Free Galveston by Suzanne Morris Page A

know how he goes on. I promised him I’d tell you.”
    â€œWhy, how nice,” I said, and then it hit me. Maybe I couldn’t openly persuade Charles to go with Pete Marlowe’s firm, but I might be able to do it without his being aware of it, and if so, it would mean we’d move among that elite group of people in Galveston that had so fascinated me at the Marlowe party a month before. These people had teas, receptions, evenings at exclusive restaurants. One read about their busy lives in the newspaper. Charles and I could become a part of their crowd in time, if I worked it right, and we might eventually move to Broadway, far away from Rubin Garret, and if I was to be forever denied the man of my choice, I could at least live a life so busy and full of excitement that it might not matter so much the one basic ingredient of happiness was missing. My mind spun forward to visions of wealth and social importance, entertaining as only I could do it, parties, dances.…
    â€œCharles, you know it really would be nice to reciprocate the Marlowes’ hospitality.”
    â€œWhat? Oh, how do you mean?” he asked, looking up from his paper.
    â€œWell, maybe have them to dinner sometime.”
    â€œUm-hum,” he said, focusing back on his newspaper.
    â€œYou know a lot of trouble goes into a party like that, and I’ll bet you not a fraction of the guests invited ever have the decency to reciprocate. Now that I think of it, it seems almost … well … ill mannered.”
    â€œIf you say so, Claire.”
    â€œCould we invite them?”
    â€œI guess so, if you want to.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know, we can talk about it.”
    â€œLet’s set a date.”
    He put down his paper and drew on his pipe. “All right, if it means that much to you. Tell me when you want to do it and I’ll see if they’re free.”
    I was surprised at the ease with which my wishes were carried through. The Marlowes came one evening in early spring, arriving promptly at seven-thirty, a Darby and Joan if ever there has been and acting as though it were not the first but the hundredth time they’d come to our house for a meal.
    Charles explained them eloquently a week or so before, when I was poring over menus and worrying whether the linen or the more formal crochet tablecloth would be appropriate: “Pete was raised on a dirt farm somewhere in North Carolina,” he had said, “and Faye was the daughter of a clerk in a small-town bank. Believe me, dear, you don’t need to fuss. They’re home folks.”
    After I disregarded the elaborate style of the New Year’s Day party and thought of the personable nature of the two Marlowes, I decided he was correct and was put somewhat at ease, and as though to reaffirm this, Faye with her bejeweled chubby fingers took a knife to the hot bread and helped me put the food on the table just as a friend of long standing would do.
    The table conversation was launched on our lavish compliments over their recent party and Charles’s expressed surprise that McBride had seen fit to come. “Only way I could git him over to the house was to remind him he’d be retirin’ soon, lucky rascal, and movin’ away from Galveston, and he might never have another opportunity to see a whole bunch of people who were comin’.”
    â€œYou certainly had a good crowd,” I said.
    â€œReckon we had about sixty all told. Course our party is nowhere near the size of some of the others around on New Year’s Day, but then we keep our distance from the more illustrious people on the island,” said Faye.
    â€œLike whom?” I asked.
    â€œMainly the folks connected with the Wharf Company. They’re the ones who really own Galveston, and don’t let nobody kid ya’,” Pete said.
    I thought of the neighborhood oyster roast a summer before, and the awkward moment following