Dance of the Happy Shades

it off. I didn’t relish anybody’s saliva in my hair but I let him, just warning him that if he did bite it off he would haveto pay for me going to the hairdresser’s to get it evened. He didn’t act that night like anybody that is going off to be
married
.
    Momma and Alma went on talking and speculating and I got sleepier and sleepier. I heard Alma say, “Worse things could happen. I had four years of living hell.” And Momma say, “He was always the soul of kindness and he doted on that girl.” I wondered how I could possibly be so sleepy, this early in the evening and after having a nap in the afternoon. Alma said, “Its very good you’re sleepy, its nature’s way. Nature’s way, just like an anaesthetic.” They both got me upstairs and into bed and I never heard them go down.
    I didn’t wake up early, either. I got up when I usually did and got my own breakfast. I could hear Momma stirring but I yelled to her to stay put, like any other morning. She called down, “Are you sure you want to go to work? I could phone Mr. Hawes you’re sick.” I said, “Why should I give any of them the satisfaction?” I did my makeup at the hall mirror without a light and went out and walked the two and a half blocks to King’s, not noticing what kind of a morning it was, beyond the fact that it hadn’t turned into spring overnight. Inside the store they were waiting, oh, how nice, good morning Helen, good morning Helen, such quiet kind hopeful voices waiting to see if I’m going to fall flat on the floor and start having hysterics. Mrs. McCool, Beryl Allen with her engagement ring, Mrs. Kress that got jilted herself twenty-five years ago and then took up with somebody else—Kress—and
he
vanished. What’s she looking at me for? Old Hawes chewing his tongue when he smiles. I said good morning perfectly cheerfully and went on upstairs thanking God I have my own washroom and thinking, I bet this will be a big day for Children’s Wear. It was, too. I never had a morning with so many mothers in to buy a hair ribbon or a little pair of socks, willing to climb that stairs for it.
    I phoned Momma I wouldn’t be home at noon. I thought I’d just go over to the Queen’s Hotel and have a hamburger, with all the radio people I hardly know. But at a quarter to twelve in comes Alma. “I wouldn’t let you eat by yourself
this
day!” So we have to go to the Queen’s Hotel together. She was going to make me eat an egg sandwich, not a hamburger, and a glass of milk not coke, because she said my digestion was probably in a state, but I vetoed that. She waited till we got our food and were settled down to eating before she said, “Well, they’re back.”
    It took a minute for me to know who. “When?” I said.
    “Last night around supper time. Just when I was driving over to your place to break you the news. I might’ve run into them.”
    “Who told you?”
    “Well Beechers live next to MacQuarries, don’t they?” Mrs. Beecher teaches Grade Four, Alma Grade Three. “Grace saw them. She had already read the paper so she knew who it was.”
    “What is she like?” I said in spite of myself.
    “She’s no juvenile, Grace said. His age, anyway. What did I tell you it was his sister’s friend? And she won’t win any prizes in the looks department. Mind you she’s all
right
.”
    “Is she big or little?” I couldn’t stop now. “Dark or fair?”
    “She had a hat on so Grace couldn’t see the colour of her hair but she thought dark. She’s a big woman. Grace said she had a rear end on her like a grand piano. Maybe she has money.”
    “Did Grace say that too?”
    “No. I said it. Just speculating.”
    “Clare doesn’t need to marry anybody with money.
He
has money.”
    “That’s by our standards, maybe but not by his.”
    I kept thinking through the afternoon that Clare would come round, or at least phone me. Then I could start asking himwhat did he think he had done. I made up in my mind some crazy explanations he might give me, like this poor woman had cancer and only six months to live and she had always been deadly poor (a scrub-woman in his motel) and he wanted to give her a little time of ease. Or that she was blackmailing his brother-in-law about a crooked transaction and he married her to shut her up. But I didn’t have time to think up many stories because of the steady stream of customers. Old ladies puffing up the stairs with some story about birthday presents for their grandchildren.