Страница 149 из 194
Jean came up then, shining from her shower, her hair tied back in a velvet bow, her brown legs bare in moccasins. “Hi, Mom,” Brad said, getting off his bar stool and kissing her. “Let me buy everybody a drink.”
They talked about the baby and golf and te
Two weeks later, the invitation to the wedding of Miss Virginia Calderwood to Mr. Bradford Knight was in the morning mail.
The organ struck up the wedding march and Virginia came down the aisle on her father’s arm. She looked pretty, delicate, fragile, and composed, in her bridal white. She did not look at Rudolph as she passed him, although he was standing in a front pew, with Jean beside him. Bradford Knight, bridegroom, sweating a little and flushed in the June heat, was waiting at the altar, with Joh
It’s my doing, Rudolph thought, as he half listened to the service. I brought him here from Oklahoma, I took him into the business, I refused the bride. It’s my doing, am I responsible?
The wedding lunch was held at the Country Club. The buffet was laid on a long table under an awning and tables were set all around the lawn, under brightly colored umbrellas. A band played on the terrace, where the bride and bridegroom, now dressed for traveling, had led the first dance, a waltz. Rudolph had been surprised at how well Brad, who did not seem like a graceful man, had danced. Rudolph had kissed the bride dutifully. Virginia had smiled at him with exactly the same smile she had given everybody else. Maybe, Rudolph thought, it’s all over, she’s going to be all right.
Jean had insisted upon dancing with him, although he had protested, “How can you dance in the middle of the day?”
“I love weddings,” Jean said, holding him close. “Other people’s.” Then, maliciously, “Shouldn’t you get up and make a toast to the bride? You might mention what a loyal friend she is—waiting outside your door night after night to make sure you got home safely and calling you at all hours to see if you were afraid in the dark and offering to keep you company in your poor lonely bed?”
“Ssh,” Rudolph said, looking around apprehensively. He hadn’t told her about the night of the hospital.
“She does look beautiful,” Jean said. “Are you sorry about your choice?”
“In despair,” he said. “Now, dance.”
The boys in the band were a combination from the college and Rudolph was saddened by how well they played. He remembered his days with the trumpet when he was about their age. The young did everything so much better these days. The boys on the Port Philip track team were ru
They went over and had a glass of champagne and talked to Brad’s father, who had come from Tulsa for the occasion, wearing a wide-brimmed Stetson hat. He was weatherbeaten and thin and had deep sun-creases in the back of his neck. He didn’t look like a man who had won and lost fortunes, but rather like a small-part player in the movies, hired to play the sheriff in a Western.
“Brad sure has talked enough about you, sir,” old man Knight said to Rudolph. “And about your beautiful young bride.” He raised his glass gallantly to Jean, who had taken off her hat and who now looked not bridal, but coeducational. “Yes, sir, Mister Jordache,” old man Knight went on, “my son Brad is eternally in your debt, and don’t think he don’t know it. He was turning on his own tail out there in Oklahoma, hardly knowing where his next square meal was coming from when he got the call from you to come East. And I was in mighty poor straits myself at the time, I don’t mind telling you, and I couldn’t raise the price of a broken-down oil rig to help my boy. I’m proud to say I’m back on my own two feet again, now, but for awhile there it really looked like poor old Pete Knight was finally ready to be put to rest. Me and Brad were living in one room and eating chili three times a day for sustenance when like a bolt from the blue, the call came from his friend Rudy. I told him when he came home from the service, now you see here, Brad, you take the offer of the United States Government, and you get yourself to a college with that old GI Bill of Rights, from now on a man ain’t going to be worth spit in this country if he ain’t been to college. He’s a good boy, Brad, and he had the sense to listen to his pa, and now look at him.” He beamed across the dance floor to where his son and Virginia and Joh
Brad and Virginia came over with Joh
“You’re not celebrating much today, are you, Rudy?” Joh
“The bride is pretty, the champagne plentiful, the sun is shining, my friend thinks he’s got it made for life,” Rudolph said. “Why shouldn’t I be celebrating?”
“As I said,” Joh
“My glass is empty,” said Rudolph. “Let’s get some more wine.” He started toward the end of the buffet table under the awning, where the bar had been set up.
“We’re going to have an answer on Monday from Harrison,” Joh
Rudolph nodded. Although it a
At the bar, Rudolph was clapped on the back by Sid Grossett, who had been Mayor of Whitby until the last election, and who was sent every four years as a delegate to the Republican convention. He was a hardy, friendly man, a lawyer by profession, who had successfully squashed rumors that he had taken bribes while he was in office, but had chosen not to run at the last election. Wisely, people said. The present mayor of the town, a Democrat, was at the other end of the bar, equally drinking Calderwood’s champagne. Everybody had turned out for the wedding.
“Hi, young man,” Grossett said. “I’ve been hearing about you.”
“Good or bad?” Rudolph asked.
“Nobody ever hears anything bad about Rudolph Jordache,” Grossett said. He wasn’t a politician for nothing. “Hear, hear,” Joh
“Hi, Joh
“Who’s the horse this time?”
“Mr. Duncan Calderwood.”
“The emotions of the day must have gone to the poor old man’s head,” Rudolph said. He didn’t want to talk about his business to Grossett, or answer questions about what he was going to do next. There was plenty of time for that later.