You’re nearly perfect when you finally walk into the kitchen, looking like a fashion plate in your smart tweed suit and new hat. It’s been snowing on and off all morning and a few flakes still cling to your collar, leaving dark flecks of moisture as they melt. As usual, you’re flawless.
For a moment, I regret not putting on a shirt or shoes. What must I look like, standing here in nothing but trousers and an undershirt, my hair still wet from the shower? Then I think—no. It’s fitting that this is how you’ll remember me, proof that you made the right choice after all.
You stop just inside the doorway and stand very still, as if perplexed by my lack of greeting. I’ve been rehearsing my first words to you for more than an hour, but somehow I can’t make myself say them. I’ve been dreading this day for so long, since the first time I kissed you, and now that it’s come, I’m not prepared.
“Say something,” I manage finally.
You frown. “What?”
“Presumably, you’ve come here to say something to me. Say it.”
“I don’t . . . What?”
“In fact, you could have just told me over the phone and saved yourself the cost of the meter.”
You look me up and down, as if I’m a stranger. “Hemi, what’s the matter with you?”
I cross to the table and pick up this morning’s paper. Your photo—and Teddy’s—looks up at me from the page, along with the headline: WEDDING OF THE SEASON SET FOR JUNE. I’ve committed the particulars to memory by now. Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew . . . Waldorf Astoria . . . in a gown designed by English-American couturier Charles James.
“Congratulations,” I say, pushing the paper into your hands. “A June bride. And a reception at the Waldorf. How nice for you.”
You stare at it and then at me. “I didn’t . . . Hemi, I had nothing to do with this.”
Your cheeks have gone a hot, splotchy pink, though I suspect that has more to do with the shame of being caught than with any real outrage. “You’re saying the New York Times ran a story about your upcoming nuptials without your say-so?”
“Yes!”
“They just made up a date? And a venue?”
Your mouth works silently as you fumble for a response, your face growing more flushed by the minute. “It wasn’t me, Hemi. I swear to you.” You stare at the headline again, then finally look up at me. “This has Cee-Cee’s fingerprints all over it. She’s been nagging me for weeks. She obviously thought she could just give them a date and once they printed it, I wouldn’t be able to back out. I’ll kill her.”
I eye you with folded arms, skeptical of your outrage. “What business is it of your sister’s when you get married?”
“You still don’t understand. None of this is about me. It’s about a merger my father’s trying to engineer with Teddy’s father. But Teddy’s parents are getting antsy. Apparently they’ve made some comments about me dragging my feet.”
“And Teddy? Is he getting antsy?”
“Teddy?”
You seem confused by the question, as if you’ve forgotten him in all of this. “Your fiancé,” I remind you coolly.
You close your eyes, sighing wearily. “We’ve barely seen each other since he and his father got back. His choice as much as mine. He’s never said so, but I don’t think he’s any more eager to say ‘I do’ than I am. It’s our fathers who are hell-bent on getting us down the aisle.”
“And apparently they’re going to get their way.”
You glance at the article once more, then toss the paper on the table. “No, they’re not.”
“So you’ve been saying.”
“Hemi . . .”
“Do you have any idea what it felt like to open up the paper this morning and see that headline? To realize you’ve just been stringing me along?”
“Hemi, I promise you—”
“You’re always full of promises, Belle.”
“Because I mean them.”
“Then call the paper. Right now.”
“What?”
“Call the Times and tell them they’ve got it wrong. Demand that they print a retraction. One that quotes you.”
You stare at me as if I’ve just asked you to walk down Fifth Avenue without your clothes. “I can’t do that. Not yet. I need more time.”
“Time for what?” The words erupt before I can check them, ringing off the kitchen walls. “When will it be time? When you’re halfway down the aisle?”
“That isn’t fair!”
“Who isn’t it fair for? For Teddy? Your father? What about me, Belle? How long am I supposed to wait? I’m tired of playing the fool. I’ve tried to walk away, to give you an out, but you keep reeling me back in. How many times am I supposed to fall for it?”
Your eyes pool with tears. You look away, your voice suddenly ragged. “What do you want from me?”
And suddenly I see it, the toll all this has been taking on you. You’ve become the prize in a game of emotional tug-of-war, and I’ve been too busy nursing my own ego to see just how badly you’ve begun to fray.
I reach for you, pulling you into my arms. “I want you to marry me, Belle. I want you to walk away from everything—I want us both to walk away—to live in a tent if that’s all we can afford and subsist on hamburgers and scrambled eggs. But most of all, I don’t want you to be afraid anymore.”
You’re weeping softly now, all your weight against me. “It isn’t that simple.”
“But it is,” I tell you softly. “We’ll just go away. Tomorrow. Now. All you have to do is say yes.”
When your eyes lift to mine, I see a glimmer of promise, of hope. “What about the big story you’re working on?”
“To hell with the story. Goldie can get someone else to finish it. By the time the thing goes to print, we’ll be long gone.”
“Where?”
“Who knows? Who cares? Just say yes.”
“Yes,” you say, and your smile makes my chest feel like it will burst. “Yes, I’ll run away with you and live in a tent.”
A week later, we’ve begun making plans. We set the date for our departure to coincide with a trip your father has planned to Boston, which will give you a few weeks to prepare. I’ve already arranged the tickets, a sleeper car on the Broadway Limited. We’ll stop in Chicago, find a justice of the peace, then spend a few days in the city, like proper honeymooners, before traveling on to California.
We talk about going to England when the war ends, back to where I grew up, but that’s not safe at the moment. There will be time for travel later, time for everything. For now, we’ll content ourselves with San Francisco, as far away from your father as I can get you for now.