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【Share】【Love story】My girl, My wife
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I entered Northwestern University in the fall of 1941—a shy, skinny, ill-dressed boy on a ＄ 300 scholarship from the Winnetka Community Theater. For the first two or three days in my theater course, I sat behind a girl named Lydia Clarke. All I saw was her tumbling mane of black Irish hair, which made me tremble. She bent over her desk, taking notes. I sat bemused, taking note only of her. Between classes I made terse, offhand remarks—“Hi there. How ya doin’?” But I couldn’t figure out how to advance the relationship. I’d never even been on a date. Girls expected to be taken out and bought hamburgers and Cokes and taken home in cars. I didn’t have any money. I didn’t drive a car or know how to dance. Girls? I didn’t have a clue. Pate, as they say, took a hand: Lydia and I were cast in the same bill of plays. I was in Francesca da Rimini, playing a medieval lover, all tights and curled hair and daggers at the belt. Lydia was in a moody English piece called The Madras House. During dress rehearsal—could she have been nudging fate along?—Lydia asked me how to speak her opening line. She told me she was to enter and say, “Minnie, my frog is dead!” Well, of course I knew how that line should be read. I had firm ideas about all the performances. This was conversation I knew. I just had no idea how to stop. On opening night my medieval bit was first, and I decided I was terrible. As I brooded in a corner of the dressing room, Lydia came in and said, “I thought you were marvelous!” Cary Grant would have thought of 20funny or engaging replies. I stuck out my tongue. In infinity of female wisdom, Lydia neither walked out nor hit me. Finally I said in a strangled voice, “What I mean is, ah, I would like to talk to you about it. Could we go and, ah, have some coffee?” Yes, she would like that (this to the music of the spheres). But later, as we walked to the coffee shop, I realized I had no money. Not a nickel. I couldn’t tell the celestial beauty beside me. All I could do was silently pray that I’d find a pal I could hit up for a loan. I did: Bill Sweeney, who lent me a quarter. May his name be written in the Golden Book. Lydia and I had tea, because it would last longer (you got more hot water free). We sat there for some two hours, talking about everything. After I left her at the dorm, I ran home along the dark streets, saying, “I love her, I love her,” over and over, I did, too. Never doubt that this can happen. I’d barely spoken to her before that night, but I knew absolutely. What are the odds: one in a hundred, a thousand? It happened to me. The fall passed in a hazy mix of work and love. Then, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Every healthy male between 18 and 45 knew where he’d be before long: in uniform. I enlisted in the Army Air Forces. During the six months before I was called up, Lydia and I continued to share classes, act and work in stage crews together. “In love” is an inadequate description, at least for me. Try “obsessed.” But that was from my end. I don’t think Lydia was even in love at that point. She kept me at arm’s length, waiting to see if I might ripen into an actual human being. But she did go out with me, so she must have been drawn to me a little. Since I had no money, we seldom went out on real dates. We walked along the lakefront a lot. I remember once it snowed, and she took my arm. I never moved my elbow the whole 40 minutes we walked, with the flakes whirling down, coating her glove and the sleeve of my jacket. In the spring we often stood beside a lilac bush at school, embracing for ten minutes at a time. By my last weeks on campus, I was preoccupied with getting Lydia into bed or married to me. She rejected both options with adamantine resolves. She had no intention of getting regnant or wed: she was determined to get her degree. Desperately, I fell back on the holy soldiers have used for centuries. “You realize you may never see me again. We must have something to carry in our hearts! It may be years, it may be never!” It was a heart-breaking performance, not least because I meant it, but it never dented her resolve. One afternoon we were down in the school basement, silk-screening a set of theater posters. “I got a letter from this boy I knew in high school,” Lydia said, “He’s coming to town for a few days. Pete.” “Pete?” “I thought I might see him. He’s going in the Navy.” “The Navy?” “We might have dinner…with other people, of course. At that place on Ridge Road. Not a date.” “No! I mean, of course, not a date. Sure, I guess—sure.” I had blown it, but all was not lost. She might not be willing to marry me, yet, but I was not going to lose this girl five days before I checked in for World War Ⅱ! The night of Pete’s visit, I bullied a friend into letting me borrow his car. “For one hour, for God’s sake. Of course I have a license!”(I didn’t.) All the way to the restaurant where the nefarious Pete was plotting to steal my girl, I rehearsed a speech designed to win her heart. I avoided disaster during the car and strode confidently into the restaurant, where I saw Lydia seated at a large table. Everyone turned to look at me… And I forgot my speech. Every word. The silence lengthened. Stepping to the table, I took Lydia’s hand and said, “Come with me.” And she did. I believe with all my heart that the rest of my life began with that moment. That boyish, quixotic disruption of a dinner is the most important single action I’ve ever taken. I remain proud of it and eternally grateful to my girl—as she surely became, irreversibly, when she stood and walked out of the restaurant, holding my hand. After I left for basic training, I redoubled my efforts to get Lydia to marry me. “Just thinking, darling,” I wrote, “If we’re married and I get killed, you get ＄10,000 free and clear.” This appeal, eminently rational to my Scots soul, failed to move her. Exhausted by the grind of basic training, I gave up even mentioning marriage in my letters. One day back to my barracks after hours on the obstacle course I found a yellow envelope on my bunk. “HAVE DECIDED TO ACCEPT YOUR PROPOSAL,” the telegram said, “LOVE, LYDIA.” So she came down to the piney woods of Greensboro, N.C., to marry me. A two-day pass was the most I could wangle. I raced into town, where I got us a room and spent my private’s pay on a ＄12 ring. I was a gangly kid in uniform. But Lydia, in a marvelous violet bridal suit, was a vision that still shimmers in my mind. As we walked to the church, a shower opened over us. Who cared? We ran laughing up the steps and inside to the altar. Lydia and I have now celebrated our golden wedding anniversary. That’s a long time. But half a century, two children and one wondrous grandson later, it seems no more than a time-tick since I stood beside my girl—my wife—in that Carolina church. |
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