Lovey

A Souvenir

August 1951

“Honeymoon” is the most beautiful word in the English language. I figured Momma must have been right when she said that because as Dan and I boarded the plane in New York, where we had stopped over for a couple of days, I could scarcely contain myself. Imagine, I thought, me, on a Pan Am flight to Cuba of all things. We were dressed in our daytime finest for the occasion. I was wearing my best traveling suit complete with a wide-brimmed hat with a thick, satin bow tied around it. I could still practically see in my mind’s eye the beautifully wrapped package with the colorful poster inside. “Fly to Cuba via Pan American World Airways System.” That could only mean one thing: I was officially a world traveler.

I had been on a plane before, I reminded myself, walking a little taller through the airplane’s corridor, Montaldo’s hatbox firmly in hand, purse draped casually over my arm. But that had been TWA.

“Imagine,” I whispered to Dan. “Getting to fly on a real-life, double-decker airplane.”

Dan squeezed my gloved hand as a flight attendant in her gray-blue suit, hat perched jauntily atop her head, walked by. “This will be the first of many, many flights like this one. Don’t you worry, my beauty.”

I sat down in my spacious leather seat the color of fresh cream, opened my ashtray and lit a cigarette, my husband leaning over to kiss me. I hadn’t smoked before our wedding, but Dan had picked up the habit during the war, and I thought I was unfathomably glamorous, puffing and exhaling in long, slow drags. Dan and his father had gone on and on about real Cuban cigars, from Havana, no less. And I couldn’t wait to see Dan, fedora atop his head, lounging by the private beach that the flyer touted, puffing on a real Cuban cigar.

“What do you think it will be like?”

“What do I think what will be like?”

I smiled and tapped him on the arm. “Cuba, of course.”

“My parents said that the Hotel Nacional is absolutely splendid,” Dan said.

It was a generous gift, especially for in-laws who were less than thrilled with not only their son’s elopement but also his choice in brides. But I would win them over one day, I reassured myself often. And, if not, so be it. I had Dan now, and that was all the approval I needed.

My parents, on the other hand, as soon as they had been invited to Dan’s family’s sweeping Victorian in the heart of New Bern’s downtown, situated right on the Neuse River, had forgotten all about their thwarted plans to marry me off to Ernest Wake. They wanted me to have money, sure. But if I could have money and love? Well then, so much the better.

I had stared so long at the brochure for the hotel that I practically had it memorized. Rendezvous of the Americas, I thought again. The phrase was almost as romantic as Dan’s proposal had been.

I squeezed Dan’s hand over the armrest as we took off, sailing up higher, higher and higher even still until we were cruising, leaving behind our old lives as single people, climbing to heights that I hadn’t yet dreamed of, much less experienced. Two flight attendants wheeled a table, complete with white tablecloth, toward us, popped the top off of a bottle of champagne with much ado, and said, “We hear congratulations are in order, lovebirds.”

I could feel myself blushing, realizing that this whole affair had me feeling like a girl of eighteen again, not the woman of twenty-five that I actually was. “Oh, that looks absolutely marvelous,” I said, realizing that this dream of a trip hadn’t even really started yet, and I was already dreading it being over.

“Did you know,” I said to Dan, “that Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth have stayed at the Nacional?”

He smiled at me adoringly. “The Rockefellers too.”

I sighed. “There’s just no telling who we might spot.”

And though the celebrity sightings were less numerous than I had dreamed, the display of fruit on the chest in our room was like nothing I’d ever seen. At home, fruit was muscadine grapes, strawberries, and an apple and orange here and there. But sitting here, on the dresser in our vibrant room, was practically a harvest of things I’d never heard the names of. Mango, papaya, kiwi. And yet, they had Coca-Cola just like home.

Slipping into a bikini the exact color of those Pan Am uniforms with tiny white print all over, I said, “Oh, Dan, I can’t wait to get down to the pool.” I had already become comfortable undressing in front of my new husband, something that I couldn’t have even dreamed of in the previous months. But the moment we were pronounced husband and wife, we became one flesh, after all. And, free from the misshaping and stretch marks of childbearing as I was, there wasn’t much to hide.

“I suggest that we have cocktails and the biggest lunch we can dream,” Dan said, squeezing my hand.

As we sat down under one of the black umbrellas flanking the pool and admired the glamorous awnings over the cabanas, I couldn’t help but stare through my sunglasses at a conspicuous group of men, in full suits, eating lunch by the pool. They were talking loudly, clearly Americans, and, just by the way their cigars teetered on the edges of their ashtrays between bites, you could tell they were important.

“Dollar-a-year men,” Dan leaned over and whispered to me.

I nodded, trying to be impressed but unable to control the thoughts that dining across from America’s political elite was one thing. Rita Hayworth was quite another.

Our starched server with the thick accent came to the table, and, tossing my menu to the side gaily, I said, “I believe I’ll have a bowl of coconut ice cream.”

“Coconut ice cream?” Dan questioned, laughing. “For lunch?”

“I’m on my honeymoon, darling. It’s hot. And I’d like to have ice cream.” I pulled my sunglasses down so he could see the twinkle in my eyes. “Ice cream has a very special place in my heart, if you’ll remember.”

Dan smiled. “Well then, ice cream it is.”

I had never had coconut ice cream before, but it topped anything I’d ever eaten ten to one. “Fields of white velvet,” I said to Dan, licking my lips and pointing my spoon in the direction of the bowl. “That’s what this ice cream brings to mind. It is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted.”

“Well then, I believe you should have another bowl.”

I heard my momma’s voice in the back of my mind. Lynn, desserts are for special occasions, and then only one.

But this was the most special occasion. So I said, “You know what, my love, I believe I will.”

I thought that that ice cream would remain my most vivid and special remembrance of that trip. That is, until a few weeks later when I realized that Dan and I had brought back a souvenir that we would cherish for the rest of our lives: Sally.