Diana and the Three Behrs

by Fleeta Cunningham

  “I think I’m ready to talk about nearly anything other than Hooper, Butch Cassidy, or Elmsford’s pet project.” He waved at the rolling hills, the sunset beginning to paint the sky with a golden palette, and the river singing in the tall cattails. “I have a beautiful girl, a country meadow, a rare chance to talk to that girl without half the town listening in, and all she wants to do is discuss another man.” He stooped down and plucked the notebook from her hand. “Let’s put Hooper and Cassidy and everybody else aside for a while. Walk with me down along the river and watch the sun go down.”

  Her cheeks flaming, seeing Adler had more personal things on his mind, Diana scrambled up from the picnic blanket and dusted a couple of leaves from her skirt. Now that the opportunity for a more intimate moment had arrived, Diana felt a little less certain about how to handle it. “All right, let’s go take a look at the river. But we’d better come back to dry ground before it gets dark. Frau Hepple would skin me alive if I brought mud into her spotless house, and I don’t think I could see to avoid puddles when the light fades.”

  Adler looked decidedly less than comfortable, as well. She could always tell when he was on uncertain ground because he stood taller, stiffer, and his sharp gray eyes narrowed to dark slits. She felt his intense gaze examining every move; it made her even more aware of their isolation here along the river.

  They walked for some distance beside the riverbank. Soft splashes indicated fish coming up to search for dinner. The breeze was sharper along the bank as well. She cast a look at the horizon to see if clouds were clustering to bring another round of showers. A few dark spots might be thunderheads, but they were far away. She watched the clustering clouds, distracting herself from his warm presence.

  “Diana.”

  Adler’s sudden, sharp tone focused her attention. A small, internal quiver made her search for some neutral point of conversation. “Yes?” She pointed to the sky where a yellow sunset outlined the darker blots she’d noticed. “Oh, were you going to say we need to head back? I see the clouds, but I don’t think we’ll get caught in rain. Not for a while.”

  “No, I don’t think we need to worry about that.” He stopped, picked up a stone, and skipped it neatly across the slow current, watched it sink, then turned back to her. He breathed a short, frustrated sigh. “I thought we might have some things to say to each other. Some things we’d rather discuss here, where it’s private, rather than on Frau Hepple’s front porch.”

  “It is nice out here.” She listened to the stillness. “There might not be anyone around for miles. What do we need to talk about? Something at the bank?”

  He folded his arms and glared down at her. “Diana, are you being deliberately provoking? Or does the modern woman just not pay attention when a man says he’s in love with her? She’d rather put her arms around her typewriting machine.”

  Now he had her full attention. Words she’d never thought to say rushed out. “Adler, when a man says he’s in love with a modern woman, she…well, she thinks he means he has…powerful feelings. She expects he’ll…he’ll show them in some…persuasive way. Express some…longing.”

  “Longing? In what persuasive way? I kissed you. More than once. I call in the evenings. Bring flowers. Tell you I love you. Doesn’t that tell you something? Show you I’m serious? What else do you need in order to be certain of my feelings?”

  “It does mean something, I guess, when a man says he cares. Or it would if the girl he’s talking to is a quiet little thing in a quiet little town and all she’s expecting is a pat on the head and an approving smile. Or a kiss like she’d get from an elderly uncle. But most women, modern women, they think candy and flowers are something left over from the last century. A kiss should be…something more…more personal than…well, the sweet peck a girl gets from Grandpa.”

  “Oh?” Adler came toward her with a gleam in his eye that was anything but grandfatherly. “I somehow thought a woman appreciated a gentlemanly restraint. I seem to be wrong again.” His hands gripped her waist and with a firm grasp, he drew her to him. Diana could no more resist that inexorable intent than she could turn and run. “Let me see if I can correct that error.”

  The embers she’d thought all but cold suddenly burst into flame. His lips possessed her, owned her, for that moment. The world grew dim around her. A hypnotic buzz and the dizzy sense of floating filled her senses. Adler, the one fixed point in a reeling universe, held her, as spheres of light spun in her head. She gripped his shoulders to keep her balance, but his kiss drove every thought from her mind. Diana felt the long, slow flame start somewhere in her throat and spread throughout her being until she couldn’t tell where her own existence ended and Adler’s began. He molded her slender shape to him, making her feel fragile, delicate, a wisp of fog lost in his arms.

  He drew back, then kissed her again, gently and with exquisite sweetness. “When I say I love you, Diana, that’s what I mean.”

  “That’s what I thought it meant.” She drew a shaky breath. “But…without knowing…how would I know?”

  Something, bemusement or vexation, flickered in his eyes, darkening them. He lifted her chin and brushed her lips with his. “It’s dangerous to look at a man like that, Diana, almost challenging. An invitation.” He pushed one short curl back from her forehead, his fingers leaving a little trail of heat across her skin. “Eyes like yours, they give a man ideas. Make him want to do more than kiss.”

  “A lot more?” She struggled to make the words come, and her voice sounded husky and strange in her own ears.

  “If I don’t put about three feet between us, dear Diana, you’re very likely going to find out.” He pulled away from her and walked a bit more upstream. “You’re a distracting combination, my love, of innocence and worldliness that leaves a man wondering exactly how to deal with you. Sometimes you’re the epitome of the New Woman, out in the business world, competent, bright, sure of yourself. Then out of nowhere comes a totally different Diana, the one who is enchanted by a little girl’s doll house, delighted with a country dance, and, I swear, before the dance, had never been kissed. Innocent and sweet as my five-year-old niece. How does a man know how to tell the complicated creature he loves her without shocking the blushing innocent or boring the New Woman?”

  “You’ve done a pretty fair job of complicating things yourself, Adler. The stern, gruff, banker who doesn’t like working women suddenly says he loves the girl who teaches typewriting and works for a living in the men’s world. How is a girl supposed to sort that contradiction out?” She stopped. “And I had been kissed before. Once. When I was twelve, by the grocer’s boy. He did it on a dare. My sister bet me a penny I wouldn’t; she lost.”

  “Just as I thought, a woman with a past.” He laughed, and the tension between them eased a little. “I suppose I do have a small aversion to most women who take jobs or go places where I’m not used to finding them. I haven’t told you, my love, but perhaps someone else has. I had a sweetheart, a girl I’d known forever, when I went away to school. Everybody expected we’d marry. We expected that, too, I think, until we were apart for a while. By the time I came home, we were both different people.”

  “Frau Hepple told me. Ursula? Wasn’t that her name?”

  “Ursula, yes. Lovely girl, but a girl who needed a bigger world, a world where she could prove to herself and everyone else that she could do the same work a man did and do it just as well. Takes pictures for the magazines now, I understand. Probably better for her in the long run.”

  “Better how, Adler?” A sudden cold chill dissipated the warm glow of his kiss. She had a feeling she wouldn’t like his answer.

  “Better because she wanted something that wasn’t here. Ursula…she was—I guess ambitious isn’t exactly the word I want, but it will do. She wanted to do important things, be part of a greater circle. She’d never have been happy being just Mrs. Adler Behr, the banker’s wife. When she discovered an audience for her photographs, she found her place. But it wasn’t mi
ne.”

  “You have some kind of personal bias against women who want…what? Something in, how did you put it, a bigger world?”

  He shook his head as if to clear it. “I just want a quiet, normal life. I want to walk down the street and see people I know, have known since childhood. Go to the dance on Saturday night, and eat ice cream with my sweetheart at the drug store. Come home to a couple of youngsters.” He crossed the distance between them and took her hands in his. “I said I love you, Diana, and I hope you know I mean it. The first time I saw you, I was attracted. I wanted to believe you were flighty, or just playing at being a Modern, but the more I saw of you, the more I believed you were what you appeared. Smart, dedicated, independent, and determined to be the total career girl. Certainly I wouldn’t fall for a girl like that, not again. A pretty girl in an apron with babies and baking on her mind, that’s what I had planned. Not a flapper with bobbed hair and office equipment at her fingertips. Nonetheless, you’re the girl I dream about. Once I realized that, I had to think about the other side of the question. I love you, but do you love me? Could you ever come to love me? I’m not the Sheik of Araby, or even a mysterious cowboy with a colorful past. I’m a stubborn, square-headed, German chip off the family block. Not particularly outstanding in any way. I try to be a good friend, a good neighbor, and a capable banker, and that’s about it. Could that be enough for you?”

  She couldn’t doubt the sincerity of his words, and the memory of his kiss lingered, leaving an imprint in her heart. But could his world be enough for her? Or would she, like Ursula, be pining for the city, a place where her skills were valuable and the rhythm of life moved more rapidly?

  “Adler, I…do love you. Really, once I saw who you were, not just that stern, distant Horned Owl I met in a hotel in Fort Worth. Well, who wouldn’t love you? The way you care for Elizabeth, the trouble you’ve taken to bring your father and Frau Hepple together—that kindness touched me in a way I’ve never known.” She felt his finger touch the curve of her cheek. She could no longer see him in the darkness, but the shape of him in front of her had solid comfort and support. “In spite of what I said before, you don’t kiss like anybody’s grandfather.”

  “But? I think I hear one in there somewhere.”

  “Not exactly. It’s just, well, the girl you had in mind, the one with aprons and things, a younger Frau Hepple. I’m not like that. I don’t get excited over making dinner, especially making dinner every night. I can’t cook. Dusting and cleaning are necessary but not anything that would make me dance with joy, not like seeing a class of students come in raw and untrained and leave competent secretaries and office staff. While I think Elizabeth is adorable and I love her, being at home in the company of small children for days on end is my definition of insanity. I can’t see myself as wife and mother; I never thought of that life for me. Maybe, like Ursula, I need a bigger world. You don’t have much use for a woman like that, one who works in that bigger world. Almost the first thing you said to me was something about women should stay at home with their family until they marry and have a husband to look after them.” She pulled away, looking up the hill at the shadow of the big Packard under a tree. “I don’t want someone to look after me, Adler. I’m not a child in need of a responsible guardian. I think I can look after myself. At least, if I make the wrong choice, it’s my choice. I have no one to blame for it.”

  He came up behind her, his hands warm on her shoulders. “By being responsible for yourself, you wound up running from Tommy Gunn’s hoodlums, separated from your sister, and living in hiding.”

  “I did, and I have no one to blame but myself for being in the wrong place to start with. Even if it was a bad choice, or a dangerous one, it’s miles better than a life spent baking cookies or tatting doilies.”

  He turned her to face him. “Diana, love is a precious commodity, even in that jazz and bathtub-gin world of yours. Pfeiffer is a little pocket of old-fashioned sanity and peace. It may not be the bigger world you think you want, but I believe I can promise it’s big enough for you to find what you need. I hope I can be part of your world.” He kissed her slowly, with the passion of a tidal wave that mounted and swept away everything in its path. “I am determined to make you part of mine. Somewhere we’ll have to make a compromise. Somehow we will, because I am certain of one thing. In spite of your headlong rush into independence and my grandfatherly restraint, one of these days something is going to break loose. I’ll forget to be quite as proper as a gentleman should be, or you’ll suddenly like having my arms around you a little too much. One way or another, my love, we’ll wind up in a bed together, exploring all the ways we agree and disagree.”

  She jumped away from him and spun. “Something may break loose, and both of those things might happen, but I’m not in any way convinced, Adler, that there are any points where we can agree. We don’t want any of the same things. As for winding up in…” She choked, unable to say the word.

  “Winding up in bed? Diana, my dearest Diana, on that point I don’t think there is a compromise. It’s just going to happen. We might possibly get words said in front of a congregation of witnesses first, but if you keep swishing your short skirts and tossing your pretty curls in my presence, I will not guarantee it.” Two fingers touched the pulse beating at the curve of her neck. “By the way your heart is racing, I’m going to be egotistical enough to believe I have some effect in that direction on you.” His lips brushed her cheek and left a warm token at the nape of her neck. “I love the way your skin feels, soft as a rose petal.”

  Love is precious but it’s temporary. All we can have is right now, just this hour. His life, my life, they run on different roads. We aren’t the same kind of people. But he’s right about the effect he has on me. Unable to deny the longing, Diana turned and lifted her lips to his. “Don’t talk, Adler. Words are just confusing things. Kiss me again, like you did before, like you meant it. Even though I don’t think the distance between my jazz world and your peaceful small town life can be bridged, I want to have that to remember.”

  Chapter 17

  “I wondered if you’d care to go to Mass with me this morning,” Adler asked two days after their picnic. She hadn’t seen him, but she’d certainly felt his absence. Here, on Sunday morning, his unexpected arrival and odd invitation unbalanced her quiet routine. His face was solemn, but Diana saw a degree of intensity in his eyes that made them slate gray instead of their usual lighter color.

  “Thank you, but you know I’m not Catholic. Not anything, really. I wouldn’t understand what was happening.” She glanced down at her dowdy skirt, damp in places and rumpled. “I’m not presentable. I’ve been doing my laundry.”

  “Go and change. I’ll wait. It’s early yet.” He put a hand out in entreaty. “I’d like to have you there, at least this one time, and I promise there will be things you understand. I’ll explain if you have questions. Please?”

  Well, I finished washing out my stockings. There’s nothing here that I really have to do. “All right, I’ll go this one time, though I may embarrass you because I don’t know what is going on. Let me change my dress.”

  He caught her hand as she started up the stairs. “Thank you, Diana.” He released her hand, and she took another step up. “Oh, Papa and Lotte and Elizabeth want us to have lunch with them afterward. Is that all right?”

  She nodded. Papa Behr and Elizabeth and their badinage made any occasion lively. “Of course. I’ll enjoy seeing if our strategy is working and those two are any closer to mending their old quarrel.”

  His lips twitched in amusement. “I think so. The situation looks hopeful.”

  Diana scurried up the stairs to her room, itemizing possible garments suitable for church as she went. It would have to be the blue crepe de Chine, she supposed, though she dreaded the thought. Its nicely smocked trim was pretty, and the flared skirt was becoming, but it was high necked and had long sleeves, not ideal details for a hot summer day. But it’s clean and ready to wear.
And sedate enough for church. That’s the important thing.

  She made the change quickly, slipping lace-edged garters in place, rolling her stockings over them, and stepping into her best patent leather pumps. A hat, can’t go to church without a hat. Especially in Pfeiffer. The navy with the wide brim and taffeta bow? A quick run of a comb through her hair settled the waves, and she pulled the hat on, tucking a stray curl under the brim and biting back the words she wanted to say at the thought of suffering under it for the rest of the day.

  “Quick, and very pretty.” Adler gave her an admiring nod as she came down the stairs. “Thanks for agreeing to come this morning.”

  The morning was still cool enough for the walk to the pretty church past the town square to be pleasant. Diana noticed a number of people were coming from the various Sunday houses around the neighborhood. Families walked together, children mingling, while adults exchanged news and opinions. In the distance, bells began to chime. A perfect Sunday morning, full of smiling people and little girls giggling. Very different from my boarding house life a short time ago.

  The church, St. Hildegard, wasn’t large, but its white-and-gray brick gave it a stately outline, and the brilliant red doors were welcoming. Diana felt awkward, as if she’d stepped into another country where she didn’t know the language. She quickly found she actually didn’t know the language, as a combination of German and other tongues flowed around her. Adler led her to a carved wooden pew. To her surprise, Lotte Hepple was sitting between Erlich and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was angelic in her white lawn dress and Mary Janes. Lotte Hepple, however, was splendid in a creamy linen embroidered dress with moire cuffs and collar. The tunic and hobble skirt were ten years out of date but so beautifully made Diana could find no fault in the costume. A hat, frothy with lace and pink ribbons, covered the good lady’s crown of braids, and a tiny nosegay of pinks was tucked into the tunic at the waist. Her astonishment at Frau Hepple’s magnificence kept Diana distracted for a good portion of the service.