“You’ll freeze. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.”
“No, I don’t mind walking.”
“Okay,” he said. He turned back to the wheel, seemed about to go, and then came to the window again. “I’m going where it’s warm.”
“Where’s that?”
“Puerto Rico.”
“Really?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“Day after tomorrow.” He paused. “Will you miss me?”
She didn’t answer. She felt very warm all at once, and she turned her head from the car.
“Maggie, will you miss me?”
“Don’t call me Maggie!” she snapped.
He smiled, and she detected nervousness in the smile, withdrawal. He sat in seeming indecision for a moment, and then he said, “I’ll talk to you when I get back.”
“What about?”
He grinned uneasily. “Oh, I don’t know. There must be lots of things to talk about.”
“Well, you think of some,” she said. “I’ve got shopping to do.”
She began walking away from the car, and behind her she heard him say, “So long, Maggie,” and then she heard the sound of the gunned engine, and the tires grasping the asphalt. She did not turn to look at the car. She ducked her head against the wind again and continued walking, and, oddly, she could think only, Maggie, Allhallows’ Eve.
“I don’t know why you have to fly,” Mrs. Cole said sweetly. “There are other ways of going places, Lawrence. It’s not necessary to fly.”
“It takes a little longer the other way,” Larry’s father said, “but what’s the big rush?” He puffed on his pipe and then said, “You’d better put the pants on the hanger first, don’t you think, son?”
“Yes, I guess so,” Larry mumbled. He cast an eye about the living room and wondered how in God’s name such a simple thing had been turned into a brawling farce. Eve had arranged to divide the children among their grandparents while they were gone, and that was fine; he had never known Eve to manage badly. Chris would stay with her folks, and David with Larry’s, and that too had been sound judgment since she’d apportioned the kids according to the grandparents they favored. But she’d asked only her dad to drive out to pick up the kids. Instead, both families had driven out en masse in two separate cars so that the living room was filled to brimming while they packed their bags.
“Did you pack your cuff links?” Eve asked.
“Yes.”
“You read about so many plane crashes,” Mrs. Cole said sweetly. “Why do you have to fly, Lawrence?”
“Mom, everybody flies,” Larry said patiently.
“Just catch me in a plane,” Mr. Cole said. He shook the dottle out of his pipe and turned to Mr. Harder. “You ever been in a plane, Alex?”
“They don’t scare me a bit,” Mr. Harder said.
“They don’t scare me, either,” Mr. Cole said. “But have you ever been in one?”
“Nope,” Mr. Harder replied, chuckling. “And never hope to, either, Phil.”
Larry could never understand how his father managed to leave the business whenever anything unimportant came along. Just ask him when it was a matter of life or death and then the shoe-store couldn’t possibly be left in the hands of inexperienced clerks. But take a thing like this, where he was about as necessary as a sixth finger, and there was good old Dad giving advice about airplane travel. Silently, he thanked God that his brother Pete was married and practicing law in Pennsylvania. Otherwise he was sure he’d have trotted along for the festivities, too.
Unfortunately, Eve’s twin sisters were not married. Unfortunately, they were both seventeen, entering their senior year at high school, and very proud of the fact that they at last had breasts, the lack of which up to six months before had caused Eve’s mother to seek the advice of a specialist at Murray Hill Hospital. As was characteristic with Mrs. Harder, she was now disturbed because her daughters wore sweaters which were three sizes too small.
“Eve never dressed that way,” she was fond of repeating. “Eve was sensible. Sensible.”
The twins, Lois and Linda, managed to show a total disregard for anyone’s wishes but their own in the matter. The sweaters they chose continued to be snug and emphatic. Mr. Harder, florid and puffy at fifty-two, was somewhat embarrassed by them. But he could remember the Sloppy Joes which Eve had worn to high school, and he wondered now which was the lesser of the two evils.
“When I get big, can I go to Puerto Rico?” David asked.
“Sure,” Larry said. “Mom, could you take the kids for a walk or something? We’re never going to be packed in time.”
“You should have packed last night,” Mrs. Harder said. “I don’t know why you two always leave things to the last minute.”
“Some neighbors came in last night,” Eve said.
“What time is your plane leaving?” Mrs. Cole asked.
“I’d love to be an airline hostess,” Linda said. “Come here, Chris. Let me blow your nose.”
“It isn’t running,” Chris said.
“What time, Lawrence?” Mrs. Cole asked again.
“Four-thirty,” Larry said, and his mother shook her head and clucked her tongue as if he had just announced the exact moment of his death.
“You’ve got plenty of time,” Mr. Cole said.
“We’re supposed to check in at three-thirty.”
“They always give you more time than you actually need,” Mr. Harder said.
“Don’t you like boats, Lawrence?”
“What, Mom?”
“Boats. Couldn’t you take a boat?”
“Mom, we’ve only got a week. We’re not going to Staten Island, you know. We’re going all the way to Puerto Rico.”
“Don’t get sarcastic,” Mrs. Cole said. “Boats go to Puerto Rico, too.”
“You can’t tell them anything, Louise,” Mrs. Harder said. “They know it all.”
“Well, really,” Eve interrupted, “there is a time element involved.”
“One week,” Larry repeated. “That’s all we’ve got.”
“Ike and Mike,” Mrs. Cole said. “They think alike.”
“Eve, did you take the alarm?”
“Do we need it?”
“I don’t trust hotel switchboard operators.”
“It’s in the bedroom. I’ll get it.”
Eve left the living room, and Lois followed her. She was unplugging the electric clock when Lois said, “Do you think this sweater is too tight, Sis?”
“Well,” Eve said judiciously, “it does make you look a little busty.”
“I am busty,” Lois said.
“Darling,” Eve said, “you’re leggy, too, but you don’t run around in your panties, do you?”
“I guess not,” Lois said dubiously. She studied Eve for a moment and then asked, “What’s it like? Being married, I mean?”
“It’s fun,” Eve said.
“Do you have to do whatever he asks you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, in bed.”
“Lois!”
“A boy kissed me with his mouth open last Saturday night,” Lois said.
“What did you do?”
“I opened mine, too. It was better.”
“I think maybe you’d better have a long talk with Mama,” Eve said, sighing.
“Mama doesn’t know anything,” Lois said. “All she knows how to say is ‘Never, never, never sit on a boy’s lap.’ What’s so terrible about sitting on a boy’s lap?”
“She used to tell me that, too,” Eve said, laughing. “And I haven’t yet figured it out.”
“Did you ever?” Lois asked. “Before you got married, I mean?”
“Sit on a boy’s lap?”
“No. You know.”
“Lois...”
“I mean, with Larry.”
“That’s none of your business,” Eve said. “Listen, when I get back we’d better have a talk.” She wrapped the wire around the clock, sighed, and as she walked out of the bedroom, mumbled, “If it isn’t too late by then.” She handed Larry the clock.