Christina
Dr. O seemed tense at the office. Daisy was sweeping up more figurines than usual. Christina kept count of them. One day there were five dwarfs left on the shelf, and the next, only three. A few days later Daisy took her aside. “He can’t decide whether to take the offer to open a practice in Las Vegas or not. His friends are building a modern medical-dental center and they’re begging him to come. If he does, I’m willing to go with him. What about you, Christina—would you consider starting a new life after graduation?”
“You mean move to Las Vegas?”
“If he decides to go.”
“I don’t know. Jack would have to want to go, too.”
“You should tell him there will be great jobs for an electrician out there. Think of all the hotels they’re building.”
“But it’s so far away.”
“It is far away. I can’t deny that.”
“My parents…”
“I know. It’s hard to leave family behind.”
“They’d never agree to let me go.”
“But you’d have plenty of vacation time to come home and visit. And you could make it a two-year commitment, like going away to college, except instead of paying, you get paid. You’d make good money, too.”
“But I wouldn’t know anyone.”
“You’d know me. And Dr. O. And you and Jack would make new friends.”
“Jack is 1-A. He could get called up at any time.”
“Let’s hope that ridiculous war ends before then.”
“Daisy—can I tell you something? You’d have to keep it to yourself. I mean it, no one can know. But if I don’t tell someone, I’m going to explode.”
“You can trust me, Christina.”
“I know I can.”
Daisy waited for more.
Christina finally bit the bullet and blurted out, “Jack and I are secretly married. We eloped to Elkton.”
Daisy came out from behind her desk. “Oh, Christina.” She put her arms around her. “I hope you’ll be very happy.” Then, “You didn’t have to get married, did you?”
Christina laughed. “No. And that doctor you sent me to…he fitted me for a diaphragm so I won’t have to worry.”
“When are you going to tell your parents?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Well, don’t say anything about Las Vegas yet. First, Dr. O has to make up his mind. But I have a feeling he’s going to do it, and I admit I’m kind of excited about going. I’m starting to feel like a pioneer.”
A pioneer, Christina thought. The Wild West. She’d have to learn to ride a horse, she supposed. The idea of it made her giddy.
Daisy
Christina and Jack were married! She knew Christina had something on her mind but a secret marriage had never occurred to her. She should have guessed. Hadn’t she done the same at Christina’s age—running off with Gerald Dupree, né Dorfman, to Elkton? Gerald Dupree. What a name. And Daisy Dupree—even better. A fabulous name, she’d thought at the time, a name fit for a stripper, or, even better, a movie star, which made her laugh—the only good thing that had come out of her hasty young marriage, annulled two weeks after they’d eloped.
But that was a lifetime ago. Gerry had been older, twenty-five to her eighteen. He’d been working for ten years by then, for the Stasio boys, number runners, then bootleggers. It was 1936, times were hard. She was a year out of Linden High School, where she’d won every award in the business program—for typing, steno, bookkeeping. She was lucky to find a job working as a secretary for an insurance agent in Newark. She wasn’t his número uno, as he called his longtime secretary, but he liked Daisy, admired her for her organizational skills. With her first paycheck she went for an eye exam, got prescription glasses and the difference in the way she could see felt like a miracle.
Tall, with perfect skin and thick dark hair cut short, a good body, excellent posture, Daisy could have passed for twenty-five. Her older sister, Evelyn, had taught her a thing or two about using makeup, about flirting.
She’d met Gerald Dupree at a lunch counter, where they’d both ordered split-pea soup. When their checks came he put down the fifteen cents to pay for hers. She married him on a whim, two months later.
She knew what to expect on her wedding night, but nothing beyond that. In a motel outside Elkton, Gerry became frustrated with her. “What’s going on down there?” he’d asked.
“How should I know?” she’d answered.
“I can’t get in.”
“I told you—I’m a virgin.”
“I’ve had my share of virgins, baby, but this is something else.”