“Are you sure I won’t look common and vulgar?” She gripped my hand suddenly. “Everyone will be staring at me and I’ll embarrass you and your—”
“Margaret Mary.” I held her hand fiercely. “Stop that this instant. Why shouldn’t everyone stare at you? You’ll be the most beautiful woman at the dance. But they will think not that you’re vulgar or cheap but appealing and modest. You saw the girl in the red dress with the white trim and the lovely bare shoulders with the pretty breasts, which are covered just enough, in the mirror. You know she’ll never be common or vulgar, no matter what the nuns or her aunt and uncle said.”
“I’ll feel common and vulgar.” Despite her fears she wolfed down a scone as if she had not eaten in two years. “I’ll feel that I’m disgracing your mother and father.”
“No, you won’t, and that’s an order.”
“Yes, sir, Commander, sir.”
“You are going to wear my pearls.”
“My pearls.” The imp’s glint appeared on her face, the most charming of all her many expressions—except adoration for me. “And distract people from my cute breasts? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“They are cute, all right, but you are basically an imp and a tease and a troublemaker, aren’t you, Maggie Ward?”
“It took you a long time to figure that out, didn’t it?”
“If you don’t wear our necklace, I’ll tie you to the flagpole on the seventh green and leave you there all night.”
“I wouldn’t dream of not wearing it, silly.”
“And now, finish off that plate of scones and your Earl Grey tea.”
So we finished our tea and shopped for stockings and shoes and perfume. Laden with packages, Maggie was ready for the “Buttercup” Christmas dance. She insisted on riding home on the subway and the El. “You need a haircut,” she informed me, as we left Field’s through a Wabash Avenue entrance. “I will not be seen at this high-toned dance with a man whose crew cut is beginning to curl.”
“It’s not high-toned, Maggie. River Forest is not Lake Forest; we’re strictly middle-class Irish with a little bit of money. We don’t know how to be high-toned.”
Suddenly, despite the post-Christmas crowds on Wabash, she leaned her head against my chest and began to sob. “I’m so ashamed of myself. I’m such a dope.”
I held her close, welcoming any physical contact that fell within the rubrics of my strategy.
“I love you, Maggie.”
“I know.” She continued to sob. “And I love you. You’re so wonderfully sweet.” She touched my face, as if to make sure it was still there. “You’ve been kind and good and generous to me and I’ve acted churlish.…”
“The nice thing about your kept woman being a literary woman is that she uses such fancy words as ‘churlish.’ ”
“I love being your kept woman,” she wailed, “and I’m so afraid of it that I act like a clod.…”
“Not quite so literary.”
“Be quiet.” She poked my arm. “Let me finish.”
“All right.”
“Thank you for the pearls and for the dress and for all the other things. And thank you for being kind and sweet and thank you for Christmas and the Christmas Dance and everything.”
“My pleasure, Maggie Ward.” I held her in my arms until her weeping stopped. And a little longer for good measure. “I didn’t take it seriously, you know. I mean I knew you were grateful and that most of the things you were saying were sardonic humor.”
“Sardonic?” She lifted her tearstained face. “And I use big words.… Do you really know that I am grateful with every bit of feeling I have?”
“Yes, Maggie. And I’m grateful too. My new life began in Arizona just as yours did. It’s a two-way street.”
She nodded, that quick, comprehending gesture of understanding and agreement that so fascinated me the first hour in Tucson.
“I should go home now and do my hair.”
“And I should get a haircut …”
“Or I’ll leave you on the seventh green. And that’s an order.”
“Yes, ma’am, Admiral, ma’am.”
“Silly.” She kissed me and turned away, back toward State Street and the subway.
Mercurial. Chameleon. Unpredictable. Delightful. Haunted.
What happens after the dance?
I’ll worry about that after the dance.
As all our family confidently expected, it was Maggie’s dance. If she was shy or embarrassed or felt cheap or common or vulgar or out of place, she gave not the slightest hint. Rather, she accepted the admiring glances like an absolute monarch accepts the adulation of her subjects.
“Philadelphians,” my father said as he shook his head in astonishment, “don’t have that much class.”
“An exception to prove the rule?”
“Most probably,” he agreed. “You don’t mind if I dance with her?”
“So long as Mother doesn’t.”
He eyed me as if I were an opposing counsel. “She won’t, as long as you dance with her.”
That night The Club was a glittering tribute to the first year of the postwar world, a hint of affluence yet to come. It smelled of evergreens and champagne, red and white decorations sparkled on the walls, Glenn Miller music urged the elegantly clad bodies to sway gently back and forth. The war was over, peace had begun, and prosperity had finally come around the corner.
As luck, or perhaps a comic Providence would have it, the first person we met inside the club was Barbara Conroy.
“Barbara, this is Margaret Ward; Maggie, this is—”
“So you’re the young widow from Philadelphia Joanne Keenan is raving about. Well, all I have to say is that you’re welcome to him. Maybe you can do more to make him a man than any of us did.”
She turned and stalked away from us, a triumphant, if slightly foolish, harpy.
“You were lucky you didn’t marry her” was Maggie’s only reaction.
“I’m sorry if she bothered you.”
“Not in the least,” she said and laughed. “To tell you the truth, I don’t even feel sorry for her.”
“Don’t you ever dare become that overweight, Margaret Mary Ward.”
“Angela is my confirmation name, if you want to be absolutely formal.… I couldn’t become that overweight even if I wanted to.”
In my arms on the dance floor, smelling of the lilac scent I had picked out and wearing my pearls and our dress (so she had ruled, in a burst of generosity, they were to be assigned), she was relaxed, light as a summer breeze at the end of a hot day, and utterly trusting.
“Is that you beneath all that armor?”
“A compressed me”—she winked—”but a happy me. I don’t know why we women put up with such terrible fashions. Next time I’ll take your advice.”
I did not make an issue of “next time,” but my heart did a slow, lazy spin of delight.
“Look at your mother,” she continued, “she has a wonderful figure. She shouldn’t have to be bound up in one of these terrible corsets.”
“I agree.”
“I bet they made love while they were dressing for the dance.”
“Maggie Ward!” For the first time she had genuinely shocked me.
“Well, certainly, they made love. Look at the way she glows and he looks so pleased with himself. They’ll do it again after the dance. I think it’s cute.”
“No privacy at all from your dagger eyes.”
“I can’t help what I see. And what’s wrong with seeing it anyway? It’s not only cute, it’s beautiful. I even knew it with my parents when I was a little girl. I mean, I didn’t understand what they did, but I knew they were very pleased with each other. Dr. Feurst says that’s one of the reasons I …”
“Survived?”
“Uh-huh. His exact word.”
“My husband wants to dance with you,” Mom said as we passed them on the dance floor.
So we exchanged partners for the rest of the dance.
&n
bsp; Though more fully armored, my mother was as light in my arms as Maggie, and even more radiant. Unless my untrained nostrils were deceiving me, she was wearing the same scent. Her short silver hair gleamed in the light of the dance hall, as did the jewels on her neck. Her strapless maroon gown emphasized her classic beauty, and the skin of her back was Irish-linen smooth. I held her close, her eyes level with my chin, her ample breasts solid against my chest.
She did not seem in the least upset by the intensity of emotion she must have felt in me. On the contrary, she relaxed against me in snug contentment.
Maggie Ward, I told myself with more than a trace of love-besotted incoherence, had opened to me the possibility of enjoying the beauty of all women and even of recognizing the unquestionable attractiveness of my mother.
If I was not careful, this Maggie Ward person would unmake me and then remake me completely.
“I am honored by the two most beautiful women in the room during the same dance.”
“I know you’re not going to let that lovely child get away.” She smiled imperceptibly at my compliment. “She needs you so much. Just like I needed your father.”
“Maybe I need her as much as he needs you.”
She actually blushed. “You’ll never find another girl like Maggie Ward.”
“I know that.”
My head was whirling—too much emotion, too much revelation, too much beauty. We finished the dance in silence.
I brushed my lips against hers, lingering for a fraction of a second.
“I hope Maggie matures into a woman as lovely as you are, Mom.”
She was mildly flustered but not displeased. “You’ll have to keep her around for a quarter of a century to find out, won’t you, dear?”
Score one for my gorgeous mom.
“Tom is cute,” Maggie informed me when the dance was over. “No wonder you’re such a nice boy.”
“I’m overwhelmed with compliments.”
She patted my hand. “And I am having the time of my life, as you surely know without having to read my mind.”
Just then we encountered Kate.
“Kate, this is Maggie Ward. Maggie, this is—”
“Maggie!” Kate’s eyes flooded instantly. “I’m so happy, so very, very happy.” She embraced my date enthusiastically. “I’m so looking forward to getting to know you.”
“Me too.” Maggie rose to the occasion and gave no hint of surprise.
“What …” Maggie began when Kate and her date drifted away.
“I called her Maggie when I was kissing her good night after a date. Then I told her that you were a girl who had died.”
“The poor thing,” Maggie said as she drew back from me, “how embarrassing, and how nice of her not to mind.” Then she returned to me, even closer. “No, poor Jerry, to be in love with such a drippy ghost.” She touched my cheek again. “Poor sweet Jerry. It would not have been a mistake at all to marry her.”
“My intentions are elsewhere.”
To which she did not reply but only danced serenely in my arms, humming the waltz music along with the strings of the orchestra.
In the car after the dance, she sobbed all the way back to her apartment.
“Don’t pay any attention to me, Jerry,” she begged during a temporary intermission in her tears. “It’s not your fault. It was a wonderful night. I loved it all. Just a crazy”—she began to cry again—”nervous reaction, like the other night. Silly Margaret Mary Ward has to pretend to be the life of the party and wear herself out.”
“It’s all right, Maggie, I understand.”
I walked her to the door of her building, guiding her arm as she tried to negotiate the stairs up to the second-floor entrance on new-fallen snow with our Marshall Field’s high heels. I kissed her good night, firmly, as appropriate for an important date, but no hints or requests for a prolongation of the evening.
I was hoping nonetheless that such an invitation would be issued.
Foolish hope.
“Remember your promise.”
“Yes.” I had forgotten it completely.
“I know your phone number. I’ll call you when my life is better organized than it is now. But don’t wait for me.”
“That’s not part of the promise.”
“Yes, it is.” She ducked inside the door and slammed it. I heard her dashing up the old stairs.
I was not particularly troubled as I drove home. There were two alternatives, about which I did not want to think on the pleasant pink cloud that I had brought with me from the dance floor with Maggie so light in my arms:
Either I would keep my word and let her drift out of my life. Or I would pursue with relentless determination and demand that she marry me and permit me to finish what I had begun with her. And vice versa.
“I hear she was sensational,” Packy greeted my return. Seminarians didn’t attend such worldly, women-infested events like Christmas dances. “I didn’t think she’d work up enough nerve to risk going.”
I told him about my promise.
“Do you intend to keep it?”
“Absolutely not.”
Packy smiled approvingly. “All’s fair …”
“In love and war.”
The mention of war may have been the reason I dreamed about Rusty and Hank that night.
But the old dreams returned the following night too.
CHAPTER 39
I SHOULD HAVE CHARGED INTO THE LANTERN ROOM AND carried her off?
I should have listened to the message in her smile at the door of her flat and ignored all other messages?
I should have accepted her at her word that she was in Chicago because she wanted to be near me?
I should have realized that the only reason for her to walk down Lathrop was that she wanted to be caught?
As my friends in New York would put it, what can I tell you?
Yes to all four questions.
Moreover, I could have acted on such responses without ever dishonoring Father Donniger’s wisdom on how to treat women.
As is transparent to me after six decades of life and doubtless to you after a hundred and twenty thousand words, I am a bit of a Hamlet.
Put me in a situation where there is no time to think, where I am constrained to act on instant instinct—air combat, a courtroom, the floor of the Board of Trade, an attack by a nasty panelist at a professional meeting, the final phase of negotiations with a publisher—and I’ll perform superbly. Give me time to think and I’ll very likely think too much. Perhaps I was searching for Romance and Adventure in 1946 because I was looking for a life in which I could rely on instinct instead of thought.
Perhaps it is a result of growing up in a family that seems to have flourished not only economically but emotionally. Maybe I’ve never been hungry enough, in a number of different senses of that word, to take chances when there is time to reflect on them.
This thin-bloodedness, if you will, is my tragic flaw, and I’ve had to contend against it, with varying degrees of success, all my life.
It is precisely at those times when I begin to see all sides of a question and stumble into the endless and bottomless swamp of analyzing the questions to death, that the demons begin to return, in one form or another, and the horror becomes partially unchained.
In Tucson, when I offered to buy breakfast for the pathetic little serviceman’s widow, at Picketpost, when I compelled her to perform my sexual initiation, I was acting on instinct and acting wisely.
That night at the door of her apartment, when I did not lift her into my arms, chenille robe, flannel pajamas, and all, and cart her off to River Forest, I was acting reflectively and stupidly.
Even my wife, who has insisted through the years of our marriage that I am too hard on myself, admits the validity of my self-analysis. Characteristically, she defends me against it.
“You’re a thoughtful man,” she argues, “so you think. What’s wrong with that? Maybe you do worry too much sometimes, but that’s part of
being you. I prefer that sort of man to someone who is merely a bundle of conditioned reflexes. And if that girl really wanted you, she ought to have known that she would have to take the final step toward you.”
In any event, as the first postwar year turned into the second, I was deeply involved in analysis and reflection in re Maggie Ward.
Maggie would not join our quiet family New Year’s party. She had promised the night to Wade. I drank too many beers, far too many, and woke up in time to listen to the Rose Bowl game.
Illinois beat UCLA 45–14. A Big Ten victory—that will show you how long ago 1947 was!
The next morning I actually rode the El down to Loyola to spend a couple of hours in the law-school library, studying civil procedures. After lunch I strolled over to the Drake to talk to Maggie. My rival was with her.
He was a jerk.
Wade McCarron was about thirty, taller than me, broad-shouldered with receding blond hair and a developing potbelly. Like many other big men who are beginning to go to seed because of an excess of food and drink and a deficit of exercise, he compensated by sucking in his gut and pushing out his chest.
Maggie introduced us in the lower lobby of the Drake, without a flicker of emotion. We established that Wade was from Tennessee, had served in the Marines on Guadalcanal and Iwo, rising from the ranks to become a bird colonel, and that he had made a lot of money on the Board of Trade. We also put on the record his dislike of navy flyers who had done nothing to support his troops on the ground.
“The young lady says she doesn’t want to see you anymore, fly-boy,” Wade McCarron informed me. “If I were in your position, I’d pay attention to her.”
I didn’t take him seriously. He was a crude blowhard, a pathetic loudmouth. At most he was another one of Maggie’s strays.
“Where did you folks spend New Year’s Eve?” I asked, pretending that we were engaged in a casual, friendly conversation.
“Colosimo’s,” Maggie said coldly. “It was very interesting … and you made a promise,” she added coldly. “I told you that I didn’t want to see you anymore and you agreed.”
“Typical spoiled navy brat,” McCarron snarled. “I won’t warn you again, punk.”
“I have an appointment with Dr. Feurst this afternoon,” I said to Maggie, ignoring her escort’s silly bluster.
The Search for Maggie Ward Page 40
