“I WILL NOT WEAR THAT DRESS.” SHE POINTED AT IT ACCUSINGLY, an outraged and violated vestal. “It’s too … revealing.”
“You’ll look lovely in it, dear,” the elderly saleswoman said as she smiled benignly. “You have the perfect figure for it.”
“Try it on,” I ordered.
“You make me try all these dresses just so you can ogle me,” she hissed in my ear as she slipped off to the dressing room.
“You’re the most provoking young woman I’ve ever kept.”
Her jaw jutted skyward, but her smile illumined half of North State Street. Despite her contentiousness, Maggie was reveling in our shopping expedition to Marshall Field’s two days after Christmas.
“She is so lovely,” the salesperson gushed. “You’re a lucky young man.”
“If I don’t mind a lifetime of arguing.”
“She’s just joking because she’s embarrassed.”
“I know.”
“It is too revealing,” Maggie insisted when she returned wearing the dark-red dress with a low neck, white trim, and a white belt, its straps, such as they were, designed for her upper arms and not her shoulders. “I’m almost naked to my waist.”
“Not quite.”
“If fits you perfectly, dear. We won’t have to do any alterations. If you need it for tonight …”
“We’ll take it.” I handed her the charge card.
“No,” Maggie begged.
“Yes,” I commanded.
It was a dialogue we’d been having all morning. I was winning.
“Are you sure it isn’t too …”
“Revealing? For someone else, maybe. But it’s perfect for you, Maggie. I wouldn’t risk embarrassing my mother or myself or you at Buttercup, would I?”
“Butterfield, silly! And I’ll have to buy a new … new foundation garment.”
“You look fine.”
She crossed her arms protectively. “I’d be arrested if I appeared in River Forest like this.”
Women’s fashions in 1946 demanded thin waists and slim, boyish hips. If your well-preserved figure, like my mother’s, happened to be in the classic mode, you were forced to don undergarments which, while not as constraining as the steel-boned, laced-up affairs of the pre-1914 era, nonetheless imposed all kinds of unwanted pressure on your flesh. With the return after the war of off-the-shoulder dresses, especially formais, the corsets encased you from breast to hip in restraints that barely permitted breathing. Even young women with nearly perfect figures like Maggie were still obliged, in the name of a blend of modesty and fashion, to encase themselves like that, especially if they were baring their neck and shoulders.
“I won’t argue with you about proprieties, Margaret Mary,” I told her as we approached the corset department, “but you looked wonderful in that dress.”
“I did not.”
“We bought it.”
“To keep you happy. Give me the charge card. I don’t want you hanging around the corset department. You might embarrass the women.”
“And myself.” I gave her the card. “I’ll meet you at the Walnut Room for morning tea.”
“All right.”
“What color is it?” I asked as she strode into the tearoom, unloaded her armful of packages on the chair next to me, and collapsed into one across the table.
“It matches my face when you stare at me that way.”
“You’d be a lot more angry if I didn’t stare at you.”
“I’ll be embarrassed all night, Jerry; I’ll be practically naked.”
“We should be so fortunate to have that happen. Besides, you’ll have a lot more clothes on than you did at Picketpost.”
She closed her eyes and tilted her head backward in sensuous recollection. “That was so long ago. Did it ever happen? Certainly it did. You saved me then, Commander; you started in the railroad station and you finished by that terrible mine, but Picketpost …” She opened her eyes and smiled at me lovingly. “That’s when my second chance began.”
“Whenever you want, we can do it again.”
“I need—”
“More time.” I was beginning to hate the refrain.
“I’m sorry.” She touched my hand. “I wish I didn’t.”
I was not altogether sure I believed her. Maggie now was just frightened of strong emotions.
“Are you sure I won’t look common and vulgar?” She gripped my hand suddenly. “Everyone will be staring at me and I’ll embarrass you and your—”
“Margaret Mary.” I held her hand fiercely. “Stop that this instant. Why shouldn’t everyone stare at you? You’ll be the most beautiful woman at the dance. But they will think not that you’re vulgar or cheap but appealing and modest. You saw the girl in the red dress with the white trim and the lovely bare shoulders with the pretty breasts, which are covered just enough, in the mirror. You know she’ll never be common or vulgar, no matter what the nuns or her aunt and uncle said.”
“I’ll feel common and vulgar.” Despite her fears she wolfed down a scone as if she had not eaten in two years. “I’ll feel that I’m disgracing your mother and father.”
“No, you won’t, and that’s an order.”
“Yes, sir, Commander, sir.”
“You are going to wear my pearls.”
“My pearls.” The imp’s glint appeared on her face, the most charming of all her many expressions—except adoration for me. “And distract people from my cute breasts? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“They are cute, all right, but you are basically an imp and a tease and a troublemaker, aren’t you, Maggie Ward?”
“It took you a long time to figure that out, didn’t it?”
“If you don’t wear our necklace, I’ll tie you to the flagpole on the seventh green and leave you there all night.”
“I wouldn’t dream of not wearing it, silly.”
“And now, finish off that plate of scones and your Earl Grey tea.”
So we finished our tea and shopped for stockings and shoes and perfume. Laden with packages, Maggie was ready for the “Buttercup” Christmas dance. She insisted on riding home on the subway and the El. “You need a haircut,” she informed me, as we left Field’s through a Wabash Avenue entrance. “I will not be seen at this high-toned dance with a man whose crew cut is beginning to curl.”
“It’s not high-toned, Maggie. River Forest is not Lake Forest; we’re strictly middle-class Irish with a little bit of money. We don’t know how to be high-toned.”
Suddenly, despite the post-Christmas crowds on Wabash, she leaned her head against my chest and began to sob. “I’m so ashamed of myself. I’m such a dope.”
I held her close, welcoming any physical contact that fell within the rubrics of my strategy.
“I love you, Maggie.”
“I know.” She continued to sob. “And I love you. You’re so wonderfully sweet.” She touched my face, as if to make sure it was still there. “You’ve been kind and good and generous to me and I’ve acted churlish.…”
“The nice thing about your kept woman being a literary woman is that she uses such fancy words as ‘churlish.’ ”
“I love being your kept woman,” she wailed, “and I’m so afraid of it that I act like a clod.…”
“Not quite so literary.”
“Be quiet.” She poked my arm. “Let me finish.”
“All right.”
“Thank you for the pearls and for the dress and for all the other things. And thank you for being kind and sweet and thank you for Christmas and the Christmas Dance and everything.”
“My pleasure, Maggie Ward.” I held her in my arms until her weeping stopped. And a little longer for good measure. “I didn’t take it seriously, you know. I mean I knew you were grateful and that most of the things you were saying were sardonic humor.”
“Sardonic?” She lifted her tearstained face. “And I use big words.… Do you really know that I am grateful with every bit of feeling I have?”
“Yes, Maggie. And I’m grateful too. My new life began in Arizona just as yours did. It’s a two-way street.”
She nodded, that quick, comprehending gesture of understanding and agreement that so fascinated me the first hour in Tucson.
“I should go home now and do my hair.”
“And I should get a haircut …”
“Or I’ll leave you on the seventh green. And that’s an order.”
“Yes, ma’am, Admiral, ma’am.”
“Silly.” She kissed me and turned away, back toward State Street and the subway.
Mercurial. Chameleon. Unpredictable. Delightful. Haunted.
What happens after the dance?
I’ll worry about that after the dance.
As all our family confidently expected, it was Maggie’s dance. If she was shy or embarrassed or felt cheap or common or vulgar or out of place, she gave not the slightest hint. Rather, she accepted the admiring glances like an absolute monarch accepts the adulation of her subjects.
“Philadelphians,” my father said as he shook his head in astonishment, “don’t have that much class.”
“An exception to prove the rule?”
“Most probably,” he agreed. “You don’t mind if I dance with her?”
“So long as Mother doesn’t.”
He eyed me as if I were an opposing counsel. “She won’t, as long as you dance with her.”
That night The Club was a glittering tribute to the first year of the postwar world, a hint of affluence yet to come. It smelled of evergreens and champagne, red and white decorations sparkled on the walls, Glenn Miller music urged the elegantly clad bodies to sway gently back and forth. The war was over, peace had begun, and prosperity had finally come around the corner.
As luck, or perhaps a comic Providence would have it, the first person we met inside the club was Barbara Conroy.
“Barbara, this is Margaret Ward; Maggie, this is—”
“So you’re the young widow from Philadelphia Joanne Keenan is raving about. Well, all I have to say is that you’re welcome to him. Maybe you can do more to make him a man than any of us did.”
She turned and stalked away from us, a triumphant, if slightly foolish, harpy.
“You were lucky you didn’t marry her” was Maggie’s only reaction.
“I’m sorry if she bothered you.”
“Not in the least,” she said and laughed. “To tell you the truth, I don’t even feel sorry for her.”
“Don’t you ever dare become that overweight, Margaret Mary Ward.”
“Angela is my confirmation name, if you want to be absolutely formal.… I couldn’t become that overweight even if I wanted to.”
In my arms on the dance floor, smelling of the lilac scent I had picked out and wearing my pearls and our dress (so she had ruled, in a burst of generosity, they were to be assigned), she was relaxed, light as a summer breeze at the end of a hot day, and utterly trusting.
“Is that you beneath all that armor?”
“A compressed me”—she winked—”but a happy me. I don’t know why we women put up with such terrible fashions. Next time I’ll take your advice.”
I did not make an issue of “next time,” but my heart did a slow, lazy spin of delight.
“Look at your mother,” she continued, “she has a wonderful figure. She shouldn’t have to be bound up in one of these terrible corsets.”
“I agree.”
“I bet they made love while they were dressing for the dance.”
“Maggie Ward!” For the first time she had genuinely shocked me.
“Well, certainly, they made love. Look at the way she glows and he looks so pleased with himself. They’ll do it again after the dance. I think it’s cute.”
“No privacy at all from your dagger eyes.”
“I can’t help what I see. And what’s wrong with seeing it anyway? It’s not only cute, it’s beautiful. I even knew it with my parents when I was a little girl. I mean, I didn’t understand what they did, but I knew they were very pleased with each other. Dr. Feurst says that’s one of the reasons I …”
“Survived?”
“Uh-huh. His exact word.”
“My husband wants to dance with you,” Mom said as we passed them on the dance floor.
So we exchanged partners for the rest of the dance.
Though more fully armored, my mother was as light in my arms as Maggie, and even more radiant. Unless my untrained nostrils were deceiving me, she was wearing the same scent. Her short silver hair gleamed in the light of the dance hall, as did the jewels on her neck. Her strapless maroon gown emphasized her classic beauty, and the skin of her back was Irish-linen smooth. I held her close, her eyes level with my chin, her ample breasts solid against my chest.
She did not seem in the least upset by the intensity of emotion she must have felt in me. On the contrary, she relaxed against me in snug contentment.
Maggie Ward, I told myself with more than a trace of love-besotted incoherence, had opened to me the possibility of enjoying the beauty of all women and even of recognizing the unquestionable attractiveness of my mother.
If I was not careful, this Maggie Ward person would unmake me and then remake me completely.
“I am honored by the two most beautiful women in the room during the same dance.”
“I know you’re not going to let that lovely child get away.” She smiled imperceptibly at my compliment. “She needs you so much. Just like I needed your father.”
“Maybe I need her as much as he needs you.”
She actually blushed. “You’ll never find another girl like Maggie Ward.”
“I know that.”
My head was whirling—too much emotion, too much revelation, too much beauty. We finished the dance in silence.
I brushed my lips against hers, lingering for a fraction of a second.
“I hope Maggie matures into a woman as lovely as you are, Mom.”
She was mildly flustered but not displeased. “You’ll have to keep her around for a quarter of a century to find out, won’t you, dear?”
Score one for my gorgeous mom.
“Tom is cute,” Maggie informed me when the dance was over. “No wonder you’re such a nice boy.”
“I’m overwhelmed with compliments.”
She patted my hand. “And I am having the time of my life, as you surely know without having to read my mind.”
Just then we encountered Kate.
“Kate, this is Maggie Ward. Maggie, this is—”
“Maggie!” Kate’s eyes flooded instantly. “I’m so happy, so very, very happy.” She embraced my date enthusiastically. “I’m so looking forward to getting to know you.”
“Me too.” Maggie rose to the occasion and gave no hint of surprise.
“What …” Maggie began when Kate and her date drifted away.
“I called her Maggie when I was kissing her good night after a date. Then I told her that you were a girl who had died.”
“The poor thing,” Maggie said as she drew back from me, “how embarrassing, and how nice of her not to mind.” Then she returned to me, even closer. “No, poor Jerry, to be in love with such a drippy ghost.” She touched my cheek again. “Poor sweet Jerry. It would not have been a mistake at all to marry her.”
“My intentions are elsewhere.”
To which she did not reply but only danced serenely in my arms, humming the waltz music along with the strings of the orchestra.
In the car after the dance, she sobbed all the way back to her apartment.
“Don’t pay any attention to me, Jerry,” she begged during a temporary intermission in her tears. “It’s not your fault. It was a wonderful night. I loved it all. Just a crazy”—she began to cry again—”nervous reaction, like the other night. Silly Margaret Mary Ward has to pretend to be the life of the party and wear herself out.”
“It’s all right, Maggie, I understand.”
I walked her to the door of her building, guiding her arm as she tried to negotiate the stairs up to the second-floor entrance on new-fallen snow with our Marshall Field’s high heels. I kissed her good night, firmly, as appropriate for an important date, but no hints or requests for a prolongation of the evening.
I was hoping nonetheless that such an invitation would be issued.
Foolish hope.
“Remember your promise.”
“Yes.” I had forgotten it completely.
“I know your phone number. I’ll call you when my life is better organized than it is now. But don’t wait for me.”
“That’s not part of the promise.”
“Yes, it is.” She ducked inside the door and slammed it. I heard her dashing up the old stairs.
I was not particularly troubled as I drove home. There were two alternatives, about which I did not want to think on the pleasant pink cloud that I had brought with me from the dance floor with Maggie so light in my arms:
Either I would keep my word and let her drift out of my life. Or I would pursue with relentless determination and demand that she marry me and permit me to finish what I had begun with her. And vice versa.
“I hear she was sensational,” Packy greeted my return. Seminarians didn’t attend such worldly, women-infested events like Christmas dances. “I didn’t think she’d work up enough nerve to risk going.”
I told him about my promise.
“Do you intend to keep it?”
“Absolutely not.”
Packy smiled approvingly. “All’s fair …”
“In love and war.”
The mention of war may have been the reason I dreamed about Rusty and Hank that night.
But the old dreams returned the following night too.