Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

He had thought his daughter was safe in the home and where else did she go? To the store and sometimes to Lottie's house. But was she safe? This m in who invited her to his home to meet his wife: Maybe he didn't have a wife; maybe that was a comeon. Something else came to his mind.

A month before, the upstairs had been rented to a mother and father who worked and their son, about twenty, who didn't have a job and loafed around the house all day. After they had examined the empty rooms and had announced when they'd move in, the woman Ad commented Otl the fact that Pat's daughter was young to be married and have a two-year-old baby.

"She ain't married,' said lilac.

1 151 1 The woman exchanged a surprised look with her husband and their son grinned.

"That's why the baby has her maiden name for his last name."

"He has Sty name. He's my son. His mother died in childbirth."

"I see. Well, that's all right." She exchanged another look with her husband.

Pat wondered how many men, strangers to the neighborhood newcomers believed that Maggie-Now had an illegitimate son. Did those kind of men think she was available? He recalled the fellow upstairs how he had been standing on the stoop one time when Maggie-Now had gone out to the store and how the young man had looked after her as she walked down the block.

He was angry with his daughter because she made him concerned about her and spoiled the even tenor of his days. So he shouted at her, not realising that she couldn't know what he had been thinking: "And I don't want you making free with that loafer upstairs, either."

"Papa! Where'd you ever get the idea. ." She stopped abruptly. She had had some contact with the boy upstairs.

A week ago, he'd come to the door and asked politely if the upstairs tenants had the privilege of the yard. She said they did and she let him go through her rooms because there vvas no other way to reach the yard. He explained that he wanted to get a little tan. He pulled his shirt off in the yard and bounced a ball against the wooden fence. She watched him through the kitchen window, admiring his manly torso and wishing she could go out and play handball with him.

She decided he must never walk through their rooms again. Suppose her father came back during the day for some reason or other and he found the young man in the kitchen! He wouldn't accept any explanation she could make. Thereafter, she kept her door locked when she was in the house alone w ith Denny and didn't answer when he knocked.

One evening in the time between after supper and dark, she was sitting on the stoop with Denny. She was restless.

She dreaded the evening ahead. She'd put Denny to bed and then what? She'd ovals about the house looking for something to do

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to kill the long evening. She and her father seldom conversed with each other at any length. She was not an avid reader and what was there to do but go to bed?

She didn't want to go to bed. She wanted to be out walking these summer nights with some girls her own age.

She wanted to laugh and exchange confidences. She wanted some boy to call for her and take her for a walk;

treat her to a soda. She wanted to ride on an open car to Coney Island with a bunch of boys and girls and laugh with the girls at the way the boys cut up. She wanted to ride side saddle on a merry-go-round horse with a nice young man standing at her side, his arm about her waist, pretending he had to hold her so's she wouldn't fall off.

She closed her eyes and dreamed the scene: The blend of merry-goround music and the voices of barkers and the hum of talking voices and laughter and the sound of the sea. The smells mixed of hot corn and cotton candy and candied apples on a stick and over all the heavy salt smell of the sea. And the breeze and the motion of the merry-go-round making her hair blow back and the delicious reaching out for a grasp at the gold ring and the nice-looking young man looking up to smile at her and his arm tightening automatically about her waist when the horse went up. .

That was her sudden dream. She closed her eyes to see the reality. She got up at seven each morning to get breakfast for her father. She did the housework. The rooms were few and the furnishings sparse. She had it neat and shining in an hour. She drew out her shopping as long as she could. The storekeepers were her only social contacts. At ten, save for getting a simple lunch for herself and the baby and preparing a simple supper for the three of them, her work was done. The long day and evening stretched out interminably.

She washed her hair and filed her nails and washed clothes that were already clean and pressed things that needed no pressing and did piecework when she could get it. On nice days she wheeled Denny to the park, first walking down the block and asking the neighbor wo nen if they would let her take a preschool child along as long as she had Denny anyhow. She usuall took three or four small children to the park with her.

But all this wasn't enough. She was strong and healthy and vital

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and full of energy. She wanted to work hard. She wanted to go to places. She wanted friends her own age. She wanted to talk and laugh with young people. She wanted to work in a factory; she Nvanted to work in a store measuring cloth or wrapping up dishes. Most of all, she wanted to "go out."

She thought of Annie Vernacht. When Gus had told her about his Annie, Maggie-Now had thought how wonderful it \vould be to be friends with Annie; to have someone pour her a cup of coffee, cut her a piece of cake. And Gus had said Annie would mind Denny…. Maggie-Now had planned that, for each hour Annie would mind Denny while she, Maggie-Now, went out, Maggie-Now would mind Annie's children three hours to pay back.

But her father didn't v ant her to visit the Vernachts.

And that was that.

The young man from upstairs clattered down the stoop.

He touched the brim of his hat and said it was a pleasant evening. She agreed, turning her head away as she spoke in case her father was watching from the window.

As she put Denny to bed, she made up her mind. She would go and visit Annie Vernacht and she wouldn't tell her father.

The following Sunday afternoon, she dressed Denny in his nicest rompers, slicked down his hair, dressed herself up and told her father she was going out and would be home in time to cook his supper. I le grunted without looking up from the paper he was reading.

"Come in! Come in!!' boomed Gus. " I his is my Ahn-nee. ' He grabbed his hat. "I go now by Jan's cigar store and leave the ladies to talk lady talk." He left.

Annie was hospitable but bewildered. Gus, like many another man before him, had forgotten to tell his wife he had invited Maggie-Now for a visit. In fact, he had forgotten to tell her anything at all about the girl.

Annie smiled. Maggie-Now smiled. "Sit down," invited Annie.

The room was neat, warm and peaceful. The boy, Jamesie, leaned against his mother's knee. The baby, Theresa, slept in her nrother's arms. Another baby, soon to come, lay quietly in the womb.

[151 Dennis struggled to get out of his sister's arms. "Can I

put him down?" asked Maggie-Now.

"Sure, sure."

She put Denny on the floor. He staggered around frantically for a few seconds, then crawled under the table and composed himself for sleep. He slept during the entire visit.

"What's her name?" asl~ed Jamesie.

"Sh! " said Annie. Smiling at Maggie-Now, she said: "I

ant Annie."