Dori Ostermiller, Peaches (Page 1)

    There never was any engagement ring. No diamond sparkling star-like in its sweet velvet box. We were Adventists, of course, and Thou Shalt Not Adorn Thyself in Silver and Gold, though later he did buy me a slim silver plated second-hand watch with the prettiest oval face and little roses etched into the band. I supposed it was gemstones the church objected to the most, more than the silver and gold, and a watch was functional, anyway. A watch was something you needed, to tell you what time your next class met and when to take the loaves out of the oven, and if the band happened to be pretty and decorative, well, God in heaven would look the other way, I was sure. Lots of us got engagement watches in those days and besides, Avery couldn't have afforded a diamond, not even half a karat, not even one of those nice cubic zirconias, not in those days. Not even if he'd sold every single earthly possession. I told my girl, I told Abby to be patient, to let herself get into her twenties at least before marrying, and if the match was really right and blessed by God-- why then, it could stand the wait. But she didn't listen, of course. Only nineteen when she married Derrick, which is a year younger even than I was, but I suppose she was up against the same problem--both of them antsy and full of their own wants and the young man's hands starting to wander where they should not go.
    I remember Avery's big hands, his fingertips calloused from picking peaches every summer for a man up in Modesto, those chapped fingertips catching on the cheap fabric of my dresses, his square fingernails more like a farmer's than a medical student's. I never did tell Abby the way we wound up one day, all tangled up and sinful against the hard boards of his rickety back porch. I had vowed I wouldn't even step inside his efficiency apartment until such time as it was seemly to do so, but that didn't stop his big hands from wandering and groping. When I refused to let him unfasten the hooks of my bra, that Sunday afternoon on his weathered porch floor, he sat up all of a sudden, then grabbed me hard by the shoulders and said, “Blanche, why don't we go and get ourselves married this afternoon. It's as good a day as any for it.” And then he kissed me as if it was a done thing and bounded inside to make the arrangements. I remember sitting there on the porch alone then, sort of stunned and happy, I guess, looking up at that deep blue Los Angeles sky—a soft empty blue like the inside of Mother's good china cups--and thinking, well, this is it then Blanche, unless you get off your duff and do something to stop it. And then I thought about what my sister Bertie would say when I told her I'd landed the best looking young intern in the county.
    Nowadays we can buy just about anything we want, I suppose, and Avery has cases full of gemstones. But back then there was only the borrowed blue Ford that smoked foul smelling stuff out the rear, and I didn't even have a decent hat to wear. So Avery gave some blood at the hospital and got us twenty-five dollars-- enough for a slim gold wedding band from the pawn shop on Wilshire and a marriage license. We even had enough left over for a new hat for me and a pair of shoes for him.
    We drove to the preacher's house in Glendale that very night after dinner and the good man's mother-in-law was there, and his teenage daughter too, and so those were our witnesses. The mother-in-law offered us some peach cobbler when it was all over, the little ring snug on my finger and so strange and new, and I remember the preacher's spaniel kept jumping up on my knees and threatening to snag my one pair of good stockings.

    Of course, we always had enough to eat, since we could take our meals at the hospital cafeteria. And the medical school provided Avery with his one room apartment, which had the cutest little greenhouse window right over the yellow kitchen sink. I filled that window with African violets and Avery said, “What do you need a bunch of droopy little plants for when we can hardly pay the plumber?”
    I could see right off it was going to be hard--harder than I'd expected. So I quit my own schooling to take a job at the University bookstore. I knew I'd have my chance someday, knew there'd be time down the road and money to spare but it was still hard working that cash register day after day, ringing up thick-spined text books for other young girls who would become nurses or office managers. Some of them were even studying to be nutritionists, as I had planned to do. Girls with thick braids and dainty little hats perched jauntily- -girls who still hadn't settled on what their futures would hold and so that had that look about them, dreamy kind of, like maybe any minute some Hollywood movie man was going to walk right into our little Adventist college and pluck them out of line.
    That sort of thing did happen to Avery once, honest to goodness. A movie man picked him up hitch-hiking on the Santa Monica freeway and offered him a screen test at Paramount, said he had the face and the build for it. Avery looked that man right in the face and said, “Thank you kindly, sir, but I'm going to be a surgeon,” as if the offer didn't tempt him for a minute. But I know it stirred him up, being told such a thing--for the next few weeks I saw him take more time in front of the chipped mirror in the bathroom, smoothing back his golden hair, checking his profile when he thought I wasn't looking. Secretly, I thought he'd have marched right over to Paramount if it weren't for his old mama, Lo.
    “Why don't you go ahead and have the screen test?” I teased him over his porridge one morning, just to see what he'd say. “Just for the fun of it,” I added when I saw his scowl. “You know, just to see what might have been.” His green eyes glimmered for the briefest moment then and he grinned a little before shaking his head, saying, “My mama always wanted me to be a surgeon, and that's what I'm going to be, Blanche. There isn't any other way it's to be.” Still, sometimes I wonder how our lives would have turned out if he'd gone ahead and done it. If anyone had star quality, it was Avery. Handsomest man my sisters and I had ever laid eyes on, and I suppose that was partly why I didn't mind so much about dropping out of school and all the rest. But Lord, what a man to live with.

Peaches continues on Page 2.

Dori Ostermiller, Peaches

Spring 2003