Stephen Dixon - Friends - More Will and Magna Stories

She calls and says “I just heard. It’s terrific news. Lilly just phoned and told me. I can’t tell you how happy I am.”

“Yes, I told Lilly a few days ago. I didn’t know if she’d tell you.”

“It’s just wonderful. That you could do it, and so easily. And she’s met the woman. She says she’s so intelligent and nice. I’m so happy. I know it’s what you wanted. I wish it would’ve worked for us as easily. After three years with her, and — well, it’s just beautiful. Five years with me and we still couldn’t do it, right? It was always bad timing, always that bad timing, that’s what did it. I’m sorry. But I’m glad it’s now going to finally happen for you.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“What you always wanted. Maybe we should’ve married. You wanted to so much — and the baby. You wanted that so much too. I didn’t. I couldn’t — it was absolutely the wrong time. Do I repeat myself too much? — but it was. You don’t want to have a baby when all you’re thinking about is breaking apart, right? And getting rid of the baby — well, not a baby, but it would’ve been much more than a baby by now — that was the real killer. But I’m so happy for you. Ecstatic, really. When’s it going to happen?”

“The marriage?”

“The marriage, the wedding — of course, what else?”

“We think around February. February 8th to be exact. A very small wedding. Just my brother and sisters and their spouses and my mom and Magna’s parents and her uncle and aunts.”

“Magna, that’s right.”

“Maybe her closest friend too — someone who was like a sister to her and still is — but that’s it.”

“Magna. I like it. It’s a great name. Sounds European, though that’s not why I’m saying I like it.”

“Her parents came from there. She was born here.”

“Well, that should make her a little closer to you and your family, with your background, and also the same religion Lilly says. That’s probably wise, not that we ever had any trouble that way. But I’m so happy for you. It’s just fantastic. I know I’m overdosing with the gushes here, but you don’t know how happy I am for you. I know how much marriage means to you. How much you wanted to marry me. At times I wanted to marry you too. Now I don’t think it’ll ever happen with me again — marriage. I’ve been in love all of four times, married once, I’m 41 and my last big love affair was with you which started when I was 32.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll happen again.”

“That’s nice of you to say, but I don’t think so. But I’m so glad she’s such a nice person. She must be a bit wild too, right? Because if I know us both, we couldn’t have anyone who wasn’t just a little wild. That’s what I think and there are so few wonderful and comfortably wild people around. But what are your plans after the wedding?”

“For her to continue teaching in New York, me in Baltimore, and then in May, when her contract ends — well, even if it didn’t, since my job is much better than hers — to get a two-bedroom apartment here and for her to move in with me. For us to move in together, I mean.”

“That’s wonderful. And you don’t know how much I appreciate, and Lilly does, your including her in your wedding plans. She says you invited her to it, but her winter break will be over by then, so before she goes you’re having a pre-nuptial party at Magna’s place for Lilly and your nieces and nephews.”

“We didn’t want — couldn’t have, really, all of them at the wedding. Lilly, yes, because, well, since I lived with you both, she’s a little more special than the rest. Maybe that would’ve been wrong, having her at the wedding and not the others — I’m not sure.”

“No, it’s wonderful and right. You’ve been like a second father to her. In some ways, better for her than her father. Oh, maybe you just balance him out. But I’m so lonely without her. What a change. For both of us — maybe you too. The place seems so empty. At first I’d come home and call out for her. ‘Lilly, Lilly.’ Nicky thought I was crazy.”

“Nicky?”

“Your ‘Licky Nicky’—the cat. I also called home a couple of times and wondered why there was no answer. Nuts, right? Why isn’t she home from high school? I thought. High school? She’s in college — in California — and has a serious love interest going.”

“No.”

“Yes. Don’t be upset.”

“I’m not. She’s just too young.”

“She’s not too young. She might even be a year or two behind. I’m not pushing her, of course, but I can’t be a hypocrite. I was doing it at sixteen. And by serious, I don’t know about how serious. It could still be innocent — a little hand holding, a kiss. I will be meeting him at Thanksgiving, though. I’ll be out there on business and arranged to stay a few extra days and Lilly says we’re having dinner at his apartment. He’s cooking it all himself, trimmings included.”

“He must be pretty capable then.”

“He’s nice, she says, and one of their brightest students, and I just love it that you react to it like her real father. It shows how much she means to you. And she’s really only a phone call away from us, right? So I’ve adjusted to it, but I still hate to be home alone. Hate it, but nothing I can do.”

“Come on, that won’t last long. You’re intelligent and attractive and very successful now for someone who changed her profession such a short time ago. You’ll meet someone. Some guy in your field, for instance, in New York, or when you do make these trips.”

“God no. They’re all in vests. But tight vests, each trying to outdo the other to look like a high-powered exec, and they only read books and listen to music and look at art for entertainment. They tell me this. To my face. I think, Jesus, boy, they sure don’t know me. Oh, I got interested in a couple of them the last year, but after a month they get so damn boring. That’s what I mean about being a little wild. Not crazy, just loose. These men don’t say or do anything but what’s relevant to their profession or what you and I would never get seriously interested in. Football. Can you believe it? Picture me at a game — one guy took me to one. ‘Rah rah’ he wanted me to say. They think it’s unusual I don’t know anything about it — or cute, that’s the word one used, and he’s going to teach me. I’ll tell you. When I look around, and hear the same complaints from a dozen other intelligent attractive women, I realize what I had in you.”

“Gee, that’s—”

“No no, that’s no slight. You certainly weren’t perfect — I wasn’t in any way either — but at least you were devoted and faithful, a bit tortured sometimes, but you would have been okay. You would have been very nice to come home to after work. You were always sweet and concerned or mostly always. You cooked. You were clean. You had some humor and were a lot deeper and not pretentious and cold like these men. I suppose I should have stayed with you, but that awful bad timing always messedit up, right? It killed us. I was just coming out of a bad ten-year marriage, you were coming out of about five years of complete loneliness. All wrong. Too bad. Because I wish it had worked. It would have if I had let it I suppose. But I couldn’t have, so it’s not as if I mind now. And I’m thrilled the way it worked out for you. You’re happy now, and you have what you always said you wanted most.”

“In my personal life, yes — I’m very happy. She’s very nice.”

“She must be. You wouldn’t choose anyone else but someone extremely bright and wonderful, and someone like that would only choose someone like you.”