“Where are the flowers, Fernandez?” I whispered, and set the hand brake. “Quickly, hold the flowers up where she can see them.”
“The flowers were foolish, Papa Cue Ball.” Glum. Somber. Squaring his shoulders at the Madonna. “I dropped them in the big wire basket in the toilet back there at the Texaco station. A good place for them.”
But I pushed him out of the car then, straightened his linen jacket, squeezed his hand, and turned, smiled, removed my stiff white cap — civilian habit I was never able to overcome — because Gertrude’s door had opened and there was a light on the path and Cassandra was walking toward us carefully in high heels, and Cassandra was composed, calm, silvery and womanly and serene as she came walking toward Fernandez and myself and the old hot smashed-up Packard in these her first moonlit moments of matrimony. I caught my breath, held out my arms to her. And glancing down, I whispered, “Kiss her, for God’s sake, Fernandez. Look how she’s dressed up for us. You must do something!”
And it was true. Her hair was down, yet drawn back slightly so that we could see the little diamond pendants she had clipped to the lobes of her tiny ears; her waist was small and tight and her little silver breasts were round; she was cool, her dress was crocheted and white; and in honor of Fernandez, in honor of his Peruvian background, she wore draped across her narrow shoulders a long white Indian shawl with a fringe made of soft white hair that hung down below her knees. She carried a black patent leather purse, new, and also new a small black patent leather traveling bag monogrammed, I discovered once she got into the car, with a large golden initial C. We could smell the perfume and breath of talcum powder and sharp odor of nail polish — pink as the color of a peach near the stem, still wet-even before she reached the car, and I felt myself choking and gave Fernandez a shove, and dropped my cap and reached out and caught up the purse, caught up the traveling bag. Pride. Embarrassment. My daughter’s porter.
But he did not kiss her. He merely secured the bottle of liquor under one arm and put his little heels together and bowed, bent low over Cassandra’s soft white hand. The fingers of her other hand — two silver bracelets, a silver fertility charm — were curled at the edge of the high tight collar and her eyes were bright. Then I saw her breasts heaving again and knew that everything was up to me.
“Well, Cassandra,” I said, “my little bride at last!”
“My bride, Papa Cue Ball,” ruffled, holding the bottle by the neck, “you misunderstand, Papa Cue Ball.”
“Naturally, Fernandez,” I said, and smiled and felt Cassandra touch my arm and wished that I hadn’t already kissed the bride in the City Hall. “But are we ready to go? And shall I drive, Fernandez? I’d be happy to drive. If only you two could sit in back. …”
“The three of us will sit in the front seat, Papa Cue Ball. Naturally. And remember, please, this is my honeymoon, the honeymoon of Fernandez. I am the new husband and on my honeymoon my wife will do the driving. So that’s settled. The wife drives on the honeymoon. And you will sit in the middle if you please, Papa Cue Ball. So let’s go.”
I helped Cassandra into the car and managed to jam her traveling bag among the tires and slid in beside her, sighed, settled down with Cassandra’s purse in my lap and her smooth white ceremonial shawl just touching my knee. It was the first time Fernandez had cracked the whip, so to speak, and she took it well, Cassandra took it well. I glanced at her — mere doll behind the wheel, line of firmness in her jaw, little soft hands tight and delicate on the wheel — and her eyes were glistening with a new light of pride, joy, humility. Obedient but still untamed. Shocked. Secretly pleased. Mere helpless woman but summoning her determination, pushing back her hair, suddenly and with little precise white fingers turning the key in the ignition and, with the other hand, taking hold of the gearshift lever which in Cassandra’s tiny soft hand was like a switchman’s tall black iron lever beside an abandoned track.
“Got your license with you, Cassandra?” I asked. “But of course you do,” I murmured in answer to my own question and smiled, caressed the little black patent leather purse in my lap, then balanced the purse on my two raised knees, played a little game of catch with it. How carefully, slowly, Fernandez climbed back into the old Packard which he himself was unable to drive, and then took hold of the broken door handle and pulled, pulled with all his might so that the door slammed shut and the car shook under the crashing of that loose heavy steel. Another side of Fernandez? A new mood? I thought so and suddenly realized that the enormous outdated Packard with all its terrible capacity for noise and metallic disintegration was somehow a desperate equivalent of my little old-world Catholic son-in-law in his hand-decorated necktie and crumpled white linen suit.
“OK, Chicken,” he said, another vagary of temper, another cut of the lash, and without a word to me he thrust the bottle in my direction, “we want to head for the hideaway. And please step on the gas.”
“I’m with you,” I wanted to say to Cassandra as I took the bottle, held the purse in one hand and the tall clear bottle in the other, “don’t be afraid.” But instead, “Away we go!” I cried, and rolled my head, glanced at Cassandra, put the clear round mouth of the bottle into my own aching mouth and shut my eyes and burned again as I had first burned when I leaned against the tin partition in the Texaco filling station and sampled the rare white liquor of the Andes.
“My wife drives well. Don’t you think so, Papa Cue Ball?”
“Like Thor in his chariot,” I said. “But a toast, Fernandez, to love, to love and fidelity, eh, Cassandra?”
Moonlight, cold dizzying smell of raw gasoline, dry smell of worn upholstery, sensation of devilish coiled springs and lumps of cotton in the old grease-stained front seat of the Packard, wind singing through Cassandra’s door and the hot knocking sound of the engine and a constellation of little curious lights winking behind the dashboard, and I was snug between Cassandra and my son-in-law of several hours now, and the Madonna was standing over me and holding out her moon-struck plastic arms in benediction. She was the Blessed Virgin Mary, I knew, and I smiled back happily at her in the moonlight.
“Skipper?” Cassandra was staring ahead, whispering, driving with her bright new wedding ring high on the wheel, “Light me a cigarette. Please.” So I opened the purse — how long now had I been waiting for an excuse to open that purse? for a chance to get a peek inside that purse even in the smelly darkness of the speeding car? — and found the cigarettes and a little glossy unused booklet of paper matches and put one of her cigarettes between my lips and struck one of the matches — puff of orange light, sweet taste of sulphur — and smelled the blue smoke, and placed the white cigarette between the fingers which she held out to me in the V-for-victory sign. And during all the long miles we chalked up that night — tunnels of love through the trees, black Pacific deep and hungry and defiant down there below the highway, which was always honeymoon highway to me when that night had passed — and until we reached the hotel far up in the mountains, that was all Cassandra said to me, but it was enough. She had changed. There is a difference between a young bride with crimson flowers and a young woman driving a dirty old forest green Packard with her white pointed toe just reaching the accelerator and a cigarette burning in her pretty mouth. What bride wants to keep her eyes on the road? So she had changed. She would never lose the invisible encyclopedia balanced on the crown of her head and would always be identified for me with the BVM. But behind her anticipation — why else the new purse? why else the patent leather traveling bag? or why the monogram? — and behind whatever vision she may have had of matrimony, there was a change. Still hopeful, still feeling joy, but smoking an unaccustomed cigarette and tasting fate. In the darkness I noticed that one of her pendant earrings had disappeared, and I was sorry and irritated at the same time, wanted to tell her to remove its mate or to let me take it off myself. But I held my peace.