Stunningly detailed, richly plotted, and emotionally engrossing, The Real Minerva is the story of three women forging their own paths in a Midwestern farming community. In 1923, as book-loving Penny enters adolescence, her mother, Barbara, pulls her out of school to send her to work. Destined to become a cleaning woman like her mother, Penny sees no escape from her bleak existence until a scandalous figure arrives in the town of Minerva, Minnesota: Cora, very pregnant, very headstrong, and very alone, has come to make a home on her grandfather's farm. Intrigued by this curious new resident, Penny sets out to work for Cora. Suspenseful and moving,The Real Minerva is a remarkable novel about the strength of women and the unexpected bonds that form between them.

Mary Sharratt is the author of the much-acclaimed debut, Summit Avenue, and the forthcoming novel The Vanishing Point. A born-and-bred Minnesotan, Sharratt drew on her mother’s and grandmother’s stories of Minnesota farm life in the early twentieth century for The Real Minerva. She now lives in Lancashire, England.

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As the relationship between Penny and her mother, Barbara, worsens, Penny goes to work for a woman who has fled a bad marriage and intends to raise her child on her grandfather's farm, her presence changing both Penny's and Barbara's lives forever. By the author of Summit Avenue. Reader's Guide available. Reprint.

The Real Minerva

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By Mary Sharratt

Mariner Books

Copyright © 2006 Mary Sharratt
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780618618880

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1
Minerva, 1923

The day before the heat wave began, Penny Niebeck cleaned Irene
Hamilton"s room. Stooping to her knees, she picked the strewn stockings
and underwear off the floor, and the dress that had been worn only once
since its last washing and was now crumpled and stained. She was stuffing it
all into the laundry bag when Irene marched in, pale and plump, white-gloved
hands clenched. Penny struggled to her feet and steeled herself, sweat
beading under her armpits as she met Irene"s colorless eyes. Irene"s hot
breath, smelling of breakfast bacon, fanned Penny"s cheeks. Both girls were
fifteen, their birthdays five days apart. For the past eight years, Penny"s
mother had worked as the Hamiltons" cleaning woman. For almost as long as
she could remember, Penny had clothed herself in whatever Irene had worn
out and cast away.
"You want to know something?" Irene let out a swift exhalation
that lifted the hairs on the back of Penny"s neck. "Your mother named you
Penny because she"s cheap, and so are you."
Penny took a step backward, nearly stumbling over the laundry
bag. "You have to go catch your train," she said. Irene and her sisters were
leaving for summer camp that day. "Doesn"t it leave at noon?" A glance at the
porcelain-faced clock on the dresser told her that it was nearly half past
eleven.
"I forgot something." Irene turned to snatch her mother"s
photograph from the lace-topped vanity and clutched it to her chest, her arms
carefully folded around it. The photograph had been taken before Mrs.
Hamilton fell ill from the sleeping sickness. For the past four years, Mrs. H.
had been an invalid in the Sandborn Nursing Home. Her face was frozen up
like a statue"s. She didn"t talk anymore, didn"t do anything but sleep and let
the nurses feed and change her like a baby. The doctors couldn"t say how
long she would live or if she would ever get better.
"You know why Daddy"s sending us away." Irene spoke
accusingly.
Penny breathed hard. "No, I don"t." But her voice faltered and
blood began to pound at her temples.
"You know." Irene spoke so vehemently that her spit landed on
Penny"s face. "Even someone as dumb as you could figure it out."
"I"m not dumb."
"Oh, yeah? Then why aren"t you going to high school this fall?"
Penny looked down at her cracked old shoes, the color of
potatoes left to rot in the cellar. When she had finished ninth grade that
spring, her mother had told her it was time to leave school and earn her own
keep. High school was for people from well-off families or children whose
parents cared about education and that sort of thing. At fifteen, Penny had
hands already as swollen and red from all the cleaning as her mother"s were.
"Your mother"s too cheap to keep you in school," Irene said,
sticking her face into Penny"s so that she couldn"t look away. "She"s as
cheap as they come."
"Is that so?" Penny shot back. "Well, your father seems to think
she"s just fine." She watched Irene"s face go from flour white to chicken-blood
red. "You better hurry," she said, "or you"ll miss your train."
Downstairs Mr. H. was calling for his daughter. "Your mother"s a
whore," Irene whispered, something glinting in her eyes, which had suddenly
gone pink. She hugged her mother"s photograph tighter. "You don"t even
know who your father is," she said, her voice breaking as she dashed out the
door.

After the Hamilton girls left for horse camp in Wyoming, the hot sticky
weather moved in — the kind Penny hated most. Those nights the back
bedroom she shared with her mother seemed far too cramped, the sloping
ceiling about to collapse on them. At least winter, for all its bleakness, was
pristine, the glittering snow covering everything, even the manure on the road,
making the world look immaculate. But in the heat of late June, everything
stank and decayed — the garbage pail near the back door with the trail of
ants marching up its side, the reek of her sweating body as she scrubbed
floors and heated the iron on the stove. With the windows wide open, she
heard every noise at night — the raccoons knocking over the garbage pail,
the laughter of lovey-dovey couples walking up the street. The sound of Mr.
H. pacing in the master bedroom while her mother rolled in her narrow bed,
the springs creaking beneath her.

Penny and her mother were hanging laundry on the clothesline when Mr. H.
appeared without warning, home from the pop factory at eleven in the
morning. Without more than a hastily mumbled hello, he ducked past them
and disappeared inside the back door. A furious pounding filled Penny"s head
like someone hammering away on scrap metal. Her mother, her beautiful
mother, turned, chicory-blue eyes narrowing against the sun"s glare.
"I s"pose he forgot something."
Clothespins clamped between her lips, Penny grabbed a wet
bedsheet from the laundry basket and was about to pin it up on the line when
her mother yanked it out of her hands and threw it back into the basket.
Penny stared at her, too furious to speak.
"We need bleach," Barbara Niebeck told her daughter, forcefully
but quietly. "Go get some bleach." She pulled two dimes out of her apron
pocket.
Spitting the clothespins out of her mouth, Penny fisted the coins
her mother thrust at her.
"Go on," she said, squaring her shoulders and using the tone
Penny knew better than to argue with. Her mouth trembling, Penny shot out
of the yard. She hid behind the lilac bush in the alley and watched her mother
head toward the house, watched her skirt swing from her slender hips like a
bell. There was nothing hesitant in her mother"s gait.

As Penny stumbled off in the direction of the store, she didn"t hear the dogs
barking or the whistle of the train pulling into the depot four blocks away. She
heard only her mother"s voice, as hateful as a stranger"s. Go get some
bleach. Afterward her mother would try to disguise the odor by dribbling lily-of-
the-valley toilet water all over her bed. The smell was enough to make Penny
gag. With Mr. H. of all people. Mr. H. with his wife in the nursing home. How
could her mother possibly find him attractive, with his sissified New England
accent and his high balding forehead? Penny understood without wanting to
what he saw in her mother"s firm body, in her thick, lustrous hair that wasn"t
dark brown like Penny"s but blue-black — exotic coloring in Minerva, where
most people"s hair was blond or mousy brown. Once Penny had overheard
Mr. Wysock from church telling someone that her mother looked like Mata
Hari. If people said unkind things about Barbara Niebeck, they all agreed she
was a stunner.
Penny had been very fond of Mrs. Hamilton, who in the days
before her illness had been kind to her. Mrs. H. had baked shortbread, which
she cut into delicately pointed triangles called petticoat tails. When it was
fresh from the oven, she had invited Penny to join her daughters at the table
for shortbread and sweet milky tea. Mrs. H. had made her daughters be nice
to her, had told them to let her join their games. Penny remembered going to
bed praying that Hazel Hamilton was her real mother, but that was four years
ago, before Mrs. Hamilton"s illness. Penny told herself she was too old for
such games of make-believe. Her mother always said that no one could get
away with being too soft in life, and Mrs. H. had been as soft as a big
hortensia bloom. Look where it had gotten her. The Hamilton daughters would
do much better for themselves. They were prickly little porcupines trundling
along, knowing that no one would ever lay a hand on them.
Turning onto Main Street, she could feel the heat of what would be
another merciless day, the humidity coating her skin like grease. When she
walked into Renfew"s Grocery and Mercantile, loudly jangling the bells on the
door handle, Mr. Renfew didn"t glance up from his crossword puzzle. His two
customers, Mrs. Deal and Mrs. La Plant, were too caught up in their
conversation to look her way.
"Oh boy, it"s gonna be a hot one today," Mrs. La Plant told her
friend. "Supposed to get up to ninety-nine degrees. And with this humidity!"
Inside the store, it was almost bearable. An electric fan whirled
from the high, pressed-tin ceiling. Positioning herself to get the most of the
circulating air, Penny rubbed the sweat from her forehead with the heel of her
hand. She crossed to the shelf where the chocolate bars were displayed and
fingered the illustrated wrappers. Her favorite showed a fancy city lady
walking a Scottish terrier. Raising the bar to her nose, she smelled the rich
chocolate through the layers of colored paper and foil. In the heat, the
chocolate had lost its firmness and went limp as butter in her hands. Her
fingers sank in, leaving indentations on the lady"s face.
Taking a quick look around to make sure no one was watching,
she returned the misshapen bar to the shelf before slinking to the water
dispenser in the corner. During the summer months, Mr. Renfew set out a big
tin canister of ice water and a tray of glasses beside it. Often farmers came
in, dry and dusty from the fields. Some farm hands and hired girls walked all
the way into town. Sipping from her glass, she read the handwritten ads on
the notice board. One in particular made her smirk: WEDDING DRESS,
WORN ONCE, CHEAP, FIVE DOLLARS. How was it, she wondered, that
girls spent a month or more — and all their savings besides — sewing their
wedding dress, decorating it with ribbons, lace, and fake pearls? Why put so
much work and expense into a dress they wore only one day? Once it was
used, they were lucky if they could sell it for a few dollars.
Mrs. Deal and Mrs. La Plant wilted in the heat. Their carefully
crimped hair went lank. The sweat rolling down their faces left snail tracks in
their powder and rouge. When Mrs. Deal raised her hand to order another
glass of Hamilton"s strawberry pop, Penny couldn"t help noticing that the
armpit of her georgette blouse was dark with perspiration.
But before Mrs. Deal could get Mr. Renfew"s attention, the screen
door opened and a farmer strode into the shop. The two women looked over
at once. Even Mr. Renfew lifted his eyes from his crossword puzzle. Penny
stared at the farmer"s manure-crusted work boots, his patched overall legs,
and the buttoned overcoat he wore in spite of the heat. He was not anyone
she recognized. His smooth young face, shadowed by a dusty Panama hat,
was guarded and expressionless. When the farmer approached the main
counter, she saw in profile the burgeoning belly the overcoat was meant to
hide, that belly curving out like a firm ripe melon. Even she knew it could not
be the belly of a fat man.
The Maagdenbergh woman. Of course, Penny had heard the
rumors about her, but until this minute they had seemed like tall stories. Yet
there she was, digging her grocery list out of her pocket and reading it to Mr.
Renfew, who pulled the items down from the shelves and packed them into
an orange crate for her.
"Insane," Mrs. Deal muttered to Mrs. La Plant. "That creature is
insane."
Penny inhaled sharply, wondering if the Maagdenbergh woman
had heard. She saw her stiffen, but the woman just went on reading her
shopping list. "Two pounds of coffee beans . . . four bars of Luna white
soap . . . a bar of Castile soap." Her tone was smooth, resonant. "A quarter
pound of brick cheese . . . two pan loaves . . . a pound of rice . . . a box of
Ralston crackers . . . two pounds of Cream of Wheat . . . a dozen cans of
tomato soup."
"How"s the farm?" Mr. Renfew managed to ask.
"The price of wheat has dropped so low, it"s a sin." A spark of
emotion crept into the Maagdenbergh woman"s voice. "I"ve heard some
farmers are switching to potatoes. At least the mills can"t fix the price of
potatoes, but what can I do? The wheat"s already planted. Let"s hope the
weather will hold for the harvest."
After paying Mr. Renfew, she hoisted the crate of groceries and
made her cumbersome way to the door. Penny winced, not willing to believe
that such a hugely pregnant woman would carry such a load.
"Ma"am!" Mr. Renfew cried. The ma"am must have slipped out
before he could stop himself. He leapt out from behind the counter and
attempted to wrest the crate from her arms. "That"s awfully heavy."
The Maagdenbergh woman trundled right past him. "I"m perfectly
capable of carrying my own groceries, Mr. Renfew."
He held the screen door open for her as she hauled her load out to
her pickup. As soon as she was gone, he turned shakily to Mrs. Deal and
Mrs. La Plant, opening his mouth as if to comment on what had just
transpired, when the Maagdenbergh woman marched back in and handed
him a piece of ivory-colored letter paper.
"Mr. Renfew, would you mind putting this up on your notice board?"
He pinned it beside the scribbled ad for the used wedding dress.
"Thank you." The Maagdenbergh woman"s voice was as smooth
as that ivory paper. "Goodbye, Mr. Renfew. Goodbye, ladies," she added,
turning to Mrs. Deal and Mrs. La Plant. The look she gave them spoke loud
and clear. It was as if she had shouted in their faces, Don"t think I didn"t hear
what you were saying about me.
Then her green eyes sank into Penny, fixing her in place so that
she could not look away. She felt as though the Maagdenbergh woman could
see right inside her, right to the bottom of her humiliation. As though she
knew her mother had sent her to the store so she could have a dirty tumble
with Mr. Hamilton. Penny shrank, the cheap tumbler falling from her hand. At
the sound of the glass striking the floor, everyone turned to her. Mr. Renfew,
Mrs. Deal, and Mrs. La Plant looked at Penny in startled confusion as if
seeing her for the first time.
"Goodbye, miss." The Maagdenbergh woman stepped out the
door. Only when she was gone could Penny take a deep breath and meet
Mr. Renfew"s eyes.
"Indestructible, that glass," he said as she picked it up, still in one
piece, and set it back on the tray. Mrs. Deal and Mrs. La Plant smiled at her
a little too sweetly. At least none of them seemed to notice her terrible
shame. Only the Maagdenbergh woman had seen that.
"Penny?" he said. "Is everything all right? You look kind of pale." It
was true, she was shaking.
"It"s the heat." Mrs. La Plant sighed. "A person can"t even think
straight in this heat."
"You better sit down," Mr. Renfew said. "Why don"t you eat
something? How "bout a piece of pie?" Penny edged her way to the counter
and took a seat, leaving an empty stool between herself and Mrs. La Plant.
Mr. Renfew cut her a slice of his wife"s rhubarb pie. "Want some ice cream
with that?" Penny offered him one of the dimes her mother had given her, but
he shook his head. "This one"s on the house."
"I can"t believe her nerve," Mrs. Deal whispered to Mrs. La
Plant. "Going around dressed like that and in her condition." She glanced at
Mr. Renfew. "Did she have the rifle along in her pickup again?"
He nodded glumly. "It was there in the gun rack. I don"t like to see
a pregnant lady riding around with a gun."
"Heard she took a shot at the Nelson gang the other week," Mrs.
La Plant said. "They drove by her place looking to stir up trouble —"
"She"s asking for trouble," Mrs. Deal cut in.
"— and she shot clean through their windshield."
"The Nelson brothers are no good," Mr. Renfew said. "Serves them
right. I just wish she"d try a little harder to stay out of harm"s way. Nothing
good can come of her living alone on that farm. I don"t know how she"ll
manage when the baby"s there."
They went on talking, their three faces a closed circle. Penny ate
her pie in silence, grateful to be invisible once more.
"What was that notice she wanted you to put up on the board?"
Mrs. Deal asked.
"She"s looking for a hired woman."
"God almighty!" Mrs. Deal slapped the counter and laughed. "No
one in their right mind would work for a creature like that."
"Now, Edna," Mrs. La Plant said. "Don"t be so uncharitable."
"I don"t see why she doesn"t go back to where she came from."
"Back where?" Mrs. La Plant asked. "Back to her husband in
Evanston?"
Mrs. Deal didn"t say anything.
"I don"t understand," Mrs. La Plant continued, "why you can"t feel
a little more sympathy for a lady who had to run from her own husband."
"Is it true she tried to shoot him?" Mr. Renfew lowered his voice to
a murmur.
Penny listened to them hash out the story, pieced together from
so many different scraps of gossip that it was hard to sort out the truth. The
Maagdenbergh woman"s real name was Cora Egan. She was the wife of Dr.
Egan of Evanston, Illinois, a man who had served as a military surgeon in the
Great War. That was where they had met — supposedly she had gone to
France as a Red Cross nurse. People said Dr. Egan came from money and
owned a big house a few blocks from Lake Michigan. As a young wife, Cora
Egan had been a celebrated beauty, renowned for her charity work, her
picture all over the Chicago papers. Then the previous November she had
appeared at her grandfather"s farm outside Minerva and asked if she could
stay. Roy Hanson, the hired man, claimed she had gone straight for the
kitchen shears and hacked off the thick and wavy chestnut hair that had
garnered her such praise in the society columns. She had burned the shorn
tresses in the stove along with the dress she had traveled in. From that day
onward, she had worn only men"s clothes, straight from her grandfather"s
closet. Then one night her husband showed up. First he acted all gentle and
nice, but when she cussed him out and said she"d never go back to him, he
started to get mean.
"Roy told me he tried to protect her," Mrs. La Plant said. "Threw
himself between her and her husband and got a punch in the gut. Said he
was all doubled up on the floor."
"Now that I don"t believe," said Mrs. Deal. "Who ever heard of a
doctor knocking down a hired man?"
Mrs. La Plant ignored her. "Roy ended up on the floor and old man
Van den Maagdenbergh was too frail to do anything but shout. So she got
her grandfather"s rifle and shoved it in her husband"s face. Told him to get
out, and if he ever came back, she"d shoot him dead."
For a moment no one spoke.
"Roy said she was all shaky and white in the face." Mrs. La Plant
fiddled with her handkerchief. "But she wasn"t bluffing. Her finger was on the
trigger. One false move and her husband"s brains would have been all over
the kitchen."
Penny looked down at the sticky red remains of the rhubarb pie.
Mr. Renfew cleared his throat. "I remember when she and her
brother used to come visit their grandpa in the summer. In those days she
seemed like a nice enough girl. I went to school with her mother," he
added. "Theodora Van den Maagdenbergh." A distant look passed over his
face. "She was a tomboy but nice to look at. Sharp as a nail, too." He wiped
the counter meditatively. "Went to Chicago on scholarship money and met
some swell rich fellow. They ran off together . . . to Argentina, I think it was.
She must have broken her old man"s heart."
"Argentina," Penny broke in. Startled by her voice, they turned to
her. "Why would somebody from here go all the way down there?" She
thought of the globe in the Hamiltons" study. Argentina was at the bottom of
the world.
"A lot of people were going to Argentina in those days," Mr.
Renfew said. "It was after the Wild West closed up. Down there they still had
a frontier. They had mining and cattle ranches bigger than the ones in Texas.
People thought they could strike it rich."
"Argentina"s where the tango comes from," Mrs. Deal said
knowingly.
"I think Roy said her parents ran a hotel down there," said Mrs. La
Plant. "They died when she was twelve. She and her brother came up to live
with the Chicago grandparents. They"re dead, too, now. She doesn"t have
anyone."
"What about her brother?" Mr. Renfew asked.
Mrs. La Plant shrugged. "I don"t know anything about the brother.
She had Roy, though, but then she fired him. Right after her grandpa died
and everyone was ready to feel sorry for her and help her out. Told Roy he
didn"t show her the proper respect." She laughed in disbelief. "Can you
imagine? He took a punch in the stomach for her sake, and she tells him he
doesn"t respect her." She rolled her eyes. "None of this trouble with the
Nelson gang would have happened if she"d had a man with her on that farm."
"It would be a lot easier to feel some sympathy if she let her hair
grow back," Mrs. Deal said, "and put on a dress."
"Things are never that simple." Mr. Renfew let out a sigh. "You
have to keep up with the times. Harriet cut her hair as short as a boy"s." His
daughter Harriet lived in Minneapolis. "She wears trousers sometimes.
Smokes cigarettes and drives her own car. All the young gals in the Cities
are cutting their hair. It"s the new fashion."
"Fashion?" Mrs. Deal snorted. "You know darn well the
Maagdenbergh woman doesn"t give two hoots about fashion. She wants to be
a man."
Mr. Renfew blinked and took away Penny"s empty plate. Mrs. La
Plant plucked a hair off her skirt. Silence settled over everyone, stifling as the
heat. Penny slid off her stool and slipped away.

Copyright © 2004 by Mary Sharratt. Reprinted by permission of Houghton
Mifflin Company.



Continues...

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Excerpted from The Real Minerva by Mary Sharratt Copyright © 2006 by Mary Sharratt. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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MARY SHARRATT’s first novel, Summit Avenue, was a Book Sense selection. She has taught at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and has given workshops around the country on the subject of women and fairy tales. She lives in Lancashire, England.