The Cider House Rules

"Maybe Wally's going to fire us!" Irene Titcomb shrieked, and that broke up the three of them. Dot Taft roared so loud that Florence Hyde inhaled her cigarette the wrong way and began to cough, which made Dot roar some more.

"Is Grace here today?" Wally asked casually, when the women calmed down.

"Oh, God, he wants Grace!" Dot Taft said. "What's she got that we haven't got?"

Bruises, Wally thought. Broken bones, false teeth--certainly genuine aches and pains.

"I just want to ask her something," Wally said, smiling shyly--his shyness was deliberate; he handled himself very smoothly around the mart women.

"I'll bet she'll say 'No!' " Irene Titcomb said, giggling.

"No, everyone says 'Yes!' to Wally," Florence Hyde teased.

Wally allowed the laughter to subside.

Then Dot Taft said, "Grace is cleaning the pie oven."

"Thank you, ladies," Wally said, bowing, blowing them kisses, backing away.

"You're bad, Wally," Florence Hyde told him. "You just came here to make us jealous."

"That Grace must have a hot oven," Dot Taft said, and this started more laughter and coughing.

"Don't get burned, Wally," Irene Titcomb called after him, and he left the mart women chattering and smoking at a higher pitch than when he'd found them.

He was not surprised that Grace Lynch had drawn the worst job for a rainy day. The other women sympathized with her, but she was not one of them. She stood apart, as if she were afraid everyone might suddenly turn on her and beat her as badly as Vernon did, as if the beatings she'd already survived had cost her the necessary humor for trading stories equally with Florence and Irene and Dot.

Grace Lynch was much thinner and a little younger than these women; her thinness was unusual among the regular mart women. Even Herb Fowler's girlfriend (Squeeze Louise) was heftier than Grace, and Dot Taft's kid sister, Debra Pettigrew--who was fairly regular in pie season, and when the assembly line to the packinghouse was running--even Debra had more flesh on her than Grace had.

And since she had needed new teeth, Grace was even tighter-lipped than usual; there was a grim concentration to the narrow line of her mouth. Wally couldn't remember ever seeing Grace Lynch laugh--and some form of yucking it up was essential to relieve the boredom of the life of the apple mart women. Grace was simply the cowed dog among them. She didn't look as if she took any pleasure from eating pie--or from eating anything at all. She didn't smoke, and in 194_ everyone smoked--even Wally. She was noise-shy and flinched around the machinery.

Wally hoped she was wearing long sleeves so that he wouldn't have to look at the bruises on her arms, but she was half in one of the deep shelves of the pie oven when Wally found her; she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but both sleeves were rolled up above her elbows to spare the shirt some of the oven-black. Wally startled her with her head in the oven, and half her body, too, and Grace made a little cry and banged one of her elbows against the door hinge as she withdrew in too much of a hurry.

"Sorry I scared you, Grace," Wally said quickly--it was hard to walk up on Grace without making her bump into something. She said nothing; she rubbed one elbow; she folded and unfolded her thin arms, hiding her very slight breasts or, by keeping her arms in constant motion, concealing her bruises. She wouldn't look Wally in the eye; as poised as Wally was, he always felt a terrific tension when he tried to talk with her; he felt she might suddenly run away from him or throw herself at him--either with her claws out, or kissing him with her tongue stabbing.

He wondered if she mistook his inescapable search for the new bruises on her body for a sexual interest; maybe that was part of the problem between them.

"That poor woman is just crazy," Ray Kendall had told Wally once; maybe that was all.

"Grace?" Wally asked, and Grace trembled. She was squeezing a wad of steel wool so tightly that the dirty suds streaked down one arm and wet the waist of her shirt and the bony hip of her denim work jeans. A single tooth, probably false, appeared out of her mouth and clenched a tiny piece of her lower lip. "Uh, Grace," Wally said. "I've got a problem."

She stared at him as if this news frightened her more than anything anyone had ever told her. She looked quickly away and said, "I'm cleaning the oven." Wally thought he might have to grab her to keep her from crawling back in the oven. He suddenly realized that all his secrets--that anyone's secrets--were entirely safe with Grace Lynch. There was absolutely nothing she dared to say, and no one in her life to tell it to--if she ever got up the courage.

"Candy is pregnant," Wally said to Grace, who wobbled as if a wind had come up--or the strong ammonia fumes of the oven cleaner had overpowered her. She looked at Wally again with her eyes as round as a rabbit's.

"I need advice," Wally said to her. It occurred to him that if Vernon Lynch saw him talking to Grace, Vernon would probably find that just cause for giving Grace another beating. "Please just tell me what you know, Grace," Wally said.

Grace Lynch spat it out from between her very tight lips. "Saint Cloud's," she hissed; it was a loud whisper. Wally thought it was someone's name--the name of a saint? Or else a kind of nickname for an exceptionally evil abortionist--St. Cloud's! Grace Lynch, it was clear, had no luck. If she'd been to an abortionist, wouldn't it have to be the worst abortionist one could imagine?

"I don't know the doctor's name," Grace confided, still whispering and not looking up at Wally anymore--she would never again look up at him. "The place is called Saint Cloud's, and the doctor's good--he's kinda gentle, he makes it okay." For her, this was virtually a sermon--at least a speech. "But don't make her go alone--okay, Wally?" Grace said, actually reaching out and touching him--but recoiling the instant she made contact, as if Wally's skin were hotter than the pie oven when it was fired up.

"No, I won't make her go alone,

of course," Wally promised her.

"You ask for the orphanage when you get off the train," Grace said. She climbed back in the oven before he could thank her.

Grace Lynch had gone to St. Cloud's alone. Vernon hadn't even known she was going, or he would probably have beaten her for it. Since she'd been gone overnight, he'd beaten her for that, but perhaps it was a lesser beating by his standards.