“Well, you’ve got a big day. Just the family at the wedding, but the reception and running for the plane. You ought to have something.”
“I’ll get it.”
“Sit. In a few hours you’ll be a married woman and you can get your own breakfast for the rest of your life. And Mark’s, and before long you won’t remember what it is to sit down. Could you eat some French toast?”
“I’ll force myself. Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s in the sun-room reading the Times. The Courier’s right in front of you if you want to read something. Three pieces of French toast?”
“Two’s plenty.”
She was drinking her second cup of coffee and smoking her first cigarette when the telephone rang. Her mother answered it. After a moment she said, “Well, I don’t know. It’s bad luck for you to see her before the ceremony. Do you suppose you’re allowed to talk to her? They didn’t have telephones when they invented the superstition so I’m not sure how it works. Well, I’ll see if she’ll take a chance on you.” She covered the mouthpiece with the palm of her hand. “It’s Mark,” she said.
“No kidding.”
She took the phone. He said, “How are you holding up?”
“Fine. And you?”
“Oh, it’s business as usual here. The old man’s running around shouting because his tie had a spot on it, my mother’s crying a lot, and Jeff and Linda aren’t speaking.”
“To anyone?”
“To each other. How are things at your end?”
“Very calm. Daddy’s in the sun-room reading the paper and Mother’s screening all my calls.”
“Very funny,” her mother said.
“The reason I called. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t come to your senses and decided to call the whole thing off.”
“‘You say either and I say eye-ther.’ Why? Getting cold feet?”
“Warmest feet in town. I thought you might be having second thoughts, though, and I figured I’d talk you out of them.”
“I’m having nothing but first thoughts.”
“Happy ones?”
“Very happy ones.”
“Still love me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Some other time, okay?”
“Because your mother’s there? She knows you love me, honey. That’s why you’re marrying me.”
“I’ll see you in, oh, just a couple hours, isn’t it? I’d better think about getting dressed.”
“You won’t say it, huh?”
“You idiot. I love you. And I’ll see you in a little while.”
Her father was in his chair in the sun-room. The room had been an open porch when the house was originally constructed, but well before the Kleinmans bought it the porch had been completely enclosed so that it functioned as a second living room. It was a good place for reading, light and airy with large casement windows in front and on both sides.
David Kleinman was doing the crossword puzzle when Andrea entered the room. He finished penciling in a word, then lowered the paper and smiled gently at her over its top. “Going to get dressed now?”
“I thought I’d sit with you for a minute.”
“Well, in that case,” he said. He put down the paper as she seated herself on the love seat opposite him.
“You’re beautiful today,” he said. “All brides are beautiful, but you’re something special.”
He was a handsome man, she thought. He was not tall, although she always thought of him as taller than his actual height and was invariably surprised when he stood at her side. He was fifty-seven years old and she thought that he had aged well. She had seen pictures of him as a young man. It seemed to her that he was a more attractive man now than he had been in his youth. His strong features, the prominent nose and deep-set eyes, were more at home in a more mature face. He still had all his hair, and it was a fine iron-gray color which suited him and contrasted strikingly with the still-black eyebrows.
And he was still slender. Her mother, too, had kept her figure, and that really made all the difference in the world. Mark’s parents were both quite a bit overweight, and as a result the Benstocks looked considerably older than the Kleinmans, although they were in fact all about the same age.
She would not permit herself to gain weight, she decided. And she would make sure Mark did not grow fat.
“Today’s the day,” her father said. “Now there’s an original thought, but it’s hard to know what else to say. I’m very happy for you, baby.”
“Oh, Daddy.”
“I’ll tell you something. I think you’re getting a hell of a guy. I was fully prepared to detest Mark, but he turned out to be as impossible to dislike as any man I ever met. He’s solid and dependable. He’s got a good future, he’s with a good firm and they think a lot of him.”
“I’m glad you like him.”
“Why should you care about that? To be frank about it, why should it matter how I feel? Or how your mother feels? Oh, I grant that it makes for a lot less friction this way, but it’s not the most important thing in the world. Your grandmother Levine is still not too sure about me. Well, God bless her, she’s not too sure about anything these days. If my mind ever gets like that, do me a favor and shoot me, okay?”
“Oh, don’t talk like that.”
“Anyway, I like him. Why in the hell shouldn’t I? He’s got a nice small family. His sister lives out in Arizona so there’s just his mother and his father and his brother in college, and his mother already has a set of false teeth so how much trouble can she be? You could have picked somebody with a roomful of cousins all of them needing root canal work. I’m getting off cheap.”
“I’m a considerate daughter.”
“Yes, you are. I wonder if you’re too considerate. Tell me something now that it’s too late to change. Didn’t you really want a big wedding?”
“Absolutely not. Mark and I agreed completely on that point. Just the family, the immediate family. In fact—”
“In fact you could live without us too? Don’t apologize. I see no reason why a wedding should be a family occasion. Not that wild horses could keep me from yours, but as far as the point of view of the bridal couple. I thought you honestly wanted to keep it small myself, but your mother had the idea that you might have wanted to take it easy on my bank account. Well. May I ask another foolish question? Do you have any hesitation whatsoever about going through with this today?”
“None.”
“Because it is a good deal easier to get out of a marriage before the wedding than after it. Sometimes people find themselves trapped into going through with something because they think it’s expected of them.”
“It’s not that, Daddy.”
“You’re absolutely sure in your mind.”
“Yes.”
“You love Mark?”
“Yes, of course.”
He looked at her for a moment. “Mark loves you very much.”
“Yes, I know.”
“In every marriage there is one partner who loves more intensely, more thoroughly, than the other. There’s nothing noble about loving more. It’s in the way people are and the way they operate with one another. I don’t honestly know which it’s better to be, the one who loves the most or the one who is loved the most.”
He seemed about to say more, so she waited, but that was all he said. Finally she said, “I love Mark very much, Daddy. Very much.”
“He’ll be a good husband for you. I’m happy for both of you. You know, I was never worried about you, Andrea.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Your mother used to worry. From time to time. But I always somehow knew that you would be all right. I’ve always found it easy to understand you. Probably because I feel that you and I are similar. Also different, very different, but in some ways quite similar.” He looked up at her and broke the mood with a quick smile. “You have to get dressed. So do I, come to think of it.”