LaVyrle Spencer - Spring Fancy

"Sometimes you'd rather have his time than the money it can earn," Joseph filled in, leaning forward, resting an elbow on the table and turning his back to the room at large, shielding her from the eyes of her fiancé.

"Yes. I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous that a woman can be jealous of a… a panel of silicon chips, but…" Her eyebrows puckered and her lips trembled. "Do you know they even give computers names? He's named his Rita. Rita, for God's sake! I mean, what kind of a man gives a woman's name to a hunk of metal and refers to her as she all the time?" Her lips were trembling even more. "And what kind of woman gets jealous of her?" She was directly confronted by Jo-Jo Duggan's serious brown eyes, and to her horror she realized her own eyes were floating in tears. "Oh, darn…" She felt utterly ridiculous to have admitted such a thing. She reached up to dash the salt away but had no handkerchief. "I feel like a fool, getting all emotional over a thing like this, but he promised me he'd come to the wedding and dance all night. And I just love to dance, and I thought b-because I'm all d-dressed up and everything…" She stammered to a halt, more self-conscious than ever, after babbling on about such inconsequential and childish wishes.

Into her line of vision came a blurred hand, extending a clean folded handkerchief. "Here, dry your eyes."

She touched their inner corners gingerly and wiped the end of her nose. She lifted her face then, and there was Joseph Duggan only inches before her, unsmiling, watching her too carefully, still shielding her from the rest of the room. "I'm sorry, Joseph. What a stupid thing to do, get all teary eyed because my man wants to work hard so he can buy me a houseful of furniture."

"That's not the reason you're crying, and you know it."

"It's not?"

"Hardly."

"Then tell me why I am."

"Because you're three months away from marrying a man, and all of a sudden you're discovering some very disturbing differences in values between the two of you. Deep differences. You like to dance, and he likes to talk to computers. But is that as deep as it goes?"

"Ye…" She'd been about to say yes but halted to give it some serious reflection. But, thinking, she decided it best not to dwell upon it. "I want to have fun tonight, and this isn't helping. Can we talk about something else?"

"Of course. Are you all dried up now, so I can remove myself from between you and the curious multitude?"

She smiled and chuckled shakily, handed him his handkerchief and sniffed once. "Yes. But I probably am in need of some makeup repair again. If you'll excuse me, I'll sneak back to the foyer and touch up my eyes."

He immediately got to his feet and pulled her chair back. When she stood beside him, he detained her for a second with a hand on her arm. "Winn, if it'll make you feel any better, I'll fill in for old Hildegard on the dance floor, inept as I am. You want to dance all night, you've got it, sweetheart. Two clubfeet and all." He glanced self-deprecatingly at his shoes, then straightened and gave her a teasing grin.

It was like a shot of revivifying sun.

"I think, Joseph Duggan, that you're a very nice man underneath all that flirting and teasing. And I'll hold you to it."

They stood for a breathless moment, transfixed, staring at each other.

"Winn…" His fingers tightened on her arm. But his touch felt too welcome, too good, too exciting. She forced herself to turn and walk away.

There's an old custom at Polish weddings that the groomsmen steal the bride sometime during the reception. When Joseph Duggan disappeared an hour later, Winnie missed him immediately. She'd danced with Paul, but now he was gone. She wandered from group to group, visiting with acquaintances, but the zest seemed to have fizzled out of the party once Joseph disappeared. She took her makeup bag to an upstairs bedroom, checked her mascara, refreshed her blush, but wiped all vestiges of the scarlet lipstick from her mouth and applied instead a soft pink, as luminescent as the recesses of a conch shell. She touched Chanel No. 5 to her wrists, neck and knees, then went back downstairs to wander around restlessly, listening to the music of the four-piece band that played in the large central hall.

It seemed forever before the front door swept open, and several laughing men crowded through, bearing the bride upon their shoulders. At the sight of Joseph Duggan the night suddenly regained its flavor. He spotted Winnie immediately and was crossing the hall toward her the moment the bride was lowered to the floor.

"I'm sorry I had to abandon you, but duty called." He captured her hand and towed her toward the area set aside for dancing. "But I do keep my promises for better or for worse. Come on, Twinkle Toes, let's make you happy again."

He swooped her into his arms, only to discover her wide hat brim forced them apart. She leaned back from the waist to smile up at him. "I was growing very impatient."

His engaging grin twinkled down at her. "So was I." He tightened his arm and settled her hips to his, but the hat brim still bothered. It nudged the crown of his forehead. He studied it with the look of a police inspector searching for clues, then stopped dancing, raised both hands and reached around her head. He knew where the hat pin was: he'd watched her remove and replace it earlier. When it slid free and the hat along with it, Winnie felt an unwarranted thrill of intimacy-after all, it was only a hat he'd taken off her, nothing more personal. Yet she liked the way he'd done it, without asking, without fumbling.

Unceremoniously he pulled her length back against his, immediately snuggling her close, resting his jaw against her temple while the hat rode lightly against her buttocks as he held it upon the small of her back. The faint brushing movements of the straw brim through her organdy dress brought shivers, and she imagined his blunt-fingered hand and ruffled cuff and how they must look with the hat suspended from them. Then she closed her eyes and simply enjoyed.

He hadn't the smooth expert grace of Paul on the dance floor, but he had superb timing and was content to nestle her against him and circle the floor with small unflamboyant steps. In his arms Winnie felt an immediate shock of difference. Joseph was shorter than Paul. Thus her face was closer to his, touching his; his muscles were firmer, and his hand wider, thicker, harder. His fingers were coarse. He had a workingman's hands, with texture and calluses, in contraposition to the soft warmth of the butt of his palm. He used a different brand of cosmetic than she was accustomed to smelling on a man's neck, for he radiated a pleasant mixture of herb, lime and something resembling cedar. His chin was coarser, and she felt a vague scratching from it against her temple and imagined before the night was over, her hairdo would be disheveled and flattened on that side. She thought again of his hair, but it was beyond her touch, unless she wanted to be so indiscreet as to reach up and feel it above his collar. She'd been wondering what it felt like-all those airy girlish ringlets-ever since she'd first seen it. But she danced in his arms content to know his other textures and scents, realizing they allured far more powerfully than a sensibly engaged woman ought to admit.

"You were gone so long."

He backed away slightly and looked down into her eyes. "Was I?"

Her heart fluttered. "I… I was anxious to dance."

"When I left, he was still here. Didn't the two of you dance?"

"Yes, for a little while, but he left shortly after you did."

"Seems we didn't do such a hot job of spiriting the bride away without being noticed."

"Oh, I noticed, all right." Winnifred Gardner, now you're the one who's flirting.