The bride and groom “sneaked” away later while everyone cheered and whistled. The band played on for an hour or more after that, depending on whether or not there was overtime. The best man paid the band with the money the groom had left him (if the groom had not already paid the band before departing), and the crowd began to thin out along about midnight or one A.M. The band played “Good Night, Ladies,” and distant relatives kissed distant relatives resoundingly and longly, the kiss having to last until the next wedding. The boys packed their instruments, left, had ice-cream sodas, and went home.
Such was the pattern of The Genoese Brawl.
The pattern became quite familiar to the Tony Banner boys after their first job. With remarkable rapidity, more bookings came on the heels of, and as a result of, the first booking. And then, at almost every job they played, they were approached for a future job, until virtually all their Saturdays and Sundays were occupied with weddings, beer parties, dances, or Republican Club socials. Naturally, they dragged the girls along with them whenever they played, and neither Helen nor Carol minded very much except that their game was a patiently feminine waiting one, and there was nothing particularly exciting about a Genoese Brawl.
So when a week end popped up in which there was no booking, Helen leaped upon it with a suggestion.
“You’re not playing tomorrow,” she said to Bud, “so I have an idea. My parents have a place. A cottage in the Rockaways, not right on the beach, but with a private sandy walk leading down to it. I thought we might ride out there tomorrow.”
This was a Friday night, and they were sitting in the back of Frank’s car outside Club Beguine. She was cuddled against him, her legs curled beneath her on the seat. His hand idly toyed with the back of her neck. He felt very drowsy and very comfortable. He always felt comfortable with Helen. And proud. Secretly proud of her, bursting proud. She moved with such grace and femininity that there were times when he wanted to scoop her up no matter where they were, hold her close, kiss her, stroke her hair, trace the outline of her lips with his fingers. He loved everything about her, loved it with the deep unbending Jove of adolescence. But above all, and part of it all, was the sense of contentment he felt whenever he was with her.
“Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” he said.
“You’re not playing tomorrow, are you?”
“Not tomorrow, and not Sunday either,” he said lazily.
“Then do you think...” She stopped. “Bud, are listening to me?”
“I was thinking about you.”
“Don’t think about me when I’m talking,” she scolded. “Would you like to drive out to the Rockaways tomorrow?”
“Okay,” he said idly.
“That’s what I call a burst of enthusiasm. Can you get your father’s car?”
“I think so. Why? What’s at the Rockaways?”
“My parents have a cottage. I think I can get the key. We’ll pack a picnic basket. If it’s too windy on the beach, we’ll eat inside. Does it appeal?”
“It appeals.”
“Greatly?”
“Enormously.”
“That’s what I love about you. You’re so difficult to get along with.” She paused. “I’d better tell my parents I’m going with some of the girls. They wouldn’t understand.”
“They never do. We sure have it rough.”
“Do you love me?”
“Nope. I’m toying with you.”
“I’ll break your nose,” she said, laughing.
He seized her roughly, pulling her to him. “How’d you happen to come my way, Helen? How’d such a wonderful bundle drop into my lap?”
She turned her head away in mock aloofness. “Your technique is barbaric,” she said. “My other lovers treat me gently.”
“Bah!” he snorted. “Your other lovers are milksops! I am the great Genghis Khan, ruler of the Orient! What are all these peasants compared to me?”
“You frighten me, sire,” she said, her voice quavering.
“I will eat you in one swallow!” he shouted.
“Ears and all?”
“Ears especially! Mmm, you have beautiful ears,” he said.
He moved his mouth toward her ear, kissed it, and she squirmed away with a small tremor.
“You give me the chills,” she said.
“The better to gobble you up, my dear.”
“Can you get the car?”
“Car?” he shouted, carried away. “A blazing chariot drawn by a thousand white horses!”
“I love you,” she said happily.
“No wonder,” he replied smugly. “Ruler of all the East.”
“I adore you.”
“What time, concubine?”
“Tennish?”
“On Saturday? Gad!” He paused. “Make it a quarter after tennish.” He paused again. “Tennish, anyone?”
She put her hand over his face, shoved him down on the car seat, and then said, “You idiot!” and kissed him.
The beach was quiet and deserted.
The waves rolled toward the shore, slender white furrows in the distance, growing in power as they came closer, expanding, roiling, building in stature, and then rising to full height and folding in upon themselves, curling under in a green-and-white cascade of fury, and then rushing shoreward, Battened and dissipated, dissolving into white, bubbly foam, rushing onto the beach, absorbed by the sand, and then retreating leisurely, pulling the remnants of their tattered foam-robes behind them. A lone sandpiper skirted the aftermath of the breaking crests, skittering like a stiff old maid at the water’s edge, pulling up her skirts with each new watery rush.
There was a strong wind blowing off the water, smelling of salt and ocean life. It caught at her hair, sent the black strands whipping about her head like an enraged gorgon. She wore a peasant blouse and skirt, over which she’d thrown a white cashmere sweater, unbuttoned. The wind lashed at her skirt, molding it against her firm legs and thighs. She tilted her head up and licked her lips, squeezing her eyes shut tightly. He stood with his arm around her, feeling the shudder of her body as the wind lunged against her. He looked down at her closed lids and the smile on her mouth, and then he focused on the eyes alone, squeezed tightly shut now, the short black lashes curled, the laugh wrinkles at the corners.