“You’re twenty-eight, Lloyd. You should have married Eileen four years ago. Grow up.” And she was, as always, 100 percent right. Even though she herself had prevented the marriage that first year—she hadn’t been aware of the fact—and even though I could use theKorean war as an added excuse, I had never been able to explain to myself honestly why Eileen and I were not married. We had fallen completely in love, she had risked a lot of public trouble by riding a bus down to a remote Texas air base for a crazy week with me, but we both knew that whenever the big moment of actually getting married approached I shied away. With jet airplanes I was comfortable. With women I wasn’t. I guess that watching Mrs. Webster and my mother had made me gun-shy.
One night I heard one of our medical doctors talking in a bar. He’d been a big shot in civilian life and he was saying, “We find that if a man comes from a broken home he’s apt not to marry early. It’s as if he had to be introduced to love. If he doesn’t meet love in his own family he could, conceivably, go through an entire life without ever meeting it. Of course,” he had added, “at any time almost any girl could provide the introduction if she wanted to take the trouble. But spoiled men who don’t marry before they’re forty—the men who have never been introduced to love—are hardly worth any girl’s trouble. So we can say that some men actually do pass through an entire lifetime without ever meeting so simple a thing as love. No one bothered to introduce them.” I often recalled the doctor’s words but I was satisfied I wasn’t like that, not in all respects. True, my parents had failed to introduce me either to their own love or to the idea of having a home with some girl’s love as the central pillar. I think that explains why I was twenty-eight and vaguely in love with Eileen and unmarried. And I think Mrs. Webster knew it and now she was pushing us together.
“I’ll see you in the hotel,” she cried and left us, towering a good four inches over the little Japanese man who was leading her back to the Supervisor.
I had been hoping for a chance to talk with Eileen alone and as soon as Mrs. Webster left I pulled her into a corner of the Cadillac and gave her a big kiss. She said, “All the way out on the plane I dreamed of meeting you in a romantic spot like this.” She pointed out of the car to where we were passing little rice fields pressed close to the road and tiny houses set back among the trees. There was a sweet heaviness of spring in the air and as we watched the little workmen of Japan trudging along the footpaths at dusk we felt very much a part of this strange country.
Eileen whispered, “I didn’t want to leave America. The idea of…” she hesitated, then added, “getting married in a foreign land didn’t appeal. But now…”
I pretended not to have heard her remark about marriage and said, “I was proud of you today.”
“About what?”
“That girl.”
“The actress?”
“Yes. You knew she was the one your father threw out of the dining room. But you didn’t embarrass her.”
“Why should I? She came to the Club as a guest and she seemed a very pleasant girl.”
“But your mother…”
“Mother’s all right. She just has to feel that she’s running everything.”
I asked, “Would she be frightfully sore if we didn’t show up at the Club dinner?”
“She knows we’re courting.”
“What a quaint word for a Vassar girl!”
“I’m not always a Vassar girl. Don’t let the tag fool you. Pardner, I been a-livin’ in Tulsa, where folks go a-courtin’.”
“Let’s court.”
“What had you in mind?”
“A Japanese nightclub.”
She thought a moment, then smiled and said, “Let’s court!”
The driver reluctantly dropped us at a corner and even more reluctantly indicated how we could go halfway up an alley and find the Fuji Nights, which turned out to be a tiny room specializing in
One night I heard one of our medical doctors talking in a bar. He’d been a big shot in civilian life and he was saying, “We find that if a man comes from a broken home he’s apt not to marry early. It’s as if he had to be introduced to love. If he doesn’t meet love in his own family he could, conceivably, go through an entire life without ever meeting it. Of course,” he had added, “at any time almost any girl could provide the introduction if she wanted to take the trouble. But spoiled men who don’t marry before they’re forty—the men who have never been introduced to love—are hardly worth any girl’s trouble. So we can say that some men actually do pass through an entire lifetime without ever meeting so simple a thing as love. No one bothered to introduce them.” I often recalled the doctor’s words but I was satisfied I wasn’t like that, not in all respects. True, my parents had failed to introduce me either to their own love or to the idea of having a home with some girl’s love as the central pillar. I think that explains why I was twenty-eight and vaguely in love with Eileen and unmarried. And I think Mrs. Webster knew it and now she was pushing us together.
“I’ll see you in the hotel,” she cried and left us, towering a good four inches over the little Japanese man who was leading her back to the Supervisor.
I had been hoping for a chance to talk with Eileen alone and as soon as Mrs. Webster left I pulled her into a corner of the Cadillac and gave her a big kiss. She said, “All the way out on the plane I dreamed of meeting you in a romantic spot like this.” She pointed out of the car to where we were passing little rice fields pressed close to the road and tiny houses set back among the trees. There was a sweet heaviness of spring in the air and as we watched the little workmen of Japan trudging along the footpaths at dusk we felt very much a part of this strange country.
Eileen whispered, “I didn’t want to leave America. The idea of…” she hesitated, then added, “getting married in a foreign land didn’t appeal. But now…”
I pretended not to have heard her remark about marriage and said, “I was proud of you today.”
“About what?”
“That girl.”
“The actress?”
“Yes. You knew she was the one your father threw out of the dining room. But you didn’t embarrass her.”
“Why should I? She came to the Club as a guest and she seemed a very pleasant girl.”
“But your mother…”
“Mother’s all right. She just has to feel that she’s running everything.”
I asked, “Would she be frightfully sore if we didn’t show up at the Club dinner?”
“She knows we’re courting.”
“What a quaint word for a Vassar girl!”
“I’m not always a Vassar girl. Don’t let the tag fool you. Pardner, I been a-livin’ in Tulsa, where folks go a-courtin’.”
“Let’s court.”
“What had you in mind?”
“A Japanese nightclub.”
She thought a moment, then smiled and said, “Let’s court!”
The driver reluctantly dropped us at a corner and even more reluctantly indicated how we could go halfway up an alley and find the Fuji Nights, which turned out to be a tiny room specializing in
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