Stony River (37 page)

TWENTY - ONE

FEBRUARY 14, 1958
. The bridal couple sailed past. According to Roger's secretary, Madge, who was also the groom's mother, they'd taken lessons at Arthur Murray for the occasion. The waltzing blur of a bride was a pretty girl from Westfield.

Roger found a recent tendency to be in and out of himself simultaneously curious and disturbing. Take tonight. He was dancing with Linda, maintaining the one-two-three-beat of an old Jolson number. At the same time he was off in some dark corner observing a girl in a luminous blue frock dancing with a blue-suited man. A trifle stiff, she admirably followed his lead while he carefully positioned his hand on her back to avoid her bra strap.

The man was an outsider in her life now, waltzing with a memory: twirling around the living room, his daughter's tiny feet on top of his, a Dorsey tune on the phonograph. Tonight, a live trio: piano, bass and drum.

Roger had insisted Linda attend. The wedding offered the rare opportunity to give her experience in an adult social setting. Even before the separation he'd questioned what she was learning about being a wife.

Take entertaining, for example.

The only people who'd visited their home in several years were from the church, calling on Betty in a charitable capacity. They
usually brought something: a coffee cake, a casserole. He couldn't recall Betty offering them so much as a cup of tea. Roger couldn't show Linda how to entertain in his sparsely furnished room, especially with Mrs. Ernst's pungent sauerbraten wafting up through the heat register every other day.

The late afternoon wedding had been overdone: all Valentine's Day hearts and red roses. Afterward, the guests paraded in their cars, puffing out exhaust into the frigid air and honking horns. Linda had slid under the dash, trying not to be seen. They'd ended up here at the Piney Ridge Banquet Hall on Route 22. Not a pine in sight, but at least the place was set far enough back from the road so you didn't hear the trucks air-braking their way to Pennsylvania.

Roger stumbled a bit but recovered by bending Linda back into a dramatic dip. “Lean into it,” he said, but she struggled to right herself, neck muscles straining, face flushed.

“Everybody's staring at us.”

“Because you're the prettiest girl in the place.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You are.” Keeping one hand on her back and still one-twothreeing, he dropped her hand and lifted her chin to look into her eyes. His throat tightened; how lovely she'd grown. He didn't mind her roundness as much as Betty did. Nothing wrong with a shapely body.

Linda turned her head away brusquely and placed her hand back into his. Roger's sister, Libby, claimed it was normal for fourteengoing-on-fifteen-year-olds to spurn their parents' attempts at civility. He suspected it was because he hadn't prepared Linda sufficiently for the separation. He hadn't prepared her at all, if truth be told, though it had been a long time coming. Day after day, month after month, for who knows how long, he'd found himself eliminating words and phrases that might set Betty off or send her into retreat. The silence between them had grown like a tumor until that awful Mother's
Day when she'd broken it with the banging of pans and bitter words flung at Linda but intended for him. When, later that day, she said she wanted to be left alone with her pain, he was bereft of words with which to argue.

Two waiters rolled out a table holding an obscenely tall wedding cake.

He hoped Linda wouldn't want to marry some juvenile delinquent. She didn't show particularly good judgment in friends, gravitating toward needy or rebellious types. Take that runaway, Tereza, and the boy who suddenly disappeared about a year ago. Richard? Roger wasn't keen on her newest friend, Arlene, either. Polite enough, but she lived above a tavern with a drunken lout of a father. Roger had never met him but he'd heard the stories from those who had. Not the girl's fault, of course, but she couldn't be the greatest influence.

The number over, Linda turned to leave the dance floor. Roger restrained her, gently he thought, until they had properly applauded the trio. “Whatever happened to Connie?” he asked as he escorted her back to their table. “You and she were such good pals a while back.”

Linda winced.

The word
pals
, Roger supposed. Something only a “square” would say, no doubt.

“That was in grade school,” she said as if that explained anything.

Roger and Linda were at a table with John Nolte from accounts payable, his wife, Trixie, Madge's younger cousin, Sheila Mulroney, and her husband, Mike. Nolte and his wife didn't inquire about Betty and why would they? She hadn't been to a company event in ages. Waiters had cleared dinner plates away and were pouring coffee and tea. Linda plunked herself down and began crunching an ice cube from her water glass. Roger caught her eye, put a finger to his lips.

Madge's cousin reminded him of a younger Libby, her hair the color of dark rum. Not that Roger drank much rum. He preferred
the tart taste of a whiskey sour every so often at a restaurant; Betty didn't allow liquor in the house. A stiff drink might do her good. How could she lie in bed so much and not expire from boredom? Doc Pierce said there was a chance she was allergic to something or had a pernicious form of rheumatism. A clinic in Boston might be able to help, but it took months for an appointment. Roger asked him to get her in line for one.

An amplified male voice announced the cake cutting. Roger pulled Linda's chair around so that she'd be facing the happy couple. She scowled at him. Roger swore he'd never be like his father, who'd flown the coop when Roger was six and Libby eight. Roger stopped by every night to make sure everything was okay. It peeved him to come to the house he'd inherited, sit on his mother's couch and not be able to stay. Wondering what he was missing of Linda's life when he wasn't there consumed his thoughts before sleep each night.

The trio took up another song. Roger asked Sheila to dance.

“Your daughter's lovely,” she said on the dance floor.

Sheila felt good in his arms, her chiffon dress soft under his hand, the scent of lilies of the valley rising from her neck. He and Betty had gone dancing when they first met. Betty was flirty, then, in an innocent way. She had this sexy way of pulling her gloves off, slowly tugging at the end of each finger. Lou said the antidepressants he'd prescribed could have made her frigid.

“I think so, too,” he said.

“She looks like you except for the coloring. Is her mother fair?”

“Yes.” He didn't want to talk to Sheila about Betty. “Madge says you're a teacher.”

“Third grade. They're a handful, but I live for Monday mornings. If I had to stay home and clean house all week I'd blow my brains out.”

Roger hadn't objected to Betty working before Linda was born, but taking the job at Lou Pierce's office seven months ago was completely unrealistic. She spent more shifts in bed than at work.
Lou said it was a challenging situation and he hadn't ruled out mental illness.

When Roger and Sheila returned, Linda was staring at the floor. She'd eaten his slice of cake—a sickly sweet slab of pink and white— as well as her own.

The bride and groom were making the rounds. Madge's son, Bob, a fit-looking fellow with a crew cut, came up to their table, thanked everyone for coming and asked Linda to dance. She looked down at her lap, shook her head and mumbled no. The young man reddened. Trixie came to his rescue with “
I'd
love a dance.”

From his dark corner, Roger saw his jaw stiffen and his face darken. He saw himself whisper into Linda's ear and the two of them make their way to an alcove near the entrance. He saw himself grip her shoulders with his big, square hands. Heard himself trot out his authoritative business voice.

Linda's expression froze as he bit out the words “Don't
ever
turn down a dance, do you hear me?” Ignoring her attempt at an explanation he pressed on, explaining the fragility of the male ego, the courage it took to ask a girl to dance and how humiliating it was to be turned down, especially in front of others. She was to follow along with whatever steps the boy made, laugh if he laughed, reassure him if he apologized for stumbling, treat the dance as though it were the most fun she'd ever had and the boy the most interesting person she'd ever met.

Roger couldn't make himself stop even after Linda's eyes got shimmery with tears and her body rigid as marble. He was that boy and she was Betty, turning away from him night after night, taking her meals in her room, finding any aspect of being his wife repugnant.

They went back into the hall in time for the obligatory tossing of the garter and bouquet. Trixie and Sheila urged Linda to stand with the other unmarried women to catch the bride's flowers. She proceeded to the middle of the floor as though walking a plank.

TWENTY - TWO

APRIL 7, 1958
. “Did you know the Dutch bought Manhattan from the Lenape Indians for sixty guilders?” Buddy asked. He gripped her hand so tight it ached, as buildings raced by, the wheels on the track saying
getaway, getaway, getaway
.

“What's that in real money?” Tereza had copped the last window seat. She leaned into her reflection on the cool, dusty-smelling glass, staring out at the remnants of the freak snow two weeks ago. It had started with flakes two inches across and eventually sunk electric wires so low they looked like clotheslines.

“Twenty-four dollars.”

“Cheapskates.”

She'd been all jumpy inside, anticipating this day. She'd known exactly what she wanted for her birthday when Buddy asked: a day in New York City. She'd wanted to go by herself, but he said there were too many perverts. She could've taken herself almost any day before now but there'd always been reasons not to. For one, being too far away from Ma, even for a day, plus that thing she'd had about finding Miranda. Then not wanting to chance liking New York so much she'd crap out on Buddy for good or be disappointed and have nothing left to dream about.

“You know it's an island, right?” Buddy had said as if perverts hung out only on islands.