by Pamela Morsi
They joked about Cessy's father's initial reaction to her marriage. They discussed the latest gossip around Burford Corners. They speculated on when and who would bring in the first oil well out on the Topknot.
They talked gardening and bonnets, social reform and the exceptional rearing their future children were sure to receive.
Cessy told her about Gerald's very rigorous schedule of times they should spend together.
Muna related a secret of her own.
"Maloof has . . . has given me a gift," she said.
"What kind of a gift?" Cessy asked.
"A very inappropriate one," Muna answered with a secretive whisper.
"Tell me," Cessy insisted.
"He bought me a pair of black silk drawers," Muna said.
"Oh my heavens! Does he not know how . . . how risqu é such a thing is? For an unmarried woman."
Muna grinned impishly. "I think he knows more than he lets on," she said.
"So what did you do?" Cessy asked. "Did you give them back?"
"Absolutely not," Muna replied. "And I never fail to quietly mention to him when I happen to be wearing them."
Cessy, screamed in feigned shock.
The two nearly choked with wicked, unmaidenly giggles.
"So, dear Mrs. Crane," Muna teased. "Now that you are married, you must tell me everything."
"Everything about what?" Cessy hedged.
"Don't be coy," Muna chided. "We always said that the one who married first would reveal all the secrets."
Cessy hemmed and hawed for a moment or two.
"What exactly do you want to know?" she asked finally.
"I want to know what is it like?"
"Being married?" Cessy was deliberately obtuse. "Well, we have meals together and take walks together and we work in the garden and ..."
"Not that."
"What then?"
"Oh, you!" Muna said in exasperation. "What is it like ... in the marriage bed."
"Oh, that."
"Yes that."
"You'll find out," Cessy teased. "September twenty-eighth."
"Prin!"
"All right, all right." Cessy lowered her voice to a more secret tone. "It's not at all as frightening and uncomfortable as we've been led to believe."
Muna sighed, relieved.
"Well, it's sort of . . . sort of . . . well, it's sort of wonderful."
"You're joking?"
"No, it's really, really quite nice."
The two young women looked at each other for a long moment and then both broke into red-faced giggles.
"But isn't it so ... so embarrassing?" Muna asked.
"At first, yes, at first it is quite embarrassing," Cessy admitted. "I thought, How will I live if this man sees me practically naked!"
"How indeed!" Muna agreed.
"But now he's seen me actually naked and it was really very natural," she said.
"He has actually seen you naked!" Muna's words were a horrified whisper.
"Believe me, it is not nearly as strange once you are married as it must seem now. It's like we are bonded," Cessy said. "We are truly one person. There are no secrets between us."
The words warmed Cessy as she said them. She knew that they were true, completely true. She loved Gerald totally. And he loved her, too, despite all her faults.
Almost as if her thoughts had conjured him up, she spied her husband through the front window.
"My goodness, Gerald is home already," she said.
"Oh, dear, I don't know how I'll face him," Muna said blushing.
"If you ever breathe a word of what I told you, I'll invite you to dinner and cook it myself," Cessy threatened.
The front door shut noisily and Cessy hurried to meet her husband.
"Home so soon?" she called out to him from the doorway.
"Cessy, we have to talk," he said.
His expression was serious and determined. Cessy was immediately certain that some terrible calamity had befallen them.
"Oh dear, what has happened?" she asked, her tone reflecting that fear.
"Nothing!" he answered hastily. "I didn't mean to frighten you. Nothing has happened. We ... I just need to talk to you."
"Muna is here."
He stood now at the parlor doorway and could see the occupant inside.
"I must go anyway," Muna said gathering her things.
"Oh, no, please don't hurry on my account," Gerald said. "Do sit down, sit down. I'm sorry, Cessy, I never thought about your having company. Please. Our discussion can wait."
Muna resisted for another moment and then reluctantly returned to her seat. Obviously she felt in the way, but politeness demanded that she stay at least until it would seem more natural to leave.
Gerald set upon himself to entertain Muna. His conversation was light and cheery. Cessy enjoyed watching him at his charming best, but she could not quite dismiss the expression she had seen upon his face when he walked through the door. Something was very wrong.
The tinkle of a bell captured her attention and Cessy looked out the front window once more to see a delivery boy on a bicycle stopped in front of the house.
"Oh, we've got a message," she said, rising to her feet. "I'll be right back."
Cessy hurried to the boy and traded him a nickel tip for the paper he brought. Opening it, she read the words, first with surprise and then with disappointment. With a shrug she returned to the parlor.
"Not bad news, I hope," Muna said.
"Not good news, either," Cessy said. "I was hoping it was a telegram from Gerald's parents. We still haven't heard from them and I am on pins and needles wondering what they will think of me."
"I'm sure they will love you," Muna said. "How could they not?"
"Who is it from?" Gerald asked.
"Reverend McAfee, the poor dear," Cessy answered. "I have simply got to get someone to go out there and help the old fellow so that he can retire. I fear that he is slipping."
"What does he say?"
"He has sent us our marriage license and a note," she said and opened the small paper to read aloud. " 'My dear children, I hope that all is well with you and that your days of newly wedded bliss are a heaven upon this earth.'"
"Isn't that sweet."
"Very nice," Gerald agreed.
" 'I have had the marriage papers filed for you at the county courthouse as I had promised. The enclosed is your copy. I hope that it contains no errors or surprises. I filled the form out as completely and as accurately as I knew how.'"
"That doesn't sound as if he is slipping too badly," Muna said.
"That's because you haven't read the marriage certificate," Cessy said, laughing ruefully. "He has the bridegroom's name listed as Thomas Thursday Walker."
Chapter 17
He had meant to tell her. Truly he had. And if Muna hadn't been there when he'd gotten home, he certainly would have. But she had been there. And then the marriage license came from Reverend McAfee and he realized even more clearly how humiliating it was going to be for Cessy. She was going to have to face all her friends with the truth that she had been tricked into a marriage with a man whose real name she didn't even know. She would be a laughingstock. Tom simply lost his nerve.
But Friday morning he was determined to tell her all. He headed into breakfast with that firmly in mind. He would explain to her that he loved her. That he wanted her and needed her. And that he had lied to her.
When he entered the kitchen, King Calhoun was already there, gobbling down his biscuits and eggs. He barely glanced up to nod suspiciously at Tom before returning his attention to his plate.
Cessy was waiting for him. When she saw her husband, however, her face flushed vivid scarlet and she lowered her eyes. Tom knew what that demure behavior covered, and grinned.
He had meant to make slow, tender love to her the night before. He had thought that as his last night as Gerald, he would use all of his technique and expertise, playing the virtuoso with her body
his musical instrument.
He hadn't even allowed her the privacy of the screen to undress. He'd begun disrobing her even before they'd got the bedroom door shut. But as he was kissing and caressing her, he realized that she was deliberately holding back. At first it spurred him on. He tried to push her to relinquish her restraint.
Then as if blinders were lifted from his eyes, Tom understood that her self-bridled fervor was for his benefit. His lovely, sweet wife, Cessy Calhoun, was domineering in all aspects of her life. Like her tendency to want to lead on the dance floor, she wanted to guide the movements in his arms as well. She held herself in tight control because of her love for him.
Tom rolled from her embrace and got out of bed.
"Gerald, what are you doing? Come back to bed."
"In a minute," he promised.
He lit the lamp and began rifling through her dressing table.
"What on earth are you up to?" she asked. "Why are you looking through my things? Come back to bed."
Tom opened the second drawer on the left and found what he was looking for. They were soft and smooth in sweet pinks and blues, startling chartreuse and periwinkle, and stately maroons and purples.
"Ah, these will do nicely."
"What is it?" she asked.
Tom reached in the drawer and grabbed a handfull of what she had stored in there and eagerly joined her on the bed.
Cessy was sitting up now. Beneath the covering of the sheet that she held demurely to her neck, she still wore her camisole and stockings.
"What on earth are you going to do with those hair ribbons?" she asked him.
Tom smiled at her and then placed them firmly in her hands.
"I'm not going to do anything with them, Cessy, but what about you?"
"Me?"
"Could you think of something that you'd like to do with these?"
Cessy looked down at the brightly colored pieces of satin in her hand and then back up at him, puzzled.
"Whatever would I do with them?"
"Well, of course, you could always dress your hair," he said. He hesitated a long moment. "Or you could tie my hands to the bedposts."
"What!"
"Do you think you would like to do that, Cessy," he asked, leaning closer to whisper the words upon her neck. "Would you like to have me totally at your mercy. You could do whatever you want to me, whenever you want to me. And I ... I wouldn't be able to stop you."
Her eyes widened as she discerned the implications.
"I don't know, I,. ."
"Wouldn't you like to say what and when?" he asked her. "Wouldn't you like to be totally in control. Isn't that what you like?"
"Well, yes, but . . ."
"Then tonight, let's do something that you like."
She hesitated, still unsure.
"Don't worry, Cessy, you won't hurt me," he said. Then his tone became one of feigned pleading. "You wouldn't hurt me, would you Cessy? Please don't hurt me."
Tom watched her expression turn from stunned shock to speculative appreciation as she held the ribbons in her hands, stroking the smooth satin.
"Lay down!" she ordered.
Now at breakfast with her father at the far end of the table, she was considerably more demure.
"How is my extremely bossy wife this morning?" he asked as he bent down to plant a husbandly kiss upon her cheek.
Cessy rolled her eyes, indicating the presence of her father at the table.
Tom took his seat beside her and leaned closer to whisper for her ears alone.
"We are husband and wife," he told her. "There is no cause to be embarrassed. And anyway, I believe that I am the one who has the most reason to blush this morning."
She began to giggle almost naughtily, and Tom joined in. They were still grinning at each other when King Calhoun's booming voice interrupted their secret reminiscences.
"I understand from Princess that your parents have still failed to answer your telegram and acknowledge your marriage," he said.
Tom was momentarily caught off guard. He had vowed to come forward with the truth this morning, but he couldn't very well blurt it out with Cessy's father here.
"Seems to me that's pretty dang rude," King continued argumentatively. "Princess and I are just plain folks, but at least we've got the good manners to respond to a message."
"Daddy, please—" Cessy began, determined to defend her husband and his erstwhile and mythical kindred.
Tom couldn't let her do it alone. "I ... ah ... I did hear ... ah yesterday," he interrupted.
Cessy looked at him, astonished.
"You received a wire from your family and you forgot to mention it to me!"
"Ah . . . no, not from my family . . . from . . . from their lawyer," he said.
"Their lawyer!" Cessy almost squealed the word. "My heavens! Are they going to try to have our marriage dissolved?"
King Calhoun had obviously jumped to the same erroneous conclusion.
"Who the hades do they think they are?" he bellowed.
"No, it's not that," Tom said quickly. "No, it's not that at all."
The kitchen quieted perceptively at that. Tom even managed a light chuckle at his new bride's hasty conclusion.
"Don't be silly, sweetheart. I told you they are going to love you," he said. "I heard from their lawyer because they are not at home."
"What do you mean they are not at home?" Calhoun asked.
"They've gone for a trip, an excursion ... ah, to the continent, Paris, London," he said. "They should be gone for ah . . . about six months."
"Six months?" Cessy was astonished.
"Why go to Europe if one has to rush," he said. "So we'll just have to wait to let them know."
"Can't you send them a cable?" her father asked.
"Ah . . . no, I mean not yet, they are still on the ship, of course," Tom said.
Calhoun's brow furrowed. "Isn't that the reason they invented the wireless?"
Tom was saved from having to come up with an answer for that by a frantic knocking upon the front door.
"Mr. Calhoun! Mr. Calhoun!" a young voice called out, not waiting to be let inside. "Oil! They've struck oil on the 'P.'"
An instant of complete and total silence filled Cessy's fine yellow house. Then everything broke loose.
"Wahoo!" Calhoun hollered, rising to his feet in such a rush that his chair clattered to the floor.
Tom felt the same surge of excitement course through his own veins.
Cessy was on her feet as well. Hastily grabbing her hat and handbag, she was right behind her father as he headed out the door. The messenger, Mrs. Marin, and Howard were already in the backseat of the Packard when they got there. Everybody was talking at once, the excitement a palpable thing.
"Crank her up!" Calhoun called out to Tom, and he obliged.
The loud, shaky Packard sprang to, life almost instantly as if it, too, could not wait to get there.
Cessy scooted over next to her father, leaving plenty of room in the front seat beside her.
"Sit here," she told him.
"No, I'll just stay here," he said.
"What? Don't you want to see the newest well?"
"I'll just stay here," he repeated.
"Get in," Cessy told him. "You can't miss this!"
"Yes, I can," he assured her. "Please go on without me. Enjoy yourself."
Cessy stared at him in disbelief, but Calhoun couldn't wait for another word. He slipped his growling automobile into gear and they went roaring out of the yard in a great rush. Cessy turned around in the seat to look back at him, her expression incredulous, until they were out of sight.
Tom stood alone in the silence of their noisy departure for a long moment. Then. he jumped straight up in the air, screaming.
"Wahoo!"
He began dancing around the yard, singing a tune of his own making at the top of his lungs.
"The 'P' came in, the T' came in, the P. Calhoun Number One came in! We did it! We did it! We did
it!"
He spread his arms wide and turned in a half-dozen circles, screaming his delight toward the sky, and then fell back in the grass, laughing.
The "P" had come in. All that hard work, all that sweat and grease and mud, all that heat and heartache, it had all paid off.
The crew, his crew, had been first.
Tom sighed.
He wished so much that he could have been there. He wished he could have been standing on the derrick floor when the rumble became a roar. He wished he was there now. There with all of them. Everyone who was a part of it, all of them together.
He sat up on the grass and shook his head. He just almost had to be there. He hated watching them go, watching Cessy and King and even the servants go while he had to stay behind. It was his well, not solely his of course, but he'd been a part of it. And as the boys had said, the first well is like the first love, a man never really forgets it.
Now that it had come in, his first well, he was relegated to sitting quietly at home.
He couldn't stand it. Tom rose to his feet and began walking the large expansive lawn as if he were a prisoner and this were his cage. He had been part of this well. Bringing it in was as much his victory as it was King Calhoun's. Not being there to see it sat bitterly upon him.
It was as if it were his birthday and he was the only one not invited to the party. But there was no way that he could show his face at the "P." Or rather there was no way that he could show Tom Walker's face.
Cedarleg and Ma would both be there, as well as the entire crew and all the drillers, pushers, and dressers that knew him as Tom.
King and Cessy would be there, too. And they knew him only as Gerald.
Tom finally took a seat on the porch and gazed in the direction of the Topknot. He couldn't see a thing. He couldn't hear a thing. He simply could not bear it another minute. He would lose himself within the crowd. No one who knew him would even realize that he was there.
Convincing himself that it could work, Tom hurried back into the house to get his coat and hat. Then, eager and excited, he headed out in the direction of the "P."
The slick black fortune was still spewing up high as the crown block and obscuring the top of the derrick when the Packard pulled up at the site. In the early days of oil drilling, before they'd developed control values and occasionally now to show off to investors, gushers were allowed to run for days and waste thousands of barrels of oil that way. But the experienced men of the "P" were already busy trying to clamp down the flow and directing it into the tank pipes.
