spoil it. You’re turning into the sourest old maid.” He plopped the dollop of cream in her coffee.
Delia stared down at her cup. Slowly, a tear ran down her cheek. The four of us stared at her, spoons aloft. Nobody said a word. The tears dropped one by one onto Delia’s paper napkin.
Finally, unable to bear the waiting, Muddie ate another spoonful of ice cream. We all dug back into our sundaes, careful not to bang the spoon against the metal dish. Da gazed at his plate, at his lap, at the signs advertising cherry floats and ham and cheese sandwiches for ten cents, anywhere but at Delia.
“You’re not an old maid,” I said finally. “You’re…” I searched for the perfect word. “Wonderful.”
Underneath the table, she squeezed my hand.
Her students called her Madame Flo, but she was about as formal as a Sherman tank. She was a hammer on my forehead, counting beats. I had to learn about beats until they were part of my bones and I could stop thinking about them and just move. I had thought dancing was only about steps and music. I didn’t realize that rhythm could be so complicated.
When I started, suddenly nothing, it seemed, was right about my body. My feet didn’t have enough turnout. My shoulders — down! My chin — lift it! She became my life after school and on Saturdays, and I learned what discipline was. No longer could I flop around on couches and hunch over stoops. I learned how to stand as well as dance. I practiced tap on our bathroom tiles until Muddie and Jamie pounded on the door, begging me to stop, and Da laughed behind his newspaper.
Through Mr. Loge, Delia got a war job in Washington, DC, in the summer of ‘44 and we didn’t see her until September. Elena came on Saturday nights to cook us dinner before Jamie, Muddie, and I headed out to the movies. She even cooked for Da now, laughing at his attempts to chop onions and pushing him out of the kitchen. “You’re making me weep just watching you, Corrigan,” she said. It seemed a terrible time to be happy, while the world was falling apart. But we were.
As boys we’d known from the neighborhood or husbands and fathers were killed and gold stars began to appear in windows, we huddled on the living room floor over the newspapers, knowing our secret, that we didn’t care about heroes, that we got to keep our dad.
Twenty-seven
Providence, Rhode Island
March 1945
That last weekend — the weekend after Carousel— Elena came and cooked us chicken and rice. She looked pretty in a flowered dress and heels.
“You have a boyfriend,” Muddie guessed.
“Elena’s in love!” I said, and was surprised to see a flush on Elena’s neck. “Shut up, you two,” Jamie said. “Don’t be girls.”
We did what we kids did every Saturday night — ate our dinner and headed to the Boys Club for free movies. That night, halfway through the cowboy serial, the projector broke. Everybody groaned. We waited, but finally we heard the bad news. We had to go home.
The three of us sat on the curb outside, spinning out the evening, reluctant to go in.
We heard heels tapping on Hope Street, and in a moment we saw Delia appear out of the gloom. We were surprised to see her. She had left for the convent on Friday.
“What are you doing home?” Jamie asked.
“I’m home, that’s all. Why are you sitting out here, you three? It’s your bedtime, isn’t it?”
“We stay up late on Saturdays,” Muddie said.
I didn’t say anything. I still had not recovered from the slap Delia had given me the week before, and I was punishing her with silence. It was infuriating that she didn’t seem to notice. But tonight she seemed nervous. I noticed lines at the sides of her mouth for the first time, brackets around the curve of her lips.
“You can’t sit out here. Come on, then.” Delia started up the stairs, and we followed. She pushed open the front door and stood for a moment. The house was dark and quiet.
“Maybe he’s asleep already,” I whispered. Suddenly, we heard a groan. “He’s sick!” Muddie cried.
We all crowded through the doorway to the living room. Delia was first, and we heard her “Mother of God!” and quickly we tried to squirm around her but she suddenly spun around and pushed us back toward the front door.