of twenty-seven times, they once had an entire morning to spend: coming back from the narrow strip of beach they waded in the irrigation ditches, knee-deep in the soft ditch grass and slow muddy water, the sun hot on their heads. All around them were her father’s orchards: the pears hanging warm and heavy, dropping to rot on the ground beneath the trees, going brown and bruised and drawing flies, going to waste in that endless summer as she, thank God and Everett , was not. She let her dress trail in the water and ran splashing through the ditch with her eyes closed against the sun. Catching her, Everett rubbed her face and bare sunburned arms with the cloudy river water that bubbled from a supply pipe; they laughed (Everett you fool my sunglasses I like you for being so brown Everett baby so hard I love you) and fell down again together, for the pickers were working the far orchards that week, and when she screamed beneath him, remembering that snakes infested the ditches, he neither told her that there was no snake nor told her that the snake (if there was one) was harmless, but picked her up and held her until she was quiet and until the snake (if there was a snake at all) had gone away. Shortly before noon she told Everett that she would marry him, and then she ran up to the house to change her dress for lunch. It seemed as inescapable as the ripening of the pears, as fated as the exile from Eden.
She mentioned it, however, to no one; scarcely thought of it away from Everett. Through day after summer day she moved as if sunstruck, dimly aware that any announcement would disturb the delicately achieved decision which had been, really, no decision at all: only an acquiescence. Was it, after all, so inevitable? The word why , once spoken out loud, could bring the pears all tumbling down. She would have to say that she loved him: it was the only incantation which would satisfy them, even as it would dispel her own illusions. Unspoken, it might still be true.
Everett remained the flaw in the grain. His constant and incontrovertible presence intruded upon her, prevented her from contemplating the idea of him, from polishing that idea into some acceptable fact. Sometimes when she came downstairs in the morning Everett would be sitting there, reading the Chronicle; he would call her several times during the day, and a suggestion, from Edith Knight, that she and Lily might go to San Francisco for the day could throw him into such despair that he would call every half-hour, all evening, to see when they were going, what they would do, when they would be home. Every scene Lily saw seemed to include Everett; all she heard was Everett’s voice, asking when they would be married.
“I don’t know,” she said finally one morning on the river. “I mean I don’t want to think about it right now.”
“When do you want to think about it? Next year? The year after?”
“Everett. Stop talking that way. I’m nervous. All brides are nervous.” She had read in a magazine that all brides were nervous, and had wondered whether that might not be her only problem: an apprehension which would turn out to be not unique but common to all women.
“If you could just leave me alone a little,” she added, hopeful that she might be right.
“Leave you alone,” Everett repeated. “I want to marry you. I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”
“Wait until the hops are down,” she said finally. “You’re too busy now, you know that.”
“I’m not too busy to tell people. Don’t you want to tell people?”
“No,” she said faintly. “I don’t.”
“You have to. You have to do it now.”
“I told them I’m not going back down to Berkeley. So they might have guessed.” She had told her parents that she wanted to take a semester off; as far as their guessing the other went, she had invested her faith in the extreme improbability of their guessing anything at all. Putting asunder the delicate balance of dependency
She mentioned it, however, to no one; scarcely thought of it away from Everett. Through day after summer day she moved as if sunstruck, dimly aware that any announcement would disturb the delicately achieved decision which had been, really, no decision at all: only an acquiescence. Was it, after all, so inevitable? The word why , once spoken out loud, could bring the pears all tumbling down. She would have to say that she loved him: it was the only incantation which would satisfy them, even as it would dispel her own illusions. Unspoken, it might still be true.
Everett remained the flaw in the grain. His constant and incontrovertible presence intruded upon her, prevented her from contemplating the idea of him, from polishing that idea into some acceptable fact. Sometimes when she came downstairs in the morning Everett would be sitting there, reading the Chronicle; he would call her several times during the day, and a suggestion, from Edith Knight, that she and Lily might go to San Francisco for the day could throw him into such despair that he would call every half-hour, all evening, to see when they were going, what they would do, when they would be home. Every scene Lily saw seemed to include Everett; all she heard was Everett’s voice, asking when they would be married.
“I don’t know,” she said finally one morning on the river. “I mean I don’t want to think about it right now.”
“When do you want to think about it? Next year? The year after?”
“Everett. Stop talking that way. I’m nervous. All brides are nervous.” She had read in a magazine that all brides were nervous, and had wondered whether that might not be her only problem: an apprehension which would turn out to be not unique but common to all women.
“If you could just leave me alone a little,” she added, hopeful that she might be right.
“Leave you alone,” Everett repeated. “I want to marry you. I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”
“Wait until the hops are down,” she said finally. “You’re too busy now, you know that.”
“I’m not too busy to tell people. Don’t you want to tell people?”
“No,” she said faintly. “I don’t.”
“You have to. You have to do it now.”
“I told them I’m not going back down to Berkeley. So they might have guessed.” She had told her parents that she wanted to take a semester off; as far as their guessing the other went, she had invested her faith in the extreme improbability of their guessing anything at all. Putting asunder the delicate balance of dependency
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