The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2011-04-21T21:00:00+00:00

you’d say The Holidays, or The Falls, Royall felt like an intruder. A church wedding? Was that what they’d be having? (But Royall wasn’t at all religious. He’d only attended a few services at the Church of Christ and Apostles, a sparrow-colored shingle-sided church on Eleventh Street, to please Candace. He’d had the vague idea that he and Candace would elope over a weekend? No?) Well, a church wedding was what they were having, as Royall learned. A small private wedding. But there would be a bridesmaid, or would there be two bridesmaids? There would be guests, a reception afterward at 1703

Baltic? Quite a surprise, that Ariah who never invited anyone into her home if she could avoid it, except her music students, would suddenly open the house to “guests”; Ariah, who scorned bourgeois convention, and had many times proclaimed her repugnance, to her children, for the “outmoded institution” of marriage, would be playing the organ at her son’s wedding, and had ventured out to buy her first new dress in years, at the Second Time ’Round Fashions downtown. “Royall, did your mother tell you the latest?” Candace asked, her glittery voice quavering. “My mother is coming. And, oh God, she insists she’s bringing this ‘man friend’ of hers nobody has ever seen. ”

Royall shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. He knew he was meant to share Candace’s indignation, or anxiety, but he wasn’t up to it. “I guess you’re tired, honey. That job of yours!” Candace sighed, turning to appeal to her sister and friends, with whom no doubt she’d been sharing her disapproval of Royall’s occupation at the Devil’s Hole. “All those silly tourists clamoring around you. Half the women draping themselves over you and having their pictures taken! And I just know that boat isn’t safe. Going into the Niagara Gorge, it can’t be safe. And it doesn’t even pay that much, to make up for being dangerous.” Candace’s words lifted like the querulous notes of a bird’s cry. The tiny diamond on her left hand winked as Candace moved her hands about in a flurry of emotion, doll-like, prettily. Candace was a very pretty girl, twenty years old, but with the manner and affecta-tions of a fifteen-year-old; her breathy soprano voice, her every gesture communicated prettiness, and an expectation that others respond to this prettiness, as a dancer moves to familiar music.

The Falls X 303

“This sweet girl I’d like you to meet”—Ariah’s description of Candace McCann. “This girl at church who’s so pretty, and so—well, sweet.” As if Ariah had wracked her brains and there was nothing more to say of Candace.

There was an edge to Candace’s sweetness, Royall had discovered, that Ariah didn’t yet know. One day, Ariah might be surprised.

Candace’s most striking feature was her strawberry blond hair, worn in a wavy-curly tumble to her shoulders and held in place with butterfly barrettes and clips. Her face was small and heart-shaped.

She had a squealing little laugh, and a habit of clasping her fingers together in a gesture of childlike enthusiasm.

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