by Alice Adams
“Probably—”
“Besides, I stole Horace away from you for all my pre-sale fixing up.” Not adding, And so your garden’s a little shabby. But that unspoken judgment weighted the air.
What had happened, and all fairly quickly, within a month or so, was more or less this: Deirdre announced that she was tired of living in Pinehill; she wanted to move back to California, where she thought the schools and the air would be better for her little daughter, SallyJane. (“A lot Deirdre cares about schools, or air either,” had been muttered around the town, along with certain speculations as to more plausible motives. “You reckon that Derek McFall she likes so much could be out there? Seems more than likely to me.”)
Melanctha had said, Fine with her, she didn’t want this big old house anyway; she wanted a new modern house somewhere out in the country, and maybe not in this state, maybe Texas or Montana, where she’d build some kennels and raise a bunch of dogs. With what Russ had left her and her share from the sale of the house, she’d be able to do that, probably. And all the boys had similar far-reaching plans of their own.
And, not coincidentally, at just about this time Dolly decided to take a job in the local real estate office. “I’ve been thinking that I need a little more by way of occupation,” she explained. “And with the boys gone, and Willard almost retired—And anyway I thought what with the war ended and all, there’d be a lot of house reshuffling going on. Sort of a big-scale game of musical houses.”
Saying that, had she known that Jimmy Hightower was looking to buy Russ’s house, for which he’d always had sort of a hankering? Possibly she had, and certainly she had known that the new classics professor, coming to replace Willard, had a family and a yen for something “contemporary,” a perfect choice for the glass-brick Hightower house (which Esther had never really liked very much).
In any case, the sale of Russ Byrd’s house to Jimmy Hightower was a very lucrative coup for Dolly Bigelow, and one whose implications were much discussed.
“You reckon all these years Jimmy’s had this private hankering for Russ’s house?”
“Seems more’n possible. Something Esther would never have gone along with.”
“Russ either, comes to that.”
“And how about that Melanctha? You imagine that little old girl off in Montana or Texas either with a bunch of dogs?”
“And maybe a colored boyfriend.”
“Now, now, we don’t even want to think about that.”
“Folks in Montana might be a little more ‘liberal’ along those lines.”
“Bunch of Yankee Republicans, I guess.”
“Well, she’s a whole lot better off than she would be in Texas, that’s for sure.”
“Wonder what all Dolly’s going to do with that mess of money she got—her ‘commission’ is what they call it.”
“I heard she said she’d take old Willard on a bunch of vacations. England, Venice, Hawaii, all places like that.”
“First off she’s got to get him retired.”
“Oh, she’ll manage. Don’t you all worry one speck about Dolly. Seems like she’s found her true calling at last, in this life.”
• • •
None of these moves had actually taken place yet, though. By the time of the party, the Byrds were still in residence in their house, which is to say that Melanctha and Deirdre and little SallyJane were there; all the boys were at their various schools, with Graham still up at Harvard and the others scattered over various Southern schools, including the law school in Georgia, and Annapolis.
However, presumably both Deirdre and Melanctha had been consulted, and both were amenable to having the party there.
One of the things that Dolly did with some of her money was to buy an extraordinary display of flowers, for Abby’s party. Flowers everywhere. Now, with late September succeeding a couple of weeks of unremitting, bleaching, drying heat—when everyone in town had given up on gardening, on flowers, and felt not quite ready to start up fussing with bulbs—all over the large, terraced Byrd garden there were the most amazing flowers, in vases and pots. “She must’ve cleaned out every florist in the county” was frequently remarked, and, a little less frequently, in an undertone, “Sort of strange-looking, isn’t it? None of them actually growing in the ground, like real flowers do?”
“The ones in pots are growing,” stated Sylvia Marcus, who had a rather literal mind. But she had a lot to contend with that day, poor lady. Her husband, Dan, was up in Albany for some inside super-important Party meetings; he was angry that she had not come along. Never mind that it was their only son’s wedding, and that their daughter, Susan, was not there either; she had just started at NYU, so much better for her than Swarthmore, probably. In any case, already she had a serious new boyfriend (but then Susan was always serious; she had been serious about that Negro Army man, that Ed whatever), but this was a nice Jewish boy, for a change. And so there was Sylvia, alone among all these at least superficially nice new Southern people. (God knows what their attitudes on certain basic social issues would be.) Even the Bairds, from Connecticut, were unfamiliar, actually. So—Episcopalian. Upper-crust.
The wedding, which was on the next day, had occasioned a little local trouble.
The Episcopal minister had refused to marry the couple, on the grounds that Joseph (of course) had not been christened. And was not about to be, Joseph said loud and clear. And so the ceremony would be performed by the local Presbyterian minister, known as a “liberal radical,” who supported integration, things like that. The rabbi from Hilton, a handsome young man, was to be in attendance; he came to the party and was recognized by everyone as the person who had conducted services for poor Esther. (Jimmy Hightower was absent; he had urgent business in Washington, he told several people, with a great big hinting smile.)
Joseph has never looked so happy in his life, thought his mother, with a small inward sigh. On the whole, a serious man (when he was a small child, Sylvia had worried: should a three-year-old be so intense?), today he smiled, he beamed, all day. It was as though he had decided that it was all right, at least for today, to be just purely happy. He even seemed at ease among all these strange Southern people, though once Sylvia had worried that he was so shy, not friendly and outgoing like Susan (Susan was almost too friendly, too easily) or like his father, gregarious Dan.
When Sylvia thought of Dan, which of course from time to time she did that day of their son’s wedding, he seemed surprisingly remote, much farther away than simply Albany (just as the C.P. itself seemed remote), and she thought: This is the first party I’ve been to, it seems like ever, where there’s no one here from the Party, and the only other Jew is the rabbi, who is even younger than Joseph. She felt a surge of loneliness, of abandonment, both of which she indistinctly blamed on the goddam C.P., which had literally ruled her life, their life for all those years. If I can ever get out, thought Sylvia, I’ll never go back anywhere near it. I’ll have all new friends, nice friendly nonpolitical ones.
Graham and his friend, Paxton Sedgwick, down for the wedding, were dressed very much alike: dark blue blazers with gold buttons, white shirts, striped ties, and gray flannel pants (“You reckon that’s some kind of a Harvard uniform?”), but they did not otherwise resemble each other, tall bony-featured Paxton and smallish, pretty Graham. Paxton was universally perceived as being extremely nice, so very well mannered (“for a Yankee,” was just not said), and so—so masculine. “How could we ever have worried that he would be—like that? Such a nice good friend for Graham to have, a kind of model.”
To Cynthia, Paxton had a very New England face, and his accent, not to mention his name and his clothes, reminded her of boys from a long time ago, at college dances in New England, in long-lost autumns. There was also in the air, on that hot Southern afternoon, a New England autumn smell of chrysanthemums, acrid, sharp; Dolly had splurged on giant blooms, great dark green glass vases of the huge white-petalled blossoms. Looking across the garden and smelling those flowers, Cynthia was v
isited by a nameless angst, as though she had been displaced from her own true home, wherever “home” was. And she felt a lurch toward old age, and loneliness. Which she instantly told herself was ridiculous: turned down, finally and at last, by the law school in Hilton, she was writing back to Georgetown tomorrow.
“Abby looks even younger every time I see her, you noticed?”
“Sure does, looks a whole lot like that little old girl first moved down here.”
“I remember. With the long pigtails, blond. Like a little old Dutch girl.”
“And that Yankee way of walking, so fast, with her feet stuck out like a boy’s.”
“Well, even without those pigtails, she sure looks young. How old is Abby anyways, would you say?”
“Let’s see now, she must’ve been ’bout ten or eleven when they first moved down here, was that in ’38 or ’39? Or was she twelve or thirteen?”
“I don’t know anymore’n you do. Anyways, they got here not long before the war, and Abby was real young.”
“We all were, before the war!”
“And now it’s after the war and Abby still looks real young, though maybe in another way.”
“I should think so! And getting married tomorrow!”
In a way that suggested some plan and agenda, Deirdre walked over to Abby, but nevertheless she began whatever she had to say in a roundabout way. “My, Abigail, you are just the prettiest thing—that blue, with your blue eyes. Too bad you’re not wearing blue tomorrow too. So becoming, but I guess it has to be white?”
“No, actually not. My mother thought so too. Cynthia’s funny, she said, ‘After all, it’s your first wedding.’ ”
“Ooh, that Cynthia. Well, I reckon you’ll fool her—”
“I plan to. But I’m not wearing white. After all, we’ve been living together almost since we first met. No, I’ve got this wonderful sort of gold dress—even Cynthia thinks it’s great.”
“Well, I’m just sure it is.” There was a pause, Deirdre seemed to be having trouble saying whatever it was that she had intended, but at last she did say, “Since you bring up Cynthia, I had this sort of confession—or maybe just a question—for her.”
Standing there in the sunlight, near a row of yellow roses that were placed in tall glass vases, somewhat apart from the others, the two young women had another moment of silence as Abby had a sense—not exactly of déjà vu but of an old relationship returned. She was remembering Deirdre when they first met: she, Abby, a pigtailed newcomer, a lost Yankee, and Deirdre, a dark, too beautiful, too young mother, with her little boy, Graham, whom she had to pass off as her brother. And so now she said to Deirdre, in a very friendly, direct (un-Southern) way: “She won’t bite. If you want to ask her or tell her something, just do it, Deirdre. God knows you’ve never been a coward.”
Deirdre’s delicate chin lifted just slightly at that praise as she said, “I reckon not.”
The Deirdre-Derek rumors then must be true, Abby thought; Deirdre was going off to meet Derek in California, and Abby also thought, Well, good luck to her. Poor Deirdre, she doesn’t seem to have a lot of sense about men—but then neither does my mother—or does she?
She watched as Deirdre went directly over to Cynthia, Cynthia so very pretty in brilliant pink (to Cynthia, Schiaparelli pink—to most people down there, “nigger pink,” though none of those ladies and gentlemen would have said that ugly phrase aloud).
Deirdre had indeed just said, in a somewhat jumbled rush, that she was going off to California where Derek was. And Cynthia said almost exactly what Abby had thought: “Well, the best of luck, Deirdre. I think you’re a really brave young woman. You’re not just beautiful. I always have thought that, since Abby first ran into you and Graham down by the creek and brought you home, remember?”
“Of course I do.” A wide and beautiful smile from Deirdre.
“I have to admit,” said Cynthia, with an answering slightly giddy smile (she had had a couple of glasses of the punch, which was stronger than anyone had yet realized), “I have to admit there was a time when this would not have been such great news. I was missing Harry a lot, and I had a sort of crush on Derek. I was missing Harry,” she repeated. And then she added, “Of course Derek’s very attractive.”
Deirdre laughed. “I guess he knows that.”
As Cynthia thought: We’ve always been so unfair to Deirdre, all of us, including me. We’ve underrated her. She’s so very beautiful, still—or maybe more so, and according to people around here she’s sort of lower class. They would never put it that way, of course, just an occasional murmur about how her folks were Baptists and her daddy ran a filling station. She’s like a heroine out of Hardy, in a way. Whereas Dolly, who’s certainly not beautiful, just barely pretty, Dolly makes jokes about her Baptist cousins so no one thinks of her that way. Dolly is smarter than Deirdre is, but Deirdre is more intelligent—and Cynthia resolved to give more thought to the difference between the two, smart versus intelligent. And she thought: Russ would never have fallen in love with Dolly (even if she likes to hint that there was something between them), and for that matter neither would Derek.
“Russ could be mean,” said Deirdre. “I reckon Derek can be too, but I think he knows what he’s doing. He’s more in charge of himself, you know?”
“Yes, and you’re right.”
Odessa had been bribed and begged to come for the afternoon, for the party, for Miss Abigail. She did come, looked pleasanter than usual, Dolly thought. So Dolly tried to approach her.
“Odessa, I’ve been thinking, and Willard has too, we’ve talked about this, what with the boys away, looks like for good, and Willard about to retire, I’ve been thinking on trips, a whole lot of trips, just me and Mr. Willard,” she laughed girlishly as Odessa stared down at her, as usual, impassive, unresponsive.
“And what I’m getting to,” continued Dolly, “is that that leaves a whole lot of the house, a whole wing with nobody there, and I thought, we thought, that might be just ideal for you, and Horace too. Not any rent to pay, of course not, just you could sort of look after the house, see that the dust don’t settle down for good and the silver don’t turn black, and Horace could do just a few little things in the garden, I know how he loves those flowers.” Somewhat out of breath, she paused.
Odessa spoke almost too quietly to be heard. “Well no’m, I reckon not.”
“What’s that you say, Odessa?”
“Horace and me, I don’t reckon we’re studying on moving, not anytime soon leastways.”
“Odessa, don’t you understand? I’m offering you this nice clean warm big place to live, both you and Horace, for free.”
“We got us a place—”
“But Miss Cynthia and Mr. Harry, you don’t know what they’re going to do, not even if they’re still married—”
“No’m, but I do trust them to provide.”
“Odessa, I don’t understand you. But then most probably I never have.”
“No’m, I reckon not.”
Joseph Marcus was not quite as happy, as blithe, as his mother thought him to be, nor perhaps as he looked. Deeply happy in regard to Abby, of course—he would have said that: “I’m terrifically happy, of course, marrying Abby. I even like her parents, both of them.”
But what made him much less happy, what in fact he found profoundly troubling, was a letter that had come to him that morning from a physicist friend, Saul Aaron, a few years older, an instructor at MIT. Joseph’s parents and Saul’s were old C.P. friends; they had marched together, raised money for Loyalist Spain and the Scottsboro boys together, and so their own boys had always known each other, gone off to interracial camps together. Had always been friends.
Saul wrote, “I predict bad years ahead, and the fifties will be even worse. Not that things aren’t always bad for the Jews, as our parents always told us, but as I say, a lot worse.”
Well, Saul had always been a gloomy guy; he even thought the new state of Israel was probably headed for trouble.
(“The Palestinians will think they got a raw deal, and they probably did.”) And Saul did not have beautiful, smart, funny, kind Abigail Baird in his life.
Thinking of Abby, trying not to think of Saul, Joseph felt his inner joy—and peace; Abby made him peaceful, finally, and he smiled again.
“What I think is, people are really going to miss the war—this war,” Harry said. He was speaking to Dolly Bigelow, but was very aware that Cynthia stood just a few feet away from him, beside a potted pink rose. The rose blossoms were so perfectly beautiful that they looked false, and the scent was strong, but he could still smell Cynthia’s familiar Shalimar.
“Why, Harry, what a thing to say! Whatever can you mean?” There was genuine shock in Dolly’s voice: to miss a war, when so many people had got killed and all the rest of them had had to do without so many good things, like gas and steak and Scotch? What would these Yankee Bairds say next!
Harry said, somewhat loudly, “The heroic certainty of it all. The moral clarity. Hitler was bad, we’re good. And we’ll miss the excitement, the fervor. Wars are sexy—”
Smiling to herself, Cynthia thought, Oh, Harry.
Dolly had set up loudspeakers here and there among the expensive florists’ flowers, and so the music of the day, and nights, poured out across what had been Russ Byrd’s garden. Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Lunceford. (Lunceford, the only Negro, was the closest to real, great jazz, thought Joseph Marcus, a passionate fan of Louis Armstrong, of Bessie and Lester and Billie.) And the voice of Sinatra (whom Joseph hated), along with Anita O’Day and Margaret Whiting and Dinah Shore (who was not too bad, not as bad as the others). “I’ll Never Smile Again.” “It Had to Be You.” “I’ve Got a Crush on You.” “Where or When—”
All wrenchingly nostalgic, desperately yearning, Cynthia felt. As in the background a chorus of trombones sounded their bullfrog backup. And despite all her awareness that this music was mostly junk—sugarcane, pablum—she felt tears near her eyes.
As—so romantically!—she felt a hand that must be Harry’s against her bare right shoulder. He was going to ask her to marry him—again! How perfect, Cynthia thought as she felt the tears gather closer.