Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“Hey, the picture’s going to start,” Morton said. “Come on.”

He took her arm and they walked through the museum, and she kept watching him, puzzled because she had not yet made her decision, puzzled because she even considered making a decision, and feeling no guilt at all, she was not betraying Matthew nor her children, she was betraying no one by her consideration of something she had always thought of as betrayal, “keep you alone unto him as long as you both shall live.”

They sat together in the darkened theater. She took his hand and held it. Thousands upon thousands of stop-action photos flashed upon the screen, spliced together to show the blooming process of a plant from tightly closed bud to extended flower. She thought, That’s the way it was, that’s the way you get married, and then she shoved the thought aside because she did not wish to defile a memory that was no longer even that, a blur instead, something that had happened very long ago to a very young and innocent girl.

But that was how it had been, she knew. Photo upon photo flashed in rapid succession upon a screen, no single photo important in itself, the change imperceptible from one still shot to the next, and yet each separate shot essential to the steadily unfolding sequence, each barely discernible change combining to form an overwhelmingly dramatic change, the juxtaposition of a remembered closed bud against a sudden bloom touched by morning sun. That is the way people get married, she thought.

Six-thirty was not very far away. Six-thirty was a heart tick away when they came out into the cold again, when the sudden cold attacked their faces and their eyes, six-thirty was so very near. They stood on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-third Street. The street lamps were on, the department-store windows were lighted, they beckoned like potbellied stoves. The taxicabs rushed along the street. Amanda and Morton stood on the street corner with the wind lashing at them. They seemed like lovers. To the passer-by, to the casual passer-by intent on the cracks in the pavement, they looked like secret lovers, and perhaps they were.

“Do you think we can have lunch sometime?” Morton asked hesitantly.

She searched his face, open and sweet, he has such a sweet face, she thought. She reached up and touched his mouth with one ungloved hand.

“I don’t think so, Morton,” she said.

He smiled. He nodded. He seemed pleased somehow.

“Goodbye, Amanda,” he said. He took her hand. He would have been content with a handshake. She leaned close to him suddenly and kissed him on the cheek, and then awkwardly said, “I’ve got lipstick on you,” and rubbed at the stain with her gloved hand, and then squeezed his hand and said, “Goodbye, Morton,” and turned away from him quickly and walked across the avenue against a light, and knew that he watched her until she was out of sight, and told herself the tears in her eyes were caused by the wind.

Sixteen-year-old Kate Bridges was curled impossibly into a straw basket chair on the sun porch, the telephone against her ear, one long leg wound around the leg of the chair, the other draped over its arm, so that arms and legs of girl and chair bathed in sunlight gave an impression of straw-colored intertwined warmth. Her blond hair was clipped short, brushed back from an oval face with shining cheeks and shining nose, blue eyes studying the ceiling and then the floor, and then a speck of imaginary lint on the navy-blue cashmere, her free hand picking off a small twisted knot of wool and then dropping to the skin-tight jeans and stroking the faded blue. “Yes,” she said, “Agnes, I am not a total idiot, I can understand your problem.”

Bobby Bridges burst onto the sun porch in a spurt of nine-year-old energy, knocking the telephone book from its stand, nearly knocking the phone itself to the floor in his casual awkward growing way.

“I’m on the phone, Bobby,” Kate said.

“So?”

“I’m on the phone, would you mind?”

“I can see you’re on the phone,” Bobby said.

“Do you want me to call Mother?”

“Why? What am I doing?”

“You make me nervous, bumping into everything. Agnes, would you mind holding on a minute? I’ve got to deal with the vermin.” She put the receiver down in her lap and said, “I’ll give you three seconds to vanish, Bobby.”

“This is my house, too. What am I doing?”

“One,” Kate said.

“Are you going to town?”

“Two.”

“Because if you are, Mommy says you should pick up some model paint for me. Black and red, here’s fifty cents.”

Kate took the money. “All right, now disappear.”

“Who you talking to?”

“None of your business. Bobby, I’m going to call Mother in a minute. I mean it.”

“I only asked who you’re talking to. What is it, a big senator secret?”

“Now just what is that supposed to mean? I wish you wouldn’t use words you don’t understand.”

“Those pants are too tight. Daddy’s gonna take a fit.”

“He’s already seen them.” She picked up the phone. “Just a minute, Agnes.” She put down the phone again. “Bobby, this is important. Will you please get out of here?”

“Everything’s important,” Bobby said. He shrugged his shoulders. “I wish the Russians would drop a bomb on you.”

“If it drops on me, it’ll drop on you, too.”

“I’m impermanent,” Bobby said.

“Impervious,” Kate corrected.

“Tell Agnes she’s bowlegged and has a fat behind,” Bobby said, and he rushed out of the room. Kate rolled her eyes to the ceiling and picked up the phone.

“Who was that?” Agnes asked. “Your brother?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say about me? I heard my name.”

“Nothing. He’s beginning to notice girls, that’s all.”

“At eight years old?”

“He’s nine. Don’t underestimate him.”

“That still seems awfully young,” Agnes said. “Frankenstein didn’t enter prepuberty until at least eleven.”

“Do they get any better at eleven?”

“Worse.” Agnes paused. “Well, what should we do, Katie?”

“I think we should forget the whole thing.”

“That’s only because you don’t like Paul.”

“I like him very much. But if he wants me to go out with him, why doesn’t he call me? I don’t see why he has to go through Ralph, and why Ralph has to ask you to ask me.”

“He’s shy.”

“Oh-ho, he’s shy.”

“He is, Kate. Really, he is. He’s a very shy person.”

“Well, if he’s that shy, I’m not interested. What is this, the Miles Standish bit? He’s got to send someone to ask you to ask me to go out with him?”

“Well, you see, I want to go out with Ralph.”

“I understand that, Aggie. I wish you’d quit telling me you want to go out with him. I know you do. That’s understood. If you want to date him, then go ahead. I’ll sit home and knit.”

“But he won’t go out with me unless you date Paul.”

“That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life!”

“Katie, it’s true. I know it.”

“You don’t know it, Ag. You’re only surmising. Did Ralph say so?”

“No, but...”

“All right, you just call Ralph back and tell him my number is Talmadge 4-0712, and if Paul wants to call me I’ll be here for the next five minutes, dressing, and I’ll be happy to hear whatever he has to say.”

“Ahhh, Kate.”

“Well now, really, put yourself in my position. It’s degrading, Ag. It really is.”

“Why? Ralph called, didn’t he?”

“Well, what’s the matter with Paul? Can’t he pick up a telephone?”