Chapter 1

Chapter Mrs. Strelnicov

A Toby Wakefield Story

I had been Trekking Burling Road since my family moved to Burling Hills in 1945. Since there was only one car in the family which my dad drove to work, we did a lot of walking. On Sunday mornings when Dad wasn’t working the day or night shifts at the steel mill the whole family: my mom, two brothers, and two sisters would walk the mile to the Town Hall where our church was meeting at the time. When I was eleven, I joined Boy Scouts who met at the Town Hall on Wednesday nights. During that year I began sharing a paper route (Cleveland Plain Dealer in the morning and Cleveland Press in the afternoon) with my brother who was two years older than me. We were both given hand-me-down bikes to split the distance of three miles where we handled some arduous hills to deliver papers to forty customers. It was a lot of hard pedaling for very little income. Each month I had to collect subscription money from each of my customers which at first intimidated me. It quickly got easier because most of my customers were pleasant and respected a kid who worked. One was a constant problem always telling my manager she paid me when she never did without me having to go back after the paper threatened to discontinue deliveries. Most of the customers seemed interested enough to talk with me. Then there was Ms. Clearwater.

was a mystery to me. Most of the twenty houses I delivered to, excluding St. Bartholomew’s Rectory and Convent, were older farmhouses sitting close to the road. Mrs. Clearwater’s house was a newer one built just after the war. It was a Frank Lloyd Wrightesque one-story house with modern lines and numerous large windows. It sat back from the road about fifty yards and was nestled into a glade of trees. I would say Mrs. Clearwater was in her forties at the time. Keeping to herself she was a mystery to the neighbors who only knew that she worked downtown which was unusual for women at the time who were mostly stay-at-home moms.

Every weekday morning at 7:00 a.m. she would board the Burling Road Bus to downtown Cleveland where she worked at Higbee’s Department Store on Cleveland Public Square in the Terminal Tower Building. At night she would get off the bus in front of her house around 7:00. I knew this because I would see her in the morning when I delivered the Plain Dealer as well as Wednesday nights on my way to Boy Scout meetings at the Town Hall. Because of the long hours, she was away from home she must have been in management. Though I knew her from seeing her from collecting her subscription money on Saturdays we rarely spoke.

There was no Mr. Clearwater, she lived alone. From conversations, I heard around the neighbor nobody knew whether she lost her husband in the war or if she was divorced or separated. She was always referred to as “Mrs.” and there were always conversations about her. She was an attractively, elegantly woman, willowy with shapely curves. Her lovely face was almost Asian with only a suggestion of slanted eyes. Her deep brown hair which she wore in either a French twist or in a single braid when she was working around the house was always flawless. Her cornflower-blue eyes were deep-set giving an aura of penetrating awareness. Standing about 5’9”, She was fair-skinned and tall with a wasp-shaped body that when wearing heels (which she did most of the time) stood over six feet. When I would collect for her subscription to the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Saturdays, she wore flats or tennis shoes which put her at eye-to-eye level with me.

She had moved into her new house by herself. The setback of the house from the road and the thick trees on either side made isolating her from her neighbors easy. Other than saying hi from time to time to her neighbors she was otherwise unknown to them. I had walked by the house many times and never had an idea who lived there. The first time I saw her was when my older brother and I walked to Boy Scouts when I was ten years old, and he was twelve.

It was about 6:50 pm when The Burling Road Bus stopped just ahead of us. It was dark. A woman got off the bus and crossed the road in front of it. While she was walking toward the house, I could see how stylishly she was dressed. She wore a very nicely tailored business suit. What I noticed was how beautifully shaped her lower legs were—the style at the time was a skirt cut just below the knee. Her calves and ankles looked as if an artist had sculpted them. Women’s legs had always been a turn-on for me and hers were breathtaking. This bus stop scene would take place repeatedly over the next few years.

One Saturday morning while I was riding my bike to St. Bart’s convent to work, I saw her working in the yard. She was wearing shorts, a sweatshirt, and tennis shoes. Her hair hung in a single braid, making her look youthful. What I could see of her legs confirmed the sculptor’s chisel, well-turned all the way to the hem of her shorts. I had been intimately involved with the nuns at St. Bart’s enough times at this point to know where those legs led and had a good picture in my mind of where they parted.

She had not been taking the paper at the time—the mystery of the place intimidated me so much that I never solicited for the paper there. But what I had been seeing for the last few weeks when the bus stopped to let her off had just been confirmed. On the way back home from St. Bart’s, I was finally motivated to knock on her door and ask her if she wanted to subscribe to the paper.

“I’m Toby Wakefield,” I said, “and I deliver the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Cleveland News and wonder if you would like to subscribe to the papers.”

The look I got from her deep-set blue eyes felt like they were drilling a hole through my chest. “How long have you been delivering the paper young man?”

“For the last year,” I said nervously. I knew why she was asking, and I was on the spot.

She said, “Is it your brother you walk with on Wednesday evenings on your way to Boy Scouts?” her eyes never stopped drilling me.

Surprised she noticed my brother and me,” I answered, “Yes, he’s two years older than me.” It was often dark when the bus stopped. Other than the light from the bus there was no other lighting on the road.

“You are both good-looking boys,” she said with a thinly held smirk.

I thanked her for the compliment.

“And where were you going this morning?”

“I work at St. Bartholomew’s.” I was surprised she seemed interested in me. “I do yard work and some handyman repairs at the convent.”

“I see.”

I didn’t know what she saw but her gaze was intense as if she had x-ray eyes. I wondered if she might be thinking about me and the nuns (see my story “Penguin’s Preference”). But how would she ever know?

“I attend St. Bart’s,” she said. “The Mother Superior seems like an interesting woman.”

Her mention of Sister Natalie (Mother Superior) made me wonder if she might have an idea of what might be going on between the sister and me. I was confident Sister Natalie would never discuss what we were doing with anybody outside the convent.

“I have lived here for more than six months Toby,” she went on, “and am surprised you didn’t contact me to take the papers when you found out the house was occupied. I take the Cleveland Press so I would have no use for the News. I will take the Plain Dealer (the only morning paper), but I must tell you how disappointed I am at how long it has taken you to solicit me as a customer.”

On the spot I was embarrassed, my face felt hot. Feeling the need I broke the gaze and dropped my head, not even realizing where my eyes would end up, Trying to respond the words came out, “I ... er ... um...”

By the time, my eyes had nervously scanned her feet, her ankles, gazing up her legs and ending up centered on her crotch where I detected the lipped outline of her sex she said, “I understand.” It was as if she had not noticed I was staring so rudely at her intimate parts.

Looking into her eyes again I noticed her flaring nostrils which I thought might indicate her anger with me. But the smirk on her lips turned into a thin smile, the kind of smile that could have indicated an awareness that surprised me. “Just the Plain Dealer,” she said, “It’ll start being delivered on Monday?”

As we filled out the subscription card she said, “And when will you collect?”

“Once a month,” I said.

Thanks for finally stopping by Toby. If you are passing by on a Saturday and see me in the yard, come in and say hi.” Then she added “Don’t be a stranger Toby. I have always been curious about you.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” I kept repeating to myself as I walked home. “I wonder what that means?

Since most people were home on Saturday the first Saturday was the day, I usually collected. Each time she got off the bus after that when my brother and I were approaching on Wednesday nights she would always wave and say “Hi” before she crossed the road. I didn’t feel confident she meant what she said about me not being a stranger. But when I went to collect, she said, “Didn’t you hear me ask that you not be a stranger?”

“I thought you were just being nice Mrs. Clearwater.”

“Rina,” she said, “You may call me Rina if you would like.”

Don’t be a stranger I thought when I finally realized what she might be getting at. What had been happening to me, a teenage boy in the 1950s was overwhelming. I had not or would not have divulged the things I was involved in at St. Bart’s to anybody. I thought if I did, people would have considered me just a world-class bullshitter. But to my surprise, since I had become sexual with those women my involvement with Kathy and Rosie, the two neighbor girls happened so easily. I would not know until years later Mother Superior was the flip side of what priests were doing with young boys. But I never considered what they had me do with them was molestation. For me, it was incredible fun. Those experiences had given me a degree of sophistication of which I was not aware. Girls must have appreciated the confidence I tacitly exuded whenever I became sexually involved with them. Also, I did not understand what a good-looking young man I was. I thought I was a nerd. But here it was happening again with Mrs. Clearwater.

Around 10:00 am the next Saturday I found myself knocking on Mrs. Clearwater’s door. She opened it wearing a light blue, silk kimono with Japanese figures and flying birds imprinted on it. Giving me a confident, thinly veiled smile, she said, “Would you like to come in for a glass of milk?” Raising her eyebrows she added, “Or maybe something a little stronger,” fluttering her eyes flirtatiously, “I’m having coffee.”

Exasperated by her assessment of me as a child I said, “I’ve been drinking coffee since I was twelve.”

Walking into her house for the first time I followed her to her kitchen. When I wasn’t noticing the way Rina’s kimono wrapped her body which showed her flowing curves, my eyes were cameras snapping pictures of the elegant surroundings she had created. Surrounded by Japanese art and statuary, a shiny black baby grand piano sat in a parlor appointed with Asian furniture all permeated by the scent of cedarwood. The house was different from the other houses in the neighborhood owned by blue-collar workers.

In the kitchen was a round glass-topped table surrounded by black enameled wooden chairs cushioned with Japanese-designed chair pads. On the table was a Cleveland Plaindealer, a cup of freshly poured coffee beside it and a half glass of orange juice next to it.

“How would you like your coffee, Toby?”

“Just black Mrs. (she raised her eyebrows) Ra ... Rina.”

When I sat down at the table, she placed a cup of coffee on the right side of my Japanese-designed placemat. “So,” she said, “as you can see, I’m enjoying your newspaper,” holding out her coffee cup as if on a toast. “I’m pleased Toby that you have finally gotten around to visiting me.”

As I sipped my coffee I wondered: why I am here? I knew why I wanted to be there. Maybe she is alone in the world and is starving for company. Maybe she has singled me out as someone who would engage her in conversation.

She told me she was from Russia, her grandfather was Japanese, a wounded prisoner of the Russo-Japanese war who fell in love with his nurse. When the war was over, he stayed in Russia and married her grandmother. He became a professor of medical sciences at Moscow University and was eventually asked to join the Oxford Medical School staff in England. Rina grew up in Oxford, attended university where she majored in fashion design and met her American husband, Gregory Clearwater. He became a physician and moved to Baltimore where he attended Johns Hopkins University.

When I asked what happened to her husband, she said he contracted tuberculosis and died of it. She had gone to work in the fashion industry in London where she became a fashion model. When her husband took the job at John’s Hopkins in Baltimore, she joined the staff of Hecht’s Department Store and took a dual role as a fashion model as well as acting as a fine fashion buyer. After Gregory died, she was offered a position at Higbee’s Department Store in Cleveland where she modeled and supervised models as well as buying fine women’s fashions.

“Do you like Cleveland?” I asked.

“I like it better than Baltimore. There are more Russians here which makes me feel more at home. I like communicating in my native tongue from time to time so I don’t lose the skill.”

“Do you like living in Burling Hills?”

“I love my home. It is the only modern home in Burling Hills. I like the natural, wooded ambiance of the grounds and I love working in the garden. It’s my escape ... complete with the decor I grew up with. As a Japanese man, my grandfather loved the kind of environment you see around you. It reminds me of my home in Russia.”

“Do you have any friends here in town?”

Gazing at me for a bit with a tight smile she just said, “Do you have a large family, Toby?”

I didn’t know what the question had to do with her wooded grounds or Japanese décor or whether she had friends. “I have two brothers and two sisters; my grandfather and grandmother live with us and my mom and dad.”

“That answers the question,” giving me a small snort of appreciation. “So, you are accustomed to a lot of conversation?”

“Yeah, I guess. Dinner always takes a couple of hours. All of us are encouraged to participate. There is no such thing as ‘children should be seen and not heard,” in our house.

“See?” she giggled, something which almost shocked me, “Nobody your age would have given me that much of an answer.” Cocking her head in a reflective pose she went on, “There was something in your manner when you solicited me to subscribe to the paper which made me feel so easy with you. Like the way, you have been asking questions in such an honest, curious way. I feel good for asking you in this morning. You’re young yet seem to be a bit of an old soul.” Hesitantly reaching over she touched my hand then explained, “I just wanted to touch you to make sure you are real.”