Maggie Now by Betty Smith
"It's only a face," said Maggie-Now.
Little Chime. She remembered his voice. Remembering
still made her feel a little sad but it didn't hurt much any
more.
She mentioned getting her hair cut to Lottie.
"Don't," said Lottie, horrified. "Don't cut your hair off."
"Why not, Aunt Lottie? All the girls are doing it. It
would be easier to manage."
"Listen, if a woman ain't got hair, what has she got?"
asked Lottie.
Maggie-Now decided against bobbing it.
Pat settled into the routine of taking his Sunday dinners
at Mrs. O'Crawley's boardinghouse. She had three regular
men who roomed and boarded there and a few transients
like Pat. She had been married and widowed twice. Her
first husband left a thousand dollars in insurance. She
never did get around to telling her second husband about
that. Her second husband died and left her two thousand
dollars in insurance and the narrow house.
She converted the basement dining room into a
millinery shop. (She made all the hats she sold.) She took
in three somewhat elderly men as boarders. They lived
upstairs. She had no children, no relatives. When she
started the venture, her friends advised her to take in
women boarders; they said "people would talk" if she took
in men. She said, "Let them." She took in the men. She
didn't want women boarders because she said they washed
their pants in the sink and asked for hot tea in the middle
of the night when they had cramps.
She cast an eye on Pat. He was fairly young' worked for
the city. His widow would get a pension when he died.
That was almost as good as insurance.
Pat cast an eye on her real estate. He asked her if the
house was hers, free and clear, and she asked him, coyly,
wouldn't
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he like to know! She didn't tell him, though.
Pat took an interest in her house. He asked Mick Mack
how much he paid for room and board and he multiplied
that by three and thought, thirty dollars a week wasn't a
bad income plus what she got from making and selling
hats. Although a lazy man, he went to the trouble of
doing some odd-job repairs around her house, saying: "We
don't want the place to run down, do we?"
She said: "No, I don't."
He brought Denny around once, for Sunday dinner. He
knew Maggie-Now loved children dearly, and his wife had
loved children. He thought Mrs. O'Crawley felt the same
way.
"Denny," he said, "how'd you like Mrs. O'Crawley for a
mother? "
Denny sized her up and decided he wouldn't like her
for a mother. He said: "I don't care."
Pat said: "Mrs. O'Crawley, how'd you like a son like
Denny?"
Mrs. O'Crawley had nothing against children. She just
didn't like them. "He seems like a nice boy," she said. "If
you like children."
Pat thought it best to postpone his courting until he
could think of a better angle. He nurtured his bitter
friendship with Mick Mack. They spent the long summer
and early autumn afternoons and evenings in footless
arguments.
"If I didn't have two kids to support," said Pat, "I'd go
and enlist."
"And sure, you're the one would wipe out the Germans
in no time a-tall," said his admirer.
"The Germans?" asked Pat, astonished. "Why, I'd enlist
in the German army."
"What for? You ain't German."
"I'd enlist in the German army just the same to lick hell
out of the English."
"What do you want to lick them for?"
"Because of what they done to Parnell."
"What did they do to Parnell?" asked Mick Mack in all
innocence.
"You don't know?" asked Pat, shocked.
"I was a boy in Dublin at the time."
"You ignorant mick!" Mick Mack looked hurt but he said
noth
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ing."And you call yourself a man," sneered Pat, aching for
a fight.
"And I am so," said Slick Mack with unexpected dignity.
"Not if you take all this gulf offs me," said Pat.
"I take it," said the little fellow quietly, "because you're
my friend all the same."
"And sure, you're the one is hard up for a friend, then,"
said Pat. "Taking all the gulf from me."
"'Tis better," said Mick Mack, "to have a mean friend
than no friend a-tall."
Summer went into fall. Denny went back to school. Pat
went to his superintendent and asked how soon could he
retire on pension. He'd put in more than twenty-five years
cleaning streets and Pat thought that was more than
enough.
"Men are dying in the trenches," said the super, "so that
men like you can live."
"Live to shovel up horse manure," mumbled Pat.
"And you want to quit! Come around again sucking for
retirement and I'll put you on the ashcan detail and you
can retire after five years with a hernia. Now get out of
here!"
Maggie-Now had a long letter from Sonny. There was
talk, he wrote, of the fellows getting out of the trenches
by Christmas. He asked her to marry him. He wrote he'd
like to settle down and raise a family. He'd written to his
folks and his father wrote he'd give him half the profits of
the business. And his mother and sister and brothers were
crazy about her, Maggie-Now, he wrote.
She made up her mind. I want children, lots of them, and
a home for them. Sonny would be a good father, a good
provider, a good husband, like Uncle Timmy was. Of course,
he wouldn't sit around and talk. He'll have his bowling
nights and his lodge meeting and one night a week to play
cards with the boys and maybe fishing at Canarsie like other
men do. I'd be lonesome the first year, then I'd have the
children and my life would be full. I like him. I respect him.
I'm proud that everyone thinks so well of him. And that
must a,ld up to love if not now, someday. At least he wants
me. It's nice to be wanted. And I want a husband.
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I want children. I don't want to wait....
She made up her mind to marry him and she felt at
peace after her decision.
Then she heard from C laude Bassett!
~ CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX ~
HER father, as always, intercepted the postman on the
stoop. Pat was leaving for work. She saw the postman
hand him a card. She saw her father's face tighten as he
read the message and she knew! She came out on the
stoop and held out her hand. Pat made no move to give
her the card. She took it from him. The message was
simple:
Dear M: Wait for me. I'm coming back. Love, C. B.
Her face went radiant. She pressed the card to her
breast and smiled up at her father. "Oh, Papa!" she said<
happily.
"Where'd it come from?" he asked in a thick voice.
"You smudged the postmark with your thumb," she cried
Otlt. "Now I'll never know. Oh, Papa!"
"What about that plumber?" he asked.
"What plumber?"
"If you got to throw yourself away, throw yourself away
on the plumber, not that damn Claude Bastid."
"Bassett," she corrected him. Then she gasped. "How do
you know about Sonny Pheid?"
"I got ways of finding out things what people think
they're hiding from me."
"Papa! You read my letters in my top drawer!"
"If you don't want people to read them, don't leave
them, then, where people can find them.'' He left for
work.
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She sat at the kitchen table and gloated over the card.
She thought his handwriting was beautiful; like engraving
on a wedding announcement. She smiled fondly at the
picture: mountains and sky and river bathed in rose light.
The title said: Western Sunset.
She erased the smudge with a moistened eraser but the
postmark got erased along with the smudge. She looked
at the crumbs and thought sadly that now she'd never
know what city it had been mailed from.
And he'll never tell me either, she thought.
Even though she had no idea when he'd be back, she
started getting ready for him. She washed her hair and
was so happy she hadn't had it bobbed because she felt
that he wouldn't like it.
She held the card and pressed it to her cheek, thinking:
His hand rested on it when he wrote it. He pressed the stamp
down with his fingers. She envisaged him standing at a
mailbox in some strange city, reading the card once more
before he dropped it in the slot.
After she had braided and pinned up her hair, she sat
down and wrote to Sonny.
. . . honored. But I must tell you there is someone else
and . . .
She thought of writing: I hope we can still be friends, but
she discarded the idea immediately. She knew they
couldn't be friends. It had to be love between them or
nothing.
But I wish I could keep him as a friend, she thought
sadly. Someone to talk to, to smile at, to like the way I
talk, smile at and like Father Flynn and Mr. Van Clees.
His answer came. She read it through her tears.
. . . so, like we say in France, Ah Reservoir. But honest,
MaggieNow, dear, I wish you all the luck in the world....
She put this last letter with his other letters and his
picture, and tied them up with a piece of blue baby
ribbon from a discarded petticoat, and put the little
packet in the box with her mother's rhinestone combs.
Sonny never wrote again. She missed getting his letters.
[262]
~ CHAPTER THIRTY-SE VEN ~
IN November, Maggie-Now got a job as night ticket seller
in a neighborhoodmovie house. When Pat went out
nights, Denny sat in the back row of the cheater and
watched the movies. He liked his sister's job fine.
ILlaggie-Now had an agreement with her father that he
go out on Friday nights so Denny wouldn't have to stay
up until ten on school nights.
Maggie-Now earned twenty dollars a week and saved
most of it. She knew Claude was coming back and she
knew they'd be married and she wanted to buy a dress for
her wedding and some household things for their home.
She liked selling tickets and chatting with the customers.
When the weather got cold (there was no heat in the
ticket booth), she brought a filled hot-water bottle from
home, took her shoes off and rested her stockinged feet
on the hot bottle. That kept her warm all evening.
Pat ate Thanksgiving dinner at Mrs. O'Crawley's with
Mick Mack. Since he was spending the evening there,
Maggie-Now took Denny to work with her. He'd seen the
picture and didn't want to see it again. He stood in the
booth and Maggie-Now let him tear the tickets off the
roll. He got sick of that and said he was cold. She gave
him a dime and told him to get a hot chocolate to warm
up. He made three trips that night to warm up. The last
trip, he brought two wafers back to Maggie-Now.
"I thought maybe you vitas hungry," he said.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving, it started to snow as
evening came on. When llaggie-Now closed her booth at
ten o'clock, the streets had a covering of snow. She
looked in on her father. He was rolled up in his blankets
and snoring warmly. She checked on Denny. I lis blankets
Nvere on the floor and he slept with his knees drawn up
to his chin and his arms wrapped around his
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chest. She covered him securely, leaving only his head
exposed. His head still looked like a baby's head: tender
and vulnerable.
She looked down at him and thought: I want all my
children to look like Claude, except the next-to-last one. I
want him to look like Denny, and the last one of all I want
to look like me.
She undressed but didn't feel like going to bed. She put
her Navaho-blanket bathrobe over her warm flannel
nightgown and got into her felt bedroom slippers. She
went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. After
she'd had the tea, she banked the fire in the kitchen
range, got her hairbrush and sat by the window in the
front room to brush her hair. The room was comfortable.
I here was still some fire left in the parlor stove.
That's one thing you can say for Papa, she thought. He
does keep the fires up. I hope the snow doesn't get too deep.
How he hates to shovel snow! He'll go on sick leave if it's
deep and I'll have to go down to the section office and lie
and say he's sick and the super will say, like always, sure
he's sick sick of working, and whoever is standing around
will laugh....
She wanted him to go to work the next day because she
planned to start making a new green challis dress to wear
for Claude's return and she didn't want him hanging
around the house. He'd spoil her pleasure in the making
of the dress by making remarks like:
"Another new dress?"
"Closet's full of dresses already."
"Think money grows on trees?"
And she'd say, "Oh, Papa!"
She smiled and decided she wouldn't let her father
bother her if he were home the next day. I'll just think of
Claude, she decided, and how happy I am because he's
coming back.
She brushed her hair and watched the soundless
movement of the snow coming down and her brush
strokes took the down rhythm of the falling snow. She
looked at the flames flickering behind the isinglass panes
of the stove door. She recalled her wonderful delight, as
a child, at seeing the fire glow through the isinglass.
What a pity, she thought, that
never see them again the way you saw them for the first
time.
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She braided her hair, one braid over each shoulder, and
tied the ends with rubber bands so the braids wouldn't
unravel in the night. She leaned forward, idly swinging the
brush between her knees, grateful for the warmth of the
fire and aware of the quiet beauty of the night, and she
had a feeling of peace and blessed relief; the kind of
humble and thankful relief that comes to an anxious
parent when a sick child's terrifyingly high temperature
starts dropping back to normal.
The fire died down, the room started to get cold and
reluctantly she decided to go to bed. She checked the
front door to see if it was locked and noticed that the
snow had drifted against the doorsill outside. She got the
broom and swept it away before her as she went out on
the stoop. She stood in the cleared place, hands resting on
the broom handle, and absorbed the snowy night.
Silent night, beautiful night, and for such a little time.
Tomorrow the loveliness would be ugliness. The snow,
with all the debris of the street beneath it, would be
shoveled into hummocks at the curb. It would thaw a
little, freeze a little and be veined with chimney soot and
decorated with bits of dirty paper frozen into it and dogs
would urinate against the peaks and leave behind dirty,
mustard-colored patches.
Even now, the lovely baby-blanket look of the snow was
being defiled by a man walking down the middle of the
street and leaving dirty holes where his feet had stepped.
Maggie-Now thought he must be crazy he was wearing
neither hat nor overcoat.
Suddenly, in her breast, where she judged her heart to
be, something clicked out of place and then clicked back.
She dropped the broom and ran down the street in her
nightgown, bathrobe and felt slippers. She threw herself
with such force at the hatless man that she all but
knocked him off his feet.
"What took you so long?" she asked, as though he had
merely gone to the store.
"Margaret!" he said. "Oh, Margaret! Here." He tried to
give her the lumpy, sodden paper bag he was carrying, but
she was shaking him by the shoulders the way a mother
shakes a stubborn child. The bottom fell out of the damp
bag and two naked chickens fell in the snow and lay there,
breast to breast.
"What's that?" she asked, startled.
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"I thought you could cook them and we could have a
sort of late supper."
"Oh, (Claude!" She laughed and then she started to cry.
"Don't, Margaret! Don't!" He kissed her gently. "You
knew I'd come back, didn't you?"
"Yes," she sobbed. "And you'll never go away again, will
you? " She waited. He stood silent. "Will you!" she
insisted.
Typically, he wouldn't say yes, he wouldn't say no. He
said: "But I did come back, didn't I?"
"Yes," she whispered.
He got a soggy handkerchief from his pocket and tried
to wipe the mixed tears and snow from her face. He
succeeded only in spreading the wetness.
"You waited for me, Margaret, didn't you? Because you
knew I'd come back."
She thought of Sonny for a second, then said: "Yes, I
waited. I waited all the time."
They stood on that quiet, empty street, holding each
other tightly, and the snow fell on them and flakes
lingered briefly in the interstices of her braids.
He said: "You'll catch pneumonia."
Simultaneously, she said: "You'll get pneumonia."
They walked toward the house. He carried the chickens
by their feet in one hand, and put his other arm about her
waist.
"After your father spanked you for dancing in the street,
did you give up dancing for good?"
"In a way. You see . . ."
And they resumed talking where they had left off seven
months ago.
She installed him in the kitchen and closed the door so