The Amateur Marriage Read Free Page B

after one or another of the men had passed through loading his plate. When they stood back to watch the dancing, they tended to clasp their hands on their stomachs as if folding them beneath aprons, even though not a one of them actually wore an apron. They commented on Grandfather Kowalskis sprightly step, on the evident chill between the Wysockis (newlyweds), and—of course—on Katie Vilna’s unbelievable nerve. “I swear, she has no shame,” Mrs. Golka said. “I’d die if one of my girls was to chase a boy that way.”
    “Fine chance she has, anyhow, with that Pauline person in the picture.”
    “Where is Pauline, though? Wouldn’t you think she would be here?”
    “She’s not coming,” Wanda announced.
    Wanda had approached unnoticed, her footsteps drowned out by the music. (Otherwise, the women never would have said what they did about Katie.) She forked a kielbasa onto her plate. She said, “Pauline’s miffed that Michael wouldn’t call for her.”
    “Call for her?”
    “At her folks’ house.”
    “But why—?”
    “He wanted to spare his mother’s feelings. You know how his mother can be. He told Pauline to meet him here; they’d act like it was just happenstance when they ran into each other. And first she said okay, but then I guess she reconsidered because when I phoned her this evening, she told me she wasn’t coming. She said she was the kind of girl a fellow should be proud to be seen with, not all ashamed and hidey-corner.”
    Wanda moved off toward the dessert table, leaving a silence behind her. “Well, she’s right,” Mrs. Golka said finally. “A girl has to set some standards.”
    “He was only thinking of his mother, though.”
    “And what good will that do him, might I ask, when Dolly Anton’s dead and gone and Michael’s a seedy old bachelor?”
    “For mercy’s sake,” Mrs. Pozniak said, “the boy is twenty years old! He’s got a long way to go before he’s a seedy old bachelor.”
    Mrs. Golka didn’t seem convinced. She was gazing after Wanda. “But does he know,” she said, “or not?”
    “Know what?”
    “Does he know that Pauline’s miffed? Did Wanda tell him?”
    Now several of the women began to show some sense of urgency. “Wanda!” one called. “Wanda Bryk!”
    She turned, her plate in midair.
    “Did you tell Michael that Pauline’s not coming?”
    “No, she wants him to worry,” Wanda said, and she turned back and plucked a pastry from a tray.
    There was another silence. Then, “Ah,” the women said in unison.
    The Dulcetones stopped playing and Mr. Kowalski tapped the microphone, sending a series of furry-sounding thwacks through the hall. “On behalf of myself and Barbara . . .” he said. His lips were too close to the mike and each b was an explosion. Several people covered their ears. Meanwhile, the children were getting up a game of Duck, Duck, Goose, and the babies were fussing themselves to sleep in nests of their mothers’ coats, and several young men near the beer kegs were growing loud-voiced and boastful.
    So nobody noticed when Michael slipped away. Or maybe he didn’t slip away; maybe he walked out openly. Even his mother was absorbed by then in the goings-on, the speeches wishing Jerry well and the prayer from Father Pasko and the cheers and the rounds of applause.
    But they noticed when he returned, all right, later in the evening. Here he came, brave as you please, leading Pauline by the hand through the big plank doors. And when he helped her take her coat off—which no one had even realized Michael knew to do—it emerged that she was wearing a slim black dress that set her apart from the other girls in their lace-up waistcoats and drawstring blouses and flouncy embroidered skirts. But it was her eyes that caused the most comment. They were wet. Each of those long lashes was a separate, damp spike. And the smile she gave Wanda Bryk was the rueful, wan, chastened smile of someone who had just come through a crying