Spring fancy

There followed a moment's pause while he decided how to handle this suddenly unreasonable fiancee of his. 'Yes, I'll be happy to. My mother might have a name for us, too. I'll take care of it, darling.'

'Thank you, Paul.'

After hanging up, she addressed twenty-five more invitations, then dropped her head onto the tabletop and bawled as she'd been wanting to for days.

Her back ached. Her eyelids burned, and she felt like driving an entire box of nails into the kitchen wall, making a regular design of them all around the frame of the sliding glass door and maybe starting across the wall that abutted it. Instead, she left the invitations strewn all over the table, shucked off her clothes and dropped into bed. She was just dozing off when the phone rang-again!

She flung back the covers and stomped out to the kitchen, angry at being awakened and made to get out of bed.

'Hullo!' she growled.

'Hello,' came the masculine voice she'd been trying her hardest to forget. Tears burned her eyes again. Her heart slammed against her chest. She covered her eyes with one hand and leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the sliding door in the dark.

'Are you alone?' he asked.

'What do you want, Joseph?'

'You.'

The line hummed with a taut silence. Winn's feminine parts surged to life-nipples, stomach, inner reaches all pressing for contact with him.

'Don't,' she begged in a voice very close to tears.

'I'm sorry, Winn. I complicate things for you, don't I?'

'Yes, oh, God, yes.'

She heard him sigh as if close to defeat, yet unwilling to accept it quite yet. 'Are the wedding plans progressing without a hitch?'

'Yes. I'm addressing the invitations.'

'Oh.' Again there followed a poignant silence. 'Will you do me a favor, Winn? Will you send me one?'

'Jo-Jo,' she sighed.

'Oh, I won't come. I'd just like one to keep.'

'J-Joseph, you are b-being exceedingly unkind.'

'Winn, are you crying?' He sounded anxious, as if he'd clutched the phone closer to his mouth.

'Yes, d-damn you, I'm crying.'

'Why?'

'B-because! He wants to buy a chess table for the l-living room, and some w-woman I don't even know is m-moving to Los Angeles… and b-because Sandy wants to give me a sh-shower… oh, God, I don't know, Joseph. I only know I'm supposed to be happy, and I'm miserable.'

'How's the little girl?'

'Oh, thank you for asking, darl-Joseph. Nobody else really cares how I feel about her around here. Sandy asked, but when I answered, she hurried on as if to avoid the subject, too.'

Winn paused for breath, and his soft voice fell upon her ear. 'Back up a minute, Winn. Start at the beginning of that.'

'I… you don't make sense, Joseph Duggan.' But he made perfect sense and she knew it.

'You were about to call me darling.'

'No, I wasn't.'

'Try it anyway and see how it feels.' Joseph Duggan, consummate flirt, she thought. But she knew him to be far more than that now. His voice was odd as he asked, 'Is that what you call Paul?' It was one of the only times she recalled Joseph referring to her fiance by his correct name.

'No. He calls me darling. I call him Paul.'

'We've got sidetracked. Tell me about the little girl, Winn.'

Why did the name Winn sound more like an endearment from Joseph's lips than the term darling from Paul's?

She told him about Merry's lack of progress, about the brochures from Disneyland. She told him about the singer whose husband was being transferred to Los Angeles, about the argument with her mother, about the shower and the gift registration she was supposed to decide upon at a local department store, where she was expected to choose a china pattern she didn't give a damn about and crystal glasses she'd be uncomfortable drinking from. She told him she'd just made the final payment on Paul's wedding ring, and that her mother was harping about buying something called a unity candle that was to be used in the wedding service, though she herself didn't understand why it was necessary. And she ended by telling him Fern had now come up with the idea of providing limousine service on the day of the wedding.

'Limousine service!' she cried, exasperated. 'Of all the phony things.'

'Your mother sounds as if she loves you very much.'

'My mother is putting on a show she wished for and never had herself. She's playing fairy godmother.'

'Then if you have to go through with it anyway, let her. Why do you agree with her one day and buck her the next? You're the one in the wrong, not her.'

'But she's railroaded me into all this… this circus stuff I never wanted.'

'Then why didn't you tell her a year ago when you should have instead of letting her believe it was what you wanted? Or is it really your mother you're upset about at all?'

'Joseph, I'm tired and I want to go to sleep.'

'And I'm frustrated and I want to see you again. Will you drive up to Bemidji with me this Saturday?'

She couldn't believe the man! Five weeks until her wedding, and he suggests she flit away with him like a carefree sprite. ' Bemidji! You want me to take off with you just like that and drive up to Bemidji?'

'Yes, to an auction sale.'

She was flabbergasted. 'An auction sale. Jo-Jo Duggan, you're crazy. I'm addressing my wedding invitations, and you invite me to an auction sale.'

'Yes. There's a '41 Ford on the billboard, and there'll be a swap meet, and I might be able to pick up a piece for my '54 Cadillac pickup I haven't been able to find. I thought we might drive it up there.'

'And what about Paul? Should I invite him to come along with us?'

'Sure. We'll put him in a coffin, and he can ride in the back.'

She gave a nasal snort of laughter before she could stop herself, then covered her nose with a hand. 'That's awful, Joseph!' she scolded.

'With a comfortable pillow and blanket, of course,' he added, 'not a satin lining. And a thermos of iced tea to keep him company for the long ride.'

She resisted the gravity of his teasing and became serious once again. 'Joseph, I have to go now.'

'My leg could use some of that attention you promised.'

'Goodbye, Joseph.'

'And I've signed up for dancing classes.'

'Goodbye, Joseph.'

'And I can't find anybody who's half as good as you on the racket-ball court, or who kiss-'

She forced herself to hang up gently. But she dreamed of his curls and crinkly eyes that night.

* * *

The prenuptial craziness continued the next day when Fern reminded Winn to send the caterers their time schedule and be sure not to forget to put return postage on the R.S.V.P. notes, and to tell her she'd found the perfect stem glasses for the toasting ceremony of the bride and groom. Winn shook her head as if she'd just been landed a right uppercut. They had to buy special glasses for that?

At eight that evening Winn sat at the kitchen table pouring on the steam to her addressing operation. A knock sounded, and Paul came in without waiting for her to answer.