Aberration of Starlight

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While Dave Warren delivered the eggs to the Warren House where she said she would meet him in two hours, Marie walked around Hackettstown, thinking to buy a new dress — or a new something! In the window of Jerry’s Variety Shoes she saw exactly what it was she would buy for the evening: a beautiful white openwork sandal with a high heel and a cunning little strap around the ankle, perfectly stunning. When the clerk told her that her foot was the smallest he’d ever seen on a woman, she was pleased, as she was always pleased when shoe clerks said this, as they almost invariably did. She was vain about her feet and ankles, and her legs as well, although she didn’t often think about her legs. Her feet were beautiful in the new shoes, the clerk didn’t have to tell her that. She tried both shoes on, walking the length of the store and back, stopping to look at her feet in the floor mirror, holding her skirt around her legs to see the line that they made with her feet, then letting it hang free, turning this way and that. The clerk was looking at her legs and she flushed. She bought the shoes and then walked to the five-and-ten, where she sat at the counter and had a root beer. There was plenty of time to kill and she tried to pretend that she had nothing to do that night except sit on the porch, as usual, or go to the Warren House for steamers and beer with her father, the Sapurtys, and the Stellkamps. As usual. It was useless, of course, there was no way that she could pretend not to think of Tom and dancing with Tom, alone with Tom, alone together at the Wig-Wam. She hoped that … she didn’t exactly know what she hoped, but since the other night when she had walked with Tom, that beautiful beautiful night …

She hadn’t been to the WigWam in years and years and thought of

it, all that time, as a place to which she would never go again. When Tom mentioned going there, and asked her about it, she had told him, oh, how blasé she had tried to be, that she used to go there and that it was a nice place. It was, my God! the place, well, one of the places, that had served to convince her that she was really married and could do what she wanted — what Tony wanted anyway. Anyway, not what Momma wanted — or Poppa either, damn it! Tony had taken her there the summer after they were married, a year before Billy was born. She was with Tony! They stayed as long as they wanted, they had the car — the old Packard — and returned to the Stellkamps’ when they wanted, and whoever didn’t like it, he could look out for the horns, Tony would say, using a phrase she had taught him, and thumbing his nose. Grown up. She was finally all grown up. In subsequent summers it had not been so easy, after Billy was born, the summer after the next, yes, because the very next summer she was really expecting and didn’t do any dancing. But then the summer after Momma and Poppa had to baby-sit and they acted like it was the end of the world if they came home even a minute after eleven. But that first summer of their marriage! And when they came home, no matter what time it was, they had their room to go to, they weren’t beholden to anyone for anything. Momma didn’t like it much but Tony told Marie she was his wife and he didn’t marry her mother and if the old lady didn’t like it she could lump it. And still, Marie was nervous when they got home after midnight.

Dave Warren looked over at her with his mouth half-open like the damn fool of a gawm he was when she said that she wasn’t going to the Warren House that night, but that Mr. Thebus was taking her to the WigWam to hear Red Nichols and His Five Pennies. Not that it was any of his business but she had nothing to be ashamed of. She held her packages tight on her lap, the white shoes, an aeroplane for Billy and a bottle of that hair oil that Tom used and that Billy had been asking and asking for ever since Tom had given him a little bit for himself in ajar. And oh! how pleased she was, a new bathing suit, that old rag would be in the garbage can tomorrow. Vera’s Fine Fashions had it in the window on sale, a navy-blue flat-knit suit without any skirt to flap around and make her look like something the cat dragged in. She didn’t want to be in this old tin-can Ford, listening to Dave go on and on about the new Hackettstown High gym! God help us! She wanted to lock her door and try on her suit. God knows she knew what Poppa would say, the first thing out of his mouth would be something about Tom this or Tom that and he’d look at her in it like she was some kind of chippy. She knew the suit would be tight and show her, but women her age wore them, wore them all over the beach, she’d be damned if she was going to walk around anymore looking like Whistler’s mother! She was a grown woman and had always hated that flowered thing. How many years? She didn’t even want to think how many. There was no way she’d be able to see all of her but she could stand on the bed and get a pretty good idea of how the suit looked. Dave said that he heard that Red Nichols was a good orchestra and she said that she and Mr. Thebus both liked to dance and thought they’d just go and enjoy themselves for an hour or two and Dave said they could always dance at the Warren House. The damn fool! Jumping around to those polkas with the farmers and their wives in their Sears, Roebuck outfits wasn’t dancing. And their clodhopper shoes, my God almighty. God knows who he thought she was! She squeezed the shoebox in its paper bag.

Billy didn’t know whether to go outside and play with the new aeroplane first or put some rose oil on his hair, and when Marie told him he was running around like a chicken with his head cut off, and imitated him, they both laughed, and Billy sat down on her bed and bounced on it, holding the plane out at arm’s length. She took her shoes out of the box and tried them on, turning her feet and admiring how she looked. Billy said he thought they really looked swell and asked her if she was going to wear them dancing with Tom. Before she could compose her face to give him an answer, in came Poppa like a bat out of hell, and he told Billy to go out and play, he wanted to speak to his mother. Here it comes, she knew it. The usual sarcasms, Tom this and Tom that and Tom the other thing, just what did she think she was doing, the man was nothing but a little cock of the walk with his moustache and his big talk, talk is cheap, butter wouldn’t melt, bejesus, in the man’s mouth, nothing but a patch on a man’s ass. Oh, how he carried on. Marie had had enough of all this, somehow the shoes — and the bathing suit, the bathing suit — gave her the courage to tell him that she’d spent years, years, and well he knew it, as the chief cook and bottle washer, the pot walloper, waiting on Momma hand and foot and cleaning and scrubbing and doing laundry, ironing so he’d, he’d look presentable to go to the office, a slave and he damn well knew it, and bringing up a fatherless boy into the bargain with never a bit of help and never a word of complaint out of her. And it was time she was entitled to a little life.

He simply ignored her and said that she’d probably paid a pretty penny for those shoes to look like Astor’s pet horse for that horse’s ass of a man, a man? and did she want to know a thing or two about him? When he started in with Helga says, Marie looked up at the ceiling and clasped her hands at her bosom, God help us all! Helga! But the old man went on, oh yes, Poppa went on and on like a Victrola, stubborn Irish mule! Helga says that her cousin knows the family very well, Tom’s wife’s family, and it was no secret why his wife packed up and left him. The man spent his whole life chasing janes, the scum of the earth, any tramp that cocked her eye at him, she even saw him one day with some skirt in a fleabag hotel, coming out of it, in Newark, by God, the man looked like the wrath of God and the floozie with him was painted up to her eyes and the hair on her out of a bottle with the roots growing in black! And there they were arm in arm just as nice as you please, oh yes, don’t tell me about Tom. Oh, Poppa, she said. Don’t you know anything, after all these years, about Helga Schmidt? Never mind about Helga Schmidt! Of course, of course, what did she expect? She’s a fine upstanding woman and knows whereof she speaks. If the shoe, bejesus, fits! And besides, there was talk, and a lot of talk, that he even tried to love up his own brother’s wife, yes, goddammit! His own sister-in-law. The man is a mongrel and he’s taking advantage of you because you’re all alone and he figures your father is too old to do anything about it. And, also, and he’s also, he’s a pup! And then Poppa forbade her to go to the WigWam tonight or any other night. Marie told him, her face white, that she was a grown woman, and could go dancing with a man who had been kind to her and to her son—and to him! — and showed nothing but the highest respect to all of them since the moment they laid eyes on him. I don’t care what gutter stories you hear from Helga Schmidt! I’m entitled to some life! I haven’t spoken to chick nor child but the butcher and the grocer for years and years. Is that life? And then her father, shaking his head in anger and disgust, walked out. Little turd of a man, he turned and said at the door. The man doesn’t even have an ass, what kind of a man is that? And Marie blushed and tears came to her eyes as she walked to the door and shut it, hard, behind Poppa. Oh my God, she said, the spite, Poppa, the spite!

She thought she looked stunning in the suit, and turned, standing on the bed, so that she could see her behind. It looked a little, not exactly fat, but heavy. Well, she wasn’t getting any younger, but she knew, as well, that her figure was attractive, still, God knew she looked better than Eleanor, who had the nerve to wear a suit like this in white, and she was older by ten years too. If Tom looked at her tomorrow … She’d be nonchalant, take off her robe as she always did. She wasn’t going to make a damn fool of herself, was she? She yanked at the suit, trying to make it cover more of her behind and felt a little panicky. She imagined Tom looking at her tugging and pulling, my God! She’d better not be doing that tomorrow like some frip without any breeding. The suit was perfectly respectable. Everybody wore them. It covered her perfectly, that’s the way it’s supposed to look. She was still young. That walk with Tom, suddenly veering off the road with him, behind a tree in the cool dark. The mosquitoes, she’d said, but he had embraced her, my God, and kissed her and kissed her, she’d opened her mouth and felt him down there big and hard pressing against her belly through her thin dress. He’d tried to pull her skirts up, I love you, I love you, Marie, but she’d pushed away his hands, still kissing and kissing, oh! she’d almost died with excitement. He stopped trying to put his hands under her clothes then and stepped back, she could see his eyes shine in the starlight, and he apologized, begged her forgiveness, and even kissed her hand. She felt so bad for him. You must think I’m some rotten egg, Marie. But I’ve dreamed so long of holding you … Oh no, no, my dear Tom, dearest, it’s just that, it’s just that I feel I’m not even me! Like a baby. And then they kissed again and she opened her mouth again. She said they ought to start back. She stepped out from behind the tree and started toward the road and he said that he had to tie his shoe but she knew he was fixing, adjusting himself. She could feel the impress of him still on her belly and thighs and almost felt dizzy, God forgive me.

At the supper table, it was a comedy of errors if she’d ever seen one. Tom talked about the war that everybody who wasn’t blind in one eye and couldn’t see out of the other knew was coming, and how Germany had been preparing for it for years, they never got over the last one, and Poppa, when he broke his heart to look at Tom, looked at him so sarcastically, oh, how superior! But Marie knew what that was all about, you couldn’t fool her — it was on Helga’s behalf, oh sure, the dumpy little kraut with her hooks out for a widower with a nice little nest egg. The bereaved widow with her Germany this and Germany that. She probably had a picture of Hitler on the wall, Marie wouldn’t put it past her. Marie, whenever Poppa wasn’t looking, smiled over at Tom and he smiled back and once, she thought so anyway, he accidentally stuck his foot out and touched her foot under the table. And that finagling Helga was chewing the fat to beat the band at her table, my God, she had Mrs. Copan’s ear, the poor washed-out bag of bones, it’s a wonder Marie’s ears didn’t turn red as a beet, and every once in a while the poor widow had the gall to look over at Poppa and smile this poor-man, poor-put-upon-man smile, the nerve of her! and she made damn sure that Poppa saw it too, you can bet your bottom dollar on that! Tom saw it too and talked even more about Germany and how they wouldn’t be satisfied until they had another war because the Germans were really very Prussian, it was a historical fact. Marie got so mad at Helga and her playacting that she decided to wait until she looked over at Poppa again and then smile her best smile at Tom as bold as brass, and how do you like that, dutchie? You busybody. It was almost as if Tom knew what she was thinking because he smiled back at her and made some little jokes, just for her, to make her laugh. Billy had his eyes on everything, the boy must know something is going on, not exactly what, but little pitchers. Well, she had nothing to be ashamed of, she could hold her head high and if she wanted to show manners to a decent wonderful man with a head on his shoulders, what should she have to be ashamed of? She was entitled to a life, too, just like everybody else.

After supper, Marie had time to kill before she had to bathe, so she sat in her room, away from all the relics and damn fools on the porch, wondering if she would really look all right in that old white dress. Well, it wasn’t that old, and it had a nice cut to it and the belt made her figure stand out, which was, she knew, her worry. She felt ashamed of herself, worrying about that, my God, she’d been hiding from the world for so long — through no fault of her own! — that she’d actually begun to think of herself as some stick of an old woman. What else had made her wear that bathing suit for so— Oh, that suit. Good riddance! She got up from the bed and began to undress quickly, then, naked, reached under her slips and step-ins and stockings in the top drawer and took the new suit out, looking at her watch as she began to pull it on, she had a minute, she just wanted, again … She adjusted the shoulder straps to lift her bosom and looked in the dresser mirror, cocking her head, then climbed on the bed and turned so that she could see her body in half-profile. She put her hands on her hips and smiled the way Madeleine Carroll smiled. I’d love to take a dip, Tom, she said, and smiled again, half-closing her eyes, smoothing the suit over her hips to see how her breasts looked with her arms pulled back tautly. If anyone looked in the window! And she turned to see if anyone, by some miracle, might be there, then felt foolish. She got off the bed and pulled the suit off, threw it on the bed and put her robe on, then took soap and powder, rouge, lipstick, and her toothbrush and toothpaste and stepped into the corridor.

Well. Not bad. Not half-bad. She was pleased with herself, patting her hair, looking again in the mirror, listening to Tom’s voice on the porch, his laughter. The white dress looked fine, she’d pulled the belt tight to accentuate her hips and bosom and felt smooth and trim underneath in the new two-way stretch she’d worn the day they left the city. The white shoes were, well, they were even more stunning now that she was all dressed. What else? Something just right, something a little classy. What? Oh yes, yes, her white beads. Tony. At least he had some class, he knew what to buy when, before, oh … of course, they were just the ticket. Matched her white ball earrings, white, all white. God, I look like a bride. She took her purse and a white crocheted shawl in case it got chilly and left the room, five after eight. Perfect.

What else did she expect of Tom? He was perfect, an eyeful, really. He looked over at her and smiled as she stepped out on the porch, oh, God help us, we’re to be the sideshow tonight, Dave Warren and those two silly girls. Poppa? I’d think he’d … Just as well he wasn’t there, casting a pall over everything. Oh, but there he came, speak of the devil, with a face that would frighten horses on him, but Billy reached to kiss her and he told her how swell she looked. Tom took a step toward the edge of the porch, put his foot on the first step, and she bent and kissed Billy, pleased to see the touch of lipstick left on his cheek. Well, Poppa, you can stand there forever with your hands in your pockets like a wooden Indian, goodbye, goodbye — and may God forgive her but she wished it was goodbye forever, that she was shaking the dust of the place off her feet for good and all. She and Tom walked to his car and she started to blush, dammit to hell, dammit dammit dammit. What a relief it was to get in the car, and how it shone! and as Tom was backing out of his spot by the church, smiling vaguely in the direction of the porch while she waved — you’d think she was going to China, my God, the way everybody acted — she heard him say, she could just hear him over the engine, You’re beautiful. You’re such a knockout. She kept waving, still blushing, and she couldn’t see anything really, was Poppa waving? He was! Yes, that was Poppa! Thank you, Poppa, thank you, Bye, bye, bye-bye, Poppa, and then Tom had the car out on the road and they started off in the blue dusk, such a lovely night. A perfect night.

Tom told her she was beautiful when she blushed, that she was the best-looking woman in New Jersey, hell, anywhere, that her dress was lovely, that he loved her shoes, that there was nothing like silk stockings to make a lady look like a lady, that he had all he could do to keep from hugging and kissing her right on the porch, damn everybody! She laughed and felt like a girl. The luckiest summer of my life, Tom said. And I’ve got my brother to thank. Hell, I’m going to buy him a case of champagne when the summer is over. He reached over calmly and casually and put his arm around Marie, and she could smell his hair oil and tobacco, his bay rum. She felt hot under her clothes. The last time she could remember feeling this way was when Tony used to start unbuttoning her blouse or the back of her dress in the dark of the porch while he was supposed to be opening the door, and the baby-sitter, that nice girl from around the corner, probably listening to them, getting some earful. The time he pulled her over to the couch the sec the girl left and they didn’t even take their clothes off Tony could be so — God! That was a million years ago. Then she felt Tom’s hand move down from her shoulder and touch the top of her breast and she let him, she let him, she wanted him to caress and squeeze her and open her dress and unhook her and she’d sit there and let him, she’d let him do what he wanted to do. She told him that he really shouldn’t? Tom? Really. Tom, please? He moved his hand up a little and said that he was only flesh and blood and apologized. And may God forgive her, she looked down quickly at his pants to see if… What was she doing? The mother of a ten-year-old boy! Still married in the eyes of God.

The WigWam was everything she remembered, it was even better. And she wasn’t sad or nostalgic, not a bit, about Tony or anything, the good old days, oh yeah? Good? Tom was a wonderful dancer, she knew he would be, just knew it, and she felt her own abilities returning, he led so well, she loved a man who knew how to lead, and they danced all the fox trots, fast and slow, and a two-step as well. We’re game for anything, honey, Tom said, that’s the way it should be. We make a great pair. She decided on a Tom Collins and Tom did too, it was warm and they tasted good, she’d always liked a good Collins anyway, not too sweet. When she looked at her watch it was eleven, impossible, and she held it to her ear. Now, listen, I command you to have a good time and stop worrying about the time, you’re with me, I’m a grown man, you’re a grown woman, and we’re out on a Saturday night like everybody else in the world who’s not dead from the neck up. Your father is able to make his own hot milk and tuck himself in. Something like that, the funny way Tom had of saying things, smiling around the stem of his pipe. Billy, she said. But Tom gave her one of his looks and she laughed and felt ashamed and looked at the table. He was right, it was silly to worry, Poppa probably spent the night with ach der Kaiser anyway, God knows she wouldn’t miss an opportunity like this to get her hooks in him a little more. She could do her backbiting in peace the whole night, that terrible thing about Tom — she was about to ask him about it but knew then that it would be the wrong thing to say, and they danced again anyway. This time it was a very slow fox trot, “Alone,” what a lovely old song, and from the very beginning of the dance she could feel him really hard down there against her belly and inner thigh when she moved against him and she pushed herself close to him and closed her eyes, well, she had her girdle on. She could hear his breath in her ear, My dear Marie, my sweet, I love you, I love you. She opened her eyes to look up at him and he smiled and held her tight in the small of the back and pushed himself against her so that she could feel him almost as if he, oh my God.

At twelve-thirty, she said that they really better go, it was almost an hour’s drive back and there was no use in, well, she meant, you know. Let sleeping dogs lie. Tom agreed. He paid the check and left a nice tip and they walked out, the air was cool and still and she pulled the shawl around her shoulders and Tom helped her, then caught her by the arms and kissed her, kissed her again. She wanted to get in the car and go and go. Go away. No, first go and get Billy and go away anywhere. Tom drove fast, the roads were dark and almost deserted, the wind bubbled in the half-open butterfly windows and his arm was around her shoulder, his hand on her breast, squeezing it softly and persistently, almost as if she imagined it, oh, how wonderful it felt, her eyes closed, his thumb slid over her stiff nipple and revolved around it, sliding smoothly over the fabric. Then the car bounced once, hard, and then again, Tom? They were moving slowly down a small, grass-grown road under tall black trees, stars between their leaves and branches. Tom stopped the car and turned to her, pulled her close, oh, the time! the time! It must be one in the morning, even later. Tom! But he was kissing her and she opened her mouth, wide, wide, greedy, and she could taste Sen-Sen and then his tongue slid all the way into her mouth and she sucked on it delicately, oh Tom! His hands were opening her dress and then he had her breasts free of her brassiere and slip and was kissing them alternately, and licking her nipples, sucking them, he was moaning, and she moaned too, smiling crookedly into the dark, her face burning. He was pulling at her skirts, pulling them up around her hips and trying to get her step-ins down, get them off. No. No. Tom, no, Tom, no, no, no, please. Not now, Tom. Here. Please not here now. He stopped but continued to caress her breasts and suck her nipples and she lay back against the seat, dizzy and breathing hoarsely, aware her skirts were still bunched around her hips and her thighs open. He said, Marie, he said it again and again, he wanted her to look at him and she opened her eyes and turned. He had pulled his pants open and exposed himself, it was sticking out of his pants, so big and stiff, and he pulled her hand over to it firmly. She grasped him tightly and he moaned and took one of her breasts in his hand and sucked just the point of her nipple, his other hand crammed in between her legs but she wouldn’t open them any further. She began to move her hand up and down, O love, love, love, he whispered, Marie was whispering too, Tom my dearest, how big he was. She felt filthy, like a slut and a tramp, and imagined how she must look, with her clothes like they were and doing what she was doing. But it made her more excited and she moved her hand faster and faster and put her other hand into his open pants so she could touch his … his balls. Then Tom sat up, suddenly, his thighs wide open and he had his handkerchief over himself and she could feel him spurting and spurting and he breathed and grunted through his gritted teeth. Her hand was all wet and sticky and she kept moving it up and down, doing it, doing it like a tramp, until he leaned his head back on the seat and sighed, then reached over and held her wrist and she stopped.

God knew what time it was when they pulled up next to the church, maybe even two? Tom kissed her tenderly, Marie, I love you, I love you. She smiled at him and asked him to say it again like some high school girl with a crush when she saw a light slide across Tom’s shoulders and across the dashboard. Come up here! Come up here right now, goddammit to hell! My God, it was Poppa! She looked over at Tom in terror and he was smiling at her, bitter and angry and surprised. You pup! You take my daughter for a tramp? Come up, here, Skip! One-thirty in the morning! Suddenly Marie felt her stomach turn and she thought she’d throw up and put her handkerchief to her mouth and swallowed and swallowed. Tom bent and kissed her temple and forehead, Do you want me to come up with you, take the bull by the horns and get this out in the open? Oh no, Marie didn’t want that, he didn’t know Poppa, when he was like this … He had forbade her to even go, and what she’d done … a light was on in the house, Mr. Copan was looking out the window, she heard the porch door open and somebody came out, the flashlight was shining steadily on the car now and Poppa was still yelling. She adjusted her skirts and checked her buttons and got out, holding Tom’s hand tightly as she stepped into the beam of light, looking at his face, My God, Tom, and he squeezed her hand tight. She must look like death warmed over, she even felt pale, felt as if somebody had walked in on her while she was on the toilet. She began to cry, hurrying to the porch, quickly past somebody there, damn busybody, damn damn rotten … weeping silently till she was on the stairs, then sobbing out once, loudly, but then she controlled herself, rushing up the stairs, past Poppa’s room, God! and Billy’s! He woke up Billy! In her room she lay down on the bed with all her clothes on and wept for an hour, forever, humiliated and wretched. How could she ever even talk to Tom again? How could he? He wouldn’t even want to look at her. It was cruel and mean and rotten, she hated her father as much as she had ever hated her mother. You should have, Tom, she whispered, turning over, pushing her face into the bedspread, sobbing again, You should have made me do it. Made me fuck and fuck you. Oh, God, forgive me, what will I do?