Isn't It Romantic?

Natalie primly sat on her bed. She crossed her legs. She uncrossed them. She rolled to one thigh and fashionably posed. She reclined luxuriantly, seductively, like an odalisque, but she thought better of it. She stared with wide-eyed expectation at the door.

Pierre crawled forward on his hands and knees, then remembered his Gallic dignity and stood.

Dick waited with his back against the bathroom door. He bent down and worked his stockinged feet into his boots. Confidently opening the bathroom door, he walked out into the hallway and headed toward Pierre like a businessman on an interoffice errand, nodding professionally as they passed. “Evenin’,” Dick said.

And Pierre said, “You bet.”

Each watched the other as Dick knocked “Shave-and-a-haircut” on Natalie’s door and Pierre rapped “Six-bits” on Iona’s. Softly, the bedroom doors opened.

Mrs. Christiansen called from the first floor, “Iona?” just as Opal called, “Natalie?”

Iona and Natalie each frantically yanked their gentlemen callers inside before hushing them with hands to their mouths and heading out to the hallway to see what Mrs. Christiansen and Opal wanted.

Pierre and Dick loitered in the two empty bedrooms, uncertain what to do with themselves. Pierre paged through Iona’s Cosmopolitan magazine, idly hunting nudity; Dick noodled around Natalie’s dresser, lifting hair products and perfumes to read their labels, then putting them back down. Each heard a light rap on the door and hurried to open it.

Pierre faced Carlo Bacon.

Dick faced Owen Nelson.

Pierre and Dick hesitated for a second, then slammed their doors.

Reprimanded for noisiness, Iona and Natalie wordlessly stomped up the kitchen staircase. Each paused to stare at the other in the now-empty hallway, then opened the door to her own bedroom.

Iona was confronted by Carlo. He immediately jittered, hit his thigh to halt it, and then he lurched toward her, holding his arms wide. “Oh, you poor thing,” he said. “Who needs a hug?”

“Stay!” Iona said.

Owen was scarfing down truffles in Natalie’s room. She took hold of his ear.

Wide-shouldered Onetta was policing the hallway with a Louisville Slugger when Carlo and Owen were heaved out. Doors slammed. Onetta sneered as she patted the baseball bat in her palm.

“We come in peace,” Owen said.

Onetta threatened, “And you’ll go in pieces.”

Owen’s hand went to his wallet pocket and hauled out a Falstaff. He held it to her. She softened.

Inside the bedrooms Pierre faced Iona and Natalie faced Dick. Iona said to Pierre, “About Saturday. Did you know there’s a wedding?”

And Natalie asked Dick, “Whose?”

Iona told Pierre, “Dick and Natalie.”

And Dick told Natalie, “You and Pierre.”

Natalie and Pierre simultaneously replied, “Comment?” (Say again?)

Dick told Natalie, “You’re getting married.”

Each said with astonishment, “Married!”

Onetta, Carlo, and Owen were sitting on the hallway carpet, sharing the Falstaff, hearing havoc in both French and English behind them. Onetta got up. “You guys want another?”

They allowed as to how that just might hit the spot, and Onetta went downstairs.

Carlo asked, “You see Natalie in there?”

Owen said, “Oh, yeah.”