Florida

I would love to be able to write that this is how Marilyn and Victor fell in love, this wonderful, lustful long summer in Coulter Point, a long tide of dating and tempting, of careful seduction until neither could resist the other. I would love to write that the culmination of their courtship was a romantic proposal and a long-planned wedding that took place on an autumn day when everything was perfect, that their lives were borne from a cradle of charming, American splendor.

Quite the opposite.

Victor and Marilyn spent a bizarre and unforgettable weekend together, rarely leaving each other’s company at all. But Victor drove back to the city that Sunday, and Marilyn finished the last week or two of summer there at the point before she packed her bags, kissed Alice goodbye, and returned to Confluence with her father.

Confluence would have been the natural backdrop for the idyllic scenario described above. It wouldn’t take much imagination to paint the picture of Marilyn, wearing a long gown, floating down the steps of the First Presbyterian Church like a princess. The Coolidge family would have bought a full page wedding announcement in the Confluence Spectator, in which the details would read as if royal nuptials had taken place.

Instead, I can take you to a filing cabinet in the back of my offices here on Main Street, open one of its long drawers, and find an obituary so short it might otherwise go missing in the small ocean of advertisements on the bottom of the page:

Grace Victoria Salarino, infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Salarino of Confluence, passed away in the hours following her birth on March 18. The family will not receive visitors.

There aren’t many entries in Marilyn’s diary from this time. In fact, there is a span of more than fourteen months between when Marilyn made a note of packing her things to return home from Coulter Point, a strange sense of exhaustion overcoming her, and the next entry, made a few weeks before Thanksgiving:

“Victor and I are fighting over where to spend the holiday. If it were up to me (and I don’t think it is), we would stay home. As it is, I can only see another trip to the city to see his mother, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

Marilyn had become pregnant. Victor felt it was his duty to marry her, even though such an act effectively ended whatever relationship remained after she had returned to her father’s house carrying Victor’s child. The child, a tiny daughter arriving several weeks too early, was still born.

It’s entirely true that things could have been worse. Although Mr. Coolidge famously went so far as to write his daughter out of his will, there was still Victor’s money, and he had enough.
They decided to leave town. Victor bought an apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was flagrantly obvious that such a move would be difficult for their marriage, but Marilyn was determined to leave, and Victor was of the mind to oblige. Their home sat on the waterfront looking over the gulf.

Marilyn kept house and spent much of her time volunteering with a group of Cubans who ran a produce market with the Catholic church. Victor gathered a group of investors and opened two Salarino’s department stores. He spent a lot of time managing the shops, and when he wasn’t doing that, he was often on the balcony of their apartment with a drink.

They lived this way for four years.

Not that it was entirely bad. Yes, it was a difficult time that brought them there, but there were times that things worked well. They had no friends there in St. Petersburg. In fact, they hadn’t known anyone when they moved there—only each other.

There was the time they each forgot their keys to the apartment, Victor arriving home to find Marilyn sitting cross-legged on the stairway landing playing with seashells. Victor offered to climb up the side of the building, and Marilyn took him up on the offer. So he crept along, petrified, balancing on the top ledges of windows while he edged across to their balcony, pulling himself over the rail and consuming every ounce of energy he had left in the process—only to find they’d locked the door to the balcony, too.

And there was the time a little Cuban girl knocked on their door with an armful of kittens.

“Meess,” she said, “Papa told me we could not keep all of these keetey-cats and he said you should have one.”

Marilyn took one of the squirming varmints into her arm, and before she could say much back to the little girl, the kitten had nosed its way into the crook of her arm and fallen asleep, purring loudly. They kept him, and later Victor named him Ahab.

“Because he keeps chasing things he can’t find,” he said.

One of Victor’s investors made his money running a charter airline that ran tourists down to the keys, and he often offered to take Victor and Marilyn up for a ride. They did, on several occasions, fly with him. Marilyn loved it especially at night time, when they would soar above the coastline, the moon lighting up the surf below, and the lights stretched back inland until the marshland consumed them in inky blackness.

There was the time they began to fight, and the argument carried on and on, and eventually Marilyn told Victor she would wrestle him, and if she won, things would go her way. They tangled, Victor not really trying, but he was surprised by her strength and vigor. She pinned him, and then she leaned down and kissed him, and later they made love in the middle of the floor.

Still, there were no more children for Marilyn and Victor. Ahab would curl on the sheets between them as they slept.

Marilyn began to grow depressed their third year in Florida. She lost weight and ate only once or twice a day. Victor noticed, of course, but he decided not to say anything. Better for her to figure this out on her own, he thought. Still, he would take the time to ask her if she was all right.

The response each time was the same. “I’m fine.”

Fine

The summer was almost over by the time Victor made it to Coulter Point to visit Marilyn. Out on the point, it was already growing cold at nights, cold enough for jackets and slacks, cold enough perhaps to even wear socks with your loafers. It was plenty cold enough for bonfires out on the beachfront when the sun went down.

As much as he had tried to deny it, Victor had grown cold toward the idea of going out to see her. Things in New York had been…well…more interesting for him. Victor liked the city. It was good to him, and it gave him the excitement he craved.

But Marilyn had written to say that it was okay if he didn’t come down—fine, actually—and something about the word fine set him in motion. He packed a suitcase, threw a sweater around his neck, and drove down.

When he arrived at the point several hours later, dusk was falling at the Inn. He grabbed his bags and went inside. The gentleman at the front desk greeted him. “Checking in?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling out his wallet. “Salarino.”

“Welcome, Mr. Salarino,” the clerk said. “I see you’ll be joining us for two nights?”

Victor paused, turning over the idea of staying the entire weekend in his mind. He hadn’t told Marilyn he was making the trip down.

“I think two nights will be more than enough.”

The porter delivered Victor and his luggage to one of the Inn’s more ample rooms at the end of the east wing. There was a sitting area and a small bar for mixing drinks, and the bedroom was separate. The suite had its own bathroom. Victor handed the gentleman a dollar, and as he turned to leave, asked him where he could find Marilyn Coolidge.

“Ms. Coolidge, who works at the restaurant?” the porter asked.

Victor couldn’t summon a response other than laughter.

***

Victor parked his convertible outside of the single-story restaurant down the block from the hotel. He could see her through the windows. She wore a simple black dress. Her skin was deeply tanned, so much so that when she laughed, the white of her teeth contrasted startlingly with the bronze of her face. He climbed out of the car and walked through the door. At first, she didn’t notice him.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said quickly. “I hope you have a table ready for me.”

She glanced up at him, her stare enough to make Victor momentarily wonder if she even remembered him. “I certainly hope you have a reservation,” she deadpanned.

“I’m sorry to say I don’t,” he said. “Perhaps you could make an exception, though. Surely you must know who I am.”

She paused, eyeing him from head to toe. “Nope,” she said, spinning around on one heel. She left him standing alone at the front of the restaurant.

“Just a minute!” he called loudly across the restaurant, maneuvering around tables to catch up with her. “I really ought to apologize for just coming out like this, but I felt rotten for not having visited, and after your last letter, I thought I needed to make it up to you and—“

She spun back around, this time, with a boyish grin on her face. “Did you say you needed a table?”

Victor liked the gleam in her eye. “Yes. I’m famished.”

Marilyn stepped toward him, stopped short, and took his hand softly into hers. She looked up at him, and quietly led him to the back of the restaurant, through the kitchen door, and past the cook. She gathered a basket, a small brick of cheese, and a bottle of red wine that was corked beside the stove. She handed them all to Victor.

“Mr. Moscow,” she called across the kitchen, “I am quitting for the weekend.”

Her manager eyed the picnic basket. “Well then. Don’t forget the salami.”

***

Victor watched the entire scene unfold in great fascination. Marilyn had taken complete control of a situation—a situation he’d planned on controlling. Now, he was following her down to the cold sand, clutching tightly to their dinner. She paused at the edge of the beach to take off her shoes, and then they walked out twenty yards or so.

He offered to build a fire, and she unpacked their goods while he set about the task. Soon he had a small pit filled with several sticks of driftwood ablaze. “I am so impressed,” Marilyn remarked. “That’s quite a fire for a city boy.”

“And that’s quite a picnic for the girl who works the front of the house,” he said. “Do you normally just quit jobs like that?”

She dug out a small knife and peeled the rind back on the cheese, slicing off a chunk and handing it to him. “Mr. Moscow doesn’t really think I work there anyway, so I doubt it’s much of a loss for him.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, each staring deeply into the fire. Already, it was beginning to burn down to embers.

Finally, Marilyn spoke up. “I’d mostly given up on you, Victor.”

He began to say something, but she cut him off. “I’d mostly given up on you, and that was fine by me. I’d just assumed that the distance and the problems with my parents and the fact that I’m not going back to New York would put an end to all of this. And that was fine.”

“There are plenty of boys here and Alice and I have had plenty of fun running around with them. I just figured that was that. We had a lot of fun, and I understand. It’s fine.”

“I have to admit I felt the same way,” Victor said. “You know my life. It’s busy when I want it to be. I’d let it get busy again. And then I got your last letter, and it was the ‘fine’ part that got to me.”

Marilyn laughed, deep and full. Victor smiled, not anticipating how sentimental he’d suddenly feel about hearing her laugh in person once more. “All I wrote in the letter, and it was the word ‘fine’ that made you think twice?” she giggled.

“Yes! It was. Look, I like you an awful lot,” he said. “And I knew you were down here playing around with all the point boys—“

“—And I knew you were off picking up girls in hotel bars,” Marilyn cut in.

“Well, then it’s mutual.”

“Maybe.”

“Fine.”

“Fine?” she said, grinning.

“See, that’s just it—fine.”

“I’m cold,” she said. “I’m moving over next to you.”

“Fine is such a terrible word,” he said. “Fine sounds like you’re giving up, like you’re resigned to whatever comes next.”

He threw the last piece of driftwood onto the fire. “And I was there in the city thinking about you and how much I liked you, and how much it hurt me to think of you settling for whatever ‘fine’ meant.”

She laughed again. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“It’s just that your letter set off some kind of strange, weird, possessive feeling in me,” he said, wrinkling his brow in frustration with himself. “I don’t know. It’s not something I might deserve to feel, but I do know that when we spent time together in the city, I wanted you to feel like my girl, like you were treated well.”

“You did treat me well,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“And none of these boys here can treat you the way I want to treat you.”

“No, they really can’t,” she said, her arm falling across his chest.

“And what I’m saying is that I really like treating you well.”

She reached her hand to his face, turning him toward her. “You’re going nowhere with this stupid soliloquy,” she said. “You ought to shut up and kiss me.”

So they kissed there by the fire, under the stars, the chilly breeze blowing in from the water. Victor was overwhelmed with feeling for her. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, and his feet began to grow cold. She pushed him down until they were lying there on the sand, the smell of salt pressing against them, her leg over his, their bodies twined together warmly.

When Marilyn woke up the next morning wearing only the long shirt Victor had given her the night before, she knew exactly what she was doing.

A Brief Trip Home

Marilyn left her lunch with Victor Salarino relieved and excited about the summer.

She also felt uneasy.

“What I am doing is, simply, deceptive,” she wrote in her journal. “It is obvious that my parents do not approve of my having anything to do with Victor, and though I haven’t exactly promised them that I wouldn’t see him again, they are certainly under the assumption that I am taking the train home and leaving Victor in New York.”

“Instead,” she paused, taking time to doodle a long ellipsis at the bottom of the page, each circle darkened with thought.

***

Alice was thrilled to welcome her friend to her family’s summer home, and she wrote to Marilyn, asking her to join her in two weeks. Marilyn’s parents had sent her to Coulter Point with Alice a couple of times before, and had no problem with her summer plans. That left just ten days that Marilyn had to endure being at home.

Surprisingly, they weren’t terrible. Marilyn’s father didn’t bring up the subject at all, and her mother left her alone for the most part. She had a habit of alluding to the incident on the sailboat in subtle ways, which Marilyn found annoying, but there was nothing to do but wait. By the end of the month, she would be at Coulter Point, away from Confluence and away from her parents, and there she would be free to see Victor as many times as he cared to make the trip.

The point was a lengthy trip away from New York, which somewhat concerned Marilyn, but Victor had promised at least one weekend with her. Her heart raced every time she thought about it.

There was an incident at church, though, that added credibility to her parents’ anger. Pastor Roberts ended the service with the traditional time for announcements. Helen Daugherty stood up to announce that the Confluence Women’s Club was looking forward to extending invitations to several young women this summer to join the club for a reception and begin the year-long process toward membership. And then, she went on to read a list out loud that included all of Marilyn’s classmates—but not Marilyn Coolidge.

As they left the receiving line afterward, Marilyn’s mother approached Helen.

“Why, Mrs. Coolidge,” she smiled. “Good afternoon.”

“Helen, dear, it seems you’ve made an omission on your list of young ladies to invite to the club.”
Marilyn wanted to shrink away, but her mother had firmly taken hold of her wrist.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Helen said.

“You know right well what I mean, Mrs. Daugherty.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. “Mrs. Coolidge,” Helen said quietly, her eyes looking away from Marilyn and her mother, “our club is selective. We are a small group. We can only accommodate so many new members every year, and there were several young women who did not receive invitations.”

“Mrs. Daugherty, I would normally have thought this list and your reading it in front of God and everybody was a simple act of error, but given your willful ignorance on this subject, I can only assume you are acting in a very distasteful way. Marilyn deserves an invitation.”

“I cannot,” Helen replied firmly, her voice even quieter. “We have strict standards of character for our members, Mrs. Coolidge. You of all people should know that—you wrote our Code of Matronly Conduct, after all.”

Marilyn and her mother walked home from church in silence. Once they were inside, she spoke up. “Thank you,” she said, touching her mother’s arm. “You were awfully kind to have defended me.”

Her mother’s lips drew tight. “I shouldn’t have had to in the first place.”

But that was all; Marilyn’s mother retreated to her bedroom to change for lunch, and when they took their meal, nothing more of the matter was said.

“My home no longer feels like home,” Marilyn later wrote in her journal. “And that worries me. A person needs a place to go where everything feels all right, where she feels safe and well. This town doesn’t seem to recognize me anymore, and I don’t feel like I know it either.”

Two days later, Mr. Coolidge packed his daughter’s suitcases into the car and drove her down to Coulter Point.

A Last Lunch

One of the many quirks of small towns like Confluence is that the residents here all seem to vacation in common places. Rest assured, we don’t all go to the same place together, but many folks enjoy their summer sojourns on Coulter Point. There, they own or rent houses, spend a week or two away from our village here, and relax.

I’ve been out to Coulter Point a few times. It’s an old fishing town filled with cedar-shingled houses weathered gray by years of exposure. Most of the places there are modest in comparison to some of the beach mansions I’ve seen, and they all have a fair spit of land to call their own. The village sits on the land side of a peninsula, and the houses extend outward into the bay like an upside-down comma. You can drive there in just a few hours.

As Marilyn’s semester in New York came to an end, she felt more and more dread about returning to Confluence. Her father’s letter, as well as the last phone call with her mother, assured Marilyn that her parents were disappointed with her. Besides, she was turning twenty years old this summer. What on earth would a woman her age do around town? She certainly didn’t want to face two months of living with her parents, dreading whenever the subject of Victor Salarino came about.

“I cannot help but question the decency of a man who would roll about on the deck of a boat with you in broad daylight,” her mother had said on the telephone. “Did you know that people still ask us if you’re running around with that hooligan?”

“He’s not a hooligan, Mother,” Marilyn replied. “He’s a good man, and he’s quite responsible. I’ve explained the entire situation to you before. He practically saved me from going overboard!”

“Well, you had no business gallivanting around on a sailboat, anyway!” she said. “Of all things! We told people you were there to learn and study. We expected you to be studying, to be behaving, and then you show up in the gossip pages with some New York playboy.”

And on her mother went. They had raised her better than that. This was no way of acting like a lady. There was a reputation at stake—the whole family looked bad because of this. They were embarrassed. Marilyn had made them look like liars.

So it was with great relief to Marilyn when a letter arrived from one of her oldest friends from Confluence, Alice Broadman. It read:

Dear Marilyn,

How are you? When are you coming home for the summer? The terms at Meredith end early, and I’ve been home for a week. It’s awfully boring here in town.

Anyway, I wanted to ask: won’t you come to Coulter Point with me this summer? My family will spend the whole season there, and I know it would be fun to spend the time with you. Write back.

Love,
Alice

Marilyn didn’t hesitate to go directly to her desk, pull out her stationery, and respond immediately. Nothing could be better, she said. With that looming and awkward matter out of the way, Marilyn faced another before she left New York: what to say to Victor. They had arranged a lunch together on the Saturday before she left for Confluence.

It was already summer-hot when Victor picked Marilyn up in his convertible. They decided on a favorite restaurant called Wyatt’s and sat at a table on the sidewalk. Victor ordered a steak sandwich, and Marilyn had a cold salad.

If you’ve ever had a lunch like this one, in which two people sit and attempt to delay an uncomfortable conversation, you’ll know that it wasn’t until the waiter brought the check that either of them brought up the simple subject that Marilyn was leaving New York in less than a week.

“I’m going to miss this, Victor,” she said to him. “I’m going to miss coming here for lunch, and I’m going to miss having lunch with you.”

Victor nodded and wiped his chin off with his napkin. He took an extra moment to fold it carefully before he placed it on the table. He was thinking through what he would say. Finally: “I’m going to miss having lunch with you, too.”

Marilyn waited for a few seconds to gather a bit of courage. “You know, Victor, I---“

“Before you say anything else,” he interrupted, “would you mind if I tell you something?”

She smiled. “Not at all.”

“I’ve had a wonderful time with you the last few months, and I want you to know that I care about you a lot. I know the entire mess with your parents has been rough on you, and it’s my fault. I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“Well, I am. It would be rough on me, and I know it’s a mess for you. I’ve never met your mother and father, but I’m quite sure they don’t like me.”

“But if they only got to know you—“

“If they only got to know me, I’m sure things would be worse,” he grinned. “So we’re here now having lunch at our favorite place, and we’ve got this awful thing lurking about with you going home, and I want to save you a bit of trouble.”

He paused to let the waiter clear their plates. “If you want to get back on the train home and take the memories of a great time in New York with you, that’s fine. I will try to be the gentleman that nobody in your family could possibly imagine me to be, and I will let you go.”

Marilyn felt the pit of her stomach drop a bit. “I’m not sure that’s what I want.”

“Me either,” he said. Suddenly he laughed. “But I’m not sure how on earth this would ever work out.”

She reached across the table for his hand. “Victor, I’m not going home this summer. I’m going out to Coulter Point with a friend of mine and her family. I’ll be there by the first of June.”

When Marilyn had sat down at this restaurant table, she had carried with her the difficult understanding that when they left, she and Victor would part ways. A springtime romance would only be that, and nothing more. She had been careful all along to keep her emotion in check, to remind herself to feel strong, to leave with a calm face.

Suddenly, though, she wasn’t so sure of herself.

Victor smiled. “Really? Couldn’t bear the thought of your mother and father pressing you all summer long?”

“Oh dear,” she said.

“No summer volleyball leagues?”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll have games organized at Coulter Point.”

“What will you do all summer? I know you—you’re not the kind to just lollygag about on the beach. I didn’t know people still went to Coulter Point.”

Marilyn felt her face flush with the slightest embarrassment. “Of course people still go there.”

“There’s nothing to do!”

“But isn’t that the point?”

Victor laughed and rolled his eyes. “I’d go a bit crazy there, I think.”

“You might if you had to stay there all summer long,” she conceded. “My friend Alice’s family owns an inn on the point. They don’t live there or run the place, but they do spend summers living in the main house. Why don’t you come out and stay a couple of days?”

“And what exactly would I fill my time with?” Victor asked.

“I imagine you could take me to lunch,” she said.

Sailing Apart

After she woke up in Victor’s downtown apartment, Marilyn felt it was safe to say the two were an item. “I enjoy his company very much,” she wrote in her diary, “but I’m wary of how easily he talks me into things.”

There was an instance of this occurring when Vic asked her to accompany him on a boating trip down the Hudson. A friend of his had bought a thirty-seven footer named Cesario, and he needed to bring it down river to be docked at the athletic club where he was a member. Marilyn, though athletic and fit, wasn’t much of a sailor, but she agreed to make the trip.

Marilyn Coolidge was used to being around wealth. She had seen her share of country estates and summer houses and stables. Her father rarely indulged his family with extravagance, though, and most any pleasures of travel came thanks to the kindness of family friends. What her father successfully avoided, and what he had an extraordinary distaste for, was publicity. He avoided the Confluence Spectator’s reporters (both of them) whenever he argued a case in the downtown courthouse. He wrote more than once to its publishers and editors following a couple of filler stories regarding the goings-on in town, in which it was reported that the Coolidge family served on the Confluence Presbyterian finance committee.

So it was with a natural uneasiness that Marilyn regarded a photographer accompanying them on the trip—-even though he was there to take pictures of the boat’s new owner, who was well-known in Manhattan gossip. Still, the weather was lovely—-sunny and warm—-and Vic brought her a drink to help her relax.

More than once she caught Victor eyeing her; she wore a bathing suit and a white, cotton wrap. Her tan legs shone in the light. And the Hudson was breathtaking. Marilyn had never been down the valley before.

The boat’s new owner had brought a lady friend, Annette, and she made a fair amount of conversation with Marilyn. The quartet and the photographer took a picnic lunch on the deck, sandwiches, fruit, and wine. Marilyn noticed that Vic had a natural sense around the sailboat, fixing ropes with ease and keeping his balance from bow to stern.

As the Manhattan skyline came into view, she walked up to the bow to sit with Vic, who was sunning himself and finishing the wine. He wore dark aviator sunglasses, the kind pilots wore in the war.

“What do you think?” he asked her.

“I think I could get used to this,” she said. The boat squared on a swell, and water sprayed up on their legs. She laughed.

“I’m very glad you weren’t waiting for someone,” he said a minute or so later.

“I’m sorry?”

“At the bar in Washington Square,” he said. “I’d watched you for a while before I’d worked up the courage to go over and introduce myself. I just knew that as soon as I walked over and sat down beside you, another man would’ve come along and we really would’ve had a start.”

She caught his eye behind his glasses. “I’m glad you sat down,” she said, reaching over to rub his leg. I’ve had an awfully fun time with you.”

Just then, the boat lurched over a swell from a passing cargo ship, plunging deep into its wake before climbing back out of its trough. The bow pointed skyward before slamming down straight on the water, and in the process Marilyn was tossed up in the air—-and toward the rail. Quickly, though, she felt the firm hold of Victor as he grabbed her mid-air and pulled her down onto his lap. The result, with Victor prone on the deck and Marilyn sideways on top of him, made a perfect picture, and the photographer quickly snapped it.

That very photograph, which would later run on the back page of the newspaper with a feature story on the sailing socialite, begat two important things. First, it announced to tens of thousands of readers that the youngest son of the Salarino family—-himself, no doubt, the focus of occasional rumors from the nouveau riche realm-—had found himself a girlfriend with an impressive pedigree to boot. And second, it earned Marilyn a harsh rebuke from the administrators at Bryn Mawr, who warned her that the scandalous behavior she portrayed in the newspaper picture was unbecoming of a young lady of her stature. From that point, her social freedoms were quite limited.

“Embarrassing as it is,” she confided to her journal, “it’s turned my life awfully boring.”

Having been found unfit for duty, the lady who ran the house, Madam Harrison, was relieved of her duties, and her replacement, Mrs. Allison, watched after the girls with a much less forgiving eye. Soon, Marilyn felt that her mistake had inadvertently brought a burden on all of her housemates.

She still managed to see Victor, but her visits were relegated to the daytime hours. As tempted as she was to cut classes, she knew it would irritate the situation further, and the punishment, as she had been assured by the dean of students, would be far worse upon a second offense.

“I am a hopeless schoolgirl, and I’m afraid that I’ve taken quite a liking to Victor at exactly the wrong moment,” she wrote. “I find myself daydreaming about him often. It doesn’t help anything. We have managed to see each other at lunch at least three or four times a week. One afternoon, he took me to the park, and we kissed for an entire hour. Every time he has to drop me back for classes, I feel crestfallen.”

“To make matters worse,” she continued, “my father let me know in a letter today that the Dean told him all about the newspaper story and picture. I could feel the disappointment in his words in my very own guts.”

And so it was that Marilyn’s time in New York, which had started with great anticipation and excitement, quickly grew to a close with the competing feelings of boredom and longing. She ate her suppers alone in her room, heartbroken and lonely. The noise from the streets outside only deepened the feeling that she was missing out on so much, that on just the other side of the glass, there was a life waiting for her.

Becoming Lovers

Marilyn had never felt so drunk in her life.

It had started with a drink with Victor two hours ago at dinner. He'd picked her up in a flashy convertible, and they'd sped off to a restaurant she'd never heard of, and before she knew it, she'd had one glass of wine, and then another, and then a third, and that was enough to put her on her way.

She fought off the urge to panic, but the sense that something was very wrong overwhelmed her. Everyone at the bar was smiling at her. Victor was telling jokes. She heard every fourth or fifth word, and she smiled and tried to keep her eyes level and laugh when everyone else was laughing. It worried her that she might be part of the jokes.

But Victor wouldn't do that--he wouldn't make fun of her. She was his date, and this was their third or fourth date, or something like that anyway. Marilyn tried to slow her mind down long enough to count their dates. The room spun when she closed her eyes. She tried instead to count how many drinks she'd had.

Then there was an arm around her waist, and it was Victor's, and through the wine sloshing through her brain she heard him say she was awfully pretty. He held her hand as she stood up and pulled her close so she wouldn't wobble. That felt good, she thought. It made her feel better.

The car was a few blocks away, so they began walking down the sidewalk. The city seemed like an underwater electric show. Marilyn saw two men approach them. Neither looked safe. She heard one of them ask Victor for some money, and Victor smiled and motioned to her, and told them tomorrow night maybe. They didn't look happy, but they kept walking. When Marilyn and Victor reached the corner, she looked back to make sure the men hadn't followed them.

"Don't worry," she heard Victor say.

"I think they're following us and I don't know how much they'd want anyway," she slurred.

"Marilyn," he said, and when she looked up, he kissed her, and suddenly everything sped back up again--the street, the noise, the blinking lights--as if someone had pulled the drain plug on her drunkenness. The glimpse of lucidity turned into a high.

And then they were back in the car, and she remembered seeing Times Square, and she remembered feeling like they were going somewhere new, and then she remembered this was where Victor lived.

***

Marilyn woke up the next morning feeling startled and lost. She didn't know where she was. The doors were in the wrong places. She was alone in bed.

It was a nice bed, though. She realized the clothes she was wearing weren't her own. Slowly, she stood up, and tip-toed barefoot across the rich, shag carpet toward the door. When she pushed it open, she saw Vic asleep on a sofa.

***

"I am ashamed, and yet I am fascinated," she later wrote in her journal. "What would my mother think? My father? Reverend Roberts? Everything that happened last night went against everything I've ever learned growing up about right and wrong, and yet nothing in my heart feels heavy."

"Instead, it all feels right."

Victor, pt. 3

After Victor Salarino's tour of duty was finished, he went home to New York. He'd been gone for four years. What he found shocked him considerably.

The home he and his mother had shared with her family was filled with another gang of Italians. There was no trace of the Salarinos. He stared for a minute at the name on the door, unsure of what to do. There was a group of boys playing baseball in the street. "Excuse me," he asked one of them. "But do you know where Mrs. Salarino lives?"

The kid looked up at Vic, tall and lanky as he was in his military uniform. He was embarrassed, and looked back down. "They moved," he shrugged.

"Do you know where?"

The boy stared hard at the ground. He didn't know what to say. Finally, he muttered: "The store."

"The store?"

"Mmhmm."

"What store?"

"The STORE!" he insisted.

"They live in the store?"

The boy pointed down the street. It wasn't until then Victor noticed that there, on the corner where Ward's Dry Goods used to be, was a new sign, reading "Salarino's Department and Package Store."

He could hardly believe his eyes.

***

Victor lost one of his brothers, Anthony, when a U-boat sunk the troop ship he was on. His other brother, Silvo, had been wounded mere months after he enlisted when he took a bullet to his hip that shattered the joint. He was sent home.

There wasn't much Silvo could do at first but sit with his mother and worry. Mrs. Salarino read the papers every morning and evening, fretting over every report of casualties. She worked through the day in a factory by the water that had been converted into a production facility for aircraft instruments. Silvo sat at home most days, sitting on the steps and watching people walk by.

One day, though, a gentleman arrived asking for Mr. Salarini. Silvo introduced himself as Mr. Salarini, but he quickly discovered the man was looking for his father. Silvo told him that his father had gone to Europe before the Depression set in and had never returned. They had not heard from him in more than twelve years. The man said he was a lawyer from J. Barnes and Holden named Carlton.

"Are you the man of this house?" Carlton asked.

Silvo answered that his mother was still alive, but he was the oldest son still around.

"I think you'll like what I have to say," Carlton said. He went on to explain. "Before your father left the country, he owned half of the Confluence Catholic Beverage Company. Today, he owns the entire business."

Carlton said the other owner had died, God rest his soul, and that the company was therefore transferred in full ownership to the Salarino family.

Silvo knew he and his mother could not run a wine-making business back in Confluence. And the lawyer guessed he might feel that way.

"I have a proposition for you, son, if you're up for it. One of our clients is interested in buying the company from you." He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a calling card. "This is the price he'd be willing to pay."

Silvo nearly lost his balance. He had to stare at the card and count the zeroes twice to make sure it was the number he thought it was. Carlton laughed. "You'd be surprised how well the wine-making business was during the dry years. Your father was smart to have invested as he did, when he did. It didn't hurt that he went into business with a man who had no relatives or children. What do you think, son? Will you sell?"

Carlton paused, and Silvo suddenly felt uncomfortable. Something didn't feel right to him, but he wasn't sure what. He slowly tried to put his thoughts together. "This is quite a sum of money, Mr. Carlton," he said. "But an offer this large could surely benefit from more careful consideration and negotiation."

The smile quickly faded from the lawyer's face. "I'm sure you'd like to take more time, Mr. Salarino. Just know my client's offer has an expiration date."

Silvo wasn't much of a businessman by that point, but he still had an uncanny knack for sensing when he needed to turn an opportunity this way. For a second he panicked--he'd just dismissed Mr. Carlton's, and the thought of all those zeroes walking down the street with him made him feel weak--but soon enough he collected himself and put his head together with a Jewish friend he'd served with who had studied business and law.

Eventually the two worked out a counter offer for Carlton to consider. The sum of money was greater, but in return for the extra revenue, Mr. Carlton's client would make an investment in a new Salarino enterprise, and in return would control ten percent of the company. Silvo went on to buy out his uncle's general store, taking it over and moving the business to a better location and changing it from a general to a department store.

I'm sure that most of this explanation must seem silly to you now, especially if you've been to a shopping mall and seen the gigantic Salarino's department stores anchoring one end or another. Still, it's fascinating that what is now an international company with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue began when Silvo bargained his way out of a wine making business and opened a modest department store in New York.

This was the store Victor Salarino came home to find his family operating when he returned from his military service. Silvo and Mrs. Salarino lived upstairs, on the third floor of the building, and soon Vic joined them. He took up the business, helping Silvo organize the books, streamline ordering, and push merchandise. The influx of Italian-Americans produced plenty of loyal customers to pounce upon the Salarino's imported Italian suits, and soon they began carrying women's fashion as well. Eventually, Victor realized they needed to expand, and with the help of a few additional investors, they opened a second shop, and then a third, and then a fourth. Today, there are more than 600 stores worldwide.

Vic enjoyed running the business, but he also enjoyed being a young bachelor in New York. He had a little bit of money, and he made no efforts to hide that fact. He'd never had much money, in fact, and he didn't know at first how to handle himself.

Furthermore, he'd never had much luck with women. At least, not serious women. He was just a greasy Italian kid who sold cotton candy at Ebbetts Field before he left for the war. Money, however, seemed to help Victor with his pursuits. He could buy his way into classier joints, pay for real drinks instead of watered down junk, and pick up girls in his convertible.

The game, as Vic played it, was relatively simple: stake out a place where the women were good looking, find a girl who looked new, and impress her with the best smoke and mirrors that growing up in New York and having a little bit of money can buy. It worked most of the time. And the girls! Every day, it seemed, there was another busload of them dropped off in the middle of Times Square, all of them doe-eyed and lost and clueless about the city that threatened to swallow them whole.

And this, dear friends, is what Victor Salarino was doing one night many, many years ago when he found his way to the Washington Square Hotel, where he found one of the classiest looking girls he'd ever seen sitting alone--alone!--in the lobby, a girl by the name of Marilyn Edisto Coolidge.