The Collected Stories (5 page)

“You're O.K.,” he said. “You are. I'm crazy about you, Josephine. You're a lot of fun.”

So that night at 9:15 when Mother came home I made her some iced tea and cornered her in the kitchen and locked the door. “I want to tell you something about me and Corporal Brownstar. Don't say a word, Mother. We're going to be married.”

“What?” she said. “Married?” she screeched. “Are you crazy? You can't even get a job without working papers yet. You can't even get working papers. You're a baby. Are you kidding me? You're my little fish. You're not fourteen yet.”

“Well, I decided we could wait until next month when I will be fourteen. Then, I decided, we can get married.”

“You can't, my God! Nobody gets married at fourteen, nobody, nobody. I don't know a soul.”

“Oh, Mother, people do, you always see them in the paper. The worst that could happen is it would get in the paper.”

“But I didn't realize you had much to do with him. Isn't he Lizzy's? That's not nice—to take him away from her. That's a rotten sneaky trick. You're a sneak. Women should stick together. Didn't you learn anything yet?”

“Well, she doesn't want to get married and I do. And it's essential to Browny to get married. He's a very clean-living boy, and when his furlough's over he doesn't want to go back to those camp followers and other people's wives. You have to appreciate that in him, Mother—it's a quality.”

“You're a baby,” she droned. “You're my slippery little fish.”

Browny rattled the kitchen doorknob ten minutes too early.

“Oh, come in,” I said, disgusted.

“How's stuff? Everything settled? What do you say, Marvine?”

“I say shove it, Corporal! What's wrong with Lizzy? You and she were really beautiful together. You looked like twin stars in the summer sky. Now I realize I don't like your looks much. Who's your mother and father? I never even heard much about them. For all I know, you got an uncle in Alcatraz. And your teeth are in terrible shape. I thought the army takes care of things like that. You just don't look so hot to me.”

“No reason to be personal, Marvine.”

“But she's a baby. What if she becomes pregnant and bubbles up her entire constitution? This isn't India. Did you ever read what happened to the insides of those Indian child brides?”

“Oh, he's very gentle, Mother.”

“What?” she said, construing the worst.

That conference persisted for about two hours. We drank a couple of pitcherfuls of raspberry Kool-Aid we'd been saving for Joanna's twelfth birthday party the next day. No one had a dime, and we couldn't find Grandma.

Later on, decently before midnight. Lizzy showed up. She had a lieutenant (j.g.) with her and she introduced him around as Sid. She didn't introduce him to Browny, because she has stated time and time again that officers and enlisted men ought not to mix socially. As soon as the lieutenant took Mother's hand in greeting, I could see he was astonished. He began to perspire visibly in long welts down his back and in the gabardine armpits of his summer uniform. Mother was in one of those sullen, indolent moods which really put a fire under some men. She was just beady to think of my stubborn decision and how my life contained the roots of excitement.

“France is where I belong,” she murmured to him. “Paris, Marseilles, places like that, where men like women and don't chase little girls.”

“I have a lot of sympathy with the Gallic temperament and I do like a real woman,” he said hopefully.

“Sympathy is not enough.” Her voice rose to the requirements of her natural disposition. “Empathy is what I need. The empathy of a true friend is what I have lived without for years.”

“Oh yes, I feel all that, empathy too.” He fell deeply into his heart, from which he could scarcely be heard … “I like a woman who's had some contact with life, cradled little ones, felt the pangs of birth, known the death of loved ones …”

“… and of love,” she added sadly. “That's unusual in a young good-looking man.”

“Yet that's my particular preference.”

Lizzy, Browny, and I borrowed a dollar from him while he sat in idyllic stupor and we wandered out for some ice cream. We took Joanna because we were sorry to have drunk up her whole party. When we returned with a bottle of black-raspberry soda, no one was in sight. “I'm beginning to feel like a procurer,” said Lizzy.

That's how come Mother finally said yes. Her moral turpitude took such a lively turn that she gave us money for a Wassermann. She called Dr. Gilmar and told him to be gentle with the needles. “It's my own little girl, Doctor. Little Josie that you pulled right out of me yourself. She's so headstrong. Oh, Doctor, remember me and Charles? She's a rough little customer, just like me.”

Due to the results of this test, which is a law, and despite Browny's disbelief, we could not get married. Grandma, always philosophical with the advantage of years, said that young men sowing wild oats were often nipped in the bud, so to speak, and that modern science would soon unite us. Ha-ha-ha, I laugh in recollection.

Mother never even noticed. It passed her by completely, because of large events in her own life. When Browny left for camp drowned in penicillin and damp with chagrin, she gave him a giant jar of Loft's Sour Balls and a can of walnut rum tobacco.

Then she went ahead with her own life. Without any of the disenchantment Browny and I had suffered, the lieutenant and Mother got married. We were content, all of us, though it's common knowledge that she has never been divorced from Daddy. The name next to hers on the marriage license is Sidney LaValle, Jr., Lieut, (j.g.), U.S.N. An earlier, curlier generation of LaValles came to Michigan from Quebec, and Sid has a couple of usable idioms in Mother's favorite tongue.

I have received one card from Browny. It shows an aerial view of Joplin, Mo. It says: “Hi, kid, chin up, love, Browny. P.S. Health improved.”

Living as I do on a turnpike of discouragement, I am glad to hear the incessant happy noises in the next room. I enjoyed hugging with Browny's body, though I don't believe I was more to him than a hope for civilian success. Joanna has moved in with me. Though she grinds her teeth well into daylight, I am grateful for her company. Since I have been engaged, she looks up to me. She is a real cuddly girl.

Pale green greeted him, grubby buds for nut trees. Packed with lunch, Peter strode into the park. He kicked aside the disappointed acorns and endowed a grand admiring grin to two young girls.

Anna saw him straddling the daffodils, a rosy man in about the third flush of youth. He got into Judy's eye too. Acquisitive and quick, she screamed, “There's Daddy!”

Well, that's who he was, mouth open, addled by visions. He was unsettled by a collusion of charm, a conspiracy of curly hairdos and shiny faces. A year ago, in plain view, Anna had begun to decline into withering years, just as he swelled to the maximum of manhood, spitting pipe smoke, patched with tweed, an advertisement of a lover who startled men and detained the ladies.

Now Judy leaped over the back of a bench and lunged into his arms. “Oh, Peter dear,” she whispered, “I didn't even know you were going to meet us.”

“God, you're getting big, kiddo. Where's your teeth?” he asked. He hugged her tightly, a fifty-pound sack of his very own. “Say, Judy, I'm glad you still have a pussycat's sniffy nose and a pussycat's soft white fur.”

“I do not,” she giggled.

“Oh yes,” he said. He dropped her to her springy hind legs but held on to one smooth front paw. “But you'd better keep your claws in or I'll drop you right into the Hudson River.”

“Aw, Peter,” said Judy, “quit it.”

Peter changed the subject and turned to Anna. “You don't look half bad, you know.”

“Thank you,” she replied politely, “neither do you.”

“Look at me, I'm a real outdoorski these days.”

She allowed thirty seconds of silence, into which he turned, singing like a summer bird, “We danced around the Maypole, the Maypole, the Maypole …

“Well, when'd you get in?” he asked.

“About a week ago.”

“You never called.”

“Yes, I did, Peter. I called you at least twenty-seven times. You're never home. Petey must be in love somewhere, I said to myself.”

“What is this thing,” he sang in tune, “called love?”

“Peter, I want you to do me a favor,” she started again. “Peter, could you take Judy for the weekend? We've just moved to this new place and I have a lot of work to do. I just don't want her in my hair. Peter?”

“Ah, that's why you called.”

“Oh, for godsakes,” Anna said. “I really called to ask you to become my lover. That's the real reason.”

“O.K., O.K. Don't be bitter, Anna.” He stretched forth a benedicting arm. “Come in peace, go in peace. Of course I'll take her. I like her. She's my kid.”

“Bitter?” she asked.

Peter sighed. He turned the palms of his hands up as though to guess at rain. Anna knew him, theme and choreography. The sunshiny spring afternoon seeped through his fingers. He looked up at the witnessing heavens to keep what he could. He dropped his arms and let the rest go.

“O.K.,” he said. “Let's go. I'd like to see your place. I'm full of ideas. You should see my living room, Anna. I might even go into interior decorating if things don't pick up. Come on. I'll get the ladder out of the basement. I could move a couple of trunks. I'm crazy about heavy work. You get out of life what you put into it. Right? Let's ditch the kid. I'm not your enemy.”

“Who is?” she asked.

“Off my back, Anna. I mean it. I'll get someone to keep an eye on Judy. Just shut up.” He searched for a familiar face among the Sunday strollers. “Hey, you,” he finally called to an old pal on whom two chicks were leaning. “Hey, you glass-eyed louse, c'mere.”

“Not just any of your idiot friends,” whispered Anna, enraged.

All three soft-shoed it over to Peter. They passed out happy hellos, also a bag of dried apricots. Peter spoke to one of the girls. He patted her little-boy haircut. “Well, well, baby, you have certainly changed. You must have had a very good winter.”

“Oh yes, thanks,” she admitted.

“Say, be my friend, doll, will you? There's Judy over there. Remember? She was nuts about you when she was little. How about it? Keep an eye on her about an hour or two?”

“Sure, Petey, I'd love to. I'm not busy today. Judy! She was cute. I was nuts about her.”

“Anna,” said Peter, “this is Louie; she was a real friend that year you worked. She helped me out with Judy. She was great, a lifesaver.”

“You're Anna,” Louie said hospitably. “Oh, I think Judy's cute. We were nuts about each other. You have one smart kid. She's
really
smart.”

“Thank you,” said Anna.

Judy had gone off to talk to the ice-cream man. She returned licking a double-lime Popsicle. “You have to give him ten cents,” she said. “He didn't even remember me to give me trust.”

Suddenly she saw Louie. “Oooh!” she shrieked. “It's Louie. Louie, Louie, Louie!” They pinched each other's cheeks, rubbed noses like the Eskimoses, and fluttered lashes like kissing angels do. Louie looked around proudly. “Gee whiz, the kid didn't forget me. How do you like that?”

Peter fished in his pockets for some change. Louie said, “Don't be ridiculous. It's on me.” “O.K., girls,” Peter said. “You two go on. Live it up. Eat supper out. Enjoy yourselves. Keep in touch.”

“I guess they do know each other,” said Anna, absolutely dispirited, waving goodbye.

“There!” said Peter. “If you want to do things, do things.”

He took her arm. His other elbow cut their way through a gathering clutter of men and boys. “Going, going, gone,” he said. “So long, fellows.”