It wasn’t just Betty who felt stuck. Anxiety seemed to have brought the country to a standstill. Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a New Yorker, had assumed the presidency in March on a wave of hope, but Chicago remained locked in the claws of tough times. Over the last year, many of her Northwestern classmates had quit college as financial difficulties mounted upon more and more families, so Betty’s absence from the roster of the university’s graduates was one of many, but Bill would still be graduating that weekend.
On the evening before his commencement, Bill arrived at Betty’s house minutes after her parents had left to play euchre with the neighbors. A year ago, if Bill and Betty had found themselves alone, they would have made good use of their unchaperoned time entwined in Betty’s bedroom, but now she didn’t look up from the book she was reading. Bill entered the parlor, pecked Betty on the cheek. “Ready to go?”
“Let me fetch something, and I’ll be back,” Betty said, leaving Bill sitting in the parlor. She hurried to the bathroom, plucked a bottle from the medicine cabinet shelf, poured a couple of pain pills into her palm, and took them with a glass of water. Thinking of the graduation festivities ahead, she grimaced and tucked the entire bottle into her purse.
When she returned to the parlor, she found Bill pacing. The air in the room felt charged with something that she couldn’t identify, and he wore an expression uncharacteristic of him. Fear? Worry? Guilt?
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
His blue eyes appeared tense, but before she could get more of a read on him, he glanced away. “Want to go?”
“Do I ever.” She reached for her hat, but snuck a look around the room. Her father’s glasses lay atop a stack of papers on the sideboard, and Bill’s pacing appeared to skirt that area of the room. She sidled over and saw a pile of bills. The hospital, the doctor, the visiting nurse—each invoice marked with a stamp saying unpaid. Her mind raced. Of course, her father’s income as a security guard wasn’t much, but some of the bills were from nine months ago. Betty swallowed and turned to face Bill.
“Did you see these?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. Voices from the neighbors’ children riding their bicycles outside on the sidewalk echoed off the walls.
“Betty, I—”
“No, Bill, please let me talk.” Betty took a deep breath. She had no idea what to say, yet she had also been practicing this speech for months without acknowledging what she was doing. “I know Dr. Minke says I’m healed, but I’m not. You’ve stuck by my side and I know it hasn’t always been easy, but I worry that we’ve lost our way together. I need to take care of the debt of my medical bills. I need to figure out what’s next. And I think I need to do all of this on my own.” She paused, expecting him to argue with her, to say that he was committed to her no matter what.
But he didn’t say a word. He walked to the window and looked outside. Silence hovered over the house and Betty wondered if Bill could hear the thundering of her heart. Did she want him to fight for her?
He cleared his throat. “Sometimes you say you wish you were still running and going to classes, but on other days, you never seem to want to leave the house. I don’t understand you anymore.”
“I don’t fully understand myself either. I don’t know how to move forward.”
“You used to be so motivated . . .” His voice trailed off.
So accomplished, she thought with a bitter twinge.
“I wish I knew how to help you,” he said.
“Well, I think I need to help myself now.”
He frowned, looking dubious, but sighed. “I’ve been dreading to tell you this, but my father’s business is struggling. I suppose it was just a matter of time. We wanted to believe it had deep enough roots, but it’s not going to survive. We’re broke.”
Betty felt as though her lungs weren’t working. Two years ago, she would have said money didn’t matter, but it did. Her injuries made that painfully clear. “I’m sorry to hear this.”
“I know we’ve been better off than many people, but still, it’s sad. It’s hard to watch my parents come to terms with this.”
Betty thought of her own parents’ helplessness as they confronted her health problems. “So what’s next for you?”
“Well, since I can’t work for my father, I’ll find something new.”
Of course. If anyone would land on his feet, it would be Bill. His optimism almost made her smile, but it also confirmed why their relationship was over. While she struggled, she wanted to get stronger and feel independent, not scared and angry that she was relying on him for everything.
“I’m sorry it needs to end like this between us,” she said.
He turned his back to her to gaze out the window again. “So am I.”
The disappointment in his voice made her throat thicken.
This was it. She would be on her own, and though it frightened her, for the first time in a year, she felt free. There would be no more running because it felt too much like she was clinging to something from her past. She needed to find her own way into a new life.
31.
THE FULTON CRIER
May 22, 1933
Fulton—Have you noticed anything unusual about the boys’ track team lately? Yes, they’re wearing bright new uniforms and training togs thanks to the Callaway Emporium, but that’s not what has us looking at the team twice. How about that tall runner leading the pack? If you look closely, you may see that it is none other than Helen Stephens. Yes, you’ve read that right: Miss Helen Stephens. Turns out the girl is as fleet-footed as Nike herself.
According to Sally Mayfield, who attended a 50-yard time trial organized by Coach W. Burton Moore last month, Miss Stephens tied the world record of 5.8 seconds set by Chicago’s Betty Robinson, the Olympic gold medalist. “Helen was a blur! I could barely see her,” Miss Mayfield gushed.
Now we are unable to get Coach Moore to confirm or deny this report, but we plan to keep our eyes peeled for this rising track star. And in the meantime, those boys better pick up the pace or they are going to find themselves being left in the dust by a girl!
Coach Moore groaned. Wasn’t there anything more pressing in Fulton to report? This article about Helen was the last thing he needed. He stood, tossing the paper into the trash bin next to his desk, but before he reached for his jacket and hat, he glanced at the latest interval times for each kid listed on the clipboard lying on his desk.
In the weeks since Helen had started training with the boys, her progress had been nothing short of astounding. He experimented with different distances to determine where her strengths lay, but no matter what format he tried, she excelled. The previous week he had given all the boys a generous 100-yard start ahead of her for a one-mile time trial and she still finished a few strides ahead of the fastest boy.
“Stephens, are you winded at all?” D.W., one of the faster boys, had asked. When she laughed, he shook his head and grinned. “Jeepers, Coach, how about making her carry a sandbag on each shoulder during our next time trial?”
All the boys chuckled. If anything, Helen’s speed seemed to have ratcheted up the boys’ intensity and concentration. Coach Moore didn’t need to tell any of them to stop goofing around anymore, that was for sure. In the couple of meets the boys had raced against other teams, their times were all faster than anything from past years. He had worried the boys might be sore with Helen, but they were good-natured and no signs of trouble from within the team appeared. Unfortunately, outside the team was another story.