Her body was Spring, was young and Spring.
She was closed to him at first, and her clear brow ruffled in a frown as her lips whispered, “Vince.” And then she sighed, and her good eye closed, and his lips were by her cheek, and he murmured her name, “Anita. Anita. Anita.”
And they flowed together, blended together, and the sweatiness of the past disappeared, and he understood now why he had lost interest in all those others. It was because he had needed this completion, this unhurried blending, this oneness.
“You were a virgin!”
“Yes,” she said.
The sound of the door opening spun him around on the bed. A woman, fiftyish, tall and prim, obviously Anita’s mother, stood wide-eyed on the threshold. Her eyebrows lifted and she looked at Vince. “I don’t believe I know you,” she said.
Ten
“All I have to say,” Anita was saying, “is that Baltimore is an unusual place for a honeymoon.”
“What’s wrong with Baltimore?”
“Nothing,” Anita said, “is wrong with Baltimore. Nothing could possibly be wrong with Baltimore. Don’t misunderstand me. I like Baltimore. I love Baltimore. I—”
“How about the Lord Baltimore Hotel?”
“A wonderful hotel,” Anita said. “A magnificent hotel. The food in the Oak Room is delicious. The decor in the lobby is exquisite. The service is impeccable. The furniture is posh and the rugs are thick. The view breathtaking. The—”
“How about the room?’
“The room,” said Anita, “is sumptuous. It has a television set with a thirty-inch screen. You don’t even have to drop in a quarter to make it operate. And—”
“How about the bed?”
“Mmmmmmmmm,” said Anita.
“You like the bed?”
“I love the bed.”
“Well,” said Vince, “we’re on it.”
“True.”
“And, after all, it’s our honeymoon.”
“True.”
“Sooooo—”
“A good idea,” said Anita. “An excellent idea. A commendable idea. But do you think we ought to again?”
“It’s our wedding night,” Vince reminded her. “Wedding nights only come once a marriage.”
“Well,” said Anita, running her hands over him, “I wouldn’t want to put up a fight. But you have to be gentle. After all, I used to be a virgin. You have to bear that in mind.”
“Yes, Santa Claus,” Vince murmured. “There was a virgin.”
The chain of circumstances that got Vince and Anita from a bed in Boston to a bed in Baltimore is a curious chain of circumstances indeed. When we last saw Vince, as you may recall, he was under the watchful eyes of Mrs. Merriweather, who happened to be Anita’s mother. Anita’s mother, strange to say, was not too pleased with the spectacle of Vince and her daughter lying belly-to-belly. She was, as a matter of fact, somewhat livid with rage.
“I’ll have you thrown in jail,” she ranted. “I carry a lot of weight in this country, young man. I’ll have your father thrown off the stock exchange. I’ll ruin your entire family. I’ll—”
“Mother,” said Anita gently, “shut up.”
Mrs. Merriweather shut up.
“In the first place,” Anita said, “we haven’t all been properly introduced. Vince, this is Helen Merriweather, my mother. Mother, this is Vince. Uh... I don’t know your last name—”
Vince supplied his last name.
“That,” said Anita, “is the first place. In the second place, you are not going to have anybody thrown into jail. Vince has done nothing wrong. If anybody is going to land in jail, it will be me.”
“You?” said Vince and Mrs. Merriweather in one voice.
“Me. I am twenty years old and Vince is only seventeen. This makes me guilty of statutory rape, mother. You wouldn’t want to see your daughter in jail, would you?”
Mrs. Merriweather shuddered.
“That,” said Anita, “takes care of two places. In the third and final place, Vince and I are going to be married.
“Married?” said Mrs. Merriweather.
“Married,” said Vince and Anita in one voice.
“What you just had the unmitigated gall to intrude upon the aftermath of,” said Anita, “is what is technically referred to as premarital intercourse. While you and Beacon Hill may feel that it is not proper form, it has happened. Once. Tonight. Tomorrow we will be married, and tonight’s escapade will be justified ex post facto. I feel certain you can see the value of that.”
“Anita,” Mrs. Merriweather said, “you must remember that you are not old enough to marry without my consent. I have some voice in this matter.”
“True,” said Anita. “But you will give your consent.”
“I will?”
“Of course,” said Anita. “Otherwise Vince and I will live in sin on the front lawn. Just think how the neighbors would react to that.”
Mrs. Merriweather thought how the neighbors would react to that. “You wouldn’t do it,” she said levelly. “You wouldn’t.”
Anita said nothing.
“You wouldn’t,” Mrs. Merriweather repeated weakly. “Would you?”
“Yes,” said Anita. “I would.”
“You probably would,” Mrs. Merriweather agreed. “Knowing you, you probably would. I wouldn’t put it past you.”
Mrs. Merriweather smiled. It was, Vince thought, a strange smile. Any smile under such circumstances had to be a strange smile. Perhaps, Vince guessed, the hallmark of the wealthy was their ability to smile when there was nothing to smile about. At any rate, Mrs. Merriweather seemed determined to make the best of a bad thing. Vince was the bad thing.
“Well,” said Mrs. Merriweather, “I shall give my consent. Not gleefully, I admit. But stoically. However, I don’t see how you can arrange to be married tomorrow. There’s a waiting period, you know. Two or three days.”
“We can’t wait that long,” Anita said.
And Vince, who had felt for a few minutes as though they were going to have the wedding without him because he was so thoroughly excluded from the conversation, chimed in with a valuable thought. “There’s no waiting period in Maryland,” he said. “We can fly down to Baltimore and be married immediately.”
“Baltimore,” said Anita thoughtfully.
“Baltimore,” said Mrs. Merriweather, heavily.
“Baltimore,” said Vince, happily.
“Baltimore,” said Anita, decisively. “Now, mother, if you’ll leave us alone, Vince and I would like to get some sleep.”
“Together?”
“Together,” Vince and Anita said, together.
“But—”
“Of course,” said Anita, “there’s always the front lawn—”
Mrs. Merriweather sighed. Then, with the air of some-one making the best of a bad thing, she suggested: “Vince, Anita, before you go to sleep again, there’s one thing I’d like to do for you.”
“What is it?”
“You may object,” Mrs. Merriweather said. “Old practical people sometimes have old practical ideas which conflict with the notions of romantic youth. But still—”
“Get to the point, Mother.”
“If you don’t mind,” Mrs. Merriweather said timorously, “I’d rather like to change that sheet.”
There was, inevitably, a two-day waiting period in Baltimore. There had to be a two-day waiting period in Baltimore, of course. The wedding would not have been complete without it. The two of them, Anita and Vince, taxied at breathtaking speed from the Baltimore airport to City Hall, raced hysterically down the corridor to the License Bureau, and were informed that there was a two-day waiting period in the state of Maryland. Anita threw a fit, and then they laughed, and then they prepared to spend two days in Baltimore waiting for it to be time to get married.