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Show 2S7 In a letter Mrs. Rubin listed the guests who were relatives, suggested a list of non-relatives, and asked who besides Ben's immediate family and the best man and ushers and their Chicago freends - who else would be coming from Chicago to Cleveland? Then Ben's mother sided with the gubins and Ben called the whole thing off. "I withdraw," he told us. "I told Amy last night, my proposal to marry is formally withdrawn." A"You said, 'Fuck it all.'" "Right. Fuck the long and the short and the tall. By god, when my own mother who raised me at her knee added two cousins to the guest list, the two I most detest, because it. wouldn't look right, then I saw that the whole thing is crazier than I ever thought. Absolutely meshugah." "It makes sense to them." "Makes sense.' Forty people driving to Cleveland? Two hundred there? A ball-room? Dinner, dancing, a bar . . .?" "People will remember." "But the show.' The waste.'" "It's their money, let them enjoy it." "It's our wedding, god damn it.' Let them keep their dirty hands off.' All they're paying for is second billing in a vaudeville show. We'll get married in splendor and live in poverty -- ildoes that make sense? If they're so god damned eager to help, if they have our interests at heart, why don't they give us the dirty money and not throw it away?" He didn't give in, he drew the line, and Amelia, maybe a little scared, called her parents and presented his case. She said she agreed with him, and then her parents revealed that all along they had had the young couple's true interests in mind, absolutely, that they had never intended that it be all show, that it wouldn't all be just for a mother's heart. Oh no. Of course they would help them after the marriage, and substantially. And just to set |