“The priests make mistakes?”
“Poor dears, sometimes they just don’t understand. Anyway, I said a prayer to God before mass. I told Him I loved Him and I loved you and I didn’t think it was wrong to love each other the way we did last night, but if it was I was sorry and He should blame me instead of you.”
“April!”
“Well, it’s true. Mama says the woman sets the tone of what happens between a man and a woman. And I didn’t want God blaming you—”
“Do you think God’s like that?”
“Of course not, the poor dear. But I think that like other fathers, sometimes He enjoys laughing at us when we say silly things…. Now let’s change clothes and play golf before it rains or we’ll break poor dear Jim’s heart.”
Priests, God, Jim—they all had been described as “poor” and “dear,” with minutely different nuances of voice. I would have to attune myself to those nuances.
It seemed a delightful prospect.
My future looked incredibly bright that morning after mass.
A few hours later it would turn dark.
This time Jim did remember to come back to pick me up after he had dropped the girls at the golf course.
“I want to show you something,” he said as the Duesy rushed by the red barn. “Those damn Gypsies are still around. Look at that!”
An old covered wagon, gaily painted green and yellow but battered and shabby, was parked at one side of the gravel road, in a stand of trees that probably belonged to the farmer whose two-story Gothic house was a quarter mile or so down the road. Two horses, tethered to a nearby oak tree, were grazing on the brown grass. Neither of the two women were visible.
A mother and daughter, or perhaps two sisters, by themselves. Not, from what I had read about Romany, unknown, but still rare.
“Doesn’t that infuriate you?” Jim’s lips were tight with rage. “Am I glad I hid April’s diamond. Wouldn’t they like to get their hands on that rock. Well, they won’t—that’s certain.”
“Not all of them steal,” I said. “Maybe they’re really only fortune-tellers. I don’t think the farmer would let them stay on his land if he thought they were thieves, not one of these hard-working Wisconsin German farmers. Come on, let’s get back to the golf course. The girls will wonder what happened to us.”
“There ought to be a law against Gypsies,” Jim muttered to himself as he started the car. “They’re trash.”
The golf game was a catastrophe; it was almost entirely my fault. I lost my temper on the first hole when Jim reported four strokes and I had counted eight.
“Four,” he said cheerfully, after he claimed a four-foot putt as a “concession.”
“Eight.” I scribbled the number furiously on the scorecard.
“I counted four.” He was surprised by my anger. “Well, maybe five.”
“I counted eight. April?”
She was taken aback by my curt tone. “My score? Five. Or did you count more, Vangie?”
“I’m not counting your strokes,” I fired back, “only his.”
I don’t have much of a temper. On the rare occasions I do blow up, I calm down almost at once. I don’t know what happened to me that day. I was in love with a woman who loved me. I should have been ecstatic. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the darkening sky, maybe I had finally reached my limit with Jim, or maybe it was my sore feet.
Most likely, it was the sore feet.
I counted his strokes on each hole. He seemed immune to my watchfulness. Each time he reported three or four strokes less than the actual number and then waited with a look of injured innocence for my reaction.
On the sixth hole I tore up the scorecard. “This is a ridiculous farce, Jim.” I threw the scraps of the card on the green. “There’s no point in keeping score or pretending that we’re playing an honest golf match when you lie about your score on every hole.”
“I’m not lying!” he groaned. “Honest, I’m not.”
“You don’t know what honesty is!”
“John O’Malley,” April raged at me. “What difference does it make? It’s only a game. Why don’t you leave poor Jim alone? You’re ruining the day for all of us.”
“I’m ruining the day?” Last night she loved me, now she betrays me for an incorrigible liar. “What about him?”
“If you think winning is so important”—she stood tall and determined, an implacable judge—“maybe you should play by yourself and let us enjoy our game.”
I was astonished, thunderstruck. Winning wasn’t important. Honesty was.
Wasn’t it?
“Well, then.” I bowed with ceremony appropriate for a member of Headquarters Troop, 106th Illinois. “I hope you enjoy your afternoon.”
More angry than I had ever been in my life, I marched back to the red barn, checked in my rented clubs, and on desperately sore feet strode back toward the Barry grounds. I’d catch the noon train to Chicago.
The rain caught up with me in twenty minutes, shrinking my shoes and making my feet hurt even more.
The Duesy pulled up beside me, its cover on for the first time.
“Hi, Johnny.” Jim grinned nonchalantly. “Want a ride?”
“There’s room here with Clarice and me.” April was soaking wet and very sad.
Her compunction infuriated me.
“I’ll walk,” I snarled at them.
When the station hack pulled out of the parking lot I heard, in the distance, the strings of a harp and a woman’s voice singing the “Indian Love Call” from Rosemarie.
As Siobahn would have said, the frigging “Indian Love Call.”
30
The last week in August 1925 was the most unhappy week of my life.
I was furious at myself, furious at April Cronin, and furious at Jim.
I swore that I would never return to Barry when he was there.
I might court April sometime in the future, but only when she said she was sorry and promised that I would not have to put up with Jim during our courtship.
In my lovesick brain, Jim was her responsibility, not mine.
I stalked out of the living room in our house when dance music was played on our big new Philco. I was especially affronted when they dared to play “Show Me the Way to Go Home.”
I glanced at the papers each morning. Nothing much new: forty thousand members of the Klan had marched in Washington. The Navy dirigible Shenandoah had exploded in a storm. Bill Tilden had led the United States to another Davis Cup victory. There was a terrible drought in the West and the South. Josephine Baker’s “The Negro Review” had opened in Paris, to the delight of Parisians and the shock of proper Americans.
So, what did any of it mean?
I bent over my drawing board and worked.
Summer leaves our part of the Middle West in an embarrassed rush, like a maiden aunt who fears she has overstayed her welcome. One night, as early even as mid-August, there is an especially fierce thunderstorm. Then you wake up, not to the expected return of humidity but to a morning breeze so chill that you reach for your blankets. You look out the window and, although you try not to notice, leaves have already fallen off the trees.
Summer returns and lingers, hearing our pleas that she is never unwelcome. Sometimes she outdoes herself in early October. But after that first August storm, you know that somewhere in the world, winter is gathering its forces and preparing for a return.
It’s morose knowledge. The happy suppress it. I was not happy, so I reveled in the end of summer.
My parents were surprised by my now hair-trigger temper and left me alone.
I pictured Mom whispering to Dad, “He’s had a fight with that nice little Cronin girl. You know what young lovers are like.”
I worked on the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend, not only catching up with Mike Hurley’s demands but anticipating them by a week or two. I enjoyed feeling sorry for myself.
I also enjoyed the rain that spoiled the Saturday of the weekend. It se
rved the people at Twin Lakes right.
For all I knew, April and Jim were not there.
I slept late on Sunday morning, went to the twelve o’clock mass at St. Catherine’s, and read the papers leisurely on the front porch swing. It was a crisp cool day, suggesting the coming of autumn.
Good. It had been a bad summer for me.
I took a long walk out to the Thatcher Woods Forest Preserve. But there were too many people for me to enjoy a quiet walk in the trees.
Disconsolately I returned home.
“That little Cronin girl phoned while you were out,” Mom informed me—with a hint of triumph in her eyes.
“Oh?”
“She’s such a sweet thing. She apologized so politely for disturbing our weekend.”
“And you told her it was no bother at all to speak to such a nice young woman.”
Mom frowned. “Now how did you know that?”
“Did she leave a messagé?”
“She was calling from the clubhouse at Twin Lakes, the line wasn’t too good. You know what long distance calls are like. She said she’d try later.”
“Fine.” I settled on the front porch to finish Porgy by DuBose Hayward. I wouldn’t wait by the phone. But I wouldn’t take any long walks either.
Dusk and cool night air drove me back into the house with only a few pages left to read.
I was convinced that she wouldn’t call.
What had I seen in her anyway?
The phone rang. I let it ring. Mom finally answered it.
“It’s Miss Cronin, dear.”
“All right.”
“John O’Malley,” I said formally.
“I need help, Vangie.” The connection was poor. She sounded a long way off.
“What can I do?” I donned my silver armor and whistled for my great black horse.
“Come up here.”
“Of course.” Where was my helmet with the red plume?
“It’s too late for the last train. Maybe you can catch the six o’clock in the morning.”
The milk train?
For the damsel in distress, why not?
“I’ll be on it.”
“I think I can borrow the hack. No one will be using it at that hour.”
“Fine. I’ll be there. What’s wrong?”
“You know those poor dear Gypsies?”
“Sure.”
“Well, the police put them in jail in Kenosha. They found some stolen property in their wagon. I think Jim put it there. I have the fifty dollars to bail them out, but the deputies won’t take money from a woman even though I am of age.”
“Dummies.”
“Vangie, I’m afraid of what they’ll do to those poor women unless we get them out of jail.”
“Don’t worry, April, we’ll take care of them.”
After I hung up, I consulted with my parents.
“Impressive young woman.” My father smiled tolerantly.
“I never said she wasn’t.”
“It sounds like the sort of thing your friend Clancy would do.”
“It sure does. He’s changed a lot this summer. He still doesn’t mean any harm—”
“I’m sure not.” My father raised his hand. “It does not follow that harm will not be done.”
“No, sir.”
He resisted the impulse to lecture me about Jim.
“I’ll phone our sheriff’s office”—he pulled out his watch—“someone is there even at this time on the Labor Day weekend. They’ll call Kenosha. They’ll tell the deputies up there that Cook County is interested in those women being released on bail tomorrow morning unharmed. That should guarantee there will be no rape tonight.”
“You think they’re in danger?”
“Certainly they are.” He put aside the financial section of the Herald-Examiner—reading the Sunday papers was an all-day task for Dad—and stood up. “Excuse me while I see that they are removed from danger.”
He returned a few minutes later, glowing with satisfaction. “Well, that’s that. Gypsies or not, those women should not be molested.”
“Such poor dear people,” Mom sighed.
“Be that as it may”—Dad sat down, a man who had worked hard—“I don’t think we’d want them wandering about our neighborhood, but they still have the right to be treated like human beings. It’s the only decent thing to do.”
“Did they reject poor little April’s money because they wanted to harm the women?”
“Oh, I’m sure of it.” My father waved his hand. “You said they were attractive, didn’t you, son? For Gypsies?”
“For anyone.” I stirred uneasily. “Was April in danger?”
“I should think so.” Dad nodded solemnly. “But I would gather she’s a fairly fierce young woman?”
“Would you now?” I smiled happily.
Everyone chuckled.
“Well,” Mom sniffed, “I’m certainly looking forward to meeting this young miss.”
“We may be able to arrange that.”
“Let me see.” Dad pulled out his enormous billfold and peered over his glasses. “I have three hundred dollars here. You’d better take two hundred and fifty, just should you need it. I’ll write out the phone number of our office, in case you should want any Chicago clout.”
I didn’t sleep much that night. And when I finally did drift off into fitful slumber, the alarm seemed to ring almost immediately. To catch the milk train on the North Side meant leaving my house by taxi at five A.M.
The pleasant Sunday weather, according to an early edition of the Tribune I purchased at the station, would be replaced by another hot day and then an afternoon thunderstorm.
Still I had packed a bag in case there was some reason, or some pretext, to stay overnight.
I realized at the station, as the train slowly chugged in, that I could have just as well taken the North Shore to Kenosha and met April there.
I was too busy being the Black Horse trooper on the phone to think straight.
I sighed and pulled a sketchbook out of my bag. I tried to recall the two Gypsy women and get their faces down on paper.
April was waiting for me at the small, deserted station in Genoa City. Again she was a rhapsody in blue, in skirt and blouse this time and without the hat.
We shook hands formally.
“Thank you for coming.”
“Clarice?”
“Her father is home from California. He and her mother had a big fight about Clarice. He wouldn’t let her come. I wouldn’t stay married to a man like that.”
“Neither would I.”
“Is that all you brought? I have the hack, but we’ll have to hurry. They want it back by ten.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t think to take the North Shore and meet you in Kenosha.”
“Do you want to drive?” She offered me the car keys.
“I don’t know how. I ride horses, big black ones.”
“And wear silver armor.” She smiled tentatively.
“With a red plume, which I seem to have forgotten.”
The ice had been broken, thank God. Now to continue with the repair work—while not, mind you, giving up my knight role. I put my bag on the backseat, but kept the sketchbook on my lap.
“There are two Hershey bars on the backseat,” she informed me. “In case you need breakfast.”
“You’re entitled to one of them.”
“I already ate three.” She closed the door and glanced at my open sketchbook. “The Gypsy women?” She started the car. “It looks just like them.”
“Romany women is what they would call themselves,” I said pompously. “Maybe I’ll do a painting and call it that.”
“I’m sure it will be beautiful.”
We were feeling our way toward reconciliation—an arduous and pleasant process.
“Are you sure Jim planted the stolen goods?”
“Oh, absolutely.” She steered the hack away from the station. “You should have seen him when the police came to m
ake the search. He was bursting with enjoyment.”
“I know the phenomenon,” I said grimly.
“Like a man about to make love,” she said. “Well, the way I imagine a man would look when he’s about to make love.”
“His tricks give him great pleasure,” I agreed. “He doesn’t mean any harm. But lately they’ve gotten out of hand. He’ll probably pay the bail himself before the day is over, but we’d better not take a chance.”
“I know they didn’t take the diamond.”
“What diamond?”
“The one’s he’s been trying to give me all summer. He tried again, after the time the Gypsies were chased off the Barry grounds.”
“I see.”
“So he must have taken the watches and rings from the other rooms in the Drake and hid them in their wagon too.”
“He’s capable of it, it’s sort of the second twist that he likes in his jokes. Did the police bother you when you tried to pay the bail?”
We were on the gravel road now. The speedometer said we were going forty miles an hour.
“They were not at all nice.” She kept her eyes sternly on the road. “I told them that they’d better be careful or they would have some very important Chicago politicians after their jobs. That scared them a little bit and they let me leave their ugly old jail.”
“Democrats or Republicans?” I asked with a chuckle.
“Both,” she said seriously and then chuckled too.
She had used my father’s name—boldly and unabashedly I was sure.
“I’m sorry about last Sunday,” she continued briskly. “I acted terribly. I don’t know what happened to me…. Yes, I do too. I wanted you to be perfect and was so disappointed that you weren’t perfect. So I proved how imperfect I am. I hope you will forgive me.”
“You beat me to it again, April Mae Cronin. I was about to apologize for making a fool out of myself. I don’t normally lose my temper from one end of the year to the other. Being in love does strange things to a man’s personality.”
“A woman’s too.”
I glanced at her. She was smiling broadly. So I smiled too.
We sped down Highway 50 toward Kenosha, rushing through Twin Lakes as though it were not there.
Beyond the golf course, she slammed on the brakes. The car rocked like it had hit a brick wall.
Younger Than Springtime Page 32
