Leta looked at her bedside alarm clock. She still had an hour
before she needed to leave. The sun had descended behind the building across
the street, and her room was growing dark. The younger women who lived down the
hall were catching up with each other, as they made their way to the nearby automat
for supper before going to a blind pig to meet boys. Their light, happy voices
further unnerved her. She sipped her gin.
While she was only 42 years old, the younger women treated her
like she was much older. They were also very curious about her, but never
pushed. She overheard a couple of them talking about her—she always overheard
people talking about her. Their whispers easily shot right to her ears, so she
listened. The girls seemed fascinated that she was divorced, had children their
own age, was living on her own and had a job like theirs. Her state in life
conflicted with everything they had been taught. This made them overly polite
in such a way that noted to Leta how much the conservative morality of their
upbringing separated them from her.
The auspicious occasion of the evening was that she was going
to meet her 22-year-old daughter’s gentleman, and she was nervous. Vivian had
been dating Edward Metzker for several months and all agreed that it was about
time for the two to meet. For the past eight years, Vivian had been living with
her father and grandparents, except for a recent nine-month period in which she
served as a housekeeper with a family that moved to Michigan. Now, Leta’s
daughter was looking into her own future of marriage and children. While Ed had
not officially proposed to Vivian, their relationship was growing such that it
was important for him to meet her wayward mother.
Leta called herself the wayward mother. Vivian never would; she
was too respectful. But she thought it, anyway. Leta remembered this, nodded
and emptied her glass. She was feeling much more relaxed. The bottle on the
small table beside her chair was also empty, but it was nearly empty when she
had the first drink to calm her nerves nearly two hours earlier. She looked at
the alarm clock. She had ten minutes before the young couple was scheduled to
arrive at the boarding house where she was living.
Fortunately, she was nearly ready. She hurriedly adjusted her
hair, put on her hat, applied a little more powder and lipstick, changed her
earrings and necklace, and added a matching broach to her rather plain-looking
dress. Finally satisfied, she retrieved her purse and jacket from the bed and
made her way down the two flights of stairs to the sitting room.
Vivian and Ed were just arriving. Leta practically pushed the
welcoming landlady aside to greet her future son-in-law. The first thing she
noticed was that he was quite tall—about six feet—trim and lithe. Wearing a
long suit jacket, his body from shoulder to foot seemed to be a long magic wand,
barely broken at the point just below his hip where the jacket ended and the matching slacks began. He was clear-skinned and slightly
pale, with a thick mass of dark brown hair atop his head that was trimmed short
around his slightly protruding ears. His eyes were bright blue, his nose long
and shadowing a slight philtrum. His lips were full and rounded, and instantly,
Leta knew she had to kiss him.
So she did.
She pushed herself into him, stretched to her fullest height
and smeared her own lips across his. He immediately backed away from her, his
face registering the shock of the moment. The landlady had raised her hands to
cover her own gaping mouth. And Vivian became stiff with shock, but only for a
moment. Then she grabbed Leta’s arm, gently pulled her away from Ed, exhaled
loudly and then smiled slightly.
“Mom,” she said, “I want to introduce you to Edward Metzker.
Ed, this is my mother Leta Hoose.”
Instinctively, Ed held out his hand. “How do you do?” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment