Portraits (72 page)

“Honey, I hope you’re crying for the right reasons. You don’t have regrets already?”

“God no, Dan, I’m just sorry that it couldn’t have been different.”

“It’ll be okay, I’ll make sure of that. Listen, we’d better get going or you may not be a bride at all.”

They hailed a taxi, and when they got in the taxi driver smiled and said, “Hi, lady.”

She looked at him. “Hi.”

“We’re not even married and you’re cheating on me?” Dan said.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I am. No, actually, he picked me up in Woodside to bring me down.”

When they arrived at the justice of the peace, the door was opened by a diminutive gray-haired lady. “Come in, my husband and I have been expecting you.”

When they entered, the J.P. smiled solemnly and his wife went to the organ and began pumping out “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes.”

Suddenly Lillian turned to Dan and he saw the distress in her face. “What’s the matter, honey? Having second thoughts?”

“No, but you’ll never believe this. We haven’t got the license…I left it in the glove compartment of my car that I don’t have anymore.”

Dan groaned and shrugged helplessly at the justice of the peace. “Your honor, we’ll have to hold this up for just a little while, if we won’t be putting you out. We seem to be without the license…”

Lillian called a taxi and when it arrived they were greeted by the same charioteer with the same friendly “Hi.”

“Would you drive us up to Chapin off of Woodside Drive?”

“I know, I know the way.”

“Wait a minute,” Lillian said. “I don’t have the keys to the car or the garage. You wait here, and I’ll call home and ask whoever answers to open the garage doors…”

Sara answered and when she heard Lillian’s voice she broke down and cried. “Are you married?”

“I would be but—”

“Did you change your mind?”

“Not a chance, mama, but I left the license in the glove compartment of the car. Mama, do me a favor. Open the garage door and leave the car keys in the door.”

Jacob was in the room and was asking what Lillian wanted.

“Lillian wants you to open the garage door and leave the keys in the door…she has her license in the glove compartment.”

“I said she couldn’t come in the house and I meant it. Tell her she can pick up the license in the mail box.”

“Jacob, enough is enough already. She’s the only one we’ve got left—”

“And she’s left us—”

Quietly, Sara said, “Lillian, papa says to pick it up in the mail box…”

They drove to the house, Lillian picked up the license, and soon they were on their way back to the justice of the peace. When they arrived the driver said, “Do you think you’re going to need me any more this evening?”

Dan laughed. “I’d bet on that. If you want to hang around, we won’t be long.”

“Why not…you people have been through a lot tonight, I think you need a break…”

At eight forty-five, wilted bouquet and all, Lillian Sanders Gould became Mrs. Dan Fuller. The only prayer she made was that God would be good to her and help her finally to grow up.

The justice of the peace congratulated them, gave Dan a fatherly handshake and Lillian a peck on the cheek, and once again they were back in the taxi, where Dan took her in his arms. “Lillian Fuller, you’re the most beautiful bride that ever was.”

The taxi driver looked at them in the mirror. “Congratulations. God, I feel like I’ve spent the honeymoon with you two…”

When they got to Dan’s apartment, he had champagne, caviar and a small two-tiered wedding cake waiting for them.

“You did this?” Lillian said. “You’re more romantic than I am—”

“But you’re better looking…now, let’s see how good I am at popping the cork.” As he struggled with it, Lillian said, “Honey,
this
you’re not going to believe, but I left my overnight case in the taxi.”

“Well, you can always wear my pajamas…”

As it turned out, Lillian didn’t need her overnight case, nor Dan’s pajamas.

After they had made love Dan said, “You know, darling, if I’d known how it was going to be, I’m damned if I’d ever have given you even those twenty-four hours.”

She snuggled closer to him. “I’ll do my best to make it up to you for lost time.”

“How about now?”

Her eager kiss was his answer.

T
HE NEXT MORNING LILLIAN
was in the kitchen, wearing Dan’s robe and slippers, measuring the coffee into the Silex. “Honey, what do you want for breakfast?”

Dan was shaving in the bathroom. “Who can think about breakfast after last night?”

“Well, I hoped you’d worked up a big appetite.”

“I have, and don’t tempt me…”

Twenty minutes later, they were sitting across from each other at the table, eating their wedding breakfast of waffles and very crisp—according to Dan’s prescription—bacon. She looked at her tall, sandy-haired, hazel-eyed new husband and smiled to herself. Isn’t this remarkable, she thought. When my life ended with Jerry I would have laid odds that a morning like this was something I’d never see again. It’s too incredible for words. Which she didn’t try to find.

“You know,” Dan said, “the day you walked in Carolyn’s I had a feeling you probably made the best waffles in the world.”

“So that was it. And all the time I thought you were after me because of that seventy-nine-dollar coat I bought.”

“That too…I’m greedy,” and he proved it by taking her off to the bedroom for the best part of their wedding breakfast.

Afterward, in between kisses, they polished off the rest of the champagne, and he announced it was now time to consider the honeymoon.

“Terrific…where are we going?”

“I thought we’d splurge and hire a car, take a little ride, stop for lunch on the coast, and maybe drop in to see my grandmother. She got back from Kansas yesterday—”

“How come you didn’t tell me, Dan?”

“Because you would have insisted she be at the wedding. I told her how adorable your family is, and that since they weren’t going to be there I thought it should be just the two of us. And Mabel agreed.” …

Everything Dan had said about his grandmother was true. She was what everybody wished a grandmother to be, and she was genuinely pleased that Dan had at long last found the person he wanted to share his life with.

As they sat with her in her small cozy apartment she said to Lillian, “I was beginning to worry about your husband.”

“Why?”

“Well, at twenty-six he had all the makings of a confirmed bachelor. Thank God you came along and saved him from
that
.”

“Well, it works both ways, Mabel. He rescued this blushing bride of thirty-one…”

When the time came for them to go, Mabel said, “Lillian, I just want you to know how pleased I am that Dan found you. Somehow I know the two of you are so right. Just be happy, my dear. I think you both hugely deserve it.”

The next day, after Lillian had straightened up the apartment, she called her mother to see how the children were doing. To her surprise, Sara urged her to come out to the house.

As she sat in her mother’s bedroom the conversation was stilted, but this morning Sara seemed more hurt than angry.

“So, now you’re married again—”

“Yes, thank God, mama. When Jerry and I broke up, the world just fell apart for me. I never thought I’d ever be able to put it together again—but it
happened
.”

“Well, I hope it continues, for your sake, but I think you’ve made a terrible mistake, Lillian. Your husband is a handsome young man and women age a lot quicker than men. What’s going to happen ten years from now?”

“Mama, it seems to me I’ve heard this same thing before—though in a slightly different form. Jim was too old for Rachel, but they seem to be perfectly happy together. Marriage has nothing to do with people’s ages. It’s understanding and being able to communicate with each other that makes a marriage.”

“That’s all very philosophical, Lillian, and on the surface it sounds very good. But reality is something else. When a woman is married to a younger man, as time goes on she has to work hard to keep up with him and that can be a very great strain…”

If anybody was unqualified to give advice on marriage, it was certainly mama. She and papa had no greater understanding of each other now than they had when they first married.

“What happens, Lillian,” Sara went on, “when you’re not quite as lovely as you are now? Men do stray, you know. It’s in their nature.”

“That depends on the woman, the marriage and especially the two people involved. Besides, it’s not true—not all men stray,” she said, thinking of Jerry. “So, if you’ve any worries about my marriage, don’t add that one to your repertoire. Well, I didn’t come to talk about that…I’d be grateful if papa would arrange to give me my money. And I want to take the girls as quickly as possible.”

Sara paled at the thought of losing the girls. She really needed them, though she’d never stopped to analyze the reasons. Lillian’s remarriage had left her feeling lost—just as lost as when she’d been a little girl in Belgium, unwanted by her mother and Louie but always hoping that some day…

There was a pleading note now in Sara’s voice that she was not aware of…“Lillian, you’ve just been married. Why don’t you give yourself a chance to adjust. Anyway, your present living situation is hardly suitable to having the children live with you—”

“Obviously, I’m going to take a larger place.”

“Lillian, don’t be selfish. Please think of the children too. They’re accustomed to this being their home, and they have every advantage here. Leave them for a little while…”

“I think the sooner they adjust to their new lives, the better it will be for all of us, mama.”

Sara began to cry. Sometimes, Lillian thought, crying seemed to come as naturally to mama as breathing…

“Please don’t take them yet, Lillian. Leave papa and me with something…”

Lillian couldn’t help it…all the hostility and anger that had dominated their relationship was washed out from her for the moment. She needed time to find an apartment and get settled anyway, and it would do no harm to have the girls here for a little while…

“All right, mama, but the girls are going to come live with us as soon as we’re settled. Papa’s not traveling as much and he’ll be around to keep you company…But if that isn’t enough, remember that there’s still a big world out there, mama…If only you’d make an
effort
you could find a life for yourself. Other women do. Mama, you can be a very charming woman when you want to be. There is no reason you can’t make friends. There are a million charities…”

“Lillian, you’re just talking foolishness. Your father still goes to bed at eight o’clock at night and gets up at four in the morning and I have to be home to get his dinner in the early afternoon. I don’t have a normal life, like other women do.”

Well, there was just no use pursuing it. Mama, it seemed, just wasn’t going to try. She would live—and die—feeling victimized…“Well, be that as it may, mama, I think there’s a great deal you could do to help your situation. Now, I’m going to pick the girls up after school every day. And I want them to spend a little time in the evening with Dan, so they’ll come to dinner too.”

“You mean every night?”

“Well, maybe not every night, but often. They’re going to have to get to know Dan, although I expect them to go on seeing and loving Jerry too. For the first time in our lives, let’s try to be sensible and mature people. Okay, mama?”

Sara nodded…

Jacob was as upset about Lillian’s intention of taking the children as about her request for her twenty-five thousand dollars. “You call her on the phone,” he told Sara. “I want to see her—and tell her to come alone.”

But when Lillian arrived, Dan was with her. If papa was going to be a tough adversary, so was she. When they walked into the library, Jacob was fuming.

“I told you to come alone.”

“Since I no longer
am alone,
I don’t intend to start out my life with secrets. Anything you have to tell me can be said in front of my husband.”

Jacob’s face was rigid. “What, if I may ask, do you intend to do with twenty-five thousand dollars?”

“Since it’s mine, I don’t really think I need to answer that. But I suppose you’ll find out sooner or later…I’m going to put part of it down on a house and then Dan and I are going to open a dress shop—”

“You know what’s going to happen, don’t you, Lillian? You’re going to take that money and it’s going to be like sand going down a rat hole.”

“As I said, it happens to be my money, money that Jerry
earned
—and a damn sight less than you owe for the things he did for you. I have the right to take it and throw it in the ocean if I want.”

“Damn it, do you think I don’t know why this…this person married you?”

“Now just a minute, Mr. Sanders,” Dan shouted, “I won’t take that from you. I haven’t seen any great dowry that you’ve bestowed on Lillian. I got along okay without you and I intend to keep it that way.”

“But you’d never be able to get into business without my daughter’s money, would you—?”

“I’ll answer that if you don’t mind, Dan,” Lillian interrupted. “I happen to be the one who suggested going into business, not Dan. And for your information, I resent your talking to my husband that way. I want my money, it’s as simple as
that
.”

“Why you ungrateful girl, after all I’ve done for you.”

“You broke up my first marriage and you dare call me ungrateful?”

Jacob stood up, about to strike Lillian for the first time in his life. But he caught himself and merely glared at her before he finally walked from the room.

For a moment, Dan and Lillian sat quietly, each with their separate thoughts. When she looked up at him, she said, “There are feelings that are very, very hard to explain. What I said to my father was true about my marriage, but I’m sorry for having said it. This may be difficult for you to understand, but no matter how hard you try, you never stop being a child, someone’s daughter or son. I can’t apologize for my father, but I hope you can forgive the way he talked to you tonight…”