“I appreciate you coming all this way, but I’m going to stay here and continue to train with Coach Moore.” She glanced at her coach and though his face remained expressionless, she was quite sure he squared his shoulders.
“Sure, I understand why sticking with Coach Moore is appealing, but I promise you that we have everything you need in St. Louis.”
But she didn’t have everything. Coach Moore wouldn’t be there. Also, none of Miss Boeckmann’s girls struck Helen as particularly friendly. In particular, that redheaded one, Harriet Bland, the one who always looked like she had taken a big chomp out of a lemon, rubbed Helen the wrong way. Why give herself over to a bunch of strangers when she could stay close to her family and friends?
Sensing Helen’s reluctance, Miss Boeckmann added, “Look, we can help you out in every way you may need it. Clothes, equipment—why, we’ll even send you to a dentist if you want.”
“Again, Coach Boeckmann, I’m grateful for your offer. Really, I am. But I’m going to stick with Coach Moore.”
The tall woman pursed her lips. “I understand. No hard feelings. I’m looking forward to watching your career and am certain our paths will cross again. If you change your mind, you know where to find me. There’s no expiration date on my offer.”
The woman said goodbye and sauntered back toward the rear entry of the high school.
Coach Moore turned to Helen. “Sure you want to give all of that up?”
“Yep,” she said. “My heart’s set on William Woods College so I can keep my ma happy by training nearby and going to college. What do you say? Can you make that happen?”
He winked. “I’ll try.”
38.
May 1936
Malden, Massachusetts
“THANK YOU, THESE ARE SO PRETTY,” LOUISE SAID, ACCEPTING a handful of dandelions from her young charge, Ann Clark. The five-year-old darted away on sturdy legs still pale from long winter months spent indoors and plunked herself down in the grass next to her three-year-old sister. Both girls busied themselves with building towers of pebbles. Louise held the dandelions up to her nose to smell them and inhaled the bitter tang of grass and damp earth. Springtime. With the girls immersed in play, Louise dropped the flowers into her pocket and then rubbed her hands, now sticky from the stems, along the sides of her skirt.
From across the park, Miss Francine, another domestic who minded a pair of children from the Clarks’ street, waved. Louise returned the greeting, sighing in contentment as she settled into her spot on the bench. She closed her eyes briefly to savor the steady cheerful babble of the little girls and stretch her arms overhead as she soaked in the long-awaited sunshine pouring over her. This was a precious moment of peace amid the anxiety that had been building as the Berlin Olympics neared. It was late May and Louise was still waiting for her invitation from the AAU to compete in the Olympic trials and starting to worry she wouldn’t be invited back. After the slight in Los Angeles, it seemed anything was possible.
She cracked an eye open and watched Ann and Barbara stack the pebbles carefully into a tower and then shriek in delight as the tower toppled and they began the process of rebuilding it. It never failed to amaze her that she had been working for Mrs. Clark for four years now.
When she had first arrived as a housemaid, the oldest daughter, Beatrice, was still too young to attend school, but Louise barely saw the eight-year-old anymore, so busy was the girl’s school life. And now there were two more little girls: Barbara and Constance. Though still considered a housemaid, Louise oversaw Ann and Barbara for a few hours each afternoon while Mrs. Clark rested as her youngest napped. This baby, Constance, had been colicky since her birth, and still, eight months later, she often fussed and didn’t sleep through the night. Louise always looked forward to days when the weather obliged with sunshine so she could escape Mrs. Clark’s frayed nerves and leave the house with Ann and Barbara.
The years since Louise had traveled to Los Angeles had passed in a flash. When she had returned from California, embarrassed and crushed by her failure to compete, family and neighbors had been kind with their congratulations, seemingly unfazed by the fact that she had been dropped from the relay. It had been easy to slip back into her life, working and running, with little mention made of returning to school to complete her final year. For one thing, Mama and Papa counted on Louise’s wages, but there was also the unspoken acknowledgment that Uncle Freddie’s death had unmoored the family, made them concentrate on getting through each day one at a time and not ask too many hard requests of each other.
Once the shock of losing Uncle Freddie loosened its hold on Louise, she had realized what she needed to do to move ahead with a sense of purpose and hope. His death had given her the focus she needed to persist with running despite the disappointment she felt after Los Angeles. She often took out the photo he had given her and studied it before each race to remind herself that some sacrifices were bigger than her own hurt feelings.
As her parents regained their balance in the months following Uncle Freddie’s death, it was clear they weren’t going to tolerate any lapses in schooling with their younger children. Emily’s deft fingers and clever eye for
