Note: Many thanks to the real Ildiko, who has been instrumental in the Hungarian profanity-and-insults department!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
"I don't believe that you want me to do this!" Elsa cried, stomping her foot so hard that her curio cabinet shuddered.
Al's brow furrowed. "I didn't think it mattered," he said.
"Mattered? Of course it mattered—matters!—bena hapsi!" Elsa roared. "You tell me a strange woman is coming to take over my wedding and it doesn't matter?"
"She's coming to help you, not to take over!" Al protested. "And that's weird, because I thought it was our wedding! I'm certainly paying for it!"
"And who asked you to?" Elsa shouted. "I have plenty of money: I can pay for it! And I do not want it to be a NASA circus!"
"Fine!" Al bit back. "Fine! So we go to City Hall—"
"I'm not going to marry outside of the Church!" Elsa shrieked.
Al scowled at her. She was the most illogical scientist Al had ever met. "—or we drive down to the rectory on a Saturday afternoon, and Father What's-His-Name—"
"Damjanov!"
"—marries us in his living room with his housekeeper as witness!"
"What about our plans, then?" Elsa snapped.
"Plans? So far you've booked the church and we're looking into restaurants for the dinner!" Al cried. "You haven't even decided on flowers!"
"It's bad luck on a marriage not to break bread with the family and friends!" Elsa exclaimed.
"We don't have any family!" Al said. "All mine are dead, and yours are back in the Old Country! If we have a reception it's going to be a NASA event whether we want it to be or not, so Mrs. Yardley might as well help you!"
"I don't need help!" said Elsa.
"What? All you've done for the last two months is complain about how much work this is! I can't help you: I'm up to my eyeballs in training and this stuff with the press! Phyllis Yardley is a great woman, and she's married off four daughters. She'll know what needs to be done…"
"I know what needs to be done!"
"Yeah, if we're having a party for twenty people!" Al retorted. "But there's going to be about a hundred—"
"A hundred?"
"Yeah, well, between the people from NASA and—"
"No, no! No people from NASA! We were inviting my landlady, and Yardley, the Taggerts, Melanie and Joseph—"
"Look, here's how it is!" Al exclaimed. "Whether we like it or not—and I don't like it!—things aren't the same as they were when we made that list! If you want a quiet wedding, it's you, me and Father What's-His-Name. If you want a party with your neighbours and your feminist friends, then we're going to have to invite the other astronauts and—"
"Who's said this? Who got to you?" she demanded. "John Yardley?"
"He didn't get to me, Elsa: he explained the situation, what the press are expecting, and then he said that his wife—"
"You want to turn our wedding into a publicity stunt?" Elsa cried. "You—you—elfajzott! Átkozott te, buta férfi! Buta, buta férfi!"
"Damn it, Elsa, whether you like it or not the press is going to be all over this marriage! Wouldn't it be nice if we were at least prepared?" Al demanded.
"Out!" she shrieked, pointing imperiously at the door. "Get out of my apartment! Menj a pokolba!"
"Oh, I wouldn't stay here one more minute if you paid me, you stupid, unreasonable cow!" Al barked. "I come here offering help and you pull a Mount Katami!"
"I just don't want this to turn into a freak show!" Elsa shrieked.
"Yeah, well, that's exactly what it's going to be, if we even go through with it, so xin loi, mihn oi!" Al snarled. He marched to the door, yanked it open, and strode away into the corridor.
Elsa followed with an enraged exclamation. She grabbed his arm and yanked him around so that he was facing her.
"What did you say to me?" she demanded fiercely. "That was not Italian! What did you say to me?"
Sparks flew between the cold sapphire eyes and the lusty dark ones. "I said xin loi, mihn oi. It means," Al said, his voice slow and very deliberate and thick with anger; "too bad, honey."
He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her once, so hard as to be almost violent, then released his hold abruptly and marched away. For a moment silence reigned behind him. Then a sharp Hungarian expletive tore the air, and Al ducked as a black leather pump narrowly missed his head. As he hastened around the corner towards the stairs he heard her slam the door to her apartment with such force that the corridor seemed to quiver.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMIt had been one hell of a month. Between training and psyche sessions and reporters trying to dig just a little deeper into the mind of NASA's unconventional mascot, Al had had hardly any time to work on his relationship. The reporters still asked questions about Apollo, but now they were trying to press the Vietnam thing. Al had no idea what the reporter from Chicago had done with the random bits of information he had fed her, but her partners in crime were doing their best to dig up all the dirt they could. He'd been confronted with that damned photograph no less than seven times. The Herald had even tracked down Bobby White, the MIA who had been liberated with him. Al wasn't giving, but that didn't mean that he liked the attention. Nevertheless, Yardley wanted him to play along, and he was willing to do whatever it took.
The problem was that Elsa didn't seem nearly as willing. Quite the contrary: she resented the time that he spent fielding questions and adorning the set whenever somebody at Kennedy put out a press release. And now she didn't want Phyllis Yardley helping with the wedding.
Al was out of his depth. He loved weddings, but he didn't know the first thing about planning them. When he'd married Beth she and her mother and her sister had arranged everything. All he'd had to do was show up at the church with an almost-sober Chip in tow. Getting help for Elsa had seemed perfectly sensible.
After the fight he got out on the freeway, zipping along in his sleek green car. After a while the anger started to dissipate, but the lingering pressure from the kiss did not. He began to feel the need to hold her, to make wild, passionate love to her.
His pride wouldn't let him apologize, though. He knew that. She was the one being unreasonable. It wasn't his job to apologize. So he needed a distraction. He'd get some supper, that's what he'd do. Mexican. He'd kill for a chicken quesadilla right now. Yeah, he'd get some food and then he'd track down a party. Maybe he'd head over to The Black Flamingo for a little dancing.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMElsa hated it when they fought. She did, she really did. Every time she fought with Al she found herself wishing that Andrew were here. But she couldn't think about Andrew. Andrew was gone forever, and she had to move on. She had to. The trouble was that she kept expecting Al to be just like Andrew, and he wasn't. And it wasn't fair to expect him to be.
After the anger died and the frustration petered out Elsa began to feel a deep, hollow desolation. She wandered the apartment aimlessly, empty and exhausted. Her feet found their way to the bedroom, and her hand reached instinctively for the box. She stopped herself.
It wasn't right. Andrew was gone, and she was going to be married to Al. She had to forget.
A mean voice whispered that Al hadn't gotten over his first love. Lieutenant Commander Elisabeth Calavicci, a Naval nurse. She knew only what she had read in Al's files: they had been married for eight years and he Missing In Action for two when the Navy had finally declared him dead, and she had remarried. Sometimes after they made love she could hear Al calling out to her in his sleep.
It was different, she told herself. Al had actually been married. He had lived with the woman for eight years. He couldn't be expected to move on, not when she couldn't even forget a man she had not even married, who had been gone for eight years. A man whose death was her fault.
She turned her back on the box. She had to forget. She had to move on. She was going to marry Al. That meant that they would have to patch up today's argument. She would have to apologize.
Her pride did not want to allow that, but her reason told her that she had overreacted. They could have discussed the whole thing like adults. She could have listened before she started shouting. She had to make it up to him.
She went to the closet and brought out a box, something she had planned to save for the honeymoon. Well, she could always have the fun of picking out another one. She packed an overnight bag and took the key to Al's apartment out of the crystal dish by the door. She would surprise him. She didn't love him, not the way that she had loved Andrew, but she wasn't going to lose him the way she had lost Andrew, either.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMIt was four in the morning when Al finally left the disco joint. He left alone. None of the girls there, nice as they were, were ample substitute for Elsa. Damn, he liked her. Stubborn and illogical and impossible as she was, he really liked her.
He decided to forgo the elevator, and mounted the stairs to his floor. In the dark he found the fridge and poured himself his nightly glass of whole milk. Thanks to Elsa's cooking, to say nothing of her nagging, he had finally passed the fifteen-pound mark, but it was habit by now. He found a bizarre comfort in habit. Routine. That was one reason why he had to get married. The spontaneity of his life was fun, but it was also exhausting.
He didn't bother with the light in the bedroom either, as he stripped off his sweaty clothing and deposited it in the laundry hamper. Massaging his neck with one hand he pulled back the covers, which seemed oddly loose, and crawled into bed.
He rolled against something warm and silky, and he awoke out of the pre-slumber stupor with a sharp gasp of surprise. The body next to him stirred with a soft sigh, and suddenly lissome arms were twining around his neck.
"Al…" Elsa's voice murmured. "Al, I'm sorry. We should not fight over such stupid things."
"Hey, beautiful…" Al breathed, his hands finding her hips. She was wearing a silk satin negligee that he didn't recognize. Part of him wanted to turn on the light and examine it. Another part wanted to continue this dreamlike encounter in darkness, and maybe he could pretend, just for one glorious moment, that it wasn't Elsa in bed beside him. Remorseful at this horrible, selfish thought, he found her lips and kissed her.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. He kissed the top of each breast, then the delicate, chiseled arc of her collarbone. "Of course you must have a wedding that will make a good show. I understand you are a public figure now. I'm sorry we fought."
"Mmm…" Al exhaled. "Me too?"
She worked her fingers up and down his back. "I know," she whispered, guiding his hand up to a ribbon at the low neckline of her garment.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMElsa stared at her reflection in the mirror, as Phyllis Yardley buttoned up the pearl beads fastening the back of the white silk gown. She couldn't believe that she had ever argued the idea. The woman behind her was an angel in disguise. She had handled every detail capably and without complaint. Everything was perfect. Perfect.
"There! Beautiful!" Phyllis said, regarding her handiwork.
"Yah, she is beautiful!" Assony Badea agreed. Elsa took her eyes away from her reflection to smile at her landlady, the nearest thing she had to a mother in this country. "Beautiful. She marry her dark astronaut, have many children."
"Oh, I'm not going to have any children!" Elsa laughed.
"Sure you have children!" the middle-aged Hungarian lady said firmly. "Have children, be happy! Today I leave my window open. In comes a robin, sits on top of my piano! Then I have a call from Mister Rodinyovich on fourth floor: a blue jay has flown into his flat! Two birds in the house today! It is good luck on the marriage! Have many children, long life together."
"Is that a Hungarian legend?" Phyllis asked, smoothing the taffeta skirt.
Elsa nodded, and Assony Badea clapped her hands proudly. She was going to tell this story to everybody willing to stand still long enough to hear it. "Many, many children!" she repeated. "Having lady in waiting with child is good luck on the marriage, too. Life and happiness!"
"Matron of honor, not lady in waiting," Elsa said. She turned back to the mirror so that she could see Lauren Taggert tying the sash of her blue frock. None of Elsa's old friends from school had been able to come out for the wedding, so she had chosen Lauren. They weren't friends. She did not really have any friends. But she was a nice woman, and her husband was Al's friend. In fact, the Lieutenant was Al's best man. "Lauren? How is the dress?"
"It's beautiful," she said. "You look like a princess."
"Not my dress, yours!"
"Oh…" Lauren came up to look at the mirror. Her hands smoothed the front of her dress. Her round body was rounder than usual, filling out with the child growing under the broad sash. She frowned, her pretty, plump face furrowing a little. "I don't know," she said self-consciously.
"I mean, is it comfortable?" Elsa said. "It looks perfect."
Lauren hugged her. "It's fine. Elsa, you're so lucky! He's wonderful!"
"So is Jim," Elsa said graciously. Actually, she thought that Lieutenant Taggert was almost as bad as Al, which was probably why they got along so well.
"Ah!" cried the landlady. "Ah! They will be so happy!"
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl stood at attention, proud and confident in his dress whites. The church was full of uniforms: Navy, Air Force, even the odd Army ensemble. Admiral Delaney was present, and one or two Captains Al had known way back when. The priest was a Naval chaplain, which Elsa had not been too thrilled about, but had agreed to in the end. Next to him, resplendent in Air Force full dress, stood Jim Taggert.
Then the music started up, and down the aisle came Jacobs' five-year-old daughter, Crystal, carrying a little basket full of roses. The reporters covering the wedding from the aisle seats snapped photographs of the golden-haired child. Behind her came Lauren Taggert, wearing a tiny shy smile. As she took her place opposite her husband Al winked at her.
"You look gorgeous!" he mouthed, enjoying her flush of pleasure. Then Elsa appeared, and he fixed his eyes upon her.
She clung lightly to John Yardley's arm, Smiling despite the blinding flashes from the cameras. Al squared his shoulders as his bride approached. She looked radiant. Absolutely radiant.
For a second her hair was dark and silky, and the flowers spilling over her fingers were calla lilies… but before the pain could rise to his throat Yardley was putting the delicate hand with its manicured talons into his.
"Hey, beautiful!" Al murmured as they turned together to face the priest, also in full dress.
Elsa smiled, and her blue eyes sparkled.