Page 144 - Some Dance to Remember

114 Jack Fritscher

Ryan and Annie Laurie hovered near the receiver in Charley-Pop’s
big hand.
“Have to?” Charley-Pop demanded. “What do you mean have to
marry her.”
“It’s not what you think,” Thom said. “Her father beats her. She had
to quit high school. But she’s got almost two years and she’s real smart.”
“Tell them,” Ryan coached his father, “they’re both too young.”
“They haven’t known each other long enough,” Annie Laurie said.
“If you don’t give me your permission so I can marry her in the Church,
we’ll drive to Las Vegas.” Thom at an early age exhibited a distinct talent
for emotional blackmail. “Besides,” Thom added the kicker, putting his
fiancée behind him in his dealing, “Sandy doesn’t care whether we get
married by a priest or not.”
“Oh, my God!” Annie Laurie put her hand over the telephone receiver
in her husband’s hand.
“Don’t give in,” Ryan warned. “If they get married in a non-Catholic
ceremony, it’ll make it all that easier to get it annulled when it falls apart.”
“But they might have children,” Annie Laurie whispered. “What
about children?”
“No child of mine who gets married outside the Church will ever be
welcome here again,” Charley-Pop said.
“Don’t say that.” Annie Laurie was intense. “Never say anything like
no child of mine.”
Charley-Pop put his hand over the phone. “Then we’ll have to give
them permission.”
Ryan threw up his hands and walked away from the huddle. “I’ll
never be the one to say I told you so,” he said. “After all, this is 1961,” and
something in him rose up, “and people can do what they want.”
The whole family took the California Zephyr to the West Coast. For
the first time, Ryan was to see California.
“We might as well make a vacation out of it,” Charley-Pop said.
Ryan spent most of the trip in the observation car writing in his Jour-
nal. He was nineteen. He held his three-year-old sister on his lap. During
the evening, with the constant roar of the train far beneath them, they lay
awake together in a reclining lounge chair, watching the desert, lit only
by the light of the stars and the full moon. Ryan pointed out shadows of
cactus whizzing by. Margaret Mary was delighted with the scary thrills of
Ryan’s imagination. That night they slept in the dome car tucked together
in one reclining seat. In the morning, with his baby sister’s warm body
curled into his side under his arm, Ryan watched the mountains ahead

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