Had she made a mistake in bringing them here? They’d given up everything they’d known and loved to start over here, but what if there was no new beginning here? What if it was just the same hardship and hunger they’d left behind? Or worse?
She withdrew the battered metal box she’d brought with her from Texas. Opening it carefully, she stared down at the money: less than twenty-eight dollars. How long would that last if she didn’t find work soon?
She closed the box and hid it inside the box of pots and pans, and then went outside, where she found Loreda sitting on an overturned bucket.
The camp lay in darkness. Elsa heard fiddle music coming from somewhere.
Loreda looked up. “It makes me think of Grandpa.”
Elsa could only nod. A wave of homesickness threatened to topple her.
Jean approached their tent. “Come with me.”
Loreda got to her feet. She looked as battered and demoralized by this day as Elsa felt.
The three of them walked through the camp, past open tents and closed-up cars. Dogs ran around barking.
At a flat, empty place along the ditch, a crowd had gathered. There were probably fifteen people here, men and women, standing around talking. Two men sat on rocks at the bank, playing fiddles.
Jean led Elsa and Loreda to a pair of women who stood near a spindly tree. “Gals, this here’s Elsa Martinelli and her daughter, Lor-ay-da.”
The women turned, both smiled. Elsa couldn’t quite figure their ages. Late forties, maybe. Both were worn-looking, with wan smiles and kind eyes.
“Welcome, Elsa. I’m Midge,” said the thinner of the women. “From Kansas. What they’re calling the Dust Bowl, and, doll, it surely was.”
Elsa smiled and put an arm around Loreda. “We’re from the Texas Panhandle. We know dust.”
“I’m Nadine,” said the other woman in a beautiful drawling voice. She wore a pair of rimless round eyeglasses and smiled quickly. “From South Carolina. Can you believe I left a place where you could fish the waters? All those flyers about California being the land of milk and honey. Pfffst. How long y’all been here?”
“Just a few days,” Loreda said. “But it seems longer.”
Nadine laughed, adjusted her glasses. “Yeah. Time is odd here.”
“You signed up for relief?” Midge asked.
Elsa nodded. “I did, but … well, I don’t need relief just yet.”
Midge and Nadine and Jean exchanged a knowing look.
They didn’t say, You will, but they might as well have. That terrible sinking feeling came back into Elsa’s stomach.
“You stick with us, doll,” Nadine said. “We get each other through the days.”
* * *
AFTER NEARLY FOUR WEEKS in California, they had settled into a routine; while Loreda and Ant went to school, Elsa looked for work. Any work. For any pay. She left earlier each morning, and walked up the road, sometimes going north, sometimes south, always hoping against hope to find a job weeding in the fields or doing laundry. More often than not she came up empty. Every time she bought food, her meager savings were being depleted. When she ran out of beans, she had to buy more. Ant had to have canned milk. He was a growing boy.
Now, after a long day looking for work and finding none, Elsa sat at the ditch bank, on an apple crate she’d found by the side of the road. It was nearing nightfall and there were about thirty people here: women washing clothes, men smoking pipes and talking, children playing tag and laughing. The heat of the day remained, giving a hint of what was to come in the next few months.
Someone played a harmonica; a dog howled in accompaniment. Ant had made friends with Mary and Lucy Dewey and the three of them ran around playing hide-and-seek. Loreda talked to no one, sat by herself, reading. Elsa knew she was determined not to make a friend here.
Jean hauled a metal bucket to the ditch bank and sat beside Elsa. “It’s starting to get warm already,” Jean said. “Lord, these tents are uncomfortable in the summer.”
“Maybe we’ll all be working by then and be able to move.”
Jean said, “Maybe,” in a way that conveyed no hope at all. “How are the kids doing in school?”
“Not great, honestly. But I won’t let them quit.”