Lovey

A Thing About Marriage

May 1945

I’d been warned against wasteful spending my whole life. So, the entire time I was in New York City, I sent my parents one telegram. It read, Celebrated victory in Times Square STOP Home May 28 STOP Love you STOP. In those days, you quickly became experienced at saying everything you needed in the ten-words-or-less telegram price break.

I never heard back. Needless to say, I had no idea what to expect on the final leg of that trip back to reality, back to where I’d come from. I cried the entire plane flight home. Partially, I’m sure, I was sad about leaving a world that had charmed me more quickly than a soldier on leave. But the real tears were for the actual soldier on leave that I was flying away from. Conveniently, Dan’s family had moved from Bath just up the road to New Bern. “Had to come all the way to New York City to find each other again,” we were fond of saying. We weren’t neighbors, exactly, but weekend visits were possible.

“I’ll write you every day,” I had said when our lips parted.

“No need,” he said breathlessly. “As soon as I talk to your parents, I’ll be asking for your hand.”

I smiled thinking about that, the rain clouds of my tears finally drying up in the midafternoon sun streaming through the window. His love was all I needed.

I’d certainly never wanted to be a model, so this contest, this win, this picture in the magazine, it truly must have been orchestrated by someone much greater than I was to fling me back into the arms of my Dan. I had had my picture taken a few more times during the trip to document how marvelous winning this contest was, and how fantastic the cosmetics were too, of course. Me at the theater, me dancing at the Waldorf, my hair blowing at the top of the Empire State Building.

They told me I had potential; they could maybe even offer me a contract. But I wasn’t a model. And I wasn’t a New Yorker. I was a farm girl. I wanted to be a wife. Dan’s wife. And, as I had discovered on that trip, I wanted to be a student too. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to travel the world. I may never stand atop the Eiffel Tower or sit on the steps of the Great Pyramid of Giza. But I hadn’t been valedictorian of my class for nothing.

I had practically whispered to Dan over tea at the Plaza that I thought I might like to go to college. He had lit up brighter than the chandeliers above us. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I’m going to college too.” His face fell and then it lit up again. “You should go to UNC. Gosh knows, you’re smart enough.”

I smiled into my tea even thinking about what Daddy would say if I told him I wanted to go to the University of North Carolina. “Dan, honestly, don’t you think that’s a little improper? I was assuming I’d go to Women’s College just like Lib did.” I knew Momma and Daddy wouldn’t like it, but they couldn’t very well pay for Lib to go to college and not do the same for me.

He shrugged. “But then we have to be apart. If you go to UNC, we can be together, we can get married.”

Married . . . It was that sweet thought that I held on to as I closed my eyes, preparing myself for what it was going to be like to be home again. I didn’t know what to expect when I walked through that door. Coldness. Screaming. The punishment to end all punishments. But, I reminded myself in my white gloves and best traveling suit, I am a grown woman now. I’m going to be married soon. What could they really do to me?

I walked through the door to silence. Complete, deathly silence. “Momma,” I called. “Daddy, I’m home.”

“In here,” came Momma’s voice from the kitchen.

She was standing by the stove, the radio droning in the background, her apron tied around her petite waist. Daddy was in his dinner chair, reading his paper.

“Hey, baby,” he said when I walked in, not bothering to get up.

“We’ve got fried chicken, okra and mashed potatoes for dinner,” Momma said. “Hope that suits.”

After weeks of the finest cuisine flown in from all over the world, I would like to say that my palate had become more sophisticated. But I was still a down-home girl at heart.

The cuckoo clock chimed from the dark, paneled den, and everything around me felt eerie, like the foreboding music in a picture before the murderer makes his kill. They didn’t ask about my trip, and I didn’t tell. It was as though I had walked down to the corner grocery for sliced bread and come back.

About halfway through dinner, I couldn’t take the suspense any longer, and, so, I finally said, smiling, “I met a man.”

That did it. Daddy banged his fist onto the table, his napkin clenched inside. “I told you we should go after her, Lily Ann. I told you she’d meet some damn Yankee and be gone forever.”

Momma’s face was white. To the outsider it might seem like she was afraid of Daddy’s anger. But I knew better. She was afraid of me. Coming home and saying I’d met a Yankee was only a step off saying I was marrying a Catholic.

“Calm down, Daddy.” I laughed. “He’s from New Bern. Do you remember Dan from school?”

Momma nodded. “Really? Dan?”

I nodded. “He’s a soldier now.”

Momma exhaled deeply, and Daddy actually smiled. “A soldier, eh? Must be a fine fellow. I like a man who isn’t afraid to fight for what he believes in.”

It was my turn to smile. “Well, I think you’ll like him a lot. You remember his daddy used to be the preacher at our church. And Dan has grown up so handsome.” I could feel myself swooning at the table over the hand that had spent the month in mine, the lips on my cheek. We kissed on the street corner, and I felt like I was starring in my own show. A famous starlet meets her true love, and, emboldened by passion and the forward-thinking ways of the city, she isn’t even afraid to kiss him in public of all places. Oh my Lord, I remember thinking, being young and in love is the best feeling in the world.

“I’m so glad you found somebody you like,” Momma said.

“He’s actually going off to college now that the war’s over.” I paused. You could tell by the change in their faces that they knew what was coming. “And, well, I was thinking that I might like to go to college too.”

Daddy sighed and Momma said, “Did you really not miss us at all? You just want to run off again to college?”

“Momma,” I protested, “I’m not running off and leaving you. I’m bettering myself. I want to go to college, be a teacher, make a difference.”

“But—” Momma started, but Daddy cut her off.

“Sweetheart, it isn’t fair for us to keep Lynn here like she’s in prison. Lib went to WC so it’s only fair that Lynn gets to go too.”

“Well, actually,” I began nervously. “I was thinking that I might go to UNC.”

I think both of my parents were stunned speechless, so I continued. “Dan is going there, and we thought if we could both go, then we could go ahead and get married, live in married student housing. We could be together while we’re getting an education.”

Daddy laughed ironically. “I can’t believe that you would even mention something as crass as going to a men’s college.”

“But it isn’t a men’s college,” I said, shifting in my chair, trying to keep my tone in check. “It’s coeducational.”

I’ve never been as shocked as when Momma said, “But she wouldn’t be going as a girl. She’d be going as someone’s wife. I think that’s different.”

I smiled at her, so grateful for her support. “Right,” I said. “I’d be living with my husband there, so it wouldn’t be inappropriate at all.”

Daddy looked at Momma warily, and she nodded her approval.

Holy hell and hallelujah, I had pulled it off. I was going to college.

Only, I found out the next day it wasn’t going to be as simple as all that. I thought Dan looked a little pale as he was opening the passenger-side door of the car, but I didn’t say anything.

“Guess what!” I practically sang as he got behind the wheel. We were going to get ice cream at that same shop where we’d had our first kiss as kids, to tell Haney that, in the most unlikely way, we had found our way back to each other. I thought it was impossibly romantic.

“What?” Dan asked, his enthusiasm not quite as strong as mine.

“Momma and Daddy went for it. They said if I was going to UNC as your wife, then I could go.”

Dan pulled the car over on the side of the road, put it in park and looked at me. He turned, took my hand and said, “Lynn, it didn’t go as well with my parents.”

“What do you mean?”

“They told me that it wasn’t suitable or proper for a man to get married until he was educated, settled in his business and had enough money in the bank to provide for his family . . .” He turned and looked out the window. “They’ve always said that, but I thought once they saw how in love I was they would change their minds.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling the tears coming to my eyes, the glee of my morning so instantly replaced with an intense sadness.

“They said they wouldn’t pay for my college if we got married now.” He paused and looked back at me. “So I’m not going to go.”

“Not going to go!” I protested. “Don’t be ridiculous, Dan. Of course you’re going to go.”

“But I love you, Lynn.”

“And you’ll love me four years from now. You go to UNC, I’ll go to WC, and when we graduate, we’ll get married. Plain and simple.”

“But, Lynn, can you wait that long?”

“Sure,” I lied. I reached over and kissed him softly. “We have our whole lives to be together. What’s four years in the scheme of things?”

I realized a few minutes later that the ice cream at Haney’s shop didn’t taste as sweet when it was mixed with the first lie I had ever told the man I loved.