The Lilac Tunnel: My Journey with Samantha

Branches snap and something scrapes sharply against my ankle. I open my eyes and find myself surrounded by a whip of leaves and flowers, this time landing in the lilac tunnel connecting the gray house’s yard to the one next door. Where’s my locket? I almost panic before finding it clutched tight in my fist.

A door hinge creaks nearby, followed by voices. Crawling forward on my hands and knees, I peer through the leaves at a sour-faced woman stepping onto the porch with a broom, hair scraped into a tight bun, wearing an old-fashioned skirt and apron. Behind her, a dark-haired girl skips down into the yard, her pink dress trimmed in lace, sash tied in an enormous bow. They look like they’ve stepped straight out of a history book.

The girl walks straight toward me, and I shrink back into the leaves, unsure if I want to be seen. The woman tosses a rug over the clothesline and starts whacking it with the broom, dust rising in little clouds. Wouldn’t a vacuum be easier? When I look forward again, the girl has perched on a tree swing just three feet away, swaying gently, friendly and curious, and I wonder who she is.

A sharp tug on my foot yanks my attention away, someone pulling me back into the tunnel. I yelp and jerk free, whirling around to face a red-headed, snub-nosed boy crawling through from the other yard, demanding to know what I’m doing. None of his business, I say, but he presses, his knee-length pants and bow tie almost as outdated as the girl’s dress.

I dangle the locket, saying I’m looking for this, and he snatches it for a closer look. Panicking at my only way home dangling in his hands, I yell that it’s mine. The girl shouts his name, Eddie, and orders it back sharply, her friendliness gone in an instant. He drops it into my hand, sticks his tongue out at her, and scurries off through the leaves.

The woman calls out sharply, asking what all the fuss is about. The girl, Samantha, cocks her head at me and offers a hand up, calling back that she just found a new friend. She smiles, and I can’t help smiling back.

Samantha’s eyes flicker over my grass-stained capris, untied shoes, and the thin trickle of blood from where the bush scratched me. Sensing my embarrassment, she gives me a reassuring smile and introduces herself as Samantha Parkington, dipping into an old-fashioned curtsy I don’t know how to return, so I just nod awkwardly, feeling my face grow warm. When I ask if the woman is her mother, she laughs, a light, easy sound. That’s Elsa, the maid.

An actual maid? I’ve never met anyone with one before. Samantha keeps talking quickly, as if afraid the silence will end things: she has no mother, her parents died when she was small, and she lives with Grandmary now. I manage only a quiet sorry, unsure what else to say. She barely remembers them, she says, and feels lucky to have her grandmother. I say her house looks beautiful, so much space, thinking of my cramped room with Gracie back home. Sometimes it’s too much space, she admits, lonely since school let out, having not seen a girl her age in ages. Until now.

Suddenly Samantha’s expression shifts, and I sense someone standing behind me.

Elsa scowls, then looks confused at my dirty capris. She doesn’t recognize me, and asks where I’m from. Without Dad’s address memorized, I just say the city. Realization dawns slowly on Elsa’s face: I must be Ruby, the laundry girl expected from the city, though not until summer’s end. Between that and preparing for Piney Point, she has no time to look after someone new.

Laundry girl? Samantha, sensing my hesitation, quickly offers an out: maybe I was just out riding my bike, pointing at my capris as bloomers. She wishes she could learn to ride, too, though Grandmary thinks bicycles aren’t ladylike.

Elsa asks flatly which it is: Ruby, here to help with the wash, or a girl out on one of those frightful bicycle contraptions?

I glance at Samantha, pink-cheeked and smiling, clearly excited to have me here, and I’m excited, too, curious about her, and desperate to see inside that grand house. Claiming to be the laundry girl might get me exactly that. Then again, I don’t know the first thing about doing laundry, not really.