“It’s an event to sell war bonds,” Henry said.
“We decorate and fill our boxes with enough food for two people and then they get auctioned off,” Lucy said. “The highest bidder for each box gets that amount in war bonds and stamps plus our box of food.”
“Home-cooked food,” Ruth added. “A full meal for two people.”
“So, we actually get to cook something ourselves?” I asked, pleased by the thought. Since my arrival in Hickory, I hadn’t so much as boiled an egg. Hattie took care of everything.
“Yes, indeed we do,” Ruth said. “So put your thinking cap on and decide what you’d like to make. I’ll go into town tomorrow and purchase ribbons and sequins and whatever else we might need to decorate our boxes.”
“Could I do that shopping for you, Miss Ruth?” I asked. I relished any opportunity to get out of the house.
“If you’d like to, of course you may.” Ruth seemed pleased by my enthusiastic response. She very nearly smiled at me over the top of the seat and I wondered if there might be hope for our relationship after all.
29
Like most people I’d met in Hickory, Zeke Johnson didn’t seem to think much of me. I knew it from the moment Henry and I reached the second story of the factory and spotted him there, opening the door to the room next to Henry’s office. He was dressed in a suit and tie and he looked from Henry to me and back again, his face registering surprise. I had a clear view past him into the room. A double bed was against one wall. It was the same pineapple style as my twin bed in Henry’s room at home. There was a dresser topped by a huge framed mirror, a black and tan oriental rug on the floor and a sofa and coffee table. There were even pictures on the wall. Was this Zeke’s room? When Henry had told me Zeke lived in the factory, I’d pictured him sleeping on a cot. Not living in such luxury. But it was a furniture factory, after all. No wonder his room was filled with lovely things.
“Here on a Sunday?” Zeke asked Henry.
“I thought it was time I gave Tess a tour of the place,” Henry said. “Are you just coming from church?”
Zeke nodded. “And dinner at Mama’s.” He was speaking to Henry, but his gaze was on me. “Glad you’re here, Hank,” he said. “I was going to call you. We got a problem with the boiler again. One of the valves is failing, plus I’m not sure how long the igniter’s going to last.”
I was surprised he called him Hank instead of Mr. Henry or Mr. Hank. It seemed overly familiar for a maintenance man, but I remembered they’d grown up together. I pictured them as kids, sliding down the stairs on a mattress with Zeke’s sister Honor. Getting a whipping for it, in Zeke’s case, at least.
“You’d better show me,” Henry said. “Come on, Tess.” He rested his hand softly on my back and the three of us headed down the stairs again. “We’ll start your tour with the most glamorous part of the factory.” He laughed as we walked down a dark corridor, Zeke a few steps ahead of us. “The boiler room.”
At the end of the corridor, Zeke pushed open a thick, heavy metal door.
“The boiler room has to be separated from the rest of the building by a fire wall,” Henry explained. “Fire in a furniture factory is not something you ever want to see.”
We stepped into a small room filled with a huge furnace. Pipes and ducts in all shapes and sizes crisscrossed below the ceiling and down one wall. The air was warm and damp and the smell of oil and metal stung my nostrils.
“See this here?” Zeke said, pointing toward a valve on one of the many pipes jutting from the boiler.
“Let me do it.” Henry moved past him, taking off his tweed coat and handing it to him. “Don’t want to mess up your Sunday clothes.”
Zeke stepped aside and Henry fiddled with the valve while I hung back. I was beginning to perspire inside my own coat while they talked about the type of bolt they needed and a few other boiler-related topics that went over my head. There was a familiar ease between the two of them, and Zeke said something I couldn’t hear but that made Henry laugh out loud. I thought it was the first time I’d heard Henry truly laugh.
When the two of them had finished their conversation, Henry opened the door to the boiler to reveal a cauldron of yellow flame. He looked over at me. “This old boiler heats the entire building,” he said. “Impressive, isn’t it?”
I nodded, though I realized I’d taken two steps back, away from the heat and flames.
Henry closed the boiler door, then smiled at me. “You look like you’re melting,” he said. “Come on. Let’s see the rest of the factory.”
We left Zeke in the boiler room and headed back down the corridor. We stopped in many of the large workrooms along the way, Henry switching on the overhead lights to show me the worktables and machinery. The factory was eerily silent, but nothing could mask the smells of chemicals and wood, and sawdust seemed to be everywhere. By the time we were back in front of Henry’s office, my lungs and eyes were burning and I had to brush the sawdust from my coat.
“Just want to let Zeke know we’re going and he can lock up,” he said, knocking on Zeke’s door near the top of the stairs. He went into the room without waiting for a response. I stood in front of Henry’s office door, waiting for his return. I heard the quiet rumble of their conversation, and then I heard Zeke say, in a voice almost too low to make out, “I don’t understand. You had it all planned perfect. Why are you doing this?”
I couldn’t hear Henry’s response at all, but I had the feeling that whatever they were talking about had to do with me.
*
“Zeke seems very close to you,” I said, once we were back in the car. What I really wanted to ask him was what Zeke had meant about Henry’s perfect plans. I knew better than to question him though. If there was one thing I’d learned about Henry, it was that he didn’t like me to probe.
“Remember I told you he used to live with his mother, Adora, in the cottage where Hattie lives now?”
“Yes, I know. When you were kids.”
“We palled around together till high school, when…” He shrugged. “We had to be in different worlds,” he said.
“I don’t think he likes me,” I said.
“You don’t think anyone likes you.” He sounded annoyed and I decided to drop the subject. I wondered if he was right. Was I misinterpreting the way people behaved toward me? Whatever Zeke had been talking about, maybe it had nothing to do with me at all.
30
It was too cold to walk into town the following day, so I took a cab to the fabric store, where I spent over an hour picking out an abundance of beads and ribbons and lace and buttons that we could use to decorate our boxes for the box supper. Then I bought a pattern for a baby sweater and some yellow yarn. I hadn’t knitted a thing since I was a teenager and Mimi taught me how, but with my baby coming, it seemed like the perfect time to dust off that skill.
Then, almost without thinking, I walked across the street to the bus stop, and I waited in the cold with an old man and his wife for the bus to Ridgeview.