The House of Eve (47)
“Elly! You are stunning,” he said as he moved across the room to kiss her. “Happy anniversary, baby.” He retrieved a small navy bag from behind his back.
“Oh, William,” she said. “I don’t need anything else.”
“Open it.”
Eleanor reached inside the bag, moved the tissue paper and found a box. She flipped it open and lifted a gold Bulova watch. On the back was an inscription.
Our time is for eternity,
Love WP
Eleanor beamed and then reached for his chin.
“We can stay here,” she said and caressed his jawline. “Celebrate the old-fashioned way.”
“Mmm. Don’t start none, won’t be none. I’ll save my sweets for later.” He squeezed her shoulder and headed for the shower.
William had started his first year of residency at the hospital and had been busy during her thirteen-week doctor’s appointment that morning, and the leaflet that her obstetrician had given her to share with him was on the table. Eleanor picked it up and read it for the umpteenth time, even though she had committed most of it to memory.
The fetus was now peeing inside her, and if it was a girl, which she believed it to be, her ovaries were already filled with tiny eggs. Eleanor could not quite imagine a body already being groomed to give birth before it was even born. Her little one weighed about two ounces, had unique fingerprints and was covered in a fine hair called lanugo. Eleanor had looked up lanugo in her Oxford dictionary, before moving on to the most important sentence on the page. It was the very last line on the leaflet.
At thirteen weeks the mother has entered her second trimester, and the chances of a miscarriage are decreased.
She’d underlined those words with a blue ink pen. Seeing them now made her smile. She was out of the danger zone. Come January 1951, she and William would welcome their sweet-faced child, and she hugged herself at the thought of being a mother. A mother to William’s flesh and blood, the baby that would bond them together for life, and damp away the doubt from Rose Pride’s mind that her beloved son had married wrong.
When William walked into the kitchen, he looked like he had just stepped from one of the fashion pages of Ebony magazine. His hair was brushed, and his two-tone shoes were shining. Even after all their time together, it was still sometimes hard to believe that he was all hers. The man whose back she had admired for all those months was now her husband, and as Eleanor watched him move toward her, she felt like she had won the grand prize.
“What are you smiling about?”
“You.”
In the car, William reached over and squeezed Eleanor’s thigh. “Thanks for doing this tonight. I know it’s our anniversary, but it means a lot to Mother, us being there. You understand, right?”
Eleanor nodded and then fiddled with the radio, until she found something more soothing than the bottom of the third inning with the Baltimore Elite Giants pitching against the Indianapolis Clowns.
William always prefaced these invitations with “for Mother’s sake,” but Eleanor knew that William enjoyed these posh events almost as much as Rose did. He was in his element at these soirees in a way that Eleanor was not. She hoped their child would bridge this one gap between them, once and for all. Two years ago, Eleanor hadn’t even known that the Negro elite existed, and now she was a member of one of the most affluent families in D.C. She often had to remind herself to pretend that wearing a frock that cost more than her father’s weekly wages was normal. As she moved through the banquet hall, she trained her face not to gawk at all the extravagances.
White-gloved waiters strolled the room, clutching silver trays containing champagne, crisp wine and succulent seafood hors d’oeuvres on toothpicks. Rose and William Pride Senior stood in the middle of two couples. Rose, as usual, was dressed in a silky one-of-a-kind frock, dripping with heavy diamonds and strings of pearls.
“William, darling, you remember Judge Mosley and his lovely wife? Their daughter, Beatrice, was a debutante at the alumni ball you went to in eleventh grade.” Rose gestured for William to join their circle.
“Good to see you again,” William said. “This is my wife, Eleanor.”
William Senior added, “And today is their one-year anniversary. Congratulations.” He raised his glass to them, and the Mosleys did the same.
“They are expecting their first child,” Rose offered, and Eleanor noticed that her glass rested at half-mast.
“You must be so excited,” Mrs. Mosley cooed, her gray hair bouncing against her shoulders. “Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?”
“Just a healthy baby” was Eleanor’s standard answer.
“Well, may God bless you.” The woman patted Eleanor’s elbow.
“Oh, William dear, come with me. I want you to meet someone,” Rose insisted before ushering William away and leaving Eleanor to fend for herself.
Alone, Eleanor made her way to her assigned table, where she sat and watched as the who’s who of Washington, D.C., swarmed around each other. They buzzed with laughter, showing off brand-new suits, frocks, expensive jewelry and hats. She overheard chatter about new cars parked outside, and the summer homes on Martha’s Vineyard and Sag Harbor that would take them far from the hot city’s reach for the months of July and August. Eleanor longed for a familiar face, someone to pass the time with, but there was no one, and she recalled Greta’s long-ago threat: