The Amateur Marriage Read online

  “What,” he said, beaming. He reached for the cane that he’d hooked on the edge of the counter.

  “Guess!”

  “Well, I don’t know, Polly.”

  “Reverend Dane said we can be married in his church.”

  “He did? Really? That’s great!” Michael said.

  Pegging the length of the counter so that he could come out and join her, he flicked a glance toward his mother in passing. The neighbor women checked too. How would she take the news? Her son getting married in a Protestant church: not what most mothers would hope for.

  Mrs. Anton was stalwart. She raised her chin and said, “Isn’t that nice!”

  “Naturally you’re all invited,” Pauline told the women.

  They looked at each other and murmured their thanks. (Father Pasko would throw a fit.)

  “Also, guess what, Michael,” Pauline said.

  He was standing in front of her now, leaning stiff-armed on his cane and smiling down at her. He said, “What.”

  “Guess!”

  Michael was so slow and stodgy; the women had never realized how stodgy. “What, Polly,” he said.

  “My father’s going to find an apartment for us.”

  Michael blinked. He said, “Why would we need an apartment?”

  “To live in, silly!”

  “But we have a place to live in. Here above the store.”

  “Yes, but Dad says he can find us something of our own. Lots of times he hears first when people are getting evicted, he says, when they come to him looking for someplace cheap in a hurry. All he has to ask them is, ‘Where was it you’ve been living till now?’ and if their landlord hasn’t—”

  “But we can’t afford our own place, hon. I already told you. Mama’s going to move out of her bedroom and you can decorate it yourself, any way you like.”

  Mrs. Anton was giving up her bedroom? So she’d have to sleep in that sliver of a room that used to be Michael and Danny’s. (It wasn’t very hard to figure this out, with houses all more or less the same floor plan.) What a sacrifice! The women sent Mrs. Anton a look, but she didn’t respond. She was watching Michael and Pauline.

  Pauline said, “Oh.”

  Michael said, “You understand.”

  “Well,” she said.

  She took a step backward. She was wearing flimsy sandals in an impossibly narrow size, something none of the hefty neighborhood girls could have dreamed of fitting into, and even on this creaky floor her step was so light and dainty that she didn’t make a sound. She spun around, and just like that she was gone. The screen door swung shut. The rusty spring on top vibrated twangily.

  Michael turned to the women with such a perplexed expression that Mrs. Brunek, for one, seemed to feel the need to explain. She gave a tinkle of a laugh and said, “Oh, you know: bridal jitters!”

  He said, “Maybe I should go talk to her.”

  He left, his rubber-tipped cane chirping in an anxious-sounding way.

  Miss Jakubek was so distracted that she started shopping all over again, even though she was already carrying a little parcel of canned goods.

  Sometimes it seemed that the war was blurring St. Cassian’s edges. The factory girls were dating fellows from South Carolina and West Virginia; the boys overseas were writing home about girls with English accents. A number of the neighborhood women—respectable women, married, with children—had taken jobs at Glenn L. Martin. They set off for work each morning in coarse blue denim coveralls while their mothers, wearing scarves knotted under their chins and dresses shaped like potato sacks tied in the middle, watched after them and shook their heads. Who knew where it would end?

  You didn’t hear just polkas anymore; you heard “Chattanooga Choo Choo” and “The White Cliffs of Dover” and “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.” You heard “Blues in the Night” and “Take Me” and “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You.” Young people danced cheek to cheek, so slowly they might be sleepwalking. Katie Vilna got pregnant. Jerry Kowalski’s girlfriend ran off with a sailor from Memphis. Everyone in the neighborhood learned how to identify airplanes.

  Joe Dobek’s body was found and shipped home, and they held a funeral for him on the first cool day in September. Even before the war began, St. Cassian’s cemetery had been running out of room, but they squeezed him between two strangers’ graves from long, long ago when the neighborhood was Irish. The mossy headstones of O’Malley and O’Leary flanked Joe’s pearly white one, and Mrs. Dobek fell into the habit of laying flowers on all three graves when she came to visit Joe. John O’Malley had lived ninety-two years and died at rest in the Lord. O’Leary (no first name) had come into this world and left again in the space of a single day. Mrs. Dobek told her friends that sometimes, when she should have been praying for Joe, she thought instead about the O’Leary baby’s mother—how terribly, achingly sad she must have been to lose her infant, but how much more she could have lost: all the years of his growing up and becoming a separate person with quirks and foibles and special ways of doing things, like half breaking her neck when he hugged her, and turning the dog’s ears inside out, and pretending to mistake his little sister for Betty Grable.

  She also said that when she first heard they’d found Joe’s body, she had felt a bolt of something she would almost have to call anger. They made it sound as if he’d just been thoughtlessly mislaid, she said. Like somebody’s cast-off toy. When she herself had been so careful, all these years, to keep him safe and healthy.

  Nowadays so many couples were marrying in a hurry that people had grown accustomed to abbreviated, slapdash weddings. In the past there would have been months of sewing, weeks of cooking, a giant party afterwards where the guests tossed envelopes of money into the bride’s scooped apron, but lately it seemed that getting married required no more forethought than going to the movies.

  So when Mrs. Anton told her customers, on a Friday in late September, that Michael’s wedding would take place the following afternoon, they weren’t completely scandalized. And when she said they were welcome to come if they wanted, eight or nine women accepted. No men, as it happened. The men claimed they couldn’t see themselves entering a Protestant church, but that was just an excuse. You know how men are about wearing ties on a Saturday.

  Even though people talked as if Pauline hailed from the moon, her neighborhood was barely a twenty-minute walk from St. Cassian Street—a very pleasant walk, if the weather was good. And the weather on Michael’s wedding day was beautiful. The air was crisp and fall-like, and as the women left their own neighborhood behind they began to see little fenced trees that were turning lipstick red or egg-yolk yellow. They strolled at a leisurely pace, commenting on the houses they passed, which were row houses still but wider and somehow messier—the fronts not perfectly uniform, the curtains all different colors, the stoops surrounded by disorganized bits of green. The church, when it came into view, was clapboard, and the windows were not stained glass but a monotone pink, pebbled like the windows in bathrooms. About this the women said nothing. They were determined to behave impeccably. They all wore their most American clothes, dark and severe, with dark hats and spotless white gloves, and they carried wrapped and ribboned gifts because where Pauline lived, brides were given items from Hutzler’s. Everybody knew that much.

  Leading the way was Wanda Bryk—the youngest by twenty years or more, but clearly the one in charge. She instructed them as they climbed the church steps. “Pauline’s parents will be here, of course, and her three sisters, and her oldest sister’s husband who’s got asthma so don’t say anything, I mean don’t ask why he hasn’t enlisted because he feels just awful about it . . . No, no bridesmaids, no best man . . . not even a real procession! We’ll just all sit near the front and the minister’s going to—oh, there she is! There’s Pauline now!”

  Pauline? Herself? Yes, that was who it was, all right. She was standing in the foyer, big as life, wearing a disappointingly plain ivory-colored street dress and talking to an old man. When she sa
w the women she said, “Oh! How nice of you all to come! Michael, look who’s here!”

  Good Lord, yes, there was Michael, too, leaning on his cane not a yard away from his bride. Apparently they saw no harm in meeting before the wedding. Michael wore his pinchy suit and a white shirt and a red tie. He looked so handsome! The women were proud of him. They kissed him, patted his arm, pretended his collar needed straightening. “Mama’s on her way,” he told them. “She’s coming with Uncle Bron.” Then he introduced them to Pauline’s mother. “Mom Barclay,” he called her; goodness, that was fast! Mrs. Barclay was trim and attractive, with Pauline’s dark-blond hair, and she made such a to-do over the St. Cassian’s women, complimenting their dresses and their hats and their wrapping paper, exclaiming at how far they must have walked, that they began to feel uncertain. Then a young sailor arrived, and Mrs. Barclay turned her gracious smile on him, and the women were free to go on inside.

  The church had baby-blue walls and blond wood pews, which made it seem lacking in mystery. Up front, Pauline’s friend Anna—the girl with the handkerchief that first day in Anton’s Grocery—was playing the piano, her back to the congregation but her smooth brown pageboy and her faultless posture easily identifiable. Already several guests were sitting here and there. None of them was familiar, but shortly after the women had arranged themselves along the length of one pew, Michael’s mother came down the aisle on the arm of her brother-in-law. She wore a navy polka-dot dress they’d never seen before, and a white cloth rose was pinned to the V of her neckline. When Mrs. Serge said “Psst!” Mrs. Anton gave the women a squinty, superficial smile and then instantly sobered, as if she had to keep her full attention on the business at hand. Elsewhere, though, people were talking in normal tones and even getting up to join in other conversations. None of them seemed to have presents. Were presents wrong in some way? The seating appeared to be random, but Mrs. Anton settled in a first-row pew, which the St. Cassian’s women agreed was only proper.

  A door opened behind the altar and a pale young man in a black suit emerged. He walked over to the pulpit, set down a Bible, and smiled at the congregation. For a while this had no effect, but gradually the guests who’d risen to converse went into a little flurry of returning to their seats. Then Mrs. Barclay came down the aisle with a worn-looking gray-haired man—no doubt Mr. Barclay—and they settled in the other front pew. Anna stopped playing the piano. The minister cleared his throat. A hush fell. Everyone looked toward the door at the rear.

  Nothing happened.

  People exchanged glances. Maybe the couple would enter from elsewhere; was that the plan? They faced forward again. The minister started leafing through his Bible, but not as if he meant to read from it.

  Whispers started circulating up and down the pews. A child asked a question that was laughingly silenced, after which the atmosphere relaxed. Casual conversations resumed in several spots. Mrs. Anton’s back stayed rigid and she went on looking straight ahead, but Mrs. Barclay kept twisting in her seat to check behind her. Obviously she had no more information than her guests.

  “What’s going on?” Mrs. Nowak asked Wanda.

  Instead of answering, Wanda rose and stepped out of the pew. She started back up the side aisle, her heels clopping briskly, while the women looked at each other.

  A glass of water stood at the right-hand edge of the pulpit, and now the minister picked it up and took a token, unconvincing sip. He set the glass back down. He coughed. He really was astonishingly young. “I hope they’re not experiencing any last-minute doubts, ha-ha,” he said.

  A few people tittered dutifully.

  Behind the St. Cassian’s women, two men were discussing the Orioles. One of them said he’d given up hope. The other said just to wait. Everything would be different, he said, in 1943.

  Wanda came back and sat down, out of breath, rustling and bustling importantly.

  What was it? the women asked, leaning forward.

  Pauline had changed her mind.

  Had what?

  The answer came in patches, altering slightly from woman to woman as it was relayed down the row, whispered even in this hubbub so that no one in any other pew could hear.

  Says she doesn’t know what she was thinking . . . says all they do is fight . . . says he never wants to go anyplace and . . . always so unsocial and . . . such a different style of person from her, so set in his ways, won’t budge . . .

  “Always does what? Never wants to go where?” Mrs. Serge asked from the far end. “Wait, I didn’t catch that.”

  Mrs. Zack said every bride felt that way. That was what weddings were all about! Wanda said Michael had said the same thing. He’d said, “Now, Poll, you’re just overwrought,” and Pauline had said, “Don’t tell me I’m—”

  “Ssh!” Mrs. Serge said.

  Seated closest to the aisle, she was the first to notice the stir at the rear of the church. The women turned. The other guests turned. The piano came to with a start and started playing “Here Comes the Bride” as Michael and Pauline walked toward the altar hand in hand. Not arm in arm, the way people did at snootier, more stilted weddings, but tightly holding hands and wearing radiant smiles.

  They were such a perfect couple. They were taking their very first steps on the amazing journey of marriage, and wonderful adventures were about to unfold in front of them.

  2. Dandelion Clock

  Pauline said, “Once upon a time, there was a woman who had a birthday.”

  Michael stopped pouring his cereal and looked across the table at her.

  “It was January fifth,” Pauline said. “The woman was twenty-three.”

  “Why, that’s your birthday, too!” Michael’s mother told her. “That’s how old you turned, only yesterday!”

  “And because this woman happened to be at a low point in her life,” Pauline went on, “she was feeling very sensitive about her age.”

  Michael said, cautiously, “A low point in her life?”

  Pauline rose to reposition the baby in her high chair. The baby had reached the stage where she could sit up, but just barely. Left on her own, she tended to slide gradually downwards until her chin was resting on her chest.

  “Yes, she wasn’t awfully attractive just then,” Pauline said, taking her seat again. “She was two months pregnant and sick as a dog, and she still hadn’t got her figure back from the last time she was pregnant. Also, her husband was a quarter-year younger than she was. For three months after every birthday, she was an Older Woman. Can you imagine how that felt? She was old and fat and ugly, and her bosom was starting to sag.”

  Pauline herself was prettier than ever, in Michael’s opinion. This early in the morning, unrouged and unlipsticked, wearing a flowered chintz housecoat, she looked as fresh as a child. The second pregnancy had not begun to show yet, whatever she might imagine, and the only apparent effect of the first was the thrilling new roundness and weightiness of her breasts. Michael could almost feel them filling his hands as she spoke. He smiled; he tried to catch her eye. But Pauline was saying, “More coffee, Mother Anton?”

  “No, thank you, dear. You know what it does to my stomach,” Michael’s mother said.

  “Luckily for this woman,” Pauline continued, “her husband was very understanding. He hated for her to feel bad! He decided he would devote himself to making her birthday perfect.”

  Michael stirred uneasily. He had certainly not forgotten her birthday—nothing so unforgivable as that—but neither could he say he had devoted himself to making it perfect. (It had fallen on a weekday this year. He did have a business to run.)

  “He got up in the morning,” Pauline said, “he tiptoed out to the kitchen, he fixed her French toast and orange juice. He came back with a tray and said, ‘Happy birthday, darling!’ Then he brought her the flowers that he’d stowed earlier on the fire escape. A dozen long-stemmed roses; never mind the expense. ‘You’re worth every bit of it, darling,’ he said. ‘I just wish they could be rubies.’”

 
; Pauline was bright-eyed and her voice had a cheery ring to it, so that Michael’s mother was fooled completely. She gave a sigh of satisfaction. “Wasn’t that romantic!” she told Michael. (Since those two dizzy spells last summer, she had seemed less quick-witted.) But Michael watched Pauline in silence, his fingers tight on his napkin.

  “And her present,” Pauline said, “was . . .”

  For the first time, she faltered. She turned to untie the baby’s bib.

  “. . . was something personal,” she said finally. “A bottle of cologne, or a see-through nightie. He would never give her anything useful! And he’d never just tell her to buy it herself! He’d never say, ‘Happy birthday, hon, and why don’t you stop by Zack’s Housewares and pick up one of those family-size canning kettles you’ve been telling me you needed.’”

  Michael felt his mother send him an uncertain glance. She said, “Oh. Well . . .”

  “But what am I boring you with this for?” Pauline caroled. “It’s not as if we live that way ourselves, now, is it?”

  And she sprang lightly to her feet and lifted Lindy from the high chair and carried her out of the kitchen.

  Downstairs in the grocery store, Michael slit open a cardboard carton and unpacked tins of peaches. He stacked them on a shelf above a tab that read 17¢—18 POINTS. In his head he was defending himself. “Was I supposed to read your mind, or what?” he silently asked Pauline. “How would I know what you want for your birthday? I’m twenty-two years old! The only woman I’ve ever bought a gift for is my mother! And Mama’s always loved getting presents that were useful!”

  He recalled the moment when the inspiration of the canning kettle had hit him—the flood of relief as he remembered Pauline’s complaints about his mother’s little dinky one. He had been so proud of himself! Now a wounded feeling swept through him.

  And notice how she had said nothing about her birthday cake. Chocolate cake, with chocolate icing spread not just across the top (“flat top” style, as the Ration Board called it) but down the sides as well. Who did she imagine had asked his mother to make that cake? Left to her own devices, his mother probably wouldn’t have remembered what day it was, even.