by Pamela Morsi
"That's crazy, Queenie," he said.
"Not as crazy as trying to simultaneously be a mother and the proprietor of a saloon," she said.
"Where are you going to live?" he asked her.
"In that house with the white picket fence," she said.
"And where is it?"
"Wherever you build it, King."
"Wherever I build it? You want me to build you a house?" King was clearly surprised. Queenie never asked him for anything.
"I want you to build us a house, King," she said. "All of us, you, me and the baby."
"What are you talking about?"
"I want us to get married," Queenie told him. "No wait, let me say that over again, because I've always wanted us to get married. Now I'm demanding that we do."
He looked at her for a long moment and then grinning without much humor he began shaking his head.
"Whoa now, let's slow this old horse down a bit," he said. "What's all this talk about marriage? Is this another one of those symptoms you get from eating for two?"
"Maybe it is," Queenie said. "Maybe that's exactly what it is. But I'm determined to put my old life behind me and start over for the sake of this little child. And that means a husband and a home. I'll start with the husband first and worry about the home thereafter."
"Queenie, darling, you can't be serious about this," he said.
"I have never been more serious in all my life," she said with such solemnity it was sobering. "This is what I intend to happen and I won't settle for anything less."
King's expression had changed from being sympathetic to being annoyed.
"Queenie, now this is silly," he said. "I don't think it's even something to joke about."
"That's good, because I am not joking. I intend for you to marry me, King Calhoun, and I intend for it to happen soon."
"Queenie, darling," he cajoled. "Let's not talk about this right now. You're all het up and my life is falling around me like a house of cards. I couldn't possibly think of anything as serious as marriage in the middle of my business going bust."
"Poor men get married every day," Queenie said. "And since I know you are going broke, it should give you some reassurance to know that I won't be marrying you for your money."
King swallowed hard and was struggling for the right words to say.
"Marriage is a very momentous step, not done lightly," he told her. "It's the type of decision best entered into after long and thoughtful consideration. It is irrevocable, Queenie. You and me, we wouldn't want to make a mistake."
"A mistake? King, the mistake has already been made," she told him, shaking her head with disbelief. "The mistake is my getting pregnant with no husband."
"Now, we've talked about that, darling," he said. "I don't see how it follows that we should make matters worse by marrying up."
"You are the father of this child, that's the simple fact," she said. "I fail to see how that truth makes anything better or worse, and I don't believe that there is anything much further that needs to be considered."
"You know perfectly well that I am not a marrying kind of man," King said. "I'm undependable and I'm unfaithful."
"That was with your first wife," Queenie said. "We have been quite exclusive for some years, I see no evidence that that is about to change."
"But it would change, I'm sure of it," King said. "The minute I'd promise to keep myself only unto you, I'd be itching for the next pair of pretty ankles that came along."
"Then I would just have to keep a very close eye on you. If a wife can't trust her husband out of her sight," Queenie said with confidence, "then the wife doesn't let him out of her sight."
King was clearly flabbergasted at her words.
"I just can't remarry. I simply can't do it, nor do I think I should. It was not something that I was ever good at."
"Then I suppose that you will just have to change," she said.
"I don't want to change," he insisted.
"What you or I want is no longer important," she told him. "All that matters is what is best for the baby."
King Calhoun was beginning to lose his temper.
"Queenie McCurtain, I never, by any word or deed, ever suggested to you that I would marry you."
"I'm not saying that you did, in truth I am very sure that you did not, but this is our child we are considering now and that changes everything."
"It doesn't change everything for me," King bellowed. "Queenie, you know I would never want to hurt your feelings, but the truth is, a man like me doesn't marry a woman like you."
She raised her chin bravely, refusing to take offense. "You mean a man like you, who has clawed his way to the top of the heap by hard work and sheer determination, does not marry a woman who has done the same?" Queenie asked. "Perhaps that is why your first marriage was such a failure, King. You picked someone that you should marry over someone truly suited to you."
"You know that is not at all what I meant," he said. "A man just does not marry his . . . his . . ."
"Are you having trouble finding a word for it?" Queenie asked. "Maybe because you are looking in the wrong direction. You are thinking whore or maybe mistress, but neither of those words are right. Both suggest that money has changed hands. That never happened. I did it with you for love from the very start. Where you were concerned I was as bad a businesswoman as Frenchie."
King ran his hands over his face. And shook his head with regret.
"I never asked you to fall in love with me," he said.
"We often don't ask for the things that can really change our lives," she said. "I do love you and I'm glad I do. And nothing you can say will convince me that you don't love me as well."
"Queenie, I don't want to hear anymore about this," King said, firmly rising to his feet. "It doesn't matter who loves who or even what you think might be best for whom. I am not under any circumstances going to marry you. It is ridiculous of you even to suggest it."
She looked up at him, willing him to change his mind. Willing him to reconsider.
"I really hope that you don't mean that," she said. "Because if you do, then that is your loss, King. That is your loss of both of us."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I fully intend to get away from this life and to get my child away from it," she said. "If you do not marry me, if I can't be your wife, then I must pretend to be your widow."
"My widow?" King laughed without humor. "What do you plan, Queenie? To murder me?"
"In my heart you will be dead," she said. "I will raise this baby alone and I will tell him that his father is long dead. You will never see your child, you will never know him."
Queenie's words were soft and thoughtful.
"I'll be disappointed for him, because I already know you to be a fine father," she told King. "But that's the way it has to be. If you won't marry me, then that's the way it has to be. He will survive it, of that I'm sure."
She looked King straight in the eye and spoke brutally.
"I'm not so certain that you will. Good-bye, King."
"What do you mean, good-bye?"
"I mean, get out of this room and don't ever come back here again," she said. "There was a time that I needed a friend and a lover. You were those things to me then, and I thank you. Now I only need a husband and a father. If you are unwilling to be that, then there is nothing more to be said. Good-bye."
"Queenie, you're being stubborn and unreasonable."
"I am being a mother. I will protect my child. I will protect him even from you if I have to. King Calhoun, either get marriage on your mind or get out."
"I'll get out! I'll get out all right," he said jerking the door open. It went all the way back on the hinges and slammed noisily against the wall.
"I'll get out of this room and out of this place," he yelled angrily. "There are twenty women on this street alone younger and better looking than you, Miss Queenie. And there ain't a one of them who wouldn't drop her drawers in the street for King Calhoun."<
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"I don't doubt it," she agreed quietly. "But there isn't one of them that carries your baby, either."
Chapter Nineteen
They were lying together in the bed, warm and sated. She loved being in Gerald's arms. The lovemaking was wonderful, but equally as good was the time spent just lying with their bodies next to each other, their limbs entwined.
There were simply not enough hours in the night, she decided. In the daylight they were now so often separated. And she missed him, she realized. He'd spent the previous day lying in the darkened bedroom with a sick headache. Today he had mysteriously disappeared after lunch. At least he hadn't left without word. Thankfully no repetitions of that first awful day when she had almost doubted him. He'd told Howard that he was taking a walk. Considering how long he was gone, she thought, he might well have walked to Tulsa and back.
She missed having him at her side. But it was not Gerald's fault of course. Her father's business concerns had wormed their way into her own life and now no one talked of anything but the refinery. It was imperative that her father find financing for it in a hurry. And each day that went by, it seemed less and less likely that it would happen.
She wished she could talk it out with her husband. She wanted to hear Gerald's views. And in truth, she wanted to have him express his thoughts to her father and Cedarleg and everyone else. Perhaps she was partial, but she believed he might have ideas or insights that the rest of them didn't have. More than that, Cessy believed that he might well have contacts that they did not. Certainly in the exalted circles of society frequented by the Cranes of Bedlington, there were bankers that might be amenable to refinery construction on a proven well.
Cessy mentally chided herself. It was very selfish to want to use her husband's connections to help further her father's business. It made her seem no better than Maloof, marrying to get a store.
But the difference was, she reminded herself, she loved Gerald. That was primary and anything else was merely another consideration. Of course, Muna seemed to believe that Maloof was in love with her, also. Would Gerald worry that she had other considerations when choosing to marry him?
It seemed that it was not going to matter. Gerald was clearly uninterested in the oil business in general or the problems of Royal Oil in particular. Every time someone from the field showed up at the house, he found some excuse to be elsewhere. It was annoying, but what could she do? The oil business might be the livelihood of her father and her friends, but it obviously meant nothing to Gerald.
He moved languidly beside her and gently kissed the wild mass of her unbound hair that lay on her pillow.
"You'll make a rat's nest of it," she stated without much complaint.
"Then I shall brush it free of tangles," he said. "Would you like that, Cessy? I could light the lamp and you could sit naked in front of the mirror while I tend your hair."
Cessy giggled. "Where do you get these ideas?"
He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. "The mind is the most potent sexual organ."
"Well, the mind may be willing, sir," she said. "But the flesh seems a little weak."
"Ah, well, with a bit of attention to your wifely duty, my weakness will surely be overcome and my resolve will certainly harden."
"Oh, how you Yankees do talk!"
They laughed together as he continued to tease her.
"Just hold me for now," she told him. "I'm far too tired to want anything more."
"Holding is nice," he agreed.
She fitted herself in the crook of his arms, laying her cheek against his collarbone. She ran her hand along the sparse hair of his chest and the wickedly ugly wound at his pelvis.
"Hold me and talk," she said. "I miss your voice almost as much as I miss your arms. Do you think we could just barricade the door and live in this bed for a hundred years?"
"We might get hungry," he said.
"Maybe we could build a dumbwaiter to the kitchen and Mrs. Marin could send up victuals to keep up our strength."
"That sounds wonderful, Cessy," he said. "Truly it does. If we could just be here without all the world and the past and . . . and everything out there."
She sensed a strange, sad longing in him and she brought her hand up to the curve of his jaw, lovingly caressing him.
"Cessy," he asked her quietly. "Have you ever heard of Francis A. Walker?"
"Well, of course I have. What a question."
"Who was he?"
"Don't tell me that you didn't learn that at Yale, either," she teased. "I am becoming more and more determined that our children never go there."
"Who was he?" Gerald asked.
"Well, he was an economist and statistician mostly," she said. "He developed our modern census. But his work that has naturally been most interesting to me were his theories and methods in education."
"Education?"
"Yes, he was the president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He believed that in training young men in trades and technology, and broadening that with a grounding in history and political science, he could prepare them for the challenges of the modern world."
Gerald nodded thoughtfully.
"His philosophy and his methods had a strong basis in class reform as well," she said. "He believed, as I do, that determined, motivated students could better society by bettering themselves."
"He wanted them to have a chance at something besides being sharecroppers or livery hands," Gerald said.
"Exactly. Why do you ask about Walker?"
"I ... I was named for him."
Cessy looked up at him, momentarily puzzled, and then laughed out loud.
"Gerald Tarkington Crane was named for Francis Amasa Walker?"
She was still giggling when he sat up in bed. She couldn't see his face in the darkness but her laughter faded at the stillness that suddenly pervaded the room.
"Gerald?" she asked.
A tremendous eruption like distant thunder shook the house and stunned them both.
For a moment, both of them chose to ignore it. They continued to look across the bed at each other. Then a flurry of confusion and hollering commenced downstairs.
The commotion could no longer be ignored. Cessy had just grabbed her wrapper from the end of the bed when her father began pounding upon her door.
"Princess!" King Calhoun called from the hallway. "There's a fire at the tanks."
"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed.
She rushed to the doorway, covering herself as she ran. Her father was gone from the door by the time she got there. But she called out to the deserted hallway.
"I'll be ready in five minutes!"
Cessy began grabbing up clothing and dressing with careless efficiency.
"What the devil are you doing?" her husband asked.
"I'm getting dressed," she said. "And you'd better do the same if you don't want to have to walk out to the wells. As soon as Daddy is dressed himself he won't wait another minute."
"I am not going anywhere," he stated firmly. "And neither is my wife."
"There's a fire in the oil tanks," Cessy answered him, genuinely surprised at his strange behavior.
"I don't see how that concerns us," Gerald said. "Your father has crews of men in his employ. Neither you nor I have been hired to work for him."
"Gerald, if there's a fire, then there may well be injuries," she said. "I'll need to be there to help."
"You can't go out there, Cessy!" her husband exclaimed. "As your husband, I expressly forbid it."
"You forbid it?"
"I do indeed," Gerald said. "Oil fires are dangerous."
Cessy looked at him for a long moment in total disbelief. He didn't understand. He didn't understand at all. Did he truly believe that she could lie here, even sleep the night unconcerned, while her friends and neighbors, even her own father, risked
their livelihoods and even their very lives out on the Topknot? Perhaps he could do that, but she could not.
"Yes, indeed, oil fires are
very dangerous," she agreed with him. "So perhaps you should stay here, Mr. Crane. I'm sure no one would wish you to risk your life. But my friends and my family are there and I will be with them."
"Cessy . . ." he began once more. But she didn't wait to hear more. She was decently covered and had her shoes in hand. Mrs. Marin could do the buttons up the back of her dress.
She hurried down to the porte cochere.
Neither Howard nor the housekeeper were yet quite ready, so it was Cessy herself who loaded the car with the basket of emergency supplies that was always kept ready. Accidents in the oil fields were as common as snakes. And although physicians were always sent for immediately, medicines and bandages were rightly provided by the company.
She heard her father's boisterous voice, and then everyone was climbing into the crowded Packard. It was already chugging to life. She was offered a hand up into the front seat. She assumed the hand to be her father's until she saw him seated behind the wheel.
She glanced back to see that it was her husband Gerald who aided her. And it was Gerald who took the seat beside her.
"You're going to help us," she said quietly to him.
"I'm going to protect my wife," he answered.
It wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear, but it was close enough, Cessy decided.
The Packard shot off in a burst of dust, swung a turn in the yard and was out on the road almost before she had time to catch her breath. Beside her Gerald was solid and warm and reassuring. She was so grateful that he was there. She was so grateful that he was willing to share her world.
The whole town of Burford Corners was waking up as they whizzed by. News of the fire was spreading quickly. And, Cessy was sure, those opposed to the drilling and distrustful of oilpatch folks were already nodding self-righteously and saying, "I told you so."
Cessy couldn't be bothered by their bad opinion. There was no way on earth to suit everyone or to do things perfectly. People simply had to do the best they could with what they had and let heaven take care of the rest.
As the Packard found the ruts on the wild ride down the river road, Cessy closed her eyes and fervently prayed that tonight, as oil was burning, she would do what she could and heaven would indeed take care of the rest.