He stopped eating his apple and put a finger under my chin. “You’re not going to cloud up and cry, are you?”
“Certainly not. Why should I? Live each moment, as you always say. It’s been a great summer. What difference what happens when it’s over? No strings.”
“Right. By gosh, that’s what I like about you. You understand how things must be.”
“Of course.”
“Tell you what. Let’s go for a swim. Fine day for it.”
“Yes, let’s. I need something to cool me off.”
He pulled me up from the sand and we ran into the surf together, ending the conversation that obviously made him uncomfortable.
All the month long he was like a little boy on holiday, wanting to play as much as possible before it was over. And if I ever looked too serious, or began to say something about us, he would quickly change the subject or kiss me into silence, and I wondered whether he was having as hard a time facing the end as I was, or whether he looked upon it with relief, and was merely letting his latest conquest down easily before boarding the train for New York.
Day by day I seemed to have less energy. In dancing I could manage only half as many fouettés as usual, and the heat couldn’t be entirely to blame, for Carlotta Maxwell, never a particularly promising or energetic student, was now doing ten or twelve of the pinpoint gyrations to my six. Madame said nothing, but began to look at me a little differently, as though she wondered at the cause of my lackadaisical behavior.
Often I was panting heavily by the time I reached Roman on the beach, and once he commented, “Heat getting to you, old girl? You’ve lost some of your bounce lately.”
I’d gone home that day and looked at the calendar. It was the second week of the month, thirty-six days since our twilight meeting, and yet there was no sign of the monthly bleeding that had so mortified me on that daring night.
I told myself it was a case of nerves, and tried to pass it off and to relax, to see whether the period would come. I had never before missed one as far as I could remember, yet Marybeth used to miss one occasionally, and wouldn’t let it bother her.
I was, therefore, anxious to become involved in something new and interesting about that time, to get my mind off the prospect facing me. James and Claire provided just the thing.
“She’s going to give me a birthday party,” he told me one day. “My birthday’s on the twenty-fifth, the day before Helga leaves, and we’re gonna have an oyster roast in the backyard, and cake and ice cream.” His face was beaming.
“How marvelous. You see, Claire’s not such a bad sort after all.”
“I guess not. She asked me out on the porch last night just at dusk, so we could watch the sun go down together. ‘James,’ she said, ‘there isn’t much left of this summer … there is something so altogether final about the end of summer, don’t you think?’
“I didn’t know why she was telling me that. She seemed to be thinking of something else, you know, the way grown-ups do sometimes.”
“Yes?”
“Then she looked at me, put her hands on my shoulders, and said, ‘I want to do something special for you, to wind up the summer. Your birthday is on the twenty-fifth, isn’t it? Let’s have a party. You can invite anyone you want, and Helga can make all the fixings.’
“Just like that! I told her I’d be everlastingly grateful.”
“That’s a mouthful. Only James Byron would say thank you that way. Truly, though, I think it’s wonderful. Tell me now, what can I do to help? I’d be so happy to do something … anything.”
“Gee, I don’t know. Just come. You will come, won’t you?”
“Try and keep me away. But you be thinking about something I can do. Maybe write out invitations. Yes, I could do that, couldn’t I?” He was swinging on the newel-post.
“I’ll have to ask her,” he said. “There isn’t much time till then, is there?”
“Yes,” I said quickly. “The end of August is a long time off yet.”
“No, only a couple of weeks.”
“That’s a long time, James,” I said, and thought, Oh, please let it be a long time …
Day by day, the conviction grew stronger. I tried relaxing more, getting more sleep, taking more walks, but nothing worked and my nerves became tighter than a drumhead. One thing I couldn’t do was voice my fears to Roman, for even after a summer with him I couldn’t be sure how he might react to the news I was expecting his child. He might be gentle, say we’d marry at once, settle in Galveston, or better, move somewhere else together.
On the other hand, he might be angry, might say it was all a bore, and demand I go somewhere and have one of those horrible operations Marybeth told me about, to get rid of the child. How could I know someone so intimately, yet not really know him at all? Oh, how could I have been so foolish as not to find out how to avoid a pregnancy before it was too late?
He sensed immediately, of course, that something was the matter. If he should touch me unexpectedly, I would jump as though someone had put a piece of ice to my neck.
“What’s bothering you?” he asked one day as we lay together on the little bed.
“Nothing. Why should there be?”
“You’ve got me, baby. Say, King mentioned this morning we’d probably renew the contract.”
“Wonderful.”
“You don’t sound as though you mean it,” he said, and looked at me in that daring way of his, commanding me to prove what I was saying.
“Of course I do. It’s just … well, it’s a long time till next summer.”
“Yes … much can happen between now and then. You might find someone else, marry, and have a kid on the way by then.”
There was a tight lump in my throat. I couldn’t speak.
“Look, baby, one thing I’ve always liked about you is you don’t ask for commitments. A year away from each other might be the best thing for us. Give us time for thinking. Then, if things go right, we might pick up again next summer.”
“That would be convenient, wouldn’t it? I mean, to have me waiting here at your beck and call.”
“No, that isn’t what I meant. You’re free to do whatever you wish. You will always be free.”
“So if I find someone new, or even marry someone I already know, before next year, there’ll be no hard feelings.”
“None, except that I’ll probably murder the scoundrel,” he said, laughing, and pulled me closer to him. “Don’t think I’d be doing you any favor by holding you. Traveling all over kingdom come is practically all I do anymore. It isn’t any decent life for a woman. Anyway, I’m not the sort a girl becomes involved with permanently. Thank God, you seem to understand that.”
“Roman—I—”
“Sh. Don’t talk any more now. Let’s make the most of the time we have left. My God, you get better every day.”
And so it was for the next couple of weeks. Just when I would get next to telling him, I’d lose my nerve or he would interrupt, and I’d wind up hoping the period would start and end all my troubles, and I would still be the same girl next summer for him to come back to, would be summer after summer, I didn’t care for how many summers.
I went right on dancing, afraid to stop lest someone might guess what was happening to me. And there were days when I even felt totally myself, with all the old energy returning so that I’d finish a series of steps for Madame, and she would clap her hands and say, “Bravo, bravo, Serena! Show us again, and you there, Sheila, pay attention …”
I took great care to avoid Dad as much as possible, and he, fighting some private battle of his own, was not given to involved conversations either. I came home one day to find him drinking whisky in the kitchen, and since we both knew it was early in the day for him to begin drinking, he half rose from the table as I walked in, then sat down again. His face was flush; the bottle beside the glass was all but empty. He picked it up as though he would pour another, then changed his mind and replaced it on the table.
“Da
d, you seem to be—uh—drinking a little more lately. Is anything wrong?”
“No, nothing new … A man just likes his whisky now and then, even a priest.”
“Have you been up to see Mother today?”
“Not since this morning. Perhaps you’d better look in on her.”
“I’ll do that now.”
I walked around the table and started out of the kitchen, then looked back at him. His big shoulders hid the bottle from view, and one might have thought he sat poring over next Sunday’s sermon, or studying some Bible verse. How I wished we could confide in each other as we used to. Instead, we became more alienated by the day. My problem was one which would break his heart could he know of it. What hounded him must be something he dared not confide to me. Was this the meaning of growing older, becoming withdrawn into ourselves, unable to seek help in another human being for fear of betraying some secret?
“Nan,” he said as I still hesitated.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Don’t ever do anything you’d regret later, no matter how right it may seem at the time. If your instincts tell you it’s wrong, don’t do it. Steer clear of it at all costs.”
As he said it, I was caught between a burning curiosity as to whether he’d done something himself lately to prompt him to relate such a lesson, and a fear he had an idea what was going on between Roman and me. Therefore, I couldn’t afford to ask him the reason for the sudden piece of advice. I had to remain offhanded about it.
“That’s a good point, Dad. We always have a feeling when we’re doing something wrong. God shows us.”
“Yes, Nan, listen to him.”
My mouth was dry. “Of course. I’d better look in on Mother now.”
Chapter 11
I shall never forget the day of James’s birthday party. I awoke to feel a spot of blood escape, and went tripping around the bedroom like a fool, consumed with joy. I resolved to find some way to get hold of a book telling me how to avoid unwanted pregnancies. I had overheard women talking from time to time about certain days of the month you must abstain. Perhaps those days for me wouldn’t come until Roman was gone from Galveston the following week.
Throughout the morning, I was light-headed with relief, and began to look positively at the year ahead. The best thing would be to throw myself wholeheartedly into dancing. Maybe I could persuade Dad to give me an extra lesson each week, to make the time pass even faster. Then a new thought struck me: what if, by the time Roman came back next year, I could be ready to audition for the school in New York where his sister had studied? Maybe he could fix it for her to help me enter the school, and I could get a letter from Madame. No one need know anything except that Madame was helping me get into the school. Perhaps I could get some sort of scholarship to pay my way. Perhaps we could find someone to look after Mother after I left. There were many stones to turn along the way, yet hadn’t I faced and overcome obstacles all summer?
At last I would have something to look forward to, to give me hope in the coming year.…
With soaring spirits, I told Roman of the idea later that morning. “It might work,” he said, “if there’s an opening in the school. Tell you what, when I get back to New York, I’ll check into it. Your teacher would have to write a letter, just as you say, and you’d almost have to have that scholarship because otherwise it would be too expensive. My sister would have never gotten through without her scholarship.”
“I’ll find a way. I doubt I’m ready yet, but perhaps by next year I will be. I’ll speak to Madame about it tomorrow, and if she thinks so she’ll coach me this year.”
“But how will I let you know?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought. I know … you can send word through Marybeth. She’ll be back in Galveston in a week or so. I’ll give you her address, and you can write to her. I can trust her, I know,” I said, sloughing off the fear that his letter might land in the wrong hands because truly it seemed the only answer.
“All right,” he said, but he looked troubled and I wondered whether he felt I was trying to tie him down by entering the school. Maybe he wanted me as long as he was in Galveston, but there was someone else in New York to occupy his time there.
I didn’t pursue it any further. When I reflect on this summer, I see myself as Roman’s little mouse, too frightened to pursue anything of importance, always afraid of having the door shut in my face. It was like walking a tightwire all the time, ever within view of the end, yet too far away to be confident of reaching the platform before falling from the wire.
The party for James was a great success, both for him and for Claire. I had a warm feeling inside as I watched him greet his guests and accept their gifts, and blow out the candles on his monstrous cake, for I believe he had at last found acceptance among the people around him, and was probably one step further toward facing the fact Galveston was to be his permanent home.
Tommy Driscoll came, spruced up in a suit, with bow tie around his neck, his face clean for the first time I’d ever witnessed. The Baker kids came too, their proverbial group of hangers-on straggling along. The only one of them to bring a gift was Delta, and I watched as she presented James with a small box, telling him proudly that her present had cost five dollars. I do believe Delta is sweet on James, and perhaps with time, a real friendship will develop between them.
Claire, in her true dramatic fashion, saved her gift for last, and I have never seen anyone so pleased as was James when he opened the wrapping and discovered a Kodak camera inside. With that one small token, she’d won his affection for good. I could see it in his face. He thanked me for the light cologne I’d brought him, and opened the bottle to dab some along his face. He seemed to understand the gift was my way of telling him I thought he was truly growing into manhood.
The camera, however, was positively his greatest prize, and after everyone eagerly inspected it, and went off to enjoy hot roasted oysters and corn on the cob, birthday cake and ice cream, he busied himself reading the instructions included in the box and loading the camera with film, trailed all the time by Tommy Driscoll, who was as eager to watch the new contraption in action as James. It was too dark for snapshots that night, though, and James, at first disappointed, finally said, “Well, I’ll just have to get up early in the morning and use up the roll then. I can have it off in the mail by noon.”
Nick Weaver came, bearing no gift, and kept a hand on my elbow the whole evening long. He was overprotective that night, even for Nick, and I made sure we stayed within the crowd all the time, sitting in the wicker chairs near the table of food, so that he couldn’t get me alone, for I felt he was on the verge of bringing up the marriage business again, and I could not have taken that.
Helga was kept busy replenishing the punch bowl and seeing everyone had all they needed. Once, as she passed by, I wished her a good trip. “You’ll be off to the station tomorrow morning, won’t you?”
“Yes’m. But I’ll be back, and soon. You can be sure of that.”
“It’ll be nice, though, having a rest and visit with friends and family.”
“There’ll be a better time for resting, later …”
She shuffled off in her black dress after the cryptic remark, and I wondered, not for the first time, if anyone had ever fathomed the depths of that guarded, confined personality. Did Claire know her as intimately as she thought? Did anyone really know Helga? Had she lost out at love sometime or other, and the experience calcified her soul? Or, had she always been cold as a corpse? I shivered at the thought, and turned my attention to Nick, who was shoving a bowl of ice cream under my nose.
Dad was in one corner of the yard, talking with Claire. She was dressed head to toe in white gingham that night, her dress altogether too frilly for one so small and buxom. I could tell Dad was trying to get away, for he kept stepping back and nodding and smiling. Still, she kept him there for a long time, talking of heaven only knows what—probably her beloved garden at the church. Claire has a way of dominating conversation to suit
herself.
I thought of Mother then, and glanced up at her window. She’d rolled her chair within view of the party, and her body was outlined by the half-light of the bedroom beyond. Her face was encased in shadows, and I wondered as I watched what she might be thinking. Did she simply watch mindlessly the movings of the people below, puzzled by the presence of so many people? Was she thinking of nothing at all?
Or did she, even in her present state, suspect Claire of occupying too much of my father’s time? Had she kept an eye on them as they chatted in the corner?
Chapter 12
With the dawn of the next morning, the summer’s pace doubled itself, as, near the end of the race, a horse speeds his gallop at the feel of the whip across his flank.
The period was over. It had been unusually light, amounting to only a scant showing the day of the party, and when I awoke I was tired again and half relieved this was the day Roman and his fellow band members would be in Houston for their benefit performance there. They wouldn’t return until the night train pulled into Galveston.
It was a pleasant morning, a cool breeze rolling in off the Gulf, and by ten o’clock I’d decided to put on my practice clothes and go through some steps on the back porch. I’d forgotten about Helga’s leaving until I saw her go to the barn and bring the rig round. A fickle wind loosened the ribbons on her black bonnet, sending her hat aflight across the yard, where it landed among the craggy edges of a shrub. I met her there as she went to free it.
“Have a good time, and don’t worry about anything,” I said. “James is a good boy, and will help Claire see to things while you’re gone.”
She nodded stoically and started back across the yard. I felt foolish for having opened my mouth, and went back to practicing. I kept stopping in the middle of steps, taking sips of water or resting. What had sapped my energy I couldn’t guess, but supposed at the time it must be a combination of all the summer’s events coming down on me like a thousand pressing fingers.
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