Maggie Now

by Betty Smith

quite a city and Winer had a notion that a de luxe butcher

  shop would do well out there.

  "Otto wants to sell choice meats there and stuff from all

  over the world like Italian pepperoni and Westphalian

  ham," Denny explained to his sister. "I le wants a cheese

  department with fancy cheese from every nation in the

  world. And caviar and even snails, I guess. Truffles, he

  said, too. A lot of people in Hempstead are well off and

  would go for stuff like that. At least, that's what Otto

  thinks."

  "What do you think about it, Denny?"

  "Oh, he wants Tessie and me to move out there after he

  sets it up. Ele wants me to manage it for him."

  Maggie-Now's heart fell. Now he will go from me, she

  thought, like ClafJde afZd the children. Ilt first they'll come

  if, to see me once a week, then once a mofZth, once every

  three months arid then it quill be of Zce a year at Christmas

  or my birthday.

  "Are you?" she asked.

  "Oh, I'd like to fine,' said Denny. "Only Tessie doesn't

  want

  ~ 39 1

 

  to be so far away from her mother. So I told Winer I

  wasn't interested."

  Mixed with her relief that he wasn't going (although if

  he had said he was, she would have encouraged him to

  go) was indignation that Tessie would stand in his way. He

  should tell her that's what he wants, she thought. She'd go

  with him.

  "Anyhow, it's still only .m idea in Otto's mind."

  The wedding was set for the coming June. In the

  beginning of March, Denny asked Claude would he be his

  best man? Claude seemed very pleased and flattered and

  said he'd be honored.

  Denny told Maggie-Now that Claude had accepted the

  role of best man. "That means he won't go away this

  spring. And you'll have him around to take the place of

  me pestering you all the time," he said affectionately.

  "Don't count on it, Dennv. He'll go away again in March."

  "Not after he promised."

  "He'll go. Ile'll always go."

  "Listen, Maggie-Now. People change, you know."

  "Not at our age, Denny. (2laude's and mine. Things are

  set with

  us."

  Claude went away in March.

  Plans for the wedding went forward. Annie and

  Maggie-Now sat together many an afternoon and sewed

  for Tessie. Annie made her daughter an oval rag rug and

  Maggie-Now admired it so much that Annie made one for

  her, too. Denny and Tessie found a modest three-room

  apartment that was halfway between Annie's home and

  Maggie-Now's house.

  The girls at Tessie's store gave her a shower and Winer

  said that after Denny married he could take home from

  the store all the meat he needed at wholesale prices. That

  was his wedding gift. Tessie even got a present from her

  boss, a brand-new fivedollar bill set in slots in a flowered

  folder that said, Congrat?clations! This unexpected

  kindness gave Tessie the courage to ask if she could keep

  her job after marriage. He said, no, business was awfully

  slow.

  [3g! I

 

  "Then who'll bring tile girls change after I'm gone?"

  'Me."

  "Will you dust the hardi-are counter, too?"

  "No. The girls will rake thorns doing that. Whenever

  they go to the washroom, they can stop a second on their

  way back to dust."

  "You never needed ale in the first place, then," she said.

  "First off I did," he saicl. "But I don't now. They say this

  depression is only temporary that business will pick up

  again by Christmas. But I don't know. I should have laid

  you off but I didn't because I thought you'd need the

  money getting married and all. And besides, I kept you

  on for Auld Lang Syne like they say New Year's live. You

  see, Tessie, your mother worked for my father and you

  worked for me, maybe a daughter of yours might work for

  my SO'I, sollledaN'."

  Tessie told Maggie-Now: "He said he didn't need me.

  It's sad to think that you weren't needed even in a dime

  store."

  "I know," said Maggie-Nov. "Everybody likes to be

  needed."

  ``And ,'70U know what else he said? He said that

  maybe a daughrer of nnine 7Y'ill work for his son

  someday. Imagine!" she said indignantly. "No daughter of

  mine will ever work in a dime store! "

  That's what hey mother sairl, thought Ilaggie-Now, Shell

  7 essie was little. Ah, w ell . . . She sighed just like Annie.

  "Here s a last-minute present for you and Denny. It's

  from Lottie. You heard us speak of her?"

  "Yes, and I'd love to meet her sometime," Tessie said

  auton~atically.

  The present, of course, was the china dog with the

  nursing puppies. Tessie laughed hysterically. "That's the

  funniest thing I ever saw," she said.

  "I have to tell you, 1 essie, it's not for keeps. Lottie

  forgets. In a little while, she'll forget she gave it to you

  and Denny and she'll think it's lost and she;ll go around

  the house looking for it and crying. I'll have to sneak it

  back."

  'Of course," said Tessie.

  "llut she did think of you."

  'That was nice," said Tessie. In an offhand way, she

  added: 'Poor thing!"

  1 3971

 

  It was June, it NvaS a Saturday night, and it was the

  night before the wedding. There was an excited hush in

  the house, the same excited hush that fills a house at a

  birth, a wedding and a death. Each member of the

  household goes about with a private look on his face as

  though recognising acknowledging the great verities of

  birth, marriage and death.

  Tessie and Denny had gone to confession, she to her

  German church and Denny to Father Flynn. The marriage

  would take place in Tessie's church. But after the

  marriage Tessie would always go to her husband's church.

  The boy came from the cleaner's with Denny's suit.

  MaggieNow brought the suit hi to her brother. He was

  sitting in his room on his cot. She remembered how she

  had found him there the day she married Claude and he

  had said he wanted to go with her and she had knit It

  down before him....

  "Your suit," she said.

  "Thanks." She hung it in his closet. He said: "Sit with me

  a minute before you put the kids to bed." She sat next to

  him on the cot. He put his arms around her. "My mama,

  my sister, my Maggie-Now."

  She smiled. "Remember hose N' tl stole the little flags

  from the cemetery? "

  "A man gave them to me," he said in pretended

  indignation.

  "Happy?" she asked.

  "Can't tell you how much," said Denny.

  "Denny, it's your last night home. Go upstairs, and talk

  to Papa for a while."

  "He and I have nothing to talk about," said Denny shortly.

  "Just the same, he's yol r
father and you can overlook

  his waN7s one more time."

  "All right." Denny went up to say good-by to his father.

  Jamesie gave his sister away and Albie was Denny's best

  man. Tessie had a girl from the dime store as her

  bridesmaid. Cholly, who had continued being friends with

  Denny since the time Denny had worked for him and

  Sonny, chauffeured the wedding party around in his car.

  Van Clees, who had known and loved Tessie and Denny

  since they were born, treated t!le wedding party to a duck

  dinner out

  [ 3'7' ]

 

  on the Island. That was his gift. Of course, Cholly drove

  them out.

  Van Clees couldn't stand Cholly. Cholly's jokes irritated

  him. "Know what a duck dinner is?" asked Cholly. "You

  duck in a place, have a cup of coffee and duck out again."

  "Wisenheimer," muttered Van Clees. But he had to put

  up with Cholly, because, after all, Cholly had the car.

  There were ten in the party: Annie, Maggie-Now, Pat,

  Van Clees, Jamesie, Albie, the newlyweds and Tessie's

  attendant, and Cholly.

  Van Clees hadn't counted on Cholly. He'd brought

  along only enough money for nine dinners and a dollar tip

  for the waiter. Van Clees wasn't stingy. He was merely

  careful with his money. In order to pay for Cholly's

  dinner, Van Clees ordered only a bowl of chowder for

  himself and decided to cut the waiter's tip to seventy-five

  cents.

  Cholly, as always, dominated the festivities. "Hey,

  Maggie!" he hollered down the long table. "Remember

  me? You laughed at me when I sat down on the park

  bench next to you. But when I started to play . . . Oh,

  boy!"

  Maggie-Now gave him her wide smile. Cholly was

  getting stout and he was almost bald now, but to

  Maggie-Now he was still the flashing young boy who

  reminisced on the piano those many years ago.

  Cholly wouldn't let anybody talk. "I remember when I

  was first married to Gina," he said. "Her name is Regina

  but ever,vbody calls her Gina. Well, sir, the morning after

  our first night, she gets out of bed. 'Hey! Where you

  going, Gina?' I said. She says, 'To make your coffee.' I

  says, 'Get right back in this bed where you belong,' I savs."

  "Listen, you!" interrupted Pat. "You tell a off-color story

  in front of the wimmin, and I'll puck you right in the

  nose."

  Cholly was so wound up in his anecdote that he paid no

  attention to Pat. " 'Get back in bed,' I says. 'Why?' she

  says. 'Because I never drink coffee,' I says. 'I only drink

  Postum,' I says."

  They laughed, partly in relief that it wasn't a dirty story,

  with a fist fight as an aftermath, and partly out of

  politeness because, after all, Cholly had supplied the

  transportation.

  At the end of the dinner, Van Clees presented Denny

  with a box of fine, hand-rolled Havana cigars. He made a

  courtly little speech.

  ~ 394 1

 

  "I give you these that you should share them out to all

  your friends what was not lucky enough to marry Tessie."

  Of course, Pat had to have one then and there.

  Motivated by some black thing in his soul, he took the

  cigar apart and stuffed the expensive tobacco in his

  five-cene clay pipe, and smoked it. Van Clees held back

  his tears.

  Denny and Tessie had a few hours of honeymoon a

  night in a reserved room at the Pennsylvania Hotel over

  in Manhattan with breakfast served in their room the

  next morning. They had a night and morning of

  undreamed luxury for ten dollars and tips.

  Around midnight, Cholly called up the hotel and told

  Dennis it was the manager spearing and that Mr. Dennis

  Moore would have to get that strange woman out of his

  room before the police got there.

  T hey came together, they loved and they married. In

  innocence. and never dreaming how c ourageous they

  were, they started a new life together and a new

  generation of their own.

  It was late in the following November. Claude had been

  home a week. He had brought with him a half-grown

  Siamese cat that someone had abandoned. They sat in the

  kitchen watching the cat lap up a saucer of evaporated

  milk.

  "Tessie's going to have a baby in May," she said.

  "I know," said Claude "They asked me to be godfather,"

  he said proudly.

  "But that will be May.'

  "Of course."

  They asked him, she thought, so that he'd stay this spring.

  Bitt he won't. She sighed.

  "If it's a boy, they're going to name him . . ."

  "Claude?" she interrupted.

  "Good Lord, no! John Bassett Moore."

  "That's a beautiful name!"

  "My name! Bassett!" h said with deep satisfaction.

  Maybe he wild stay, she thought hopefully.

  Christmas was a little fad with Denny gone hut

  llaggie-NoNv

  [39il

 

  and Claude trimmed a tree for the home children and he

  gave her a cuckoo clock for Christmas. The children were

  entranced by it as was the canary, Timn,y TNVO. (The

  first Timmy had died some years ago.) When the cuckoo

  came out to call the hour, the bird sang hysterically in

  competition and the cat lashed his tail and the little boys

  laughed.

  It was Annie's first Christmas Eve alone. Jamesie and

  Tessie were in their own homes and Albie was at his girl's

  house. But Jamesie came over for a few minutes as he did

  every Christmas. He gave his mother a ten-dollar bill and

  ordered her to buy something foolish with it. Annie said

  she'd buy a pair of Educator shoes. Jamesie asked her to

  keep the gift under her hat because he didn't want his

  wife, Shirley, to know. Not that she'd care, he said loyally,

  but . . .

  Annie saw him to the door. He put a warm Christmas

  kiss on her cheek. They spol
  ritual. "You are my Mom," he said.

  "And you are my good son," she said.

  :~ CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE ~

  IT WAS early in March. "] saw Tessie in the store today,"

  MaggieNow told Claude. "She expects the baby in May.

  She told me to remind you that you promised to be

  godfather."

  "She did>" he said absently.

  "You remember. Denny asked you way back in

  November right after you came home. They're going to

  name it John F',assett. "

  "It will be a girl, of co lrse."

  Her heart sank at his indifference. She had hoped

  against hope that he wouldn't go away that spring or

  would at least stay until the baby was christened. He had

  seemed so pleased in the winter about the child's name.

  NONV her hopes were gone.

  When that day came in March, he left.

  ~ 39` 1

 

  The baby was a
girl. ~ o Maggie-Now's relief, Tessie

  had an easy time of it. Maggie-Now had worried. Tessie

  always looked so frail. But Tessie came out fine. While

  she was at the hospital, Denny stayed with Maggie-Now.

  He slept on the lounge in the front room. Maggie-Now

  was happy. It seemed like old times having Denny home

  again.

  When it was time for Tessie to leave the hospital,

  MaggieNow suggested that Denny and Tessie and the

  baby stay with her a week or two until Tessie got on her

  feet. Tessie accepted the invitation gratefully and they all

  moved in.

  Denny and Tessie had Maggie-Now's bedroom with the

  baby in a pillowed wash basket on the dressing table.

  Maggie-Now slept on the lounge in the front room. It was

  a very happy two weeks for Maggie-Now. The house Divas

  full and it was wonderful to her to cook large meals. The

  only thing was that Maggie-No wanted to hold the baby

  all the time and Tessie, a modern mother who put her

  baby on a strict schedule, didn't let Maggie-Now hold and

  cuddle the baby.

  Annie came over and they tried to decide whom the

  baby looked like. Tessie thought she looked like

  Maggie-Now and Denny thought she looked like Tessie,

  and Annie thought she looked like Gus.

  Annie fretted because the baby was ten days old and

  hadn't been christened. Tessie had decided to call her

  Mary Lorraine. Mary, after Denny's mother, and Lorraine,

  a name that Tessie would have liked for herself. The

  christening was delayed because Tessie wanted a godmoth,

  r for her child named Mary. There was no one in the

  family named Mary and none of the women had a friend

  named Mary. It was Maggie-Now who suggested they ask

  Father Flyrm to find a Mary.

  "Good day, Father," said Maggie-Now. "We came

  because Tessie wants to ask you something."

  "Come in the house, do," he said, "and sit down."

  Tessie had never seen Father Flynn outside of the

  church. She was surprised at how old he looked.

  "Yes, Theresa?" said the priest.

  "It's this way, Father. I want to christen my baby iNlary.

  I need a godmother named Mary but I don't knolls

  anyone named Mary."

  [ 397 ]

 

  "So we thought, Father," said Maggie-Now, "that you

  might know someone in the parish . . ."

  "Ah, there are many Marys," he said. He riffled through

  his memory. "Mary O'Brien . . . No, they moved out on

  the Island. The Bacianos have one. No. That's a Mario;

  a male. Yes! Ah!" He put his pipe aside, leaned back in

  his chair and smiled. "I have your baby's godmother,

  Theresa." He waited, enjoying the suspense. "Mrs.

  O'Crawlcy."

  "Who, Father?" asked Tessie.

  "Margaret knows Mrs. O'Cravvley, don't you, Margaret?"

  "Her name is Mary?" asked Maggie-Novv, surprised.

  "I have told you so, Margaret."

  "I mean," said Maggie-Now, "it just seems funny that I

  never knew her first name was the same as my mother's."

  "I'm glad it's somebody you know, Maggie-Now," said

  Tessie. "Do you think she'll be godmother, Father?"

  "How would it be, now, if I asked her?" said the priest.

  "Oh, Father! " breathe d the two w omen simultaneously

  in gratitude.

  "Settled! Baptism this Sunday coming at four. You have

  a godfather, Theresa?"

  "My brother Albie."

  "Good! "

  They prepared to league. " l hank you, Father, for

  giving us your time," began Maggie-Now.

  "A moment," said the priest. Ile raised his voice. "Father?"

  A very young priest with a thin, serious face, and

  wearing eyeglasses, came into the room Maggie-Now and

  Tessie stood up and remained standing. They had heard

  that a new priest had come to the parish to help Father

  Flynn.

  "This is Father Francis Xavier Clunny."

  How young he is, thought Tessie. No older than Dennis

  and all that education behind him!

  "Father, this is Margaret .Tfu`'re. I should SaN'

  Rassett," he corrected himself. "I christened her."

  Father Francis stared at the tall, buxom,