Eddie looked puzzled. “Why?”
“It turned out, he wanted to marry me.”
“How’d you get out of that one?” asked Ruth.
Marian forced herself to meet Ruth’s eye. “I didn’t. I married him. Eventually.”
“You married him?” Ruth said, drawing back, outraged and transfixed. “You told me you’d never even gotten close to marrying anyone.”
“I lied,” Marian said. “I don’t talk about him. He wasn’t a very nice man.” She watched the dancers below. She and Barclay had only danced once, on the crossing to England for their honeymoon. In general he had disdained dancing, but the night the storm abated, he’d led her to the ballroom after dinner. The floor had risen and fallen under their feet with the swell, like someone breathing. “He’s dead now, anyway,” she said.
“But who was he?” demanded Ruth.
Marian said nothing. How could she explain Barclay?
Eddie’s warm, mournful eyes lingered on Marian. “We’ve interrogated Marian enough. Now we should dance.” He stood and held out a hand to Marian.
“So you’re both going to abandon me?” Ruth said. “The drinks haven’t come yet.”
“Ruthie, for as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never had a problem finding someone to dance with,” Eddie said.
* * *
—
Out in the night again, Marian turned to say a quick goodbye to Ruth and Eddie, to flee from the sight of them going off together, but the brief flaring glow of someone’s cigarette lighter caught them embracing. Not kissing but holding each other tightly. The lighter snapped closed; the murk swallowed them. Ruth called her name.
“I’m here,” Marian said.
“Where?”
“Right here.”
Ruth had her by the arm. “Let’s go. I hate goodbyes.”
“Why aren’t you going with him?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand why you lied about being married.”
They walked a little way down the street in the general direction of the Red Cross Club. “Don’t you love him?” Marian asked. “It seems like you do.”
“Of course I do. He’s Eddie. What’s not to love? Didn’t you love your husband?”
Dawn was soaking through the cloud. Shapes were coalescing, different grades of shadow. “At the end I hated him.”
“But in the beginning?”
“Maybe in the beginning.”
“You could have just told me you were married,” Ruth said. “You’re not so special that everything has to be a secret.”
“I don’t think I’m special.”
Ruth let out a derisive snort. “You do so. And that’s why you know you can drop people, and they’ll still come back. You were right, too. I came crawling as soon as you snapped your fingers.”
“That’s not it at all.”
“Tell me, then.”
“Why won’t you answer me about Eddie? Don’t you sleep together?”
“Why do you care, Marian? Oh!” In the dimness, Ruth tripped over the outstretched leg of a soldier passed out on the sidewalk and lurched down hard onto her hands and knees.
“Oh!” Marian echoed. She knelt beside Ruth. “Are you all right?”
Ruth sat up, shaking out her hands. “Yes, but it stings.” The drunk hadn’t moved, and Ruth poked his leg. He stirred, curling up. “Guess he’s not dead,” she said.
“We should move so no one does the same to you.” Marian took Ruth’s arm, hoisting her up. They sat in a doorway on a low granite step. Marian caught the smell of urine from somewhere and of smoke and morning damp. Ruth’s palms were raw and gritty, her stockings torn at the knees and streaked with blood. Gently Marian took Ruth’s hand, turned it over, and kissed her knuckles. She felt like a Spitfire held too long on the ground. She needed to move, to act, or she would boil over.
“It’s not like that with Eddie and me,” Ruth said. “We do love each other, but we’re different. We don’t—it’s not romantic between us. Sometimes it’s easier to be married because married people seem like everyone else. No one asks questions. Or not as many. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”
“I think so,” Marian said, and she teetered for a final moment before she leaned over and kissed Ruth, who kissed back without hesitation. It was an ordinary kiss, in some ways—the wetness of a mouth, the blindness.