Summer Morning, Summer Night

“You know how visiting girls are. Away from home they think they’re in Paris, France. She’ll be gone in October. It’s not so dreadful.”

“Let’s see,” figured father, slowly. “I’ll have been buried just about one hundred and thirty days out at Green Lawn Cemetery by then.” He got up and threw his paper down into a little white tent on the floor. “By George, Mother, I’m talking to her right now!”

He went and stood in the parlor door, peering through it at the waltzing Marianne. “La,” she sang to the music.

Clearing his throat, he stepped through.

“Marianne,” he said.

“That old black magic …” sang Marianne. “Yes?”

He watched her hands swinging in the air. She gave him a sudden fiery look as she danced by.

“I want to talk to you.” He straightened his tie.

“Dah dum dee dum dum dee dum dee dum dum,” she sang.

“Did you hear me?” he demanded.

“He’s so nice,” she said.

“Evidently.”

“Do you know, he bows and opens doors like a doorman and plays a trumpet like Harry James and brought me daisies this morning?”

“I wouldn’t doubt.”

“His eyes are blue.” She looked at the ceiling.

He could find nothing at all on the ceiling to look at.

She kept looking, as she danced, at the ceiling as he came over and stood near her, looking up, but there wasn’t a rain spot or a settling crack there, and he sighed, “Marianne.”

“And we ate lobster at that river café.”

“Lobster. I know, but we don’t want you breaking down, getting weak. One day, tomorrow, you must stay home and help your Aunt Math make her doilies—”

“Yes, sir.” She dreamed around the room with her wings out.

“Did you hear me?” he demanded.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes,” her eyes shut. “Oh, yes, yes.” Her skirts whished around. “Uncle,” she said, her head back, lolling.

“You’ll help your aunt with her doilies?” he cried.

“—with her doilies,” she murmured.

“There!” He sat down in the kitchen, plucking up the paper. “I guess I told her!”

BUT, NEXT morning, he was on the edge of his bed when he heard the hot-rod’s thunderous muffler and heard Marianne fall downstairs, linger two seconds in the dining room for breakfast, hesitate by the bathroom long enough to consider whether she should be sick, and then the slam of the front door, the sound of the jalopy banging down the street, two people singing off-key in it.

Father put his head in his hands. “Doilies,” he said.

“What?” said mother.

“Dooley’s,” said father. “I’m going down to Dooley’s for a morning visit.”

“But Dooley’s isn’t open until ten.”

“I’ll wait,” decided father, eyes shut.

That night and seven other wild nights the porch swing sang a little creaking song, back and forth, back and forth. Father, hiding in the living room, could be seen in fierce relief whenever he drafted his ten-cent cigar and the cherry light illumined his immensely tragic face. The porch swing creaked. He waited for another creak. He heard little butterfly-soft sounds from outside, little palpitations of laughter and sweet nothings in small ears. “My porch,” said father. “My swing,” he whispered to his cigar, looking at it. “My house.” He listened for another creak. “My lord,” he said.

He went to the tool shed and appeared on the dark porch with a shiny oil-can. “No, don’t get up. Don’t bother. There, and there.” He oiled the swing joints. It was dark. He couldn’t see Marianne, he could smell her. The perfume almost knocked him off into the rosebush. He couldn’t see her gentleman friend either. “Good night,” he said. He went in and sat down and there was no more creaking. Now all he could hear was something that sounded like the moth-like flutter of Marianne’s heart.

“He must be very nice,” said mother, in the kitchen door, wiping a dinner dish.

“That’s what I’m hoping,” whispered father. “That’s why I let them have the porch every night!”

“So many days in a row,” said mother. “A girl doesn’t go with a nice young man that many times unless it’s serious.”

“Maybe he’ll propose tonight!” was father’s happy thought.

“Hardly so soon. And she is so young.”

“Still,” he ruminated. “It might happen. It’s got to happen, by the Lord Harry.”

Grandma chuckled from her corner easy chair. It sounded like someone turning the pages of an ancient book.

“What’s so funny?” said father.

“Wait and see,” said grandma. “Tomorrow.”

Father stared at the dark, but grandma would say no more.

“WELL, WELL,” said father at breakfast. He surveyed his eggs with a kindly, paternal eye. “Well, well, by gosh, last night, on the porch, there was more whispering. What’s his name? Isak? Well, now if I’m any judge at all, I think he proposed to Marianne last night; yes, I’m positive of it!”

“It would be nice,” said mother. “A spring marriage. But it’s so soon.”

“Look,” said father, with full-mouthed logic. “Marianne’s the kind of girl who marries quick and young. We can’t stand in her way, can we?”

“For once, I think you’re right,” said mother. “A marriage would be fine. Spring flowers, and Marianne looking nice in that gown I saw at Haydecker’s last week.”

They all peered anxiously at the stairs, waiting for Marianne to appear.

“Pardon me,” rasped grandma, sighting up from her morning toast. “But I wouldn’t talk of getting rid of Marianne just yet if I were you.”

“And why not?”