untied the kerchief, her faded blouse rode up showing a thick cloth pouch tied around her middle. What was it?
And where had Pearl gotten the money for a train ticket to Washington? Eddie remembered Pearl sneaking into the pool in summer and into Saltville’s movie theater through the exit door. At school, she ate from other students’ lunch pails. Pearl had been raised by a bootlegger uncle who never gave her anything except his daughter’s hand-me-downs. Eddie felt sorry for her.
But if Pearl had sneaked onto the train, she was about to get caught.
“Ladies,” the conductor gestured to Rachel and Eddie, “sit in your seats. Ticket, please,” he said to Pearl.
Eddie listened intently. His ticket punch clicked, meaning Pearl had a ticket.
After he punched their tickets, Rachel said, “I’m making one of your dreams come true this evening, Eddie. I’m treating you to dinner in the dining car.”
Eddie had told Rachel about her nights spent watching trains, longing to be on the inside, looking out the dining car’s window. “Thank you,” she said and felt the pull of tears.
“Don’t cry, Bubula.” Rachel’s dimples appeared. “Our real lives started…” she checked her watch, “seventeen minutes ago. Nothing but blue skies ahead for us.”
She lowered the window, so they could feel the wind in their faces.
For fun, they played a word game Eddie had made up. “Aufregend,” Eddie said and waited for Rachel to give her a synonym in German. Rachel had been Eddie’s only advanced German student. While Eddie helped Rachel write in German and translate Goethe, Rachel taught Eddie some Yiddish, a language akin to German, but more fun.
Once a silver twilight descended, Rachel said, “Our reservation is for six. Let’s go.”
Eddie turned in her seat. “Pearl, I brought fried chicken for our dinner. Since we’re eating in the dining car, I hate for this to go to waste.” She offered the box over the seat.
“Happy to oblige, Eddie.” Pearl brought the box to her nose. “Saltville folks say your mama’s a right good cook.”
Eddie let this pass. Her mother was in the asylum at Kingsport again. Months before the rest of the family knew, Eddie sensed Mama’s mood turning blue. She tasted it in her mother’s heavy biscuits and felt it in the buttons she broke in the wringer washing machine. By the time Mama did nothing but rock on the porch, sometimes in her nightgown, all of Saltville knew. At the asylum, she would be given electric shock treatments that left her hollow-eyed but eventually more like her former self when she would return home, and the whole cycle began again.
Only this time, Eddie wouldn’t be there. The idea left her shaky with relief and fear.
In the dining car, a colored waiter in an elegant burgundy uniform showed them to a table covered with a white tablecloth, decorated by a single rose in a bud vase. The splendor of it all rushed at her. This was a day of firsts.
The car was filled with well-dressed diners, their voices rising in a pleasant babble accompanied by the silvery clink of knives and forks. The light above their table shone down as if they were on stage.
“Here I am on the inside looking out,” Eddie whispered. “My luftschloss come true.”
“Our sky castle, you mean.” Rachel adjusted the green ribbon holding back her long hair. “We did it, Bubula. We left Saltville.”Rachel shook salt from the shaker onto her palm and tossed it over her shoulder.
Eddie did the same. After the waiter brought their dinner, Eddie said, “To us, Schatzi.” They touched glasses of lemonade and sipped.
“You look like Veronica Lake.” Rachel lowered her voice. “Here we are Veronica and Elizabeth Taylor dining together. I hope some snoopy photographer doesn’t spoil things by snapping our picture for Photoplay.” She tilted her head, posing.
Eddie giggled in a way she hadn’t since girlhood, taking in her reflection in the window. She had released her thick blonde hair from its roll, and it fell into a perfect page boy. “We’re the only women in here not wearing hats.” She wanted to be modern, not improper.
“And the only women under forty.” Rachel rolled her eyes. “I meant to ask Pearl if she would be working for the Department of the Army, too.”
Eddie cut into her chicken pie, steam escaping its crust. “Rachel, I need to warn you about Pearl.” She set her fork down. “I doubt she has a job in Washington.”
Rachel arched an eyebrow. “Why don’t you ever trust people, Eddie?” Her voice had an edge. “Pearl wouldn’t say she had a job in Washington if she didn’t.”
“Yes, she would. When Pearl was my student, I caught her in plenty of lies. And she was impossible to teach.” Pearl had made jokes behind Eddie’s back, which got the other students laughing at their nervous young teacher.
Rachel leaned forward, her fingers rubbing her locket. One side of the heart contained Eddie’s photo, the other Rachel’s mother, who died four years ago. “You say you don’t want to be judgmental like your father. So don’t be.” Rachel’s voice gentled. “You’ve hurried through life, Eddie, finishing high school when there were only eleven grades, going through college in the wartime accelerated program. You’re only twenty. Slow down, have fun, and stop doubting everyone.”
Her words fell on fertile ground. Eddie was tired of being a mother to her seventeen-year-old twin sisters, a housekeeper for her father, and worst of all, her mother’s caretaker.
“You’re right. Off with mean Miss Smith, schoolmarm.” Eddie scrunched her features and pretended to toss away a mask. “From now on, I’m Eddie Smith sunny government girl.”
“That’s the spirit.” Rachel hummed along with music drifting from the club car. “Let’s join them once we finish.”
In the packed club car, the soldiers, sailors, and marines around the piano made room for them. They were singing a Rachel favorite, a silly song about mares and does eating oats.
To Eddie’s surprise, Pearl stood on the opposite side of the piano, singing, her pointed chin lifted, bliss on her freckled elf face. Eddie’s embroidered blue sweater was buttoned over Pearl’s blouse. Rachel gave Eddie a pointed look and glanced down at Pearl’s feet. Pearl wore the saddle shoes Rachel had kicked off.
Pearl glanced from Eddie to Rachel, as if she was afraid they would take their things. Eddie tried out a sunny, no-worry smile. After all, Pearl would be going her own way once they got to Washington. And good luck to her.
Pearl came from a family of notorious bootleggers, who lived far out in the woods so their stills wouldn’t be discovered. Pearl must need to escape Saltville, too.
Pearl shifted to stand next to Rachel, who rested an arm on Pearl’s shoulder and joined in the chorus. Eddie added her voice to theirs, and the three stood together singing as if they were the Andrews Sisters.
“A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead,” a soldier said. “I must be in heaven.”
With darkness pressing at the windows, they sang the miles away, really belting out Cole Porter’s, “Don’t Fence Me In,” their escape from Saltville anthem.
