William ran past me to get something from a back room.
Then her friend added, in a whisper: “A Negro, of all things.”
“I said hush.”
“And that husband of hers so gorgeous like a movie star.” Giggling: “Well you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Annabel?”
“Let’s change the topic.”
The silver foil of Annabel’s cake caught the light in a kind of fireworks, tossing blue sequins around the room. I thought I heard her sigh.
I felt the broken belt in my pocket and a brief, embarrassing fantasy occurred to me: at Playland again, following my husband and Annabel out to the Limbo ride—that tunnel of love—where they would board the hearse-shaped cars and enter, hands clasped, its great gaping mouth. Wildly, absurdly, I imagined I sat in the car behind them, listening to their whispers and echoed laughter. A scream—a giant spider above them. And then, all at once, the power would go out. Darkness, silence. Bird in the hand. I imagined a perfect crime: that of climbing from my car, pulling the belt from my pocket and slipping it around her neck. It felt, in the innocence of my daydream, like a passionate embrace; it was the struggle I had never had: that of never-letting-go, not for something that you want so much, not until the thing is done. Never-letting-go.
We should forgive ourselves the cruelty of our youth. I wasn’t that much older than Annabel, though I thought of myself as a grown-up married woman. I was young and in anguish, and she was young and struggling to make the best of her lot as a woman, and of the times she lived in. Glittering with charm and keeping that bitter smile as wide as she could. Surely she was as afraid as I was. And who knows what those rides with my husband meant, in truth—a husband casting about for options, finding it perhaps in this poor girl—and what Buzz’s jealousy, like an imp taking the form of our worst fears, had summoned.
From the booth: “Oh, Annabel, you tease. Tell me about him.”
“I won’t! I’m sure you know I’m promised to someone else!”
“But you’re not married yet.”
“Why should we? We’re keeping it secret, and I want to finish my studies first.”
“You’re a riot, Annabel, a regular riot!”
In irritation: “Gotta go, hon.”
Across from her, the bride gave out a gasp; from a tipped-over canister flowed the pink lava of a shake. William Platt ran from the back and grabbed a rag at the fountain.
Annabel passed a hand through her hair and the little charms on her bracelet tinkled like bells; the promise ring on her breastbone caught the light. Then, for a moment, I thought she saw me. Her body went straight and clean as a lighthouse, her eyes moving across the room, and her gaze seemed headed right for me. I felt that I might do it; I might talk to her. But her eyes moved over me and around the room until they settled on William, running by with his rag. He grinned and she smiled back, brightly, like a switch he had flicked on with his finger. Then with a bell she was through the door and gone, just a ghost haunting the window as she stopped outside to ask a policeman a question, her finger tracing the glowing French curve of her hair.
“’Scuse me folks.”
It was William, arriving with his bar rag, quickly wiping up the tabletop with the same circular caress I had seen him use to wash the family Ford, dotingly, soapily, on semi-sunny days. The pregnant girl held both hands up in a gesture of compliance, smiling, not as her husband smiled (with embarrassment) but with the pleasure some pregnant women have at being a bit of trouble to the world, and she watched the soda jerk as he cleaned. Around and around he went. And all the time his happy gaze was on the window, on Annabel. After a minute, she flashed her teeth at the helpful policeman and fled, her progress down the street reflected now only as a smirking glint in the cop’s girl-watching eye and a glowing one in William’s.
When he was done,
Then her friend added, in a whisper: “A Negro, of all things.”
“I said hush.”
“And that husband of hers so gorgeous like a movie star.” Giggling: “Well you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Annabel?”
“Let’s change the topic.”
The silver foil of Annabel’s cake caught the light in a kind of fireworks, tossing blue sequins around the room. I thought I heard her sigh.
I felt the broken belt in my pocket and a brief, embarrassing fantasy occurred to me: at Playland again, following my husband and Annabel out to the Limbo ride—that tunnel of love—where they would board the hearse-shaped cars and enter, hands clasped, its great gaping mouth. Wildly, absurdly, I imagined I sat in the car behind them, listening to their whispers and echoed laughter. A scream—a giant spider above them. And then, all at once, the power would go out. Darkness, silence. Bird in the hand. I imagined a perfect crime: that of climbing from my car, pulling the belt from my pocket and slipping it around her neck. It felt, in the innocence of my daydream, like a passionate embrace; it was the struggle I had never had: that of never-letting-go, not for something that you want so much, not until the thing is done. Never-letting-go.
We should forgive ourselves the cruelty of our youth. I wasn’t that much older than Annabel, though I thought of myself as a grown-up married woman. I was young and in anguish, and she was young and struggling to make the best of her lot as a woman, and of the times she lived in. Glittering with charm and keeping that bitter smile as wide as she could. Surely she was as afraid as I was. And who knows what those rides with my husband meant, in truth—a husband casting about for options, finding it perhaps in this poor girl—and what Buzz’s jealousy, like an imp taking the form of our worst fears, had summoned.
From the booth: “Oh, Annabel, you tease. Tell me about him.”
“I won’t! I’m sure you know I’m promised to someone else!”
“But you’re not married yet.”
“Why should we? We’re keeping it secret, and I want to finish my studies first.”
“You’re a riot, Annabel, a regular riot!”
In irritation: “Gotta go, hon.”
Across from her, the bride gave out a gasp; from a tipped-over canister flowed the pink lava of a shake. William Platt ran from the back and grabbed a rag at the fountain.
Annabel passed a hand through her hair and the little charms on her bracelet tinkled like bells; the promise ring on her breastbone caught the light. Then, for a moment, I thought she saw me. Her body went straight and clean as a lighthouse, her eyes moving across the room, and her gaze seemed headed right for me. I felt that I might do it; I might talk to her. But her eyes moved over me and around the room until they settled on William, running by with his rag. He grinned and she smiled back, brightly, like a switch he had flicked on with his finger. Then with a bell she was through the door and gone, just a ghost haunting the window as she stopped outside to ask a policeman a question, her finger tracing the glowing French curve of her hair.
“’Scuse me folks.”
It was William, arriving with his bar rag, quickly wiping up the tabletop with the same circular caress I had seen him use to wash the family Ford, dotingly, soapily, on semi-sunny days. The pregnant girl held both hands up in a gesture of compliance, smiling, not as her husband smiled (with embarrassment) but with the pleasure some pregnant women have at being a bit of trouble to the world, and she watched the soda jerk as he cleaned. Around and around he went. And all the time his happy gaze was on the window, on Annabel. After a minute, she flashed her teeth at the helpful policeman and fled, her progress down the street reflected now only as a smirking glint in the cop’s girl-watching eye and a glowing one in William’s.
When he was done,
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