“It’s a good thing you have such nice shoes,” she said. “I mean, with all that back-and-forthing, you’ll need them.”
John stared at his feet with a puzzled expression, before realizing she was making a joke.
Emilia Mae asked about his work. “The suburbs in this area are sprawling like fungus. Here in particular. And you know who is planning to get in on the ground floor of this development.” He pointed both thumbs toward his chest and smiled. That’s when Emilia Mae noticed the wide gap between his two front teeth, wide enough to run a train through. “And you?” he asked, still smiling. “Are you planning to remain in the hotel business?”
Emilia Mae laughed. “I’m hardly in the hotel business. I just clean and dust around it. My family owns Shore Cakes; it’s the only bakery in town. I guess that puts me in the baking business. Speaking of…the blueberry pie here is really delicious, it’s from our bakery. You should try some.”
As they finished their pie and last sips of coffee, John leaned across the table and grabbed Emilia Mae by the wrists. “A fella can get lonely on business trips,” he said. “Particularly on rainy nights like this one. I’d really like it if you would keep me company.” He smiled a purple-toothed smile.
“I am keeping you company.” Her smile was as purple as his.
“That’s not the kind of company I meant,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I’m talking about company in the pit of night when you’re alone in a strange bed in a strange town and even the moon is hidden behind the clouds. That kind of company.”
Emilia Mae was flattered that a man like John would want her company. He was a grown-up in a suit and tie, and handsome in a professional way.
“Yeah, I get that,” she said. “Middle-of-the-night company. Why not?”
He studied her as she cleared the table, set their dishes in the sink and turned out the lights. In the darkness, he took her by the hand and led her to his room. He didn’t say anything but pinned her against the wall and kissed her hard after he closed the door. In bed, he held her so tightly that she thought he might have dislocated her shoulder, and when he came, he made noises as if he were crying. After he left, she found bubble-sized bruises on her arms. Unlike with the others, sex with him had made her lose her way and want more. After that, she didn’t bother to go to confession.
By October, Emilia Mae had been with John four or five times. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but something about the way his shirts were always neatly pressed and the inside of his suitcase smelled of lavender soap—not the kind a man would use—told her there was a wife in the picture.
Emilia Mae didn’t care. She liked the way John talked to her about the world: things like movies, books, Manhattan, and a lot about the New York Yankees—they’d won the pennant that year and were playing the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. She told him she knew nothing about baseball, and he said: “A night game at Yankee Stadium is something to see. Maybe you and I can go sometime.” She felt giddy, buoyed by the promise of a night game at Yankee Stadium. That was something to look forward to. He was something to look forward to. When he was gone, she could lose herself in the recounting of their lovemaking and the wanting and waiting that came with it.
By November, Emilia Mae discovered that her weight had shot up ten pounds, to 158. It only rounded her already curvy figure and didn’t concern her much until the night she was awakened by an unsettled stomach. Over the next two weeks, the unsettled feeling continued, and her sleep became more fitful. No amount of Pepto-Bismol could stem the heartburn and nausea that coursed through her.
Emilia Mae knew how babies were made. Whenever she’d ride her bike to pick up desserts for the inn, she’d watch the pregnant women at the bakery. They rubbed their bellies like fortune-tellers warming up crystal balls. They looked flushed and pleased in a way that was different from when they selected petit fours. She was definitely not one of them. I’m eighteen and not even out of high school, she thought. God knows I have nothing to be pleased about. I’m not pregnant like they are. Mother is right: Natures are natures, and maybe mine does have the devil in it. Maybe that’s what this is all about. It will go away soon.
But it didn’t go away. Emilia Mae was scared and tired and had trouble keeping food down. She needed her mother. Or a mother. Someone to comfort her, tell her she’d be okay. On her trips to the bakery during the week and sitting next to her mother at church on Sundays, she waited for Geraldine to notice. Surely, she would see her belly, the dark circles under her eyes, and ask what was wrong. As she grew out of her clothes, she wore the same overalls and large oxford shirt every day. She became careless about stains on the shirt and how often she washed her hair. She walked with the slumped demeanor of fatigue. The men who visited the Neptune Inn stopped noticing her. Still, her mother said nothing, and her father greeted her warmly as if nothing were amiss.
It was Xena who noticed her friend’s weight gain and stains on her shirt. She figured she was going through some sort of teenage moodiness and kept Emilia Mae in her prayers. One afternoon, as they were preparing a meatloaf, she asked Emilia Mae if she was a churchgoing girl.
“Not by choice. My mother makes me go with her to St. Bernadette’s on Sundays, but I’d just as soon clean dead mice out of the basement. I hate the priest over there. He’s cold and mean and has an oily voice.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like enough reason to hate the man.”
“Yeah, well he does these creepy sermons like he’s trying to scare us into believing.”
Xena nodded as she worked the meat with her hands. “A lot of them do that. What does he say?”
“The other day he talked about how a sinful soul could corrupt the flesh. Believe me, I wasn’t the only one who was secretly studying the skin on my arms. He’s always telling us that impure thoughts could make for a soiled life. He makes me feel dirty inside. His stories about fallen women who have improper intimacy with men are horrifying. The women always end up dying, but not before they suffer baseball-sized tumors in their throats or pus-filled sores up and down their legs.”
“What about the men?” asked Xena.
“He never says what happens to them. I assume they go off to play golf or hunt down little birds. Anyway, one time, Father Daley told us that demons could take over a person’s body if that person is evil. That’s when my mother poked me in the ribs as if to say, ‘There you have it.’ So, yeah, I hate the priest over there.”
“Do you really think demons have taken over your body?” Xena sounded incredulous.
Emilia Mae laughed. “I kind of do. If you count unkind thoughts as evil, I’ve got a tribe of demons living in me.”
Xena looked up from the meat she was kneading. “Wash your hands and help me with this. What kind of evil thoughts are you talking about?”
The cold meat squished through her fingers as Emilia Mae gave voice to her secret thoughts. “My mother. No matter what I do, I can’t make her like me. Sometimes I wish I had another mother. I don’t much like New Rochelle. The rich are too rich and the poor too poor here. I hate all those stores my mother’s always swooning about. Sometimes I wish a fire would burn the whole place down. How’s that for evil thoughts?”