Sister of the Bride Page 9

  “In my day,” said Gramma, “young people didn’t marry until they were ready to settle down.”

  “We will be settled down,” said Rosemary earnestly. “We’ll be settled down studying.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Gramma roguishly.

  Barbara tried desperately to think of some way to steer the conversation back to the wedding, but nothing came to mind.

  Rosemary was still eager to defend Greg. “We will be studying,” she insisted. “Greg wants me to make good grades.” With anyone but Gramma she might have become angry, but now that Gramma was almost eighty she was very sensitive about having her feelings hurt. The whole family had learned to tiptoe around Gramma’s feelings.

  “He must be a very strange young man,” said Gramma. “When I was your age young men were interested in whether or not their wives were good cooks and housekeepers.”

  “He isn’t strange at all.” Rosemary was trying to be patient. “He’s wonderful, and he says anyone who can read a cookbook can cook.”

  Gramma found this very funny. Even Mrs. MacLane smiled.

  “Well, what is there to cooking but following directions?” demanded Rosemary, whose cheeks were beginning to turn pink. “Anybody can learn to cook with a little practice.”

  “It took me quite a while,” said Gramma. “How I hated struggling with that old wood stove. It smoked every single morning, and every morning I wished we could move to the city where we could have a gas stove. And I never could be sure of the temperature of the oven. ‘Bake in a hot oven,’ the recipes would say, but I was never sure how hot a hot oven was supposed to feel to my hand. The lopsided cakes your grandfather ate! Don’t tell me anybody who can read can cook. I know better.”

  There was a moment of embarrassment until Mrs. MacLane said gently, “Now, Mother, things were different when you were a bride. Rosemary won’t be learning to cook on a wood stove, and these days ovens have thermostats.”

  “And in a pinch they can always eat frozen foods,” said Barbara helpfully. She did not want Gramma to think Rosemary and Greg need go hungry, just because Rosemary was not a very good cook.

  Gramma sank, almost crumpled, back in her chair. She suddenly looked tired, as if she was feeling as old as she really was. “Yes, of course, things have changed since I was a bride. I keep forgetting. It really doesn’t seem so long ago that I was struggling with that wood stove.”

  Barbara, who felt as if she would never be any older than she was at sixteen, was sorry for her old grandmother. Still, she had to hand it to her. Gramma was a game old lady in her high heels.

  “Don’t worry, Gramma,” said Rosemary, also sensing her grandmother’s feelings of age. “I won’t let Greg starve.”

  “I’m sure you won’t, my dear,” said Gramma.

  “And I really can cook a few things.” Rosemary smiled at her grandmother. “Hamburgers and meat loaf and baked potatoes.”

  “Your grandfather always liked a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast,” reminisced Gramma. “He said it stuck to his ribs.”

  Rosemary looked doubtful. “I don’t know whether Greg likes oatmeal or not, but I’m sure I could learn to cook it.”

  Barbara admired her sister for tactfully not telling her grandmother she herself detested oatmeal. Or maybe it wasn’t tact at all. Maybe it was love. Maybe Rosemary really would learn to cook oatmeal if Greg wanted it. Rosemary, cooking oatmeal of all things, and early in the morning, too. Rosemary, who always had such a hard time waking up. Barbara smiled to herself. She wondered if Rosemary would learn to eat oatmeal to keep Greg company. That would be the test of love, Rosemary eating oatmeal.

  “Speaking of eating,” said Aunt Josie, “have you had time to choose your silver pattern yet? You must be sure to register it at one of the local jewelers, so your friends will know what pieces to give you for wedding presents.”

  “Oh, we aren’t going to have silver,” said Rosemary.

  “No silver!” Aunt Josie looked most disapproving. “What on earth are you going to eat with? Your fingers?”

  “Stainless steel,” answered Rosemary. “Greg and I feel that there are many handsome patterns in stainless steel and more important things to do in life than polish silver.”

  This produced complete silence from the older women. Barbara understood. She did not like to polish silver either. On the other hand, there were such pretty silverware patterns in all the women’s magazines. It seemed a shame…. It would be such fun to open packages from the jewelry store. Oh well, Rosemary probably classed silverware as things; and as long as she could be persuaded to have a real wedding, Barbara was willing to concede her stainless steel instead of silver.

  Rosemary was oblivious to the disapproving quality of the silence. “And Greg knows the most wonderful couple who make pottery on their own potter’s wheel. They fire it and everything. We’re going to commission them to make us a set of dishes. Greg says that in our own small way we will be patrons of the arts.”

  The older women were not just silent. They were speechless. Don’t let them laugh, thought Barbara suddenly, please don’t let them laugh. Rosemary is so serious.

  “We thought we could have something in warm earth tones,” Rosemary continued, unaware of the astonished silence she had created. “And I can make place mats out of burlap. Greg says burlap has a very handsome texture. And it’s inexpensive.” This was the new, practical Rosemary speaking.

  She’s overdoing it all the way, thought Barbara. No pretty dishes, no pastel linens, that practical suit. The whole thing, from Barbara’s point of view, was beginning to sound just plain dreary. If this went on, she and Greg would probably spend their honeymoon picketing something.

  It was Gramma who spoke first. “What nonsense!” she snapped, sitting up straight, no longer appearing crumpled in her chair. Gramma in her old age was often less tender of other people’s feelings than they were of hers. “No matter how you look at it, burlap is still gunnysack material.”

  “Surely, Rosemary, you want some pretty things,” said Aunt Josie. “Of course you do. Every bride does.”

  Barbara now foresaw another hazard to a pretty wedding. Aunt Josie could make Rosemary stubborn. She often had that effect on her relatives. There was no telling what the wedding would be like if that happened. Rosemary would probably get so practical she wouldn’t even want a new suit. She would probably wear that blue one she had bought for Easter two years ago.

  “Earth tones, indeed!” sputtered Gramma. “Dirt colored is more like it. If you think I’m going to waste my money giving you any clunky old pottery that scratches the table, you are mistaken.”

  “Now, Mother,” said Mrs. MacLane, “Rosemary really hasn’t had time to think over what she really wants. There is plenty of time for her to decide before the wedding.”

  Now Rosemary was injured. “Mother, I’m not a child. Greg and I know what we want.”

  “Of course she’ll change her mind,” said Aunt Josie briskly.

  Inevitably Rosemary began to look stubborn. It was her wedding, and she was not going to have her relatives tell her what to do with it. She had stood her ground against Greg’s mother; she could stand her ground against her Aunt Josie.

  “Of course she will change her mind,” said Gramma, “and she will choose a pretty china pattern, too.”

  “Now, Mother. It is her wedding, you know,” said Mrs. MacLane gently. “Each generation has to be a little bit different. Otherwise the world would come to a standstill.”

  And there was Gramma looking crumpled and pitiful again. “Of course it is her wedding,” she said with a sigh. “But I don’t know what gets into girls these days. They seem to be afraid of pretty things. Well, I guess the world is changing. Young men didn’t smash atoms in my day either.”

  Barbara considered her grandmother thoughtfully. If she was upset now, wait until she heard what came next. That suit.

  “Now, Mother, don’t you worry,” said Aunt Josie. “We’ll give Rosemary a lo
vely wedding, and she will be the prettiest bride you ever saw.”

  I hope she will, thought Barbara fervently, that suit looming before her. I hope we have a pretty bride with at least one pretty attendant. That was all she asked.

  “The box!” said Gramma, suddenly sitting up on the edge of her chair. “I completely forgot about the box. I got it out of the closet and put it out where I would be sure to remember it, and then I came away without it. I declare, my memory is getting worse every day.” She sank back, worried and disappointed.

  “I brought it,” said efficient Aunt Josie. “It’s out in the back of the car.”

  “Run and get it,” ordered Gramma, for the moment forgetting that her daughter was a grown woman and not a child.

  “What box?” asked Rosemary, when Aunt Josie had gone out to the car.

  “You’ll see,” said Gramma with a smile.

  Barbara, who was sure she knew what was in the box, glanced at her mother and saw that she looked tired and resigned.

  In a moment Aunt Josie returned with a large suit box, which she laid on her mother’s lap. The family waited while Gramma’s gnarled and trembling fingers picked at the knots in the string. Finally she was able to lift the lid and lay it on the floor, and her old hands folded back the tissue paper, brittle with age, and revealed the folds of a wedding veil.

  “Why, Gramma!” gasped Rosemary.

  “Oh.” Barbara had never seen such lace. It was gossamer, scattered with flowers and bordered with the most delicate scallops. And she had pictured it looking something like an old lace curtain.

  “I’ve saved it over fifty years….” Gramma fumbled for her handkerchief.

  Barbara was beginning to see what her mother meant by a wedding’s being an occasion for sentiment. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue…. If Rosemary disapproved of sentiment, how would she react to this?

  Gramma wiped the corner of her eye. One of her daughters had not married at all, the other had had a wartime wedding in an army camp, while Gramma’s veil had lain in its tissue paper for over half a century.

  Barbara suddenly felt a little sad herself. Poor old Gramma with her memories. It was so sad to see her sitting there with her wedding veil on her lap, not knowing that modern, unsentimental Rosemary was going to disappoint her. Barbara glanced at her mother. The anxious crease between her brows showed the distress in her mind. She did not want to see her mother, who was almost eighty, disappointed, but neither did she want a wedding in keeping with the veil.

  “Father gave me a beautiful wedding, even though I was marrying a poor boy,” said Gramma, as her shaky hands lifted the veil, creamy with age, from the box. “Of course that was before he lost his money on mining and streetcar stocks. I had six bridesmaids and two flower girls.” She unfolded the veil, let it fall to the floor, and sat looking at it, her face soft with memory.

  I can’t bear it, thought Barbara, unable to look at her sister. It was all so sad and sentimental. She blinked back her tears. Poor old Gramma.

  She wanted to reassure her grandmother by saying, I’ll wear it, Gramma. I’ll wear it when my turn comes. As she watched her mother and Aunt Josie help to spread the veil, her thoughts flew to Bill Cunningham, whom she had not had a chance to mention to Rosemary. If in a month or two they began to go steady and went steady for a year and then got engaged and were engaged for a year, by that time she would be as old as Rosemary was now…. Buster jumped down from her lap and stalked across the room to investigate this strange new thing.

  “Barbara, put that cat out.” Mrs. MacLane spoke so crisply that the contrast between her words and the atmosphere of the room was a relief to Barbara, who willingly opened the door and shoved Buster out.

  “It is real princess lace,” said Aunt Josie. “You just don’t see lace like that anymore.”

  Rosemary bent over to examine the veil, holding her hands, with her fingers spread, beneath it, so they appeared to be seen through a creamy mist.

  Tell Gramma about the suit, Barbara mentally pleaded with her sister. Tell her and get it over. Don’t let her get her hopes up.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Rosemary softly. “Just beautiful.” Rosemary smiled at her grandmother. “Thank you, Gramma. Thank you for saving it for me.”

  Barbara, standing beside her sister, threw her arms around Rosemary and hugged her. She hugged her for her kindness to Gramma, she hugged her for being sentimental, she hugged her because she was so happy. No bride could wear a veil like Gramma’s with a suit. And no bride in such a veil could walk down the aisle unattended.

  Chapter 7

  Barbara and Bill were sitting on the front steps of the MacLane house with a plate of butterscotch refrigerator cookies between them. This time Barbara had hidden the cookie canister in her closet, so Gordy could not find it and eat up all the cookies before Bill brought her home from school on his Vespa. Barbara had been telling Bill about Rosemary and Greg and how they planned to continue school after they were married.

  “Good cookies,” said Bill, reaching for another.

  “Thank you,” answered Barbara. How nice he looked with his shirt open at the throat—tanned, healthy, confident.

  “You’re a good cook,” said Bill.

  Barbara smiled modestly. The cookies had been bought already mixed and chilled at the supermarket. All she had to do was peel off the plastic wrapper, slice them, and bake them. She was taking chemistry, and there was, after all, a limit to the number of cookies she had time to bake, even for Bill Cunningham.

  “I think you should kiss me,” said Bill suddenly.

  With effort Barbara managed to hide her startled feelings. Was he joking? Or did Bill really want to kiss her? “What for?” Barbara appeared calm, a little detached, as if kissing Bill was an impersonal matter she could consider and either accept or reject on its merits. Actually she was thinking, Kiss Bill? Here? On the front steps in front of the whole neighborhood?

  “It’s our anniversary,” said Bill, as if he was reminding her.

  “How stupid of me to have forgotten,” said Barbara, stalling for time to find out if Bill was only joking. “Which anniversary do you mean?”

  “Don’t tell me you have forgotten so soon.” Bill shook his head. “It was just two weeks ago today that the sound truck played our song.”

  “Of course. Chattanooga Choochoo,” cried Barbara, flattered that he had remembered the exact day. “Our second anniversary! How could I have forgotten?” She glanced hastily up and down the street, and when she saw no one, she closed her eyes, tilted back her head, and leaned across the cookie plate toward Bill. His lips barely brushed hers, and when she opened her eyes he was grinning at her. To her annoyance, she felt color rising to her cheeks. It was embarrassing to be betrayed by her blushes when she had meant to carry off the whole incident with careless gaiety. “Have another cookie,” she said with calculated nonchalance.

  “Thanks, I believe I will.”

  From inside the house came the sound of the television set, and Barbara wondered uneasily if Gordy had been looking out the front window a moment ago. Well, what if he had? It had been an innocent kiss, scarcely a kiss at all. Still, the knowledge that Gordy might have been watching took some of the pleasure out of the moment. For once she hoped he had been in the kitchen eating beans out of a tin can.

  When Bill had eaten the last cookie and had ridden off down the hill on his motor scooter, Barbara took the mail out of the mailbox, noticed with interest that there was a letter on good-quality paper for her mother from Greg’s mother, and stepped into the living room. Gordy was not there. Only Buster sat in front of the television set, his crossed eyes staring fascinated at a cartoon program. “Gordy!” she called out. “Are you planning to watch this program?”

  “No,” Gordy called back from his room. “I turned it on for Buster.”

  Barbara snapped off the set, and Buster fixed her with his evil eyes. “Oh, you,” she said crossly. She held the envelope fr
om Greg’s mother up to the light, but she could not read a word. She tossed it onto a table beside an envelope covered with figures in her mother’s writing, which she picked up and examined curiously. It was a rough list of wedding expenses. The total shocked Barbara. She had no idea a wedding cost this much. The wedding dress, flowers…all the items that had never occurred to her…the organist’s fee, postage for wedding invitations. Beside the list of wedding expenses was another column of figures. Life insurance, car insurance, health insurance, car payments. The total of this column also shocked Barbara. No wonder her mother had hoped Gramma would forget about her wedding veil.

  Gordy appeared in the door of his room, his guitar in hand. “What did you go and turn that TV off for?” he demanded.

  “Wasting TV on a cat.” Barbara was scornful.

  “Buster likes cartoons,” said Gordy. “Cats get bored the same as people.”

  “Then he should be out catching mice or getting in cat fights or something,” said Barbara. “He should do cat things, not people things.”

  Gordy struck a jangling chord on his guitar. “I saw you smooching out in front with the Cunning Ham.”

  So Gordy had been watching. The thing to do was put him on the defensive as quickly as possible. “Smooch. What a quaint old-fashioned word,” she said, displaying an amusement that she did not feel.

  “It was quaint old-fashioned smooching.” Gordy was not going to accept the defensive.

  “Bill Cunningham and I were not smooching.” Barbara enunciated each syllable clearly and distinctly. “And why don’t you mind your own business?”

  “Ha,” said Gordy darkly. He disappeared into his room, where he began to sing, “Love, oh love, oh careless love.”

  That Gordy. Of all the millions and billions of thirteen-year-old boys in the world, why did she have to draw Gordy for a brother? And having drawn him, why did he have to be looking out the window at that particular instant? She wondered if he was going to tell her father and what she should say if he did. It would be difficult to explain that Bill’s lips had barely brushed hers in what could scarcely be called a kiss. And if she tried to explain, her father was almost certain to say, “Define your terms. What is a kiss?” And then she would have to say, “When somebody touches somebody with his lips.” And he would say, “It sounds to me as if you were kissing Bill Cunningham out on the front steps.”