Ed Gorman - Wake Up Little Susie

“Honest.” Cronin scoffed. “Some honest.

We break up a couple of days, and she screws Chip O’Donlon.”

“It was a month we were broken up,” she said, “and I’m seventy-five percent sure I didn’t sleep with him.”

“That leaves twenty-five percent,” Cronin said. “And he’s telling everybody he did sleep with her.”

“Gee,” she said, “a math whiz. And he figured it out all by his lonesome.”

“So,” I said, “the problem is that your feelings are hurt that she spent time with O’Donlon?” I tried to sound as if this wasn’t a much bigger problem than having stubbed a toe. “I sure don’t see any reason to call off a marriage because of that.”

“That isn’t the problem,” Cronin said. He made a fist. The knuckles I’d noticed the other day had scabbed over but still looked pretty bad.

“Oh?”

“The problem is that if she did sleep with O’Donlon, then he nailed her before I did.”

“What a great way to put it,” Linda said.

“He nailed me.”

I said. “You mean that the night she spent with O’Donlon she was still-” his-a virgin.”

“Ah.”

“Now you see the problem. She was a virgin the night she went up to his place.” He turned to her and said, with genuine grief, “It’s nothing personal, Linda. It’s just I was raised to believe that a man should always marry a virgin.”

“Maybe I should’ve lied to you.”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding miserable again.

“Maybe you should’ve.”

I did the only thing I could think of. I took out the pint of Old Grand Dad from the bottom drawer, set three paper cups on the desk, and poured us each a hard jolt.

Linda teared up drinking hers. Cronin coughed. I felt my sinuses drain. A drinker I’m not.

“I guess I don’t know what you want me to do,” I said to Linda.

“Talk to him.”

“Cronin’s stubborn.”

“He’s also stupid.”

“Quit talking about me like I’m not here.”

“I don’t want to put you on the spot, McCain, but who do you agree with, him or me?”

“Thanks for not putting me on the spot.”

“Well, somebody has to talk some sense into that thick head of his.”

“I agree with you, Linda,” I said.

“Thanks a lot,” Cronin said.

“She was being honest with you, Cronin.

She wanted to get your marriage off to a good start. And now you’re punishing her for it.”

“What if he nailed her?”

“Will you quit using that word?” she snapped.

I said, “Do you love Jeff?”

“Of course I do, McCain. You know that.

I’m crazy about him.”

“Do you love her?”

“Yeah. The bitch.”

“Oh, really nice,” she said.

“You think we could try that again? Do you love her?”

“Yeah. Pretty much I do.”

“Then you should get married and forget all about this.”

His scabbed knuckles came toward me. It looked as if he were slowing a punch in slow motion. “I just want to hit something.”

“That wouldn’t do much good,” she said.

“God, Cronin. Look at her. She’s a wonderful girl and she loves you!”

“Yeah, well, people will know she’s not a virgin when we get married. I don’t have to tell you how the guys’ll be laughing about that for the next twenty years.”

“I really don’t think I slept with him,” she said. “I really don’t.”

“Well, there you go,” I said. “She’s really pretty sure she didn’t. And anyway, whether she did or not isn’t anybody else’s business anyway.”

“Damn right,” she said. “You listen to him, Jeff. What he’s saying makes sense. It isn’t anybody else’s business.”

“Yeah, but I’d know,” he said, thumping his chest. “In here. And if my folks ever hear, they won’t want me to marry her.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “He’s not kidding. His parents are just like that. His mother got me alone the other night and asked if I knew what to do on my wedding night. I mean, it was sweet and scary at the same time. If they hear that I’m only seventy-five percent sure I’m a virgin-”

“The wedding’s off,” Cronin said. He looked ready to go crazy. Straitjacket time.

And then he was on his feet and stomping across the small space of my office. Out the door.

Down the steps.

She put her head down and wept.

Her shoulders shook. Her breath came in hot gasps.

I wished I could hold my liquor. My dad and I are just too small to be good drinkers.

I pulled a chair up next to her and started patting her head and back and shoulders. I wasn’t sure what else to do. She just kept sobbing. I started alternately rubbing and patting.

And then she turned to me and put her wet face into my neck and said, “I’m not telling the truth, McCain.”

“You’re not?”

“I said I was seventy-five percent sure nothing happened? But I’m really only about fifty percent sure.”

And took her sobbing up yet another notch.

Fifty percent was a long way down from seventy-five percent on the absolutely sure scale. A long way. But I guessed it didn’t matter.

“He loves you.”

“I know.”

“And he wants to marry you.”

“You sure?”

“I’m positive. Just look how miserable he is.”

She lifted her head and looked at me.

“I’m not sure I understand that one, McCain.”

“If he didn’t want to marry you, he wouldn’t be miserable. Don’t you see?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I’ll talk with him tomorrow.”

“And say what?”

“Tell him he’s in danger of losing you.”

“What if he doesn’t care?”

“He cares; believe me, he cares.”

“It’s not fair. Women don’t care if men are virgins. And I’m probably a virgin anyway.”

“Yeah, I know. Fifty percent.”

“Maybe sixty, then. If that sounds better.”

“I wouldn’t give him any more statistics, if I were you.”

She threw her arms around me and held me tight. I liked her. And she smelled good to boot. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What if you found out your fianc@ee wasn’t a virgin?”

I thought of Pamela. “I’d marry her in a minute.”

“God, it’s just so unfair. My mom’s as bad as his. All I ever got growing up was “Nobody’ll want you if you’re not a virgin.” And even if Chip and I did do something, I only did it because I was drunk and mad at Jeff. Jeff was the one who broke up with me. He gave me my Eddie Fisher records back and everything.”

Then I said, “He’s waiting outside in the car.”

“How do you know? Maybe he left me here.”

“He didn’t leave you. I can hear his car.

He loves you.”

“He hates me.”

“Well, at the moment he hates you a little bit. But he loves you a lot more.”

“You’re deep, McCain. You know that? People always say that about you, how deep you are.”

“Well, I try, God knows. Being deep isn’t always easy.”

I slipped from her arms to the door. He was sitting out in the station wagon that belonged to his father’s gas station.

“He’s out there waiting.”

“I love him so much, McCain.”

“I know you do. And he loves you.”

She was at the door. Hugging me. “I really appreciate your talking to us.”

“No problem. I enjoyed it.”

A chaste little kiss on the cheek and then she was hurrying down the steps to the car.

I waved to them. Cronin didn’t wave back. He just backed up the wagon before she’d quite had time to close her door.

I went inside and resumed my life’s work of being deep, which isn’t half as easy as you might think. Just ask Socrates.