Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

"Your pleasure will be that you will be custodians of the children for Holy Moth' r Church!"

"Good evening, sir," said Claude suddenly. He turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

Maggie-Now greeted him eagerly. "Is it all settled?"

"As far as I'm concerned it is. For good!"

"Will you take instructions?"

"I had a heart-to-hea rt talk with Father Paul. He did the talking."

"Oh, Claude, can't you give me a direct answer? Can't you ever say a 'yes' or a 'no'?" She was nervous and tense.

His conversion meant so, so much to her.

"I'll give you a direct answer," he said coldly. "No! I can never give a 'yes' or a 'no.' I don't believe everything in life can be settled by a monosyllable " "Don't talk to me that way, Claude," she pleaded.

"When you use words like that, I feel you are away from me."

Without another word, he went into their bedroom.

When she got into bed later, he turned away from her and slept with his back to her all night.

The next morning, as hi was leaving for work, he said: "Let me have twenty dollars."

She choked back the automatic question: "What for?"

She thought she knew what for. He was leaving her again and he

~ 3~4]

wanted twenty dollars to start off on. She gave him the money. He pocketed! it and put an arm around her and pulled her to him.

"It's time we celebrated our first wedding anniversary," he said.

"That was last week, C laude. I didn't say anything because I knew you'd forgotten."

"All men forget wedding anniversaries."

"But you're different, C laude."

"Not that different. Now here's what I want you to do: Pack your little red bag, put my stuff in too, and n eet me in the lobby of the St. George at six. Bring a clean shirt.

I'll go to work directly from the hotel."

She left two cold plates in the icebox for Pat's and Denny's supper and told Denny not to leave the house;

his father would be home in an hour.

They had dinner at the same place. They didn't have the same room at the hotel but one almost as nice. It was like t'r eir marriage night except this time they undressed together in the bedroom. He got into his pajamas, loom d in the glass, put the jacket inside the pants, took it out again, said, "The hell with it," and stripped off the pajamas and went to bed naked.

She went into the bathroom to wash up and clean her teeth and came out and stood before the dresser and started to brush her hair.

"Never mind the brushing tonight," he said impatiently.

"Get into bed."

"All right, Claude." She picked up the pajamas from the floor to hang them up.

"Stop fussing around so," he said crossly.

"All right." She dropped the pajamas back on the floor and got into bed with him.

It was a night of wild, almost insatiable passion. When morning came, she kissed him with great tenderness and said: "I know I'll have a baby now!"

"If you do, I know who'll be deliriously happy."

"Who?" she asked teasingly, assuming he'd say, "Me."

"Your Church!" he said bitterly.

She sighed. She guessed what Father Paul had said to him and she knew IOW that Claude would never come into her Church and her Faith.

L3~51 They had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. "I'll walk you to the store where you work," said.

"You're Daddy's little girl, aren't you?" he said with a sneer.

She flushed. "I don't mean to trick you into finding out where you work. I just wanted to walk with you. I never asked you to tell me. I never ask you questions any more.

I don't want to know what you don't want to tell me. Just so I have you to love; just so you are with me."

He put his hand on hers across the table. "Margaret, from the time I was born, everyone kept things from me things I had a right to know; that everyone has a right to know."

Intuitively, she knew he meant that no one would tell him anything about his parents or where he had come from.

"They put me oflf when I asked questions…. I grew up learning the trick of putting others off when they asked eve questions. Now it's a habit I can't put aside."

"I know," she said.

One Saturday night hi the middle of January, Claude came home from work as usual. "Where's your flower?"

she asked.

"No more carnations for the wineglass. I'm fired," said Claude cheerfully.

"But why. ."

"They needed me only for the Christmas rush and for the after rush customers exchanging presents. And now they've all been changed." He gave her his final salary. "I'll get another job," he said.

"Sure you will," she said.

The first week, he redid the ads and went out looking for a job. The second week, he didn't bother. He still read the ads but told her there was nothing for him. He got into a routine.

He'd get up after Pat had left for work, eat a leisurely breakfast, with Maggie-No\v joining him for coffee, talk to her awhile and then go into the front room and sit at the window. At ten o'clock, he'd ask her for a quarter for cigarettes and a paper. She'd give it to him and tell him to come right back, and he'd say he would, and kiss her and be back in half an hour or so. Then he'd put in the day reading the paper and smoking.

On Saturdays, howeve, he always took Denny somewhere if

~ 3~6]

the weather wasn't too bad. Maggie-Now gave them a dollar and they were off for the day. He took the boy to the Aquarium, to Prospect Park another Saturday, for a ride on the Staten Island ferry, to the Brooklyn Na, y Yard, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and other places of interest.

It was getting late into lilarch. Maggie-Now woke up at dawn one morning, feeling strangely uneasy. She put on her robe and went out on the stoop. Yes, the south wind

. . the morning full of scented, tender promise of springtime.

She fixed him a special breakfast: broiled ham and eggs and poppy-seed rolls and sweet butter and coffee with real cream. After breakfast, he opened the window and leaned far out, feeling the soft wind on his face. He did not sit at the window that morning. He walked up and down restlessly.

Maggie-Now went into Denny's room and emptied his marbles out of their cloth Bull Durham sack. She went into her room and got the gold piece that her father had given her as a wedding present. She wrapped it in tissue, put it in the little sack and pinned it inside the breast pocket of Claude's coat. She pinned it top and bottom so that it wouldn't move about.

At ten o'clock, Claude said: "If you'll let me have a quarter, love, I'll go out and get my cigarettes and the paper."

She fumbled in her pocketbook and gave him a five-dollar bill. "All I want is a quarter," he said.

"I have no change," she lied.

She held his coat for him and, when he had it on, she turned him around and buttoned it for him. "Come right back, hear?" she said as she said every morning.

"I will," he promised, as he promised every morning.

She took his hands in hers and pressed her cheek to his hands. "Oh, Claude, I love you so much!" she said.

He kissed her and went out for cigarettes and the paper as he did every morning.

But on this morning, hi did not come back.

[3/7]

~ CHAPTI,R FORTY-FOUR ~

'Now that he's out of the house, I'm going to move me bedstead downstairs," said E'at.

"Leave it where it is, Papa. You'll only have to drag it back up when Claude comes home."