EnTWINed
an excerpt

Sitting in Nicole's basement with the lights off, Eleanor sipped at a glass of rum and coke. It was a bad sign, she told herself, to be drinking in the afternoon. It was a good sign, she told herself, that she could sit here and calm herself rather than storm into the hospital and tear Risa limb from limb before starting in on Paul. It was a good sign she could consider this calmly, and be cool-headed enough to realize there just might be a rational explanation.
She hadn't read all the e-mails yet, though the ones Nicole had quoted were hard to see in any other light than the obvious explanation. She sipped at the wine, her feet up on a stool. Nicole and Jed had urged her to move her things into the basement and stay for the week or two she'd told Paul she'd still be on the East Coast; a week or two to find out what was really going on and make her decisions. She'd called Nicole and Jed and let them both know she was leaving Paul's apartment, and they'd met in a suburban coffee shop, far from the hospital, and put their heads together.
"Is she cute?" Eleanor demanded. "Is she prettier than me?"
"Who cares?" Nicole said. "She's ugly on the inside."
"She's prettier than me, isn't she?" Eleanor felt sick. She couldn't bring herself to drink the coffee Jed had set in front of her.
"She's pretty, Eleanor. She's got big boobs and you should see how the security guards hang all over her desk. But she's ugly on the inside. You were faithful to Paul, right? You haven't slept with any taken man, have you?"
"Maybe they didn't sleep together."
"Oh, who cares!" Nicole said in exasperation. "Those e-mails and that card sure suggest they did, but even if they didn't, should he be sending love letters to another woman two weeks before he marries you? You're pretty on the outside and much prettier on the inside, okay. He's a fool if he wants her instead of you."
The Trust Him cat took over. "I have to give him a chance to explain," Eleanor said.
"Elle, I _know_ how much you want to believe him, but you've already caught him in lies. We've got a whole slew of his love letters with her. What more could you possibly want?"
"I don't know. It's just so hard to believe that he could lie to me."
"He told you he was sick in bed while you stared right at the bed."
"I know. I know. I've seen he can lie to me and sound completely sincere. But I need to hear it from him. Don't you understand, I already made a fool of myself accusing someone of an affair, and she had proof none of it was true."
"Paul's not a powerful senator. Why would anyone go to such trouble to set him up like that?"
Eleanor shrugged, unable to answer Jed's question, though she wanted to. Then an answer sprang to mind. "The board of directors! Someone doesn't like him getting on it at such a young age. They're jealous of his success."
"So if that's true, why hasn't this peson who's setting him up made you aware of what he's supposedly doing? Or mom and dad? Those e-mails go back eight or nine months."
"Someone spent six months setting up Donna Peters." They all spoke in hushed voices, leaning in around the rustic wooden table, and occasionally glancing around to make sure no one they knew might wander in; or worse yet, someone Paul knew.
"I repeat, if they want to hurt him with this, why aren't they somehow making it known?"
"The cousin!" Eleanor said. "Jake's cousin who works at the hospital. He told Jake things. Jake gave me the name Risa Mack and told me to investigate her. That's it, right, Nicole? That's got to be it!"
"Did Jake or his cousin leave the card on his counter?"
"Paul explained that."
"Or the condoms in his drawer?" Nicole sipped her chai tea.
"He knows I'm coming home soon." Eleanor flushed, talking about this in front of Jed.
"You're on the pill."
"He's being extra safe."
"Did Jake or his cousin run up all those charges at nice restaurants on his credit card? How about the phone calls? Did Jake's cousin steal his phone and dial Risa a few times a day?"
"I have to ask him. I have to give him a chance to explain."
"The more questions you ask, the more he knows what you've found and how to cover his tracks," Jed said. "You have to be very careful in showing him what you know for sure. If there's an innocent explanation and he tells the truth, it'll all fit. Your gut will tell you it's right. Because right now, your gut is screaming, isn't it?"
She nodded. "But, I trusted him. And how do I ask him about the letters without telling him what I know?"
"You don't want him knowing you had and have access to his computer. Tell him someone else forwarded them to you."
"Let's go home," Nicole said. "We're going to unload that moving truck before mom or dad sees it. You put everything in our basement and park your car in the garage, and stay with us until you decide what to do. You need to think this through carefully." They'd followed Nicole's plan and returned the rental truck, barely on time.
So here Eleanor sat on her own white couch, crammed into their basement, with her mattress and boxspring leaning against the wall, and her boxes piled beside her. Jed had left for his shift at the airport. And Nicole had gone upstairs to make dinner and give her some time to herself. "Try to get your mind off it for the evening," Nicole had advised. "Do you have a friend you can call?"
"Not if I'm pretending I'm not back yet."
"Anything you can do to get your mind off it? Check out apartments? Look for jobs? Did you ever get to go through those boxes from Grandma?"
Her eyes settled on the boxes from Doris. They were on the edge of the pile, accessible. Yes, she thought. That's what she'd do.

Having seen everything in the first box, Eleanor chose another. She lifted a box off of it, and pulled it down carefully from the pile. Thoughts of Risa pushed into her mind, swirling with black anger. She pushed them out. Nicole was right: time would tell for sure. In the meantime, it would do her some good to clear her brain for a bit, get a mental break from the situation. But damn Risa for being good-looking! She jammed a knife hard into the tape securing the box, realized she was glaring at it, and took a deep breath. No sense destroying whatever was inside over the tramp. No sense getting upset at all. Maybe he had an explanation. She'd just take a break from thinking about it and come back with a clear head to make her decision.
The flaps of the box opened to reveal a quilt in dark reds and country blues. Eleanor lifted it out, standing up and shaking it. It fell open, showing an Americana scene over five feet tall and nearly as wide; a farm with a barn and cows and horses out in a field, all made of scraps of cloth, sewn with tiny, evenly-placed stitches. "It's beautiful!" she said out loud. She laid it out on the couch, and studied the picture. Whoever had done it had taken great pains with detail. A woman made from a bit of gingham cloth stood outside the barn with a tiny brown cordurouy bucket in each hand; yellow threads for hair and a brown bit of yarn forming the handle of each bucket. A child, clearly intended to be an infant, by its clothing, sat on the ground by her feet, smiling up at her. Eleanor's gaze continued to travel over the scene. Chickens scratched behind a fence made of the same cordurouy as the buckets. Then, with excitement, she saw the two blonde girls in blue dresses, each astride a horse of brown wool; a knot of blue thread for each of their eyes. "It's Essie and Bessie!" she said. This must be their farm, before the fire had swept through. Clouds of white wool floated over them, and a yellow gingham sun shone down on them. [does she see Bessie's diary entry about racing from the fire before or after seeing this?]
What a wonderful find! She looked, but there was no note to tell her the story behind this quilt.
Under this quilt was another. She shook it out and laid it out over the back of Nicole's couch. This one had stars, a large, five pointed star of triangular arms in the center, and smaller stars made out of five triangles each around the edge. Back in the box for a third time, she found the spines of a dozen or more books looking up at her. They were leather bound books, with no titles on them. Eleanor had gotten her love of reading from her grandmother. She pulled one out, wondering which familiar author she'd find in her hand. But the book, on opening it, turned out to be full of the graceful, curling vines of the handwriting of a day long gone. She leafed through the pages, fascinated. Then she opened it somewhere in the middle and began reading.
_September 18, 1924
It may be that this job is not, after all, the worst thing that's ever befallen me. Well, Essie says I must keep things in perspective._ Eleanor flipped to the front of the book and saw the inscription: Bessie Berger. A smile crossed Eleanor's face. Bessie Berger, Bessie Burger. She'd never known her great-grandmother's maiden name, though she remembered Charles at the funeral. He'd been Charles Townsend. Certainly the fire and leaving our beautiful farm was much worse. And father dying was much worse. I miss him every day and wish that our lives could have been what they should have been, living on our beautiful farm with Papa coming in from the fields every day. But instead, everything went wrong and here we are acting as servants to the snooty rich, running and fetching and doing their chores and errands and so on for them, and them always looking down their noses at the staff. I'd like to have someone doing all of that for me._ Eleanor nodded to herself. Wouldn't we all? she thought. No wonder they said Bessie had such a difficult life. She wondered where Bessie had been a servant. Rising from her spot on the floor, she curled up on the Americana quilt on her couch, taking the diary with her. She took a sip from her glass of wine, set it on one of the boxes, and turned back to the spot in the middle of the diary, feeling bad for Bessie and all her losses.
_But today, I saw a ray of sunlight, a hope for the future. His name is Alfred. Alfred Herbert Townsend. He came along with his older brother who came to visit Robert. They went out to play tennis, Alfred's brother and Robert, and Alfred wandered about the grounds looking bored. I saw him from a window upstairs, one of the ones with all the diamond panes, which I was supposed to be polishing. Old Clara came along and rapped my head and told me to keep my mind on the work, and that I must not daydream about the family's guests, but behave with decorum suitable to the maid of a wealthy and important family and not embarrass them. Imagine! Her suggesting I might be an embarrassment to them! People say I am quite beautiful, so I hardly think they need be embarrassed about me. And no one saw me looking out.
Except Alfred himself. He looked up. He was standing in the gardens, like Apollo with his yellow hair, and looking a fine cut of a gentleman in his coat and tie; he was out there behind the mansion, with the lake shining all blue far behind him, and he looked up and shielded his eyes and I believe he saw me! He lifted his hand and waved, and I saw him smile. I had just waved back when Clara came along and ruined it._
Eleanor sipped her wine. The smell of lasagna drifted down the stairs, onions and garlic and parmesan cheese all blended together; but she saw Bessie, young and hopeful, standing before a window full of diamond panes, looking down on gardens, and the rich and handsome Alfred standing on the cobbled path among the flowers, looking up at her. Could there be a more beautiful beginning to a love story? She harumphed. It certainly had more color than her own chance meeting with Paul at a coffee shop.
_At dinner, I served Alfred. He was younger than I thought at first, not much older than me. He must be a good deal younger than his brother, who is practically an old man, maybe even in his thirties. I tried to keep my eyes down, because Clara was looking at me the whole time, pursing her mouth as she does and looking annoyed. I was doing nothing wrong. I had every plate where it belonged. But every time my eyes came up, there was Alfred looking at me. When I crossed behind him, on my way to the kitchen to get another dish, he dropped his napkin. I leant down to pick it up, and his hand touched mine as I gave it back to him, and he stared into my eyes. 'What is your name?' he asked. 'So I can thank you properly.' I told him Elizabeth. It sounds much finer than Bessie. He kept his hand on the napkin, touching mine, and said 'Thank you, Elizabeth.' I felt my face flush, and I let go and hurried into the kitchen. One of the other maids, little Annie, saw it all, and she clutched my hands and jumped up and down until Clara came in and told us to get to work. 'Stop flirting with the guests, you,' she said to me, 'or I shall send you from the room.'
'I was not flirting!' I told her. I most certainly wasn't. He dropped the napkin. I believe he did it on purpose, but nonetheless, a maid may not simply walk by and leave a guest to struggle in his chair to reach his own napkin. That his hand touched mine, that he asked my name, these things were not my fault, though I confess I do not object. That I saw his intentions and blushed, I could hardly help that, and I left the room quickly to keep about my work. What more could she want of me?
I kept my eyes down as best I could after that, but still, each time I must raise them, he was looking at me. And tonight, rather late, although before I had changed for the night, he wandered into the servant's wing. He said he could not have known, because most families house the servants below, rather than on the same floor. There is but a door between the family wing and the servants' quarters, and he came through, saying he was looking for the kitchen, that he had a touch of hunger. I took him to the kitchen. He walked very close behind me, that I could feel his breath on my neck. Did I imagine that he was deliberately close?
In the kitchen, I showed him the icebox and the pantry, and made to leave. But he bid me stay awhile, that he'd starved for companionship of someone his own age, this whole day at Glensheen. He asked me questions, and we talked. He wanted to know about my family, and how I come to have such fine bearing and educated speech and patrician looks. I told him how I came to be here, and how I would not be here forever, but would marry and have my own home. I didn't mention the farm. I don't think he wants a farm. He told me about the moneyed ladies his family has chosen for him, one of whom they would like him to choose. But he does not like them. He wants someone with whom to have intellectual conversations, someone well-read and thoughtful. I remembered some of what Essie has told me about Mr. Dickens' novels and Miss Austen's, and I was able to converse somewhat knowledgeably on them. He laughed and said it was a pleasure to speak with a girl who was not caught up in what jewels a man might give her, and he asked if he might write me.
I said that Clara would not approve the maids receiving correspondence from guests of the family. They believe they are egalitarian, housing us on the same floor as themselves and all, but I do not believe they are quite that egalitarian. They do not, after all, invite us to sit and dine with them while we all run to the kitchen equally to fetch meals. I suggested a name that he might write under, Edwin Hathaway, and he gave me his address at the university where I might send correspondence with no fear of Old Clara making a connection.
I do believe my life is finally going to give me something good._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AND LATER IN THE BOOK:

To pass the time, Eleanor pulled out Bessie's diary, which she'd brought along. She'd finished the first one with questions, and decided to start at the beginning. A search of the boxes turned up diaries going back to 1918.
_December 25, 1918. It is Christmas Day and our 13th birthday. My name is Bessie Beurger and I hate it because people laugh when I say it. Sometimes they call me Ham. My sister is Essie and people laugh at our rhyming names. I tell them to stop and that I don't laugh at their names, but they don't stop. I would have named myself Anna Maria. I named all my cows Anna and Anne Marie and Anne. All my life, I named my horses Mary, Marie, Maria, or Miriam.
They're all gone now. So are my old diaries. So is everything. We're in Duluth now, in a house of our own. But we lived on a farm in Moose Lake, with Papa working in the fields and with the horses and in the barn and Mamma in the kitchen and sewing and cooking and sometimes helping Papa and fetching lots of water and feeding the chickens, and Essie and I helped with all of it. I collected eggs every morning and we both milked the cows from the time we were able. Our little sister was born a year and a half ago in March. That's Margaret. So when she was born, Mamma needed more help watching her and getting chores done. But everything is gone now, the farm and everything, because a fire went through in October and destroyed everything. People who had automobiles were driving as fast as they could go, trying to get to the train station. People were running and screaming. The operator called everyone who had a phone, warning them to get out because a huge fire was coming. She called and called and called and didn't leave, and then no one heard from her again. They think she died there in the fire. Papa came running from the fields shouting for us. He grabbed the fastest horses, and my Miriam wasn't among them. I screamed and begged. He slapped me screaming we'd die with Miriam if I didn't get up and threw me on his big horse Trident with Essie and threw Mamma on his other bigger horse, the black one, Chester and handed up Margaret. Mamma was crying and screaming for him to come and I wanted my doll and he yelled at Essie and Mamma GO Ride like... I'm not allowed to say that word so I'm sure I can't write it. Essie yelled in my ear that we would die if we went back for the doll, didn't I see the fire on the horizon? And she kicked Trident over and over shouting for him to go and Mamma kept yelling for us to go faster.
It was awful and I think I'll have nightmares forever. I cry now thining of my doll. I'm sure I could have gotten her. It would have taken only a minute. I cry more thinking of Miriam. She was burned to death in the barn, I'm sure. Though Papa says the horses were set free to run and they will be fine somewhere and have found someone to take care of them and that somewhere perhaps a child is grateful and happy with my Miriam and God will give me something good to replace her just like He gave that child Miriam to replace whatever she lost in the fire.
The horses ran as fast as they could till Trident was covered in foam and collapsed under us. Essie had to pull me out from under him, my leg was caught. The fire was closer, and Mamma screamed and dragged us up on Chester. We hung onto the sides and I don't even know how we held on. Essie says there were angels. Margaret was screaming the whole way. And Mamma was crying and yelling for Chester to go faster. And then Papa was there beside us, pulling Essie onto his horse and pulling me on to save poor Chester who could barely carry our weight and the fire was getting closer.
We got to the train station and I can't even talk about the train ride out. It was like being in Hell. I know I'm not supposed to say that word, but I mean it in the theological sense, so I think it's okay. There was fire everywhere, sometimes running right next to the train. Children were crying. Women were screaming. I saw Essie's piano teacher and she was screaming and yelling about her husband. She didn't know where he was. She is here in Duluth now and her husband and her oldest son have not been seen. He went out to the fields to get Henry and sent her on ahead with the other children saying he'd be right behind. He wasn't. So she was in the train crying and crying. They had to stop the train and pour water on it from the water tower to cool it so it didn't burst into flame itself. It was all much worse than that.
But that is why my life seems to start here. Mamma gave Essie and I matching diaries and said we were to fill them with the good things that happen in our lives. It's hard to know what to say that's good. We stayed with Auntie and Uncle for awhile. It was crowded and Uncle is crabby. Mamma says it's because his leg hurts him so and we must be patient. But I just lost everything and I hurt so and she expects me not to be crabby. Why can't we expect him also to be good-tempered and understanding of us? She said he's trying.
Now we have a house of our own but it's so small with only two bedrooms. We share, the three of us girls, and Margaret cries and squirms in the bed at night. Essie says be patient, she is having nightmares just like we are. I am having nightmares and I am tired from not sleeping well. We've had to start at a new school here and meet many new people and sometimes they laugh at our rhyming names and sometimes I feel that they look down on all us refugees who fled the fire and are trying to start new in Duluth.
I have filled a few pages here, and maybe tomorrow I will try to write something of my life before the fire so I remember._
Eleanor laid the book down in her lap for a few minutes. The late August sun poured through the open windows of the car. She wished she could reach into 1918 and give the thirteen year old Bessie the gift of foresight, to tell her that God would indeed give her something good, in the form of Alfred Townsend, to replace all she'd lost. There weren't so many years between 1918 and 1924, not in retrospect. But what a long time to a thirteen year old girl who had no way of knowing what the future held. Eleanor tried to imagine losing so many of her friends and neighbors, never knowing what had happened to them. Her heart broke for Bessie. The light at the intersection changed and cars sped past her parked vehicle. Snatches of conversation floated to her from passing pedestrians. "... First Avenue tonight, it should be great!" and "...I told them not to hire her but they...." Eleanor returned to the diary.
_January 4, 1919 Well, I don't really have much to write. We go to school and I've made a few friends. Sometimes I see my friends Edna and Helen from Moose Lake, but it is too far to walk often even though we all live in the same town. We don't talk about Ruth, because we don't know what happened to her, and it's too awful to think about. Her father's automobile was found sitting in the shallow part of Moose Lake. Perhaps they sought refuse from the flames in the water? We do not know if they were burned or drowned or if they simply found another place to live after the fire. Essie says I must think more cheerful thoughts or I will make myself miserable. I think she has a heart of stone and cannot possibly feel these things as deeply and painfully as I do, or she wouldn't admonish me for feeling horrible.
I do chores around the house in the morning now instead of in the barn. I do my lessons in school. Sometimes I mind Margaret while Mamma goes to do laundry at some of the big houses to bring in a little extra money. Our house is small. Some of the wallpaper is peeling. It is stuffy. The curtains are old.
I said I'd write some of my life in Moose Lake. There was a mercantile store there. I'm sure it's burned to the ground and everything in it. I wonder if old Mr. Potter and his wife got away. It is too sad to think of them there in their store. Essie and I used to love going there to look at all the things rich people could buy. There were two red dresses, the most beautiful dresses in the whole world. We looked at them forever, for over a year when we were about nine or ten years old. We hoped so much to have them and Mamma said she'd see. But it depended on the egg money. One day, Mamma came home. It was in June, because school had just gotten out. I was so excited thinking the red dresses were finally here. But she couldn't afford the red dresses. Instead, she bought blue velvet and promised to make much more beautiful dresses. She asked us what we wanted them to look like. She sews beautifully, and I tried to be excited, but my heart was so set on the red dresses. The dresses she made were beautiful. They really were. If I could only have stopped thinking about the red dresses. We wore the blue dresses to church and everyone said how beautiful we were and we had our picture painted in the blue dresses some months later. The painting was sent to Grandmother and Grandfather here in Duluth, and sometimes I cry when we go to their house and I think of our beautiful dresses being burned in the fire in our closet and I think of the red dresses in Mr. Potter's mercantile store being burned._
A knock on the car frame jolted Eleanor back into the twenty-first century.