Will you accept my apologies, beautiful bride of mine?”
“My dearest Tony! Will I accept your apologies? Ha ha ha! Just go and sit in the living room and put your feet up and shake up a cocktail. I will fix you a nice hot dinner of caviar and pheasants that were on sale today at Bohack’s.”
“Dear! Soon, and you can mark my words, you will not have to be worrying about buying things at sales. Our ship is going to come in soon.”
“Of course, sugar pie. You know how I have such full trust in you and how smart you are. Now, just go in and sit down and have a highball cocktail or two.”
“It is sure enough cold out there, Marie honeybunch. There is enough snow to make it like the North Pole! I hope that you have not waited for me for supper.”
“I will whip up some roasted chicken in a minute, don’t you worry about a thing, and also some salad with French dressing just the way a hard-working man likes hearty foodstuffs.”
“How swell you are, my cuddles! I was late because I had to help that poor kid Margie in the office with her cheapskate Jew landlord because she don’t have heat in this subfrozen weather. Can you beat that? I told him where he could get off and that I would call up the police chief if he did not act square. That is why I am so darn late.”
“Tony, you darling! You have a heart of gold to help that poor nice girl out like that. And good for you that you talked turkeys to that Jew skinflint. Now, sit down and let me toss up some roasted chicken for you!”
“Hiya, dear. Gosh almighty, I tried and tried like heck to get off work early tonight but you know how things go for a young boss.”
“Don’t aggravate yourself, hon, I will just fling out this Swiss steak stew dish and snap beans and mash potatoes and gravy in the garbage since it is all dried out. And I will run to the butcher in a jiffy and get you a couple of nice tender lamb chops for supper and stop off for a banana split too because I know how you love it.”
“Gosh almighty, Marie sweetness, don’t you bother your pretty swell little head about it. Go out in this weather? It is blowing up a blizzard tonight! Are you nutty? Just serve me whatever odds and ends you have left over and I will fill up on Bond bread too. Gosh, you know how I love your Swiss steak better than anything except that great stuffed roasted turkey you cook on special occasion holidays. Your dried-out and ice-cold Swiss steak is better than a meal fit for a king!”
“You are such a thoughtful man, and meanwhile darling, while I heat up these few things, just sit down and read your paper and listen to the radio in your socks. Supper will be ready before you can say Jack Robinson.”
“Jack Robinson!”
“Oh, Tony! You’re always such a kidder!”
“Boy, the traffic was really heavy tonight and on top of working late at the old grind mill no wonder I am so tardy for supper. Heck, I am sorry, sugar cake.”
“You do not have to worry, dearest, I have a special emergency supper all ready to cook for you here, see? Fruit salad and alphabet soup and roasted steak sandwiches on toast. How does that sound?”
“Wow! That is what I call a hearty meal! But if you would not mind saving it, I thought that we could all go out for supper if you do not mind eating another supper or just watching me eat while you and Billy have a hunk of bread and butter or something.”
“Go out, my lamb?”
“Yes, my dreamboat. Because today I signed the papers to become partners with a millionaire and soon we will also be millionaires! So let’s put on our duds and go out, maybe we will drive out to Nathan’s?”
“Oh Tony! It is so hard to believe! You have worked and prayed so hard for this chance to show them!”
“Yes, sugar, it has been a long haul but we are on our way to the moon!”
“Oh gosh, gosh! Let’s go! Let’s go to Nathan’s! It will be a swell treat!”
“Hi, honey! Excuse me for being so late for supper but I have been up to my ears in important meetings with a bunch of millionaires like the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts. Business, you know.”
“Darling! Maybe this is the chance you have been praying to God for.”
“I certainly hope so, angel. But I am afraid that I have to disappoint you about after supper again. Instead of staying here in our cozy living room with my slippers on and listening to some good shows, I must eat and run because I have to get back to the meetings. Those rich bozos do not watch the clock, as they say. So if you can just make me a ham or baloney and American sandwich on Bond bread with a dill pickle I will be in seventh heaven.”
“Dearest Tony! Of course! Gosh, you don’t have to explain why you have to go out after a bite of supper. I pride myself on understanding your work. I will whip up a big club sandwich for you in a jiffy! There is a mouth-watering recipe for one with crispy bacon and tasty cheese in the new Liberty. “
“Swell, sugar. And meanwhile, I will change my clothes and shave because I probably will not be home until tomorrow night late. Time waits for no man.”
“O.K., my beloved, just hurry now and I will have this scrumptious sandwich that they often serve at the White House ready for you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!”
“You are a real princess, my darling wife.”
~ ~ ~
His mother was going to go out on a date, a real date, just like Helen Copan did with the lifeguard, but she wasn’t going out with any lifeguard, but with Tom Thebus. And they were going to go to the WigWam, just like she had said they might and like he had talked about a few days ago with Tom. His grandfather didn’t seem to like the idea, so maybe Tom was right when he said that he didn’t really like him. That was something that Billy couldn’t figure out at all. But he knew that his grandfather and mother had been arguing, his grandfather’s face got long and sour and he spent a lot of time sitting on the church steps and taking walks all by himself, sometimes as far as the Bluebird, and that was really far away. For some reason, Mrs. Schmidt talked to his grandfather a lot. She smiled like you would at a baby. Today his grandfather really had a sour puss.
His mother had gone into Hackettstown that afternoon with Dave Warren, who had come up to the farm to get some eggs for the Warren House just like he did every Saturday, and he was going to come back for supper like every Saturday too. When she came back she had a bag with her from the five-and-ten and two other bags. The five-and-ten bag had presents for him, a big white metal China Clipper, white as snow, really swell. And also his own bottle of rose oil just like Tom’s. She was smiling and happier than he ever remembered seeing her, except when he got that Certificate for Clear Speech from P.S. 170 in June. And maybe a few other times, but anyway, she was happy, that was for sure. In one of the other bags she had a pair of white summer shoes, all open on the top and with high heels and the other bag she didn’t open. She pulled off her canvas shoes and put the white shoes on and pulled her skirt around her legs so she could look down and see how the shoes looked. She almost did a kind of dance right there in her room, turning her feet different ways so she could see how the shoes looked when she moved. When she asked him how the shoes looked on her he told her that they were beautiful. They were beautiful. His mother had really small feet and these shoes made them look even smaller, maybe because they were all open on the top with only little strips of leather crisscrossed and a strap around the ankle and the heels were thin and high. It was a cinch that she would be able to dance better in them than in any of the other dress-up shoes she brought from the city, they were O.K., but they didn’t look like these and most of them, maybe all of them, were black anyway.