She nodded.
“Sit tight and I’ll bring you a plate of food.”
“Where exactly do you think I’ll be running off to?” she asked.
“Knowing you, anything is possible,” he said.
Betty smiled to herself. He had no idea.
Within minutes, everyone was sitting in the front room, breathing in the sweet and bitter aromas of cinnamon rolls and coffee. Betty handed off the baby to Jean and accepted her plate from Jim, but she placed it on the coffee table and said, “Mother? Father? I haven’t been able to go shopping this year for gifts, but I think I have something that will make you very happy.”
Her mother laughed, no doubt expecting a package filled with a scarf or socks, or something else that Betty had been knitting, but instead Betty rose from her usual spot on the couch. As she focused on her balance point, the framed wedding photo of her parents on an end table across the room, she heard her mother and Jean gasp. She straightened and put one foot in front of the other. One step at a time, she crossed the room. When she reached for the doorjamb to steady herself, applause thundered through the room.
“Oh, Betty!” her mother cried, rushing to her and wrapping her in an embrace. “You never cease to amaze me.”
Betty leaned into her father’s shoulder and allowed herself to be steered back to her seat on the couch. A hot cup of coffee was handed to her. All talk subsided into easy silence as everyone broke apart the cinnamon rolls and ate them.
Betty’s father looked around the room, a pleased expression on his face. “Well, the last couple of years have been a challenge, both with the worsening economy and”—he faltered as he looked at Betty, tears filling his eyes—“and all that our Betty has endured, but let’s hope that 1933 brings us some better luck. Certainly this morning’s Christmas miracle is giving me some faith in the future.”
“Huzzah!” Jim called out.
“Yes, I’ll be running again by the time the snow’s gone,” Betty said, lifting Frances onto her lap again and breathing in her sweet smell of powder and zinc oxide. The thought of the two of them—one big, one small—staggering around the house, lurching into furniture and holding on to anything immobile, made Betty feel lighter. She looked up and found her family staring at her.
“But why on earth are you so focused on running again?” her mother asked.
“Because I know I can do it.”
“Won’t it be enough to regain your mobility and walk again? Think about your future. Soon you’ll be married and starting your own family. Focus on that.”
Betty looked to her father, but he was staring into his coffee. Little Frances wriggled, pedaling the air, eager to move, and Betty ran her fingers along the tips of the baby’s toes. Was she being unreasonable? Maybe her mother and Bill were right and it was time to move on.
Part 3
March 1933–June 1936
29.
March 1933
Fulton, Missouri
BURTON MOORE, THE COACH OF THE BOYS’ TRACK team at Fulton High School, couldn’t take his eyes off the tall girl dashing up and down the basketball court. She bounced the ball with ease, zigging and zagging around her opponents. Compared with her, the other girls appeared to be standing still. When she coiled into position to shoot, her shoulders dropped and her arms appeared loose and ropy, yet her expression was one of pure focus. She played with impressive speed, aggression, and dexterity, but more than anything, she showed a rare mix of focus and relaxation. It was a unique blend of qualities that few athletes possessed. In all of his years of running and coaching track teams, he had caught glimpses of talent but had never seen anyone like her. And boy, did she score points! He held his breath as another one of her shots circled the net’s rim a few times before dropping downward. The score ticked up to forty-two Methodist versus twenty-eight for Baptist, making the final game of the church league season a blowout. Burton’s palms began to sting from clapping so much with each point that Helen earned.
The buzzer rang to mark the end of the game and the hometown crowd went wild. Mary Lou stood and spun to face the band assembled in front of her. She cued the final song, and her students started playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” The air in the auditorium, hot and sour with the smell of exertion, felt festive. Burton tapped his foot to the tune but found himself searching the crowd for that girl. Grinning broadly, she was in the center of her team, clapping and slapping backs with the others while being swept toward the locker room.
When the song finished and the students were placing their instruments in their cases, Burton leaned toward Mary Lou and asked, “Who was that tall girl? The one who scored all the points?”
“Helen Stephens? She sure runs circles around everyone, doesn’t she?”
“She’s really something,” he said, helping Mary Lou into her coat.
“Yes, that was a good game. Next year I won’t wait until the final one of the season to get the band out here. This is good practice for school events.”
Burton arched his neck for a better view of the crowd pushing its way to the exit. There was no sign of Helen. He lifted Mary Lou’s satchel of sheet music. “Guess so.”
ON MONDAY, AFTER the final bell of the day rang, he found the girl alone at her locker, amid the clamor of students packing their belongings. “Helen?”
She turned to him and her face flushed a deep crimson. A frizzy mess of short blondish hair fuzzed around her face. She had an unfortunate birthmark above her brow, but her nose was straight and narrow, cheekbones high, dark eyes bright. She smiled and her whole face lit up. Though not pretty in the conventional sense, and certainly not in the way that teenage boys would judge her, she possessed an appealing charm.
“I caught your game over the weekend against Baptist,” he said. “You had quite a night.”
“Thanks. It was a good way to end the season, that’s for sure.”
The huskiness of her voice took him aback, but he stuck out his hand and pressed on. “Sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m Coach Moore. I run the boys’ track team and am trying to gauge if there’s any interest among the girls in running.”
She shook his hand. Her grip fastened around it with startling strength. He smiled.
“The track team, huh? I followed the news about Babe Didrikson all summer.”
“She sure cleaned everyone’s clocks in Los Angeles. When I saw you playing basketball I figured you looked pretty fast too. I’d like to see what you can do on the track. With a little training, maybe you’ll be faster than Didrikson, you never know.”
Helen laughed, clearly pleased by Coach Moore’s attention. “How about one of those black-and-gold letter F’s?”
“A varsity letter?”
“Yeah, I’ve been wanting one but figured us girls can’t get ’em. We’re stuck in PE doing silly calisthenics while the boys are out there actually winning things.”
“You’ve got to run a fifty-yard dash in seven seconds to qualify for a varsity letter.”
She snorted. “I can do that easy.”
Coach Moore liked the girl’s gumption. She was going to need it. In truth, he had no idea if he could get a girls’ track team together, but Helen’s athleticism intrigued him. “How about we do a time trial tomorrow after school and let’s see what you and some of the other girls can do? Bring out a group of your teammates and anyone else who would be interested. I’ll meet you all on the track behind the school twenty minutes after classes let out. Sound good?”