Some Luck by Jane Smiley Read Free Book Online Page A

her hair in a tight bun. On Saturdays, she looked her age, twenty-three; on Sundays, she looked like her mother.
    Of course it wasn’t warmer in town, but it seemed as though it was. Rosanna pushed back the hood of the buggy in the sunlight, and waved to people on the sidewalk (Miss Lawrence, her old teacher; Father Berger, who was friendly even though she never went to St. Albans anymore; Mildred Claire, who had known her mother forever). Waving to Father Berger reminded her of her girlish anxieties about baptizing Frank and Joe. She had been positively loco about it with Joe, and then it passed. She put her head around the hood and looked at Father Berger again. Old man now. Her mother and the other ladies in the altar society complained about him incessantly.
    Then that girl, Maggie Birch, who was Eloise’s best friend, waved her down and ran over to the buggy. Rosanna gave her such a nice smile, even though she considered the girl a little fast, or, if not that, maybe “sneaky” was the word. But Maggie, too, was wearing a big smile. “Good morning, Mrs. Langdon. I was hoping I would run into you.”
    “Hello, Maggie. How are you today?”
    “Fine, thank you, Mrs. Langdon.” She hesitated.
    Rosanna said, “I understand from Eloise that you are going in for secretarial school, Maggie.”
    “Mama says I can, yes. I can go down to Usherton for a course and stay with my aunt Margaret and her husband, Dr. Liscombe. Do you know them?”
    “I’m sorry to say I don’t.”
    “They have the biggest house. I’m sure I’ll get lost in all the rooms. But … I was wanting to ask you.”
    “What?” said Rosanna.
    “Well, did you know the Strand Theater down there?”
    “Of course,” said Rosanna. Jake snorted and shook his ears—a fly this time of year!
    “I would really like to go and see a picture, and my cousin George has an automobile now and says he will take me, but I would like Eloise to come along.”
    “That’s ten miles,” said Rosanna. “Thirteen miles from our place.”
    “Georgie is a good driver,” said Maggie.
    Rosanna regarded Maggie, and tried to decide whether to ask her the question that came to her lips—was this something she and Eloise had discussed? Of course it was, said the girlish side of Rosanna, and best not to know, said the maternal side. So Rosanna said what mothers had said since the world was young: “We’ll see.”
    A pout passed over the girl’s face, and Rosanna realized that the condition Mrs. Birch had placed on the trip was that Maggie could only go if Eloise or someone went along. Rosanna shook the reins and left it at that. If she saw Maggie’s mother in town, which she well might, she would speak to her about it.
    Ethel Corcoran. Martin Fisk. Gert Hanke. Len Hart. Old, young, old, old. To all of them, Rosanna raised her whip and smiled and called, “Hey!” And then she was in front of Crest’s, and she shouted, “Whoa!” to Jake, who had anyway already stopped by the hitching post, where some boys were pitching pennies against the wall of the store, shouting and jumping about. Rosanna got out and tied Jake to the post, right between a Ford and a new Chevrolet coupé. “Coupay!” said Rosanna to herself as she lifted out her crock of butter. Dan Crest came to the door of the store and opened it. He took the crock from her hands. He said, “So sorry we didn’t see you last Saturday, Mrs. Langdon. Four—count ’em, four—of your best customers were in here, looking for your butter. You know Mrs. Carlyle? She won’t make a pie crust without it.”
    “I use lard myself,” said Rosanna.
    “Well, she’s French on her mother’s side,” said Dan Crest.
    He set the crock on the counter and said, “I hope there are eggs, too?”
    “Only three dozen.” said Rosanna. “I candled them all myself, and they are large. I cleaned them again this morning.” When she wentout to get the crate, one of the boys who had been pitching pennies was petting Jake