Chapter 49: Love and Marriage 

Topper and I return to the house from dinner in Palm Springs. Mr S and Ms Bacall have walked ahead of us and are already inside, deep in conversation.

When Mr S finds me alone by the pool, he hands me a drink and settles beside me.

“You know, baby, Cary was right,” he says. “It’s time you thought about the future. There’s only so far I can protect you.”

I frown. “You sound just like him. I thought you both liked me best unmarried.”

He smirks, swirling the ice in his glass. “I do, baby. But you and I both know the world’s not as modern as you’d like. Sometimes you just gotta play the game.”

“What about Topper?” he asks. “He’s a fine man. I think you should marry him. He loves you, and he respects you. He’ll give you enough space to still thrive.”

It is definitely not the worst curse that could befall me. 

“You thinking about the boy?” The Chairman asks gently. I don’t answer.  

Mr S shrugs. “The boy’s too big for his own life, baby. He’s got a piece of the world in his hands. You can’t hold onto a man like that.”

“He’s no bigger than you,” I counter.

“I reckon he might end up bigger than Jesus,” he says, crossing himself for effect, and we both laugh.

He pats my cheek, finishes his drink, and stands. “Let’s head inside before someone gets the wrong idea.”

I guffaw, take his arm, and walk back to the house.

Inside, Topper is waiting by the piano. The air is golden, warm from the music and laughter. Mr S calls for another drink,“Three rocks, two fingers of Jack, splash of water.”

Then Topper calls my name. He’s holding a small navy-blue box.

“Catch!” he says.

I catch it, heart in my throat. Inside is a ring. He tells me he’s been carrying it around for over a year.

Then he’s down on one knee, looking up at me, putting me on a pedestal.

“…there’s no one else. There’ll never be anyone else. Please, will you do me the honour of being my wife?”

Mr S settles at the piano next to Ms Bacall, who is already playing, and he begins singing Love and Marriage in his smoky baritone, breaking the tension.

I say yes.
Because I do love Topper, in the right way.
Because everyone wants me to get married.
Because the room is golden and full of music.
Because, in that moment, it feels as if the story is writing itself.
And what’s the worst that could happen?

The ring is beautiful. I only properly notice it the next morning, catching the sunlight from the bedside table. I wonder what I’ll tell the boy, and when.

But for now, I’m making eggs for my fiancé, and Mr S has sent me more flowers than is sensible.

And it’s… some kind of wonderful.

***

The boy calls to complain about the new gold lamé suit the Colonel insists he wear on tour.

“It makes me look like a fat clown,” he grumbles. “Ain’t no way you can come and hold my hand, is there?”

I tell him I can’t, and I tell him why.

He does not congratulate me. 

A few days later, he’s accused of pulling a gun on a soldier outside the Hotel Chisca. It turns out to be a toy gun, but still…He finalises the purchase of Miss Moore’s house. He hires an interior designer who isn’t me, because I won’t have time now, not with finishing my degree, not with being engaged to someone else.

He’s off to Chicago and furious with me. He yells down the phone that I’ve betrayed him, that he has no use for me anymore, that all he ever asked was for me to wait.

“That’s not true,” I say quietly, even if he tries to convince me it is.

***

I’m back at Bryn Mawr when the package arrives in early April. It’s from the boy. He’s sending me his latest discs and tickets for his shows in Philadelphia.

Tilly shakes her head. “Now this again?”

“We have to go,” I tell her. “I’m afraid I’m taking your choice in the matter out of the equation. In a roundabout way, he’s your friend too.”

She sighs. “I suppose.”

Will you come and meet me? he writes. Can I come to your place and talk?

I telegram back: Of course.

***

The boy arrives in the afternoon before his first show in Philadelphia. He calls to ask if we can talk, if we can be alone.

He arrives incognito. I’m impressed; he’s so famous now it’s nearly impossible for him to move without being chased. I let him in quickly and assure him Tilly has gone to the library.

I hug him. He starts to cry, trembling, so I take his hand and lead him into my room.

“Sit down here,” I tell him, helping him into a chair.

He notices the diamond, and stares at it with a snarl. I pull my hand back and sit down beside him. We don’t talk for a while. He’s stopped crying, but his jaw is locked.

“That was quick,” he says at last, his voice clipped.

I say nothing. I look to the floor, and wish the ground would swallow me.

“If it’s any consolation,” I begin, knowing I should stop, but I don’t, “he’d been carrying it around for a year.”

My voice is barely a whisper. Part of me hopes he didn’t hear.

“I see,” he says. 

I try to meet his eyes, but he looks out the window.

A long silence. Then: “Everything’s fallin’ apart because of you.”

His stare is cold. Cruel.

How can everything be falling apart because of me? He’s going from strength to strength.

I kneel in front of him and reach for his hands, searching his face.

He pushes my hands away.

“I want my ring back,” he says. “You can’t be engaged to two people at once.” He nearly spits the words.

Engaged to two people? I’m bewildered.

“I want my ring back, is all,” he snaps, his voice cracking.

I’m not even sure which ring he means, he’s given me so many versions of the horseshoe ring.

“I’m sorry,” I say, pulling the ring from the chain around my neck.

“This one?”

He nods, then waves a hand as if dismissing me entirely. He turns away from me. 

“If I’d known it was an engagement ring, I’d clearly never have accepted Topper,” I say, offering it to him. “Don’t martyr yourself on me.”

Annoyance rises in my chest.

“Mabel told me about your teenage harem at home.”

Instantly, I know I shouldn’t have said it.

“What?” He sits up, finally meeting my eyes. “Who?”

I cross my arms.

“The three schoolgirls in Memphis,” I say. “Heidi, Frances, and Gloria.”

I walk to my desk, sit, and swivel the chair away from him. Outside, a bird watches me from the tree.

“Ah,” he says. “So now you’ve made a criminal of me, though I’ve committed no crime.”

He stands and heads for the door, but stops with his hand on the handle. He turns, sits back down on the bed, grabs a pillow, presses it to his face, and screams into it.

I burst out laughing. At first he looks annoyed, but then he laughs too. The energy in the room shifts. 

“Honey,” I say, raising an eyebrow, “you’re the one who told me to marry this man.”

He nods and lies back.

“I know,” he says. “It’s the right thing to do, as things are now.”

He gestures for me to come over.

“Don’t mean it don’t break my heart, though,” he says.

“What can I say?” I boogie-woogie over to the bed. “I’m a heartbreaker sort of vixen.”

He laughs as I flick my hair and sit beside him.

We sit in silence.

“I’m not giving you your ring back,” I say.

“That’s fine,” he replies.

“I’m still going to wear it,” I add.

He pulls me down beside him.

“We got booed in Canada,” he says. “Feels like everything’s fallin’ apart.”

I brush a lock of hair from his forehead.

“Tell me everything,” I say.

He pours it all out in one long monologue, saying that if he weren’t so unhappy, he might even be happy for me, but he reserves the right to hate me a little.

“That’s okay,” I say, and tell him we’ll always have Paris.
We laugh, curl up together, and pretend we’re back in the old days, before the madness, before we grew up and got tangled in responsibility and convention.

For a moment, we wish our lives were different, though we both know how lucky we are. Beneath it all, we know that if there were real will, there’d be a way, but we don’t need to restrict each other.  It’s bigger than being an item or a promise of a future.

We knew each other before all this, before this life, and we’ll know each other after it, when the dust settles.