Sister of the Bride (8 page)

“Maybe I can do a little work before Aunt Josie and Gramma get here. I'm doing a paper on ‘Plato: Teacher and Theorist,'” said Rosemary, picking up her books. “Millions of footnotes, when all I want to do is think about Greg.”

It was not long before Aunt Josie's little car was heard turning into the driveway, and through the window Barbara saw Aunt Josie climb out and hurry around to the other side to assist Gramma out of the car before she could get out by herself. The whole family worried for fear Gramma might fall and break her hip someday. She
would
wear those high heels, much too high for an old lady. Someone had once told her she had a trim ankle, and Gramma still had her pride.

Aunt Josie, thin and nervous as a windshield wiper, was both fashionable and efficient. Today Barbara noticed, as she opened the front door, that Aunt Josie was wearing a pair of chopsticks, poked crisscross through her chignon. Aunt Josie, who was the buyer for the corset department in the
largest store in the county, always tried to be a little bit different.

“Hello, Barbara dear,” greeted Aunt Josie, and kissed her niece. “How nice to see you.” Then her eye, accurate as a tape measure, appraised Barbara's appearance, and she gave her a little pat. “You must come to the store sometime. We have a nice little garment that would do wonders for you.” Fortunately Aunt Josie did not expect an immediate answer. “Where's Rosemary?” she asked.

“Studying,” answered Barbara, struggling to control her mingled feeling of amusement and irritation. A nice little garment! Well, she
had
eaten a lot of snicker-doodles lately. Maybe they were beginning to show, but she did not intend to wear what her aunt called “a nice little garment.”

“Rosemary, darling!” cried Aunt Josie, when Rosemary came in, and she flew across the room to embrace her niece. “I am so happy for you. A June bride! I just can't believe it. It seems only yesterday that you were sitting in your high chair spitting out strained carrots as fast as I could spoon them into your mouth.”

Barbara observed that Rosemary was not particularly pleased at this picture of herself as an infant.
About to become a married woman, she wanted to think of her childhood as something far away and half forgotten.

“And how you used to love to have me bring empty boxes from the store for you to play with!” Aunt Josie went on.

Rosemary smiled gamely at the thought of herself playing happily among discarded corset boxes.

“Now tell us all about your young man,” said Gramma, settling herself in a chair.

Buster strolled into the living room and sat down, twitching his elegant tail with displeasure. Buster did not care for visitors. They disturbed his rest. Barbara scooped up the cat and held him in her lap, where he regally consented to being petted. It was embarrassing to have a cat that so obviously disliked guests.

“And all about your wedding plans,” added Aunt Josie. “I'm dying to hear about your wedding plans. An afternoon wedding is nicest. About a hundred guests, with a reception afterward at the Women's Club. And something different in the way of music. A little Bach perhaps while the guests are arriving and no Mendelssohn or Lohengrin for the marches. I am so tired of weddings that begin with
dum
dum
de dum. It's no wonder so many brides drag their feet on the way to the altar. I do like a happy bride, one who looks as if she's glad to see the groom. And Betty”—here Aunt Josie turned to her sister—“I do hope you won't look like the cat that swallowed the canary. So often the mother of the bride does, while the mother of the groom struggles to hold back the tears.” Aunt Josie was in good form.

“Now, Josie,” said Gramma, “don't plan Rosemary's wedding for her.”

“I'm not planning her wedding,” protested Aunt Josie. “I was just making a few simple suggestions.”

“I'm sure Rosemary hasn't had time to make up her mind about a lot of things,” Mrs. MacLane said soothingly. “She's very busy with her studies, you know.”

“Well, she'll soon be through with all that,” said Gramma.

“No, Gramma,” said Rosemary. “I'm going to finish college. Greg wants me to.”

“We'll see.” Gramma's mischievous smile implied that Rosemary would soon get over this ridiculous idea.

Rosemary became dignified. “Greg says I will be better equipped to be a wife and mother if I finish college.”

“And I think he's right.” Mrs. MacLane spoke quickly to head off any argument on the subject. “A girl who finishes college does make a better wife and mother. And I wouldn't want Rosemary ever to look back and regret missing it.”

“And what does your young man do for a living?” asked Gramma.

“He's going to school, too,” said Rosemary, “and he works in the Rad Lab part-time—”

“What on earth is the Rad Lab?” interrupted Gramma.

“The Radiation Laboratory. That's where they smash the atoms,” explained Rosemary. “Greg files things and goes to the library for the physicists. Things like that.”

Both Aunt Josie and Gramma looked so disapproving that Rosemary quickly explained. “I don't mean he's going to make a career of filing things. He's working for his general secondary credential, and when he gets it he's going to teach history and English until we can save up enough money for him to go back to school and get his master's degree and his PhD. His job doesn't pay an awful
lot, but we can manage until he finishes school.”

Neither Aunt Josie nor Gramma looked convinced. “It sounds like an ambitious program,” said Aunt Josie skeptically.

“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 lovely 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.