Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

"Ah, 1\/lary," he said, touched, and a moment tried to get born.

I co?vid say I loved her, he thought. And it "would mean the. orl.l to her my saying it. And I do love her in a kind of way. But I never saicl it before. Linda late to start saying it norm. 1~1 feel foolisI.'… we'd both {eel foolish….

The moment died stillborn.

He wanted the girl'. affection back. l o that end, he made plans to take her out on her birthday.

"I will give her a good time like your father gave you when he bought the combs. I'll give her the same good time according to me means and hope she'll ~ emember it in the same wav you did," said Pat to his wife.

No one sold violets on the Brooklyn streets. He bought her a pinwheel instead. When she ran ahead to mate a w ind to make it

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turn, he realised was too big to play with a pinwheel.

Of course he didn't take her to a bar for a claret lemonade. There were no glarr orous bars in the neighborhood and he'd be sure to be arrested if he brought a little girl into a saloon. There was no fine restaurant. I hey ate hot pastrami sandwiches and honey cake and drank ten from glasses in a Kosher Delicatessen

& Lunchroom. The men are with their hats on. Pat explained that was their religion. He took his hat oflf with the remark that they could go to their church and he'd go to his. The diners balled up their napkins and threw them on the floor when they were done. When Maggie-Now asked why, her father said they did that because they were very clean people. Maggie-Now thought that didn't seem clean. Oh, yes, her father told her. That was so the proprietor wouldn't serve the napkins again to later diners.

They went to the "heater. They heard no prima donna raise a luscious voice in song. They went to The Folly and saw Marion Bent and Pat Rooney. And Rooney's waltz clog thrilled them more than the best soprano's aria.

Afterward, he took her to a novelty store and invited her to choose a present. She u anted a wood-burning set.

There was a tie rack with an Indian chief's head in a war bonnet just waiting to be burned and an envelope of

"jewels" to paste on the bonnet's headband. Pat wanted her to have a rhinestone brooch. Both things cost a dollar each. She didn't want a brooch. She wanted to burn wood.

Fat said she would take the rhinestone brooch or nothing.

She said she wanted nothing. He bought her the brooch anyway.

Yet it had been a happy evening and she held her father's hand all the way home and squeezed it happily from time to time, and once he squeezed back.

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'4< (.'HA 1' TER NI NE TEEN ~ ()NE night as they were eating supper (Maggie-Now was about twelve a': the time), a handsome young man knocked on the door and was admitted to the kitchen. I

le was about twenty-three years old.

"Do you remember Nile, Fir. `vk~cJre? ' Ihe young man smiled engagingly, then his face sadrlened.

Pat frowned, trying to rermetnber.

"Nokomis. Daughter of the Noon, Nokor~is. Remember?"

Pat remembered. "Big Red's boy, Widdy," he explained to his wife. lee thought: An,l what does the spawn want from brie?

"1~7Iother sent tee," said Middy, turtling his hat around in his hands. Thet, he seemed to lose the continuity of what he wanted to say. "]: mean, you know Oad." E-Ze swallowed hard before he said: "God rest his soul. ."

"No!" said lent, put ing his talk do\vtl. "No!"

"Mother said, l mean, Dad had no relations in America, except ~\Iother and me and Gr ~ndmotller. There's Gracie, too. We were going to get married in June, but now we'll have to wait a vear out of respect."

Big Red had diccl in fled and lead not been killed on the streets by hoodh~ms as Lottie Ad always feared. A

blizzard had tied up the city.:Big Red, like bland another cop, had worked two days and two nights without rest. He had had a cold, and just when Lottie hard thought he was getting well it turned into pneumonia.

Yes, Widdy's mothe! was bearing up well. There was pride mixed with her grief. Her Timmy had died an honored man, Widdy told them. E-lis l euten.Znt w ould he one of the pallbearers, and Widely supposed they hadn't heard, but Big Red had been promoted to serge At a Feel; before he took sick. I.ottie had been so proud.

"So l\lother said " concluded Widdy, "if you folks would come ro the funeral. . the.Nk~ores and thie ShaNN7ns had been so close I loll back in County Kilkenny. . had almost become relations.

" Pat grieved. He didn't grieve for a friend; he grieved for a dear enemy. Although never a heavy drinker, he felt the need of going down to the saloon for a couple of beers.

"I lost the best enemy a man ever had," he told the bartender.

"That's the way it goes," said the bartender. He never flicked an eyelash. Lee was well used to hearing strange things from his customers.

After the third beer, Pat found that he was lonesome for his other enemy, Mick Mack. He actually missed the little fellow. He had a feeling that perhaps Mick Mack was looking all over Brooklyn for him. Maybe he'd been in that very saloon….

"Listen," Pat said to the bartender, "did a feller ever come in here with false teeth top and bottom?"

"Listen, Deef Pat," said the bartender. "I don't look down my customers' mout's to see what Linda china they got. I just serve them drinks."

Pat refused to go to the funeral, but he asked Mary to sew a black armband on his coat sleeve.

"But that7s only for relatives, Patrick.'7 "And was he not a relative to me in a way, like the boy said? I'll wear it for a year."

Mary and Maggie-Nov went to the funeral and went home afterward to Lottie's house. Mary fixed supper for them; Lottie, her aged mother, who was now living with her and Widdy, and Gracie, the pretty girl who was Widdy's fiancee. Maggie-Now helped briskly. Lottie, who hadn't seen her godchild since the christening, was much taken with her. She begged Mary to come again and bring the child.

The friendship grew. Mary looked forward to her visits with Lottie. Mary had not realized how still her life was.

She was well liked in her neighborhood, but made no close friends because she was not gregarious. Her life was sort of somber: partly because she had a serious temperament and partly because her husband wasn't outgoing he was not one to spread cheer and good will.

If it wasn't for Maggie-Now. .

Mary liked Lottie because Lottie made her laugh. She laughed at the things Lottie said and did. She relaxed in the great warmheartedness of Lottie. She listened sweetly and raptly to Lottie's

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reminiscences of Tim ny, which always ended up: 'And so we stayed sweethearts rip kit up to the end."

To Maggie-Now, a visit to Lottie's was like a Christmas present. The flat was a treasure house to the child. She loved her godmother the way she loved everyone. She fetched and carried for Lottie's old mother. She beamed on Lottie and ran her errands. She romped with Widdy and admired Gracie extravagantly Once Widdy took her to an ice-cream parlor and treated her to a soda. He told her he had done so in order to have the first date with her. Maggic-No\Tv began to think about growing up.

After Widdy married and went to live with his Gracie h1 Bav Ridge, Lottie didn't haste too long a time to be lonesome. MaggieNow slipped into her on's place. She started spending weekends with Lottie. Lottie fed her eclairs and cream puffs and neapolitans. She and Lottie did things together. They made Ma`;,gie-Now ~