He winced when he remembered the night she told him. They were parked out by the bluffs, and it still made him sick at his stomach to remember it.
“I got something to tell you, darlin’, and I don’t know how you’re going to take it,” she had said in a small voice.
They were lying comfortably in the backseat of his Thunderbird, their clothes draped across the seat back in front of them. Cassie played with the thick mat of hair on his chest, running her fingers through it, which gave him goose bumps. That hairy chest had sprung out by the time he was in the eleventh grade, and the boys on the football team all kidded him about it. “Too much juice makes you hairy, Hardcastle,” they’d said. “Better unload some of it.” Whether they were right or not, he’d done the best he could to do just that.
“Do I really want to know?” He knew he didn’t.
“That depends. But one way or the other, you’ll find out, so let me just make it short and sweet. I’m pregnant.”
Cold shock went through his veins. It’s not like he never thought it could happen—it just hadn’t seemed like it would. Nobody else he had been with had ever gotten pregnant, not to his knowledge anyhow. He even thought he might be sterile, since he’d had a bad case of the mumps when he was seven.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure. I went to the doctor in Fayetteville and there’s no doubt.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I am telling you.”
“Look, Cassie, let’s think about this for a minute. Let’s talk about it. You don’t have to go through with it. There’s ways to stop it. I know of a girl who…”
She interrupted him. “You’re not talking about an abortion, are you, Lale Hardcastle? Because if you are, I pray that God would strike you dead right here in this car. Besides being illegal, it’s murder and I am not killing this baby! If you don’t want to marry me, that’s fine—I’ll have it by myself.” She sat up and started putting on her brassiere.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to marry you.”
“You didn’t say you did. In fact, the first thing you thought of was getting rid of it.”
“Don’t be like that, Cassie. It was just a shock. Of course I want to marry you.”
He tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away. It took him ten whole minutes to get her to look at him.
“Cassie, look at me. I want to marry you. I really do. We’ll go to Father Leo and start it up. It’ll be all right.”
He took her chin in his hand and forced her to look into his eyes. It was hard not to melt when Lale looked you in the eyes. Cassie threw her arms around him. With her face pressed into his neck, she didn’t notice that he was staring out the back window, those baby-blue eyes a shade deader.
“Have you told your mother and daddy?”
“Not yet,” she sniffed, pulling away from him and wiping her eyes. “I thought we’d tell them together. We don’t have to tell them about the baby. Just that we’re getting married. Lots of babies are born in seven or eight months.”
“All right. Just give me a day or two to tell mine.”
“Lale…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“You never have said ‘I love you’ to me. Not one time. Are you really sure you want to marry me? Because if you don’t, baby or not, then I don’t want to marry you.”
“I love you, Cassie. I do. It’s just hard for me to say. I’m not much of a talker—you know how I am.” He put his arms around her. “It’ll be all right.”
His mouth said it, but his eyes didn’t. Cassie saw it, but for now, the mouth part was enough. The eyes part would have to come later.
6
* * *
THE BEST ATTIC
Ron Bonetti wasn’t kidding—he called Liz and booked me for a whole afternoon! Just having a real test booked gave me the lift I needed, so I called the woman Lana had said might have an apartment for rent, Mrs. Digby, and she said for me to come by.
The house was on West Twelfth Street, a pretty, tree-lined block in Greenwich Village. It was an old five-story red-brick walk-up with a little courtyard in the back. The first thing you saw as you entered was a flight of steep stairs centered with a strip of faded carpet that must have been a nice Oriental at one time. Mrs. Digby lived on the ground level, to the right of the stairs. The place was going toward shabby, furnished with an old green velvet couch, its down cushions a little punched out, a couple of faded chintz armchairs, and a reading lamp. Cream and rose-coral flowered wallpaper was marked with water stains, weathered over the years to a soft brown, which had become almost part of the design. It was homey.
Mrs. Digby met me at the door, shading her eyes as she looked up at me. She was about the size of Baby. Mrs. Digby had undoubtedly been taller in her youth, but she hadn’t been young for several decades, and now her back was beginning to bend into a widow’s hump, which made me think unkindly of a turtle poking its head out of a shell. I made a mental note to drink more milk. She smiled with a full mouthful of teeth that must have been perfect once, but were now worn to a translucent pale yellow.
“My goodness, you are a big one!” Her voice was high and crackly like a parrot’s. Her hair, so thin that streaks of white scalp showed through, was dyed coal black and pulled into a tight, small knot on the top of her head. Her nose had the narrow scooped-out bridge and skinny nostrils of one of the first nose jobs ever done, and the tip had traveled off a bit to the left of center with age. Still, it was obvious she had once been pretty, and she cared enough about herself to put on, rather expertly, bright peony-pink lipstick and a dab of pale powder.
I hate it when people say the obvious about me the first time I meet them, but I didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot with her.
“Yes, I guess I am big. You must be Mrs. Digby?”
“I am Mrs. Digby. Beatrice Digby. Come in, my dear, and let’s chat.” She poured out two cups of tea from a porcelain teapot and passed me the sugar bowl.
“You are a model?”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean, yes, I am. Trying to be one.”
“First time away from home?”
“Not really. I lived at a school for a few months last spring. But this is the first time in New York.”
“Oh, you’ll love it here. New York is the only place for young attractive people to live. I grew up in New Jersey, near the shore, but came here when I was just a teenager—fourteen, if you want to know the truth. I had to lie, of course. I used to be on Broadway, a dancer. I was a Ziegfeld girl—can you believe it?”
I could believe it and said so. Even with her bent little back, she walked with a graceful step, like a dancer.
“I danced with Evelyn Nesbit—do you know who that was?”
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry.”
“Never mind. It was a long time ago. Old history. You seem like a good girl. I can always tell. I’m a little bit psychic, you know. It helps when you have to invite people to live in your home. I have a vacancy on the top floor. It’s not big, and you only have a hot plate and a small refrigerator, but you have your own bathroom. No pets. There’s nothing worse than dogs and cats peeing on the carpet. You can never get the smell out, no matter what you use to clean it. I hate that. One girl sneaked a dog in here, and the nasty thing peed on the couch and I had to get it recovered. I could smell it all the way out in the hallway. I might be old, but my smeller is perfect. Of course I had to ask her to leave. It’s seventy-five dollars a month, first month in advance.”
It sounded high, since you could rent a three-bedroom house in Arkansas for that. I had to slow down on spending, as it looked like I wasn’t going to start making money right away. If ever. I had even thought about maybe trying to find a job as a salesgirl or waitress somewhere, but would wait until I absolutely had to. I was determined not to have to ask Daddy for money. He would just say come home.
“I’d like to see it first, if th
at’s all right.”
We climbed the five flights of stairs, and I was huffing while Mrs. Digby, spry as could be, was not even breathing hard when we got to the last one. I’d always tried to stay away from exercise as much as I could, especially anything that had to do with running and balls, but I’d get into shape in spite of myself just walking around town and going up and down to my room.
We entered the apartment from the landing at the top of the stairs through a walk-in closet, which was weird but nice to have, and then we had to stoop through a door which was only five feet high, because of the slope of the roof, to go on into the room. Well, I had to stoop. Mrs. Digby had no such problem, but I cracked my head a good one on the top of the door. I actually saw stars, like in the cartoons.
“Watch out, dear,” she said too late. “That is a low door.”
The room had been walled off from the apartment on the other side, necessitating the odd entry through the closet, and was almost like a secret chamber in the peak of the house. It was not more than three or four hundred feet square, full of odd nooks and crannies, one of which held the small fridge with the hot plate on top. There was a bed, a Persian rug in muted colors of henna and moss green, old ivory and blue, a chest of drawers, and a small mirrored dressing table shaped like a kidney with a skirt and a stool covered in worn tapestry. A dark-red velvet easy chair and a lamp for reading were in another nook. The roof slanted on both sides, and the only place I could comfortably stand upright was the middle of the room. I would sleep with the ceiling jutting up right over my feet, and hunker down every time I went in or out through the closet. I made a mental note to put foam padding on the top of the door. I knew there were more head-bangs in my future.
The bathroom, just big enough for a claw-foot tub, toilet, and tiny sink, was built into a round corner turret with a heavy tapestry curtain instead of a door, and the ceiling was like a high peaked hat. I could stand up straight! I had always preferred baths to showers, the hotter the better. You can’t soak and read and relax out the kinks in a shower. As small and quirky as it was, the apartment was like a storybook house, Rapunzel’s castle. A tall window showed off a view of treetops and roofs across Greenwich Village. And it was all mine!
“This is so great, Mrs. Digby! I love it. When can I move in?”
“As soon as you want, dear.”
As we started down the stairs, the door of the other apartment that mine had been walled off from opened and a man came out carrying a leather shoulder bag. A black man. A tall black man. Well, technically, he was the color of rich chocolate milk. A headband of red and orange and green African print was wrapped around his short Afro, and he was dressed in a tight red knit shirt and fringed leather vest, worn shiny in spots; bell-bottoms were molded like faded blue skin tight across his rear end. He saw me and grinned. It was like a two-hundred-watt lightbulb came on in the hallway. He had the whitest teeth I’d ever seen, perfectly lined up under a little pencil mustache. I felt like my shoes had melted and stuck to the floor.
“Hello, Mrs. D.,” he said, his voice deep and smooth like suede. “Who is this?”
“It’s the new girl who’s taking over Leslie’s apartment,” Mrs. Digby chirped. “Cherry Marshall, this is Aurelius Taylor. He is a fine actor and musician. Aurelius, Cherry is going to be a big model.”
“I don’t doubt your word for a minute,” he said, looking me over, his eyes the color of brimstone. I got a weird tingle in my lower regions that I hadn’t felt since I’d first met Tripp Barlow. “Mrs. D. is psychic, you know, Cherry. Welcome to the attic. This part of the house was the old servants’ quarters, when one family owned it back in the early eighteen-hundreds.”
“Really? I think it has to be the best part of the house.”
“Me, too. Anyhow, welcome. If you need anything, I’m right across the way. Just knock on the wall.”
That was comforting. I was sure I’d think of something I needed.
He loped down the stairs, two at a time, humming a little tune. I felt like humming, too.
I packed up all my clothes and moved from the Barbizon that afternoon. It was autumn in New York, and I was in love with everything—Greenwich Village, its curving streets with names like Bleecker and Jane and Hudson, the small shops that sold antiques, pottery, jewelry, and Indian imports, the exotic smells of spices and sauces and sizzling meats that wafted out of foreign-food restaurants as you passed, the long-haired hippies and the Rastafarians who sold incense and small paintings and old clothes on tables on the streets—it was all so alive and exciting!
Most of all, I was in love with the attic on Twelfth Street, with its eccentric old ex-showgirl landlady and sexy neighbor. And I had a test booked! There was a possibility that I might become a model. A real one.
I couldn’t wait for tomorrow to see what would happen next!
7
* * *
THE HEN PARTY
The parking lot of Flyin’ Jack’s Truck Stop was crowded with cars as Lale pulled up and parked off to the edge, under a stand of trees. He cut the engine, but left the key in to listen to the radio. He was earlier than he meant to be, but he hadn’t felt like having supper with his family and facing his mother. There was no way his father wouldn’t have told her the news. He ate a burger and fries at the Dairy Queen, then picked up a couple of six-packs at Chet’s Quick Stop. Chet was good about letting kids get beer if he liked them. He said that if a fellow was man enough to fight in a war at eighteen, he was man enough to have a beer or two. He had fought in World War I, himself, and liked telling his war stories to the boys. There was always a new crop of boys who hadn’t heard his stories and courted him to get beer.
“How’re they hanging, Lale?” he said as Lale put the cans down on the counter.
“Hanging loose, Chet. What’s up with you?”
“Same old, same old. Arthritis chewing on me, but that’s nothing new. My back’s never been the same, you know, since I took the bullet in France.” He punched the numbers into the cash register. The drawer opened with a hard ka-ching. His hand trembled slightly as he counted out the change. His long-sleeved flannel shirt was buttoned tightly around the knobby bone of his wrist. “Don’t guess you’ve got your calling card from the draft yet, have you?”
“Naw. You know I got a high draft number. Three hundred and ten. If I’m lucky, they won’t get up to me until the dang thing’s over.”
“You better hope so. If Vietnam’s anything like it was over in France during WW One, you better dang hope so. Did I ever tell you about the time me and two of my buddies got cut off from the rest of the battalion, and I lost my gas mask?”
“You might have said something about it.” In fact, Lale had heard it all a few too many times. Chet sat down on the stool behind the counter, the change in his hand, getting ready to settle in for a good long visit. Business had been slow that night, and the old man got lonesome with nothing to do but read The National Enquirer or Grit, but Lale wasn’t in the mood for war stories tonight. He reached out and took the bills from the old man’s hand.
“I wish I could stay for a spell and shoot the breeze, Chet, but I got to go pick up Cassie, and I’m running late.”
“Aw, that’s all right, Lale. I’ll catch you another time. When is it y’all are getting married?”
“I guess in a couple of weeks. They’re giving her a shower tonight out at the café.”
“She’s a good little girl. You’re a lucky man.”
“That I am, my friend. That I am. See you, Chet. Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t do.”
He didn’t feel like a lucky man. It was all he could do to smile as he stuffed the money into his pocket and picked up the beer. He thought about trying to find one of his buddies to kill time with before he had to pick up Cassie, or driving by Sandra’s to see if she was alone, but couldn’t get himself up for it. He needed to get away from people and think things through. Sitting by himself in his car and waiting for the bridal shower to be over wouldn’t be
so bad. He’d collect his thoughts, have a few beers, and get nicely oiled before he had to face the giggling girlfriends and lug the load of presents out.
The radio was picking up WLS in Chicago, as it did sometimes on clear nights, and his favorite song, “House of the Rising Sun,” blasted into the night air. It had finally stopped snowing and the stars were out. He stretched his legs across the front seat and popped the top on another can of Bud, chugged half of it down. This shower thing was taking longer than he’d thought it would. Before too many more songs had played, he’d had a pretty good start on the first six-pack, and a couple of swigs drained another can. He tossed it onto the back floorboard of the cream-colored ’59 Thunderbird, where it clanked against three others. He’d clean them out sooner or later. Or more likely, Cassie would. She didn’t like beer cans in the car. It would be her car, too, he realized, after they were married, and he could see her making him scrub it and wash and wax it all the time. That was one thing she went way overboard on, cleaning stuff up. He could see her nagging him about putting his clothes away and throwing his wet towels on the floor. His mother just griped and picked up after him like she always had, but he bet Cassie wouldn’t after they were married. He thought about the little apartment they had already put a deposit down on. It only had a small living room, one little bedroom, and a kitchenette, and there wouldn’t even be a place for his gun rack. Cassie had already said she didn’t want him bringing his ten-point buck head to hang on the wall. The glass eyes creeped her out. After the baby came, there wouldn’t be room for anything but baby stuff. He felt as if he were already being smothered under piles of dirty diapers and baby puke. His gloom settled in deeper.
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