Stranger On Lesbos (28 page)

She shook her head. "I thought maybe you did," she said dully.

"Aw, Frankie, you know better. I'm willing to forget and forgive if you are." He hesitated, then decided not to be more explicit. "Maybe it's better this way than if you were mixed up with some other guy. I don't know."

"Don't talk nonsense."

"Well. Anyhow, I want you to know I'm sorry for what happened the other day."

She said again, "That's all right."

"Looks like it's time to make a new beginning, huh?"

She got up silently and refilled her cup.

"Forgive and forget, maybe."

"ALL RIGHT!
"

Bill said mildly, "You don't have to holler at me. Anyhow, the Congdons are coming over this afternoon. To talk about the wedding."

Oh God, Frances thought. The bride's parents, coming over to size up the groom's family. Do you suppose she'll expect me to have jeans and a D. A. haircut like the gals at Karla's? She said crisply, "Thanks for letting me know. I have to sew a button on my blue crepe."

"Wear your pearls," Bill said, willing to put off the big reconciliation scene in favor of the immediate situation. "Make a good impression."

"I'll try. Get the good teapot down off the top shelf, will you?"

"Oh no, not tea." Frances laughed.

But when she had found the blue dress, and thread to match, and even, miraculously, the button that had burst off several weeks earlier, she sat with everything on her lap and did nothing.

Nobody seems to know how it was, she thought rebelliously. They act like it was something shameful, or sordid, or evil. The fights and disappointments
well, but you get those with the other kind of love, too, and God knows you get them in marriage.

It was good, she told herself. Not all good, but mostly.

She didn't notice that she began to think in the past tense.

She sat with the dress across her knees, forgotten, staring at the wall of her living room. A small red leaf drifted down on the lazy autumn air, against a sky of pure blue.

CHAPTER 22

Ferns and sweetheart roses. Lohengrin. Chicken salad. Heirloom veil
Mrs. Congdon's grandmother's veil, no less, proving that the bride had ancestors. Double ring ceremony. Six bridesmaids in shades of yellow, ballet length. Mother of the bride in pale rose. Mrs. Congdon suggested, "Have you thought about beige lace for yourself, Frances? You'd be lovely in beige lace."

She had passed the inspection, with the help of the blue crepe and the best teapot. Had shown the guests out, smiling and gracious, and come back weak with relief
to find Bill pouring a long drink which he probably needed, but she was in no frame of mind to be reasonable. The quarrel that flared up was a like a brush fire, crackling hot, soon over, leaving char and desolation in its passage.

He had been drinking too much ever since, not enough to keep him from going to the office, but evening after evening growing more flushed and silent, morning after morning getting up heavy-eyed and headachey. He spoke to her seldom, and then only on matters of necessity. And he had come home after a round of the night spots with a couple of customers, not only bloodshot and unsteady but looking guilty, the classic picture of the unfaithful husband. All that's lacking is lipstick on his shirt, she thought coldly.

Still, there was the wedding to get through. Nothing could be resolved before the wedding. They didn't discuss it, but there was a tacit understanding that everything else, including death if possible, would be postponed until the ceremony was over. In the meantime, it was necessary to keep the surface smooth and, above all, to keep the Congdons from finding out that all was not sweetness and light with Mari's future in-laws.

I don't want Bob to know either, Frances thought, panicking. Something like a prayer formed in her, finding expression not in words but in a wordless resolution. Please, for Bob.

So here she was with Bill's check in her pocketbook and a feeling that she couldn't quite identify, a feeling that everything was coming to an end and nothing, apparently, would ever take its place.

"Too fancy," she said to the clerk. "Don't you have anything without all those ruffles?"

"I'll see." The woman sighed, walking away as though her feet hurt.

Frances stood, bored, knowing perfectly well that she would take the next dress she looked at, simply because it was ten minutes before closing time and the wedding was tomorrow. It would have been a good idea, she thought, for the kids to elope. Maybe she would bribe Bob
but a mental image of Louise Congdon shattered this notion. She sighed, shifting from one aching foot to the other.

"Frankie!"

She whirled around, almost knocking over the rack of "better dresses." "Kay, how are you?"

"Fine, fine. But what in the world are you doing up here with all the plush horses? Going into the movies, or something?"

Frances looked distastefully at the dress she had just refused to try on. "My son's being married tomorrow, and I haven't bought a dress yet. Her mother thinks beige lace
"

"My God, how suburban." Kay shook her head. "Come on, get it over with and we'll go somewhere for a drink. I haven't seen you for a long time."

"Come on back to the fitting room and give me a candid opinion. I've reached the point where I'm thinking of going in jeans."

In the green-curtained cubbyhole, Kay wedged her parcels onto the small shelf and lit a cigarette in defiance of the "No Smoking" sign above the mirror. "You look beat. Everything all right with you? Have you seen Bake lately?"

"Not for about three weeks."

They were silent while the saleswoman came in. Frances pulled the dress over her head. Then Kay answered the question she had been afraid to ask. "Jane and I have broken up, you know. I've seen it coming for quite a while
not that that makes it any easier."

"Has she
"

"I don't think so. Not officially, bag and baggage." Kay stood back a step and considered her critically. "Hey, that's not bad. I mean, I suppose you want to look like the groom's mother."

"I'd rather look like Zsa Zsa Gabor, but I don't seem to have the build for it."

"Go ahead, take it."

"I have to, more or less. I mean, I've already bought all the stuff to go with it." She got out of the dress, allowing the waiting saleswoman to undo the tiny hooks at the side, "Thank God it won't have to be altered. Can you deliver it the first thing tomorrow morning, without fail?"

"You can go in your bathrobe if they don't," Kay suggested. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink. I just cashed my salary check."

They came out of the store into late-afternoon June sunshine, sweet and hot. Kay carried her suit jacket over her arm; her forehead was beaded with perspiration.

"Hot, isn't it? Let's find a place that's air-conditioned."

In the bar they relaxed, soothed by darkness and coolness, and looked at each other without any reservations. Frances said, "I'm sorry about you and Jane."

"These things happen." Kay's eyes were swollen and dark-ringed, she had lost five pounds, but she was under control. She smiled. "It's only
she was the first, you know. I didn't know, before. I was married, and then all of a sudden
"