Parlor Games A Novel

MY HUMBLE ORIGINS



FROM ILLINOIS TO MICHIGAN—1869–1884



For the longest time my mother claimed I was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Being French Canadian, she loved all things French. French women, she told me, grasp the importance of appearance and station—they never pass up a chance to impress with looks or feign eminence with the little white lie. And Eau Claire is a lovely name for a town. But I wasn’t actually born there. Not that the place of one’s birth matters much, but I’ve promised to tell the whole story.

I was born in 1869 in the village of Fox River Grove, about forty miles northwest of Chicago. My family moved away before I took my first steps, so I never explored the shores of the Fox River myself. But it was an auspicious place for my birth: It’s become a lovely resort area, with a gorgeous luxury hotel and famous ski jump.

Back in the 1860s, the Ojibwa Indians gathered in Fox River Grove every winter to sell furs and beadwork. My older brother, Paul, told me Papa used to visit their settlement and trade firewater for beaded necklaces and bracelets, which he sold to laborers in the area for gifts to send their wives. That Papa, he was an enterprising sort.

We came to reside in Fox River Grove because a Mr. Opardy had purchased eighty acres on the Fox River and set out to build a vacation estate there. When Papa heard about the big purchase, he hastened to Illinois and offered his services. He told Mr. Opardy that he’d managed a restaurant in Michigan, and Mr. Opardy hired him on the spot to cook for his building crew.

Papa had never actually managed anything before that job, but he always said you’ve got to sell what you’ve got, even if all you’ve got is salesmanship. By the time the cooking job ended, Papa had accumulated sufficient funds to move our family to Muskegon, Michigan. He secured a contract on a saloon, a simple log-cabin affair on the shores of Muskegon Lake. He named it Dancing Waters, but the locals called it The Watering Hole. Papa loved being by the water and dreamed of sailing up the St. Lawrence and all the way to France to see Paris, which he pronounced “Pa-REE.” Someday, he promised, he would take me there, to see the Seine and a ballet.

What can you say about a child’s life? My parents were strict about school. Papa lectured me dozens of times about how I’d need an education to land a well-to-do husband; he made me promise I’d never settle for some idler who rented a room over a tavern. After dinner each evening, Maman insisted that Paul and I sit at the table to recite from our McGuffey Reader while she stoked the stove and scrubbed the dinner plates and pots. I was always ahead of my classmates because of listening to Paul reel off his verb conjugations and multiplication tables. If you ask me, Maman made us recite our lessons as much for herself as for Paul and me—I believe it counted as entertainment for her, since Papa was away for long hours and she spent her days baking, laundering, cooking lye and potash into soap, and filling seamstress orders.

My fondest memories of childhood are the times I spent with Papa, especially my visits to the saloon. Papa always greeted me the same way, bracing his hands on the bar and announcing, “Gentlemen, chère Mimi has come to entertain us. Make way.”

The men hugging the bar would take their drinks in hand and ease back. Turning to me, Papa would hold out his arms and say, “Mimi, your admirers await. Come.”

I’d run in under the bar gate—I was little enough not to need to duck—and sprint toward him, striding high so as not to slip on the slick floorboards. He’d catch me in full stride, hoist me over his head, and swing me around. As soon as he plopped me onto the bar, I launched into my pirouettes, holding Papa’s hand as if we were ballet dancers. How I loved the sound of the men clapping and hooting. I don’t believe I’ve gotten the thrill of it out of my bones, even after all these years.

And to think some people claim I hate men. Such nonsense. Papa was the sweetest person I’ve ever known. Maybe if I could find a man who’s as carefree and cheerful as Papa I’d settle down. But, then, Papa wasn’t much for settling down himself. That’s what made life with him so exciting.

Ah, Papa. I miss him still. What a thrill it would be to recount all my adventures to him: I believe he’d be proud. But when I was fifteen, just as I was growing into a young lady, Papa was shot and killed trying to break up a fight at the tavern.

I vividly recall the night he died. I stole off by myself to the shores of Muskegon Lake. There I sat watching day’s color drain from the scattered birches and jagged-edged firs. Wind sweeping in off the lake lashed the loose strands of my hair against my bare, chilled neck. I blinked back tears as I recalled him once telling me, “You have more gumption and sense than your mother and Paul put together.”

My ears hummed from veiled noises skittering through the forest, as if ghosts stirred among the fallen leaves and floated through the trees. I felt Papa all around me—in the shifting shadows, in the rustle of branches, in the lapping of the lake—and heard his voice: “You have to take care of the family now, Mimi.”

I knew that that was what he expected—and that I would have to be cleverer than he was, for the sake of all of us.

We buried Papa the next day, and by then Maman had attained an icy composure. Right after the burial she ordered all of us, “Pack up your clothes. And anything else you want from this miserable place.”

Our forlorn family—Maman, Paul, little Gene, and I—took the last ferry of the season across Lake Michigan and boarded a train for Menominee.