The cook was a Greek who found a dollar attractive. In time I toted a giant napkin-covered tray along the graveled path and set it on a rustic bench while I picked a bouquet of microscopic field flowers to grace the royal breakfast of my dear.
Perhaps she was awake, but she opened her eyes anyway and said, “I smell coffee. Oh! Oh! What a nice husband—and—and flowers”—all the little sounds that never lose their fragrance.
We breakfasted and coffeed and coffeed again, my Mary propped up in bed, looking younger and more innocent than her daughter. And each of us spoke respectfully of how well we had slept.
My time had come. “Get comfortable. I have news both sad and glad.”
“Good! Did you buy the ocean?”
“Marullo is in trouble.”
“What?”
“A long time ago he came to America without asking leave.”
“Well—what?”
“Now they are asking him to leave.”
“Deported?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s awful.”
“It’s not nice.”
“What will we do? What will you do?”
“Playtime is over. He sold me the store—or rather he sold you the store. It’s your money. He has to convert his property and he likes me; he practically gave it to me—three thousand dollars.”
“But that’s awful. You mean—you mean you own the store?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not a clerk! Not a clerk!”
She rolled face down in the pillows and wept, big, full-bosomed sobs, the way a slave might when the collar is struck off.
I went out on the doll’s front stoop and sat in the sun until she was ready, and when she had finished and washed her face and combed her hair and put on her dressing gown, she opened the door and called to me. And she was different, would always be different. She didn’t have to say it. The set of her neck said it. She could hold up her head. We were gentlefolks again.
“Can’t we do anything to help Mr. Marullo?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“How did it happen? Who found out?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s a good man. They shouldn’t do it to him. How is he taking it?”
“With dignity. With honor.”
We walked on the beach as we had thought we might, sat in the sand, picked up small bright shells and showed them to each other, as we must do, spoke with conventional wonder about natural things, the sea, the air, the light, the wind-cooled sun, as though the Creator were listening in for compliments.
Mary’s attention was split. I think she wanted to be back home in her new status, to see the different look in the eyes of women, the changed tone of greetings in the High Street. I think she was no more “poor Mary Hawley, she works so hard.” She had become Mrs. Ethan Allen Hawley and would ever be. And I had to keep her that. She went through the day because it was planned and paid for, but the real shells she turned over and inspected were the shining days to come.
We had our lunch in the blue-checked dining room, where Mary’s manner, her certainty of position and place, disappointed Mr. Mole. His tender nose was out of joint that had so joyously quivered at the scent of sin. His disillusion was complete when he had to come to our table and report a telephone call for Mrs. Hawley.
“Who knows we’re here?”
“Why, Margie, of course. I had to tell her because of the children. Oh! I do hope— He doesn’t look where he’s going, you know.”
She came back trembling like a star. “You’ll never guess. You couldn’t.”
“I can guess it’s good.”
“She said, ‘Have you heard the news? Have you heard the radio?’ I could tell by her voice it wasn’t bad news.”
“Could you tell it and then flash back to how she said it?”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Could you let me try to believe it?”
“Allen has won honorable mention.”
“What? Allen? Tell me!”
“In the essay contest—in the whole country—honorable mention.”
“No!”
“He has. Only five honorable mentions—and a watch, and he’s going on television. Can you believe it? A celebrity in the family.”
“I can’t believe it. You mean all that slob stuff was a sham? What an actor! His lonely lovin’ heart wasn’t throwed on the floor at all.”
“Don’t make fun. Just think, our son is one of five boys in the whole United States to get honorable mention—and television.”
“And a watch! Wonder if he can tell time.”
“Ethan, if you make fun, people will think you’re jealous of your own son.”
“I’m just astonished. I thought his prose style was about the level of General Eisenhower’s. Allen doesn’t have a ghost-writer.”
“I know you, Eth. You make a game of running them down. But it’s you who spoil them. It’s just your secret way. I want to know—did you help him with his essay?”
“Help him! He didn’t even let me see it.”
“Well—that’s all right then. I didn’t want you looking smug because you wrote it for him.”
“I can’t get over it. It goes to show we don’t know much about our own children. How’s Ellen taking it?”
“Why, proud as a peacock. Margie was so excited she could hardly talk. The newspapers want to interview him—and television, he’s going to be on television. Do you realize we don’t even have a set to see him on? Margie says we can watch on hers. A celebrity in the family! Ethan, we ought to have a television.”
“We’ll get one. I’ll get one first thing tomorrow morning, or why don’t you order one?”
“Can we—Ethan, I forgot you own the store, I clean forgot. Can you take it in? A celebrity.”
“I hope we can live with him.”
“You let him have his day. We should start home. They’re coming in on the seven-eighteen. We should be there, you know, to kind of receive him.”
“And bake a cake.”
“I will.”
“And string crepe paper.”
“You aren’t being jealous mean, are you?”
“No. I’m overcome. I think crepe paper is a fine thing, all over the house.”
“But not outside. That would look—ostentatious. Margie said why don’t we pretend we don’t know and let him tell us?”
“I disagree. He might turn shy. It would be as though we didn’t care. No, he should come home to cheers and cries of triumph and a cake. If there was anything open, I’d get sparklers.”
“The roadside stands—”
“Of course. On the way home—if they have any left.”
Mary put down her head a moment as though she were saying grace. “You own the store and Allen’s a celebrity. Who would have thought all that could happen all at once? Ethan, we should get started home. We ought to be there when they come. Why are you looking that way?”
“It just swept over me like a wave—how little we know about anyone. It gives me a shiver of mullygrubs. I remember at Christmas when I should be gay I used to get the Welsh rats.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the way I heard it when Great-Aunt Deborah pronounced Weltschmerz.”[68]
“What’s that?”
“A goose walking over your grave.”
“Oh! That! Well, don’t get it. I guess this is the best day of our whole lives. It would be—ungrateful if we didn’t know it. Now you smile and chase off those Welsh rats. That’s funny, Ethan, ‘Welsh rats.’ You pay the bill. I’ll put our things together.”
I paid our bill with money that had been folded in a tight little square. And I asked Mr. Mole, “Do you have any sparklers left at the gift counter?”
“I think so. I’ll see.... Here they are. How many do you want?”