Baker Towers (11 page)

Meanwhile letters came from home. His boyhood friends had returned to Bakerton like boomerangs, to hometown girls and good-paying jobs. No one else had even tried to leave. As a boy, George had idolized a local ballplayer, Ernie Tedesco, who was picked from the coal league and signed to the majors. He’d played six seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals—as far as George knew, the only guy ever to escape Bakerton. As examples went, it wasn’t much help. George was no athlete, never had been. His dream was to become a surgeon, to fix what was broken. In three years as a
medic, he’d glimpsed what was possible. Time was the problem; time and money. The years of training stretched before him, rigorous and expensive. He was a twenty-five-year-old sophomore, keenly aware of the years he had lost.

L
ATER, AFTER HE AND
M
ARION
were married, he was struck by the unlikelihood of their union, how incredible it was that he had won her, how easily they might never have met. He pictured the lackluster unfolding of his life without her, the ordinary girl he might have married—the first of many banal and pragmatic choices, all adding up to a life without distinction. By all rights it was the life he’d been born to, a fate he’d escaped through hard work and persistence and sheer stubborn will.

He’d refused Quigley’s invitation at first. He had planned to drive to Bakerton to spend the day with his family; but on Thanksgiving morning the Ford wouldn’t start. He called Quigley at the last minute, unwilling to face the holiday alone in his rented room, his usual dinner of sandwiches and canned soup.

He’d dressed carefully for dinner—pressed trousers, his only sport coat. He knew that Quigley came from money. Quigley’s department store was a Philadelphia institution. George had never bought anything there—the prices were too steep—but he passed the store each day on his way home from the bus stop, stepping around well-dressed matrons with their green-and-white shopping bags. He saw Quigley’s bags all over the city, miles away from the actual store. Merely carrying such a bag was a status symbol. That alone should have tipped him off.

The opulence of the house astonished him. Seated between two elderly
aunts, he tried to be sociable but was flummoxed by the many forks and glasses. The Quigleys had invited a crowd. George counted sixteen heads at the long table, not including the woman who appeared to serve each course. At the far end, Marion sat with her chin in her hand, leaning on her elbow, violating everything George had been taught about table manners. Beside her an old man railed loudly against Truman. Marion nodded occasionally, her eyes glazed with boredom. She seemed to feel George’s gaze; she looked directly at him and tipped one eyebrow, a skill he admired. Then she drained her wineglass in a single gulp.

After dinner George took Kip aside. “Who’s that? In the blue.”

“My sister. I’d introduce you, but I like you too much.”

“Come on,” George said, laughing.

“You’ll see. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

When the guests moved to the living room, George spotted Marion alone on a sofa and introduced himself.

“Marion Baumgardner,” she said, offering her hand.

He paused for a moment, confused. A sick feeling in his stomach: she was married. The intensity of his disappointment surprised him.

“You’re a friend of my brother’s?” she asked.

“We’re in a class together.”

“I suppose I can’t hold that against you.”

He laughed uncertainly. “Oh, Kip’s all right.”

“I think he’s an ass.” She leaned forward and took a cigarette from a case on the table. Her hand was long and white, slender as a fish.

“Where were you stationed?” she asked.

He grinned. “How’d you know I was a vet?”

She shrugged languidly, as if to ask what else he could be.

“In the South Pacific,” he said. “I was a medic on a navy minesweeper.”

“Good God.”

For a moment he was dumbfounded. Most girls were impressed by this fact, or pretended to be. Marion looked utterly horrified.

He leaned over to light her cigarette. When she raised her hand he saw that she wore no wedding ring.

She seemed to read his mind. “I’m a widow,” she said. “My husband was a paratrooper. His glider was shot down over Sicily.” Her voice was flat, her face still as a mask.

“Oh,” he said stupidly. And then, recovering: “I’m sorry.”

“So tell me, George Novak: What brings you to this part of the world? You’re not from here.” It wasn’t a question.

Is it that obvious?
he wondered.

“You’ve got to be somewhere,” he said.

She seemed amused when he asked for her phone number, but gave it to him anyway. When he called her the very next night, she invited him to her apartment.

She lived alone, on the top floor of a brick row house off Rittenhouse Square, a grand place with two fireplaces and twelve-foot ceilings. One room held a wide bed, the only furniture she owned. In the living room were an easel and several unfinished canvases: bright colors in jagged patterns that seemed perfectly random, like the scrawlings of an angry child. The place smelled of coffee and turpentine. The refrigerator held tonic water, vodka and gin.

Their first date lasted the entire weekend. George emerged from her apartment on a Sunday afternoon, exhilarated and slightly dizzy. He hadn’t eaten, and his temples ached with hangover. Her paint-dappled rug had left a crisscross pattern on his back.

Sexually, she was more experienced than he, a fact apparent to them both. She did things to him no girl had done, and she made it clear, with
words and gestures, that he was to reciprocate. Her frankness shocked and thrilled him. Her movements were expert. He hadn’t expected a virgin; yet she had lived with her husband for only a month. She had been fitted for a diaphragm; when exactly, George didn’t ask. If she’d had other lovers, she never mentioned them. For this he was grateful.

He proposed after three months. Her father took the news calmly.
He gave up on me long ago,
Marion had told George.
When I ran off and married a Jew.

“Novak,” said the old man. “What kind of name is that?”

“Polish, sir. My father came over from Poland.”

Quigley raised his bushy eyebrows. “A lot of Jews came from Poland.”

“My family is Catholic, sir.”

George knew from Marion that this wasn’t welcome news either, but her father received it stoically. In the end he gave his blessing, and Marion Baumgardner became Marion Novak—one youthful indiscretion expunged by another, less egregious one.

They were married that spring, in a quiet ceremony at the Quigleys’ church in Haverford. George’s family did not attend; he didn’t tell his mother until afterward. She would have insisted on a Catholic wedding, and that was a conversation George didn’t wish to have. Later it would seem a cowardly decision, but at the time he deemed it practical. To him one church was as good as another. Any sort of ceremony would suffice, as long as it made Marion his wife.

H
IS LITTLE SISTER
greeted them as they climbed the porch steps. She wore a ruffled pink dress with a stiff petticoat, a ribbon tied in her hair.

“Hi, Georgie,” she said shyly, peering through the screen door. She was four years old, timid with strangers. He hadn’t visited since Christmas and was amazed at how she’d grown.

“Hi, honey.” He opened the door and lifted her into his arms. “Isn’t she a doll? My baby sister Lucy.”

He was prepared to hand her over so Marion could hold her, but his wife only smiled. He put Lucy down and went inside.

“Hello!” he called, heading for the kitchen.

His mother stood at the sink rinsing dishes. He was relieved to see that she was wearing shoes. Not only that: she had put on lipstick. It was the first time in years he’d seen her without an apron.

He embraced her. She was stouter than he remembered; her hair smelled of garlic. A wonderful aroma filled the kitchen, a strawberry pie cooling on the windowsill. “Mama, this is Marion.”

“How do you do.” Marion offered her hand. Next to Rose she looked slim as a whippet, tall and elegant in her pale blue suit.

“Please to meet you,” Rose said carefully, as though she’d rehearsed it.

They sat. His mother took plates from the cupboard and set about slicing the pie.

“Mama, come sit down.”

“In a minute. First I make coffee.”

She bustled about the kitchen, putting on water, measuring the grounds. Marion glanced around the room. “Is that a coal stove?”

“Yep,” said George.

She studied it with naked fascination, as though she’d never seen such a thing. It hit him that she probably hadn’t. The stove, the
Last Supper
hanging on the wall, the Lenten palm leaves tucked behind it to ward off lightning strikes. All the familiar objects of his childhood were curiosities to her.

“Where does it go, the coal?”

He indicated the compartment at the side of the stove.

“You fill it every day?”

“Every few hours. Depends on how much cooking you do. That was my job when I was a kid. Filling the coal bucket.”

“Who fills it now?”

“Sandy, I guess. My little brother. Mama, where is he?”

“Outside someplace. I don’t know. Me, I never know.” She spoke softly, as if not wanting to intrude on their conversation. She brought cups and saucers to the table.

“Mama, please sit down.” He regretted the edge in his voice. He only wanted her to sit and talk like a regular person, instead of behaving like a waitress.

Finally she sat, hands folded in her lap.

“It smells delicious in here,” said Marion.

“I been cooking all day.” Her eyes met Marion’s. “You like to cook?”

Marion laughed, a low, bubbling sound. “Heavens, no. I’m a disaster in the kitchen. George is still teaching me to fry an egg.”

Rose frowned. “What you eat, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Marion crossed and uncrossed her long legs. “We go to restaurants, or make sandwiches. I don’t have much of an appetite.”

George avoided his mother’s gaze. He knew what she was thinking.
What kind of girl you marry, she don’t know how to fry an egg?

“You still working, Georgie?” Rose asked. “With the hardware?”

“I quit that job. I’m working for Marion’s father now. He has a store.”

“What about the school?”

“I’m taking the summer off,” he said. “We’re saving up for a house.”

“Mrs. Novak,” said Marion. “George tells me your family is Italian.”

Rose looked down at her lap, smoothed the fabric of her dress over her knees. “That’s right. We come over when I was a little.”

Marion leaned forward in her chair, smiling warmly. “Have you ever considered going back?”

Rose glanced uncertainly at George, confusion written on her face.
Your wife, she want to send me back.

“What for?” she asked.

“Oh, just for a visit.” Again Marion smiled. She was not a smiler by nature; George sensed her effort. “It’s a different world since the war. It would be interesting, wouldn’t it, to see how things have changed? The way of life, the political situation…” Her voice trailed off.

“Me, I got nobody there.” His mother rose and dipped a dishcloth in the sink. She wrung it out and passed it over the counter.

“My grandparents lost touch with their relatives when they left,” George explained.

“That’s too bad.” Marion stirred her coffee, though she hadn’t added any sugar. “I’d like to go one day. My husband died there during the war.”

George felt his face warm.

“Your husband?” his mother repeated

“George didn’t tell you? I’m a widow.”

“He don’t tell me.” Again Rose wiped at the counter with the rag.

A long silence in which Marion sipped her coffee. George swallowed bite after bite of strawberry pie, which seemed to be piling up on the way to his stomach. Finally Marion got to her feet.

“Would you mind if I lay down for a while?” she asked. “I’ve got a bit of a headache.”

G
EORGE LED HER UPSTAIRS
to Joyce’s bedroom, where they would be sleeping. The room was immaculate, the walls bare. When he’d last visited, a recruiting poster had hung above the bed. It had been removed for their visit and replaced with a crucifix. Two folded towels, bleached and threadbare, had been placed on the bureau.

“You shouldn’t have told her that,” said George.

“Told her what?”

“That you were married before.”

She stared at him. “I assumed she already knew.”

“Why would I tell her a thing like that?”

“Because it’s true. It’s what happened.” She frowned. “Should I be ashamed of it?”

“Of course not,” George said hastily. He couldn’t bring himself to explain it, that his mother had expected what every mother expected: for her son to marry a virgin, sweet and uncomplicated. An altogether different sort of girl.

“Mama is old-fashioned, that’s all. It’s hard enough getting used to a daughter-in-law.”

Marion shrugged as though the matter were hardly worth discussing. “I’m exhausted,” she said, stripping down to her panties.