Anne Tyler - The Amateur Marriage

A few people tittered dutifully.

Behind the St. Cassian’s women, two men were discussing the Orioles. One of them said he’d given up hope. The other said just to wait. Everything would be different, he said, in 1943.

Wanda came back and sat down, out of breath, rustling and bustling importantly.

What was it? the women asked, leaning forward.

Pauline had changed her mind.

Had what?

The answer came in patches, altering slightly from woman to woman as it was relayed down the row, whispered even in this hubbub so that no one in any other pew could hear.

Says she doesn’t know what she was thinking… says all they do is fight… says he never wants to go anyplace and… always so unsocial and… such a different style of person from her, so set in his ways, won’t budge…

“Always does what? Never wants to go where? ” Mrs. Serge asked from the far end. “Wait, I didn’t catch that.”

Mrs. Zack said every bride felt that way. That was what weddings were all about! Wanda said Michael had said the same thing. He’d said, “Now, Poll, you’re just overwrought,” and Pauline had said, “Don’t tell me I’m—”

“Ssh!” Mrs. Serge said.

Seated closest to the aisle, she was the first to notice the stir at the rear of the church. The women turned. The other guests turned. The piano came to with a start and started playing “Here Comes the Bride” as Michael and Pauline walked toward the altar hand in hand. Not arm in arm, the way people did at snootier, more stilted weddings, but tightly holding hands and wearing radiant smiles.

They were such a perfect couple. They were taking their very first steps on the amazing journey of marriage, and wonderful adventures were about to unfold in front of them.

Pauline said, “Once upon a time, there was a woman who had a birthday.”

Michael stopped pouring his cereal and looked across the table at her.

“It was January fifth,” Pauline said. “The woman was twenty-three.”

“Why, that’s your birthday, too!” Michael’s mother told her. “That’s how old you turned, only yesterday!”

“And because this woman happened to be at a low point in her life,” Pauline went on, “she was feeling very sensitive about her age.”

Michael said, cautiously, “A low point in her life?”

Pauline rose to reposition the baby in her high chair. The baby had reached the stage where she could sit up, but just barely. Left on her own, she tended to slide gradually downwards until her chin was resting on her chest.

“Yes, she wasn’t awfully attractive just then,” Pauline said, taking her seat again. “She was two months pregnant and sick as a dog, and she still hadn’t got her figure back from the last time she was pregnant. Also, her husband was a quarter-year younger than she was. For three months after every birthday, she was an Older Woman. Can you imagine how that felt? She was old and fat and ugly, and her bosom was starting to sag.”

Pauline herself was prettier than ever, in Michael’s opinion. This early in the morning, unrouged and unlipsticked, wearing a flowered chintz housecoat, she looked as fresh as a child. The second pregnancy had not begun to show yet, whatever she might imagine, and the only apparent effect of the first was the thrilling new roundness and weightiness of her breasts. Michael could almost feel them filling his hands as she spoke. He smiled; he tried to catch her eye. But Pauline was saying, “More coffee, Mother Anton?”

“No, thank you, dear. You know what it does to my stomach,” Michael’s mother said.

“Luckily for this woman,” Pauline continued, “her husband was very understanding. He hated for her to feel bad! He decided he would devote himself to making her birthday perfect.”

Michael stirred uneasily. He had certainly not forgotten her birthday — nothing so unforgivable as that — but neither could he say he had devoted himself to making it perfect. (It had fallen on a weekday this year. He did have a business to run.)

“He got up in the morning,” Pauline said, “he tiptoed out to the kitchen, he fixed her French toast and orange juice. He came back with a tray and said, ‘Happy birthday, darling!’ Then he brought her the flowers that he’d stowed earlier on the fire escape. A dozen long-stemmed roses; never mind the expense. ‘You’re worth every bit of it, darling,’ he said. ‘I just wish they could be rubies.’”

Pauline was bright-eyed and her voice had a cheery ring to it, so that Michael’s mother was fooled completely. She gave a sigh of satisfaction. “Wasn’t that romantic!” she told Michael. (Since those two dizzy spells last summer, she had seemed less quick-witted.) But Michael watched Pauline in silence, his fingers tight on his napkin.

“And her present,” Pauline said, “was…”

For the first time, she faltered. She turned to untie the baby’s bib.

“… was something personal,” she said finally. “A bottle of cologne, or a see-through nightie. He would never give her anything useful! And he’d never just tell her to buy it herself! He’d never say, ‘Happy birthday, hon, and why don’t you stop by Zack’s Housewares and pick up one of those family-size canning kettles you’ve been telling me you needed.’”

Michael felt his mother send him an uncertain glance. She said, “Oh. Well…”

“But what am I boring you with this for?” Pauline caroled. “It’s not as if we live that way ourselves, now, is it?”

And she sprang lightly to her feet and lifted Lindy from the high chair and carried her out of the kitchen.

Downstairs in the grocery store, Michael slit open a cardboard carton and unpacked tins of peaches. He stacked them on a shelf above a tab that read 17¢—18 POINTS. In his head he was defending himself. “Was I supposed to read your mind, or what?” he silently asked Pauline. “How would I know what you want for your birthday? I’m twenty-two years old! The only woman I’ve ever bought a gift for is my mother! And Mama’s always loved getting presents that were useful!”

He recalled the moment when the inspiration of the canning kettle had hit him — the flood of relief as he remembered Pauline’s complaints about his mother’s little dinky one. He had been so proud of himself! Now a wounded feeling swept through him.

And notice how she had said nothing about her birthday cake. Chocolate cake, with chocolate icing spread not just across the top (“flat top” style, as the Ration Board called it) but down the sides as well. Who did she imagine had asked his mother to make that cake? Left to her own devices, his mother probably wouldn’t have remembered what day it was, even.

Eustace emerged from the stockroom, toting a crate of eggs. He set it down by the refrigerator case and straightened, groaning, to massage the small of his back. “Must be going to snow,” he said, “achy as my bones has been.”

“Yup, my hip says the same,” Michael told him.

“You got them items ready for Miz Pozniak?”

“They’re over by the register.”

Eustace went to check. The groceries were in a canvas sack of the sort that newsboys carried, with a strap that crossed the chest bandolier-fashion. (Eustace was too old, he claimed, to learn to ride the delivery bike with its oversized wire basket that Michael had used as a boy.) He heaved the sack onto his shoulder and approached the door just as Mrs. Serge walked in. “Morning, Eustace! Morning, Michael!” she said, stepping to one side so Eustace could pass.

“Good morning, Mrs. Serge,” Michael said. He rose from the carton of peaches and reached for his cane. “Cold enough for you?”