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He stood behind me. Close.
And then helpless woman that I am,
I kissed him; continued overleaf
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Ah well every girl has her daydreams! Maggie’s was that a handsome young genius was madly in love with her...
Maggie The Dazzler by Elaine Greene
Illustrated by E. Earnshaw
I'LL tell you what I was supposed to be doing morning at nine thirty. I'm sure it has a familiar ring.
I was supposed to be coping with a hundred and one different chores in my kitchen, namely, a sink full of smalls to be laundered, a draining board full of eggy dishes to be washed, a table covered with men's clean socks to be rolled into pairs, and every pot I possess to be returned to the cupboard under the sink from which my younger daughter had flung them in a search for a screwdriver.
And I'll tell you what I was doing this morning at nine thirty, This probably has a familiar ring, too, though it doesn't get as much talked about.
I was imagining myself in the arms of another man.
This always happens to me while playing the piano, which I do every couple of weeks. Today is rather special.
Usually I find myself standing in the living-room holding the handle of the vacuum cleaner and with what I choose to call a culture starved look on my face, I fling down the vacuum cleaner and off I go.
When I was part of that huge army of girl piano pupils my favourite piece was
"Rustle of Spring," It's about all I can remember now and it serves me well enough, passionate number that it is. I always play it with what my teacher called “expression" swaying from side to side, crouching fiercely over the keys, then wildly flinging my head back.
Tommy, the man this performance evokes, used to stand behind me holding my shoulders still and complaining that I played like a gipsy. Whenever he touched me I'd go quite numb in the wrists.
I tried to play Bach for him with my brow unfurrowed and back straight, but it wasn't my cup of tea. I didn’t have Tommy’s fine taste.
He, said Bach was beautiful, like numbers. He's a mathematician, Tommy is, with a soul. Although he's only twenty-seven like me, he's a genius.
I think I should mention that I haven't seen him for five years. And it might also do to add that l deeply love my husband, who will appear shortly.
And finally I should explain that this morning is special because I saw the news item in the paper saying that Thomas Calhoun, late of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, was in New York organizing a new department at Manhattan College. This adds a kind of urgency to any idle thoughts I might have on the subject, since Jack , and the girls and I live quite near the Manhattan College.
Tommy, in addition to being a genius, is very beautiful, one of those lithe Black Irishmen with the inky hair and the heavy brows and the burning eyes. I think burning burning eyes are usually black, but Tommy manages very well with blue.
I'm not making excuses, but he's not someone you would forget especially when there is unfinished business between you. Tommy never bothered to leave me really. He simply took off.
The thing is I was' always such a drip with Tommy I can't even blame him for leaving me. But now I want to dazzle him completely, just to finish the business my way. I could do it now, I know I could. I've grown to be rather dazzling when I set my mind to it.
DAYDREAMS are a little embarrassing to relate, but I am determined to give the fancies as well as the facts. It is a fact whenever I play the “Rustle of Spring" I fancy that I am alone in the saloon of a great ship or behind the palms in a deserted music room at a ball.
I am performing heartbreakingly well. And suddenly Tommy appears behind me and says: "I knew it, was you, Maggie," and he pulls me to my feet and I do not go numb. We then go into a scene you would recognize from any romantic film.
Thus was I occupied when my husband returned from his hospital rounds this morning at about a quarter to ten. I didn't even hear him. When I finished playing I kept my hands on the keyboard, head bowed humbly.
"That's nice, Maggie,” said Jack. I jumped a mile. "I like your spirit." he explained. “You looked as if you were going to break the piano.”
I kissed his sweet brow guiltily.
He gave me a a vague hug, went to the kitchen for coffee, and graciously ignored, the small, pots and dishes.
He just pushed the socks aside and laid out two cups.
“I’m going back to the hospital,” he said. “I want to be hear those twins today.” He’s been wearing himself out over two new babies, trying to find out what to get them to eat.
"I've got to take the girls to Best’s. They both need pyjamas,” I said.
I sipped my coffee and stared at the socks without seeing them. I thought: Perhaps I”ll run into Tommy in the street one day.
I HAVE thought of this before, I must admit. For instance, I’m walking along in my melting pink velvet hat and pale grey coat.
I'm whistling some beautifully complicated ancient air that, only Tommy would know. I'm carrying a poetry book with the title showing. A dark graceful man hears the air, see the book, searches for the face.
Of course having two little girls with me would cramp my style somewhat, but I can fit them in, they're so delicate and lovely, with faces like flowers.
And soon there we were in real life,
Mother and the two flower-faces, walking down the main shopping street, somewhat less glamorous than in my imagination. I had Cathy's left hand in my right and in Cathy’s right hand was Ann's left. Ann, who is two and a half, had to have a hand free for Snoopy's string.
Snoopy is black and white wooden dog about two two feet long whose legs whirl around as you-pull.
Cathy and, Ann both had lollipops, which get so messy and their navy blue coats fronts were wet and shiny.
I wore clumpy low-heeled brogues, no hat, and a camel-hair coat with big pockets. In the left pocket, sticking out, were two children’s books, both about rabbits.
In the right was a plastic football, Annie's precious screwdriver, two whole and five broken biscuits.
I carried in my left hand berets and a big old leather handbag. I was singing an ancient folk tune whose entire text is: “All the ducks are swimming in the water, fol de rol de rol de,” which I render during baths, my own included.
Well, I expect you know what's coming, but I wish I could have known in advance.
Right in front of Best’s I stopped, fouling Snoopy”s lines because a large object stood in our path.
It was the black Irishman with a smile like the sun coming out. It said: "Maggie, 'Maggie, I knew I'd find you again."
I'd have fainted if I'd had the time and knew how to, but both girls were howling, having dropped their lollipops. These I wrapped in a handkerchief and added to the right pocket. Then I introduced them.
"Tommy, this is Catherine-Cathy, Mr. Calhoun."
Tommy said: How do you do. You look just your mother,” with an old-time burning glance at me.
Cathy said: “Are you a friend of my daddy's?': She gave, him a ferocious stare. Tommy stared back.
" And," I continued, "this is Ann Elizabeth."
Ann said: “I hate you," and punched his leg.
I said: "I don't know what to say," as if I ever did with him.
"I'll tell you what to say tonight," he said. “Mary Ames told me I'd be, seeing you at her party.”
”Why is your face all red?" said Cathy.
Tommy bowed to us and walked away.
FORTUNATELY the bath and supper rush keeps you so busy you can't think, but nothing keeps you so busy that you can’t worry in the back ground. Mary Ames party was tonight. And I can’t say that I was unprepared, not this time
I’ve often imagined meeting Tommy at a party. I enjoyed thinking what it would be like to surprise him. Actually any sign of life in me would come as a shock.
In my youth Tommy was forever dragging me to intellectual teas and things where I’d stand frozen watching him stare down the better looking girl brains and pass from professor to professor dropping pearls of pure intelligence.
Oh, how I hated parties.
You know what it’s like when you go to a good party, the sharp change of mood from outside in the dark air to the bright noisy place. For a minute it's like coming on stage and you can't see who's there.
Jack and I love parties and we go to lots of them, and practically every, time, in that sharp on stage minute, I've imagined that I see Tommy.
When he sees me he clutches his glass. He stares at me In my, jonquil silk slip of a dress that matches my genuine blonde hair. that is no longer lank and chewed looking but short and boyish to make my soft chin and slender neck more feminine.
The next part is sheer fancy. I give my husband a luminous smile, intimate and womanly. He looks adoring and touched. Then I walk across the room to Tommy, my arms , outstretched shoulder high, palms up, the way Katharine Hepburn would. We clasp hands, look deeply at each other.He lowers his eyes first. '”Darling," I say, "you look wonderful."
For four years I worshipped this man and tried calling him darling.Once I managed a “dearie” imitation of a glib college friend, but it came out chorus girly and incongruous and rather pathetic, I think.,
ONE of the first ways I knew I loved Jack was how I began calling him darling so easily. When I began seeing him it was after four months of nothing from Tommy, then a third hand report that he was in Rome with a ballet -dancer. I wasn't bursting with confidence.
Jack and I went on a picnic on our third, date that was a revelation to me. In the first place, while we were sitting round a campfire Jack asked me how I liked teaching and I started telling stories like the one where my most naughty boy said to the class during a..scolding: “I think I hear the voice of God. Oh, no it’s not God, it’s Miss Margaret. "
And here was Miss Margaret, former blotter, regaling people with anecdotes.
In the second place driving home I drowsed on Jack's shoulder and he said: "Have a good time?" and I said: “Yes darling" without a thought. And then in my kitchen at home having coffee with my parents, Jack caught my eye and winked and I winked back. When a girl like I was can wink at a chap, she should marry him quickly. Which I did in ,another month.
Some housewives read romantic stories. They fill an emotional need. I just make up m own situations. So there I am in my jonquil dress clasping Tommy’s hands. I take his arm cooly, though the pressure of fingers might possessive he can't tell and I introduce him to my wonderful friends.
Then I sink deep, in a chair and Tommy sits on the edge of a foot stool looking up at me and tells me about himself. From time to time someone comes over. A woman says “Maggie, you've got to give me that marvellous recipe for lemon meringue pie” A man says: “My dear, I hope you can tell what to do about little Alan. He’s at that terrible age.” Tommy looks dazzled, and painted at what he's lost and I just smile smugly to myself.
Jack was sleeping while I dressed for the Ameses party. He hadn’t moved for an hour since I shoved him on the bed and covered him with the eiderdown.
He looked so sweet, his profile pressed into the-pillow. His nose was pushed up and his mouth was open a little and so vulnerable looking. His hair looked damp and curly and his eyes were shadowed with fatigue.
And gazing at this masterpiece of a man I thought: Shallow woman that I am, how nice if he were a little more brooding and dark and brilliant. So I kissed his eyelids, guiltily for the second time today, and woke him up to dress.
Mary Ames is an old collage friend of mine and Tommy’s, married to a nice man who inherited a lot of money and a house in Greenwich Village with a large garden in the back and an iron gate in front.
Every year they give what they call a Spring Riot. It’s always the same, about
seventy-five people, a big buffet and a very special punch.
I wore the jonquil silk, fake diamond earrings that hang down three inches, lots of goo on the eyes and pale powder and lipstick like the Italian film stars.
JACK didn't say how I looked, but the mirror did, and he's so preoccupied I forgave him. It's just a good thing he didn’t take my pulse.
At the party, after we got rid of our coats, I plunged into the living room. I was Tommy right away. Now to wipe out this mornings fiasco. Here comes Maggie the Dazzler.
Tommy was at the punch bowl, ladling a drink for pretty Greta Frank a flirty restless housewife, Mary's sister-in-law. There was a clear path. I had about ten feet to go, room for the Katharine Hepburn gestures and everything.
I couldn’t move and I felt the expression on my face. That’s a bad sign, no matter what the expression. This one was familiar from five years ago. That old intellectual tea feeling.
Tommy saw me. He strode over and took both my hands, rather in the way I’d planned it, and Greta was right behind him.
"Mary said you knew this devil," she said. Tommy kept on holding my hands, Greta shrugged and moved. on.
" Maggie, you look as delicate and lovely as ever and you still blush. How on earth did you hatch those ruffians? "
Delicate, that won't do. Ruffians, indeed! "Ruffians, indeed," I said.
" How about some punch?" he . said and I nodded.
A good idea. I'll get drunk. They say you're the real you when you're drunk and the real me is not this frozen face.
I tossed down two glasses standing there with Tommy, being very busy looking the party over. Jack was having a fine time. Greta came by with another man.
"She's not my type," Tommy told me when she'd passed. He always told me his reactions to girls.
" Who is?" I said, with rum and brandy inside me to help.
"You are, Maggie, you still are," he answered. He's a smart one. I just noticed he always uses your name a lot.
But -I've changed;" I said.
" No you haven't," he answered. " Same little shy gazelle." He looked restlessly round the room, got another glass of punch for us both and took my hand. "Come on," he said. "1 know where there's a piano." We went down the hall to the library. I felt like a sleepwalker.
No one was there. The room was lined with books and the ceiling was dark and the piano stood in front of a french window overlooking the garden. It was very romantic,
We sat down together in front of the keyboard. I drained my glass. 1 was terribly dizzy, but still no dazzle. I said: " Oh, Tommy after all these years." There was quite a mood in that room.
"Maggie," he said. No one else pronounces my name quite like Tommy does. "Maggie, why didn't you wait? 1 was only waiting rof you to grow up a little."
What a thing to say to a dizzy woman. 1 had' no answer.
"Maggie, play that old boom boom thing." He got up and stood behind me. Close.
I started to play. Who was dazzling whom? I was' confused. I tore into the old Rustle. Tommy put his hands on my shoulders just like he used to. My wrists felt numb just like they used to.
Then just as I'd imagined it, he pulled me up and I remembered how good he smelled. And, helpless woman that I am, I kissed him.
IT was nice and nostalgic and new, but I ruined it. In the middle something exploded in my head and I sobered. Somewhere in that dim room the spirit of Pure Reason , struggled with Nostalgia and won. Anyway, I had a question to ask. I pulled away.
"I have a question," I said. "If yon were just waiting for me to grow up, why didn't yon say so? Why did you stay with that ballet dancer in Rome all that summer ?Mary told me all about that. You were bored because I was boring and I was-boring-because that's what-you wanted."
Pure reason was flapping his wings triumphantly. " With you I'd always be boring." I said and knew what a thing I was saying. ..
And what do you want from me now?" I asked, but I didn't give him a chance to answer. "
I think you're good looking and I think you're clever," I told him. "And I could give you dinner and an evening every month or so, but even if I weren't married and very much in love with my husband, I couldn't give you all that stupid adoration you're still looking for."
" You have changed;" he said.
" You bet," I said. "See you around. Wipe off the lipstick. " I went out and met Greta.
"What did you do with the brain?" she asked, looking at me rather curiously.
"In the library," I said. "But wait five minutes: "She looked at her watch and said okay and she wasn't seen again for over an hour.
I went over to Jack and got him away from a crowd.
" Jack," I said, "do I have to tell you everything? "
"What a bore that would be" he said. "Where'd you leave your dark friend?" '
''To his own devices," I said. " He’ll get by.'" Such a clever man my Jack. I took his punch glass, walked up to him till our shoes touched and toasted him. I smiled right into his face and moved my head so the ear-rings clinked. I felt very happy.
"You know what?" he said. "You look dazzling! I meant to tell you."
So I kissed him for the third time. And this one wasn’t guilty at all. .............. the end
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