They came back in the summer, weighed down with treasures. A scarf or a ring for one kind of girl; for the other kind, silk stockings and French perfume. The best loot went to fathers and little brothers: weapons picked from enemy corpses, the grisly mementos of war.
They came home to girls who’d forgotten them and girls who hadn’t, parents aged and sickened, or like George Novak’s father, simply gone. The lucky ones found garage apartments, cramped quarters above shops downtown. Gene and Evelyn Stusick spent their wedding night on a roll-away cot in his parents’ attic, a cramped space redolent of mothballs, crowded with bicycles and Flexible Flyers, the junk of his youth.
They came home to the mines: Baker Brothers, Concoal, Eastern Coal & Coke. After the surrender came a flurry of bidding, the operators scurrying to acquire new land. There were five Baker mines, then seven, then ten. In the summer of 1945, a huge parcel of land was purchased, thirty thousand acres just across the Susquehanna; and the son of Elias Baker broke ground on Baker Twelve.
Crews were hired, equipment purchased. Coal was mined seven days a week. Paychecks in hand, the men turned their attention to other things. Tryouts were held, a team assembled. In April 1946, the Baker Bombers returned to the field. On Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, Bakerton played ball.
THE TOWN DIDN’T wait for Georgie, for the navy boys still at sea. A month after V-E Day Bakerton held a parade. Chester Baker himself appeared—resurrected from the dead, some said—to welcome the soldiers home.
“This town belongs to you,” the old man boomed from the dais. He had grown frail and leaned heavily on a cane; he wore long whiskers in the old style, a mane of silver hair. “We have done our best to keep it sound in your absence, and we hand it over to you with every confidence that you will make us proud.”
Some, of course, did not come home. Polish Hill had its casualties. Two of the Wojicks had debarked at Normandy. James was killed at Omaha Beach; John landed at Utah and survived, not knowing his brother lay bleeding to death twenty miles away.
Three of May Poblocki’s sons returned. One night, drinking and carousing at the Vets, the youngest suffered a strange seizure and died before the ambulance arrived. Epilepsy, some said; the family called it a heart attack. He was twenty-three years old.
Across town in Little Italy, the four Bernardi boys—Angelo and Jerry, Victor and Sal—came back with stripes. The older cousins worked at Baker and played for the Bombers. Jerry returned to driving the hearse.
George and his new bride drove into Bakerton in a 1948 Chevy Fleet-line sedan, a wedding gift from Marion’s father. They’d been driving for seven hours, the last two on a narrow country road that wound north, more or less, from the highway. “That’s impossible,” she’d protested when he told her how long it would take. But his estimate—allowing for dirt roads and rugged hills, farm equipment and sluggish coal trucks—turned out to be correct.
“Almost there,” he said. “It’s just over this hill.” He accelerated and was rewarded by an exquisite sound, the mellifluous roar of the ten-cylinder engine.
At the top of Saxon Mountain he slowed, looking down on the town: the bustling main street with its six traffic lights; the eight church steeples; the railroad tracks that cut the valley in half. A whiff of sulfur hung in the air. From this vantage point you could see all of Saxon Valley: Polish Hill, the old mine camp known as Swedetown, the Number Five tipple just beyond. Baker Towers loomed above the train tracks; behind them, rows of identical shingled roofs. If Marion had asked, George would have told her what they were: Bony piles. Company houses. But his wife, bless her, did not.
He rolled down his window. It was a clear Saturday in late June; at every church in Bakerton, someone was getting married. A warm breeze blew up from the valley, carrying the sound of bells. A riot of bells, circling and discordant: the stately carillon at St. John’s Episcopal, the twelve tones of the Angelus, the soaring refrain of “Ave Maria.” George had heard the bells his whole life; each set was distinct, recognizable, its voice as familiar as a relative’s. Intermingled now: the chorus crazily beautiful, festive as a circus organ.
Home, he thought.
They drove through the town. Bridesmaids posed on the steps of St. Brigid’s, waiting to be photographed. A full parking lot at St. Casimir’s, Fords and Oldsmobiles decorated with tissue-paper flowers. A gasping Studebaker idled out front, a string of empty beer cans trailing from its bumper.
“My goodness,” said Marion, removing her dark sunglasses. She was unaccustomed to early mornings; the skin beneath her eyes looked slightly blue. “What is that all about?”
“They hang a lot of junk on the groom’s car. When the newlyweds drive away, it makes a real racket.”
She smiled uncertainly. “Is that a—Polish tradition?”
“A Bakerton tradition.” He grinned. “Aren’t you sorry we missed out on that?”
He took the long way through town, imagined the sun glinting off the Chevy’s chrome bumpers. The car was baby blue; in four weeks he’d already waxed it twice. The interior was white leather, the backseat wide as a sofa.
He stopped at the traffic light next to Bellavia’s Bakery. One of the Bernardi boys, Vic or Sal, stopped in the street to stare. George gave him a wave. They crossed the railroad tracks and climbed Polish Hill. A barefoot boy ran in the street. The Poblockis’ chickens pecked quietly at the front yard. Fingering her rosary, Mrs. Stusick rocked back and forth on her porch swing, a babushka tied under her chin.
“The houses are all the same,” Marion observed.
“Company houses,” he said matter-of-factly. There, he thought. That wasn’t so bad. He pulled in front of his mother’s house and engaged the brake. “Here we are.”
“I hope they like me,” she said.
“They’ll love you,” said George, who had loved her the moment he saw her. “How could they not?”
THEY’D MET ON Thanksgiving at her parents’ house in Haverford, a wealthy suburb on Philadelphia’s Main Line. George had been invited by her brother, Kip Quigley, whom he knew from a chemistry class at Temple. Quigley had hired George as his tutor, which meant that he sat behind George during exams and copied with impunity from his paper. For this privilege he paid ten dollars a week, enough to keep George’s secondhand Ford in gas and lube. The car trailed oil all over Philadelphia; George had never managed to find the leak. When he could afford to, he simply added another quart.
The two were friendly, but not friends; their lives were too different. Quigley was nineteen and lived with his parents; he took classes when he felt like it, in between hangovers and tennis. George worked in a hardware store to pay for textbooks, clothes and other necessities the GI Bill didn’t cover. He studied at night, early in the morning and in the student union between classes. He was pressed for time, for cash; most days his body felt hungry for sleep; yet when exam results were posted, he was always at the top of the class. A clerical error, he thought the first time it happened. Somebody had made a mistake.
In high school he’d been an indifferent student; if not for his father’s constant prodding, he would never have opened a book. He worked one summer at the tiny music store in town and took his pay in merchandise: a beat-up saxophone, a secondhand clarinet. His band played the school dances; onstage, he imagined himself Woody Herman or Jimmy Dorsey, enthralling audiences with the silky sound of his clarinet. School was his buddy Gene Stusick’s department. His high marks had earned him the nickname Eugenius: a boy who could name all thirty-two presidents in their proper order, who’d dazzled their sixth-grade teacher by adding long columns of figures in his head. George was no Eugenius. A grown man now, he simply studied harder than anyone else—galvanized by his dread of the coal mines, a life spent slaving underground like his father.
Mining had killed Stanley Novak. George didn’t know how, exactly, but he was sure that it had. A big man, he’d spent much of his life crammed into tight, damp spaces; from the way he walked you could tell he was in pain. His breathing was labored. As a boy George had fallen asleep to the sound of it. The jagged rasp was audible through the floorboards, louder than the Polish radio station in the parlor downstairs. His father had given his life to Baker Brothers. The mines had given him a heart attack at fifty-four.
For six months after graduating high school, George had worked as a greaser in the machine shop at Baker One—a sweetheart job, by mine standards. Before the war, the shop had been staffed by Baker’s star ballplayers, to save their knees and backs and lungs for the playing field. The shop was cold and filthy, the noise deafening; but George didn’t mind. He was grateful to be working aboveground.
His first day at work, he’d ridden the mantrip with a dozen other men and felt his heart race as they entered the shaft. The memory still haunted him: the echoing dampness, the sulfur smell. The dark shaft was narrow and airless, no wider than the beam of his headlamp. Here and there, a rat scuttled. A few times, water fell from the low roof like a thundershower, soaking his shoulders. The One was a wet mine, the foreman explained; but where the water came from, or what kept it from flooding the mine completely, no one seemed to know. That single day had been enough for George; at the end of his shift he handed in his helmet. Luckily the foreman took pity on him and got him the job lubing shuttle cars. He was almost relieved when his draft notice came.
He would never go back. He’d made up his mind long ago, when he was still in the navy, and this resolution had guided his every decision. One of his navy buddies had grown up in Philly; after their discharge they’d shared an apartment on Broad Street. When the other fellow moved out to get married, George found a tiny studio in a rooming house downtown. He worked a series of jobs: deliveryman, butcher’s assistant, night janitor at a pet store, scrubbing down cages and shoveling dog shit. He worked and studied. His hair thinned. In the mirror he saw his father.
Meanwhile letters came from home. His boyhood friends had returned to Bakerton like boomerangs, to hometown girls and good-paying jobs. No one else had even tried to leave. As a boy, George had idolized a local ballplayer, Ernie Tedesco, who was picked from the coal league and signed to the majors. He’d played six seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals—as far as George knew, the only guy ever to escape Bakerton. As examples went, it wasn’t much help. George was no athlete, never had been. His dream was to become a surgeon, to fix what was broken. In three years as a medic, he’d glimpsed what was possible. Time was the problem; time and money. The years of training stretched before him, rigorous and expensive. He was a twenty-five-year-old sophomore, keenly aware of the years he had lost.
LATER, AFTER HE AND MARION were married, he was struck by the unlikelihood of their union, how incredible it was that he had won her, how easily they might never have met. He pictured the lackluster unfolding of his life without her, the ordinary girl he might have married—the first of many banal and pragmatic choices, all adding up to a life without distinction. By all rights it was the life he’d been born to, a fate he’d escaped through hard work and persistence and sheer stubborn will.
He’d refused Quigley’s invitation at first. He had planned to drive to Bakerton to spend the day with his family; but on Thanksgiving morning the Ford wouldn’t start. He called Quigley at the last minute, unwilling to face the holiday alone in his rented room, his usual dinner of sandwiches and canned soup.
He’d dressed carefully for dinner—pressed trousers, his only sport coat. He knew that Quigley came from money. Quigley’s department store was a Philadelphia institution. George had never bought anything there—the prices were too steep—but he passed the store each day on his way home from the bus stop, stepping around well-dressed matrons with their green-and-white shopping bags. He saw Quigley’s bags all over the city, miles away from the actual store. Merely carrying such a bag was a status symbol. That alone should have tipped him off.
The opulence of the house astonished him. Seated between two elderly aunts, he tried to be sociable but was flummoxed by the many forks and glasses. The Quigleys had invited a crowd. George counted sixteen heads at the long table, not including the woman who appeared to serve each course. At the far end, Marion sat with her chin in her hand, leaning on her elbow, violating everything George had been taught about table manners. Beside her an old man railed loudly against Truman. Marion nodded occasionally, her eyes glazed with boredom. She seemed to feel George’s gaze; she looked directly at him and tipped one eyebrow, a skill he admired. Then she drained her wineglass in a single gulp.
After dinner George took Kip aside. “Who’s that? In the blue.”
“My sister. I’d introduce you, but I like you too much.”
“Come on,” George said, laughing.
“You’ll see. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
When the guests moved to the living room, George spotted Marion alone on a sofa and introduced himself.
“Marion Baumgardner,” she said, offering her hand.
He paused for a moment, confused. A sick feeling in his stomach: she was married. The intensity of his disappointment surprised him.
“You’re a friend of my brother’s?” she asked.
“We’re in a class together.”
“I suppose I can’t hold that against you.”
He laughed uncertainly. “Oh, Kip’s all right.”
“I think he’s an ass.” She leaned forward and took a cigarette from a case on the table. Her hand was long and white, slender as a fish.
“Where were you stationed?” she asked.
He grinned. “How’d you know I was a vet?”
She shrugged languidly, as if to ask what else he could be.
“In the South Pacific,” he said. “I was a medic on a navy minesweeper.”
“Good God.”
For a moment he was dumbfounded. Most girls were impressed by this fact, or pretended to be. Marion looked utterly horrified.
He leaned over to light her cigarette. When she raised her hand he saw that she wore no wedding ring.
She seemed to read his mind. “I’m a widow,” she said. “My husband was a paratrooper. His glider was shot down over Sicily.” Her voice was flat, her face still as a mask.
“Oh,” he said stupidly. And then, recovering: “I’m sorry.”
“So tell me, George Novak: What brings you to this part of the world? You’re not from here.” It wasn’t a question.
Is it that obvious? he wondered.
“You’ve got to be somewhere,” he said.
She seemed amused when he asked for her phone number, but gave it to him anyway. When he called her the very next night, she invited him to her apartment.
She lived alone, on the top floor of a brick row house off Rittenhouse Square, a grand place with two fireplaces and twelve-foot ceilings. One room held a wide bed, the only furniture she owned. In the living room were an easel and several unfinished canvases: bright colors in jagged patterns that seemed perfectly random, like the scrawlings of an angry child. The place smelled of coffee and turpentine. The refrigerator held tonic water, vodka and gin.
Their first date lasted the entire weekend. George emerged from her apartment on a Sunday afternoon, exhilarated and slightly dizzy. He hadn’t eaten, and his temples ached with hangover. Her paint-dappled rug had left a crisscross pattern on his back.
Sexually, she was more experienced than he, a fact apparent to them both. She did things to him no girl had done, and she made it clear, with words and gestures, that he was to reciprocate. Her frankness shocked and thrilled him. Her movements were expert. He hadn’t expected a virgin; yet she had lived with her husband for only a month. She had been fitted for a diaphragm; when exactly, George didn’t ask. If she’d had other lovers, she never mentioned them. For this he was grateful.
He proposed after three months. Her father took the news calmly. He gave up on me long ago, Marion had told George. When I ran off and married a Jew.
“Novak,” said the old man. “What kind of name is that?”
“Polish, sir. My father came over from Poland.”
Quigley raised his bushy eyebrows. “A lot of Jews came from Poland.”
“My family is Catholic, sir.”
George knew from Marion that this wasn’t welcome news either, but her father received it stoically. In the end he gave his blessing, and Marion Baumgardner became Marion Novak—one youthful indiscretion expunged by another, less egregious one.
They were married that spring, in a quiet ceremony at the Quigleys’ church in Haverford. George’s family did not attend; he didn’t tell his mother until afterward. She would have insisted on a Catholic wedding, and that was a conversation George didn’t wish to have. Later it would seem a cowardly decision, but at the time he deemed it practical. To him one church was as good as another. Any sort of ceremony would suffice, as long as it made Marion his wife.
HIS LITTLE SISTER greeted them as they climbed the porch steps. She wore a ruffled pink dress with a stiff petticoat, a ribbon tied in her hair.
“Hi, Georgie,” she said shyly, peering through the screen door. She was four years old, timid with strangers. He hadn’t visited since Christmas and was amazed at how she’d grown.
“Hi, honey.” He opened the door and lifted her into his arms. “Isn’t she a doll? My baby sister Lucy.”
He was prepared to hand her over so Marion could hold her, but his wife only smiled. He put Lucy down and went inside.
“Hello!” he called, heading for the kitchen.
His mother stood at the sink rinsing dishes. He was relieved to see that she was wearing shoes. Not only that: she had put on lipstick. It was the first time in years he’d seen her without an apron.
He embraced her. She was stouter than he remembered; her hair smelled of garlic. A wonderful aroma filled the kitchen, a strawberry pie cooling on the windowsill. “Mama, this is Marion.”
“How do you do.” Marion offered her hand. Next to Rose she looked slim as a whippet, tall and elegant in her pale blue suit.
“Please to meet you,” Rose said carefully, as though she’d rehearsed it.
They sat. His mother took plates from the cupboard and set about slicing the pie.
“Mama, come sit down.”
“In a minute. First I make coffee.”
She bustled about the kitchen, putting on water, measuring the grounds. Marion glanced around the room. “Is that a coal stove?”
“Yep,” said George.
She studied it with naked fascination, as though she’d never seen such a thing. It hit him that she probably hadn’t. The stove, the Last Supper hanging on the wall, the Lenten palm leaves tucked behind it to ward off lightning strikes. All the familiar objects of his childhood were curiosities to her.
“Where does it go, the coal?”
He indicated the compartment at the side of the stove.
“You fill it every day?”
“Every few hours. Depends on how much cooking you do. That was my job when I was a kid. Filling the coal bucket.”
“Who fills it now?”
“Sandy, I guess. My little brother. Mama, where is he?”
“Outside someplace. I don’t know. Me, I never know.” She spoke softly, as if not wanting to intrude on their conversation. She brought cups and saucers to the table.
“Mama, please sit down.” He regretted the edge in his voice. He only wanted her to sit and talk like a regular person, instead of behaving like a waitress.
Finally she sat, hands folded in her lap.
“It smells delicious in here,” said Marion.
“I been cooking all day.” Her eyes met Marion’s. “You like to cook?”
Marion laughed, a low, bubbling sound. “Heavens, no. I’m a disaster in the kitchen. George is still teaching me to fry an egg.”
Rose frowned. “What you eat, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Marion crossed and uncrossed her long legs. “We go to restaurants, or make sandwiches. I don’t have much of an appetite.”
George avoided his mother’s gaze. He knew what she was thinking. What kind of girl you marry, she don’t know how to fry an egg?
“You still working, Georgie?” Rose asked. “With the hardware?”
“I quit that job. I’m working for Marion’s father now. He has a store.”
“What about the school?”
“I’m taking the summer off,” he said. “We’re saving up for a house.”
“Mrs. Novak,” said Marion. “George tells me your family is Italian.”
Rose looked down at her lap, smoothed the fabric of her dress over her knees. “That’s right. We come over when I was a little.”
Marion leaned forward in her chair, smiling warmly. “Have you ever considered going back?”
Rose glanced uncertainly at George, confusion written on her face. Your wife, she want to send me back.
“What for?” she asked.
“Oh, just for a visit.” Again Marion smiled. She was not a smiler by nature; George sensed her effort. “It’s a different world since the war. It would be interesting, wouldn’t it, to see how things have changed? The way of life, the political situation…” Her voice trailed off.
“Me, I got nobody there.” His mother rose and dipped a dishcloth in the sink. She wrung it out and passed it over the counter.
“My grandparents lost touch with their relatives when they left,” George explained.
“That’s too bad.” Marion stirred her coffee, though she hadn’t added any sugar. “I’d like to go one day. My husband died there during the war.”
George felt his face warm.
“Your husband?” his mother repeated
“George didn’t tell you? I’m a widow.”
“He don’t tell me.” Again Rose wiped at the counter with the rag.
A long silence in which Marion sipped her coffee. George swallowed bite after bite of strawberry pie, which seemed to be piling up on the way to his stomach. Finally Marion got to her feet.
“Would you mind if I lay down for a while?” she asked. “I’ve got a bit of a headache.”
GEORGE LED HER UPSTAIRS to Joyce’s bedroom, where they would be sleeping. The room was immaculate, the walls bare. When he’d last visited, a recruiting poster had hung above the bed. It had been removed for their visit and replaced with a crucifix. Two folded towels, bleached and threadbare, had been placed on the bureau.
“You shouldn’t have told her that,” said George.
“Told her what?”
“That you were married before.”
She stared at him. “I assumed she already knew.”
“Why would I tell her a thing like that?”
“Because it’s true. It’s what happened.” She frowned. “Should I be ashamed of it?”
“Of course not,” George said hastily. He couldn’t bring himself to explain it, that his mother had expected what every mother expected: for her son to marry a virgin, sweet and uncomplicated. An altogether different sort of girl.
“Mama is old-fashioned, that’s all. It’s hard enough getting used to a daughter-in-law.”
Marion shrugged as though the matter were hardly worth discussing. “I’m exhausted,” she said, stripping down to her panties.
He watched her undress. Her casual nudity still startled him. Her habit was to sleep late, skim the newspaper and paint for an hour or two, all without putting on a stitch of clothing. In their own apartment, with the shades drawn, it excited him. Here in his mother’s house it seemed wrong.
“What’s the matter?” Marion asked.
“Nothing.” The truth—that he wished she’d put some clothes on—seemed foolish and neurotic. She certainly would have thought so.
She climbed under the covers and rolled onto her side. “I won’t sleep. I’ll just close my eyes.”
He closed the door softly and went downstairs. The kitchen was empty. At the doorway to the parlor he paused. His father’s chair stood in the corner, the old console radio beside it. Since his death George had visited a half-dozen times, but he’d never seen his mother sit there. He wondered if anyone ever did.
He went out the front door and sat on the porch swing. His sister Joyce was coming up the hill, a pocketbook over her arm.
“Hey there,” he called.
She shielded her eyes from the sun. “Georgie! When did you get here?”
She hurried up the porch steps and accepted his kiss on her cheek. Unlike his mother and Dorothy, who nearly smothered him with affection whenever he visited, Joyce did not like to be touched. He sensed she’d be perfectly happy with a handshake, but that offended his sense of correctness. She was his sister, after all, and a girl.
“Holy cow,” she said. “Is that your car?”
“Yep.” He couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice. “It’s a forty-eight. Brand-new.” He looked her up and down, a mousy little thing in a gray skirt and blouse. Her blond hair was set in tight waves. “You did something to your hair.”
She waved her hand dismissively, as if the topic were of no interest.
“Sorry to kick you out of your room,” he said.
“I don’t mind. I’m happy bunking on the couch.” She peered through the screen door. “Where’s your wife? Jeepers, I can’t believe you’re married.”
“She’s upstairs resting.”
Joyce seemed confounded, as if only an invalid would sleep in the middle of the day. “Is she sick?”
“A little headache, is all.”
They sat on the swing. “What’s the big idea, running off and getting married? We didn’t even know you had a girl.”
George smiled. “How did Mama take it? She didn’t answer my letter.”
“How do you think? She had a bird. And Dorothy had ten fits. Why the big secret?”
“It wasn’t a secret. It just happened very fast.”
“Love at first sight?”
“Something like that.” He lowered his voice. “Look, don’t say anything to Mama, but we didn’t exactly get married in the church. Marion’s family is Presbyterian, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. Keep it to yourself, okay?”
Joyce gave a low whistle. “Oh, boy. I see why you did it on the Q.T. Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word.”
He grinned. “Where’ve you been all afternoon? Have you got a secret, too?”
“I enlisted.”
He laughed appreciatively. Too late, he saw her flinch.
“You’re serious? Enlisted in what, for God’s sake? Haven’t you heard? The war’s over.”
“There’s a women’s unit in the air force.” Her voice was calm but firm, as though she were explaining it to a child.
“Joyce, are you crazy? Why would you do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised. I’ve only been talking about it for five years. Remember all those letters I wrote you?”
“Sure I remember. I thought it was cute. I figured you’d outgrow it.”
“I’m eighteen.” An edge crept into her voice. “Same as you were, when you went.”
“That was different,” said George.
“Because you’re a boy?”
“Because I was drafted, for God’s sake! There’s no way in hell I would have gone if I’d had a choice.” Across the street Mrs. Stusick looked up from her rosary. He lowered his voice.
“You don’t know what you’re getting into. Trust me, the military is no place for a girl.”
“Well, the air force disagrees.” She rose. “I expected this from Mama and Dorothy, but not you. I thought you of all people would understand.” She went into the house, the screen door slamming behind her.
George hesitated. He ought to go in and talk to her, but what more could he say? What would his father have said? You can’t go. I forbid it. Except that George wasn’t her father. He wasn’t even much of a brother. He fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, then remembered where he was. There’d be hell to pay if his mother smelled smoke on his clothes.
He’d met WAVEs in the navy—stateside, before he shipped out. He remembered a particular dance at Norfolk that seemed to be crawling with them. He had tagged along with a couple of buddies, flush with beer and springtime and weekend freedom. They were green then, unaccustomed to drinking. It had struck them as comical to see girls in uniform; they’d complained loudly that the uniform skirt was too long. He thought of Joyce’s skinny legs, her bony knees covered with childhood scars, like a little girl’s.
He went around to the back of the house. The small yard was in need of mowing. His brother Sandy sat on the back steps, bouncing a ball off the sidewalk, his skinny arms burned brown by the sun.
“Whatcha doing?” said George.
Sandy turned. His hair was pale as cornsilk, his blue eyes startlingly clear. Like Daddy’s, George thought.
“Come on.” He fished in his pocket for his keys. “Let’s go for a ride.”
THEY DROVE THROUGH the center of town and out the other side. George accelerated at the bottom of Indian Hill. A stand at the top sold frozen custard. It was a good-enough excuse for a drive.
Sandy fiddled with the radio, pressing the dial tabs. Each tab corresponded with a jazz station in Philadelphia; in Bakerton they yielded only static. Finally he located KBKR, the town’s AM station. The Benny Goodman Orchestra was playing “Moonglow.”
George wanted to laugh. Nothing happens here, he thought. Nothing ever changes. Years had passed, the world had been transformed by war, and still Bakerton was listening to “Moonglow.”
“That’s an oldie,” he told Sandy. “I remember it from when I was in high school.”
Sandy nodded politely.
“What grade are you in now? Seventh?” He was ashamed he didn’t know.
“Sixth. I got left back.”
“Nobody told me that.” George glanced at him. “What happened? Did you fail a subject?”
“English and arithmetic. Miss Peale,” he added, as though that explained it.
“That dinosaur? She must be a hundred years old.”
Sandy laughed, pleased. “She’s not so bad. Anyways, it wasn’t her fault. I didn’t try very hard,” he said cheerfully.
At the top of the hill George pulled into the parking lot. He thought of his father, who’d drilled Dorothy on multiplication tables until she cried. He wondered who had taught Sandy the multiplication tables. Nobody, he guessed.
They got out of the car and stood at the window. George ordered two vanilla cones.
“Thank you,” Sandy said politely. He ate quickly, like a dog gobbling its food.
“Sandy,” George asked. “What do you remember about Daddy?”
The boy stared.
“Anything?”
Sandy pondered this a long time. “I remember the funeral,” he said at last. “There was a big snowstorm. After church, Mama let me take out my sled.”
They were standing there eating their custard when a woman approached, pushing an empty stroller, holding a baby on her hip. It was a moment before George recognized her. Her red hair was tied back with a kerchief, and she had filled out some. Her breasts were twice the size he remembered—the few times he’d worked up the nerve to touch them, they had barely filled his hands. Only her face was the same. She still looked eighteen years old.
“Ev,” he called out.
“Georgie?” She looked stunned, flushed from the exertion of pushing the stroller up the hill. Her hand went to her hair. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
They embraced briefly, an awkward moment as she shifted the baby to her other hip. The child wore a blue sailor suit. His mouth had left a wet stain on Ev’s blouse. Their hair, George noticed, was the same shade of red.
“Who’s this fellow?” he asked.
“Leonard.” She smoothed the baby’s hair. “We named him for Gene’s dad. He was two in March.”
“March,” George repeated. Against his will he found himself counting off the months. Gene had come home from France in the summer. He and Ev hadn’t wasted any time.
“What are you doing in town?” she asked.
“In for a visit.” His custard was beginning to melt. He was aware of it dripping onto his hand. “How’ve you been?” And then: “How’s Gene?”
Her blush intensified. “He’s home sleeping. He’s on Hoot Owl. At the Twelve.” She smiled nervously. “I hear you’re going to medical school.”
“Not yet. There’s a bunch more classes I have to take first. I have a long ways to go.” He fumbled in his pocket for a napkin. “Where are you living these days?”
“We have an apartment over Bellavia’s.”
“No kidding,” said George. His grandparents had lived on the same block, above Rizzo’s Tavern.
“My dad had a fit,” said Ev. “ ‘What are you doing over there with the Eyetalians?’ ” she mimicked. “But honestly, Georgie, they couldn’t be nicer. Well, you know.”
He smiled. She had always made a special effort with his mother. He’d been grateful for it.
“Well, I should get going. He’s a little fussy.” She bent and placed the squirming child in the stroller. “It was nice seeing you, Georgie. I’ll tell Gene you said hello.”
He watched her push the stroller up the hill. Her broad behind was shaped like an upside-down heart. He’d spent his adolescence imagining her naked, or trying to; he’d come up with a picture that was part Ev, part Betty Grable—to his mind, exactly how a girl should look. The picture was hazy now; Marion had erased it with her long belly, her sleek thighs. Ev’s small-town beauty was no longer what he wanted. She belonged in that apartment above Bellavia’s, in the life she’d chosen when she picked Gene over him. He no longer blamed her for that. If anything, he was grateful. Whether she knew it or not, he owed his life to Ev. Her betrayal had allowed him to escape.
“Come on,” he told Sandy. “Let’s hit the road.”
It wasn’t until later, driving down Indian Hill, that a thought occurred to him. He hadn’t even told her he was married.
HE WOKE EARLY the next morning, dressed and headed downstairs. His mother stood in the foyer, pinning a scarf over her hair. He went back upstairs. Marion lay on her side, breathing deeply.
“Honey,” he whispered. “Honey.” He touched her shoulder, gently at first. She gave a low moan.
“Marion, wake up.”
She stirred slightly, then opened one eye.
“Get dressed, darling. It’s time for church.”
“Tired,” she said.
“What’s the matter? Did you take a pill?” He got up and rummaged through her overnight bag: cigarettes, cosmetics, her diaphragm in its blue plastic case. Why’d she bring that thing? he wondered. Did she really think she would need it?
Finally he found the bottle. For years she’d had trouble sleeping; her doctor had prescribed a sedative, which she took several times a week. She’d been awake at dawn; George had heard her in the bathroom. If she’d taken a pill at that hour, she might easily sleep half the day.
She rolled over onto her back, naked. A moment later she began to snore. George dressed and closed the door behind him.
“Marion’s not feeling well,” he told his mother in the kitchen. “She won’t be coming to church.”
Rose eyed him suspiciously. “Georgie, you want to tell me something?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your wife. She going to have a baby?”
He thought of the diaphragm in its case. His faced warmed. “No, Mama. Why would you think that?”
Rose shrugged elaborately. “How come you get married so fast? And now she don’t feel good in the morning.”
She’s doped up on sleeping pills, he thought but didn’t say. Having his mother think Marion was pregnant, while embarrassing, was preferable to the truth.
Rose smiled broadly, her face flushed with delight. “She don’t eat enough. She got to eat more.”
“I’ll tell her,” said George.
WHEN THEY CAME HOME from church Marion was waiting for them on the porch swing.
She wore the same clothes as the day before, but at least she’d combed her hair and put on lipstick. Her eyes were puffy from sleep.
“Good morning,” said George. “I thought you’d still be asleep.”
“I am.” Her skin looked slightly gray. Across the street, a car was parked in front of the Stusicks’. George wondered if it belonged to Gene, if he’d brought Ev and the baby to his mother’s for Sunday dinner.
From inside came the metallic clang of pots and pans, Rose and Joyce bustling around the kitchen. Marion rubbed her temples. “Dear God, what is all that clatter?”
“Dinner.” A Bakerton girl would have risen to help, but coming from Marion, the gesture would have been ridiculous. Her kitchen skills were limited to opening a wine bottle.
“I hope you’re hungry,” he said.
“At this hour? I couldn’t eat a bite.”
“Try,” said George. “Please.”
“Why on earth?”
“My mother thinks you’re pregnant.”
Marion hooted, a shrill laugh that ended in a cough. “Oh, that’s delightful.”
He felt his pulse in his temples. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, George. You’re not serious, are you?” She stared. “For heaven’s sake, do I look like the maternal type?”
George smiled uncertainly. He’d never given much thought to children, and Marion had seemed equally indifferent. Since the wedding she’d continued using her diaphragm, at least most of the time. He took that to mean her attitude was casual. If it happens, it happens, he’d told himself.
Now he thought—he couldn’t help it—of Ev, the red-haired child she’d made with Gene.
“Come on,” he teased. “Girls always say that. Then when the baby comes it’s a different story.”
Marion did not smile.
“Well, we don’t have to think about it right now,” he said carefully. “Let’s just play it by ear.” He pushed off with his feet; the swing rocked gently. “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he said, as though it had just occurred to him. “I ran into someone the other day. That girl I told you about, who wrote me letters when I was overseas.”
“Evelyn Picnic,” said Marion.
“Lipnic.”
“Lipnic.” She rubbed at her temples. He knew what she was thinking: Dear God, these names.
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” he teased.
Marion laughed. “Nothing happened. If something had, you wouldn’t be telling me about it.”
His smile faded. He’d hoped, for a moment, to make her jealous. Now he saw that she was only amused. As brief as it had been, as frenzied and passionate, their courtship had left him no time for reflection. Marion had bewitched him completely: her beauty and sophistication, her withering intelligence, the absolute self-containment that disappeared—ferociously, deliriously—in bed. She seemed a different species from his mother and his sisters, from Evelyn Lipnic; she was unlike any woman he had ever known. Yet now that she was his, a question had begun to nag at him: What did Marion see in him?
“You’re right,” he said. “There’s nothing to tell. She wrote me a few letters when I was overseas. I wasn’t too good about answering. Then I came home on furlough and found out she was engaged.” To my best friend, he could have added, but didn’t. He still believed in keeping things simple.
“That’s all?” She sounded disappointed.
“Yep. Half the guys in the navy could tell you the same kind of story.” He rose. “I’m going to see if they need any help in the kitchen.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “Try and work up an appetite.”
GEORGE WATCHED his mother pile Marion’s plate: homemade macaroni with sardines and tomatoes, fried cauliflower breaded with cornmeal.
“Georgie, did I tell you?” his mother asked. “Your sister Joyce, she going to the air force.”
George glanced quickly at Joyce. They hadn’t spoken since their conversation on the porch. Last night at dinner, and this morning at church, she had avoided his eyes.
“You think it’s okay?” his mother asked.
Joyce rose and filled her glass at the sink. “Mama, don’t put him on the spot. It’s got nothing to do with him.” She turned to face him. “Let’s just have a nice visit. Give him a chance to tell us about his wedding.”
George met her gaze. The implication was clear: Back me up, or I’ll tell her everything.
“It’s a big decision,” he said carefully. “There’s a lot to consider.”
His mother nodded agreement. “Ecco. I think maybe she wait a little while. If she want to, she could go next year.”
“Next year? A whole year?” Joyce’s face reddened. Her eyes met George’s.
“Just a minute,” he said hastily. “Let’s look at this rationally. What’s the alternative? Can she find a job here in town for a year?”
“She could go in the factory,” said Rose.
“Mama! That place is a graveyard. Remember how miserable Dorothy was there? Georgie, tell her.” Her voice vibrated with emotion, her desperation to get away. Why should she have to stay? George thought. If I can leave, why not her?
“Mama, it’ll be okay,” he said finally. “Joyce is a tough girl. I’m sure she can handle whatever they throw at her.”
He took his plate to the sink, squeezing her shoulder as he passed. A bony little shoulder, fragile as a cat’s.
GEORGE AND MARION left early the next morning. His mother and Joyce stood on the porch, watching them go. He waved from the window as the Chevy rolled down the hill. Marion rummaged through her pocketbook for a cigarette.
“Oh, God,” she said, inhaling deeply. “God, that’s good.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” George said.
Her eyebrows shot up. “As if you haven’t been craving one yourself.”
“I’m fine. What’s the big deal? It’s just a couple of days.”
Marion laughed, a throaty chuckle. “Oh, please. You don’t fool me. You’ve been dying for one all morning.” She handed him the pack; he flipped open a Zippo from his pocket. The sound was oddly soothing. He inhaled deeply.
They crossed the railroad tracks and continued on through the town: Mount Carmel Church, where his Scarponi cousins had been baptized; the apartment above Rizzo’s Tavern, where his grandparents had lived. At the corner, the Baker Brothers bus—an old school bus painted dark green—had stopped to let off passengers. He watched them cross the street, black-faced men carrying dinner buckets, heading home to sleep off eight hours of Hoot Owl. He wondered if Gene Stusick was among them, coming home from the Twelve, climbing the fire escape behind Bellavia’s Bakery to the apartment he shared with Ev.
He glanced over at Marion, smoking quietly, her long legs crossed at the knee, coolly elegant in her pale blue suit.
“Come on,” he said, accelerating at a yellow light. “Let’s get out of here.”