The Collected Stories (4 page)

“Don't laugh,” she said, “someday I'll disappear Air France and surprise you all with a nice curly Frenchman just like your daddy. Oh, how you would have loved your father. A growing-up girl with a man like that in the vicinity constantly. You'd thank me.”

“I thank you anyway, Mother dear,” I replied, “but keep your taste in your own hatch. When I'm as old as Aunt Lizzy I might like American soldiers. Or a Marine, I think. I already like some soldiers, especially Corporal Brownstar.”

“Is
that
your idea of a man?” asked Mother, rowdy with contempt.

Then she reconsidered Corporal Brownstar. “Well, maybe you're right. Those powerful-looking boots … Very masculine.”

“Oh?”

“I know, I know. I'm artistic and I sometimes hold two views at once. I realize that Lizzy's going around with him and it does something. Look at Lizzy and you see the girl your father saw. Just like me. Wonderful carriage. Marvelous muscle tone. She could have any man she wanted.”

“She's already had some she wanted.”

At that very moment my grandma, the nick-of-time banker, came in, proud to have saved $4.65 for us. “Whew, I'm so warm,” she sighed. “Well, here it is. Now a nice dinner, Marvine, I beg of you, a little effort. Josie, run and get an avocado, and Manine, please don't be small about the butter. And Josie dear, it's awful warm out and your mama won't mind. You're nearly a young lady. Would you like a sip of icy beer?”

Wasn't that respectful? To return the compliment I drank half a glass, though I hate that fizz. We broiled and steamed and sliced and chopped, and it was a wonderful dinner. I did the cooking and Mother did the sauces. We sicked her on with mouth-watering memories of another more gourmet time and, purely flattered, she made one sauce too many and we had it for dessert on saltines, with iced
café au lait.
While I cleared the dishes, Joanna, everybody's piece of fluff, sat on Grandma's lap telling her each single credible detail of her eight hours at summer day camp.

“Women,” said Grandma in appreciation, “have been the pleasure and consolation of my entire life. From the beginning I cherished all the little girls with their clean faces and their listening ears …”

“Men are different than women,” said Joanna, and it's the only thing she says in this entire story.

“That's true,” said Grandma, “it's the men that've always troubled me. Men and boys … I suppose I don't understand them. But think of it consecutively, all in a row, Johnson, Revere, and Drummond … after all, where did they start from but me? But all of them, all all all, each single one of them is gone, far away in heart and body.”

“Ah, Grandma,” I said, hoping to console, “they were all so grouchy, anyway. I don't miss them a bit.”

Grandma gave me a miserable look. “Everyone's sons are like that,” she explained. “First grouchy, then gone.”

After that she sat in grieving sorrow. Joanna curled herself round the hassock at her feet, hugged it, and slept. Mother got her last week's copy of
Le Monde
out of the piano bench and calmed herself with a story about a farmer in Provence who had raped his niece and killed his mother and lived happily for thirty-eight years into respected old age before the nosy prefect caught up with him. She translated it into our derivative mother tongue while I did the dishes.

Nighttime came and communication was revived at last by our doorbell, which is full of initiative. It was Lizzy and she did bring Corporal Brownstar. We sent Joanna out for beer and soft drinks and the dancing started right away. He cooperatively danced with everyone. I slipped away to my room for a moment and painted a lot of lipstick neatly on my big mouth and hooked a walleyed brassière around my ribs to make him understand that I was older than Joanna.

He said to me, “You're peaches and cream, you're gonna be quite a girl someday, Alice in Wonderland.”

“I am a girl already, Corporal.”

“Uh
huh
,” he said, squeezing my left bottom.

Lizzy passed the punch and handed out Ritz crackers and danced with Mother and Joanna whenever the corporal danced with me. She was delighted to see him so popular, and it just passed her happy head that he was the only man there. At the peak of the evening he said: “You may all call me Browny.”

We sang air force songs then until 2 a.m., and Grandma said the songs hadn't changed much since her war. “The soldiers are younger though,” she said. “Son, you look like your mother is still worried about you.”

“No reason to worry about me, I got a lot of irons in the fire. I get advanced all the time, as a matter of fact. Stem to stern,” he said, winking at Lizzy, “I'm O.K. … By the way,” he continued, “could you folks put me up? I wouldn't mind sleeping on the floor.”

“The floor?” expostulated Mother. “Are you out of your mind? A soldier of the Republic. My God! We have a cot. You know … an army cot. Set it up and sleep the sleep of the just, Corporal.”

“Oh, goodness”—Grandma yawned—”talking about bed—Marvine, your dad must be home by now. I'd better be getting back.”

Browny decided in a courteous way to take Lizzy and Grandma home. By the time he returned, Mother and Joanna had wrapped their lonesome arms around each other and gone to sleep.

I sneakily watched him from behind the drapes scrubbing himself down without consideration for his skin. Then, shining and naked, he crawled between the sheets in totality.

I unshod myself and tiptoed into the kitchen. I poured him a cold beer. I came straight to him and sat down by his side. “Here's a nice beer, Browny. I thought you might be hot after such a long walk.”

“Why, thanks, Alice Palace Pudding and Pie, I happen to be pretty damn hot. You're a real pal.”

He heaved himself up and got that beer into his gut in one gulp. I looked at him down to his belly button. He put the empty glass on the floor and grinned at me. He burped into my face for a joke and then I had to speak the truth. “Oh, Browny,” I said, “I just love you so.” I threw my arms around his middle and leaned my face into the golden hairs of his chest.

“Hey, pudding, take it easy. I like you too. You're a doll.”

Then I kissed him right on the mouth.

“Josephine, who the hell taught you that?”

“I taught myself. I practiced on my wrist. See?”

“Josephine!” he said again. “Josephine, you're a liar. You're one hell of a liar!”

After that his affection increased, and he hugged me too and kissed me right on the mouth.

“Well,” I kidded, “who taught you that? Lizzy?”

“Shut up,” he said, and the more he loved me the less he allowed of conversation.

I lay down beside him, and I was really surprised the way a man is transformed by his feelings. He loved me all over myself, and to show I understood his meaning I whispered: “Browny, what do you want? Browny, do you want to do it?”

Well! He jumped out of bed then and flapped the sheet around his shoulders and groaned, “Oh, Christ … Oh,” he said, “I could be arrested. I could be picked up by M.P.'s and spend the rest of my life in jail.” He looked at me. “For godsakes button your shirt. Your mother'll wake up in a minute.”

“Browny, what's the matter?”

“You're a child and you're too damn smart for your own good. Don't you understand? This could ruin my whole life.”

“But, Browny …”

“The trouble I could get into! I could be busted. You're a baby. It's a joke. A person could marry a baby like you, but it's criminal to lay a hand on your shoulder. That's funny, ha-ha-ha.”

“Oh, Browny, I would love to be married to you.”

He sat down at the edge of the cot and drew me to his lap. “Gee, what a funny kid you are. You really like me so much?”

“I love you. I'd be a first-class wife, Browny—do you realize I take care of this whole house? When Mother isn't working, she spends her whole time mulling over Daddy. I'm the one who does Joanna's hair every day.
I
iron her dresses. I could even have a baby for you, Browny, I know just how to—”

“No! Oh no. Don't let anyone ever talk you into that. Not till you're eighteen. You ought to stay tidy as a doll and not strain your skin at least till you're eighteen.”

“Browny, don't you get lonesome in that camp? I mean if Lizzy isn't around and I'm not around … Don't you think I have a nice figure?”

“Oh, I guess …” He laughed, and put his hand warmly under my shirt. “It's pretty damn nice, considering it ain't even quite done.”

I couldn't hold my desire down, and I kissed him again right into his talking mouth and smack against his teeth. “Oh, Browny, I would take care of you.”

“O.K., O.K.,” he said, pushing me kindly away. “O.K., now listen, go to sleep before we really cook up a stew. Go to sleep. You're a sweet kid. Sleep it off. You ain't even begun to see how wide the world is. It's a surprise even to a man like me.”

“But my mind is settled.”

“Go to sleep, go sleep,” he said, still holding my hand and patting it. “You look almost like Lizzy now.”

“Oh, but I'm different. I know exactly what I want.”

“Go to sleep, little girl,” he said for the last time. I took his hand and kissed each brown fingertip and then ran into my room and took all my clothes off and, as bare as my lonesome soul, I slept.

The next day was Saturday and I was glad. Mother is a waitress all weekend at the Paris Coffee House, where she has been learning French from the waiters ever since Daddy disappeared. She's lucky because she really loves her work; she's crazy about the customers, the coffee, the décor, and is only miserable when she gets home.

I gave her breakfast on the front porch at about 10 a.m. and Joanna walked her to the bus. “Cook the corporal some of those frozen sausages,” she called out in her middle range.

I hoped he'd wake up so we could start some more love, but instead Lizzy stepped over our sagging threshold. “Came over to fix Browny some breakfast,” she said efficiently.

“Oh?” I looked her childlike in the eye. “I think
I
ought to do it, Aunty Liz, because he and I are probably getting married. Don't you think I ought to in that case?”

“What? Say that slowly, Josephine.”

“You heard me, Aunty Liz.”

She flopped in a dirndl heap on the stairs. “
I
don't even feel old enough to get married and
I've
been seventeen since Christmas time. Did he really ask you?”

“We've been talking about it,” I said, and that was true. “I'm in love with him, Lizzy.” Tears prevented my vision.

“Oh, love … I've been in love twelve times since I was your age.”

“Not me, I've settled on Browny. I'm going to get a job and send him to college after his draft is over … He's very smart.”

“Oh, smart … everybody's smart.”

“No, they are not.”

When she left I kissed Browny on both eyes, like the Sleeping Beauty, and he stretched and woke up in a conflagration of hunger.

“Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast,” he bellowed.

I fed him and he said, “Wow, the guys would really laugh, me thiefin' the cradle this way.”

“Don't feel like that. I make a good impression on people, Browny. There've been lots of men more grown than you who've made a fuss over me.”

“Ha-ha,” he remarked.

I made him quit that kind of laughing and started him on some kisses, and we had a cheerful morning.

“Browny,” I said at lunch, “I'm going to tell Mother we're getting married.”

“Don't she have enough troubles of her own?”

“No, no,” I said. “She's all for love. She's crazy about it.”

“Well, think about it a minute, baby face. After all, I might get shipped out to some troubled area and be knocked over by a crazy native. You read about something like that every day. Anyway, wouldn't it be fun to have a real secret engagement for a while? How about it?”

“Not me,” I said, remembering everything I'd ever heard from Liz about the opportunism of men, how they will sometimes dedicate with seeming goodwill thirty days and nights, sleeping and waking, of truth and deceit to the achievement of a moment's pleasure. “Secret engagement! Some might agree to a plan like that, but not me.”

Then I knew he liked me, because he walked around the table and played with the curls of my home permanent a minute and whispered, “The guys would really laugh, but I get a big bang out of you.”

Then I wasn't sure he liked me, because he looked at his watch and asked it: “Where the hell is Lizzy?”

I had to do the shopping and put off some local merchants in a muddle of innocence, which is my main Saturday chore. I ran all the way. It didn't take very long, but as I rattled up the stairs and into the hall, I heard the thumping tail of a conversation. Browny was saying, “It's your fault, Liz.”

“I couldn't care less,” she said. “I suppose you get something out of playing around with a child.”

“Oh no, you don't get it at all …”

“I can't say I want it.”

“Goddamnit,” said Browny, “you don't listen to a person. I think you stink.”

“Really?” Turning to go, she smashed the screen door in my face and jammed my instep with the heel of her lavender pump.

“Tell your mother we will,” Browny yelled when he saw me. “She stinks, that Liz, goddamnit. Tell your mother tonight.”

I did my best during that passing afternoon to make Browny more friendly. I sat on his lap and he drank beer and tickled me. I laughed, arid pretty soon I understood the game and how it had to have variety and ran shrieking from him till he could catch me in a comfortable place, the living-room sofa or my own bedroom.