Immigrant's Daughter by Howard Fast

Author:Howard Fast
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453235140
Publisher: Open Road Media

Seven

The wedding was put off until February 1979, and then, as Mary Lou had insisted, it took place in Barbara’s house on Green Street. Forty-two people had crowded into the narrow parlor and downstairs dining room. The wedding ceremony was performed by Judge Albert Pelzer, and the only member of the Constable family who attended was Mary Lou’s brother Andrew, who was sixteen years old. The hatred and anger that had taken hold of the Constables after Mary Lou had announced her determination to go ahead with the wedding was at first beyond Barbara’s comprehension, but the matter was clarified somewhat when Barbara took Mary Lou’s mother, Jo Anne, to lunch. Barbara considered that she should take the matter in hand and refused to believe that a talk between two adult women, where common sense and low key prevailed, would not soften the situation.

But Jo Anne Constable felt that nothing would be gained by sitting down with Mrs. Cohen. Since Barbara had behind her a decade of writing when she married her first husband, Bernie Cohen, she maintained her maiden name as a literary signature, and when, as a widow, she had married Carson Devron, she continued to write under the name of Barbara Lavette. Yet Jo Anne’s specification of the name was obviously intended to be offensive. Barbara, however, went on quietly to say that even if nothing was gained, each could at least make her views plain to the other. Finally, she persuaded Mrs. Constable to meet with her.

Barbara reserved a table at the Fairmont. The Constables lived in San Mateo, and Barbara felt that her knowing the head waiter at the Fairmont would impress Mrs. Constable — even as the Fairmont itself would make an elegant and conservative setting. She tried to anticipate Mrs. Constable, having only a rather nasty telephone conversation to go by, yet found herself unprepared for the tall, well-dressed, dark-haired woman who was brought to her table. Barbara rose to greet her; they were of a height, both of them tall, good-looking women, but Mrs. Constable, in her forties, was taken aback confronting a woman in her middle sixties.

“Please sit down,” Barbara said to her. “I’m glad you came.”

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same thing. I changed my mind, but when I tried to reach you, you had apparently left your home.” Actually Barbara had not left her house; suspecting it was Mrs. Constable, she had not answered the telephone. “I tried to reach you,” Mrs. Constable continued, “because I knew that if we did meet, I would have to talk frankly, and I know that frank talk is never pleasant.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. We must both talk frankly.”

“Very well. My daughter, a very willful young woman, says that she is determined to marry your son. She has already made us quite unhappy by taking a job that amounts to no more than a cleaning woman, except that she deals with blood and with the offal of the human body.

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