He shook his head. “I haven’t. I should, I know. But”—he hesitated—“I don’t think they’ll be interested.”
Julia gave a smile she knew was too tight. He’d been avoiding telling his parents for weeks. She believed it was because he was embarrassed to tell them that he’d asked an Italian American girl from a poor family to marry him. He’d told her enough about his upbringing that she knew his father had an impressive job and his mother didn’t need to work. They probably had airs and expectations for their only child, but William wouldn’t admit this, and she wouldn’t state her fear outright. Now she said, in a tight voice to match her tight smile, “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re your parents.”
“Listen,” he said, “I know it would be strange not to invite them to the wedding, but I don’t think we need to invite them.” He saw her face and said, “I’m just being honest. I know it’s unusual.”
“You’ll call them tonight,” she said. “And I’ll be on the phone with you. I’m charming. They’ll adore me.”
William was quiet for a moment, and his eyelids drooped in a way that indicated he had gone far away from her. When he looked up, he regarded her as if she were a problem he needed to solve.
“You love me,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, and the word seemed to settle something inside him. “Okay, let’s do it.”
An hour later, sharing the hard wooden stool in the old-fashioned phone booth in his dorm hallway, they called Boston. William’s mother answered the call, and William said hello. The woman sounded surprised to hear from him, though she was polite. Then Julia spoke—her voice sounding overamplified to her own ears, as if she were speaking through a megaphone—and William’s mother sounded far away. She said she had something in the oven and it was nice they were getting married, but she had to go now.
The entire call was finished in less than ten minutes.
Julia gulped for air when she hung up the receiver, winded from trying to reach, to touch, the distant woman on the end of the line.
When she could speak, she said, “You were right. She doesn’t want to come.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know that’s disappointing to you. Your vision of the wedding had everyone there.”
Julia was pressed against William on the tiny seat. The hallway booth was warm. The temperature and the disappointment and Julia’s sympathy for this boy rose inside her—this boy who deserved parents who kissed his cheek the way her parents kissed hers. They had planned not to have sex until they were married, though they had come close to breaking that resolution once or twice. The remote woman on the phone had handed William off to Julia in a way that felt as significant as a wedding vow. She needed to take care of him; she needed to love him, with every part of her. In fact, she had to, right now. She was flushed, her skirt was twisted around her waist because of the seating arrangement, and she needed to be closer to him in order for anything to be all right.
She said, “Can we have privacy in your room?”
His roommate was gone for the summer. William nodded, a question on his face.
She took his hand and led him down the hall, into his room, and locked the door behind them.
Sylvie
August 1981–June 1982
The Lozano Library overlooked a three-way intersection in the center of Pilsen. Sylvie loved every inch of the spacious library and the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that showed whatever light and weather the city had to offer. She loved how the library welcomed everyone and how the librarians dutifully answered every question presented to them, no matter how arcane or ridiculous. Sylvie had been working in the library since she was thirteen; she’d started by shelving books and now, at the age of twenty, she bore the title of librarian’s assistant.
Sylvie was shelving copies of What Color Is Your Parachute? when Ernie, a boy her age with a dimple in his chin, smiled his way into her row. They had gone to high school together, and he sometimes stopped by after his morning session of electrician school. After checking that no one else was in sight, Sylvie stepped into his arms. They kissed for about ninety seconds, making two slow turns down the aisle with his hand on her lower back, and then she tapped him on the shoulder, and he was gone.
Sylvie told Julia she kissed boys to practice for her great love, and that was true. But she also did it because it was fun. She’d waited through her entire childhood, scanning classrooms for her person, her version of Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables. Sylvie hadn’t found him yet, but she enjoyed the thrill that accompanied a boy taking her in his arms. Sylvie was naturally shy and bookish; she’d blushed when Ernie looked into her eyes. “I’m getting better at kissing,” she told Julia when they returned to the subject at night in their beds. “It’s clearly a learned skill.”
Julia had shaken her head. “People are talking about what you’re doing with those boys. If Mama hears about it…” There was no need to finish this sentence, because they both knew Rose would be furious. And if Sylvie tried to explain that she was practicing for the love of her life, Rose would be bewildered and probably lock Sylvie in her room. Rose had never uttered the word love in front of the girls; they simply knew she loved them because of the furious attention she pinned on them. They also knew, in the same unspoken way, that Rose loved Charlie. It was because she loved him that Rose had been so disappointed by her marriage and why it was essential that her girls grow up strong and educated, able to stand on their own two feet, unbowed by something as tricky and undependable as love.
Julia used to dismiss the idea of love too, but now she was in love with William Waters. Sylvie found it fascinating to watch the person she knew better than anyone succumb to romance. Julia walked through her days smiling, unbothered by things that normally ruffled her: the sight of Charlie pouring a second or third drink; Cecelia sliding into her chair, late for dinner; Emeline playing outside with younger neighborhood kids, when Julia considered her too old to do so. Love had made Julia happier and lighter, but she saw it as part of a well-constructed life, not a reason for living, like Sylvie did.