rated *
Disclaimer: *I’m making no money off these characters. I also borrowed lines from two songs “I fall to pieces and The Wanderer” and I’m making no money or profiting in any way from those or anything else on this website.
*Keep in mind, this is the year 1961. (I began the Pete & Helen stories with “Falling in love, set in 1959) Pete and Helen have been married since the past June, it is now January. (I chose a different era than now, because it would be hard to write a Pete and Helen of the year 2005.
· This was the year coffee mate first came out
· The dress I described is one I found on a website with 1961 fashions.
· Patsy Cline’s hit single: “I fall to pieces” became popular that year.
· The other hit single “The Wanderer” (I can’t remember who sang it, also became popular that year.
· The rabbit test was the way doctor’s once determined if a woman was pregnant.
The Honeymoon’s Over
by Kay Lynn
Chapter 1
Twenty-two year old Pete Belden sighed, as he picked up the morning newspaper that was always left in the breakroom and plopped down on one of the small vinyl couches that lined two of the walls. It had been a hectic day working at the NYC bank already and it was still morning. Normally, he thrived on the busy-ness of the bank, but today he didn’t feel like being bothered with it.
“Hi Pete,” said the newly hired Sara Carlson, his boss' daughter.
“Hi Sara,” he replied, not even looking up at her. He opened up to the business section of the paper.
Even though there were other places to sit, Sara sat down beside him on the little couch, so that they were touching one another. “Are you feeling okay today?” she asked, while leaning toward him and intimately brushing a lock of hair out of his eyes.
“Sure,” he said, still looking at the paper, not really noticing her. He was upset today, because he and Helen had been fighting so much lately and he couldn’t figure out what their problem was.
They’d married this past June, right after she’d graduated high school and he wondered if that were the problem, maybe she was just too young.
Their first six months had been like heaven on earth. Pete didn’t think he’d ever been happier, he loved Helen so much it scared him. They were poor, and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a lot more than he would have preferred, but neither of them had minded. They were so much in love with each other, discomfort hadn’t mattered. Not the sweltering heat of a New York City apartment this past summer, nor the cold of the early part of this winter. They’d had their first fight right before Christmas, but even then, he understood why. Helen had her hopes set on going home for Christmas and he’d dashed those dreams to the rocks, by telling her they couldn’t go. But, in the end, they’d been able to go anyway. They spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Sleepyside, with his family as well as hers. On Christmas Day, they were able to look up some old friends and had such a wonderful time. It was like they’d fallen in love all over again. Going home to Sleepyside seemed to have that effect on them. They’d returned to the city very relaxed and refreshed.
But less than a week after they’d gotten home to their small apartment, it seemed that everything went haywire. It started with plans for a New Year's Eve Party. Pete had came home all excited about the New Years Eve Party his boss was throwing for the bank employees. It would be at the ballroom of a fancy motel in the city and drinks and a buffet were going to be provided, as well as a live band for dancing. When he came home and told Helen about it, she wasn’t thrilled.
“Oh Pete, I have nothing to wear to an event like that,” she said, as she poured both of them a cup of tea and gave one to him as she sat down at their little kitchen table.
“Baby, what about that green dress you wore to the Christmas party? That looks great on you.”
“Pete, I wore that to your office Christmas party and I wore it last year! I don’t want to wear it again.”
“Sweetheart, no one will notice,” he told her.
“The women will.” she replied. “Believe me, women notice these things.”
“Well, it’s important to me that we go,” Pete told her, taking a sip of his tea. “The board members will be there and it will be good for our future for me to attend. And, besides that, we hardly ever get to go out.”
“Okay,” she told him resignedly, rising from the table. “I’ll wear the green velvet dress again and get funny looks from all those girls that work with you.”
Helen quietly remembered the Christmas party. She had enjoyed herself immensely, dancing with Pete, and the food was wonderful, but a lot of the girls that worked with her husband were a little older than she was. They were probably already in their twenties and she’d just turned eighteen in August and knew they’d probably grown up in the city. To her, they seemed very sophisticated. Helen figured they probably shopped at Macy’s and places like that. Their dresses looked like designer originals, the kind she and her friends at home used to look at in catalogues. Most of her clothes were either handmade, came from Crimper's, or were purchased at the other little dress shop in Sleepyside.
She and Pete really didn’t discuss party plans anymore. That particular day, Helen’s father had stopped by to see them and he and Pete had argued over who would win the AFL championship on New Years Day. Pete swore good-naturedly that his team would win, but her father believed it would be the opposing team. Helen felt good that the two were good-naturedly arguing over sports-- that was one thing that they had in common. Of course, she planned on going walking or something on New Year's Day, since she didn’t care at all about sports.
Chapter 2
( A few days later)
The bank was going to be open for New Years' Eve, so Pete had to work most of the day. As soon as Helen cleaned their tiny apartment, she pulled the green velveteen dress out of the closet. When she slipped it over her head, she could hardly zip it up. It was really tight across the bust and the zipper wouldn’t go all the way up.
“Oh no. This is way too tight. I must’ve gained a few pounds. I ate so much when I was home for Christmas. What can I do?” she asked herself, feeling despair.
She searched her closet. Here in the city, it was a lot different than Sleepyside. People were so much more fashion conscious, as she had discovered when she went to the party with Pete. In Sleepyside, she still wore dresses, skirts and other attire, some she had had since ninth grade. But here it was so different. Even though her mother had made the green velvet dress only last year, it still looked dowdy and homemade when Helen compared it to everyone else’s a few weeks earlier at the Christmas party.
“What can I do?” she repeated, feeling panicky. She had a lot of semi-casual outfits that she wore around the house and to the market, but she didn’t have a dress that seemed suitable for tonight. Her prom gowns hung in the closet, but they seemed a little much for tonight and were mostly suited for spring and summer anyway. “I have nothing to wear!” she said despairingly, as tears sprung to her eyes.
She critically examined herself in the mirror. How could I have put on weight in such a short time? Just then, the phone rang. Helen ran to the living room to answer; it was Mrs. Cameletti, the Italian lady from the apartment upstairs.
“Hi Mrs. Cameletti, how are you?” Helen asked, while trying to sound cheerful . She liked all her neighbors in the small apartment complex and Mrs. Cameletti was one of her favorites. She was always cooking and sending her wonderful Italian food downstairs to Pete and Helen.
“I’ve made some fresh cream-filled cannolis to have with coffee, why don’t you run down here and have coffee with me?” she asked Helen. “I have this new powdered creamer that goes in coffee and it makes it taste so creamy. It’s called Coffee-mate.”
“Oh, that’s really sweet of you, Mrs. Cameletti, and it sounds great, but I have a dilemma right now. I have to go to a semi-formal party with Pete tonight and I have to figure out something to wear. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Well, come on up here, I just might be able to help you with that,” Mrs. Cameletti told her.
Seconds later, Helen locked her apartment, put the keys in the pocket of her red flannel skirt and ran quickly upstairs. She couldn’t figure out how her widowed neighbor could help her, but she was willing to try anything, since she knew when Pete came home, he would expect her to be ready to go.
She later regretted going because she ended up eating four cannolis, filled with wonderful Italian creme and stayed for a delicious linguini and salad lunch of which she couldn’t get enough. Afterward, Helen felt huge. No wonder I’m gaining weight, she thought.
After helping clear the table, Mrs. Cameletti led her into the spare bedroom. “My daughter is just a tad bigger than you are,” Mrs. Cameletti told her, as she flung open the closet door in the tiny bedroom. "Last year, when her husband took her to some fancy party, here in the city, she bought this beautiful dress at a boutique in town." Mrs. Cameletti quickly took the dress out. "Esther had it dry-cleaned, after wearing it only once." Mrs. Cameletti slowly took the plastic bag off of it.
“Oh, Mrs. Cameletti, it’s beautiful. But I couldn’t. I can’t afford to have it dry-cleaned again for her. And it’s sleeveless, I don’t have any kind of dress up jacket that would go with that.”
“Oh honey,” said Mrs. Cameletti. “Esther will probably never wear it again and if she does, she can have it dry cleaned then. And she really wouldn’t mind you borrowing it. I also have a mink stole you can wear over it, that’s how she wore it last winter.”
Helen looked at the dress. It was a deep Christmas green-colored satin, with a straight wrap-around skirt that went to just below the knee. The top part of the dress was sleeveless and had a scoop neck. The upper part was also cut somewhat low and off the shoulder and Helen wondered if Pete would be okay with that. But time was wasting and she didn’t have a whole lot of options, so she took the dress upstairs with her. She wished she had the right kind of jewelry to wear with it, but she ended up wearing her heart necklace that Pete had gotten her for Christmas and a pair of gold earrings her parents had bought her a couple of years ago for her sixteenth birthday.
“This will have to do,” she told herself.
She didn’t really have money for regular haircuts and styles anymore, so her hair had grown out to about an inch past her shoulders. She parted it on the side and curled the ends of it. Helen was wearing the mink stole over the dress, when Pete came in the door.
“Wo,” he said, whistling. “You look stunning. Where’d you get the dress?”
“Mrs. Cameletti loaned it to me. It belongs to her daughter,” she told him.
Helen waited quietly in the living room, while Pete showered and changed and they left for the party.
Chapter 3
Big band tunes, along with Christmas music, was playing when they arrived. Helen felt positively glamorous as she handed her mink stole to the attendant. She turned to see Pete’s eyes almost bug out of his head; she’d forgotten that he didn’t know the dress was off the shoulder and cut so low in front.
Before they could spot someone they knew and begin to mingle, Sara Carlson came up to them, with her glamorous walk. She ignored Helen as she took Pete by the arm. “Dance with me, Pete,” she said, leading him onto the dance floor.
Pete turned to look at Helen apologetically as he was being led away. Helen just smiled at him.
“Well, I haven’t seen you here before, are you alone?.”
Helen looked around to see a handsome thirty-something guy talking to her.
“Are you alone?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh no,” laughed Helen. “I’m here with my husband.”
“Husband? I thought you were one of the tellers,” he told her. “Or the daughter of one of the bank executives.”
“No,” she told him, laughing. “Just the wife of Pete Belden.”
When Pete looked over and saw Helen talking to Hank, he felt himself turn red with jealousy. Hank was married, but he put the make on every young woman that worked at the bank. He had money and he was good-looking, so he didn’t have a lot of trouble in that area. And there's Helen, thought Pete grimly, smiling up at him.
When the dance finally ended, he disengaged himself from Sara and rushed over to his wife. He possessively put his arm around Helen, who looked at him funny. Pete had never acted like this before.
“Pete, my man. You’ve been holding out on us. I didn’t know your wife looked like a movie star,” Hank said, looking Helen up and down suggestively.
Pete had to hold in his temper, it was all he could do to keep from belting him.
“Helen,” said Hank, taking her hand in his. “It was a pleasure to meet you. And I want you to save at least one slow dance for me later on,” Hank added, before turning away from them.
“After we eat, I think we’re going home," Peter told her, leading Helen toward the buffet.
“Pete,” she said, pulling her arm away from him good-naturedly. “I’m not ready for dinner yet. And we’ve just gotten here. You haven’t even danced with me.”
“I just want to go home,” he said brusquely.
Several of the other young executives from the bank came up to Pete while he and Helen were at the buffet, desiring to meet Helen. Guys he didn’t even know that well. They weren’t trying to befriend him, they just saw the most beautiful woman in the room, who happened to be his wife, and he knew that and it angered him. He was almost rude to them as he and Helen quickly fixed plates and found a small table.
Helen didn’t know she could eat so much, especially after all the delicious food she’d had that afternoon. But the prime rib and shrimp cocktail, along with the flakey delicate rolls and dinner salad were excellent. She would’ve gone back for seconds, but she would’ve been too embarrassed. She knew she definitely could’ve eaten more.
Pete said very little while they ate and Helen felt very uncomfortable. She had no idea what was wrong with him.
After they’d eaten, he told her tersely, “I want us to go around and meet the board members, make a little small talk, and then we’re leaving.”
"But Pete,” she said, as they stood up. He grabbed her by the hand and they went by and he introduced her to Mr. Carlson, one of the bank presidents. Then, they politely stopped and spoke to the other two that Helen remembered meeting at the Christmas party. Then, Pete asked the attendant for the mink stole, she had worn and after draping it around her shoulders, he took her by the hand and pulled her to the car.
“Pete! Wait up.” One of the young executives, that Helen remembered had introduced himself as Marvin, came up to them. “Aren’t you going to stay and dance?” he asked, looking at Helen with admiration.
“No!” Pete answered as he hustled Helen out the door.
“Pete, you’re hurting my arm!” Helen yelled, jerking her arm away, as he opened the door of the car, and angrily slammed the door as soon as she was inside. By this time, Helen was totally bewildered and starting to have tears in her eyes. Pete had never treated her like this before and she didn’t know what to make of it, or how to handle it.
Pete unlocked the driver's side, jumped in, gunned the engine, and sped off from the parking space.
“Pete, what’s wrong?” Helen asked. She’d never seen this side of Pete before and she wasn’t sure she liked it. She knew he had a temper, but he had always done such a good job of keeping it in check when he was around her.
He didn’t say a word, as he stared straight ahead. “Why were you hanging all over Hank?” he finally asked through clinched teeth.
“Hanging all over Hank?” Helen asked incredulously. “I never touched him.”
“Is that why you wore that dress? So, you could flirt with other guys?” he asked.
Helen looked over at him. She knew he was somewhat jealous, but not like this. “No, I...” She wasn’t sure quite how to reply. “I didn’t have a choice but to wear this dress, I didn’t have anything else.”
“Yeah, right,” he told her.
“Pete Belden, just what are you implying?” Helen asked, finally growing angry herself.
“I don’t think I have to explain myself to you, do I?” he said, pulling up to the curb in front of their apartment complex.
She waited for a minute.
“Are you getting out or what?” he finally asked, after they had sat there a moment. She got out of the car, expecting him to shut the car off and get out, too.
But as soon as she walked up to the front door, he spun off in the car, gravel flying. All she could do was cry. What went wrong?
She unlocked the door, headed for the bedroom and changed out of the uncomfortable green dress and high-heeled shoes. She washed off her make-up and put on her warm pajamas. She watched one late show and then the small black and white T.V. that only showed a half picture went off the air.
Where is he? she wondered as she went into the kitchen to make tea. Is he alright? What if he’s been hurt, in an accident or something? I wonder if I should call the police.
Finally, after finding that she was once again starving, she finished off Mrs. Cameletti’s linguini that she’d brought home with her earlier. She wasn’t at all sleepy, but it was cold and the oil in their little heater had to last for the whole month, so she turned the heat off and went to bed, robe and all and cried herself to sleep. About 2:00 in the morning, Helen heard the key in the lock, and of course, she knew it was Pete. She was torn between being relieved that he was okay and wanting to get out of bed and pummel him for the way he’d acted and for causing her so much worry.
“Helen,” he said softly, as he tipped into the room. She just pretended to be asleep. “I’m sorry,” he told her, grabbing her shoulder and gently turning her over to face him. “Please forgive me.” He knew she was really awake all along.
“What happened tonight, Pete?” she asked, while blinking back tears.
“I let the real me show,” he replied sadly. “I’ve tried to keep that hidden from you all this time, even before we officially got together, I wanted to deck a couple of your boyfriends, but I held back. But Hank’s a real ladies' man and he was acting like he was after you and you looked so beautiful tonight, well, the real me surfaced.”
“Pete, you’re going to have to work on that, because that could destroy us,” she told him.
“I will, Helen, I will. The truth is, you’re the only person in this world that I truly love. I’ve never loved anyone before. It scares me.”
Looking up into his coal black eyes, she imagined how he must have looked as a little boy. “I love you, Pete,” she told him. “From the time we started dating, I’ve known there was never another for me. You never have to worry about that.”
They kissed and then they held each other all night.
“How did we end up like this?” Helen asked herself a few days later over coffee. She quietly reflected on the fact that the two of them hadn’t been able to go out much in the almost seven months they’d been married because finances were so tight, so they’d never been faced with having to deal with the fact that others might be attracted to one of them.
“But what happens next time we’re in a public situation together?” she asked herself, troubled. Since they’d been married, the only times they went out they would walk to an Auto-mat and get a piece of pie and coffee, that was a splurge, or they might go walking in the park together. Maybe now that the holidays were over, they could go back to the way things were. Their first six months together had been wonderful.
Chapter 4
Things were okay for a couple of days. But Helen found herself feeling increasingly moody and irritable. It was so unlike her to feel that way and she couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She often felt homesick. And, even though she and her mother had always been close, she was closer to her father. But she found herself missing her mother and Sleepyside. She felt like if she had to eat another peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she’d throw up. She was so sick of having to live on this shoestring budget. She didn’t want to be grumpy with Pete, but she found herself being like that anyway. He thought it was because she hadn’t forgiven him for the way he’d acted that night.
“Did I screw things up in such a way that things can never be the same?” Pete asked himself, remembering his jealousy of the last few nights ago. “Maybe we didn’t know each other well enough to get married.” Up until the past couple of weeks, he had thought Helen had the sunniest disposition of anyone he’d ever known. He was the dark, brooding one. But lately, she was something else and he felt like he was walking on eggshells, waiting for some kind of disaster to happen between the two of them. Maybe she was just too young to leave her mother, he thought, thinking back to this morning when she’d had an outburst that made him tempted to load her up in his car and take her to her mother. This morning, she was crying about being homesick.
“Pete, couldn’t we just move back to Sleepyside?” she asked imploringly. “You could go to work in the steel mill where my father works, he could help you get a job. And, we could live with my parents.”
“Honey,” he told her consolingly, as he took her into his arms, hoping he didn’t make her start crying. “You know there’s no future for me in Sleepyside. And I’m not cut out to work in the steel mill. Even though your father has an office position there, that doesn’t mean I could get one. And besides that, your father’s been there for nearly twenty-five years and he only makes about fifty dollars more than I do right now. I don’t think they’d start me off with enough money for us to live on. At the bank, I have a future. That’s what Mr. Carlson told me when he hired me. I make twenty dollars more than the other tellers and when Maurice Thompson retires as head teller soon, I have a real good chance at the job.
“Pete, you could work at the steel mill and we could live with my parents, or even your parents,” Helen said beseechingly. “Things would be so much better for both of us.
“Helen,” he said gently, as he held her back from him and looked into her eyes. “Do you remember the pact we made on our honeymoon?” he asked. “The one concerning both our families? I have buddies who married while we were still in college, I’ve seen all kind of mistakes being made. If we went to live with either of our parents, we’d be making our problems, their problems. It’s not fair to them, neither is it their responsibility to give us a home. The only way I’d ever live with either of our folks, is if we could help them, not them help us. We’re married to each other now, and we have to make a home for the two of us, difficult or not.”
“But Pete,” she said. “My folks wouldn’t mind at all. We wouldn’t live there for free, we could pay them...”
"No, Helen,” he told her firmly. When he left for work, she was so angry she wouldn’t speak to him.
Later that morning, Helen was feeling miserable and wishing they could go back to Sleepyside, she so wanted to call her parents and pour out all her problems to them, but she had to grudgingly admit to herself that Pete was right. She knew that Pete needed time to prove himself to them. Her father had a lot of misgivings about the marriage between her and Pete, and even now he still didn’t totally trust Pete. And even though he was feeling better about things now, Helen knew he still didn’t totally believe things were going to be okay. If she talked to her parents about what a financial struggle they were having, she knew they would become insistent that the two of them move home so they could help. Her folks didn’t know that the last week of every month, when money was getting low, that she and Pete lived on coffee or tea alone, for breakfast and a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and dinner was canned spam, bologna or tuna. Of course, their neighbors much of the time would send food down to them, so it wasn’t all that bad sometime. Her parents didn’t know how cold it got here sometimes because they had to conserve the oil in the heaters. Helen had to wear really warm clothing inside the house during the Winter.
She grudgingly admitted to herself that Pete was right. They couldn't live with her parents and, when she realized that, she promised herself she’d never talk to her parents about their situation.
And Pete would never talk about her to his folks. She remembered him saying on their honeymoon that once you start asking your parents for help or telling them your marital problems, you’ve got even more problems then. The mothers would end up mad at each other and mad at their child’s spouse and they would try to run things, and the fathers sometimes would get involved, too. And as much as she loved her mother and Mr. and Mrs. Belden and knowing her father like she knew him, she realized Pete was right. They had to work out their problems without their parents' help and they couldn’t go live with her parents.
Chapter 5
Pete didn’t know what to do with Helen. Some days she was her old self, the Helen he knew and loved. Other days she would be crying and crying and missing home and missing her family. And other days she would lose her temper at the drop of a hat and become so angry with him. Sometimes, she would say things like “I just don’t feel that you love me anymore!” And he totally didn’t understand what that meant, and he always said the wrong thing.
“What’s this “feel” stuff?” he asked her, hoping that she could explain that. Because he really didn’t know. Then she would run into their room crying. And he would be left standing in the living room scratching his head, totally bewildered. To Pete, feeling something was when you hit your knee on something, or hit your finger with a hammer, then you “felt” pain. “How do you “feel” love?” he asked himself, extremely puzzled. Man! he thought, I told Helen I loved her just last week. She should know I love her. I married her, didn’t I?
Then there was the night his boss had invited he and Helen over for dinner. Helen couldn’t find anything to wear. “I’m getting fat!” She stormed into the bedroom and threw herself on the bed after trying on the few outfits she felt were suitable to go out in. “I can’t get into any of my dress clothes!”
Pete followed her into the bedroom. He had noticed that she was putting on some weight, but she was far from fat. In fact, she was putting it on in all the right places, as far as he was concerned. So he tried to console her. “Honey,” he said, laying down beside her on the bed. She rolled away to where her back was facing him. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been putting on weight but..." He had planned to finish the sentence about how she had never looked more beautiful to him, but he didn’t get the rest of it out before she started crying.
“I knew you thought I was fat!” She ran into the bathroom and locked herself in.
“Baby, please come out,” he begged at the bathroom door. But she refused and he ended up having to go to his boss's alone and he had to tell them that Helen wasn’t feeling well.
After a delicious dinner, Pete and his boss stepped into the library of the beautiful, spacious home to talk.
“Pete, it looks like Maurice is finally getting ready to retire. I thought he had another year, but he plans on leaving in a couple of months," he told him. “As you know, when I hired you on, because of your college background in accounting and public management, I had plans for you. I believe that as the older crowd begins to leave our bank, you’ll be ready to take their place. I like what I’ve seen in you so far. I want you to know that I’m recommending you for promotion to head teller, as soon as Maurice vacates the position.”
“Wow! That’s great, Mr. Carlson,” Pete said, flattered by the compliments.
“You know, you’ll be taking on a lot more responsibility than what you have now,” Mr. Carlson told him seriously. "And the bank is going to need you to take some night classes that our upper management team conducts, to give you extra training. It’ll be at least three nights a week for a couple of months, are you up for that?” he asked.
“Yeah!” Pete said enthusiastically.
“Oh and you’ll get a thirty-dollar per month raise, plus you’re eligible for hospital insurance. Son,” he said, clapping Pete on the back. “You’ve finally become one of our up and coming executives. The only thing I request is that I want you to take my daughter Sara under your wing. When the time comes that you’re ready to move onto a higher position, and, believe me, that time will come, I want her ready to move in as head teller. Just keep my daughter happy and you’ll keep me happy.”
“Sure,” Pete told Mr. Carlson. “I’ll do whatever I need to do.”
Wow! an extra thirty dollars, Pete thought happily. We can put most in savings, but maybe we can go out once in awhile too. I can’t wait to get home and tell Helen!
Chapter 6
Helen was in a much better mood when he arrived home that evening. She was sitting in the kitchen listening to the new Patsy Cline song, I Fall to Pieces.
"I fall to pieces, each time you call my name..."
He rushed in and told her about the exciting new job he’d been offered. He knew he’d have more responsibilities, but he was up for a challenge. Of course, Helen wasn’t too happy about him going to school three nights a week, but tonight she was in a good enough mood that they didn’t talk much about it.
Pete and Helen’s relationship seemed to deteriorate even more now that he was working all day and going to school at night. She was still moody and he was still at his wit’s end.
Sara Carlson continued to throw herself at him at work. He really didn’t pay her much attention at first, but after one particular trying argument that he and Helen had had the morning before work, he began to notice her. She wasn’t the beauty Helen was, but she was definitely cute. He remembered when he was single, all the women he had chasing after him. He began to notice Sara more and more.
Sometimes, he got so sick of driving the '57 Chevy he’d bought the year before he and Helen had gotten together. It was becoming more and more ragged and he longed for a nice little Corvette or something like that. If he’d stayed single, that’s what he’d have gotten, he thought ruefully.
Pete was glad to have a full time job and school three nights per week because he really didn’t know how to handle Helen’s moods. He figured that he and she were better off with him being gone a lot.
Then came that fateful evening after school, when Sara invited him over to her high rise apartment. He knew he shouldn’t go, but in the end, he decided to anyway. While he was driving, he turned up his radio in the car. The new song The Wanderer was playing:
"Well, I'm the type of guy, who likes to roam around
I’m never in one place, I roam from town to town
And, when I find myself falling for some girl
I hop right into that car of mine and drive around the world
Cause I’m a wanderer....I’m a wanderer...I roam around and round and round and round...."“That’s who I used to be. But, hey, I still got it,” Pete assured himself as he noticed some young ladies standing at the street corner. He found the high rise where Sara lived and pulled into a parking space closest to the side her apartment was located on. After the doorman had announced him, he climbed on the elevator and rode to the tenth floor.
She answered the door on the first ring.
She must’ve just gotten home herself, Pete noted, because she was still wearing the cute little outfit he’d seen her wear to work that day.
“Come in,” she told him, smiling and opening the door wider. “I’ll fix us a drink. Is red wine okay?”
“Sure,” he told her smiling back and sitting down on the couch to make himself comfortable. She looked suggestively into his eyes as she sidled over to the couch where he was seated. He looked up at her, smiling, as he took the glass of wine out of her hand.
She then reached out, all the while smiling into his eyes, and loosened his tie. “I’m going to change into something more comfortable,” she said smiling back at him as she walked into her room.
He watched her walk into the bedroom and shut the door. He took a sip of wine and speculatively looked around the apartment. This is the kind of place I’d of had, if I could’ve finished college and been able to get the job I wanted, he thought to himself.
The apartment had thick purple shag carpeting and modern straight-line furniture, with aqua slipcovers. It was very new and modern, no handmade touches here, like in his apartment. As he sat there, he, at first, admired the little place. But then all of a sudden something about it didn’t seem right to him. It was like a realization of something missing. And he thought about where he was and what he was about to do and he suddenly realized what was missing. In his mind, he pictured the little shabby apartment he and Helen lived in and how warm, cozy and inviting it always seemed to be. That’s what’s wrong with this place, he thought. His and Helen’s apartment was like home with its homemade curtains. It had old gray tile flooring, but Helen had braided rugs out of old cloth and instead of everything being white-washed, the walls were mostly painted pretty, sunny colors.
“Why am I here?” he asked himself, as he sat the crystal wine glass on the small table beside the couch. “I must be an idiot.”
Then something dawned on him about Helen. The mood swings weren’t the only thing wrong. She didn’t sleep well at night and she always seemed to feel tired. “Maybe she has a medical problem,” he finally figured out. “Maybe that’s what’s making her moody.” He thought about what a good wife she was, because even though she was having a very hard time right now, she still maintained the little apartment and kept it nice for him, even though he knew she didn’t feel well. She still cooked what ever little they had. Sometimes they ate better than other times, but she always made sure he had something to eat and she done a great job with the little she had to work with.
Sara finally came out of the bedroom and his eyes almost bugged out at what she was wearing. It was some sort of lingerie and it left little to the imagination. “The way I see it,” she said, giggling at the look of surprise on his face, as she sat down beside him on the couch, grabbing his loose tie, “you have a lot to gain by our friendship.”
“Or everything to lose,” he told her, with a smile as he snatched his tie out of her hands. He jumped off the couch as if it were on fire. “I have to go. Thanks for the wine.” He began walking toward the door, straightening his tie as he went.
“Pete!” she yelled, not believing he was walking away from her. “What about us?”
“There is no us, Sara,” he told her, turning briefly around to face her. “I’m married. And I’m sorry, but there’s only one woman for me.”
“My Daddy won’t like this!” she yelled after him.
As Pete stepped on the elevator, he had a mental picture of him living with Helen’s parents and wearing a hard hat and carrying a metal lunch box as he worked for very low wages at the local steel mill in Sleepyside. But even if it comes to that, he thought to himself. Nothing is worth losing Helen over.
Chapter 7
Helen had left the living room curtains open, something Pete continually told her not to do at night when she was here alone. She had grown up in Sleepyside where you didn’t have to be as careful as you did here in the city. He looked through the windows. He could see her sitting at the little desk over in the corner reading, with her pink robe on that he had bought her for Christmas and her platinum blonde tresses flowing down her back.
She’s so beautiful, he thought. He wished he’d have brought her flowers or candy or something. He just drank in the sight of her for a time. How easy it would’ve been for me to have done something that would have taken us past the point of no return, he thought, mentally kicking himself.
He finally stuck the key in the lock and walked in. “Hello,” he said as she rushed into his arms.
They had a wonderful night together and he knew somehow that things would be all right. But early the next morning, he broached the subject of her seeing a doctor.
“I guess I do need to do that,” she told him. “But I’d like to see Doctor Ferris.”
“I guess we could take a trip to Sleepyside and take care of that,” he told her. “Dr. Ferris can recommend a doctor here in the city, because with my new job, I’ll have health insurance.”
A week later, Helen was in Doctor Ferris’s little patient room while Pete waited nervously outside in the lobby.
“Well, Helen, your problem is relatively simple,” Dr. Ferris said, smiling, right after the examination. “What I believe is wrong with you, even though we won’t know for a few days, is that you have pink and blue fever. In other words, you’re going to have a baby. That’s why you’ve been gaining weight and feeling so moody.”
“What?” she asked incredulously, while at the same time feeling faint.
“Well, we’ll do the rabbit test, even though I’m ninety-nine percent positive that’s what the problem is. When was the date of your last period?”
“Well, I think the end of December, maybe..." she replied, her forehead wrinkling as she thought hard.
“Well, that means the baby will probably be born sometime in late October. You can call back in a couple of days to get the results.”
“Don’t tell Pete,” she told the kindly old doctor. “I want to be sure first.” She came out of the office and informed Pete that the doctor was running some tests, but he didn’t believe there was anything seriously wrong with her.
Helen checked the mail as soon as it came three days later. Today was Valentine's Day and Helen quickly tore open the envelope from Dr. Ferris’s office. The test was positive and she and Pete would be parents around October eighteenth. She was excited, but she wondered how Pete was going to take this. He wanted children, but he always talked about having them off in the future somewhere when they were financially secure and had a home of their own. So, she was hoping he’d be okay with the news.
Pete had just gotten his raise at the end of January, so he had a little extra money and the two of them were going out to a nice restaurant for Valentine's Day. In honor of the occasion, she wore a red skirt set that her mother had given her while they were in Sleepyside a few days ago. Pete came home that day laden with red roses and a pink satin box of chocolates as well as a beautiful pink and red card.
“Thanks, baby,” Helen said, throwing her arms around his neck.
It was in the restaurant that she told him they were about to have a baby.
“You mean, I’m going to be a father?” Pete asked, with awe and wonder. “I can’t believe it!” He had visions of a little boy and taking him to baseball games and coaching little league. “When?” he asked.
“It’ll be sometime toward the end of October,” she told him, smiling.
“I have to call my mom!” he exclaimed. “Let’s hurry and finish up here and go home.”
“Sure,” she said, deliriously happy.
Both sets of parents were happy and excited. This would be a first grandchild for Helen’s parents and a second for Pete’s because Pete’s brother Harold had just recently called and said he and Alice were expecting a child in August. “Well, I guess we’ll be an aunt and uncle as well as parents," Pete and Helen happily told the elder Mr. and Mrs. Belden.
Later, after Helen had gone to bed, Pete was in the kitchen sitting at the tiny kitchen table thinking and feeling absolutely scared to death. One side of him was ecstatic. He loved the idea of being a parent, but he’d wanted to take care of some things before that happened. He already loved the child that was growing in Helen’s womb. He questioned whether or not he was ready for this major life change.
“What about a college fund? I have to start that, but how?” he asked himself, majorly troubled. "Money is so tight. And can we manage in this small apartment? In the qinter, we’ll have to use the heater all the time with a tiny baby and ... and can I do this?”
That was the biggest question he had in his mind. He wondered if he could really be okay as a parent...
The End