Chapter 19

The honeymoon took place at the old Homestead hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia. They traveled there on the train and did their absolute best trying not to look like newlyweds, reading newspapers and talking with other travelers. They failed, mainly because they could not look at each other without smiling or laughing.

They found that they enjoyed being together, seemed to like the same foods most of the time, got pleasure from long walks in the woods, from sitting next to each other and watching the sun go down, and were amazed at what their bodies were able to do in bed at night and in the morning and afternoon as well. They had a great deal of trouble keeping their hands off each other in public.

Between much needed naps, they smiled at each other when their eyes met on the long ride back to Rockville where Jenny met them with the pickup truck.

"I didn't know you had a driver's license," Sammy said after he threw their suitcases in the back. He had sent a wire to the store saying when they should arrive.

"A what?" said his half-sister after she kissed Polly and released the brake.

"How's business been?" Sammy yelled at her.

"Nobody missed you, if that is what you mean, but they are still talking about your wedding, those that survived."

"Wasn't that a ripsnorter?" Sammy said, leaning back and stretching, still amazed to be a married man. "Don't you just love prohibition?"

Nearly three hundred people had crowded together for the ceremony in the Bethlehem Chapel of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, down in the catacombs of the unfinished structure, some standing out in the vaulted halls and on the stone stairways, and it seemed that twice that number enjoyed themselves at the Club later that afternoon, parking their cars all over Chevy Chase and roistering until the small hours of the morning.

The ailing Woodrow Wilson's wife attended since the Galts and Dovers had known each other for a long time. As usual Alice Longworth was a center of attention and men roared when they repeated her jests about the Hardings and her suggestion that it was Florence who was hiring girls for Warren's dalliances in the White House closets.

More than a dozen senators and twice that number of congressmen as well as a hoard of Congressional staffers and their wives, daughters and girlfriends went through the endless receiving line, shook Sammy's hand and bussed Polly's cheek. An anteroom bulged with late-arriving wedding gifts.

The fountain bubbled French champagne by way of Canada, but of course anyone who asked was told it was just grape juice. Shrimp disappeared by the barrelful, roast beef by the steamship round and tiny crab cakes by the gross as basket after basket of beaten biscuits appeared on the laden tables along with platters of Smithfield ham and smoked turkey. Dinner was not served but no one went away hungry or thirsty. Fourteen cases of empty whisky bottles were hauled off by the local bootlegger to be refilled.

Occasionally while they were at the spa, Sammy wondered what the wedding had cost his young wife's parents. Polly's seed-pearl decorated satin gown with its flowered headdress and long, filmy veil was probably worth more than the store and house put together. Ah well, he decided, it made them happy I guess; they certainly had looked happy when he saw them at the train station.

Jenny pulled the truck in beside the hedge that separated the store from the small house and handed Sammy a key. "Welcome home," she said with a smile. She headed for the store and Polly and her new husband went up the steps and unlocked the front door. He then backed up a step and scooped her into his arms and took her inside, set her down and kissed her seriously. They both laughed, a bit nervously.

While they were out of town their friends and relatives had cleaned and waxed the floors, washed the windows and the curtains, installed several pieces of old furniture and Sammy's iron bed. "Well, Mrs. Williams," he said to her after pumping himself a glass of water in the kitchen. "What shall we have for supper?"

Polly yanked open the wooden ice box and found it empty of both food and ice. "We can have Coca Colas and leftover baked goods or what looks like a piece of wedding cake," she said. "Bring in the suitcases and I'll get us unpacked. I think I see your father coming across the field. Oh, and see if there's some ice in the cooler you can spare."

Sammy perused the account book, found that Jenny had paid everything due plus the C.O.D. gasoline deliveries and that the monthly charge bills were ready to be mailed. He kissed Jenny's cheek and urged her to go over to the house and help Polly. She went, taking a dozen eggs and a slab of bacon with her. There was no ice left down among the soft drinks.

About dusk, Sammy sent home the boy who sat on the front steps waiting for gasoline customers with his thanks and a extra quarter as a present, doused the lights, locked the doors, drew a beer for himself from his illicit half-keg and walked to his rented house feeling reasonably content. His father was sitting on the small front porch, smoking his filthy pipe.