She always went around the block when she was going anywhere near where he lived so she wouldn't meet him accidentally he'd think she was trying to catch sight of him, unless she was in a car with one of her friends, then she'd keep her head straight ahead but strain her eyes at the corners trying to see the house always looked empty, the drapes hanging straight, sometimes a gardener was working there and once she saw his mother's Cadillac in the driveway but usually there was nothing you couldn't tell anyone lived there his sister was gone married and Whit was their only son, one and only, they expected everything of him.
And then after all that she'd bumped into him at Eckhoff's. And now again, two years later. Maybe they'd meet every two years at Eckhoff's but Eckhoff's was going now, Mr. Eckhoff was retiring, too bad he had such good ice cream such a tall man with his shining bald head shaped like an egg, he was nice even if he was stern with the kids, once he threw Forrest Kelly right out on the sidewalk but he deserved it he was throwing spoonfuls of milk shake at all the guys in his booth, he had to be a little stern the boys were so wild. Not Whit. He was never loud or wild, just sweet, always, gentle he had a soft low laugh that sounded like a faint rumble, still he was a terrific basketball player, he hated to leave Southside it broke his heart he was a letterman in his sophomore year, he was going to be captain of the team the next year even though he was only a junior.
Joy got out of bed again and dug in her purse for a tissue and blew her nose. She gazed at the rumpled mess of sheets and thought about remaking the bed. But she felt too tired. The alarm clock read twenty of two. She turned out the light on the vanity and climbed back in and lay down and closed her eyes. But nothing happened.
I have to sleep, I have to get up tomorrow. Seven-fifty train, Mother drives me, it's nice, I feel so grown up on the train with all those men with their newspapers. Tomorrow I'll wear my navy blue cotton skirt, the wide flaring one, with the short-sleeved white blouse Mother ironed today and my wide navy belt. And white heels and bag and earrings. That will look nice. Mrs. Hooper came up to me this morning and said “How pretty you look, Joy, just like a ray of sunshine!” And last week she told me my typing was excellent. Still, I don't think I'd want to stay at CBS forever, I'd just go on being a receptionist or a secretary. That modeling course should be fun and maybe it will lead to something. Because I probably won't ever get married now.
Just because we were poor. They were that frightened of a pimply-faced fifteen-year-old girl from the wrong sort of family not their kind. So frightened they were willing to make him miserable, sending him away. But they won, he forgot me.
I never really knew before that that we were poor. Or I knew but I didn't know that it mattered. Or how much it mattered. Or was that all it was, was there something else? Something about me?
Seeing him standing there today, paying his check, oh if only we'd gone a half hour later, they'd have been gone, I wouldn't have had to see her, I wonder who she is she's not from here, she looked rich probably some family friend, oh, who would expect him to be in Rockville Centre on a Sunday afternoon, August, why aren't they in Maine, maybe they feel he's safe now, they don't have to take him away. And I had to be with Kitty and Linda, not even with a boy any boy, well not any boy but some presentable boy why did that have to happen?
But that wasn't the worst thing, the worst thing was that when I looked at him it was just the same, just as if we were still sophomores in the same homeroom, and one of us who was earlier was watching the door until the other came in and then when we smiled at each other the whole world got brighter as if our smiles brightened darkness. W. T. C. Whitman IV he signed himself I used to tease him about it. He must have been in Maine sailing he loved to sail I've never been on a sailboat, he was going to take me sometime, he probably takes her, they were both so tan, he was bronze his blue eyes so pale in his bronze face he still has freckles, he isn't quite as thin, his long hands are still beautiful.
She ran her hands across the skin of her belly and up her sides. Whit's hands. They never. They were too frightened but it was what they wanted, would always want, foreverâ¦.
He never told her what they said, why they were sending him away. He was crying. He just spattered words, his father, his mother, all they care about, well they had such expectations, he was the only son, what expectations? she had wondered, but he never said it straight out but she knew, she heard, even though it was unimaginable to her, who would go out with a boy just because he was rich? Well, put that way, maybe someone would, but she Joy she'd never thought about it except she did like his house, so huge on such a big plot with all those big trees but she was only in it once or twice they never went there that was funny their crowd always hung out at Ted's or Kitty's or Linda's, but Whit always came to her house and they went for walks. She only saw his mother once, a blond lady in a mink coat.
That last summer before he left they gave him some freedom, they weren't worried, they were getting him away from her, and they would walk for hours, over to Hempstead State Park and then wander around it. And he gave her a chain with a pearl on it and said that was for constancy. And she cried. And he cried. And they swore.
Forever. She sat up and reached over her head for the switch on the little wall lamp over her bed. She got out of bed and opened the bottom drawer of her bureau and removed a box. It was heart-shaped and made of satin, and smelled of chocolate, his gift to her Valentine's Day their sophomore year. She opened it. Thirty-three letters. She knew them all by heart. There was no place here she could start a fire. Hands trembling she set the box on the floor and sank down beside it. No place in the house she could start a fire now. She'd have to wait until winter when they had a fire in the fireplace but then they'd ask they'd want to know what are you burning why are you burning them? The box was a knife her hands were cut across it would be forever for her.
It was no different now. She felt the same way and she still couldn't talk about him, not even to Kitty and Linda, although they knew, they were right there walking in the doorway with her when she stopped, he was at the cash register, they must have seen her face, and after he was gone, Linda put her arm around Joy's back and made a joke about something she couldn't really hear it, and they paid for her soda, they said it was a celebration of her getting the job at CBS, but she'd gotten that three weeks ago, she'd started work last week they knew that but it was all right, they understood and she understood.
She bent her head and reached up and pulled the thin chain over her head and threw it in the box. Then she picked it up again, gently, apologizing, and tried to look at the pearl but she couldn't see it her eyes were too full. She replaced it in the box and a great deep sob came out of her mouth, as if she were a ghoul or a spirit, and then more kept coming and she tried to keep them quiet even though she knew that Mother couldn't hear her because she slept on her good ear and Daddy slept soundly and even if he heard her he wouldn't think anything of it, he wouldn't get up. It was silly to worry about making noise when there was no one who cared.
J
UNE
1954
So.
Over.
Morning light, leafgreen, revealed the dust on the wooden arms of the porch furniture, settled on the cheap tweed rug. Belle sipped her coffee and reached for her cigarettes.
Over. Finally.
Oh of course not really over, it will take a year to pay off the bills, but now I can imagine an end, plan for it, have my own life. Not so old, only fifty. My hair is still blond, there's hardly any grey and it doesn't show. I haven't gotten fat. And I did well. She looked lovely, really lovely, and she was happy, I think she was. I wasn't sure it would ever happen, I wasn't sure she'd ever get over that boy, rich boy, sent away to separate him from her, we were too poor for them, too low-class. She never told me. But I saw the pain in her eyes, heard the hysteria in her laugh, she's a funny child, she keeps everything in but things go deep in her. Loves. Kitty and Linda her bridesmaids, still her best friends, all married, living far from each other, clear across the country, but they're still as close as ever, they love each other.
Beautiful dress. I wish Anastasia could have had one like it, could have had a wedding like that. She could have, I would have borrowed, I would have given her a wedding like Joy's. Still, you can't predict, here they are married only five years and they have a house like that in this town, Brad's a better provider than Ed, it took me over forty years to get to Rockville Centre. Nice place for the kids to grow up in, big yard, big old trees, quiet street, good schools, they can stay in one place and have friends and grow up and know everyone. Anastasia never had that, neither did I. Joy did, we moved here while she was young enough, she makes friends. And Joy will be comfortable too, West Point graduate, he'll always make a good living. Stationed in Germany, they'll have servants there she said and a nice old house. She wants me to come and visit them there, maybe I will.
Oh how I used to long to travel, I dreamed of seeing Europe, Paris and Rome and the Alps and here she is, only twenty years old, with such an opportunity. Justin said they'd take trips when he has leave, I wonder where they'll go, he'll have a car, an officer. His family has money. Iowa. They invited me, well, us, Ed and me. I don't think I want to go to Iowa, they'd probably look down on us anyway.
But maybe they couldn't tell, the wedding was lovely, it looked expensive, just the way she wanted it, ceremony at “The Point”âwhat an affectationâswords crossed over their heads, silly, but I suppose when you're young it seems glamorous. Joy cares about things like that, well, who knows at her age I might have been impressed by that too, still she's not like me. I never had a wedding at all, that cruel priest screaming at Edâ¦.
Usually the bride's family decides where the reception will be held but what could we do, she wanted to be married at that place, well it's pretty I guess, all those stone buildings, and that monument in the center, what did Anastasia say, an inflexible pillar surrounded by cannonballs, she was making some kind of joke but only Eric laughed, no not pillar, fallar or something, I didn't hear, my hearing is so bad I miss everything, everyone is laughing but I sit there like a stupid lump. Brad looked at her so coldly when she said it, well of course, she was mocking because she was jealous, she never had a wedding at all, she pretends she doesn't care but she does. But he's different now that he's making money, acts like a big man, pompous, very different from the way he was when she married him, there seems to be something, maybe she doesn't want to sleep with him all the time, who could blame her? But she doesn't seem to care even when he snaps at her the way he did when she was dancing with Eric for such a long time. She doesn't notice anything though, all she cares about is taking pictures. Expensive hobby.
Expensive, twelve-fifty a person for a hundred people and the Selbys wanted to invite more, they were even willing to pay for them themselves but I wouldn't allow it, it was insulting. I can't believe that many of their friends would have come all the way from Iowa, you wonder how they could even have that many friends. Then the flowers and the music and our wedding gift to them, lucky Joy was able to pay for her own gown but mine was fifty dollars and the hat, so lovely, a shame I'll probably never have another chance to wear it, that was eighteen ninety-nine. Well, I'm not going to worry about it now, I'll add up the bills this afternoon, but it will probably be over fifteen hundred. That will take me two years to pay off unless Ed gets another raise, he might, he's doing better now, he made almost eight thousand last year with his bonus, maybe we'll be able to save something from his pay too. But he has another year of payments on the Cadillac, three-year loan. And he had to have a Cadillac, well he should, he deserves it, he works hard and he doesn't have anything else, there's nothing else he wantsâ¦.
She has what she wants, I hope, the roses and the champagne and all her friends there, honeymoon in Bermuda, Anastasia never had a honeymoon, neither did I of course, I don't know why I should feel sorry for her.
Wages of sin.
What a ridiculous thing to say, that's what Anastasia would say if she heard me, I don't know why I thought that myself.
Belle turned her head slightly at a sound from outside.
Mrs. Brand's going to the grocery store. They've had that car ever since we live here, it's so old. I wonder how she feels, if she's embarrassed when she looks around at her neighbors.
Belle gazed at the shiny sleek six-year-old beige Cadillac parked in her own driveway. As she looked, the corners of her lips tilted down slightly, and she raised her chin.
We looked good at the wedding, no one would be able to tell. Jean said I was the best-dressed woman there, even though his people have money, you can see that they do, but Iowa, well, there probably aren't any good dress shops there. Good thing Anastasia was matron of honor and had to wear a nice dress and shoes. She even had her hair curled, she looked quite pretty, both my girls are lovely, Joy looked so beautiful, they're lovely girls.
And now they're both married. Off my hands.
Well, of course, Joy hasn't been a burden since she finished college, well, not really a college, what a thing, to teach girls how to walk and how tables should be laid, “No, Mom, the flatware is placed according to the order in which it will be used, you put the small fork on the outside only if you are going to serve a salad first, see?” As if I cared. How long did it take me to pay for that silver, sterling, saving all the while the baby was growing inside me, crying every day every night, living at home so I could saveâ¦. Still, I'm glad I have it, I could see the Carpenters were surprised when they first came to dinner, they probably thought we had nothing, so snooty, members of the country club, and if the Selbys ever come to visit, it will make a good appearance. By then maybe I'll have a new bedroom set, I'm so thankful I bought that dining room set when it was on sale, prices have gone up since then. At least there's something in the room, not that old wooden table and the sewing machine painted grey and the wooden chairs that used to embarrass Anastasia when her high-school friends came, I knew even though she never said anything, she'd consider it beneath her to care what they thought, but she did just the same.