She answered the door herself. She was wearing a black dress that made her look older and there was a little white apron tied around her waist.
“You’re right on time,” she said. “Come on in.”
She led me into the front room and her old man got up out of a chair and stood there wiping his hands on his pants legs. He was short but wide and he had thick gray hair and a skin that looked like cracked leather.
He was wearing his best clothes and not looking very happy about it. Across the front of his black vest was strung a heavy gold watch chain and a high stiff collar dug into the wrinkled skin under his chin.
She said, “Pa, I want you to meet Johnny Ford.”
We shook hands. His was a lot bigger than mine and the callouses on it were like the bark on a tree.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said. He had a little accent and his voice sounded like it couldn’t get quite far enough out of his throat.
I said I was glad to meet him and we all stood there grinning, trying to think of something to say. The blonde wiped her hands on the little apron.
“Well, I got to get back to the dinner,” she said. “I’ll leave you men here to get acquainted.”
When she went out of the room he pointed to a chair and said, “Sit down. How’d you like a drink?”
I said that would be swell and he went out through the double doors that led to the living room. I sat down and lit a cigarette. I’d been in lots of rooms like this one. We had a room like it in my house, as did most of the kids in my neighborhood.
The carpet was thin and a long time ago there had been a design of roses on it, but they were faded now and it was just gray and dusty. There was a lumpy sofa, two or three overstuffed chairs and heavy, hot looking red drapes. The room had the smell of damp wood and old cooking.
There was a picture of the Madonna over the fireplace in a heavy gilt frame and on the mantle was a picture of Marie taken when she was a little kid. The photographer had posed her on a plush-covered bench with one foot tucked underneath her, and she was wearing a short white dress and white shoes and socks.
There wasn’t much else in the room. Lamps with big cloth shades, the Sunday papers, and a dictionary on a table near the wall.
He came back in, then, with two water glasses half full. He handed me one and I took a small sip. It was gin, with ginger ale and a few ice cubes. I offered him a cigarette but he shook his head and got out a thick black pipe and a paper pouch of tobacco.
When the pipe was going, he stuck his feet out in front of him and bared his teeth at me. “Pretty good, hey?” he said.
We talked about nothing much for a while, then he opened up and told me about his work. He was an oiler for the Pennsy and had been for twenty-six years. All that time entitled him to Sundays off, but he liked it just as well when his day off was Tuesday. The neighborhood was quiet then, except in the summer when the kids were out of school, and he was able to sleep better.
I didn’t say much. I nodded and drank a little from the glass. Mostly I wondered about the call from Alice. Everything hung on that...
Marie came to the doorway and said dinner was ready. The old man and I went out to the table and sat down and she started bringing in the dishes.
There was a roast, gravy, mashed potatoes, fried cabbage and peas. In the middle of the table was a stack of white bread and a plate of butter with the streaked color look of margarine.
The old man took three slices of bread and put them beside his plate and then tucked a napkin under his collar and smoothed it down over his vest. He filled his plate and started eating. Marie brought in a few other things and sat down facing us. It was a round table with a white tablecloth and Marie and I were across from each other, the old man between us on my left.
He ate steadily and loudly, not stopping to ask for anything. He put big slabs of margarine on the bread and then folded the bread in two and used it as a swab to push the food on his fork.
I didn’t have any appetite. I was too nervous to eat and the food wasn’t the kind I like anyway.
She smiled at me. “You’re not eating, Johnny. This must seem plain to you after those fancy restaurants.”
“Not on your life. This is fine. But I had kind of a late breakfast.”
After dinner there was apple pie with cream on it and coffee.
I drank the coffee. The room was hot but inside I was cold. It took all the nerve I had just to sit there and eat and to smile at the blonde and act like everything was all right. It was three o’clock and there still wasn’t any call.
The old man took off the napkin finally and folded it carefully, then he got up and patted his stomach with both hands and nodded to his daughter.
“Good meal,” he said. He ran his tongue around his teeth, looking for some more of it, I guess, then he went into the front room.
She smiled at me. “Pa likes you,” she said. “I can tell.”
That was great. I should jump up and down because some goddam dumb laborer, who did nothing but sleep and stuff food in his face, thought I was all right.
I said, “That’s swell. He’s a great guy.”
She got up and came around to me. We were where the old man couldn’t see us from the next room. She leaned over and put her cheek against me.
“Johnny, have you got that surprise for me tonight?”
I covered up pretty well. I hadn’t thought of the ring since the night before, but I said, “Sure thing, honey. Just wait and see.”
I had no idea where I could get her a ring. Things seemed to be piling and crowding against me and there were so many angles to figure.
“You’re sweet, Johnny,” she said. She kissed my ear a couple of times, then straightened up and said, “Now you go on in with Pa while I get the dishes done.”
I went back to the front room. The old man was standing with his back to the imitation fireplace, picking his teeth with a gold tooth pick attached to one end of his watch chain.
“Like another drink?” he said.
I said fine and he went out and got two more. He came back and handed me mine and put his glass on the mantel and began filling his pipe.
“Marie is a good girl,” he said.
“She sure is,” I said.
“Good cook,” he said. “She’d fatten a man up quick.” He glanced at me and grinned a little and I thought he was going to punch the line by telling me I was pretty thin.
We stood there a while, not saying anything. The room was getting on my nerves. The heat and the smell of fried food and the dirty faded wallpaper and the gilt-framed Madonna seemed to be crowding in on me so I could hardly breathe.
He looked at me again and began to chuckle. Then nudged me with his elbow.
“Good girl for making babies,” he said.
He threw his head back and laughed, then took his drink off the mantel and sat down, still chuckling.
I sat down, too, and laughed a little, too, wishing to hell he’d shut up. Finally he did. Maybe he figured the job was done and now he could smoke his pipe in peace.
I could hear Marie moving around in the kitchen and the steady puff from the old man’s pipe. Those were the only sounds in the house.
I looked at my watch. Three-thirty. It was right then that the phone rang and the noise made me jump. The phone was in the vestibule, and after it rang twice, Marie came through the dining room, running a little and wiping her hands on a cloth.
She went out to the vestibule and I heard her say, “Hello.”
I felt tight and cold inside. There was a long silence. The only thing I could hear was the steady puffing of the old boy’s pipe. Then I heard Marie say, “Just a minute, please.”