Elizabeth McCracken - The Giant's House - A Romance

“Not yet!” Leila pounded the top of the table. The sugar pourer jumped into the napkin dispenser. “Actually, it is a tragedy. I forgot, I already have one husband.”

“ One husband!” said James.

“One husband at once,” said Leila primly. “That is a rule I don’t break so far. Five husbands in a row, not all together.”

“You’ve been married five times?” I said.

“See, Jimmy? She is surprised. She thinks I am too small for husbands. She is curious.” She pulled a rhinestone cigarette case out of her bag and lit a cigarette with a matching rhinestone lighter. I had a feeling Leila owned matched sets of everything. “They say, to smoke makes you short. I must not lose my job, and so I smoke much. Also it helps me eat less. Yes.” She pulled an empty plate over for an ashtray. “Five husbands so far.”

“Five husbands, for anyone—”

Leila hoisted her coffee cup and blew some smoke across the top. She said, gravely, “God has been good to me. This is all I will say.”

“Have your husbands been”—I couldn’t think of a tactful way to say In the circus . “Show people?” I tried.

“You mean short,” said Leila.

“No, no. I meant. Well.”

“My first husband, Al, was tall to me, short to everyone else, five foot. Next one, Francis, taller. They get taller, boop, boop, boop—” She made her hand climb some invisible steps to show the evolution of her husbands, her cigarette dragging smoke behind it. “Rafe, my newest, is maybe six feet tall.”

“Really,” I said.

“Such a surprise?”

“Six feet is — well, isn’t that a lot taller than you?”

“I like tall,” said Leila, winking. “I like big . My mother told me look for short men because they are used to less, they will be satisfied for me. Now I think, but am I satisfied for them? All my life, I eat less than other people, breathe less air, less material for my clothes, less wood for my furniture. Some things I should be allowed to have more of, isn’t that right? So I decided: never again am I stingy about men. The more man, the better. This is why I like your boy. You know this song?”

She paused, as if we would know what song she was talking about, even if we’d never heard it. Then she started to sing. She had a sweet, deep voice; her accent and the cigarette made it seem, briefly, as if we were in a cabaret instead of an Automat.

“ ‘I got a man that’s more than eight foot tall, four foot shoulders and that ain’t all.…’

“No?” she said. “You never heard this?”

“I don’t listen to the radio,” I said.

“Oh, no, this song was never on the radio. Julia Lee. She is colored and a little, mmmmmm, risqué . Records and jukeboxes. I heard for the first time in a bar in Kansas City. I own the record, and I will send it to you. ‘They built the Boulder Dam, the Empire State, and then they made my man, and is he great!’ ”

Then she moved away the sweet roll so she could put her elbow on the table, propped up her chin, and gazed at James like a starstruck teenager until he looked away in embarrassment. “Ah,” she said. “You must not be shy.”

James looked back at her and gave a wry smile that dimpled one cheek. I’d never seen that smile before. “You make me shy. Usually I’m not.”

“Oh,” said Leila. “I don’t want to make anyone this way.” She turned to me, and suddenly I felt the shyness fall over me like a tossed blanket. Her eyes were black and damp as olives. She regarded me with what seemed to be great affection.

“You’re a pretty girl. Maybe Jimmy will be my next,” she said. “But Rafe I just married. In a few years Jimmy and I meet again, run off. Meanwhile, he should marry whoever he likes. You, maybe.” She picked up her cigarette, looked at it, and put it back down. “Maybe you and Jimmy, right?”

“No,” I said. “Do you mind if I get some coffee?” I looked around for a waitress, then remembered where I was.

“Why not?” she said. “Are you already married? You have no ring.”

“No.”

“See? Jimmy’s not, too. Everyone should get married. We will drive to New Jersey. I will be matron of honor. I like all weddings.”

“Well, Leila,” said James. “Not everyone likes to get married that fast.”

Suddenly I saw us, in an office somewhere — me in a cream wedding suit, James in the top hat and tails the circus tried to talk him into. Leila, I was sure, would wear white — any opportunity to look like a bride — sequined certainly, perhaps trimmed in white fur. She’d look like the sugar pourer, luxuriously full and sparkling. She’d give away the groom, humming the wedding march, holding on to his pant leg. At the altar she’d stand right up on her tiptoes to get a good look at everything. There’d be no way to get the three of us in one snapshot.

“I haven’t got a dress,” I said.

“Oh, dresses. They think they need dresses to get married. They think they need rings and cake. No. You need these: man, woman, minister, flowers, honeymoon.”

“Flowers?” said James.

“Must have,” said Leila.

“Well, maybe we’ll do it,” I said. “You make it sound so sensible.”

“And for honeymoon you will go to Niagara. I went there.”

“Which husband?” asked James.

“Most. Niagara is best. So we’ll go now? To get married? You look fine,” she said to me. “Comb your hair. Eat this bun and we will go.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right now?”

“Don’t want to get married? Darling. No. My advice is good. Here—” She pushed the sweet roll closer. “Skinny girl, eat this bun, it will bring you good luck for your wedding. Sweet start, sweet life.”

James laughed. “Leila, you’re in love with weddings.”

“Yes!” she said. “I am in love with many things. Weddings and Niagara Falls and men. I am always in love. See my cheeks? Pink, always, because I am always in love. You too, you be in love and you don’t need to sleep so much, think so much. Yes,” she said, to herself more than to us. “You must get married. New Jersey is minutes away.”

“I’d like a longer engagement,” I said.

“You don’t need!” she said. “Engagements — they are like a prayer before eating, best quick.”

“I’m too young to get married,” said James. He was flirting. I’d never seen him do that before either, though of course it was like dancing — easy, if you did it with someone who really knew how to lead. “I think I’ll just wait for you, Leila. In ten years, I’ll be your husband number eleven.”

Leila smiled at him. “Okay. Too bad for your friend, but good for me. In ten years we will meet here again and get married. You—” She kicked me under the table, the toe of her shoe just touching my knee. “You don’t want this bun? It’s good.”

“No.”

She picked up the sweet roll, which looked as big as a hat in her hand. “Famous circus lady, Carrie Akers, was the world’s fattest short person, or shortest fat person. Three hundred pounds, my height. I try to avoid this. But I will eat the wedding bun, for my own good luck. Ten years we will meet again. You I will marry,” she said to James, “and you will be my maid of honor. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. Every day my heart was broken newly, more efficiently. “I’ll bring the flowers.”

“Roses,” said Leila. “Must have.”

Late that night, I heard a door open. Not all the way at first, just the tongue of a latch plocking as a doorknob turned. I looked to my right, to the door that opened into the hallway, but it was shut. Then the other door, the one that led to a door that led to James’s room, swung open, toward me.