The bride wore black (9 page)

"Don't get so unnerved about it. Your mother's had these spells before and gotten over them," he tried to point out.

But her distress had already taken a different tack. "But what'll I do about you and Cookie?"

He took umbrage at being lumped together with his five-year-old son in helplessness. "I can look after him," he said sharply. "I'm no cripple. Do you want me to find out what buses there are for you?"

"I've already done that myself, and there's one at five. If I take a later one 111 have to sit up all night, and you know how miserable that is."

"You better take the early one," he agreed.

The pace of her conversation quickened, became a flurry. "I'm all packed, just an overnight bag. Now, Frank, will you meet me at the terminal?"

"Okay, okay." He was starting to get a little impatient with this endless rigmarole. Women didn't know how to >make a telephone call short and to the point. His secretary was standing in the doorway, waiting to consult him about something

"And, Frank, be sure you're there on time. Remember, you'll have to take Cookie home with you. Ill have him with me; I'm picking him up at the kindergarten on my way downtown."

As PUNCTUAL as he made it a point to be, Margaret was already there ahead of him when he got down to the terminal, with the little dab of foreshortened humanity that was Cookie by her side. The latter began to jump up and down, giving vertical emphasis to the important information he had to impart. "Daddy, mommy's going away! Mommy's going away!"

He was unnoticed by both of them, this being one of the rare times he didn't succeed in monopolizing the opening moments of one of their conversations. "What've you been doing, crying?" Moran accused her. "Sure you have, I can tell by your eyes. There's no sense acting that way about it."

A torrent of maternal advice began pouring from her. "Now, Frank, you'll find the food for his supper all ready on the kitchen table, all you'll have to do is heat it. And, Frank, don't feed him too late, it isn't good for him. Oh, and another thing, you'd better let him do without his bath tonight. You don't know enough about giving it to him, and I'm afraid something might happen to him in the tub."

"One night without it won't kill him," Moran grunted contemptuously.

"And, Frank, do you think youll know how to undress him?"

"Sure. Just unbutton, and there you are. What's the difference between his things and my own? Just smaller, that's all."

But the torrent spilled forth unabated. "And, Frank, if you should want to go out yourself later on, I wouldn't leave him alone in the house if 1 were you. Maybe you can get one of the neighbors to come in and give him an eye "

A voice was megaphoning sepulchrally somewhere in the vaulted depths below the waiting room. "Hobbs Landing, Allenville, Greendale "

"That's yours, y'better get on."

They moved slowly down the ramp to departure level. The torrent was at last slackening; it came only in desultory little spurts now, afterthoughts concerned with his own personal well-being. "Now, Frank, you know where I keep your clean shirts and things "

"Ba-awd," the bus starter was keening.

She wound her arms about his neck with unexpected tightness, as though she were still not one hundred percent maternal. "Goodbye, Frank, I'll be back the minute I can."

"Phone me when you get up there so I'll know you arrived okay."

"I do hope she'll be all right."

"Sure she will, she'll be up and around again before the week is out "

She crouched down by Cookie, adjusted his cap, his jacket collar, the hem of one of his httle knee pants, kissed him on the three sides of the head. "Now, Cookie, you be a good boy, listen to whatever daddy tells you."

The last thing she said, from inside the bus steps, was, "Frank, he's forming a habit of telling little fibs

lately, I've been trying to break him of it; don't encourage him "

She finally had to turn away because others were trying to get in after her and she was blocking the entrance. The bus driver turned his head and followed her more loosely with his eyes down the aisle toward her seat. He muttered, "For Pete's sake, I only run a couple of hours upstate, not all the way to the Mexican border."

Moran and offspring shifted over on the platform opposite her seat. She couldn't get the window up, or she would probably have gone on indefinitely in the same vein as before. She had to content herself with blowing kisses and making instructive signs to the two of them through the pane. Moran couldn't tell what most of them meant but pretended he understood by nodding docilely in order to make her feel better about it.

The bus started to wheel out along the concrete with a gritty, hissing sound. Moran bent down to the diminutive self beside him, raised one of its toothpick arms. "Wave goodbye to your mother," he instructed. He worked the little appendage awkwardly back and forth, like something on a toy pump.

He was thinking of Margaret for the tenth time, with a newborn respect, almost with awe, for being able to whip any kind of results out of chaos like this and not just once, but day after day when the doorbell rang.

He groaned aloud. "I haven"t got enough on my hands, I gotta have company yet, to hang around and laugh at me!"

He had his coat and tie off, shirt sleeves rolled up out of harm's way, and one of Margaret's aprons tucked into his belt. He'd managed to get Cookie's food warmed up after all, the way Margaret had left it waiting, all you did was strike a match and put it on the gas stove and he'd managed to bring Cookie and the food together

at the table, after a lot of running around. But accomplishment ended there. What did you do to keep a kid from walloping it backhand with the flat of his spoon, making mud pies with it so to speak, so that it flew up all over? With Margaret around. Cookie just seemed to eat. With him, he laid down barrages on it, and flecks of it were even hitting the wall opposite.

Moran kept shifting around behind him from one side to the other, trying to nab the niblick shots that were doing all the damage. Persuasion was worse than useless; Cookie had him out on a limb and knew it.

The door bell peeped a second time. Moran meanwhile being so busy he had already forgotten about the first ring. He raked despairing fingers through his hair, looked from Cookie out toward the door and from the door back to Cookie. Finally, as though deciding nothing could be any worse than this, he started out to answer it, wiping off" a dab of spinach from just above one eyebrow.

It was a woman, and he didn't know her. She was a lady, anyway; she carefully refrained from seeming to see the apron with blue forget-me-nots in one corner, acted as though he looked perfectly normal.

She was young and rather pretty but was dressed in a way that seemed deliberately to seek to ignore the latter attribute; in a neat but plain blue serge jacket and skirt. Her hair was reddish gold and kept in severe confinement by pins or some other means. Her face was innocent of anything but soap and water. She had a little rosette of freckles on each cheek, high up on it; none anywhere else. She had an almost boyish air of friendliness and naturalness.

"Is this Cookie Moran's house?" she asked with a friendly little smile.

"Yes but my wife's away right now ..." Moran answered helplessly, wondering what she wanted.

"I know, Mr. Moran." There was something understanding, almost commiserating, about the way she said it. There was also a betraying little twitch at the corner of her mouth, quickly restrained, "She said something about that when she came by for Cookie. That's why Tm here. Tm Cookie's kindergarten teacher. Miss Baker."

"Oh, yes!" he said quickly, recognizing the name. "I've heard my wife speak of you a lot." They shook hands; she had the firm, cordial sort of a grip you would have expected her to have.

"Mrs. Moran didn't actually ask me to come over, but I could tell by the way she spoke she was worried about how you two would make out, so I took it upon myself to do it anyway. I know she's had to leave on fairly short notice, so if there's anything I can do "

He didn't make any bones about showing his relief and gratitude. "Say, that's swell of you!" he said fervently. "Are you a lifesaver. Miss Baker! Come

in-"

He became belatedly aware of the forget-me-notted apron, snatched it off and hid it behind him bunched in one hand.

"How do you get them to eat, anyway?" he asked confidentially, closing the door and following her down the hall. "I'm afraid to ram it in his mouth, he might choke "

"I know just how it is, Mr. Moran, I know just how it is," she said consolingly. She took one all-comprehensive look around her when she got to the dining-room doorway and gave a deep-throated little chuckle. "I can see I got here just in the nick of time." He'd thought it was in pretty good shape until now, compared to the kitchen. That was where the hurricane had really struck.

"How's the young man?" she asked.

"Cookie, look who's here," Moran said, still overjoyed

at this unexpected succor that was hke manna from heaven. "Miss Baker, your kindergarten teacher. Aren't you going to say hello to her?"

Cookie studied her a long moment with the grave unblinking eyes of childhood. "Is not!" he finally said dispassionately.

"Why, Cookie!'' Miss Baker rebuked gently. She crouched down by the high chair, bringing her head to the level of his. She put a finger to his chin and guided it. "Turn around and look at me good." She found time to flash a tolerant smile to Moran over his head. "Don't you know Miss Baker anymore?"

Moran was embarrassed for the child, as though it made him out the parent of a mentally retarded offspring. "Cookie, what's the matter with you, don't you know your own kindergarten teacher?"

"Is not," said Cookie without taking his eyes off her.

Miss Baker looked at the father, completely at a loss. "What do you suppose it is?" she asked solicitously. "He's never been that way with me before."

"I dunno, unless unless " A remark his wife had made came back to him. "Margaret warned me just now before she left that he's starting to tell little fibs; maybe this is one of them now." He put an edge of authority into his voice for his auditor's benefit. "Now, see here, young man "

She made a charming little secretive gesture with her eyelids, a sort of deprecating flicker. "Let me handle him," she breathed. "I'm used to them." You could see she was a person who had infinite patience with children, would never lose her temper under any circumstances. She thrust her face toward him cajolingly. "What's the matter. Cookie, don't you know meanymore? I knowyou."

Cookie wasn't saying.

"Wait, I think I have something here." She opened her

large handbag, brought out a folded sheet of paper. Spread, it revealed an outline drawing, printed, filled in with crayon coloring by hand. The crayon filling did not match the guidelines very accurately, but the will was there.

Cookie eyed it without any visible signs of pride of accomplishment.

"Don't you remember doing this for me this morning and, I told you how good it was? Don't you remember you got a gold star for doing this?"

That, at least, had a familiar ring to Moran's own ears, if not his offspring's. Many a night on coming home he'd gotten the vertically ejaculated tidings, "I got a goP star today!"

"Are you Miss Baker?" Cookie conceded warily.

"Ho!" She worried the lobe of his ear. "Of course I am, bless you! You know that."

"Then why don't you look like she does?"

She smiled amusedly at Moran. "I suppose he means the glasses. He's used to my wearing horn-rimmed glasses when teaching class; I came out without them tonight. There's a fine point of child psychology involved, too. He's used to seeing me in the kindergarten and not in his home. I don't belong here. So " she spread her hands " I'm not the same person."

Moran was secretly admiring her scientific attitude toward the child and the thorough knowledge it was obviously grounded on, so different from Margaret's irrational, emotional approach.

She stood up, evidently not a believer in pressing a contested point too far with a reluctant child at any one given time; rather winning it over to her viewpoint by degrees, a little at a time. He'd heard Margaret say that was the way they handled the youngsters at the kindergarten.

"Hell forget all about this refusal to recognize me

himself in five minutes watch, youll see,"she promised brightly in an undertone.

"You've got to know just how to go about it with kids, don't you?" he said, impressed.

''They're distinct little entities in their own right, you know, not just half-formed grown-ups. That's a mistaken old-fashioned notion that we've discarded." She removed her hat and jacket, started toward the ravaged kitchen. "Now, let me see what I can do here to help. How about you yourself, Mr. Moran?"

"Oh, never mind about me," he said with insincere self-denial. "I can go out to a cafeteria later "

"Nonsense, there's no need for that at all, HI have something ready before you know it. Now, you just read your evening paper 1 can see by the way it's still folded over you haven't had a chance to go near it yet and just forget everything, as though your wife were here looking after things."

She was, thought Moran with a grateful sigh, one of the nicest, most competent, most considerate young women to have around that he'd ever yet had the pleasure of encountenng. He strolled out into the living room, rolled down his shirt sleeves and eased back behind his evening box score.

It SEEMED A LONGER RIDE than it had the summer before, when she and Frank had last made the trip up, although Garrison hadn't moved any at one end. or the city at the other. But that was because she was making it alone, for one thing, she supposed, and under unfavorable auspices, for another.

Frank had got her a seat by the window, and no one came to claim the one beside her. so she was spared the added discomfort of having to keep up a desultory conversation with some well-meanmg seatmate; the penalty for refusal being, as she knew only too well, the even