The Grammarians

by Cathleen Schine

“Well, he’s not my fiancé, is he? He’s my pen pal.” Laurel laughed. “He’s incredibly nice. You’ll see.”

  And she did see. She saw Michael waiting, and then he said, You’re not at all what I expected, and she no longer minded.

  Sitting next to him in the theater, she was aware of him physically, of the distance between them, the air, as if the air were something living and breathing.

  Afterward, the three of them went to dinner at a Spanish restaurant called Spain.

  “I wonder if there is a hamburger restaurant in Madrid called Estados Unidos,” Michael said.

  Daphne was keenly aware that she had fallen in love.

  “I feel so free tonight,” she said.

  Laurel cocked her head, looked at her, then at Michael. “Huh.”

  When dinner was over, Laurel said, “Let’s go, sis.” She took out her wallet.

  “Oh no, it’s on me,” Michael said.

  “No, no,” Laurel said, pulling out some bills.

  “I think I’ll stay for dessert and coffee,” Daphne said.

  “Coffee?” Laurel said.

  “Coffee.”

  Laurel gave her a funny look, then a funny smile, then cocked her head again, then kissed her on the cheek and said, “Huh.”

  While Daphne drank her strong coffee and shared a flan with Michael, a man played the guitar and a woman snapped castanets and clacked her heels on the floor.

  “Too corny?” Michael said when the guitarist and dancer took a break.

  “Sometimes the corniest things are the most powerful. I mean, when you don’t expect them.”

  “Ha!” he said. He smiled, a big satisfied grin.

  “‘Corny’ is a funny word, isn’t it?” she said. “I think it might be the least romantic word in the world.”

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Corny.”

  Daphne shivered. The guitarist began to play, the dancer began to dance, her skirts swirling one way, then the other. The chords pounded faster and faster. The dancer’s heels thundered.

  “Corny,” she whispered back, her lips touching his ear.

  * * *

  Their father had misgivings, but that was to be expected. Both his daughters swept away at once—it was difficult to take in. And he wished, somehow, for some reason he couldn’t properly articulate, that his twin daughters were marrying other twins. Two boys who understood that Laurel and Daphne were one, two boys who were one, too. Two halves. Two sides.

  Sally said, “They will take care of each other.”

  “I know that, but who will take care of their husbands?”

  “I meant each half of each couple will take care of the other half. And vice versa.”

  They looked so happy these days, Laurel and Daphne. Happier than Sally had ever seen them. Her birds, untouchable, out of reach, beautiful, now seemed less like real birds than soft blue Walt Disney birds, puffs of wing tips touching as they flew off together.

  “Disney is not a good omen,” Arthur said.

  “Bluebirds of happiness. Of course that’s a good omen. And it’s not meant to be an omen. It’s just how I picture them.”

  “It’s very sweet,” he said. But he thought, You are imagining your daughters as cartoons.

  “Omens,” she said contemptuously. But there were crows gathered outside the church on the day of the wedding, and she wondered if that augured something dark and ominous.

  “Crows can speak,” she said to reassure herself. “They can learn words.”

  Don sat beside her in the church. He said, “I always knew they would turn out well.”

  “You always said they were freaks, Don.”

  “Never.”

  Brian, grown into a sloping, bony high school student with narrow shoulders and an earring, said, “You did.”

  “Brian, shut up, dear,” his mother said.

  “Well, Dad was right. They are freaks. Freaks of nature.”

  “Speaking of which…” Sally said. She pointed her chin at the flower girl prancing down the aisle, a one-girl parade, a tiny singular Mardi Gras of white taffeta, billowing tents of petticoats, twirled licorice-black ringlets—a mythical creature, a baby Scarlett O’Hara. Rose petals preceded her, clumps of them hurled from her little fists. She was frowning in concentration. Her cheeks glowed a furious pink.

  “She was one of Laurel’s students,” Sally whispered. “The headmaster’s daughter.”

  “Nepotism in preschool? Academia is a dirty business,” Brian said.

  “Shut up, dear,” his mother said again, smiling at him.

  “It was kindergarten,” Sally said. “Not preschool.”

  Now the grooms appeared. Good-looking young men, one tall and blond in a double-breasted pin-striped suit; the shorter, darker one in a three-piece dark blue suit.

  “They didn’t dress identically,” Brian said. He clucked his disapproval.

  Their eyeglasses were similar, though. Wire-rimmed. Gloria Steinem aviators, Sally thought. She was such a glamorous radical, Gloria Steinem. The most glamorous radical Sally could think of. The only glamorous radical she could think of, really. Emma Goldman? Hardly. Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden? Well, Jane Fonda, yes. Larry and Michael did not look glamorous in their glasses, though, even if they were like Gloria Steinem’s. Neither was particularly radical, either, so it all worked out, Sally decided.

  She liked both boys tremendously. Larry was effortlessly polite and helpful, seeming to appear out of nowhere when a lady needed a chair pulled out, though what lady really needs a chair pulled out she could never understand, one is perfectly capable of pulling out one’s own chair, a chair is not very heavy. Sally wondered if that was what had captured Laurel’s heart—a tall, well-mannered boy unnecessarily pulling out her chair. That or the aviator glasses. She let out a small laugh.

  “Nervous?” Don said. “It’s perfectly natural.”

  “It’s not me who’s getting married.”

  Don had gotten better with the girls as they’d grown up. He spoke directly to them now with no intermediary. But they could still make him uncomfortable, and often did for the sheer joy of it. Poor Don.

  The flower girl was now pirouetting toward the polished wooden lectern where the minister and rabbi stood.

  “Thank you,” Sally said, patting Don’s hand. “I’m excited, that’s all.”

  Don nodded sagely. He’d stopped smoking a pipe years ago, but when he nodded sagely like that, Sally could still see the pipe protruding in all its wisdom, tilted thoughtfully toward his nose. She could almost smell the sweet tobacco.

  “Dear Don,” she said, kissing his cheek.

  And of course she was nervous, thank you, Don, for pointing that out. “There’s nothing for me to be nervous about,” she said.

  She twisted away from him, toward the back of the church, looking for Arthur, for the girls, again watching the approach of the grooms. Michael smiled at her. She liked Michael. She thought she would grow to love him. The way he looked at Daphne—doting, full of humor. It was the only way to look at Daphne. It was the only way for anyone to look at someone you love. She wished she could have looked at both girls with more doting humor as they grew up. They had made her uneasy with their secret words and language games. What kind of child befriends a dictionary and tries to take it to bed with her so it will have someone to talk to? A dictionary that weighs the same as she does? Well, now they wouldn’t need dictionaries in bed.

  She wondered if they would teach their husbands to speak their secret language. Perhaps they had forgotten it, or pretended they had, the way her mother had pretended to have forgotten Yiddish. She hadn’t heard either daughter speak a word of it for years, but she no longer knew what they got up to. The only word of Blingo, as the family had come to call their patois, they had ever taught her was “lohfo.” It meant absolutely no, a word they thought she ought to familiarize herself with as soon as possible in her career as their mother.

  The little white church in its lit
tle white simplicity looked like an art gallery that had never found its art. High ceilings. White walls. Michael felt suddenly lost, disoriented in the simplicity. He almost took Larry’s hand in his. They walked beside each other, comrades marching into matrimony. Larry was all right. Daphne insisted he was not too smart. But Michael suspected Larry was as smart as anyone, just not paying attention. Like a Galapagos tortoise, he had no need to pay attention. He had no predators. He was protected by an expansive carapace of good nature, money, and family status.

  The tapping of their four new shoes on the flagstone floor was rhythmic and distinct. They were two men in a horse costume—both the tail end, Michael thought.

  Larry pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. His nose was sweating. He could feel the sweat running down his back, too. He smiled at his parents. His mother pursed her lips in what might have been a smile in return; his father sighed, but he was misty-eyed, Larry could see. They were not happy about the rabbi. They were not happy about the double wedding. They thought both detracted from the dignity of the occasion. Larry felt a terrible, uncontrollable laughter rising and forced it into a cough.

  “All for one and one for all,” Michael whispered to him.

  “Three sheets to the wind!”

  Michael was his new best friend. They had known immediately that that was how it had to be. As Larry did not have a best friend anymore, had not had one really since junior high school, and as Michael was a terrific sailor, Larry had been happy to comply with his fate. Michael was a little twitchy, as if he were never quite comfortable in his clothes, but Larry had always been comfortable with uncomfortable people. There seemed to be so many of them. Laurel was one. She was comfortable with him, though.

  “I can be myself with you,” she said to him, over and over. “I have a self with you.”

  Sally thought, If either girl says “lohfo” up there I’ll wring her neck. It was sad that both of Michael’s parents were dead, not here for this day, though it meant there would be no competition over holidays. Or grandchildren.

  Larry wondered why Laurel’s mother was grinning. Was she glad to get rid of her daughters? She did not fit his notion of a Jewish mother. Reserved, dry comments when you didn’t expect them. His mother, WASP debutante that she was, seemed to fit the bill better—overbearing and almost possessed by her insistent, emotional energy. She frightened and embarrassed him. Sally had never embarrassed anyone, he was sure.

  Brian breathed in the scent of pine trees. He’d never been in a church before, he realized with a jolt—the jolt of an outsider who has forgotten he’s on the outside. As if he’d bumped his head walking into a glass door. Well, well, aren’t we parochial, Brian, he thought. And we’ve made a pun of sorts. He had not been brought up an observant Jew, but neither had he been brought up to be tolerant of other religions. The pine scent wafting through the open windows reminded him of summer camp. He could hear bees, too, and birds. It was ridiculous, this peaceful, pretty little church. Hadn’t anyone told it that Latin America could not repay its loans?

  His mother blew her nose.

  “What?” she said. She elbowed his side.

  “I didn’t say a word.”

  “You scoffed. Internally. I heard you.”

  “Quiet, you two,” Don said.

  Brian’s father was jealous of them, the mother and son, so close. Brian knew this because his father had told him.

  “But that’s infantile to be jealous,” Brian had said.

  “Yes,” his father had replied, nodding gravely.

  How do you argue with someone who turns your insults into psychological insights? The only ones he ever knew to be successful were the twins. The freaks of nature. He idolized them.

  Larry’s parents were not, of course, the only ones who had objections to the double wedding. Arthur had told the girls it was a terrible idea the minute they suggested it.

  “Why do I have to lose both daughters at once?”

  “That is so old-fashioned,” Laurel said.

  “If you want to play that game,” Daphne said, “you’ll be gaining two sons at once.”

  Arthur didn’t want two sons. But he did want his girls to be happy, and he was worried about Daphne’s impulsive decision to marry Michael.

  “What if she’s marrying Michael just to keep up with Laurel?” he said to Sally one night.

  “It’s possible.”

  “Who gets engaged out of the blue, then ditches the poor, pitiful schmuck for another poor, pitiful schmuck, all in a couple of days?”

  “Me,” Sally said. “I did.”

  “That was different. Different times. Girls got engaged at the drop of a hat. Now they don’t even bother to get married. Why don’t they live together first like everybody else? Anyway, he was no good for you, Sally. That would have been a flop, that marriage.”

  “I got rid of him, didn’t I? I knew the minute I met you. I would have kicked an army of fiancés to the gutter to get to you.”

  “How romantic.”

  “Give them a chance, Arthur.”

  “Far be it from me,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.

  And now his daughters glided down the aisle of a church, one on either side. He walked stiffly, consciously. Through sunlight and sacred shadow, the three of them approached the rabbi and the minister. Why not a swami, too, while you’re at it? The windows in the church were incongruously open. Birdsong and sunlight and a soft, damp breeze came through. He felt the two arms, the two darling arms of his two daughters, his darling daughters, light and gentle on his own arms.

  “I love you,” he said to Daphne.

  “I love you,” he said to Laurel.

  “We love you, too,” they answered in unison. Oh, how would their husbands cope with this two-headed, redheaded spouse?

  The Assistant, having run out of rose petals halfway down the aisle, flung pretend petals in front of her with increased energy. She smiled and nodded at the people in the pews, so many of them, ladies in dresses, men in suits. She stopped when she got to her parents and stared at them.

  “Go on, sweetie,” her mother said. “You can do it.”

  Do it? Of course she could do it. She shook her head in dismissal of her silly mother and resumed her work, flinging, nodding, waving. The ladies’ dresses were pretty, but none was as pretty as hers. Her dress fluttered and wafted and puffed like something alive. When she reached the altar, she contemplated the two men standing there, both in black muumuus, and felt sad for them, dressed like that. She listened to the swish of her dress as she twirled. She twirled around and around until she felt dizzy, then sank down to sit surrounded by the fluffy nest of her petticoats to wait for the others to catch up.

  An organ was howling out the bridal march. Finally the other marchers made it to where she sat. She looked up at the men in muumuus, waiting for the next part.

  One of the brides patted her head and said, “Okay, beat it now,” very softly. Was it her teacher Miss Laurel or the other one? She stared up at them carefully, trying to decide.

  “Off you go, dear,” said one of the muumuu men.

  “Go sit with your parents now,” the other muumuu man said. He was wearing a little black hat. She showed them both her basket. Didn’t they know she was the flower girl?

  Her father dragged her away muttering apologies, as well he should, she thought, taking her away from her wedding duties, though he seemed to be apologizing to others, not to her. There was some laughter from the ladies in dresses and the men in suits. The Assistant shrugged, which made the skirt of her dress float up and then float down like a parachute. She did it again. She had the prettiest, frothiest dress at the wedding. She was glad everyone had a chance to see it.

  Her father slid into the pew after her. “You’re a pistol,” he said softly.

  “A ship in full sail,” her mother said, kissing her head.

  “Perfect,” the brides said later when she was eating her piece of wedding cake. “The perfect
flower girl.”

  The Assistant smiled contentedly, a girl who was a flower, a pistol, a ship on the seven seas.

  TO DO´CTOR. v.a. [from the noun.] To physick; to cure; to treat with medicines. A low word.

  —A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson

  Up the four flights of pea-green steps, unlock the four locks on the pea-green door, relock the four locks from the inside, turn on shower, wait for hot water. I am a human being, Michael said, to himself or aloud, who knew, who cared. I am Michael, Michael Blumenthal, I am a human being, I am Michael …

  Daphne banged open the bathroom door and squeezed in. She kicked his hospital scrubs to a corner with distaste, then put her arms around him.

  He pressed his face into her hair. You smell good. You are good. Did he say that or think that? Thirty-six hours on call. I am Michael. You’re up early.

  “Yes, you are Michael.” She pulled the shower curtain back and gently helped him step into the tub. “Yes, I’m up early—because I’m still up,” she said. “Like you.”

  When he got out of the shower she dried him with a large, thin towel. It had a faded picture of a blue and orange baseball on it. It said METS.

  “Meet the Mets,” she sang softly. “Beat the Mets…”

  She fell asleep as soon as they got into bed, but Michael was too tired to fall asleep. He listened to his Walkman. Laurie Anderson sang “O Superman,” a chant of profundity and nonsense that washed over him like the shower, such a nice, hot shower, such a nice girl who dried him with his favorite towel, soon it would be opening day.

  “Hi, I’m not home right now,” Laurie Anderson said, “but if you want to leave a message, just start talking at the sound of the tone ha ha ha ha ha ha…” Michael had put this part of “O Superman” on their answering machine.

  One night, when they got home from dinner, Daphne played back their messages and they heard, in her mother’s nervous voice, the next line of the song: “Hello? This is your mother. Are you there?”

  * * *

  When Michael woke up, Daphne was at the kitchen table typing. Bent over like a nineteenth-century clerk. There was no self-consciousness, there couldn’t be, there was too much concentration, two fingers, tapping fast, noisy as woodpeckers. Michael watched her, so absorbed, unaware of him or anything else, small tatters of paper covering the table. He tried to picture her at work at the newspaper, a moment between one pile of material to copyedit and another, gathering those moments like small change, furtively scribbling on stray bits of paper, stuffing them into her pockets to take home and type up.