by Max Shulman
“At this point I had an inspiration. ‘Have you ever been married?’ I asked.
“She perked up immediately, and the next thing I knew we were on our way to a justice of the peace.”
“It’s like a storybook romance,” I breathed.
But George was not listening. He was running rapidly across the room. Miss Geddes, still playing the whaling game, had her arm drawn back and was taking careful aim on Mrs. Overmeyer with a brass fireplace poker. George seized the poker just as it was about to fly from her hand.
“Shoddy goddam thing to do,” complained Miss Geddes. “Taking a girl’s harpoon away.”
“Come on, Moby Dick,” said George, lifting his wife to her feet. “Let’s go home and spawn.”
With many a laugh and cheer they made their exit. Now only Miss Geddes and I were left.
My hostess sat on the sofa, elbow on knee, chin in hand, pensive. “What a subject you would make for Rodin,” I said with a warm smile.
She looked up. “You there,” she said, “let’s have some fun.”
“What would you like to do, ma’am?” I asked politely.
“Think of something, stupid,” she replied.
“There are a few windows still unbroken,” I suggested.
“Balls,” she replied.
“How about turning in some false alarms?” I suggested.
“Balls,” she replied.
A proposal to play Musical Chairs elicited the same response, and so did a dozen other suggestions. “Always the same old crap,” she said peevishly. “Can’t you think of anything new?”
Then all at once a bursting, blinding thought flashed into my mind. I grew faint with hopefulness. And yet at the same moment I knew it could not be. It was madness—madness. But was it? It had happened before. Could it not happen again?
Back and forth I paced, torn with indecision. A hundred times I made up my mind to try it, and a hundred times I faltered. At length I stopped pacing. My mind was made up. Come what might, I had to try it.
Slowly I started walking across the room to Miss Geddes. A glass of fine spirits stood on a table in my path. I paused to pick it up and drink it. Then on I went until I was by her side.
“Miss Geddes,” I said, and I could not hear my voice over the pounding of my heart, “have you ever been married?”
CHAPTER 8
“You’ll be crazy about her, Mother,” I said.
“She ain’t movin’ in with us,” said Mother.
“Ivanhoe Gardens—end of the line,” said the driver, and we got off the bus.
Dad looked with awe at the splendid homes all around us. “Which one of these joints does she work in?” he asked.
“She doesn’t work in any of them,” I chuckled.
“Works outdoors, huh?” said Mother. “Pickin’ up paper and stuff like that.”
“No, no,” I said. “She lives here.”
Mother whipped out her darning egg.
“Honest, Mother,” I cried, leaping behind Dad. “She does.”
“You mean one of these swell broads married you?” asked Mother, eying me suspiciously.
“Yes,” I said simply.
“Get the hell out of here,” said Mother.
“It’s the truth, Mother.”
Mother thought for a moment. “How many months gone was she?” she asked.
“Mother!” I said reproachfully.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, Son,” smiled Dad. “Your mother was in labor when we got married.”
“Someday,” said Mother to Dad, “I’m gonna take that big upper lip of yours and pull it over the top of your head like a cabbage leaf.”
She said some more things too, but Dad lowered the earlaps on his cap and spared himself.
We were in front of the Geddes house. “Here we are,” I said. We crossed the moat and went up the mother-of-pearl path to the door. A lawn, smooth as a fairway, extended for a hundred feet on either side of the path. On one side of the lawn was a privet hedge, trimmed to spell out GEDDES. On the other side was a small circular pool over which leaned a bronze nymph from whose nipples came two ever-replenishing jets of water. Mother and Dad were silent—impressed, as I was, by the quiet good taste of everything.
Waving hello to a crew of glaziers replacing the windows broken in the previous night’s revelry, I rang the doorbell.
After a short interval a distinguished-looking man with a white moustache and pince-nez opened the door. He looked at us askance.
“Are you Mr. Geddes?” I asked.
He nodded.
I clasped his hand warmly. “Dad,” I breathed.
He wrenched his hand free in alarm. He stared hard at me, then at Dad, then at Mother. Recognition came into his eyes when he spied Mother. “Emma,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
“Hiya,” mumbled Mother.
“Then you know each other!” I exclaimed with delight.
“I used to scrub floors in his office,” explained Mother.
“Well, well, well,” I smiled.
Dad extended his hand. “I’m Oscar Riddle,” he confessed. “I think dowries are a charming custom.”
“What,” demanded my father-in-law, “is going on here?”
“They’re my folks, Dad Geddes,” I explained with a chuckle.
Dad Geddes stamped his foot. “Who the hell are you?” he screamed.
“Harry,” I smiled.
“What do you want?” he shouted.
“Fifteen thousand,” said Dad. “For a start, I mean. Later we can expand.”
Dad Geddes clenched his hands. “Look,” he said slowly, “I’m very tired. I just got home from a trip. My daughter had a party last night and I found the house in a shambles.”
“Little minx,” I smiled.
Dad Geddes continued. “I’ve got a headache. I would like to lie down. Will you please state your business and leave?”
“Then Miss Geddes hasn’t told you?” I asked.
“Told me what?”
“Naturally I expect to make you a partner,” said Dad. “Junior partner, of course.”
“Miss Geddes and I got married last night,” I said with a blush.
“Winifred!” shrieked Dad Geddes. “Winifred! Winifred!”
A distinguished-looking lady with elegantly coifed gray hair came rushing out to the stoop. “What is it, Archer?” she asked, looking with grave concern at his deep purple face. “Who are these dreadful people?”
“Mother Geddes,” I said tenderly and kissed her cheek.
She leaped with a scream upon her husband’s back.
“The way I look at it,” said Dad, “caps are due for a big comeback.”
“One of these individuals claims he is married to Esme,” said Dad Geddes.
“Give them some money and they’ll go away,” said Mother Geddes.
“Now you’re talkin’,” said Dad.
“I can’t blame you for being surprised,” I said. “It was rather sudden. But we’ll make up for it. We’ll all see a lot of each other.”
They shuddered.
Mother strode over and seized Mother Geddes by her bodice. “Think you’re better than I am, huh?” she asked.
“Please,” said Mother Geddes.
“Tell you what,” suggested Mother. “I’ll wrestle you for a hundred bucks.”
“Please,” said Mother Geddes.
“A game of pool, then,” said Mother. “I’ll give you the fifteen ball and shoot left-handed.”
Dad took Dad Geddes’s arm. “While the ladies are talking woman-talk,” he said, “why don’t you and I go into the study and discuss our cap factory?”
“Perhaps,” I suggested, with a look at the circle of curious glaziers who had gathered around us, “we had all better go inside.”
“Yes,” said my mother-in-law. She dismounted from my father-in-law and led the way into the living room.
“Now let’s get to the bottom of this,” said Dad Geddes. “Emma, will you kindly unhan
d my wife?”
Mother released her wristlock on Mother Geddes.
Dad Geddes turned to me. “Now, you claim you married my daughter last night?”
“A whirlwind courtship, you might call it,” I smiled.
“The beauty part of a cap,” said Dad, “is that it sits right against your head. You take a hat, it’s got thirty-eight cubic inches of cold air between your scalp and the crown.”
“What proof do you have of your marriage?” Dad Geddes asked me.
I handed him my marriage license with a warm smile.
“Flabby,” said Mother, prodding Mother Geddes in the abdomen. “Your gut hangs like a peplum.”
“Bully,” said Mother Geddes.
Dad Geddes examined the marriage license. “It’s a trick of some kind,” he said.
“Oh no, sir,” I protested. “Ask Miss Geddes.”
“I intend to,” he said. He walked to the foot of the stairs and called, “Esme! Esme, come down here at once.”
“How much can you lift?” Mother asked Mother Geddes.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Mother Geddes.
“Look,” said Mother. She put her shoulder under the corner of the Steinway and raised it six feet off the ground.
“That’s very impressive, no doubt,” said Mother Geddes, “but we are seldom called upon to lift pianos in my set.”
“Think how many ways you can use a cap,” said Dad. He took his cap out of his pocket and put it on his head. “For ordinary weather,” he said. He let down the earlaps. “For cold weather,” he said. He tucked the earlaps back and turned the cap around with the vizor pointing backward. “For motoring,” he said. He let down the earlaps. “For cold-weather motoring,” he said.
Miss Geddes came down the stairs.
“Mother,” I said, “put down the piano and come meet my wife.”
Taking Mother and Dad by the hand, I advanced to greet Miss Geddes. If the test of married love is to love one’s wife in the morning, I passed it beyond cavil on this forenoon. To put it bluntly, Miss Geddes looked awful. Her eyes were like two slots in a gum machine. Her complexion was the color of an apple that has been peeled and left in a warm room overnight. Her hair, which had been worn in an upsweep the night before, had now somehow become flattened on the top and looked like an irregular mortarboard. Her gait was eccentric, and her fingers jerked as though they were trying to leap off her hands.
But I loved her.
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and clutched the newel post. “Miss Geddes,” I said, “this is Mother and Dad Riddle.”
“She don’t look like she can lift much either,” said Mother.
“I’m gonna put in a line of ladies’ caps too,” said Dad.
“Esme,” said Dad Geddes, “nod once if you can understand me.”
Her head rose and fell.
“Do you see these persons?”
She shook her head.
He pried one of her eyes open with his thumb and forefinger. “Now?”
She nodded.
“Did you marry the person in the middle last night?”
Miss Geddes fixed me with her open eye and looked for a long time. There was no sound except the crunch of Mother Geddes biting her knuckles. Miss Geddes’s other eye opened independently for a moment and quickly closed again. A spasm of twitching passed over her frame. She nodded.
“We are undone!” cried Mother Geddes and flung herself to the floor.
“No, by George,” thundered Dad Geddes. “We’ll fight this thing. We’ll have it annulled.”
“You can’t, Dad Geddes.” I blushed hotly. “It’s been consummated.”
“You can’t prove that!” he shouted.
“But I can. There were witnesses.”
“Witnesses!” he gasped.
“Not many,” I admitted. “Only a dozen or so. It was pretty late at night.”
“But where—”
“On the courthouse steps,” I giggled.
Miss Geddes’s arms slid down the newel post and she joined her mother on the floor.
“My God!” croaked Dad Geddes, banging his fist into his forehead.
“What’s so terrible?” shrugged Dad. “Look at it this way: you haven’t lost a daughter; you’ve gained a son.”
“Archer,” said Mother Geddes to Dad Geddes, “we’ll have to leave the country at once.”
“Of course,” he replied. “I’ll make reservations for this afternoon.”
“Don’t forget to write,” I smiled. “Even if it’s only a postcard.”
“Say,” said Dad, “I bet you could use a few steamer caps.”
Dad Geddes pulled his wife to her feet. “Let’s go up and pack.”
They started up the stairs. Mother Geddes stopped suddenly. “Where will you and Esme live?” she asked me.
“Not with me,” said Mother.
“I know of a room behind Schultz’s bakery,” I said. “Right next to the oven. Very warm in winter.”
“Oh, Archer!” cried Mother Geddes, wringing her hands.
“All right,” said Dad Geddes. “They can stay here. The house is theirs. My wedding present. Now let’s get packed and get the hell out of here.”
They went upstairs. Dad walked over to the sideboard and started filling his pockets with flat silver. Mother poked Miss Geddes’s midriff with her toe.
“I give her two years,” said Mother. “That’s all. Then she’ll be fatter’n the old lady.”
CHAPTER 9
Mrs. Hargreaves opened the door of my office—Dad Geddes’s office actually; I had taken it over when he left the country. It was a handsomely appointed office and suited me very well, although the constant clatter of stock tickers was rather annoying. Dad Geddes had been a broker during his residence in the United States.
Mrs. Hargreaves addressed me.
“What?” I shouted. I could not hear her over the din of the stock tickers.
She came close and yelled in my ear, “There’s a guy here to see you.”
“Now who would want to see me?” I bellowed.
“Damn if I know,” she replied piercingly.
“All right. Show him in.” I took her arm as she started to leave. “Mrs. Hargreaves,” I roared, “you’ve worked here for a long time. Do you know how to turn off these tickers?”
She shook her head.
“And all this ticker tape that’s piling up.” I pointed to a great mass of paper writhing on the floor. “What should I do with it?”
She shrugged.
“Well, no matter,” I shrieked. “Perhaps a parade will go by someday and I can throw it out the window. Show the gentleman in.”
Mrs. Hargreaves undulated from my office. A most attractive woman, she. Extravagantly developed. But that, of course, was none of my concern. I was interested only in her clerical ability, although, to be sure, I had not yet had occasion to observe it. The fault was mine. She asked me every morning whether I had any letters to give her. Even if the noise of the tickers would have permitted dictation, I could think of nobody I wanted to write to, so I always had to decline Mrs. Hargreaves’s offer with thanks. Lately I had been letting her take afternoons off. In fact, I took them off myself. Every afternoon I would black my face with burnt cork, go down to the Union Depot and carry bags until I had accumulated fifty cents, and then go to the movies.
Mrs. Hargreaves brought in a shark-toothed gentleman in a sharkskin suit. Because of the difficulty of hearing in my office, I had been practicing reading lips, and I watched the gentleman’s mouth very carefully as he spoke to me. “My sow has a new Chevrolet,” I thought he said. Certain that that could not be correct, I shouted, “I beg your pardon?”
“I’m Payson Atterbury,” he yelled.
“So much noise,” I thundered apologetically. “Do you know how to turn these things off?”
He walked over to the tickers and did something I didn’t quite see. The tickers fell silent.
“Thank you,” I said
gratefully. “Payson Atterbury? Not ‘The Great Forecloser’?”
“The same,” he confessed shyly.
I wrung his hand. “Well, I am glad to meet you, Mr. Atterbury. I’ve heard some fine things about your usurious practices.”
“I had a lot of luck,” he murmured. “But let’s not talk about me. It’s you I’m interested in. I’m a great friend of Esme’s, and when I learned she was married, I had to drop in and say hello to her husband.”
“That’s right neighborly,” I said.
“How are you and Esme getting along?”
“It’s hard to tell,” I admitted. “She hasn’t spoken to me since our marriage.”
“Busy, no doubt,” said Mr. Atterbury.
“Perhaps,” I replied doubtfully. “But I don’t know what she can be doing. She just lies in bed all day with her face against the wall.”
“Quite normal,” Mr. Atterbury assured me.
I was much relieved.
“But enough of marital bliss,” said Mr. Atterbury. “Let’s get down to business. I’m a man of few words, Mr. Riddle.”
“Maybe a thesaurus would help,” I suggested.
“I have taken the liberty of investigating you, and I am very much impressed with your record as an attorney.”
“You’re funning me,” I said.
“No,” he insisted. “I know that things haven’t gone well for you, but it’s not your fault. You’re just not a courtroom lawyer. Your legal talents lie in another direction—research, organization, planning.”
This, indeed, was a facet of my personality I had not even suspected. I could not help but admire Mr. Atterbury for having discovered it.
“I could use a man like you,” he said.
“Whatever for?” I asked.
“I pride myself on my ability to judge character, Mr. Riddle. I’m convinced that you are a man of intelligence, discretion, and loyalty. I have a top-secret job, and I have decided that you are the man I can trust with it.”
I rose from my chair. “My hand, sir,” I said.
“So it is,” agreed Mr. Atterbury, examining it briefly.
“All right,” I said briskly. “What must I do first?”
“First,” he answered, “I want you to copy everything in Webster’s New International Dictionary.”
