“Dr. More retired at the end of the year when he turned sixty-five,” Ida told Rebecca. “He said he was moving to Florida.”
“Well, he should know,” Rebecca’s mother said smartly.
There was a sudden silence, as if the sisters had surprised themselves with this momentary convergence in their conversation. Then Ida sat forward, clasping her plump, ringed hands, and said, “How long will you be with us, Rebecca?”
“Just until tomorrow. I’ve left Poppy with Zeb overnight, but I should be back in time to give him lunch.”
“And tell us about NoNo! I’m so thrilled that she’s engaged.”
This was what Rebecca loved about her aunt. Her mother had not inquired after NoNo, or Patch or Biddy either; they weren’t blood relations. Her only question had concerned her “real” granddaughter, Min Foo — how her pregnancy was proceeding — and she had worn a pinched and remote expression as she asked, because she had disapproved of Min Foo ever since her second marriage, the one to LaVon. But Ida seemed equally attached to all four girls, and still sent each of them a dollar bill in a Hallmark card for their birthdays. “Your mother says NoNo isn’t planning much of a wedding,” she said now, “but I hope she’ll change her mind. Is she thinking she’s too old? She’s not too old! Nowadays lots of people don’t get married till their forties. And she’s waited so long for Mr. Right; all the more reason to celebrate.”
“Oh, she’s celebrating, for sure,” Rebecca said. “Along with you two, I trust,” she added, sending them each a glance. Ida beamed and nodded. Rebecca’s mother gazed thoughtfully at a rainbow afghan on the floor. “What she means is, she doesn’t want anything formal. And that’s partly because of her age but more, I think, because Barry’s been married before.”
“Well, what has that got to do with the price of eggs in China?” Ida asked.
“Tea,” Rebecca’s mother said.
“What?”
“Tea in China.”
“The bride is the one who counts,” Ida said. “You tell her so, Rebecca. Tell her to have a long white dress, a veil — the works. Flower girls, attendants… Tell her Barry should have a best man. Maybe his son, if he’s old enough. Is he old enough?”
“He’s twelve.”
“That’s plenty old enough!”
“Well, maybe,” Rebecca said. “He’s kind of a young twelve, though.”
“How does he get along with NoNo?”
“All right, I guess. It’s hard to say. He’s very quiet. At our Fourth of July barbeque, he just sat in a corner and read a book.”
“Well, he’s going to love you-all once he gets to know you,” Ida said.
She passed the candy again, but this time Rebecca and her mother both refused. Ida herself was the only one who took a second piece. “Law,” she said, licking each finger daintily, “it seems like yesterday we three were planning your wedding! You made the prettiest bride.”
“Well, I certainly had a pretty dress,” Rebecca said, because the dress had been sewn by her mother and Ida, working almost around the clock. (She’d given them two weeks’ notice.)
“We took down all your measurements and then you lost eight pounds, remember? We got to Baltimore the day of the wedding and found you just a shadow of your former self. Right up till time for the ceremony we had to baste and pin and tuck… You’d turned into a skeleton! I guess it was bridal jitters.”
Rebecca had been nowhere near a skeleton; just slightly less fat than usual. And that was due to pure happiness, not to jitters. She had been so extravagantly happy! She hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. She had walked around in a trance.
Yet that wedding had made a great many people unhappy. The boyfriend whom she’d jilted, needless to say; but also her mother and Ida, who had never so much as heard Joe’s name before she stunned them with her news on an unannounced trip home. “Wait: I thought you were marrying Will,” her mother had said. And, “You’ve known this person how long? He makes his living doing what?” And finally, “I just have to point out, Rebecca, that this is mighty convenient for him. A case where a man is so needful, where a wife would be so useful. Three little girls to take care of! And their mother nowhere in sight! I guess he would want to marry!”
Rebecca had accused her mother of doubting that anyone could love her. She had left the house in tears, slamming the door behind her, vowing not to return. “I never said…!” her mother called, trailing her down the driveway. “I only meant… Couldn’t you first have a long engagement? What’s your hurry?”
A question asked as well by people at Macadam — her faculty advisor and her history professor. Why sacrifice a college degree, they said, to marry a near-stranger thirteen years her senior? Why not wait till she graduated?
And on Joe’s side, there were his daughters. Oh, his mother was ecstatic; you’d think the whole romance was her idea. And the other adults seemed delighted. But his daughters were stony-faced and resistant. They left Rebecca’s chirpy remarks hanging foolishly in midair, and they found a million reasons to mention “our mama” in her presence. More than once, in those two weeks before the wedding, they had made Rebecca cry.
So many tears, now that she looked back! It hadn’t been pure happiness after all. Part of that time, she’d been miserable.
But always there was Joe.
He drew her close and she pressed her face against his ropy brown throat. He called her his corn-fed girl, his creamy one, his beautiful blond milkmaid. (All those dairy-type references.) He wiped her eyes with his handkerchief that carried his smell of warm toast.
So was it the happiness or the misery that had made her lose those eight pounds?
Which, anyway, she had regained soon enough after the wedding.
Her mother and Aunt Ida were on the next subject by now — or the next two subjects. Her mother was saying that lately it seemed any chair she sat in was a struggle to get out of, and Ida was saying simultaneously that it wasn’t only her vet who had retired but her doctor as well, and also her podiatrist, both of them replaced by mere whippersnapper youngsters. There was a pause, and then Ida said, “Old again”—announcing yet another convergence of topics. And they sighed and started off their next two conversational paths.
* * *
For supper her mother served chicken salad and peas. She spent a long time on her preparations, because she believed in taking no shortcuts. First she had to disjoint a hen and poach it, then make her own mayonnaise with a little hand-cranked eggbeater. Rebecca was not allowed to help because, her mother said, she tended to be too slapdash. “You can set the table, though,” she said, as if offering a gift, but then she did it over again after Rebecca had finished — squaring the place mats and straightening the silver. Rebecca gave up and sat down to watch while her mother ran water into a pitcher and emptied it three times before finally letting it fill.
“I was wondering,” Rebecca said. “Instead of moving to Havenhurst, why not invite Aunt Ida to live here with you? She’s alone and you’re alone. Wouldn’t it make sense?”
“Goodness, no, she talks too much,” her mother said. “Besides, it’s not that I want to live with somebody. I just don’t want to live by myself.”
Rebecca laughed, but she understood what her mother meant.
“Also, Ida’s so messy,” her mother said. “And more difficult to get along with than you might suppose. Did you try her Froot Loop candy? It was sweet enough to give me an earache! Yet she turned down those peppermint patties at my house. Well, I know why she turned them down. She wasn’t on any diet; no, sir. She just prides herself on being the generous one. She doesn’t like to switch roles. It interferes with her theory of the universe, that I should be the one to bring her a plate of goodies.”