Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

"But you said. ."

"You know I just talk. I don't do."

Lottie congratulated Claude and said sternly, but with a smile: "Take good care of her or you'll hear from me."

"If I ever mistreat her in any way," said Claude, "I hope you will take an aunt's privilege and spank me."

Lottie frowned. She thought his little speech was affected. puts on too much, was the way she described it to herself. Claude may have felt her aversion for he put his arms about her and pressed his cheek to Lottie's.

"I hope you will like me in time," he murmured. "You're such a grand, sweet lady."

Something stirred in Lottie. I don't like him for a nickel, she thought. And I never evilly But l can see now what she sees in him.

She gave Maggie-Now a wrapped gift, said, no, she couldn't come to the house for a cup of coffee, because she had stopped going out socially ever since Timmy passed away. Maggie-Now watched her go down the street.

Bride and groom walked home arm-in-arm. Children playing on the street ran up to her, looked up at her, said, "Hello, Maggie," walked a bit with them and dropped out.

Other children took their place. Maggie-Now gave each one a flower. A woman with her arms hugging her sides against the cold came out on a stoop and called: "Luck, Maggie." A woman in an upstairs flat tapped on the w indow and, when she got Maggie-Now's attention, blew her a kiss. Maggie-Now blew one back.

[2841 At home, a little party had been arranged. Guests stood in a line behind the parlor table, on which were a bottle of port wine, glasses and a wedding cake. There were a miniature bride and groom on top. The groom looked like Charlie Chaplin. Pat stood at the head of the line. Next to him was a tiny, trim woman with a chenille-dotted veil stretched taut across her face, taut kid gloves and coat buttoned tautly all-out her waist. At her side stood a little grinning gnome of a man with two rows of perfect white teeth. Then there were Mr. Van Clees and a stout woman with three children clustered about her. Maggie-Now was ecstatic about the cake.

"Who got it?" she asked.

"He did," said the taut lady, indicating Pat.

"She made him," said the little gnome, indicating the taut lady.

Pat made the introductions. "This here," he said, "is me friend, Mrs. O'Crawley, the lady what I eat with, Sundays."

The lady bowed graciously and the newlyweds bowed back.

"And this is Mick Mack," said Pat indifferently.

The little man grinned up at Maggie-Now and said: "He is my friend from night-school days."

"Where are your manners?" said i\laggie-Now sharply.

The beam left his face. By God, he thought, she's just like her old man!

"Don't you know," continued Maggie-Now, "that you're supposed to kiss the bride? Shame on you! "

The beam came bacl<. Mick Mack put his arms about her waist. He stood on tiptoe but was only able to reach her neck. He put a smacking kiss on it.

Maggie-Now greeted Van Clees. He lifted her hand and kissed it. "Just so you should be happy, is all," he said. She thanked him. He said: "And look!?' He smiled at the stout lady with the three children. "Annie comes by your wedding."

"Annie?" asked Maggie-Now, puzzled.

"Annie Vernacht. You know. Gus' Annie?"

Maggie-Now embraced her. "Ah, Annie," she said. "It's been so long since the first and only time I saw you to talk to. But you don't know how many times I thought of you.

How nice you were. . Gus' Annie."

"And you, I would not know no more if somebody don't tell [285]

me. So big you got! And so pretty you are now." She addressed Claude. "You have luck, Mister, getting such a wife like her."

"I know," said Claude sincerely.

Annie presented her children. Jamesie was now a tall, manlylooking boy, an inch taller than his mother.

Tessiewas a head shorter than Denny. She was a conventionally pretty child with curls the color of coffee with a lot of cream in it, and large, blue eyes. Only she was frail and wispy looking. Albie was a sturdy, fat-legged boy of five.

There was the ceremony of cutting the cake which everyone tried to make hilarious by all talking at once in a notched-up tone of voice. They drank to the bride and groom in port wine. They drank to the future; they drank to each other. A boy rushed in from the corner candy store with a phone message from the manager of the movie house: that, as a wedding gift, he would not dock Maggie-Now for the night off for her honeymoon. MaggieNow gave the boy a piece of cake.

"Give the boy a nickel, Papa," she said.

"Give the boy a nickel, Claude," said Pat. Claude complied.

There was the presenting of and the ritual of opening the wedding presents. Mrs. O'Crawley led off with what she called: "Just a little something. Not much." It was a fine linen handkerchief with tatted edges. The bride proclaimed it "Lovely!" Mick Mack gave her a small pottery bowl filled with hardened cement into which were stuck six pink paper roses. Maggie-Now claimed it was exactly what she had always wanted. Annie's present was a brown linen cushion top which she said she had

"stitched" herself. It was an American flag blowing in the breeze worked in silk floss. Deeper shadings of red in the stripes made it look as though it were actually blowing.

Maggie-Now said it was too good to sit on; that she'd frame it and hang it in her room. Annie blushed with pleasure.

Father Flynn dropped in and accepted a glass of wine.

He declined the cake but asked for a piece to take to his housekeeper. She was in one of her dish-banging moods, he said, and the cake might get her out of it. He didn't stay long. He blessed the bridal couple before he left.

Mrs. O'Crawley, who was "up" on wedding procedure, suggested that it was time that the bride change into her going-away [286]

outfit. Magg de-Now looked surprised. She had no going-away outfit. Her wedding outfit was the whole thing.

But she said, yes, it was time to get ready.

She opened Lottie's present in the privacy of her room.

She smiled tenderly at the china pug dog and the nursing puppies. She didn't like it for what it was, but she loved it for what it meant. Her father came into the room.

"What's that you got?" he asked.

"From Aunt Lottie." Impulsively, she thrust it into his hands. "Here, Papa. Hold it!"

"What for?" He scowled at the thing.

"Because I remember Timmy standing by the mantelpiece and holding it. And Aunt Lottie. Claude held it, too." And, she thought, so did Sonny. "Everyone I love has held it. I want you to hold it too."

He held it for the count elf three and then put it on the dresser. "Trash!" he announced. "Giving away second-hand junk for a wedding present."

"Now, Papa!"

"I got a present for you," he said. "I didn't want to show off in front of the company and make them ashamed of the cheap presents what they gave you, so I give it to you in private." He gave her a twenty-dollar gold piece.

"Oh. Papa! Papa!" She put her arms around him and squeezed him. He suffered the embrace.

"Don't lose it," he said, "because them gold pieces is hard to get. And don't let him spend it either." After which gracious presentation speech, he left to rejoin the company.

Maggie-Now checked the contents of the little red leather suitcase Claude had given her as a wedding present. It held a new white nightgown, a new white woolen robe, new white bedroom slippers, a change of lingerie and her toilet articles. She tucked the gold piece in the toe of her slipper and at the last second decided to take the pug dog with ller. She thought Claude might be pleased with Lottie's gift. She snapped the case shut, put on her hat and coat and went out to say good-by to her friends.