me started, just on groceries. The inheritance money
was in the bank in Pinkney Corners, but I really did not want to touch that.

There was an electric bill to pay, four times a year. As well as lighting the house, the electricity powered an ageing pressure pump that wheezed away under the kitchen counter, pulling water from the well in the backyard. I had a good supply of firewood piled against the back kitchen, but I'd need another load before winter was over. The taxes on the place were twenty-eight dollars, paid quarterly. I knew Irene thought that I'd be back with her before any of these bills would have to be paid, but since that was not my intention, a job was the only answer.

The McIntyres had suggested I put my name in at the employment office to pick berries. Strawberry season was already underway. I remembered that a number of teenagers used to go to Tillsonburg every summer to pick tobacco. It was hard work, everyone said, but good money. They would arrive back in Pinkney Corners at the end of the season, their fingers stained from the tobacco leaves, sporting deep suntans that the rest of us would envy. But I did not want a job that meant leaving home.

When I closed my journal, I wrote to Aunt Irene and put the letter in the mailbox out at the road, with a nickel on top to cover the cost of the stamp. That done, and feeling pleased as well with the appearance of my flowerbeds along the driveway, I decided to reward myself. What I wanted was a good book to read.

In the curtained orange crate Alex used as a bedside stand, I found the stack of books she had been reading last summer. Four were about the Russian Revolution. I
had not realized her interest in Russian history had been this intense.

Sitting on the floor beside the bed, I flipped through the books, finding one with pictures of the young Romanov children, their beautiful faces bearing sad expressions. With those photographs, Anastasia Nicholaevna, who had been only a princess in my mother's stories before this, seemed much more real.

The only Russian I had ever met was the Countess. Not for the first time, it struck me as odd that she should be a friend of my grandmother's. And if she really was a Countess, how did she end up in Pinkney Corners, of all places? I would love to find out more about the woman, but I realized I did not even know her name. I wondered if the books meant Alex too had wanted to know more. Was it the Countess' story that my mother wanted to write?

There was a family tree in the back of one of the books, and I was surprised to discover a direct link between the Romanovs and the British royal family. These murdered people, cousins of our own Queen!

I took one of the books and an old lawn chair from the shed down to the river. I had just seated myself with care, mindful of the age of the canvas seat beneath me, when Ernie, who had been wading, suddenly began to bark. Supposing that he had startled a muskrat, I was surprised when a man emerged from the willows along the riverbank.

He was not a big man, and his proportions were rather slight. His hair was dark and neatly trimmed, his clothing, from this distance anyway—brown slacks, a short-sleeved shirt in a lighter shade—was ordinary. He
had tied the sleeves of a navy windbreaker around his waist. “Here, boy. Good boy,” I heard him coax the dog. Ernie, in spite of his barking, was backing away from the stranger. Some watchdog he was turning out to be! The whereabouts of the scissors I'd been using earlier in the garden flashed through my mind.

At that instant, I heard the roar of a motorcycle approaching on the road above us, growing louder until, mercifully, it turned into my laneway and stopped. Ernie bounded away, ready to turn his attention to this new diversion.

“Hi, down there! Welcome home!” someone hailed. I was up the bank in thirty seconds flat. Michael Pacey stood straddling the machine with a female passenger behind him.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the man walking quickly up from the river, angling away from the house.

Michael turned his gaze in the direction of the disappearing figure. “You got company?”

“I don't know who he was,” I said.

“Better watch those strange men,” Michael teased. He smoothed the sides of his fair hair. “Well now, let me get a look at you. Mother said you were back.”

The girl on the seat behind him kept her hands glued to his waist. It was Anna Nobles, the high school beauty queen the year I left. I greeted her and received the slightest nod in return.

“I've got to write to Margaret,” I said to Michael. “I forgot to get her address from your mother.”

“It's some place on Sparrow Lake,” Michael said. “I'll
get it for you.” His blue eyes took in my backyard, the flowerbeds I'd struggled over. “So, how's the old place look to you?” he asked, with a warm smile.

“So-so,” I replied. “Like home.”

Michael frowned. “You all by yourself here?”

“Of course.”

“Boy, you really are all grown up,” he remarked in an admiring tone.

“Come on, Michael,” Anna cut in, complaining. “It's hot.”

I wished I could somehow keep Michael there. “When did you get a motorcycle?” I asked.

“Just this spring. I'm working at the drugstore now, you know. Saved up all year. It's second-hand, but runs like a top. Want me to come back and give you a ride?”

“Oh, no, you don't!” Anna warned. “You're not dumping me off, just like that.”

“See what I have to put up with?” grinned Michael, pretending that he minded.

I took a step backwards so that he could turn the machine around. If only he had been by himself. I couldn't ask him to stay and beat the bushes for strange men, with Anna Nobles sitting there, impatient to be off.

Michael jumped on the starter and, with Anna clinging to him more tightly than ever, her face pressed to his strong back, they were gone.

The roar of the motorcycle was still in my ears when I retrieved Alex's book from the riverbank and went inside, taking Ernie with me. Had the stranger truly left, or was he somewhere watching the house? Could this be the same person who had broken in while I was away?

Although it was still daylight, I pulled down the blinds on all the windows. I dragged a chair from the kitchen and wedged the back of it under the knob on the front door, and did the same at the back. Then Ernie and I sat and listened to the silence.

After a while, I began to prepare supper, breaking spaghetti into the pot of soup I'd made with a bone too meaty to give to Ernie and chastising myself for letting my imagination get the better of me. I hadn't been afraid before. So, why was I acting this way? This man wasn't the first to hike along the riverbank.

After we'd eaten, Ernie pattered around the kitchen, sniffing at the doors, wanting out. I went to the outside door with him and stood watching while he did his business. “Ernie, stay here! Ernie, don't go so far!”

The dog ambled down toward the river, stopping to look back over his shoulder, expecting me to join him. By the way he lapped at the water and then sauntered around the property, I was reassured that there were no strangers lurking in the shadows.

Nonetheless, in spite of my determination to keep expenses down, I left the lights on when I went up to bed that night. For the first time, I wondered if I'd been foolhardy to consider living on my own. The break-in had disturbed me more than I had wanted to admit. Was this irrational fear the price I was to pay for it?

I heard Ernie come upstairs, circle three times on the mat beside me and lie down, his large body bumping against my bed. He gave a contented sigh and fell asleep long before I did.

You can leave your name and number,” the woman at the employment office told me the next morning. She was wearing a red polka dot sundress, with little ruffled wings over the shoulders. “Pickers come and go,” she said.

“I haven't got a phone,” I admitted. “I'll put down my neighbours' number. They'd be happy to take a message for me. Do you know when the job starts?”

The woman took the sheet of paper from me and quickly scanned what I'd written. “Strawberries are on now. It's hot work and the berries are right on the ground.”

“I've got a strong back,” I said.

“They pay by the basket,” she continued. “Strawberries are usually done by Dominion Day; then it'll be raspberries. You'll need to wear long sleeves for picking them.” She frowned again at the application. “I can tell you right now that the truck won't come down as far as your place. You'll have to get it at the corner.”

“I can do that,” I said.

Her lips widened in a perfunctory smile, then immediately narrowed again. “We'll call you if there's
anything.” When I left her she was trying to coax the ruffled wings to stand upright.

I could see William Thomas already at work in his office at the
Pinkney Mirror
when I stopped in front. The bell on the door tinkled as I opened it.

Mr. Thomas was bundling papers at a desk. He gave me an inquiring look over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses. “Yes?”

“It's Libby Eaton, Mr. Thomas. Remember?”

“Oh, of course it is! Libby!” A smile lit up his pleasantly craggy features. “How are you?” He was holding a stack of papers down with his elbow while trying to untangle a ball of twine, but he let everything drop as he took both my hands firmly in his.

“I'm fine,” I assured him. I looked back at the desk. “But it looks as if you might need some help.” Without waiting for his response, I took up the ball of twine and handed him the loose end. “I've moved back home now, you know.”

“Have you indeed? How'd you ever get Irene to leave Toronto?”

“I'm here on my own, actually,” I said.

Mr. Thomas took the bundle of papers and dropped them down beside the front door, then turned to look at me more closely. “My goodness, if you aren't the image of Alex!” he exclaimed. “You must really miss her, Libby.”

I nodded. “I do, sir. I try not to think about it too much. Right now I'm concentrating on finding a job. That's why I'm here.”

“A job?” The notion seemed to surprise him. “What kind of a job?”

“Anything,” I admitted. “I wondered if you might be needing a reporter. I'm a very good writer. In fact, I've decided that's what I'd like to be.”

William Thomas drew another pile of newspapers towards him and busied himself with the string again. “A reporter, eh?”

“Or if you don't need a reporter,” I hastened to elaborate, “I can do just about anything. Housecleaning. Typing. Cooking, even. Mending.”

He ran a hand through his thick, grey hair, leaving it rumpled and standing on end. “Well now, Libby. I have someone who does my cooking and mending. And I'm not looking to hire anyone here at the paper at the present time.”

“I see. Well, what about a proof-reader? My mother always said you could use one.”

This time William Thomas laughed out loud.

“Or maybe you could just use someone to keep this office tidy,” I suggested, looking around at the overloaded tables, the shelves filled with toppled books and papers.

The newspaperman dropped into a chair on the far side of the desk. “Okay, I've got a few minutes. Let's talk.” He tilted back, lacing his hands behind his head. “Have a seat, Libby.” He indicated the room's only other chair. I drew it up across the desk from him. “Take the load off,” he invited.