Juliana

by Vanda

  “When are your parents coming?” Aggie asked when she came out of the bathroom.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “They must be so proud of you. Snagging a guy like Henry.”

  “Is that something to be proud of?”

  “Of course, it is. Getting married is the most important thing to happen to a girl.”

  I wondered if it was the completely wonderful thing I’d dreamed of doing with my life when I was eight.

  “Where’s the wine?” Aggie asked.

  “I put it away. The bottle was almost finished.”

  “You don’t have any more?”

  “Well, I have one more bottle, but—don’t you think you should have lunch first?”

  “Come on, we’re celebrating your marriage. Don’t start being a wet blanket as soon as I get home. Bring that bottle out here.”

  I brought out the last bottle of wine and the two glasses.

  “Do you realize, Al,” Aggie said, “that in two days you’ll be a woman.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re getting married. Marriage turns a girl into a woman.”

  “I thought sex did that.” I sat on the couch next to her joining her in another glass of wine.

  “Well, yeah, but usually they go together. ’Cause of the war, things are kinda out of order, but you get the idea. ”

  “Not really. Does your life feel complete now that you’re married to Dickie?”

  “Well, no. But that’s ’cause we haven’t lived together as man and wife. I haven’t gotten my big diamond ring, and we don’t have a house or a Bendix Washer. Damn this war.”

  “If getting married is the most important thing to happen to a girl, does that mean, after I get married, nothing will ever happen to me again? That sounds like I’ll be dead.”

  “Well, having a child ….”

  “Spose a person doesn’t want one.”

  “Every girl wants a—wants a … child.” Her lower lip quivered and she was crying again.

  “What’s wrong, Aggie?”

  “I’m expecting.”

  “What?”

  “Will you help me convince Dickie it’s his?”

  “Aggie, he’s been away for a year and a half.”

  “But you’re smart. There must be something you can say that—”

  “Yeah, if we can convince him you’re an elephant.”

  “What?”

  “They have a twenty-two month gestation, uh, pregnancy.”

  “Well, that won’t work.” She started crying harder. “What am I gonna do? Dickie’s gonna hate me. He may even want a divorce. A divorce, Al. No one in my family has ever had a divorce. You know what people think about divorced women.”

  “Yeah, that they’re loose and sleep around with any guy.”

  “I’m not like that.”

  I took in a breath and held back what I really wanted to say. “How could you let this happen?”

  “I was lonely.”

  “But there were other people there with you. Other people from the chorus.”

  “All the boys in the chorus were faggots.”

  “Well, obviously, not all .”

  “It wasn’t a chorus boy. It was … someone important. A big shot in the business.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “I couldn’t. It could get back to Dickie. It could ruin both of our careers. Oh, Al, what am I gonna do?”

  “I’ve heard there are places for unwed mothers. Of course, you’re wed. But maybe if you didn’t tell them that, you could go to one of those places as an unwed mother, and after you have it you could give it up for adoption.”

  “Church people run those places. They’d be looking at me with those church-people eyes like I was a bad girl ’cause I was an unwed mother. Only, I’m not an unwed mother, and I don’t want to be treated like one.”

  “Aggie, you’re having a baby by someone who isn’t your husband. You think telling people that will make them treat you better?”

  “No, I guess that might be worse. But, my parents? How would I explain where I was to them?”

  I walked over to the window and stared out at that tree. I remembered my mother a long time ago. One day when I was about nine, I heard Nana in the kitchen saying to Mom, “If you have that baby, you can forget about my help. Not a dime more will you get. I’m not supporting a gaggle of your brats.”

  “Have you …” I breathed in. “Thought of … not having it?”

  “Yeah. But I don’t know anyone that …. Do you?”

  “How would I know anyone like that?”

  “What about Henry? He’s a man of the world. Would he know someone?”

  “He might.” I turned around to face her. “Do you want me to tell him?”

  “No. Can’t you just tell him you have a friend? Don’t say it’s me. And this friend might want to use the services of such an individual if he knows someone.”

  “I guess.” I sat down beside her.

  “Please don’t think bad things about me,” she pleaded. “I was lonely. The road is hard. Dark hotel rooms, long train rides. I started getting friendly with this man. We’d talk in the bar, have a drink. It was nothing—friendly talk. Then we met in his hotel room. He had a suite, so it wasn’t just a bed. And all we did was talk. At first. I missed Dickie so much. After a while, without warning, we didn’t plan it, we were in each other arms. You can’t know how it was. I was on fire. I couldn’t think straight. Have you ever been so on fire with Henry that you couldn’t stop yourself? You had to have it no matter how foolish or dangerous it was?”

  Not with Henry.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Henry took time off from work so he could meet my parents at Penn Station. I stood on a train platform again, waiting, but this time not with excitement, unless you think terror is a form of excitement.

  “Henry?” I said, pulling on his jacket.

  “What’s the matter, hon?” He lit a cigarette.

  “The train. It’s gonna be here soon.”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “I can’t … breathe … I’m gonna faint.”

  He put an arm around me. “You’re going to be fine. I’m right here.” My breathing slowed with his arm around me. “Are you all right now?” he asked.

  “Fine.” I stood soldier straight as I heard the sound of their train in the distance. I couldn’t see it yet, but I could hear it like the thumping of my own heart. “They’re coming, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Henry said with a smile. “You know it’s very queer to be so upset about seeing your parents.”

  “Maybe.” I jiggled my legs. The train rounded the corner. “There it is. They’re on that. Give me a drag of your cigarette.” I snatched the Old Gold from his hand and breathed in the smoke deeply. I choked and my head felt light, and I thought I was about to throw up, and why the heck would anyone smoke a cigarette when they were nervous?

  Henry laughed taking back his cigarette. “You’re such a card. I guess that’s why I love you.”

  The train roared into the station and shook to a stop. People started emerging. Again, it was filled with soldiers returning home, others saying good-bye, colored porters grabbing luggage. And out of the tangle of people stepped my mother, tall and wide, in a rose-speckled dress. She was still making her own ugly clothes, and she was still wearing that same old gray hat she’d worn since the twenties. It sat on the front of her head and tilted over her brow with hardly any brim. Behind her came Dad in his gray, cardigan sweater.

  “There they are, Henry.”

  Henry took my hand and we walked toward them. “Mrs. Huffman. Mr. Huffman. I’m Henry Wilkins.” He extended his hand. My father took it. My mother’s head bobbed on her shoulders looking up at the high ceilings.

  “Mrs. Huffman?”

  “Margaret,” Dad said, “the lad is speaking to you.”

  “Big,” Mom said. “Isn’t it, Henry?”

  “Excuse me?” Henry said.

&n
bsp; “It’s big. All of it. Big.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, listen, Artie,” my mother gushed. “He called me ma’am. Doesn’t he have lovely manners?”

  “Yes, dear, he does,” my father agreed.

  “Won’t he be fun to have as a son?”

  “Yes, he will, dear.”

  “Give us a kiss, Henry, right here.” She pointed to her cheek and Henry, good sport that he was, planted a peck. “You’ll call me Mom, won’t you? I’ve always wanted a son.”

  I stood there feeling like I didn’t exist.

  “Okay. Mom,” Henry said. “And doesn’t Alice look nice.”

  She finally looked at me. “Hi, Mom.”

  “That dress.” She wrinkled up her nose. “Where did you get it?”

  “Don’t you like it?” I asked, panicked.

  “I think it’s a very nice dress.” Henry rushed in to protect me.

  “And that’s what counts, isn’t it? Keeping you happy.”

  How she meant that was impossible to figure out.

  “Well, let’s not stand here getting acquainted. Alice has a nice apartment where we can relax and have a delicious lunch. Alice has prepared it with her own hands. A whiz in the kitchen, even with rationing.”

  The truth was I was there during preparation, but Henry did most of the work ’cause I was running around flapping my arms squawking about how I’d never make it through this day. But I did break the capsule and knead the yellow color into the margarine so it looked like butter. No one wanted pale-looking margarine sitting on their table. It made me feel like a sculptor.

  Henry extended his arm for my mother to take. That’s when she noticed the cane. “You’re a cripple.” She stepped back to get a better look.

  “Yes, Mrs. Huffman,” Henry said. “But I assure you I can provide very well for your daughter.” He spoke confidently, but by the way he squinted his eyes I could tell he wasn’t feeling good .

  “Well, I guess it’s okay,” Mom said, putting her arm through his. “Still, I would rather have had a son who was in the army.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Henry said, swallowing what I knew he was feeling.

  We headed toward the stairs, Henry and my mother leading the way.

  “How is she, Dad?” I asked.

  “Well, you can see her, can’t you?”

  “Her spells?”

  “They come and go, you know, but lately she hasn’t been very bad at all, and I’ve managed to keep her home. She hates the hospital.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been around to help you.”

  “You’re doing what you should be doing. Keep doing it.”

  We entered the Grand Concourse and passed through the main waiting room. The orchestra played patriotic songs and occasional swings. American flags hung from the columns. The place was crowded with people dancing to the music.

  “I notice Henry calls you Alice,” Mom said in the cab that Henry was paying for. “Not Al like that horrible Danny Boyd who used to live next to us. Whatever happened to him?”

  “I don’t want to talk about him, Mom.” I rolled down the window more—it was hot—wondering where Danny was now.

  “Are you still moody? Henry, how do you put up with my child’s moodiness? Her moods used to drive me out of my mind. You must be a saint.”

  On the way up the steps to the apartment, Mom stopped. She took her embroidered handkerchief from her purse and fanned herself. “Are you okay, Mom?” I asked.

  She blotted her forehead with the handkerchief. “How many miles away is your apartment?”

  “Just one more flight.”

  “Here let me take your arm,” Henry said. “Lean on me.”

  Mom said, “You don’t seem crippled at all.”

  Aggie threw open the door. “Mrs. Huffman! Mr. Huffman!” She threw her arms around both of them. Mom pushed her away. Mom didn’t like too much kissing and hugging. Dad, on the other hand, seemed to like hugging Aggie too much. He nuzzled his nose into her breasts. “That’s enough of that, Mr. Huffman.” Aggie giggled, pushing him away. “You’re a naughty boy.”

  We all sat around a card table Henry and I had set up in the parlor. Since she thought I made the lunch, Mom made faces with each swallow. Aggie was even chattier than usual. She kept bouncing around in her chair and waving her arms. A couple times she ran into the kitchen. One of those times I dashed in after her— “Aggie, what are you …?”—and saw her drink down the last of the wine we had in the icebox without bothering to put it into a glass. “Aggie?”

  “It’s nothing.” She waved both hands at the ceiling and sashayed back into the parlor to sit at the table. I’d never seen her that bubbly before, but she was keeping everything going so I didn’t care; it kept them from noticing me sliding down in my chair, trying to disappear. That is until Aggie brought up my commercial. “Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Huffman, did you hear Al in the Rinso commercial? Wasn’t she wonderful?”

  “Aggie, stop,” I said, looking down at my plate. “I was in the chorus.”

  “Yeah, but you were in it. Did you hear it?” she asked my parents.

  “I think I did,” Dad said. “Was that the one where a man interviews a husband about how soft his wife’s hands are?”

  “Yes, that’s the one,” Aggie said, jumping up and down in her seat.

  “I didn’t know you were in that,” Dad said. “You were very good.”

  “How could you tell? I was in the chorus.”

  “Well, Aggie thinks you were. Don’t you, Aggie?” Dad asked.

  “Yes, she was. You should’ve heard her, Mr. Huffman, Mrs. Huffman.”

  “I never listen to the radio,” my mother explained. “But I saw you, Aggie, in the Montgomery Ward Catalog. You were very pretty.”

  “Sing a little of the Rinso jingle, Al,” Aggie said.

  “Aggie, please.”

  “Why don’t you?” Henry said. “I bet your parents would love to hear that. Wouldn’t you love to hear Alice sing the Rinso jingle, Mrs. Huffman?”

  I knew Henry was trying to help, but he wasn’t. I kept my head down, studying the blue flower pattern on the edge of the tablecloth.

  “Yes, Alice, why don’t you sing it,” my mother said.

  Of all things for her to be interested in. I wanted to crawl under the table.

  “I’ll get you started,” Aggie offered. She began to sing, “For a wash that’s whiter …. Come on. Al, join in.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “It’s easy,” Aggie continued. “For a wash that’s whiter and brighter than new … Al, come on, you know this.”

  I pounded a fist onto the table and jumped up. “I don’t want to. Why can’t you hear me? I don’t want to.” I ran into the bathroom.

  “That’s my child,” I heard my mother say. “Moody.”

  I sat on top of the closed toilet seat reading Madame Bovary.

  Henry knocked lightly on the door then pushed it open slightly. “Alice, come to the door.”

  “You come in.”

  “I can’t. Your parents.” He whispered so low I could barely hear him. “Come here.”

  I went to the door.

  “You can’t hide in the bathroom,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re being rude. Aggie was only trying to help.”

  “No. She’s drunk.”

  “That’s ridiculous. We haven’t served the wine yet.”

  He is such an innocent .

  “Your mother might enjoy hearing you sing the Rinso jingle.”

  “Max said I was no good at singing.”

  “But you got a job singing, so he was obviously wrong.”

  “No, he wasn’t. They put me in the chorus so no one would hear me.”

  “I’m sure they didn’t hire you to hide you in the chorus. It was a start.”

  “I’m not gonna sing in front of my mother so she can make fun of me.”

  “I don’t think she’d do that.”

&nbs
p; “You don’t know her. You’re good at entertaining. You entertain them, and I’ll read in here.”

  “You can’t stay in the bathroom reading.”

  “Why? That’s how I spent my childhood.”

  He pushed open the door, looking back at our guests, he said, loudly. “We’re talking. That’s all. You eat. Nothing’s happening over here.”

  He slipped inside and wrapped his arms around me. “I can’t say I understand you, Alice, but I see how upset you are. I want to make things better for you, but I don’t know how.”

  I looked up at him. “I can’t do it, Henry.”

  “Do what, dear?”

  I sat back down on the toilet seat and clutched my book. He balanced himself on the edge of the bathtub, waiting for me to make things clear to him.

  “I can’t ….”

  “You can’t what? Just say it.”

  “I can’t be what you want me to be. I don’t know why, but I can’t.”

  “But, honey.” He took my hand in his. “I don’t want you to be anything but who you are.”

  “Mom, this is my fiancée, Alice Huffman.”

  “Well, Alice, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I did so much enjoy our phone conversations.”

  “What phone conversations?” my mother asked. “You made telephone conversations to this strange woman, but you can’t call your mother?”

  “Mom, please.”

  “Welcome to our family,” Henry’s mother said in the warmest voice, behaving like she hadn’t heard what my mother said. Henry probably warned her on their way over from Grand Central. “And you, too, Mr. and Mrs. Huffman. Welcome. I look forward to getting to know you both.”

  My mother sniffed; my father smiled.

  Mrs. Wilkins was a short chubby woman who didn’t seem to resemble Henry at all, but the warmth that came out of her made me want to curl up in her lap. She wasn’t wearing an old-fashioned hat with no brim; no, her hat had a wide brim, and she wore a modern suit that was just the right length for today’s styles.

  “This is my dad,” Henry said. A tall round man grinned at me, and I could see Henry’s smile in him.

  We all sat around the table, and my parents got along with the Wilkinses fine, and they didn’t even embarrass me after Mom’s first comment. We talked about the war mostly—Henry’s two younger brothers being in it.