Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (111 page)

“Yes, I do,” she said, and hopped out of bed.

“Mr. Zeiss?”

“Call me Abner,” he said. “Hello, there’s a Greek place in town, name of Linardos, meet me there at one.”

“I know the place, I’ll be there,” she said, and got herself together, bathing and dressing.

“Just fruit juice and coffee,” she told Pompey.

“You trying to starve yourself?”

“No, I’m lunching with Mr. Zeiss,” she said. “I can’t eat a regular breakfast and lunch too.”

“You wanta end up a TB case?”

“Oh, Pompey,” she said, and drove away, making good time, parking on State Street, where the Greek place was.

“So here you are,” Abner Zeiss said, his mouth full of
pita
bread. “You’ll have ouzo, gotta keep everything in character.”

They had ouzo, and then gorged on
moussaka
, finishing up with thick coffee and
baklava.
Ashes, from Abner’s gargantuan cigar, dribbled down onto his lapels. He regaled her with anecdotes, told her she was a damned pretty girl, and was treated royally by the proprietor. Not only that, several persons stopped at his table, wanting to shake his hand. “Let’s get married,” Margo said, charmed with him. “Where have you been all my life?”

He said he would phone Miriam, see what she had to say about it.

“Who’s Miriam?” she asked jealously.

“My wife. She’ll understand, I’m sure.”

“I might have known you had a wife.” She thought,
If I’d had a father like
that …

At dinner that night, she said, “What did I do today? Why, I had lunch with Abner Zeiss.”

“That man, he got a weird voice,” Pompey said. “But just the same, I like that guy.”

“Who is he, anyway?” John asked, pushing back his hair with a hand.

“A man with good credentials,” Norma said, snickering, and when he phoned, later in the evening, hooted. “I have to laugh at you, you and Douglas,” she told John. “You both think you’re so great … look at Margo, racing to the telephone.”

And Margo, making a face, said, “I asked him to marry me, what do you think of
that?
” and went to the phone.

“Is this the girl with the pretty flower face?” the nasal voice asked.

“It’s Margo, for good or bad. Hello, Abner.”

“Hello to you. I’ll make you a deal. Have lunch with me and I’ll have dinner with you. I’m staying at the Lion’s Head Inn. I haven’t seized on a place for lunch tomorrow, but I’ll find some esoteric eatery, never fear. Pick me up at the hotel, okay?”

“Yes, fine.”

“And I’m invited there for dinner?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then about one in the lobby here.”

“Yes, Abner, yes, fine.”

• • •

He was buying postcards in the lobby. “I’m partial to these things,” he informed her. “Taken two decades ago, I wot. Look at the clothes! And the hairdos … shades of World War II. Frances Langford and Betty Grable. Oh yes, lunch. Ah hah! I found just the place, Italian. Got your appetite with you?”

“Um hum.”

It was Giovanni’s, with artificial flowers and a lot of little kids belonging to the family who ran the restaurant. Running in and running out. Great, dark eyes and extravagant gestures. The canelloni was delicious, the eggplant Parmigiana worth a hand kiss. Mr. Zeiss said he’d be sorry to leave Cranford. “It’s so historic,” he said. “Very much to my taste. Here, have some of this bread; you can’t get better in Italy.”

“You’re not leaving,” Margo said, alarmed. “Not when I just met you!”

“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” he said nasally, and the word
parting
made her think of Benjamin Brand’s letters. “You must read them,” she told him. “I wept a furtive tear.”

“Una furtiva lacrima,”
he said absently, and raised his voice for the bartender. “Michelob,” he said boomingly. “Innkeeper, bring on the foaming froth. And any dancing girls you have handy.”

“Yes, yes, Mr. Zeiss,” the owner said, dashing out from behind the bar. “And how are you today, Mr. Zeiss?”

“Liverish,” Abner said genially. “How’s your dear wife?”

“She died last year.”

“Some guys have all the luck.”

“Abner,” Margo chided, when the man went off for their beer.

“Therefore never send to hear for whom the bell tolls,” he said. “It tolls for thee. As a matter of fact Miriam has Parkinson’s Disease. But I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve and neither does she.”

“She has?” Margo asked, stricken.

“Yes, rather a wreck these days. Wreck or not I love her. Now what about those letters you were mentioning?”

“When we leave here, come back with me and I’ll show you.”

“What’s for dinner tonight?”

“I don’t know, but it’s always something tasty.”

“I’m invited, I hope?”

“I told you you were.”

“Fine. I didn’t sleep much last night. Can I nap a bit in some upper bedchamber?”

“Yes, mine, I’d be honored.”

“Just the two of us,” he said cozily. “I like the sound of that.”

“You’re a fraud, you wouldn’t cheat Miriam, I can see it in your honest eyes.”

“You may just be right.”

“You’re such a darling.”

“So are you,” he said. “So are you, my dear, and you’ll make some man very happy.”

“D’you think so?”

“I know so. I’d stake my life on it.”

He downed three bottles of Michelob. It disappeared into the cavern of his enormous belly, which he patted comfortably, and then they walked down Main Street to Margo’s car. “Oh, Mr. Zeiss,” a local matron said, darting up. “How are
you
today?”

“A bit under the weather.”

“But you look so well! I’m surprised you should say such a thing.”

Abner reached out and clamped a firm hand on her arm. “You know the story about Noah Webster, I presume?”

“No, Mr. Zeiss.” The townswoman, in her clean and starched housedress, faded from many launderings, looked up at the giant with the enormous belly. “I don’t, please tell me.”

“Noah Webster,” Abner told his captive audience, “came home unexpectedly one day and found his wife in bed with another man. Who was the other man? I don’t know, perhaps his best friend, that’s the way it generally happens, isn’t it? In all the operas, soap operas, bad movies and real life. However. The faithless woman looked up horrified. ‘Noah, you’re surprised?’ she whispered.

“ ‘No, Madam. I’m astonished.
You’re
surprised.’ “

There was a brief silence. “Is that a true story?” the woman finally asked, looking befuddled.

“Apocryphal, most likely.”

“You mean a President of the United States … you mean — ”

“A President of the United States,” Abner thundered. “A President of …” He glowered at her. “Noah Webster wrote the
Dictionary
,” he said testily. “Aardvark, aardwolf, Aaronic, abaca, abacinate …” He towered over her; for a moment she was uncertain, intimidated. Then he folded his hands across his stomach, beamed at her, told her she had hair like cornsilk, said he hoped her daughters would marry well. He picked up one of her clean, scrubbed hands and kissed it gallantly.

“Now get home to your waiting spouse,” he said, and wished her a good day.

“You are not to be believed,” Margo said, and he told her that, on the contrary, he was an adorable guy, and helped her into the front seat of her car. “A catnap first and then I hope a hearty dinner,” he said, climbing in beside her. “Maybe steak, maybe fried chicken, perhaps pot roast, Yankee Pot Roast. My mouth is watering, just thinking about it. Boy, can that boy of yours turn a skittle.”

“You only had his wheat cakes,” she said. “Wait till you taste his chef d’oeuvres.”

“With that saintly face of yours, no one would ever guess you could talk so dirty,” he said, and she burst out laughing.

“Oh, Abner!”

“That’s what I like to see,” he said comfortably. “A pretty girl with a smile on her face.”

• • •

He did nap in her bedroom, and came down, sleepy-eyed, at seven fifteen, after Pompey stood at the door, banging on it, and telling him to wake up, drinks were being served. “Mr. Abner, Mr. Abner!”

Norma said, “You’re right, he is rather an old dear, listen to him snorting and snarling up there.”

But he finally clattered down the stairs, drank liberally, and also downed several glasses of wine at the table. Pompey had made veal birds, with small artichokes and little shallots and roast potatoes. “For
you
, I’d consider divorcing my wife,” Abner told the servant. “Just learn to make a real good matzoh-ball soup and the deal’s made. We’ll live happily ever after, my good man.”

“Just give me the recipe and I’ll make it,” Pompey said, vaingloriously, the praise going to his head.

Abner Zeiss went off, after eating his way through Pompey’s substantial dinner, at a little after ten. He called next morning, inviting Margo to lunch. “We seem to be going steady,” she said.

“I found this fabulous place,” he told her. “A little Heinie who made a cutesie little Weingarten just like in Sievering. I’ll ply you with liquor and good food and then have my way with you. You didn’t think my intentions were honorable, did you?”

“That’s the trouble, I’m afraid they are.”

“You’re asking for it,” he warned. “Pick me up, say one o’clock or so and I’ll treat you to Wiener Schnitzel and Kartoffel Klasse. You couldn’t get better in Yorkville.”

• • •

It was a drive of about half an hour, then Abner grabbed her arm. “Turn here.”

They bumped along a side road and came to an absolutely
unreal
garden restaurant … unreal, that was, for upstate New York with its white-clapboarded inns and gambrel-roofed houses, its Grant Wood town halls and spired churches. There was a large garden with old fruit trees and a grape arbor and waiters in Bavarian costume. Abner was right: it could have been Grinzing or Nussdorf, and two men dressed in loden sat on stools and played Viennese music.

Wienerblud, Wienerblud …

“You made this up,” Margo said, as they were seated at a rude table with a red and white checked cloth. “It’s simply a figment of your wild imagination.”

“Of course it is,” he said imperturbably. “You’re dreaming, you’re home in bed, dreaming.”

A waiter came over, rosy-cheeked and beaming. “So, ladies and gentlemen, what will you have? I recommend the Kassler Rippchen.”

“Nope. Wiener Schnitzel,” Abner said. “Bring us some beer first.”

“Loewenbrau?”

“And plenty of it.”

“Ja ja.”
A click of the heels and he was gone.

“When you leave, you won’t forget me, will you?” Margo asked wistfully.

“Certainly not. I’ll write you impassioned letters every other day.”

“You won’t, but I wish you would. Incidentally, you didn’t seem very interested in my old family letters. You never asked to see them.”

“Accidentally on purpose,” he said blandly. “How can I expect to be asked to dinner every night if there isn’t some excuse … like those letters I keep forgetting?”

“You don’t need an excuse,” she said fondly. “You’re invited to dinner again tonight, and tomorrow night, and for as long as you’re here.”

“Oh, I’m a wily sort.”

“It’s so funny about rapport, Abner. I can’t seem to remember a time when I didn’t know you.”

“Mit dem Reden kommen die Leute suzammen.”

“Meaning?”

“Loosely, friendship comes with conversation. German.”

‘I’ll buy that.”

“A laiben ahf dir.”

“German?”

“No, Yiddish. It translates, ‘You should live and be well.’ “

The waiter came back with the beer and a basket of bread, with a saucer of sweet butter nestled in ice. Abner lathered a slab of the dark bread, handed it to her. “Taste
that
,” he said, “and tell me I don’t know where to find good eats.” Lifting his glass of beer, he toasted her.

“Zeit gezunt!”

“Same to you,” she said, and shortly thereafter the Wiener Schnitzel was set before them, delicately breaded, and the potato pancakes, and a cucumber salad. They ate like gluttons, and when Abner started mulling over what to order for dessert, Margo said, “Dessert after all that?”

“We’ll have the Marillen Knoedl, it’s as light as a feather,” Abner said, and it was absolutely marvelous. “I wouldn’t
dare
get on a scale,” Margo cried, but he told her women should be zoftig, with the ugly bones hidden with good, solid flesh, and promised that he would put some beef on her.

“I almost called last night when I got back to the Lion’s Head,” he said. “Because the man behind the desk told me about this place; he’s a displaced Austrian and we have become great friends.”

“If you’d called last night I wouldn’t have answered,” she said, and told him about the telephone calls, and then, seeing his interest and concern, told him about falling down the stairs in the middle of the night.

“So you see,” she said, “I just don’t answer the phone when it rings after eleven. And my car with the bad brakes … Well, what would you think, Abner?”

He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “I haven’t begun to think,” he said softly. “But I will now. I certainly will now.”

“It’s all been very wearing.”

“I can quite imagine. Do you have any ideas?”

“Some. There’s a gardener, a rather brutal type. I don’t know. Aside from him, I can’t
imagine.
You see, when I was a child, I spent all my summers here. My father’s aunt, Victoria Brand, inherited the house by direct line, and by direct line I inherited it from her. Which seems to displease someone.”

“Who’s that young man?” he asked without equivocation.

“You mean John? Well — ”

She told him the whole story. “It would seem logical that she would have willed the house to John,” she finished. “But instead, it’s mine. I try to put myself in his place. Wouldn’t I feel angry, thwarted, unfairly treated?”

“I know I would,” he said flatly.

“And so, probably, does he.”

They lingered, until almost four, welcome guests, and then got up to go. “Come again, come again,” the proprietor said cordially, bowing from the waist. “
Auf wiedersehen
, have a pleasant day.”