Then Came Heaven (40 page)

“I’ve got butterflies,” Jean said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jean.”

Frank lowered his newspaper and shot a warning glance at his wife.

“Bertha,” was all he said, low, menacing.

“Well, she’s thirty years old, for heaven’s sake, and she’s acting like a teenager!”

“Bertha!” More forceful.

“Oh, all right, all right, I know. She’s never done this before.”

“So slacken up!” he ordered, snapping his paper back in place, and Bertha finally shut her mouth.

________

Eddie got there ten minutes early and Jean was waiting on the back step.

When he slammed the truck door and spotted her rising with a full smile on her face, his eyes refused to waver anywhere else.

Though he offered perfunctory greetings to Frank and Bertha, they could see they were only a pair of gray-haired obstacles in the way of a budding romance.

As Eddie and Jean got in the truck and drove away, Frank said, “Better get used to him, Bertha.”

She grumbled, “Well, he’s got brass, I’ll say that for him.”

________

In the truck Eddie said, “Well, where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.” She was still smiling, sitting up straight as a striped gopher with her skirt spread over a petticoat that crackled.

“Well... do you want to go to a dance?”

“Oh, no,” she said with a fleeting frown. “I don’t know the first thing about dancing.”

“Well, then, do you want to go somewhere and eat dinner?”

“But I already ate at home.”

“Then how about a movie?”

“Yes! A movie! Oh, I’d love to see a movie. But it has to be a clean one. One that the legion of Decency approves of.”

“Absolutely. There’s a theater in little Falls. We could drive that way and see what’s playing.”

“Little Falls, great! Take me anywhere! I’m having the time of my life just riding in my new dress!”

He couldn’t help chuckling at her and eyeing her askance. The dress had a V-neck, cap sleeves, and made her look thin as a buggy whip. “I thought it looked new.”

“I made it,” she said, pressing the fitted skirt flat against her stomach. “Especially for tonight. Blue, because that’s your favorite color.”

“How did you know that?”

“You wear blue suits a lot, and blue ties. Last Saturday night you wore a blue-and-white striped shirt. I forgot to tell you I liked it.”

He was falling in love so hard it felt like a dogfight in his gut.

“Come over here,” he said, catching her hand and tugging. “I’ll bet you never rode in a truck with a guy’s arm around you.”

“No, I haven’t.” He could tell the minute his teasing flustered her, because she trained her eyes straight ahead and acted more prim.

“Well, now you have.” He dropped an arm around her shoulders and let it lie lightly, rubbing her bare right arm. They turned westward and the sun got in his eyes. She lowered his visor and he said, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied, then sat very still. He could tell she was absorbing the newness of having her arm very lightly stroked. It gave her goose bumps he could see on her bare skin.

When they were halfway to little Falls he had the idea, but decided he’d better quit stroking her while he suggested it, otherwise she might think he was after more than either of them intended.

He removed his arm and told her, “There’s a drive-in theater at little Falls, too.”

She wasn’t 
that
 sheltered! She read the 
St. Cloud Visitor
! She knew what happened at drive-in theaters and why the Catholic Church spoke out against them!

“A drive-in theater?” she repeated, sitting up more erectly and darting him a deprecating glance.

He squinted below the visor. A bright orange ray struck him in the eye. “Not long till sundown.”

She didn’t say a word, but he could tell she was tempted.

“Up to you,” he said.

By the time they’d reached the edge of little Falls, she still hadn’t said a word, so he pulled over to a curb, put the truck in neutral and turned to her, resting his arm on the steering wheel. “Look,” he said, “you know me. If you think I’d take you to a drive-in theater just to get you in some compromising position, you’re wrong. It just... well, it just tickles me pink to see you excited, trying new things. I just thought you maybe never went to a drive-in before and you’d like to try it.”

He watched her struggle with some remaining misgivings, but she conceded, “All right, then, I’ll try the drive-in movie.”

“If you’d like we can drive through town first and see what’s playing there, and then you can decide.”

“No, the drive-in is fine.”

Nevertheless, they drove through town, but the marquee said Humphrey Bogart in 
The Enforcer
, which put an end to that, since it was a story about killers for hire, which was sure to have a bad decency rating. So they went to the Falls Drive-in and watched Doris Day and Gordon MacRae fall in love and sing their way through a musical courtship in 
On Moonlight Bay.
 Jean’s eyes glowed with delight all through the movie, especially when the two stars were harmonizing together. And when they sang “Cuddle Up a little Closer” and kissed on-screen, Eddie watched Jean’s profile and wished he could kiss her, too. Her lips dropped open slightly and she stared at the scene, transfixed, as if she wished she were the one being kissed.

But he was as good as his word, keeping himself squarely behind the wheel, glancing at Jean only during that one kiss, or when she’d laugh or whisper a remark about Doris Day’s pretty clothes and hair.

When the movie ended and the beams from a hundred car lights blanched the big screen, they stayed, discussing the story, and how much she’d loved it, especially the singing and the pretty dresses. Then she told him about how she’d asked her mother to help her make the dress she was wearing tonight, and he told her about his altercation with Rose, and pretty soon the second feature was starting. It was 
On Moonlight Bay
 again, so he turned down the sound and they kept talking.

She spoke about the worldly things she’d given up to become a nun, and how she was anxious to experience them now.

He asked if she regretted anything about her past.

They talked about Krystyna and wondered if she knew they were together on their first date.

It seemed there was no end of subjects they had to talk about.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked her once.

“Not yet,” she replied.

Eventually, they grew tired and began watching the screen without sound. Then somehow they found themselves lounging with their napes caught on the top of the seat and her hand in his, and their eyes on each other instead of the screen, and they began to understand what the Catholic Church had against drive-ins. His thumb was rubbing hers hard enough to bruise it, but thumb-rubbing wasn’t enough after the long week of waiting.

“Jean?” he whispered, and that single word tore them loose from their moorings. They met in the middle of the seat, kissing hungrily enough to scatter good intentions to the four winds.

“Oh, mercy, how I missed you,” he breathed as the kiss ended in a powerful embrace. “I thought this week would never end.”

“Oh, me too.” She squeezed him hard. “Me too.”

“When I saw you sitting on that step in your blue dress this is all I could think about, having you in my arms again.”

“I never cut so many beans in my life, or filled so many fruit jars with tomatoes, and with every one I filled I just kept thinking, that’s one more minute closer to Saturday night. One more minute closer to him.”

They kissed again, running their hands over each other’s backs, feeling the awesome power of temptation. It was a renewal for him, and a discovery for her who had been so afraid she was incapable of carnality.

When the kiss ended she said breathlessly at his ear, “Oh, Eddie, is this what I gave up when I went into the convent? I never felt like this before. Never.”

“I want you.”

“Shh, Eddie, don’t say it.” Her arms were doubled hard around his neck.

“But I do. I want more than just holding you and kissing you.”

“Shh. No.”

He kissed her jaw, then bit the cloth on her shoulder and kept it clamped in his teeth, crushing her so hard against him that he’d flattened her prettiest curves.

“If I say it, you’ll know what you’re up against. I wanted you when you were still a nun. Since that day I put the sauerkraut in your basement. I went to Confession and confessed it, but it didn’t stop. And it’s 
not
 just because I’ve been without a woman for a long time, and it’s not because I’m missing Krystyna. It’s you. I love you, Jean, and I’m afraid it’s too soon to say it, but what else can I do? Wait until the rest of the world says it’s okay for me to say it?” She had dropped her head back to see his eyes, and he was pressing the hair from her face, speaking with fury and frustration. She calmed him with five words.

“I love you, too, Eddie.”

“You do?”

“I’ve loved you since right after Krystyna died. Since that very day you talked about, the day you carried the sauerkraut into our basement. I went to Confession, too, but it didn’t stop. And that day you nearly kissed me in the flower room, I thought I would surely die from want of you. After that I prayed and meditated and made Novenas, thinking maybe it would strike all unchaste thoughts of you from my head, but they persisted. And every day that went by I only thought of you more.”

“Oh, Jean, I wish I had known. I was so miserable then.”

“So was I.”

“But not anymore.”

“No, not anymore.” Practicality interrupted, and he realized how late it was getting. “Okay,” he said, “we’re talking around in circles and it’s after midnight, and by the time I get you home and drive back to Browerville, it’ll be three-thirty in the morning, and I’ll get about three hours’ sleep before I have to ring the bells for early Mass. I can’t go through this every Saturday night. It’ll wear me right out. I love you, you love me, my kids are nuts about you and, if I’m not mistaken, you’re nuts about them. Will you marry me, Jean?”

She let their embrace wilt. “And live where?” She waited a beat, then added, “In Browerville?”

He knew how preposterous it sounded, but what else could he offer? “I live there. My house is there. My work is there.”

“I was a nun there. How can you expect people to accept me as your wife?”

He spoke with barely suppressed anger. “They’re supposed to be Christians! Good Catholic ones! And what was it you said to me last week—our strength is in our truth, and our truth will render gossip impotent. Maybe it’ll do the same to any of their... their blame opinions!”

“Let’s think about it for a while. We’ve only been seeing each other for three weeks.”

“But I’ve known you for four years—five, come September. I’m not going to change my mind.”

“Nevertheless, let’s think about it for a week. Now I think I’d better get home.”

It was a difficult goodbye at her door. He didn’t give a rip if her mother was watching through a telescope, he drew her to him, full-length, and kissed her with his throat already constricted from the thought of driving away and not seeing her for seven interminable days.

“Maybe I can get over here once in the middle of this week.”

“No, Eddie. You need to be with the girls on week-nights. You can’t start running over here and staying till midnight on a work night. Please... just come next Saturday. Same time. I’ll be ready.”

He walked backwards away from her, his arm extended till their fingertips no longer touched. Only then did he turn away.

He hardly remembered driving home. He did so with a thumbnail jammed between his bottom teeth, glowering at his headbeams. Once he used the butt of one hand to angrily dash away some tears from his eyes. Then he jammed his nail between his teeth again and drove.

________

The first chance he got he talked to Romaine about it, because Romaine was an ally.

Romaine said, “Why don’t you talk to Father Kuzdek?”

“Father Kuzdek! Are you crazy? After I caused one of his nuns to leave?”

“You told me you didn’t cause it.”

“Well, no, but that’s probably not how Father would see it.”

“You don’t give him enough credit, Eddie. Maybe you don’t give enough credit to anybody in this town. You assume they’re going to say you and Jean had something going while she was still a nun. But, don’t forget, they
knew her then, too. Now, I ask you, who could know Sister Regina and believe she’d be anything but absolutely faithful to her vows? Tell me that, wouldja?”

Eddie grew thoughtful but made no reply.

Romaine repeated, “Talk to Father Kuzdek. That’s what I’d do.”

The suggestion worked on Eddie’s brain for three days before he got up the nerve to act on it. He cornered Father in his study one afternoon after moving a heavy piece of furniture for his housekeeper.

“Could I talk to you a minute, Father?”

“Sure, Eddie, come on in.”

Eddie closed the door and perched on the edge of a chair beside Father’s desk.

“I’ll come straight to the point, Father. I’ve been seeing Sister Regina since she left here, and we love each other and I want to marry her.”

Father swiveled his extra-wide chair to face Eddie, his elbows propped up and his thumbs circling one another as they often did when he considered important matters.

“So you love each other, do you?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Well, I saw it coming... oh, don’t get all worked up, Eddie. I saw how hard you fought it. It’s no picnic, falling in love when one of you is a professed religious. And I’m sure both of you must have agonized over it for quite some time.”

“You’re not upset?”

“Should I be?”

“Well, no... but... it’s sort of a delicate matter, her leaving her vocation only two months ago.”

“She went about it properly. She’s free to live the life she chooses now.”

“So you’ll marry us?”

“I can’t do that, Eddie. She’d have to be married in her own parish. That’s St. Peter and Paul’s in Gilman.”