Canned is quite acceptable, if fresh oranges are not available or if time is a consideration. Harold is very particular about his brushes and combs, that they are cleaned regularly. He likes a hard rubber dressing comb. I always keep an extra one or two on hand in case he misplaces his. I wonder if you have discovered Venitian Velva Liquid for your own skin. I don’t suppose you give much thought to your complexion, not at your age, but facial skin coarsens quickly in the twenties and thirties. Apply it before bed, rubbing it in carefully, using a circular motion. And never soap, never. Why not, you might ask? Because soap is excessively drying. For bath powder, I suggest Poudre de Lilas. Some powders can be overwhelming. Men are offended by strong odors. I see you are not eating your olives, Daisy. If you should at any time find something on your plate which is not to your liking, try to avoid giving offense by sliding it under something else. In this case, your lettuce leaf will do nicely.
Are you aware that sheeting can be ordered by the yard, and that hemming is generally done free of charge? White shoes are worn only between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Be careful of the term ‘entrée.’ It is not the main course, as many people think, but the course that precedes the main course. Harold is particularly sensitive about his father’s history. His father’s untimely demise, I mean, and I believe you have been told the necessary facts. Harold finds it upsetting to be reminded of this sad event. I think it best that you don’t refer to his father at all. We never do. We always stay home on Sunday evenings. It is a very, very strong family tradition.
We absolutely do not go out. Be sure to acknowledge your wedding gifts within two months. Some people allow three months, but I am old-fashioned enough to hold with two. Plain note cards are best, with perhaps a raised band around the edge. Once Harold was eating a handful of popcorn and began to choke. I always keep a close eye on him when we have a popcorn evening. Finally, a word about your honeymoon. You have not been to Europe before, and so you may be surprised to find a rather curious device in your hotel rooms. I am speaking of France and Italy, not England, of course.
This little porcelain bowl is not what it appears to be, but is used by continentals for reasons of personal hygiene. You must be careful not to touch these things, since they are covered with germs, completely and absolutely covered. Germs of the worst sort. The kind of germs that can bring you a lifetime of suffering, suffering that is passed from one person to another, and even to the next generation. When a woman marries, she must be constantly alert to the possibility of harm. She no longer thinks only of herself. From the moment the marriage vows are exchanged at the altar, a woman’s husband becomes her sacred trust.”
“She means a bee-day,” Elfreda Hoyt told Daisy. “A bottom washer. You fill it up with water and sort of squat over it and scrub your Aunt Nelly clean.”
She and Daisy and Labina Anthony have assembled in a curtained-off back room of Marshall’s Ladieswear a few days before the wedding for their final fittings. The fitter has gone to the storeroom to fetch a fresh paper of pins. It is a hot afternoon, but a little electric fan blows up the young women’s billowing skirts, helping to keep them cool. Elfreda (Fraidy) and Labina (Beans), the two bridesmaids, are to wear identical dresses of powder blue crêpe de chine trimmed at the sleeves and neckline with ivory lace.
Daisy’s dress is in crêpe-backed satin, en traine, embroidered in pearls and brilliants. The veil is chiffon and lace. Her bouquet will consist of lilies of the valley, orchids, and fern.
Fraidy had traveled to Europe the summer before. She had had two shipboard romances, one on the way over and one coming home, and in between she studied art history in Florence for five weeks, on one occasion visiting a life drawing class in which a young man posed, naked and sprawling, on a platform. In addition, she traveled to Paris and climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower and stood beside the eternal flame at the Arc de Triomphe and ate an artichoke in a French bistro by tearing off its leaves one by one, dipping them into a little dish of vinegar and scraping them hard against her bottom teeth. “The thing you need to know about the French,” she tells Daisy and Beans, “is that they’re absolutely filthy about certain matters. And religiously propre about others. For them a bidet is a necessity. For before. And after.”
“Before what?” Beans asked. “And after what?”
“Before and after intercourse.”
“Oh.”
“They have intercourse much, much more often than American women do. Or English women for that matter.”
“Why?” Daisy asked. “Why do they?”
“They’re much more highly sexed. They think sex is a very important part of being a woman. They’re very keen on it, very creative.”
“What do you mean, creative?”
“They do it other ways.”
“What?”
“Other ways than the normal ways, I mean. Last summer, at one of the hotels where we were staying — in this little bureau drawer — I found a book, a kind of pamphlet. With pictures. Of couples, you know, making love. In different ways.”
“You never told us this before.”
“You never asked.”
“What exactly were they doing?”
“Who?”
“The couple, in the pictures?”
“Yes, what?”
“Well.” Fraidy looks down at her fresh nail polish. “From the pictures in this little book, it looked as though”—she pauses—”as though they were kissing each other. Down there.”
“Where?”
“Here.” Pointing at her lap.
“Oh, my God.”
“You mean men kissing women down there or women kissing men?”
“Both.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I couldn’t.”
“I’d be sick to my stomach, I’d throw up.”
“I feel sick right this minute, just thinking about it.”
“For them it’s perfectly natural. They’re not half as puritanical as we are in America. They’re used to it. And, of course, it’s one way to, you know. To make sure you don’t get pregnant.”
“I hope Dick doesn’t know anything about that kind of thing,” Beans says. She will be marrying Dick Greene on the first Saturday in July.
“My goodness, you don’t think Harold would ever try—” Daisy looks at Fraidy and then at Beans. There is a moment of solid conspiratorial silence, and then the three of them burst out laughing.
Not one of them understands the reason for this sudden hilarity; it’s just something that descends on them sometimes, like gusts of weather. “Stop making me laugh,” Beans gasps, “or I’ll split my gee-dee seams open.” “And I’m going to wet my gee-dee underpants,” screams Fraidy.
They’re always laughing, these three, laughing to beat the band — as Fraidy’s mother puts it. Sometimes Daisy thinks that she and Fraidy and Beans are like one person sitting around in the same body, breathing in the same wafts of air and coming out with the same larky thoughts. This has been going on forever, all the years they were at Tudor Hall in Indianapolis, and then going off to Long College together, and pledging the same sorority and getting their diplomas on the same June morning. And whenever Daisy stops and thinks about her honeymoon, about actually standing in front of the Eiffel Tower or the Roman Coliseum, she always somehow imagines that Fraidy and Beans will be there too, standing right next to her and whooping and laughing and racketing around like crazy.
But this afternoon, with the electric fan blowing up her silk underskirt, she realizes that of course this isn’t true. She’ll be standing in those strange foreign places all alone. Just herself and her husband, Harold A. Hoad.