The Moth

30

I knocked, got no answer, opened the door, and went in. My heart skipped three beats when I saw her, as he said, the girl from Charleston, sitting behind his desk, in a dark dress, mink coat, and big floppy hat that made her hair look like it had been lit. I looked around for Helen, but nobody else was there. When I saw the glitter of tears I knew she still held her grievance, whatever it was, from the night she left me on the beach. So I picked it up where we’d left off. I closed the door, then marched over in front of her in the rough shoes, flannel pants, and sweat shirt I wore when I was working. I said: “I asked you if you didn’t think we should tell names. I thought that was a good idea then and I think it’s a good idea now. My name is Jack Dillon. Who the hell are you?”

“You don’t know?”

“No, but I’d like to.”

“Then I was just a girl you picked up?”

“I didn’t pick you up. You came to my table and asked if we shouldn’t speak, and as I’d been peeping at you a half hour I said yes, and asked you to sit down, and you did. Then we went driving, and I don’t know what you did, but I fell in love.”

“I was already in love.”

“So was I.”

She burst out crying and I pitched a handkerchief at her. She pressed it to her eyes. “Jack, I’m Helen Legg.”

I had to sit down quick, and did, and stared at her. Of the girl I had known before, when she was twelve and I was twenty-two, I couldn’t see a trace. But then I remembered the graceful walk, in Savannah, that had caught my eye first, and what my father had told me. After a long time I said: “Then if I was already in love with you, and fell in love all over again, all I can say is, it seems like something pretty terrific, that had to take over, no matter where we found it.”

“I don’t. It makes me just sick. I could hardly breathe, when I saw you there in Savannah, and supposed you didn’t quite know what to expect, so sent Drusilla on her way and came on over. I thought it was amusing to call you Major, and laughed when you called me Lieutenant. I didn’t talk about what had happened — it seemed better to make a fresh start, somehow. And then, when I found out you didn’t know me, that to you I was just a pick-up—”

“How did you find that out?”

“You said—”

“I said let’s put it on the line. And now—”

“I’m going home.”

“No, you’re not.”

She had got up, but I blocked the way. “We’re not talking about something, we’re talking about nothing, and I won’t have it. I found you and you’re mine. And at last we both found out how dumb you are. We—”

That did it, and she was in my arms, laughing, and her tears and mine were getting mixed and at last it was over, my long voyage home.

The Leggs, when I took her back that evening, were pretty meek, and didn’t put up much argument about our getting married. We saw each other morning, noon, and night then, while Mrs. Legg began getting ready in a big way, for the wedding, there at their new home, or what to me was their new home, on University Parkway, near Charles. Then Margaret was there, putting the fine touches on, specially the artistic points, like which orchestra. Then one night, in my father’s study, I began going over it, and said: “Listen, Helen, why the big show? Can’t we just get married?”

“But they want a wedding, like Margaret had, and—”

“Well, who’s getting married?”

“... What’s your idea?”

“My idea is, it’s one o’clock now, we get in the car, point her south, and head for this job, this pretty big job, I’ve picked out for myself. That we get married on the way, in whatever place we happen to be in around breakfast time, and—”

“But what about clothes?”

“Stores sell clothes.”

“And your father?”

“Will make it, where he’s going, without any help from us. And if you ask me, he will like it, when we ring him today — after we’ve gone and done it, to have that special call, all for himself — better than a super-duper production he won’t be able to attend.”

“Now that, that makes sense.”

“At last, I’m glad I thought of something that—”

But she slammed me down on the couch, the way she had when she was little, and began beating me up, and laughing, and at last I saw the little rowdy I had fallen for, when she was a kid, and I was. Then I hollered uncle and we didn’t wait, but went outside, without even a toothbrush, and got in my car, and started off on our life.