Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

"Your suit," she said.

"Thanks." She hung it in his closet. He said: "Sit with me a minute before you put the kids to bed." She sat next to him on the cot. He put his arms around her. "My mama, my sister, my Maggie-Now."

She smiled. "Remember hose N' tl stole the little flags from the cemetery? "

"A man gave them to me," he said in pretended indignation.

"Happy?" she asked.

"Can't tell you how much," said Denny.

"Denny, it's your last night home. Go upstairs, and talk to Papa for a while."

"He and I have nothing to talk about," said Denny shortly.

"Just the same, he's yol r father and you can overlook his waN7s one more time."

"All right." Denny went up to say good-by to his father.

Jamesie gave his sister away and Albie was Denny's best man. Tessie had a girl from the dime store as her bridesmaid. Cholly, who had continued being friends with Denny since the time Denny had worked for him and Sonny, chauffeured the wedding party around in his car.

Van Clees, who had known and loved Tessie and Denny since they were born, treated t!le wedding party to a duck dinner out [3'7']

on the Island. That was his gift. Of course, Cholly drove them out.

Van Clees couldn't stand Cholly. Cholly's jokes irritated him. "Know what a duck dinner is?" asked Cholly. "You duck in a place, have a cup of coffee and duck out again."

"Wisenheimer," muttered Van Clees. But he had to put up with Cholly, because, after all, Cholly had the car.

There were ten in the party: Annie, Maggie-Now, Pat, Van Clees, Jamesie, Albie, the newlyweds and Tessie's attendant, and Cholly.

Van Clees hadn't counted on Cholly. He'd brought along only enough money for nine dinners and a dollar tip for the waiter. Van Clees wasn't stingy. He was merely careful with his money. In order to pay for Cholly's dinner, Van Clees ordered only a bowl of chowder for himself and decided to cut the waiter's tip to seventy-five cents.

Cholly, as always, dominated the festivities. "Hey, Maggie!" he hollered down the long table. "Remember me? You laughed at me when I sat down on the park bench next to you. But when I started to play. . Oh, boy!"

Maggie-Now gave him her wide smile. Cholly was getting stout and he was almost bald now, but to Maggie-Now he was still the flashing young boy who reminisced on the piano those many years ago.

Cholly wouldn't let anybody talk. "I remember when I

was first married to Gina," he said. "Her name is Regina but ever,vbody calls her Gina. Well, sir, the morning after our first night, she gets out of bed. 'Hey! Where you going, Gina?' I said. She says, 'To make your coffee.' I

says, 'Get right back in this bed where you belong,' I savs."

"Listen, you!" interrupted Pat. "You tell a off-color story in front of the wimmin, and I'll puck you right in the nose."

Cholly was so wound up in his anecdote that he paid no attention to Pat. " 'Get back in bed,' I says. 'Why?' she says. 'Because I never drink coffee,' I says. 'I only drink Postum,' I says."

They laughed, partly in relief that it wasn't a dirty story, with a fist fight as an aftermath, and partly out of politeness because, after all, Cholly had supplied the transportation.

At the end of the dinner, Van Clees presented Denny with a box of fine, hand-rolled Havana cigars. He made a courtly little speech.

~ 394 1 "I give you these that you should share them out to all your friends what was not lucky enough to marry Tessie."

Of course, Pat had to have one then and there.

Motivated by some black thing in his soul, he took the cigar apart and stuffed the expensive tobacco in his five-cene clay pipe, and smoked it. Van Clees held back his tears.

Denny and Tessie had a few hours of honeymoon a night in a reserved room at the Pennsylvania Hotel over in Manhattan with breakfast served in their room the next morning. They had a night and morning of undreamed luxury for ten dollars and tips.

Around midnight, Cholly called up the hotel and told Dennis it was the manager spearing and that Mr. Dennis Moore would have to get that strange woman out of his room before the police got there.

T hey came together, they loved and they married. In innocence. and never dreaming how c ourageous they were, they started a new life together and a new generation of their own.

It was late in the following November. Claude had been home a week. He had brought with him a half-grown Siamese cat that someone had abandoned. They sat in the kitchen watching the cat lap up a saucer of evaporated milk.

"Tessie's going to have a baby in May," she said.

"I know," said Claude "They asked me to be godfather,"

he said proudly.

"But that will be May.' "Of course."

They asked him, she thought, so that he'd stay this spring.

Bitt he won't. She sighed.

"If it's a boy, they're going to name him. ."

"Claude?" she interrupted.

"Good Lord, no! John Bassett Moore."

"That's a beautiful name!"

"My name! Bassett!" h said with deep satisfaction.

Maybe he wild stay, she thought hopefully.

Christmas was a little fad with Denny gone hut l\laggie-NoNv [39il and Claude trimmed a tree for the home children and he gave her a cuckoo clock for Christmas. The children were entranced by it as was the canary, Timn,y TNVO. (The first Timmy had died some years ago.) When the cuckoo came out to call the hour, the bird sang hysterically in competition and the cat lashed his tail and the little boys laughed.

It was Annie's first Christmas Eve alone. Jamesie and Tessie were in their own homes and Albie was at his girl's house. But Jamesie came over for a few minutes as he did every Christmas. He gave his mother a ten-dollar bill and ordered her to buy something foolish with it. Annie said she'd buy a pair of Educator shoes. Jamesie asked her to keep the gift under her hat because he didn't want his wife, Shirley, to know. Not that she'd care, he said loyally, but. .

Annie saw him to the door. He put a warm Christmas kiss on her cheek. They spol

"And you are my good son," she said.

IT WAS early in March. "] saw Tessie in the store today," MaggieNow told Claude. "She expects the baby in May.

She told me to remind you that you promised to be godfather."

"She did>" he said absently.

"You remember. Denny asked you way back in November right after you came home. They're going to name it John F',assett. "

"It will be a girl, of co lrse."

Her heart sank at his indifference. She had hoped against hope that he wouldn't go away that spring or would at least stay until the baby was christened. He had seemed so pleased in the winter about the child's name.

NONV her hopes were gone.

When that day came in March, he left.

~ 39` 1 The baby was a girl. ~ o Maggie-Now's relief, Tessie had an easy time of it. Maggie-Now had worried. Tessie always looked so frail. But Tessie came out fine. While she was at the hospital, Denny stayed with Maggie-Now.

He slept on the lounge in the front room. Maggie-Now was happy. It seemed like old times having Denny home again.

When it was time for Tessie to leave the hospital, MaggieNow suggested that Denny and Tessie and the baby stay with her a week or two until Tessie got on her feet. Tessie accepted the invitation gratefully and they all moved in.

Denny and Tessie had Maggie-Now's bedroom with the baby in a pillowed wash basket on the dressing table.