Sharyn McCrumb - If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

Phyllis Casey, who had just come in from the kitchen, was a small, tanned woman who appeared to be in her late forties, handsome in a well-scrubbed and athletic way. She was wearing a tunic and long skirt of natural linen, and her long hair was woven into a thick braid.

She set down the tray of canapés, and gave Bill and Elizabeth each a hug. “Margaret’s children. So nice to finally meet you.”

Bill kept trying to make eye contact with Elizabeth, but she was studiously avoiding him. “ Nice to meet you, too,” he said with an anxious smile.

“It’s a lovely house,” said Elizabeth.

“Yes, it has a lot of space. Margaret and I have turned the spare bedrooms into home offices.”

Before Bill could figure out where the conversation was going next, someone tapped him on the arm.

“Your mother said that you are a lawyer,” said the earnest-looking young woman. She had long, crinkly brown hair, adorned with a white flower over one ear and dangling earrings in the shape of dolphins nose to nose.

“A lawyer. That’s right,” said Bill, with an inward groan. He hoped that the inevitable legal question was going to be one that he could answer with some measure of confidence. He balanced his paper plate on one palm, in case she was the earnest handshaking sort. “And you are…?”

She blushed. “Oh, my name is Miriam Malone. I’m called Miri. I’m from Florida, but I’ve moved up here to teach in the art department. I sculpt. Didn’t your mother mention me? I thought she might have.”

Bill shook his head, wondering if he had time to eat a stuffed mushroom before he had to speak again. He risked it.

“I wanted to consult you, in a general sort of way, about a legal matter. Your mother suggested it, actually. She says you’re a specialist in family law. Would you like to go out into the garden?”

What Bill truly wanted was to stay close to the refreshment table-and to rely upon the adage of safety in numbers. He thought briefly of clutching the piano leg to keep from being dragged away into the silent, threatening garden by this earnest and humorless Amazon, but a glance around at the chattering guests, oblivious to his plight, told him that it was no use. He might as well go bravely to the doom his mother had obviously arranged for him, and get it over with. “Certainly,” he said, feeling like the pig at the luau.

She led him through the kitchen, out the back door, and onto a wooden deck surrounded by scraggly rosebushes. Bill wished he’d had the presence of mind to remember his drink. He leaned against the wooden railing of the deck and gave her his most attentive and professional young-attorney smile. “What can I do for you?”

“I want to get married,” said Miri Malone.

“Where is Bill?” asked Margaret MacPherson. “I’ve hardly seen him since he got here.”

“Mingling, I expect,” said Elizabeth, without any noticeable concern for her missing sibling. “I hope he’s remembering to pass out business cards.”

“Well, perhaps he’s enjoying himself. I think it’s going rather well, don’t you?”

“It is,” said Elizabeth, glancing around the room. “It’s certainly different from the get-togethers you and Dad used to host. All the men would congregate around a televised football game, or else they’d take over the living room and fill it with smoke and loud guffaws.”

Her mother nodded sadly. “Yes, and the women would gather in the kitchen and talk about the children, or the weather, or linoleum-God knows what we talked about. I don’t know that I was listening.”

“Were you unhappy?” asked Elizabeth, surprised at this revisionist account of her childhood. “ I thought you all were incredibly boring, but I didn’t know that you minded.”

“Perhaps I didn’t at the time,” said Margaret thoughtfully. “I didn’t have much to compare it with. Men don’t generally talk to women, you know. They simply listen until they can figure out what one sentence will end the discussion. Then they say, ‘Buy it,’ or ‘Take another aspirin,’ or ‘Whatever you decide will be fine, dear.’ That said, they dismiss you from the universe entirely, and go back to the newspaper, or the instant replay, or whatever constitutes reality to them at the moment.”

“And now you have someone who will talk to you?”

“Well… there is always something to talk about in new relationships, so I can’t be sure that things will turn out differently this time, but it’s all very interesting .” She wandered away then, picking up empty glasses and exchanging a word or two with each guest as she passed.

Elizabeth began to mingle, or at least she stood hesitantly on the fringe of one group after another, trying to find a conversational opening. Most of it, though, escaped her completely. Barnie Slusher was telling Virgil Agnew and Annie Graham-Robeson about his difficulties in getting anyone to install asymmetrical slate flooring in his newly redecorated kitchen. The Holden-McBrydes and Sadie Patton were debating the merits of the Montessori school versus home teaching; and D. J. Squires and Tim Burruss had taken beers and a basket of tortilla chips into the other room to watch a Cincinnati Reds game on television. Everyone else was talking about university politics. Elizabeth sat down on the sofa and began to leaf through the latest issue of Vanity Fair .

“Married,” said Bill, clutching the railing of the deck for support. “Yes, well, that’s refreshing, but… you see…”

“Not to you .” Miri Malone rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I wanted to consult with you about it. You do specialize in family law, don’t you?”

“I don’t seem to be able to escape from it,” said Bill. “What did you have in mind? Prenuptial agreements? Community property laws?”

“It isn’t a question of money,” the young woman said. “We love each other and we want to get married. But some states have laws against it.”

“Interracial laws?” said Bill. “Not anymore. Those statutes were done away with years ago. Loving v. The Commonwealth of Virginia was the Supreme Court decision making that discrimination illegal. So you and your fiancé-er, your fiancé is male, isn’t he?”

Miri smiled. “Very much so.”

“And you are female?” The Crying Game had taught Bill that it isn’t safe to make any assumptions, regardless of what common sense tells you.

“Yes, I’m definitely female. Would you like to see my driver’s license?”

“I’m not sure the DMV is in a position to testify on the matter,” murmured Bill. “Well, never mind. So he’s male, and you’re female.” Another thought struck him. Not the Morgan Family Trio again! “He’s not already married, is he? And planning to stay that way?”

“No. He’s a dolphin. I met him when I was living in Florida.”

“Great!” said Bill. “Do you think they’ll make the play-offs this year? Does he know Larry Czonka?”

Miri’s stare was withering. “Not a Miami Dolphin,” she said. “A delphinidae dolphin.”

“You mean like Flipper?”

“That’s a demeaning stereotype. Dolphins are extremely intelligent and sensitive. They have a spiritual nature which is quite beautiful. They are not, of course, vegetarians, but aside from that they are in perfect harmony with our New Age philosophies of ecology and sharing the planet.”

“Well-can’t you just be friends?” stammered Bill.

“Why can’t I marry a dolphin?” she demanded.

Bill smiled. That was an easy one. “He can’t walk. He can’t talk. And he can’t sign the papers.”

“Neither can Stephen Hawking, but you’d let me marry him .”