Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Sookie’s Secret

Dallas, Texas

1963

After Dena’s photograph had appeared on the cover of Seventeen she had been offered drama and speech scholarships to colleges all over the country, but her favorite teacher had advised her to accept the one from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. And from the moment Dena had walked on campus, she was a star. Everywhere she went, people would stare and all the sororities fought to get her. But Dena herself did not seem to notice or be fully aware of her impact on others. The boys and the male teachers tripped all over themselves when she passed by, and the girls secretly longed for what they mistakenly thought to be her sophistication and maturity. In truth, Dena was shy and uncomfortable with people her own age. She was always friendly and pleasant but not someone who was easy to get to know. A part of her always seemed distant and removed. She had only one really close friend, her roommate, Sarah Jane Krackenberry, but even with Sookie, Dena did not talk about herself. All Sookie had ever been able to find out was that Dena had attended several different schools and her mother was a career woman who worked as a buyer for a big department store in Chicago and traveled a lot. She had mentioned a few relatives in Missouri but Sookie never met them.

Dena could be fun at parties but as a rule, she lived in her own little dream world and walked around unconscious of the fact that she was viewed by most as some sort of enigma, some sort of mystery to be solved. She took little interest in boys and spent most of her free time alone, at movies or working over at the college theater. Her date-crazed sorority sisters were baffled as to why she would turn down the best-looking boys on campus to work on sets or watch a rehearsal of some stupid play. Pretty soon everyone came to the same conclusion: she must have some incredibly handsome, secret boyfriend. Sookie and Margaret McGruder had even followed Dena over to the theater late one night, but Dena was alone on stage, apparently rehearsing. This secret-boyfriend speculation went around like wildfire and curiosity peaked to the breaking point, especially with Margaret McGruder and Sally Ann Sockwell, who were now so wild to know who he was and what he looked like that they could no longer contain themselves. One Saturday afternoon, when they were sure Dena was at a rehearsal, they sneaked down the hall at the Kappa house in sunglasses and raincoats and knocked on Sookie’s and Dena’s door.

Sookie appeared in a green chenille robe, her red hair rolled up in bubble-gum-pink sponge rollers. She was in the middle of giving herself a facial and looked like she had just dipped her face in a pan of cement, but the girls were used to such sights. Sookie tried to speak without disturbing her mud pack. “What is it?”

“Sookie,” Margaret said, “come on, we just know Dena must have some love letters or some clues or a picture of him in there. We want to see if we can find any.”

Sally Ann, who was dating Sookie’s brother, Buck, said, “Please … we are just dying to know who it is and what he looks like. I’ll bet he’s a Greek god!”

“She won’t know, I promise,” said Margaret McGruder, “we’ll never tell a soul.”

“Nooo! I’m not going to let you come in here and spy on my roommate.”

“Please. We’d do the same for you. Please, we won’t mess up anything; she won’t even know we were here.”

“No, I can’t. She’d kill me if she ever found out.”

Margaret stuck her foot in the door before Sookie could close it. “We are not going away until you let us in. You know you are just dying to know who it is, too. Come on, Sook, we won’t be but a minute.”

Sookie, usually easily manipulated, stood her ground. “No. If anybody is going to spy on her, it will be me, not you. I’m her roommate.”

“All right,” Sally Ann said, “we’ll wait right here. We’ll be your lookout. And we won’t tell anyone. It will just be between us.”

“Promise?”

“Of course, on our Kappa honor. Do you think we would betray a sister?”

Sookie looked up and down the hall. “Oh, all right. But you stand right there and knock if you see someone coming. If I get caught I’m going to kill you.”

Sookie hated spying but she was dying to find out herself. Now at least she had two accomplices. She went over and quietly opened Dena’s top drawer. She felt around for paper. Nothing. She went through all five drawers and came up empty-handed. She looked under the bed, under the pillows; nothing.

Then she remembered: Dena kept some papers in a box on the top shelf of her closet. She pulled a desk chair over, got the box down, and started shuffling through the papers. No letters, just grade transcripts, a couple of Playbills, classroom notes, a newspaper article on Tennessee Williams, a typed letter from the scholarship board. Then, down at the bottom, she found a personal letter and her heart started to pound. It was postmarked just last week; it looked like a man’s handwriting. She opened it carefully, excited and full of guilt.

And was riveted by what she read.

1420 Pine Street

Kansas City, Mo.

Sept. 21, 1963

Dear Dena,

I hope this letter finds you well. They have got me here at the VA Hospital for some therapy. I am staying in an outpatient home run by the VA. I know this has been a bad year for both of us. Baby Girl, I wrote to tell you I do not have good news about your mother, but it is not terrible news either. I have just received the final report from the Pinkerton fellow and he informs me that after two years he can go no further in his investigation but can say with some certainty your mother is alive and still in this country. As long as she remains listed with the Bureau of Missing Persons there is always a chance she will be found.

Don’t ever let yourself get old. Mrs. Watson is a good nurse and puts me on a leash and walks me, so it’s me and all the other old dogs that go round and round the block every afternoon. I miss home, but Aunt Elner keeps me well supplied with news and fig preserves. Do well in your studies. Keep your powder dry. I have enclosed a check for a little dough I have managed to squirrel away.

I remain your loving grandpa,

Lodor Nordstrom, Sr.

Sookie carefully folded it and put it in the box and back up on the top shelf. Sookie was not the brightest of girls, but she knew it was something she should never have seen. She felt like a traitor for having read it. She waited a moment, then went to the door to the waiting girls and reported that she could not find a thing. Sally Ann and Margaret were extremely disappointed and went down the hall. After Christmas, when Dena came back from the holiday break and told her all about the wonderful time she had spent with her mother, Sookie said nothing.