THE MALONES MADE no special preparation for Margy’s visit. Frankie had mentioned that he knew a girl he’d like to bring to the house. His mother looked at him sharply but said nothing. Patsy urged his son to bring the girl around so’s he could give her the once-over. “Don’t bring her if she’s bow-legged, though,” he said. Everyone in the family thought this was very funny except Frankie.
The night of her visit, the house was the same as usual; helter-skelter, everyone rushing around and Malone studying the undertaking business. Frankie had asked his mother whether she was going to fix up the house a little for the visit and she had asked: “What for? It isn’t as though you were going to marry the girl.” She waited. It was his chance to tell he was engaged. But he just didn’t have the nerve.
They were not at all constrained in their greetings of Margy. The old man gave her a slow looking over and decided she had a nice shape—or would have if she ever filled out. Mrs. Malone took one look at her, settled herself more firmly in her corsets and prepared to do battle for her only son. After the pleased-to-meet-you’s and the likewises of the introductions, the sisters went about their preparation for the evening. Cathleen kept running into the parlor and asking Frankie whether her slip showed and Noreen asked him to “button her up in the back.”
“How come I rate all this?” asked Frankie. “Other days they pass me up like a bundle of dirty wash. But now, all of a sudden, I’m important around here. How come?”
Margy knew how come. The Malones were letting her know that Frankie was their property and no outsider stood a chance. The conversation consisted mostly of Mrs. Malone reminiscing with her son, with explanatory asides to Margy.
“Remember that time, Frankie, when you and me went to St. John’s to plant geraniums on your grandfather’s plot?” In an aside to Margy: “He always goes with me no matter where I want to go.”
“Don’t let’s get off on me, Ma,” protested Frankie.
“He don’t want me to tell certain things,” hinted his mother. She turned on him again. “Frankie, whatever became of that pretty little girl you was so crazy about?” she asked. Aside to Margy: “He’s very fickle.”
“Love ’em and leave ’em is his motter,” said Mr. Malone.
“And that other girl,” she went on, “the one whose father had means. She was the athletic type. I really worried over that one. She got very serious about Frankie.”
“Now, Ma, you’re only saying that. I hardly knew those girls.”
“And Irma! I bet you she’s sitting on the stoop this minute waiting for you.”
“Ma’s making all this up,” he explained to Margy.
Margy smiled painfully but said gaily, “My! I didn’t know you were so popular.”
“I’m not! I don’t like girls,” he blurted out.
“I don’t see Miss Shannon wearing pants,” observed Malone. “Or maybe I’m not supposed to see.” He laughed heartily.
“You don’t like me to give you away to your new girl friend, do you, Frankie?” said Mrs. Malone. Aside to Margy: “He wants you to think that you’re the one and only.”
This is what Reenie would call getting needled, thought Margy. She knew that Frankie had not yet told his mother of their plans. She put her left hand on Frankie’s knee intending that Mrs. Malone notice the engagement ring. Mrs. Malone’s eyes flicked to the ring and back again to Frankie’s face.
“Frankie, tell her about that time you was almost engaged to that girl what was older than you,” suggested Mrs. Malone.
Frankie lifted Margy’s hand and drew her left arm through his as they sat on the davenport side by side. He gripped her hand tightly. “Ma, Margy and I are thinking of . . .” He swallowed hard.
“Frankie and I are going to be married,” said Margy clearly and suddenly.
“No!” exploded Mr. Malone.
“Yes!” said Frankie. “I hope there’s no law against it.”
“Keep your teeth in your mouth,” threatened Malone casually. By this time, Mrs. Malone had recovered somewhat from the announcement.
“Married?” repeated Mrs. Malone. She laughed heartily. “What could he gain by getting married?”
“You know,” suggested Malone slyly. His wife ignored him.
“Why should he tie himself down?” she continued. “Home, he has his own room. A married man has to share a room with his wife.”
“And bed,” added Malone, his thoughts turning easily to the salacious.
“I cook what he likes. A wife would cook what she likes and he’d have to eat it even if it killed him. Here he can stay out till all hours of the night. A wife wouldn’t let him get away with that. And he’d have to hand over all his pay, too. Here he gives me just so much and keeps the rest to spend on hisself.”
“How much did the ring cost?” asked Malone. But as usual, he was ignored.
“I cook for him,” summed up his mother, “wash for him, ask no questions about where he goes. What does he want a wife for? What can a wife give him that I can’t give him? Answer me that, Miss Shannon.”
“I will,” said Margy obligingly. “She can give him children.”
“Good for you!” boomed Malone. “That’s one on you, Nora,” he told his wife.
Suddenly Mrs. Malone’s eyes filled with tears. She got up and left the parlor without the conventional “Excuse me.” Malone got up and shook hands with his future daughter-in-law. The visit was over.
Her mother asked her how the Malones had taken it. “Well, they were kind of surprised,” said Margy. “But they were all right.”
However when Reenie asked her about it she said: “It was murder!”