Anne Tyler - The Amateur Marriage

Mr. Kostka asked Michael what branch of the service he’d joined. This was in Sweda’s Drugs, which had reopened under the management of Mr. Sweda’s brother-in-law. Michael and Pauline were sitting at one of the marble-topped tables; they’d been observed together often over the past few days. Michael said, “The Army,” and Mr. Kostka said, “Is that a fact! I’d have thought the Navy.”

“Yes, but I get seasick,” Michael told him.

Mr. Kostka said, “Well, young fellow, the Army’s not going to ship you over by motorcar, you know.”

Michael got a sort of startled look.

“And when do you leave for boot camp?” Mr. Kostka inquired.

Michael paused. Then, “Monday,” he said.

“Monday!” By now it was Saturday. “Has your mother lined up any help at the store?”

Oh, sneaky; very sneaky. Everybody knew that Mrs. Anton had no idea Michael had enlisted. But who was going to tell her? Even Mrs. Zack, famous for interfering, claimed she hadn’t the heart. They were all waiting for Michael to do it; but here he sat, sipping Coke with Pauline, and the only thing he would say was “I’m sure she’ll find someone or other.”

Pauline was wearing red again. Red seemed to be her color. A red sweater over a crisp white shirt with a rounded collar. It was known by now that she came from a neighborhood north of Eastern Avenue; that she wasn’t even Catholic; that she worked as a receptionist in her father’s realty office. How this was known was through Wanda Bryk, who had somehow become Pauline’s new best friend. It was Wanda who reported that Pauline was just the nicest person imaginable, and so much fun! So vivacious! Just always up to some mischief. But others had their reservations. Those seated at the soda fountain, now. You think they weren’t cocking their ears to hear what foolish talk she might be filling Michael’s head with? Not to mention they could see her in the long mirror behind the counter. They saw how she tucked her face down, all dimpling and demure, fingers toying coquettishly with the straw in her Coca-Cola. They heard her murmuring that she wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink nights, fearing for his safety. What right did she have to fear for his safety? She barely even knew him! Michael was one of their own, one of the neighborhood favorites, although not till now considered the romantic type. (Over the past few days a number of girls, Katie Vilna and several others, had started wondering if he might possess some unsuspected qualities.)

Old Miss Jakubek, drinking seltzer at the counter with Miss Pelowski, reported that the evening before, she had gone up to Pauline at the movies and told her she looked like Deanna Durbin. “Well, she does, in a way,” she defended herself. “I know she’s a blonde, but she does have that, oh, that dentable soft skin. But what did she say? ‘Deanna Durbin!’ she said. ‘That’s just not true! I look like me! I don’t look like anyone!’”

“Tsk, tsk,” Miss Pelowski sympathized. “You were only trying to be nice.”

“I myself would love it if someone told me I looked like Deanna Durbin.”

Miss Pelowski drew back on her stool and studied Miss Jakubek. “Well, you do, around the chin, a little,” she said.

“His poor, poor mother, is all I can think. And the girl is nothing; no nationality. Not even Ukrainian; not even Italian! Italian I might be able to handle. But ‘Barclay’! She and Michael don’t have the least little thing in common.”

“It’s like Romeo and Juliet, ” Miss Pelowski said.

Both women thought for a moment. Then they glanced toward the mirror again. They saw that Pauline was crying; that Michael was leaning across the table to cup her chrysanthemum head in both hands.

“They do seem very much in love,” Miss Jakubek said.

That night there was a huge going-away party for Jerry Kowalski. Depend on the Kowalskis to make more of a fuss than other people. Other people had been seeing their boys off all week with no more than a nice family dinner, but the Kowalskis rented the Sons of Warsaw Fellowship Hall and hired Lenny Zee and his Dulcetones to play. Mrs. Kowalski and her mother cooked for days; giant kegs of beer were rolled in. The whole of St. Cassian’s Church was invited, as well as a few from St. Stan.

And of course, everyone came. Even babies and small children; even Mr. Zynda in his cane-seated wooden wheelchair. Mrs. Anton arrived in a ruffly blouse and ribbon-trimmed dirndl skirt that made her look grayer than ever, and Michael wore a pinchy suit that might have been his father’s. His raw, bare wrist bones poked forth from the sleeves. A white flake of toilet paper clung to a nick on his chin.

But where was Pauline?

Most certainly she had been invited, at least by implication. “Feel free to bring a date,” Mrs. Kowalski had told Michael — in his mother’s presence, no less. (Oh, Mrs. Kowalski was widely known to be a bit of an imp.) But the only girls here were neighborhood girls, and when the first polka started sawing away, it was Katie Vilna who came over to Michael and pulled him onto the dance floor. She was the forward one of the group. She kept tight hold of his hand even when he resisted. Eventually, he gave in and began awkwardly hippityhopping, every now and then glancing toward the door as if he were expecting somebody.

The Fellowship Hall was a warehouse-like building with splintery floors and metal rafters and naked overhead lightbulbs. Card tables draped with hand-stitched heirloom linens lined the far wall, and it was here that the older women gathered, scrutinizing Mrs. Kowalski’s pierogi and finickily readjusting the sprigs of parsley garnish after one or another of the men had passed through loading his plate. When they stood back to watch the dancing, they tended to clasp their hands on their stomachs as if folding them beneath aprons, even though not a one of them actually wore an apron. They commented on Grandfather Kowalskis sprightly step, on the evident chill between the Wysockis (newlyweds), and — of course — on Katie Vilna’s unbelievable nerve. “I swear, she has no shame,” Mrs. Golka said. “I’d die if one of my girls was to chase a boy that way.”

“Fine chance she has, anyhow, with that Pauline person in the picture.”

“Where is Pauline, though? Wouldn’t you think she would be here?”

“She’s not coming,” Wanda announced.

Wanda had approached unnoticed, her footsteps drowned out by the music. (Otherwise, the women never would have said what they did about Katie.) She forked a kielbasa onto her plate. She said, “Pauline’s miffed that Michael wouldn’t call for her.”

“Call for her?”

“At her folks’ house.”

“But why—?”

“He wanted to spare his mother’s feelings. You know how his mother can be. He told Pauline to meet him here; they’d act like it was just happenstance when they ran into each other. And first she said okay, but then I guess she reconsidered because when I phoned her this evening, she told me she wasn’t coming. She said she was the kind of girl a fellow should be proud to be seen with, not all ashamed and hidey-corner.”

Wanda moved off toward the dessert table, leaving a silence behind her. “Well, she’s right,” Mrs. Golka said finally. “A girl has to set some standards.”

“He was only thinking of his mother, though.”

“And what good will that do him, might I ask, when Dolly Anton’s dead and gone and Michael’s a seedy old bachelor?”

“For mercy’s sake,” Mrs. Pozniak said, “the boy is twenty years old! He’s got a long way to go before he’s a seedy old bachelor.”

Mrs. Golka didn’t seem convinced. She was gazing after Wanda. “But does he know,” she said, “or not?”