The Falls Read Free

into the sink, sobbing.
    Don’t. Don’t think of it. No one can force you.
    The previous day, arriving in early evening, Ariah had been surprised that, in June, the air was so cold. So damp. The air was so saturated with moisture, the sun in the western sky resembled a street lamp refracted through water. Ariah, who was wearing a short-sleeved poplin dress, shivered and hugged her arms. Gilbert, frowning in the direction of the river, took no notice.
    Gilbert had done all the driving, from Troy, several hundred miles to the east; he’d insisted. He told Ariah it made him nervous to be a passenger in his own car, which was a handsomely polished black 1949
    Packard. Repeatedly on the trip he excused himself and blew his nose, loudly. Averting his face from Ariah. His skin was flushed as if with fever. Ariah murmured several times she hoped he wasn’t coming down with a cold as Mrs. Erskine, Gilbert’s mother, now Ariah’s mother-in-law, had fretted at the luncheon.
    Gilbert was susceptible to sore throats, respiratory infections, si-The Falls X 11
    nus headaches, Mrs. Erskine informed Ariah. He had a “delicate stomach” that couldn’t tolerate spicy foods, or “agitation.”
    Mrs. Erskine had hugged Ariah, who yielded stiffly in the older woman’s plump arms. Mrs. Erskine had begged Ariah to call her
    “Mother”—as Gilbert did.
    Ariah murmured yes. Yes, Mother Erskine.
    Thinking Mother! What does that make Gilbert and me, brother and sister?
    Ariah had tried. Ariah was determined to be an ideal bride, and an ideal daughter-in-law.
    A clamor of church bells. Sunday morning!
    In a strange bed, in a strange city, and lost.
    A female voice chiding in her ear, and a smell of Mother Erskine’s talcumy bosom. If you’ve never drunk anything stronger than sweet cider, Ariah, do you think it’s wise to have a second glass of champagne—so soon after the first?
    Possibly it hadn’t been Gilbert’s mother but Ariah’s own mother.
    Or possibly it had been both mothers at separate times.
    A giggly-shivery bride. In satin and Chantilly lace, fussy little mother-of-pearl buttons, a gossamer veil and lace gloves to the elbow that, peeled off after the luncheon, left small diamond-shaped indentations in her sensitive skin like an exotic rash. At the luncheon, held in the Littrells’ big, gloomy brick residence adjacent to the church, the bride was observed nervously lifting her champagne glass to her lips numerous times. She ate little, and her hand so trembled she dropped a forkful of wedding cake. Her rather small, almond-shaped pebbly-green eyes were continually misting over, as with an allergy.
    She excused herself several times to visit a bathroom. She freshened her lipstick which was bright red as neon; she’d powdered her nose too frequently, and granules of powder were discernible from a short distance. Though she tried to be graceful she was in fact ungainly and gawky as a stork. Pointy elbows, beaky nose. You’d never have thought her an accomplished singer, her voice was scratchy and inaudible. Still, some pronounced Ariah “very charming”—“a beautiful bride.” And yet: those Dixie-cup breasts! She was well aware that 12 W Joyce Carol Oates
    everyone stared at her bosom in the exquisite Chantilly lace bodice, pitying her. She was well aware that everyone pitied Gilbert Erskine, to have married an old maid.
    Another glass of champagne?
    She’d graciously declined. Or, maybe, she’d taken it. For just a few sips.
    Mrs. Littrell, mother-of-the-bride, relieved and anxious in about equal measure, had conceded to Ariah that, yes, it might seem strange to her, a full corset to contain the tiny 32-A breasts, the twenty-two-inch waist, and the thirty-two-inch hips, yes but this is a wedding, the most important day of your life . And the corset provides a garter belt for your sheerest of sheer silk stockings.
    Ariah laughed wildly. Ariah grabbed something, a swath of silk from the astonished seamstress, and