By the Rivers of Brooklyn (32 page)

“…we've set a date, and decided, and, uh, Joyce has agreed to do me the honour of becoming Mrs. James Evans. The Second. In June.”

In the stunned silence, Mrs. James Evans the First pulls her hand out from under her daughter's and begins to clap very quietly, and the others follow her lead. Ethel leans forward, past Diane, to Joyce. “Joyce, dear, my very best wishes. I hope you and Jimmy will be very happy.”

At that moment the waiter arrives with their meals. Once food is in front of them they can talk about the food, and about Jimmy and Joyce's wedding plans, about Jimmy's wonderful opportunity to manage Taylor's new store out on Long Island, about where they will live. To other tables around, they no doubt give a good imitation of a happy family celebrating not one but two special occasions. A keen observer might pick up tiny strains: the handsome young man dressed entirely inappropriately to whom no-one ever speaks, or the fact that the older couple, presumably the guests of honour, never actually look at each other all evening. But they finish the evening with ice cream sundaes and everyone goes back out to the car feeling that, on at least some levels, the evening has been a success.

Diane has waited through the whole endless dinner to get Mickey alone, to laugh with him about her ridiculous family. After Jimmy drives them all home she stands in the street with Mickey, looking oddly mismatched with her new pink dress and pearls next to his jeans and T-shirt. Without saying anything, they begin walking down Flatbush. Diane puts out her hand and brushes Mickey's hand, and he holds hers, but without any real warmth or pressure. Just as if it's something he's carrying for a few minutes. Mickey stops suddenly next to a lighted sign that reads “CANDY…CIGARS.”

“That's what you want, isn't it?” he says.

“Candy cigars?” Diane says, feeling the need for a joke. The night is chilly, and so is Mickey's glare.

“Candy cigars, Jimmy and Joyce. You know. Nice little place on Long Island. He's gonna be manager of the store, good prospects. Babies comin' along in a coupla years…a nice little life. That's what you want too, isn't it?”

“No! No, that's not what I want at all!” Diane says. She thinks of walking down Sixth Avenue, carried on the current of rich, successful people all striving for something more. “I don't know exactly what I want, but it isn't that.”

Mickey starts walking again, fast. She has to almost run to keep up. “You know where Joyce and Jimmy are gonna be in twenty-five years, huh?” he says. “Right back at Junior's, same table, their kids in between them, making a toast. Can't even look at each other, they're so sick of the sight of each other after all these years. Just like good old Mom and Dad.”

“Hey, that's not fair,” Diane protests, though she's said a thousand times worse herself about her parents. “Anyway, I told you, that's not what I want. Maybe that'll be Joyce and Jimmy someday, but it's not going to be…us.”

“Us.” Mickey stops again, turns to look at her. A streetlight illuminates his thin handsome face, the sharp jawline, the nose just a little too long. “What other choices do we got, Diane? Wanna be like my mom and dad instead? Want me to come home drunk every night and beat the crap out of you and our kids? Would you like that?”

“Mickey! No! Of course not.” She reaches out to touch him: his arm is cold and hard as metal. “You're not going to be like your dad.”

He laughs. “Think again, sweetheart. Everyone turns into their parents. Can't you see that?” He looks away again, swallows hard, twice. “I'm joining the army.”

“You're what?”

“Joining the army. I already been to see about it. It's the best thing for me.”

“Mickey, don't be stupid! You join the army now, you'll get sent to Korea. You might…” She remembers her mother crying the day they got the telegram about Ralph. But Mickey just laughs again.

“Yeah, go to Korea and get my ass blown off. From where I'm sitting right now, it don't look like a bad deal.” He grips her upper arms and she looks into his eyes and sees all the pain there, all the darkness, everything she's tried to patch up and make better. Sees that she's been like a child putting Band-Aids on someone whose throat is cut.

“I love you,” she tries. “I thought…you loved me.”

He shoves her away, so hard it almost hurts and she reels for a moment. “I don't know about love, Diane. But if I did – if I loved anybody – here's what I'd do.” He turns and walks away from her, down a side street. When he's about fifteen feet away he turns back. “Don't come after me, Diane. This is for your own good. I'm leaving now, because I love you, okay? Go home now. Go home to Mommy and Daddy.”

She watches, wanting to follow but nailed to the spot, till he turns another corner and is gone. And then she goes home to Mommy and Daddy.

ANNIE
 
ST. JOHN'S, JUNE 1953

“T
ELL ME THE TRUTH
, Aunt Annie. What's wrong with me? I'm a fine figure of a fellow, wouldn't you say?”

Doug Parsons sat at Annie's kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea. He was indeed a fine figure of a fellow, twenty-three years old with a good job with the
Daily News
. Annie wasn't sure exactly what he did, but Doug's mother assured her it was a good job. His family went to Number Two Corps with Annie and Bill; she had known Sarah and Abe Parsons all her life, seen their children grow up. Doug had had his eye on Claire since she was fourteen. But Claire never paid him no particular mind, no more so than just one of a crowd of friends, which Annie thought was right and proper when she was a young girl in school.

But now Claire was twenty-one and here was Doug Parsons, still hanging around. Not making a fool of himself waiting, now mind, not like her Bill did over Rose for all those years. Doug took out other girls: last year he went around with a girl called Theresa Walsh for five or six months. Anybody who heard the name Theresa Walsh could have told you what was wrong with
that
match, and his poor mother was practically in tears at the thought that her boy might end up marrying Catholic. Annie watched closely during those months to see if Claire showed any signs of jealousy. But Claire, as always, was busy with work, going out with a crowd of girlfriends and sometimes with one fellow or another, doing things with the Young People's Fellowship at the corps. When the Theresa Walsh fiasco ended, Claire had barely even seemed to notice.

Now here was Doug again, in Annie's kitchen, dropping by on a pretext of returning some dress patterns Annie had loaned to his mother. “Aunt Annie,” he said – the young ones who grew up with her nieces and nephews all called her Aunt Annie – “I'm not such a bad catch, am I? Why do Claire think I'm not good enough for her?”

“Now Doug, 'tis not a matter of you not being good enough for her. I'm sure Claire don't think that way. She's just very…choosy, I guess,” Annie said gently. Doug posed his questions like jokes but you never knew with young people. She guessed he really had feelings for Claire, underneath all his carrying on. He was a good boy, even if he didn't go to meeting. She didn't want to see him hurt, though of course, if he ever hurt Claire, Annie would tear the eyes out of him.

A clatter of feet and high girlish voices on the back step made Doug glance to the door and sit a little straighter in his chair. “Look at that, my white shoes are filthy now, where they oiled the road again today.” A girl's voice, not Claire's but one of her friends.

“That's her, home from work now,” Annie said.

Sure enough, Claire came through the door, trailed by her girlfriend Phyllis from work. It wasn't so very different from the days when she used to come home from school with Valerie, all chatter and giggles. Claire was taller and more elegant, even more confident now that she was earning money, buying her own clothes, having her hair permanent-waved.

She was a good girl, but she seemed so cool sometimes, so distant. What was the word? Aloof, that was it. Annie rolled the word in her mind, liking the sound of it, the way it captured Claire. Aloof. From where Annie sat, aloof wasn't such a bad thing. She could see, though, how Doug Parsons might not like
aloof
so much.

“Doug! How're you doing? What brings you here? Just stopped in for a chin-wag with Aunt Annie, did you?” Claire's eyes sparkled: she enjoyed teasing him.

“What're you at, Doug?” Phyllis asked, sliding into the chair next to his. Annie got up and went into the pantry where she began slicing onions, blinking back the tears. She listened to the conversation in the other room, not wanting to miss it.

“Not much, girl, not much,” said Doug. “Just stopped in to drop something off for Mother on my way home from work.”

“This isn't on your way home,” Claire pointed out.

“Well, in a manner of speaking, you know. After all, it is Friday night, so I was thinking I might find a pretty girl – or two – who wanted to come out to Barney's for supper with me tonight.”

“You might find two,” Claire said. “Pretty girls only come in pairs around here.”

“Well, if I looked hard enough, I might find another fellow on the way,” said Doug. “I could swing by and pick up Gary Follett. What do you say to that, Phyllis?”

“Why not ask me what I say to it?” Claire countered. “You might end up with Phyllis and then I'd be the one stuck with poor old Gary Follett.”

“There'll be no reason to pity Gary if he winds up with you,” Doug said. “As for me, how can I lose? It's a win-win situation.”

They were so easy with each other, boys and girls these days. Annie was glad she heard a lot of it or she might have thought badly of Claire. In her day she could only ever remember Rose talking so freely to fellows, and if she didn't know better she might have thought Claire was a copy of her mother. But the world had changed, Annie knew. Girls like she had been herself – modest, shy and quiet – were out of style. Claire was quiet enough, compared to some of the young ones she ran around with, but she could hold her own in any conversation with a fellow.

Annie wondered how much she really knew about Claire, what the girl could be getting up to behind her back. Young people weren't always straightforward, she knew. But all signs pointed to Claire being exactly what she appeared: a nice girl. Smart, and strong-willed in her way, but always respectful and polite. Always ready to lend a hand around the house, even though she never had learned to enjoy cooking and cleaning. She brought money home to contribute to the household, every payday, before she ever touched a cent herself. She was in meeting twice every Sunday and down to Young People's every Tuesday night, a senior soldier, though she didn't wear the uniform and wasn't the sort you'd ever expect to find going off to officers' training. But that was all right with Annie.

She didn't really want to see Claire married off to some young officer, in charge of a corps down in a tiny little outport, slaving day and night to keep the church on its feet. Claire would do the job well, of course – Annie couldn't think of a job Claire wouldn't do well – but she wasn't cut out for that kind of life. She suspected if Claire were away from home she might not go to church all the time, or at least not to the Army. She'd seen Claire's distant look sometimes when the testimonies got heartfelt and people began to weep. Claire might even go to a movie or a dance if she were living away, but here at home she did what was expected, followed the rules, and never suggested by a word or a glance that those rules held her back.

They were back again by nine o'clock, the four of them crowding into the kitchen as Claire and her friends often did after an evening out. Claire made cocoa for everyone, and Annie, who had just gotten her mother settled in bed, brought out a plate of cookies she made that morning and set them on the table. Bill was sitting by the stove with his feet up, reading the paper, the cat curled on his lap. The scene was warm and familiar. It took Annie a moment to notice the one unfamiliar thing: the young man accompanying Claire, Phyllis and Doug was not Doug's friend Gary Follett but a stranger, a tall, strikingly handsome boy with glossy black hair. When he spoke, she knew he wasn't a Newfoundlander.

“Aunt Annie, this is Eddie Tanner,” Claire said, and the young man stepped forward with a hearty handshake. “He's down here visiting his mother, Mrs. Curtis.”

The pieces fell into place. Herb Curtis was a Salvation Army man who had come home from Toronto a few years ago married to a widow whose own children were all grown up. This must be one of those children, Eddie Tanner from Toronto.

He was as handsome as a movie star, good teeth, healthy glowing skin. His suit seemed a little flashy; it was powder-blue and he was wearing a foolish little string tie. But he positively glowed with warmth and energy as he pumped Annie's hand and said, “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Winsor. My mom's told me so much about you and your family.”