Authors: Luanne Rice
“You’re a real romantic.”
“Do you ever think about having kids, Nora?”
Nora closed her eyes, feeling him tickle her neck. A long time ago she had wanted children. When Cass and Bonnie were both pregnant for the first time, Nora had felt so jealous she couldn’t stand to see them. They’d be comparing notes on maternity clothes,
nursery color schemes, whether or not to breast-feed, and Nora would have to leave the room so she wouldn’t cry.
But watching her sisters raise their kids, seeing how devoted they had to be, at the mercy of their children’s schedules, Nora had realized she liked her life. She liked working late at night and waking at noon; she loved doting on her nieces—taking them to Providence or Boston shopping—then dropping them off at their own homes.
“I’m lucky,” Nora said. “I have five nieces and nephews. I guess I put my maternal energies into them.”
“I think you’d make a great mother.”
Nora’s eyes flew open. “You do?”
“If you ever decide you want to be one.”
Even when she had lusted for a baby sixteen years ago, she had doubted whether she would be a good mother. She was too insecure, too selfish. She didn’t have Bonnie’s earth-mother warmth or Cass’s spice, and she didn’t have patience.
“I’m forty-four. My clock’s about run out.”
“We could always adopt.”
Nora squeezed Willis’s hand. “Sounds like you want a baby.”
“Oh, I’m probably too old to start being a father,” Willis said. “I’m just talking. But I’ll tell you, Nora: I won’t let you out of being a bride.”
“White dress, veil, the whole bit?”
“You got it.”
The last time Nora had visited her grandmother, Sheila had offered Nora her wedding dress. She sent Nora to the attic to find it. The dress was stored in an enormous box from a shop that no longer existed. Nora lifted the lid, and inside she found a yellowing antique of a garment, with crumbling lace and net, seed pearls dangling from broken threads. As small children, Nora and her sisters had played bride in that dress; Bonnie had torn the train, stepping on it with high heels. Knowing it would break Sheila’s heart to see her dress in that condition, Nora had simply thanked her grandmother, saying that the dress was still beautiful, but too small.
“You haven’t talked me out of eloping,” Nora said. “By the time
we get everyone in one place, it could be Christmas. I think a nice Halloween elopement, right here on this balcony, would be divine.”
“You’ll have to get your family’s blessing.”
“My grandmother gave us hers. Yesterday, after telling me wedding stories of every person she ever knew, she told me that at my age, elopement would be wise.”
“Don’t you want a nice wedding story to tell your grandnieces?” Willis asked.
“Not every wedding story is nice,” Nora said, hearing her voice echo over the water, cuddling closer to Willis in the frozen night air, coughing once before she began to speak.
In the summer of 1920, just before Sheila Hannigan married Eddie Keating, a terrible thing happened. Men from an asylum had to take Doreen Murphy, who was to have been Sheila’s bridesmaid, away in a straitjacket.
It happened like this: One muggy July morning, Doreen, who was Sheila’s roommate, wakened with a pimple. Just a little thing, really. You’d hardly notice it.
“Does it hurt?” Sheila asked, only because Doreen was making such a fuss when they were dressing for work.
“Yes, and it’s enormous.” Doreen stood before the mirror, poking at it. It was pink, just below her right cheekbone, the size of a pinpoint. Doreen, a fiery girl with chestnut hair and snapping blue eyes, was known for being fun, as well as somewhat vain and dramatic. She had that perfect poreless skin of girls born in the west of Ireland.
“Leave it alone, or you’ll make it worse,” Sheila said. “It’s tiny.”
They rode the trolley from Thornton to Providence’s Market Square. They stopped to eat johnnycake, then walked to the hosiery mill on India Street. The next morning they were going to take the ferry to Mount Hope to meet their fiances. Sheila was marrying Eddie Keating in a month, before Doreen would marry Patrick Barnard, and that was all Sheila could think about. Walking along, she daydreamed about the white lace dress she would wear, while Doreen kept touching her face.
The next morning, Doreen’s pimple was larger, but not by much.
“I can’t let Patrick see me like this,” she said. “You take the ferry without me.”
Sheila pretended to examine Doreen’s cheek as a doctor would. “It doesn’t look infected or anything. The salt water will do it some good, and Pat will be so disappointed if you don’t come.”
“No,” Doreen said, staring into the mirror.
That was the way Doreen was: if she didn’t feel she looked her best, nothing could convince her to join the party, go to the dance, or walk down the beach to neck with Patrick.
Sheila and Eddie took Patrick under their wing that hot July Saturday. The instant Sheila stepped off the Mount Hope steam ferry without Doreen, she caught sight of Patrick’s lovesick face. Sheila and Eddie held hands down the ferry dock while Patrick shambled behind them.
Sheila changed her clothes at Mrs. Richardson’s boardinghouse, where instead of Doreen she had a roommate she’d never met before. Sheila, Eddie, and Patrick walked down to the beach and took seats on the boardwalk. While Eddie went swimming, Patrick turned his back to the water and lowered his voice so only Sheila could hear.
“Does she still love me?” he asked.
“Of course she does! She just has a summer cold,” Sheila said, lying as she’d been instructed.
“She must know that I still love her. In fact, I love her even more than before we … She was afraid that wouldn’t be so, but it is.”
Could Patrick be telling Sheila what she thought he was? All those nights when Sheila and Eddie finished necking and had to wait by the car for Doreen and Patrick to return from the dunes, Sheila had had her own private ideas about what was going on.
“Even more than before what?” Sheila asked, both eager and afraid to hear.
“She’ll know what I mean. Please tell her.” Patrick had red hair and high coloring that responded to his every emotion; at that moment, his face was scarlet.
Eddie came back wet from swimming, and when he kissed Sheila—in broad daylight, right on the boardwalk—she forgot about Patrick’s near-confession. She felt charged that weekend,
wanting Eddie to be touching her all the time. But it wasn’t until Sunday night, when she was alone on the steamer and had time to think, that she consciously remembered what Patrick had said.
When Sheila walked into the room she shared with Doreen, she had the shock of her life. Doreen’s pimple was bright red, the size of a cherry pit.
“Doreen, you have a boil,” Sheila said, taking Doreen’s hand. “Have you tried a warm washcloth?”
Doreen nodded. She could barely meet Sheila’s eyes, for the shame of it.
“Should we call a doctor?”
“I will tomorrow,” Doreen whispered.
“Patrick wanted me to give you a message: He loves you. Even more than before.” Although Sheila put a question mark in her voice, Doreen made no response.
Sheila closed the curtains to keep out the night air, but she hardly slept. All night long Doreen knelt beside their bed, saying the rosary. She prayed silently, but simply knowing Doreen was on her knees, that she was troubled, kept Sheila awake. She wondered what terrible sin could keep her friend up all night, praying to the Blessed Mother. Unable to sleep, Sheila prayed that God take care of Doreen.
On Monday, the doctor gave Doreen a salve and told her to apply it hourly. For a while it seemed to work. Although the boil did not shrink, it did not grow. Doreen and Sheila worked side by side at the hosiery mill, spinning strands of silk into high-fashion stockings, daydreaming of their fiancés clamming in Mount Hope. Two nights passed.
After one o’clock Thursday morning, Doreen wakened moaning. Sheila stared in horror. The pimple had grown to the size and color of a red grape. It looked obscene, rising from the field of Doreen’s pure-white skin.
“Mother of God,” Doreen said, gasping at the sight of Sheila’s expression. “What is it? What’s happening to me?”
Sheila did not want to admit that she felt afraid. In the middle of the night, this monstrous thing on her friend’s face looked purely evil.
“Will you say the rosary with me?” Doreen asked, her voice shaking.
The girls knelt beside their bed, holding hands, sharing the crystal rosary beads Doreen’s mother had held on her deathbed. They prayed until they couldn’t keep their eyes open. That was how they fell asleep: kneeling at their bedside, holding hands, and they stayed there till dawn. Already the day felt humid. Doreen touched her face, cupped the boil.
“It’s moving,” she said, clammy with fear.
Sheila peeled back Doreen’s fingers and peered at the boil, which seemed somehow even more malevolent in daylight. It seemed to seethe beneath the skin. Like a volcano, a tiny opening formed at its peak.
“I think it’s going to burst,” Sheila said. She put the kettle on the stove and soaked a washcloth in steaming water. Again, she peered at Doreen’s face. A silvery molecule of dust puffed out of the boil, then another and another. Sheila couldn’t believe her eyes: the molecules had legs.
“Pray,” Sheila said to Doreen, and Doreen began saying the Hail Mary out loud. Sheila pressed the hot washcloth to Doreen’s face with both hands. The boil opened up, only it wasn’t a boil at all.
It was a nest of spiders. Thousands of tiny, just-hatched spiders spinning silk parachutes drifted into the air, crawling all over Doreen. Doreen screamed. Sheila leapt back, watching Doreen swipe her face and body with frantic hands.
Not knowing what else to do, Sheila soaked the washcloth in scalding water and slapped it over Doreen’s skin, trying to chase the baby spiders. Doreen’s hysterical cries brought neighbors, then the police. Sheila tried to explain what had happened, but no one believed her. If only Sheila could contact Patrick—but neither they nor Patrick had a telephone.
After everyone left, Sheila bandaged Doreen’s cheek. Doreen calmed down enough to talk. She told Sheila the spiders had been the devil’s work. She was no longer a virgin. She and Patrick had fornicated one night on the beach, and the devil had entered her at the same time. Sheila had said that was nonsense, that a spider had just laid its eggs in a pore.
But even so, Sheila had had her doubts: Doreen was from Galway, and she had poreless skin.
In the middle of the night, Doreen started screaming and wouldn’t stop. Horrible, bloodcurdling screams, calling for her dead mother. Men from the asylum came for her. Strapping her into the strait-jacket, one man got his nose broken. Doreen flailed at the men and at invisible demons, screaming, “Holy Mary, Mother of God!”
And Sheila never saw her again.
“What happened to her?” Willis asked.
Nora shivered, pressing closer to him. It felt as if it might snow at any moment. “Granny didn’t say. But, like I told you, there’s more than one kind of wedding story.”
Willis smiled down, an indulgent sparkle in his eyes. He stared as if he were under her spell, and it made her neck tingle.
“If that’s your way of telling me you really want to elope, you know I’ll say yes,” he said after a while. “Anything for you, Nora.”
“Thank you, Willis.”
“Only, you’ll have to be the one to break this news to your family.”
“I know,” Nora said.
Jim and Mary Keating were playing Scrabble by the fire while Sheila dozed in her chair. Mary had put on an old Dean Martin record, Jim had mixed two big Manhattans, and the fire warmed Mary’s feet.
“Doesn’t it seem colder than usual for October?” she asked.
“There was frost on the docks this morning,” Jim said. “It’s your turn.” When he was concentrating extra hard, he had the nervous habit of twirling the hair above his left ear. Watching him do it now, Mary knew he had a good word ready. She laid down her pieces, spelling out “chimp.”
“That’s an abbreviation,” Jim said, frowning.
“I didn’t say anything when you used ‘Rome’ before, and that’s not allowed.”
“You’re right,” Jim agreed, taking his turn. He spelled “quack” on a triple-word score.
“How about that,” Mary said, admiringly.
Jim nodded, pleased. Sheila let out a loud snore. Mary watched while Jim leaned over to pull Sheila’s blanket back up to her chin. “Frost on the docks in October,” he said again. “Maybe we should move to Florida.”
“And retire,” Mary said, thinking the idea sounded best on a chilly night, that it would seem daunting in the light of day: to leave all the people they loved just for the sake of warm weather and workless days.
“It’s a dilemma, all right,” he said, seeming to read her mind.
At the sound of the front bell, they looked at each other. It was past nine o’clock at night. “Who could that be?” Mary asked, starting to rise. But Jim motioned her to stay put.
He returned a moment later with Nora. When she saw Nora’s nervous expression, Mary felt her heart quicken. It had to be bad news.
“Is it Willis?” Mary asked, touching her chest. “Has he …”
Left you?
would have completed the sentence.
“He’s fine,” Nora said, leaning over to kiss Mary. She moved toward Sheila, but she was asleep. “Everything is great. I just have something to tell you.”
“Here, darling,” Jim said, pushing Nora into his chair by the fire. He settled on the sofa, his drink in hand, as if he sensed he was going to need it. Mary sipped her own Manhattan. Nora took a deep breath.
“Willis and I are going to elope,” she said.
Mary stared at her. “Don’t you want a wedding?”
“We think it makes more sense, at our age, to do it small.”
“Elope? You mean cross the state line?” Jim asked, trying to get it through his head. “That’s what teenagers do.”
Nora laughed. “No. In our own apartment, with just us and a judge.”
Mary caught the look on Jim’s face. Nora had just cut him to the quick. He had been looking forward to the ceremony, to walking Nora down the aisle, ever since she’d told him there would be a wedding.