by Ed Lacy
I kissed the cool, smooth skin of her belly. “Hello in there. You're going to be our child,” I said, and I meant it. For some reason I was almost pleased she was pregnant, as though it was an unbreakable bond between us.
Elma rubbed her stomach against my nose, said, “I'm starved. We'll eat and then we'll talk.” She stepped out of the tub. Her long legs made her a few inches taller than I was.
I finished drying her, gently pressed her against my chest. “Elma, maybe this doesn't make sense. Sounds like a confession story, but we haven't known each other twenty-four hours, yet I'm in love with you. Very much and very honestly in love with you.”
“I know, Marsh, and it doesn't matter if it makes sense or not, it adds up for us. I'm so happy and contented when I'm with you. That must be love.”
“Who knows what love is? Or cares? Whatever we feel, it's great. Look, Elma, is it okay to...?”
“The books say it's healthy and normal up to the last two months. Shall we go back to bed?”
Kissing her I whispered, “Yeah, in a minute. Right now I have to... Get out of the bathroom, we're not that much of a married couple, yet!” I shoved her out, shut the door, and urinated like a wild horse.
Around noon, we took a shower together, playing around like a couple of backward kids. We paid for the room for another night, went out and had a terrific breakfast.
It was sunny but cold out and the streets not too wet. Elma said, “Let's take a walk—along Fifth Avenue. Or a bus ride.”
We walked up the, Avenue and after awhile she started talking about her husband, talking very calmly. She said, “I'm a Norwegian. Got some Lapp in me—accounts for the eyes. My...”
“Good for the Lapps!”
“My father brought me to Canada when I was a baby, after my mother died. He had a sister living in Toronto. He was killed in a truck accident when I was a youngster. I lived with my aunt's family and came to the States a few years ago—to get a job, finish college. I always thought I was a Canadian citizen, but actually I'm not. For some reason, father never became a citizen and...”
“Forget all that. What about your husband?” I asked impatiently.
“But this is all a part of it. I worked in Detroit for a year, then came to New York, where I found a job with this record company. Mac—my husband's name is Maxwell —isn't a bad sort. But he's weak. He comes from a rich— not really rich but very comfortable—family. Mac's father died a long time ago and he's the apple of his mother's eye—real silver-cord stuff. His mama has a chain of jewelry and accessory shops in New Jersey. Mac began playing the clarinet when a kid, went to Juilliard but didn't graduate. He tried out for classical orchestras, but that's a tough grind. Then he began playing dates with a few minor jazz bands. When I met him he was on an arranging kick. Mac was...”
“A what?”
“He was making arrangements for some of the smaller bands. That's another tough racket to get ahead in. Trouble with Mac is, he just can't be an ordinary musician, and he hasn't enough guts to really work and study to be an above-average music man. Anyway, the record company had a house band that used to back up the lesser known singers. Mac hung around, did some arrangements for them. He had to work cheap and this company—they cut every corner in the game. That's how we met. I suppose I felt sorry for him —he was making a fight to stay out of his mother's shops, trying to be on his own, doing what he wanted in life. Only he was losing the fight. The record outfit was tight with wages and long on profits, so when a union showed its head, Mac and I helped organize the place. There was a strike, we lost, and I got the bounce. The day we lost the strike, Mac and I were married, went on a short honeymoon. We were happy, I guess, but when he took me to New Jersey to meet mama—the roof came down on everything. Mama didn't like me—to put it mildly. She hated my guts.”
“She must be a loon.”
Elma shrugged. “I don't think she'd like any wife of Mac's; still thought of him as her little boy belonging only to her. In...”
“I know the type.”
“In my case she palmed it off on the grounds that we were of different religions. Mama had been lonely most of her life, turned to religion, and became a sort of fanatic. Anyway, it gave her a basis for undermining our marriage. As it happens, I believe you can worship God any way you wish, so I have little... eh... formal religion and I'd have been willing to change that to hers, but in the old lady's eyes that wouldn't do much good. Besides, it was on this point that Mac decided to take a stand—a great, big mad-as-hell stand.”
“Good for him.”
“No, it was his way of ducking the real issue—mama. Mac is one of these persons who fight like the devil on little things, and run from the big ones. By the way, Marsh, are you religious?”
“Yeah, I worship you.”
“Seriously, we might as well iron this out before...”
“Relax, Elma, I feel the way you do—let each person communicate with God, or their God, as they wish. And if a person doesn't believe in a divine power, that's his business. All I ask of a person is not to be a hypocrite. But let's get on with you and dear Maxwell.”
Elma stared at me with puzzled eyes for a moment. “Marsh,” we've known each other so few hours, I don't know when you're kidding me or not.”
I squeezed her hand. “Honey, one thing you can always know for sure—I'd never do anything to hurt you. Nor do I think you'd ever try to hurt me.” I suddenly laughed—to cover up my embarrassment at being so frank. “Now we sound like a couple of mooning school kids,” I added. “But don't start old blabbermouth me talking, I want to do the listening.”
“All right, I'll talk you deaf and dumb,” Elma said. “I didn't take Mac's mother too seriously at first, thought it was the usual case of mother-in-law trouble. And Mac, in making his big pitch about religious freedom and all that, almost talked back to mama—for the first time in his life. We lived together for several months and I assumed mama had gotten over the shock that her little boy was now a husband. Living in New York, we didn't see her often anyway. But the old woman was merely lying back in the woods, waiting to ambush me. Since both Mac and I were out of work, we had money troubles, but I got a job as a salesgirl and Mac still had his union card and picked up a couple of recording dates, so we were eating. One Sunday mama paid us a pop call and was shocked at our living in a furnished room. She said Mac should come home and run their Newark store, maybe I could work there too. She even had a big furnished apartment lined up for us. We accepted. Our big error.”
“Why? Sounds like a good deal.”
“It was wrong from all angles. Mama had Mac in her grip again, a double grip, because she had him tightly by the purse hairs now, too. And poor Mac, it knocked whatever little self-confidence he had smack out of him. He always hated being a storekeeper, some sort of phony conception of his being an artist, all that bunk and snob-appeal. So when we got our fancy apartment in North Bergen, a car, started to learn the ropes of the store... well, the more we got, the more Mac's ego began dragging on the ground; it was all a kind of surrender—to him—that finished him as a man. Maybe you can't see the picture, since you don't know Mac.”
I said, “Seems to me the guy is crying with a loaf of bread in his kisser.”
Elma shrugged again. “Could be this is all rationalizing on my part, to build up my own ego, own explanation for a wrong marriage. Point is, by this time I realized what a weakling Mac was—where mama was concerned—but I thought I could snap him out of it. But the more he worked in the store, more sour he became, started drinking. As it happened, we were making a success of the store, so I suggested I might be able to handle the store alone and he could go back to arranging. That might have worked, but the baby changed all that.”
She stopped talking and after we'd walked a block and she kept staring ahead as though I wasn't there, I finally asked, “What about the baby?”
“I don't know quite how to explain Mac and the baby. Either the thought of being a father scared h
im silly—he'd always ducked any 'responsibilities'—which was a fancy name for anything he didn't want to do, or maybe he was tired of me... or tired of battling mama. I've tried to think it out, but can't. Seems he was seeing mama daily, without my knowing it. Anyway, when I first thought I was pregnant, Mac seemed happy about it, but a week later when the doctor assured me I was going to have a baby... Mac suddenly said I had to do away with it because mama couldn't stand a baby being brought up by a person of a different religion. Mac arranged for an abortion and when I refused he got nasty, started slapping me. Even in that he was frustrated, I conked him with a jar of cold cream and left. I...”
“How long ago was that?”
“Over two months ago. I had a few bucks saved up, sold some jewelry... since then I've been living in a room, trying to get along as cheaply as I can. Reason why I was at the radio show last night, seeking free entertainment. That's my story, and sometimes it all sounds like a bad dream, so stupid and pseudo-melodramatic, I can hardly believe it myself.”
“Except for the trimmings, it's an old story. We'll straighten this out in a hurry,” I said, wondering if she was telling me the truth. I could hardly believe any clown giving up a girl as pretty and intelligent as Elma merely because of mama. And carrying his child. “What I'd like us to do is go back to Sandyhook, which is very quiet and peaceful in the winter. If we pool our money, leaving about $500 for hospital expenses and doctors when the baby comes, we have $1,900. We can rent a decent house for less than sixty a month, it's off season, buy some furniture for another few hundred. I still want to try my hand at sculpting, find out if I have it or not. Suppose we give it a try for six or seven months, or till the baby comes?”
“Sorry, Marsh, but it isn't that simple.”
“Look, Elma, I won't make a dime, I know that. But at the end of six months, whether I've found myself or not, well still have some bucks left, and I'll get a job. Meantime, we'll ask Mac for a divorce, get married and...”
“Marsh, you can try being a sculptor for as long as you wish. Money never worried me too much. I'm a good office worker, can always find a job. It isn't that.”
“Of course I've assumed you want to marry me, but if...”
“Oh, Marsh, you know I do!”
“Then, honey, what is it? Won't Mac give you a divorce?”
“He'd be only too glad to,” Elma said, her voice shaking. “It's the...” She began to weep, soft gentle tears.
Hailing a cab, I told him to take us back to the hotel. I held Elma tightly, but she still cried. “Honey,” I asked, “what's wrong? He'll give you a divorce, and we'll...”
“Marsh, he... he wants the baby!”
“But you just said he wanted you to have an a.b.”
“That's it, he demands I either do away with it—and I won't!—or I must give the baby to him. You see, this is another of his stands, his great goddamn stupid ego-bolster-ers. But it's my baby and I'm not killing it or giving it up!”
I kissed her and laughed. “Honey, that all you're upset about? All you have to do is go to court, tell the judge he wanted you to get an abortion... all this crap his mama was handing you... you'll keep the baby.”
She shook her head, her face in pain. “No, Marsh, I'd lose in court. That's where he has me over a barrel. I'm not a citizen: I'm in the country illegally, he could not only take the baby but also have me deported.”
“That's ridiculous. Why any judge...”
“I wish it was ridiculous. They have another angle, my union activities. As a non-citizen... you know the rest. Mama thought up this angle, probably talked it over with a lawyer. Mac hinted as much. And the fact that I'm not even a Canadian citizen...”
“But that didn't stop you from coming into the States?” I said, as though that proved anything.
“That was simple—then. I looked and talked like a Canadian, and I told them I was born in Toronto—which I really believed at the time. Why, I even voted up there. No, now under the McCarran Law they could stick me on Ellis Island and forget about me, throw away the key.”
“Stop talking like that. For Christsakes, this is the U.S.A., not a...”
“You stop talking like a jerk, Marsh. Mac even told me their lawyer assured them they could pin a moral turpitude charge on me because I lived with Mac for a week before we were married. As a non-citizen, illegally in the country, they can do almost anything they want to me, and I have no comeback. And imagine if they find out about us, why they'll surely...”
I put my hand over her wonderful mouth. “I don't want to hear any more stuff like that.”
“You may not want to hear it but...” she mumbled through my hand.
“We'll talk to a lawyer first, then see...”
“I've already discussed my case with a society that aids non-citizens. They think I'd lose a court case... these days,” she said, her lips moving against my hand.
“I have a friend who knows some big lawyers. We'll get their opinions. Why, seems to me when you tell this Mac you plan to get married, he'll be glad to step out of your life, get off without a mess or...”
She shook her head. “Marsh, don't you think I've exhausted every avenue, every out that...?”
I took my hand away, closed her mouth with a kiss. “Okay, no more worrying or thinking about it. Things have changed, Elma. There's two of us, and we have some money. Now let's stop all the guessing till I talk to a lawyer. Not another word.”
Elma nodded, found a handkerchief in her bag and ran it over her face. When we got back to the hotel, she said she was tired and stretched out on the bed. I went down to the lobby, called Kimball, asked her, “You know a good lawyer I can talk to? Not for free, either?”
“Sure, Marsh. Thought you were coming over last night? We balled till... What sort of a jam you in? Are you in the clink?”
“No. I'm going to get married to a girl I met last night and she's having husband trouble. There's a baby involved and I want to know where we stand.”
I heard Kimball gulp over the phone and finally she said, “Say that again.”
“I'm going to marry a girl I met yesterday, and she has a husband and a kid and... Aw, come on, Kimball.”
She laughed and I could almost smell the stale liquor on her breath over the phone. “Marsh, you're wonderful. Never a dull...”
“Marion, this isn't any laughing matter. I need to see a lawyer—now.”
“On New Year's Day?”
“You're a gal with influence. Can you swing it?”
“I ought to swing on you. I'll call you back—soon as I pull myself together.”
Giving her the hotel number, I hung up. I bought some pipe tobacco, went up to our room. Elma was sleeping on top of the covers, in her slip. I stood by the bed, looking at her for a long time—liking what I saw.
I think even then the idea was already in the back of my mind, waiting to be said. For I knew I'd found the girl I'd always been looking for, and I'd be damned if I'd let any spoiled mama's boy take her away!
I don't know if I believed in fate or anything like that, but I had a hunch that with the money and everything, it was almost as if Elma and I had been fated to be together.
I touched the smooth skin of her shoulder and she slowly opened her almond eyes and stared up at me. I thought how fantastic it was that this girl, whose mother had lived in the Arctic, should now be in an off-Times Square hotel with me. Elma asked, “What are you thinking about, Marsh?”
“That I'd be crazy to let a spoiled brat like this Mac come between us.”
She smiled—those big lips that sent a charge through me —and I sat on the bed and kissed her and kissed her and she said, “Marsh, how I wish I'd met you before—wasn't bringing you a dowry of trouble!”
“We're not in trouble. And, honey, I'm so in love with you, I'm glad to just know you—under any conditions!”
We were kissing and kidding around when Kimball called back. She gave me a name and-a Central Park South address, said, “He'll talk t
o you. No money, but buy him a box of cigars—real Havana. You really got money, kid?”
“A few bucks. Thanks, Marion.”
“All this stuff you told me before, that's true? I mean, you're not crocked or anything?”
“Sober as a church mouse.”
“Sounds wild as hell, but I hope you make it this time, Marsh. Really, I hope for you from the heart, Marsh.”
Elma wanted to see the lawyer with me, but I thought it best I go alone. I bought a box of cigars for fifteen bucks, took a cab up to see this lawyer.
It was a big, flashy apartment. A maid opened the door and I passed a tired-looking young woman with badly dyed red hair watching TV in a room. She was wearing a sheer robe and could have been the lawyer's daughter—although I would have laid five to one she wasn't.
