Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

The girl smiled back. '1 know."

"And you?" Gus had forgotten to tell his wife the girl's name.

"I'm Margaret Moore. ~ ou know. Maggie-Now?"

Again they exchanged smiles. The girl sat with her hands in her lap waiting for the friendship to begin. Annie wished there was some tactful way in which she could ask the young girl what was the object of the visit. Annie cleared her throat.

"You are young to be a mother."

"Oh, he's my brother. Iffy mother died when he was born."

"I think maybe I saw her on the street. Some ladies was telling me about her baby COlrling. Your father: He is the street sweeper? "

"Yes. Street cleaner. He's home,'' she added.

"He's got good work. Steady. My man, he makes tile rocking chairs."

"I know. Mr. Van Clee. told me."

"Ah, that Jan!" Annie smiled mysteriously.

Maggie-Now, half child, half woman, wondered: lilill she ask me if I'd like her to mind DenrZy sometime, like Mr.

I~eriZacht said, so I car go out by myself sometime?

Annie thought: What must I say to her flow?

Annie was good and kind but inarticulate and shy. If Gus had only thought to tell her about Maggie-Now! She would have been so happy to take the girl into her heart and her warmth. Gus would have denied that he had forgotten to tell his wife all about Maggie-Now. It was that they had so much wordless and perfect understanding together that he thought somehow Annie knew as much about Maggie-Now as he did. Annie sat there trying to draw on this unspoken understanding. The most she could get was that something was expected of her; that Gus

~ ~ i'; 1

had prepared the girl for something and the girl now expected it. But what?

"Did Gus say I should do something? 'she asllied gently.

Maggie-Now's face flushed with embarrassment. So Gus had said nothing to his Annie and she, Maggie-Now, had come there so brash expecting. .

"No," she said. "Nothing."

There was a little more forced conversation and then l\laggieNow prepared to leave. The good-by-s were effusive because both were ill at ease and the good-bye were something they could get their teeth into.

"You come again when you can stay longer,' said Amlie.

"And you come to my house some afternoon," said MaggieNow. "I'll make coffee."

Annie did not return the visit. Some weeks later, Maggie-Now saw Gus in the cigar store and told him she hoped Annie would come for a cup of coffee sometime.

"Ahn-nee, she don't go out now," he explained. "The baby comes soon. But you come by our house."

"I will," said Maggie-Now. I3ut she didn't. And Annie never did come to see her.

Van Clees told Maggie-No\v when Annie's baby, a boy, was born. He had been named Albert August.

Maggie-Nov.~ gave Mr. Van Clees a pair of booties to give to Gus to give Annie. She gave a verbal message: She would come to see Annie and the baby as soon as Annie got over the ordeal of birth. Annie sent a message by Gus, who gave it to Van Clees, who gave it to l\laggie-Now: Annie would collie and visit ~Iaggie-Now as soon as she got on her feet.

They never did get together. However, whenever Gus saw the girl he said: "Ahn-nee sends best regards."

Maggie-Nov always said: "Likewise."

One day the cigar store was closed. There was a sign in the window: ('losed on Account of Death in the Faultily.

Gus Vernacht had not been a relative of Van Clees but the cigar maker had borrowed the sign from the baker who had bought it two years ago when his wife's father died. Van Clees could not cross out In the Fancily and print in Of Friend because 1 ii61

the baker wanted it bacl. He thou,~,ht he might have to use it again. He had a lot of relatives.

About Gus: It was nothing you could put your finger on;

nothing you could anticipate. He went to bed one night as usual and didn't wake up the next morning. Doctor Scalani said: "Heart!" and charged a dollar. The ne;ghbors gave what comfort they could to Annie.

"Such a good man," said one.

"Yeah, the best ones are the first to go, said another.

"Sure. The bums, they hang on."

"Well, if he had to go." was the general opinion, "it's better he went in his sleep. That way-, he never knew a thing about it."

NIA(;CIIE-NO\V let a year go IJY without seeing Annie.

Denny came down with the measles and the Board of Health put a quarantine sign on the door. While Denny was convalescing, Pat, to his great shame, caught the measles from Denny. Pat had never been sick before and he carried on as though he were in the last stages of leprosy. He called for the priest and demanded the last rites of the church. Father Flynn said he didn't give Extreme Unction for measles. But he heard his confession and gave him communion and sat at Path bedside for an hour lecturing him on his sins and his conduct.

"That's right," said Pat, aggrieved, 'take advantage of a man sick and flat on his back."

"As an ordained priest,' said Father F lynn, "I have to be patient with you. But as private citizen Joseph Flynn, I'd enjoy punching you in the nose."

Pat looked at him with interest and felt a glow. Sure, he is fez man after all thought Pat, and worthy of ale hate.

During that year, Annie had moved away; somewhere on Dekalb Avenue, Van Clees said. He could go right up to the house, he said, but he couldn't tell her the number.

The next time he'd L z s7 ~

write it down and Maggie-Now could go and visit poor Annie. Something happened to l\Iaggie-Now about this time and it drove all thoughts of Annie and of nearly everything else out of Maggie-Now's mind.

She was sitting in the yard one afternoon witl1 Denny.

She had washed her hair and was drying it in the sun. It hung loose almost to her waist. She sat in a camp chair and watched Denny try to dig holes in the cementlike ground with a tablespoon. She heard her kitchen door open and close. To her consternation, the young man from upstairs came into the yard! She'd forgotten to lock the front door. He greeted her, said hello buster to Denny, who stared at him, and pulled off his shirt. He started hand batting the ball against the wooden fence, running back and forth. He stopped as suddenly as he had begun and threw himself on the ground next her chair. He leaned his head against her knee, panting from his exertions. She w as fascinated and revolted. His curly hair was sweaty and she felt his hot face against her knee through her thin summer dress. She pulled her knee away.

"We got a hard-to-get girlie here," he said.

"I got to go in now," she said inanely.

"Suits me," he said. "What are we going to do about the kid?"

She started to get up He put his arms around her legs.

"Stop that!" she said sharply.

"Just as you say." He clasped his arms around his knees.

She stood there a moment, feeling foolish. "Come, Denny, we're going in the house now," she said.

"Listen," said the fellow from upstairs, "a couple friends of mine are throwing a party tonight. HONV about it?"

"How about what?"

"Would you like to go?"

"Thank you. But mv father wouldn't let me."

"Tell him you're spending the night with a girl friend.

I'll sneak you in the house before he wakes up."

"My father wouldn't let me go out with you. Not with any feller."

"He must have let you out once," he said. He winked toward Denny.