The Bride's House (38 page)

*   *   *

On New Year’s Eve, the house shone in the light of white candles set in the evergreens and red poinsettias. Pearl and Susan had baked a ham and a turkey, prepared side dishes and canapés, and Frank had driven to Denver for champagne and liquor, caviar and petits fours. The invitations suggested formal Victorian dress, and Susan rummaged through trunks in the storeroom until she came across a dove-gray gown that made a perfect background for the silver snowflake Joe had given her. Joe arrived in a black suit of his grandfather’s, a beaver top hat on his head. Others came smelling like mothballs, and some who had misunderstood the invitations were clad as prospectors. Peggy was dressed as a dance-hall girl, with fishnet stockings and plunging neckline. A few of the younger guests drank too much, Peggy among them. Joe had to take her home, and to Susan’s disappointment, he missed the stroke of midnight and the toasts to 1951. He came back as the guests were leaving, and offered to help clean up, but Pearl said they’d worry about that in the morning. She and Frank were exhausted, and they were going to bed.

Joe and Susan were not tired, however. So because the house was stale from the cigarette smoke and the candles that had guttered in their holders, they went out. The temperature was near zero, and Susan put on her mother’s Persian lamb coat and a wool scarf, while Joe donned the top hat, and the two walked up Sixth Street, past shop windows still decorated for Christmas. They passed the Red Ram, the town bar, where a pair of drunken soldiers came out of the door, glasses in their hands. One of them stumbled and sloshed his drink onto Susan’s fur.

“Watch it, fellow,” Joe told him. The soldier, offended, put up his fists, but Joe only laughed at him. “Happy New Year to you,” he said, and he and Susan went on, leaving the revelers covered with confetti and blowing tin horns. They walked through the dark streets of the old residential district, where the Victorian houses were decorated with evergreen wreaths and garlands, just as they had been the only Christmas that Susan’s grandparents had spent together. Susan found the scene enchanting and thought spending Christmas in Georgetown had been a brilliant idea.

The two reached the park and sat on the steps of the bandstand, talking about their studies and the upcoming election, about politics and President Truman and the Korean War. “It’s wrong. Our boys are going to die there. Think about it. Guys we know won’t come back,” Joe said. Susan remembered Peter then and shivered. She hadn’t told Joe about Peter; in fact, she hadn’t thought much about Peter since she’d left school, hadn’t exchanged Christmas presents or even cards with him. But why should she? It wasn’t as if there was anything but a good time between them. Peter wasn’t Joe Bullock.

She had ruined her satin slippers in the slush, and her feet were cold, so they didn’t stay long in the park. Joe put out his hand to help her up, and then he kissed her and said, “Happy New Year.” It wasn’t much of a kiss, not like last summer. It was the sort of kiss you’d give anybody on New Year’s Eve, and she was disappointed.

Still, Joe held her hand as they hurried back to the Bride’s House, and once inside, he agreed to have another glass of champagne. She opened a fresh bottle, and while Joe built up the fire Susan poured the champagne into stemmed glasses, and they toasted the New Year.

They sat across from each other on the love seats, Joe with his tie tossed aside, Susan rubbing her stocking feet because they were red with cold. In a moment, Joe sat beside her, saying, “Let me do that,” and he began to warm her feet in his hands. “What changes do you think we’ll see a year from now?” he asked after a time.

“A new President for sure.”

“Not that. I’m talking about you and me, us.”

Susan didn’t know what “us” meant, because Joe had never said anything about the two of them, so she replied, “I guess I’ll be a sophomore, and you’ll be getting ready for law school. Or maybe you’ll be drafted.” She turned and faced him. “I’d hate that, Joe, if you got drafted and sent to Korea.”

He shrugged, and Susan leaned back against the love seat. “I mean us. Do you think we’ll be together to celebrate next New Year’s?” he asked. Susan had barely touched her champagne, but Joe had finished his and refilled his glass—twice. He’d been drinking during the evening, too.

“That would be nice,” she replied, hoping “us” meant the two of them as a couple. She didn’t want Joe to know she assumed that, however, so she said, “Maybe Mother and Father will want to spend Christmas here again next year.”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m asking whether you think we have a future together, you and me?”

Susan studied his face in the firelight, his head down a little, his curly hair falling over his forehead. His brown eyes seemed to bore into her, seeing all the way to her heart. She wanted to tell him yes, but she was too unsure of herself. “You saved my life,” she said instead.

“I guess that means I have a claim on you.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

Joe brought his head close to hers, and she could feel his breath on her cheek. “I’m not sure. You’re pretty special, you know. You always have been. I’ve been thinking…” He didn’t finish.

“Thinking what?”

“I don’t know. It’s a long time out. I’ve got to finish college and law school before I can even think about getting married.” He poured more champagne and drank it down.

“Married?” she said in a tiny voice, not able to look at him for fear she hadn’t heard him right. Instead, she stared across the room at the Christmas tree, the branches thin, set far apart. If Bert hadn’t cut it down, the tree might have grown as tall as the jackpines in front of the Bride’s House. The tinsel glittered in the light from the fire. “What are you saying?” she asked.

Joe didn’t answer for a while. “I’m saying I think you’re the greatest girl I know, and I think I might be in love with you.” He gave a self-conscious laugh. “How’s that for a way to start the New Year?”

The firelight seemed to glow inside Susan now, as she heard the words she had longed for, heard Joe say he loved her … well, maybe he loved her, but that was good enough. “You’re what?” she asked when Joe was silent.

“You heard me. I never said that to anybody before.” He took Susan’s champagne glass out of her hand and set it on the table beside the love seat, but it rolled off and fell onto the floor. Joe ignored it as he pushed Susan down on the sofa and began kissing her—her face, her neck, her shoulders. He stopped and put his mouth against hers, and she kissed him back, kissed him long and hard and pushed her tongue into his mouth the way Peter kissed her.

Joe sat up and held her tight, and she could feel him grope at the stays and lacings and bands of her Victorian dress. “Who designed this, your mother?” he asked, his voice low.

“I think it was my grandmother. It has hooks and eyes.” She sat up so that Joe could unfasten the dress, and then his hands were all over her, warm against her skin, touching her, making her radiate happiness. Peter had tried that with her, but she hadn’t let him. But Joe was different. She loved him.

Then suddenly, Joe pulled away. “This isn’t right.”

“Why?” Susan asked with a little cry. Her heart dropped. Had she done something wrong? She wanted to tell him, “Don’t stop.”

“I’m sorry. I never should have started this. It’s the champagne. I’m not used to it.” He stood up and picked up his tie. “I’ve been a real jerk. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not a jerk,” she cried.

He stared at Susan, her crushed dress shining like wrinkled silver paper in the candlelight. “I should have kept my mouth shut. I didn’t mean to say … you know,” he finished lamely. Then suddenly, he grabbed his coat and the hat, and without another word, he opened the front door and left.

“Joe,” Susan called. But he had shut the door, and she was alone.

She stayed there a long time, gray dawn seeping through the windows, the fire dying, the candles burning down and then going out. Just a few minutes before, she had been glowing with happiness, knowing that Joe loved her and was thinking of their future together. But then he left—walked out on her—leaving her miserable, thinking that she had experienced both the beginning and the end of a love affair in one night.

CHAPTER 16

J
OE DIDN
’
T WRITE TO
S
USAN
after she returned to school. Nor did he phone. She thought how great it would have been if he really had proposed and she’d returned to school with an engagement ring, had announced it by blowing out the candle at dinner in the sorority house. But he hadn’t, and Susan was bewildered, at times angry and at others sad. She didn’t understand what had happened between them, but she knew that Joe’s silence meant he didn’t care. She picked up her life as it had been before the Christmas vacation, dating boys she met in classes or at fraternity exchanges, attending parties and basketball and hockey games with them.

And she continued to go out with Peter Fanshaw when he could get away from the base, because he was the most interesting man she’d met in Denver. She took him to sorority dances, but Peter was a poor dancer and had little in common with the girls in the sorority house. Once or twice, they went bowling with Peter’s friends, fellows with their hair in ducktails, packs of cigarettes in the rolled-up sleeves of their T-shirts, girls with poodle cuts and pierced ears. Susan was no more at ease with them than Peter was with her college friends, however, so usually the two of them spent their time alone.

Peter took her to the Crimson and Gold or the Stadium Inn, two bars near DU where they drank beer, Susan using a fake ID borrowed from a sorority sister. On occasion, they went to jazz clubs in Five Points, the Negro section of Denver, or on Colfax, where Peter sat in with the musicians, playing drums. Sometimes they just met in City Park and walked around the big lake, finding an isolated bench where they could neck. Peter was nice and funny and incredibly good-looking, and he liked to kiss her, to run his hands over her. He was more experienced than Joe, Susan thought, feeling a twinge of regret that Joe wasn’t the one kissing her. She felt a little guilty, too, because it was Joe she loved. But he had treated her shabbily. He’d said he loved her, and then he’d run off and never even written. Maybe he’d lied and didn’t care about her at all. He wasn’t part of her life now, so why shouldn’t she enjoy herself with Peter Fanshaw?

In February, Peter invited her to go skiing. He’d learned to ski with his Air Force buddies and promised Susan that she would love it. They drove up into the mountains with another couple, Alan and Cynthia, an Air Force man and his wife, went to Berthoud Pass, which wasn’t far from Georgetown. Alan strapped on skis and took off, while Cynthia stayed at the bottom of the hill, watching. “You couldn’t pay me to do that. They’re crazy,” she told Susan.

Peter rented skis for both of them and put on his own while Susan stared at the steep runs, thinking she could never maneuver them in the long skis, shivering when she remembered the avalanche at Christmas. She saw a woman fall on the slope, sliding into a tree. “I don’t know. Maybe I should just watch this time. That way, I can get the hang of it without breaking my leg,” she told Peter.

“Oh, come on. It’s not hard.”

Susan made a face. “I’m not very athletic.”

Peter stood and stabbed his pole into the snow. “I didn’t think you’d be afraid.”

Susan stared at him for a moment, thinking she would not have said no if Joe had asked her. She liked Peter and was unnerved by the disappointment in his eyes. He’d told her she was different from other college girls, more serious, less frivolous. “Oh, it’s not that,” Susan replied. She wanted to tell him about the avalanche, but then she’d have to mention Joe, and she didn’t want to do that. So she took a deep breath and said, “I guess I’ll try it since you paid for the ski rental.”

“Good girl,” Peter said, and helped her with her skis.

They grabbed onto the rope tow that pulled them up the mountain, then Peter showed Susan how to maneuver her skis, how to turn, and more important, how to stop. They started down slowly, Peter coaching Susan, and when after a long time, they reached the bottom, Susan hadn’t fallen once. She was not so lucky the second time. One ski crossed over the other, and she tumbled, then slid to the edge of the run. As Peter helped her up, he asked, “Are you hurt?”

“Only my pride,” Susan said, although for a moment, she had panicked, feeling that she was being carried along in a snowslide.

“You can spare a little of that.”

Susan made a snowball and threw it at Peter, hitting him in the chest. Peter grabbed a handful of snow and put it down Susan’s neck. “Don’t mess with me,” he said, and she knew he wasn’t joking.

They skied for nearly three hours, until Cynthia said she was bored and wanted to go home. So Alan and Peter and Susan returned their skis, and the three of them headed for a warming hut that sold hot dogs and candy bars. Susan lagged behind the others as she zipped her jacket, and at that moment an out-of-control skier careened down the slope, people jumping out of his way. But Susan didn’t see him, and he knocked her down.

Peter lifted her to her feet, and when she said she was only a little bruised, he turned to the man who had run into her. “You hurt the lady.”

The man ignored Peter as he looked around for a ski that had come off.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.” Peter grabbed the skier’s arm.