Marrying Celia

By Stan Dryer

Mel and Celia lie on the summer sands of Martha’s Vineyard and talk about getting married. Celia often gets hiccups when they discuss marriage. Sometimes the hiccups will not go away for several days until Mel convinces her that they cannot get married until the distant future. As Mel’s divorce nears realization, this approach has become more difficult.

“All of this is tied up with my father, somehow,” says Celia. Mel has met her father three times. He was drunk on all of these occasions. Celia’s mother pretends that her father is not an alcoholic. There are dependencies between her parents that no one has been able to understand.

“I don’t want to end up like my parents,” Celia says.

“Why should we end up like them?” says Mel.

Celia starts to hiccup and has to go and lie in the water. If she lies on her back and lets the waves wash over her, the hiccups usually go in a few minutes.

The last time that Mel saw Celia’s parents was on the previous Christmas, when he took her to their beautiful old house in Larchmont. Her father made sad little jokes as he opened his presents with frequent trips out to his hidden bottle. Her mother, gaunt with years of pretense, chirped bright nonsense. Mel watched Celia fill with rage at her parents and their silly games.

On the way back from Christmas, with the back seat of Mel’s car piled with apologetic gifts, Celia put her head down on Mel’s shoulder and cried. “Those bastards, those stupid, stupid bastards,” she sobbed.

Celia comes back up the beach to where Mel is sitting, the hiccups are gone. She holds up her hand with the wedding ring that Mel has given her. Mel gave her the ring to avoid embarrassment on their vacation. “I don’t think that wearing this has made me hiccup more, do you?” she says.

Mel ordered the ring for Celia from the Sears, Roebuck catalog. He thought there would be less of a personal confrontation than if he bought it at a jeweler. But when he got to the pickup counter, the girl insisted that he take it out of its little envelope and show it to her. “Fred and I are getting married in September and I’m terribly curious about rings,” she said.

Despite Mel’s protest, the girl tried on the ring. It stuck, and Mel and the store manager worked for ten minutes trying to get it off with, soap and warm water. Everyone apologized and asked lots of questions about Mel’s bride—Mel lied gallantly.

The fog squeezes the sunlight from the beach, and it grows cold. Celia shivers. “We’d better go back,” Mel says.

Mel and Celia are staying at a rooming house in Oak Bluffs, a big old summer place full of actors who are playing in Othello in the Vineyard Summer Theater. They call one another by their stage names and are all pleasant to Mel and Celia, except for Iago who has a shifty look in his eyes and rides a noisy hog motorcycle, gunning the engine just outside their window at all hours of the night.

Othello and Desdemona occupy the room next to Mel and Celia. Desdemona is very kind to Celia, helping her through two of her attacks of hiccups. Most people give Celia funny ways to cure hiccups, such as drinking a glass of water while standing on her head. But Desdemona talks softly to Celia and tells her that if her hiccups have gone away in the past, they will certainly go away, again, this time.

Celia thanks Desdemona and says that she is very kind, particularly as she has such troubles of her own. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” says Desdemona. “Quarrels are like hiccups, they always go away eventually.

At the rooming house, Mel receives a long-distance call from Mr. Henderson, his lawyer in North Carolina, who has spent the last three years getting him a divorce. Mr. Henderson is a fine Southern gentleman who never utters the word “divorce,” always referring to it as “action” or “proceedings.”

“You sone of a bitch,” Mel shouts at him. “Why the hell are you bothering me here?” Mel shouts at his gentleman lawyer because he has taken the longest time on record to put through a simple divorce.

“Mr. Winthrop,” says Mr. Henderson, “your action comes before the Court on this Wednesday. Can you make it down for the proceedings?” Mr. Henderson always addresses him in the careful Southern gentleman tones obviously reserved for dealing with savages north of the Mason Dixon line.

“Yes, you bastard, yes, “Mel shouts. “You’ve managed to screw up the only vacation I’ve had in two years, but I’ll be there.”

Celia drives Mel to the boat the next morning. “I’ll be back in a couple of days,” he tells her. “Take care of yourself and don’t let Othello and Desdemona fight too much.”

“Perhaps Iago will give me a ride on his motorcycle,” says Celia.

Mel takes the boat to the mainland, a bus to Boston, and the subway and bus to the Logan International Airport. He flies in a jet aircraft to Raleigh’ and takes a cab to the city. He thus uses, five different means of transportation to get to his divorce. This is not a record, but Mel has a lot of time for thought along the way.

In the plane he thinks about how he first met Celia.

“1 am looking for someone who can advise me about chain.” The words, spoken perhaps by a child, came faintly into Mel’s office at the Megalo Hardware Headquarters. His secretary would, he knew, stop the intrusion. A monolith of a woman shouldering her way past fifty, Mrs. Milthause was fiercely protective of his privacy.

Curious, he hurried out of his office before Mrs. Milthause could dispatch the owner of the voice. For just an instant, he thought the thin girl standing there was indeed a child. But she looked over at him with very adult and serious gray eyes.

“Perhaps I can help.” He interrupted Mrs. Milthause’s explanation of where to find the nearest Megalo retail store. He escorted the girl out from under the fire of his secretary’s glare and into his office.

“We are trying to keep them from taking Harry Lee,” she said. “I thought we might chain ourselves together with something they couldn’t cut.”

After some questioning. Mel discovered that Harry Lee was an Army deserter awaiting recapture in a local church. Celia represented a group of pacifists intent on thwarting his repossession by the military.

Mel got out the chain catalog and helped Celia select the toughest variety available. “I’ll order it for you from the warehouse,” he said.

“You’re really kind,” she said as she put on her coat. Mel discovered that he did not want her to leave.

“How about a little free publicity?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“My firm would like to have a photographer there when they try to cut the chain,” he said. “Might make a good ad.”

When the federal agents marched into the church, they blunted their hacksaws and bolt cutters upon the finest Megalo lock and chain. It was necessary to carry Harry Lee, Celia, and four other young people out of the church still linked together with steel. They sang their songs of defiance in what Mel thought was fairly close harmony, considering the circumstances.

Mel received a bonus of five hundred dollars for the impressive advertisement in Hardware Universe that featured ten feet of Megalo chain, Celia, and Harry Lee, and a very angry FBI man with a broken bolt cutter. To celebrate, Mel invited Celia to dinner.

“You should—know that I’m married,” said Mel, while they were sipping cocktails in a small Italian restaurant. “My wife and I have been separated for four years.”

“That figures,” said Celia. “You should know that my father is an alcoholic. He has been drinking for almost twenty years.”

At the time, this information did not strike Mel as too important. It certainly did not keep him from quickly falling in love with Celia.

Celia is a passionate creature, consumed by a hunger that Mel only faintly understands. She takes up causes, throwing herself into any movement that promises the emancipation of the oppressed, the righting of the unjust. She hurls herself upon Washington when a protest promises her union with the rest of suffering mankind. She links her thin arms with her fellows, shouts their songs of freedom, and always returns rejuvenated, but still hungering for Mel’s love.

Without any urging from Celia, Mel found Mr. Henderson and requested that he approach Mel’s wife, Helene, on the long-dormant question of divorce.

Now, three years later, the wheels of justice are making their final turn. The jet pivots over fields of red clay and begins its descent to the Raleigh-Durham Airport. Mel checks his seat belt and turns his thoughts to the task at hand.

Mel meets Mr. Henderson in an office paneled with walnut and lined with ancient law books, many of which have not been used since slavery was abolished. His lawyer is a tiny, frail gentleman who rises carefully from behind an immense desk to shake Mel’s hand. He may have stayed on past retirement just to see Mel’s case to completion.

“We have made it at last.” says Mr. Henderson implying vast procedures eliminated, miles of red tape cut by his slashing legal mind.

“It will be good to get it over with,” says Mel.

“I cannot blame you for being anxious,” says Mr. Henderson. He forgives Mel all of the impetuousness of his forty-two years.

“What do I have to do?” says Mel.

“Attest to the validity of certain items in your affidavit. You don’t object to swearing on a Bible?” Yankees are apparently often godless.

“No, certainly not,” says Mel.

Mr. Henderson stands up. Their interview is at an end. Mel shakes his frail hand and leaves.

Mel meets Mr. Henderson at the courthouse the next morning. The room is full of the heat of the burning Carolina summer. Mr. Walters, Helene’s lawyer, enters. A man in his sixties, age has turned him fat and ruddy. He shakes hands warmly with Mr. Henderson. They are old Wake Forest Law School buddies. Mel’s divorce may have been a chance for all sorts of old-time reunions, meals at fancy restaurants to exchange papers concerning the divorce of that pushy Yankee boy. Perhaps after this hearing they have a luncheon date to celebrate and to decide on the exorbitant fees they will charge.

The judge enters and everyone rises. He is a kindly old man. Due to the heat, certain formalities will be dispensed with, but no hanky-panky will be tolerated.

“The Winthrop case first.” he says to his clerk. She is a little woman who moves the papers quickly in front of him without a flicker of expression.

The judge smiles down on the two lawyers and asks as to the health of their families. He is another Wake Forest Law School chum, Mel is brought forward and introduced. He shakes hands with the judge.

Mel is sworn in. “Have you, as stated in your petition, lived separate and apart from your wife, Mrs. Helene Winthrop, for a year?” asks the judge.

“Yes,” says Mel.

The papers are signed and then everyone shakes hands. Mel realizes that he is divorced. He feels very tired. Mr. Henderson walks with him out into the glaring heat of the Carolina sunshine. Mel wants to do something extraordinary to celebrate. such as picking up his tiny gentleman lawyer and squeezing him. But Mr. Henderson will not even be shocked by such an expression, only taking it as another clear example of Yankee bad taste.

Mel shakes Mr. Henderson’s tiny hand one last time.

He rents a car and drives out to visit his daughter. She and Helene, now his ex-wife, live in a modest bungalow on a quiet suburban street. With all settlement promises officially signed and witnessed, he feels quite free to walk up to the front door and ring the bell.

Helene is as Mel remembers her from years ago. Her hair is dyed perhaps a shade darker.

“How does it feel to be a free man?” she asks, and laughs a nervous and stringy giggle. Mel discovers that her laugh still bothers him, but he tells himself it is no longer his concern.

“Fine, I guess,” Mel says.

What do you think of the place?” asks Helene.

“Just great,” says Mel. He notes a few pieces of familiar furniture, flotsam from the wreck of their marriage.

Helene pushes an album into his hands. “I found this. I think it is only right for you to have it.”

He takes it automatically, avoiding touching her hands. He opens the cover, afraid that it contains pictures of their honeymoon. On the first page is a picture of his newborn daughter, goggle-eyed on a sheet. He knows that the second page will have a view of the happy parents holding their baby.

He closes the book and hands it back to Helene. “That’s nice, but you keep it. I have lots of pictures of Marla.”

He does have many pictures, sealed away in a cardboard carton. He has neither the will to destroy them nor the courage to cull through them. Someday he will give the whole box to Marla.

“I still have that old electric frying pan, if you want it,” says Helene. “Now that you’ll be baching it, it might come in handy.”

“No, that’s O.K.,” Mel wonders what Helene thinks he has been doing for the last, seven years.

“I really want to give you something,” says Helene. “I mean I took practically all our stuff.”

Perhaps it is important for Helene to present him with a symbolic payoff for handling the dirty work of their divorce. Eager to keep the peace, Mel scans the room for a neutral object. He settles upon a brass vase that he thinks his mother gave them.

He points. “I think I’d like that.”

“The vase?” asks Helene. “Whatever for?”

“Well, I’ve always liked it.” Mel discovers that the official acts of the courtroom have not purged all his anger toward this woman.

Helene picks up the vase and turns it in her hands. “This is one of my favorites. Your mother gave it to us.”

“That’s why I want it.” He can see the defiance coming into her eyes. There is to be another beautiful standoff in the old tradition of their marriage.

Marla enters. She is a lovely teen-ager with straight, dark hair reaching below her shoulders. “Hi, Daddy,” she says and kisses him on the cheek.

“Your father wants this vase that Granny gave us,” Helene says with a phony sweetness that fools no one. “Isn’t that nice?”

“Sure,” says Marla. She glances at the vase with the swift indifference she shows for any object over which her parents may choose to quarrel.

Mel takes Marla for dinner in an expensive restaurant built in an old barn. She is very poised, a shy young lady on her best dating behavior. She smiles at the waiter, arranges her napkin with aplomb.

“I think that Celia and I will be getting married,” says Mel. “You remember Celia from last summer?”

Marla looks up from her steak and smiles pleasantly. “That sounds great,” she says. In no way can Mel determine what she is thinking. She may understand completely the nature of the rocks on which the marriage of her parents foundered. Perhaps she blames Celia for stealing her father away.

“I hope you’ll be able to come up and visit us, get to know Celia,” Mel says.

Marla does not alter her dreamlike smile. “That would be nice,” she says. There is a rude gap for Mel between the little girl who sat on his knee and told him every inner thought and this cool young woman with the unfathomable smile.

Mel drives his daughter home. “Thanks for the wonderful dinner, Daddy,” she says.

“See you soon,” he says.

She kisses him on the cheek and goes into the house.

Mel flies back to Boston. High over the hazy cities of the eastern seaboard he thinks about marrying Celia. The alternatives frighten him. He cannot conceive of life without her. But she could get a case of hiccups that would not stop unless he left her. Their current relationship cannot continue. Although he probably spends only one night a week in his own apartment, Celia refuses to live with him without marriage.

Does Celia have a touch of her mother’s desire that all the fictions of a stable universe be maintained? Perhaps she has decided out of pure stubbornness not to be ruled by her hiccups. Mel does not know. He does know that he sees living with Celia as the only path to his survival.

Mel lands at Logan International Airport, takes the bus and subway to the bus station, the Greyhound bus to Woods Hole, and the ferry back to Martha’s Vineyard.

Celia is waiting when Mel comes down the gangway from the ferry. She throws herself into his arms. “I had no hiccups the whole time you were gone,” she says and starts to hiccup.

Mel holds the real warmth of her in his arms, feels the hiccups shake her body and the wetness of her tears on his neck. “I missed you,” he says.

Mel and Celia lie on the warm beach and watch the waves break on the shore. The last day of their vacation he says, “I think we should reach some decisions.”

Celia starts to hiccup and cry.

“We must decide to break up, continue to live together, or get married,” says Mel.

“I think we’re too much in love to break up,” says Celia through her tears. “Marriage should be about the same as living together,” says Mel.

“But with more hiccups,” says Celia.

“Damn the hiccups, full speed ahead,” says Mel.

“Your faith in the institutions of our society will see us through,” says Celia.

“Well, if we’re going to be married, you’d better give the ring back to me,” says Mel. “We can’t have people thinking we’re married if we aren’t yet.”

Celia takes off the ring and hands it to Mel. Her hiccups stop. “I feel better already,” she says. “Do you want a big wedding?”