Mrs March

by Virginia Feito

  “Mrs. March, lovely to see you,” said one of the men, whom Mrs. March remembered dimly as George’s private banker. She couldn’t recall his name, but she did know that he and George occasionally played tennis together.

  “I hope you’re having a good time,” Mrs. March said, more to the young woman.

  “Good turnout,” said the private banker.

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. March. “We have quite the crowd, I barely know anyone.” The young woman was looking elsewhere, tilting her head back as she smoked, as if drinking from a ridiculously long champagne flute.

  “Well, I can start by introducing you to Tom here,” said the banker, “and to Ms. Gabriella Lynne, whom I’m sure you recognize from last month’s Artforum.”

  Mrs. March beamed a touch too aggressively at the gazelle-like Ms. Lynne, who—exhaling a plume of smoke—said nothing.

  “Ms. Lynne happens to be the most sought-after book jacket designer of the moment,” Tom piped up.

  Gabriella shook her head, blowing out another wreath of smoke, her exhalation morphing into a quiet laugh. “I fear these two are impressed by just about anything,” she said to Mrs. March, at which Mrs. March giggled, happy to be included in this aside. “This is an absolutely wonderful party, by the way, thank you so much for inviting me,” Gabriella added in a listless monotone. Her accent, seductive and untraceable, had been acquired, Mrs. March would later learn, through an itinerant European childhood.

  “Oh, of course, it’s my pleasure,” replied Mrs. March. “And any friend of George’s is a friend of mine. Have you designed any of his books?”

  “Oh, I wish.” Gabriella twisted her cigarette into the remains of her caviar and crème fraîche blini, which a waiter promptly removed. Mrs. March couldn’t decide whether to feel offended at Gabriella’s behavior. The blini, unfinished, was destined for the trash anyway, but desecrating it in such a manner could be conceived as an insult to her hospitality. A sudden desire to cry invaded her, and the mere possibility of this terrified her.

  “Actually, I had been asked to come up with the cover for his new novel,” Gabriella continued, “but sadly I had another commitment. Everything worked out, though—the designer they used instead chose that iconic painting. It’s just so perfect, and it suits the spirit of the novel more than anything I could have come up with.”

  Mrs. March nodded blankly, wondering what Gabriella’s body looked like underneath her thin satin dress: what color her nipples were, whether she had any freckles or moles—perhaps one Gabriella considered unsightly but which all men agreed was impossibly sexy.

  “I assume you read the book?” Gabriella asked, looking straight into her eyes and cocking her head to one side, her lips parted slightly in a show of playful curiosity.

  “Oh, I, of course, I read all of George’s books,” Mrs. March said, her voice wavering. Before the conversation could veer into the dreaded direction of the book’s main character, another man—recently arrived, by the looks of it, as he was still wearing his coat, raindrops glistening on the shoulders—swooped in to greet Gabriella with a kiss on both cheeks. Mrs. March felt Gabriella’s attention yanked from her almost physically, wrenched from her body like a still-beating organ. She glanced down at the coffee table. In the ashtray lay three white cigarette butts stained with lipstick. Next to it sat Gabriella’s silver cigarette case, engraved with her initials. Pushed by an unfamiliar impulse, Mrs. March snatched the case and slipped it into her bra, where it lodged uncomfortably against her left breast.

  She walked away unnoticed, slightly dizzy from the rush of her misdeed but making an effort to smile—partly to avoid suspicion, but mostly to mask her own guilt over what she had just done. Unfortunately, or perhaps thankfully, she was at that moment accosted by George’s agent.

  “How are you, darling, the party is simply spectacular,” Zelda said, all in one breath, then inhaled sharply. A committed chain smoker, Zelda struggled to get out long phrases; her lungs seemed to collapse every time she tried. Her voice was growing huskier by the second, and Mrs. March imagined by the end of the night her statements might be reduced to mere whistles.

  “Thank you, Zelda.” Her eyes fell on Zelda’s teeth, stained with russet lipstick and yellowed by decades of nicotine. “Do try the foie gras,” she added as a waiter approached bearing a log surrounded by caramelized onion and strawberry compote. “It’s from a little farm on the outskirts of Paris. My sister gave it to us. Her husband made it himself. On that very farm while on holiday.”

  “How spectacularly rustic!” Zelda said, stretching out her arms and looking up at the ceiling dramatically.

  “Isn’t that made by brutally force-feeding the goose?”

  Mrs. March turned toward this new voice, which belonged to the long, emaciated figure of Edgar, George’s editor. His hands behind his back, his head bowed, he was always curved, like a question mark.

  “Surely not!” protested Zelda, although her face expressed no such disbelief as she turned to Mrs. March, her body shaking with a laughter her lungs weren’t strong enough to produce.

  “It’s a process called gavage,” Edgar said, in an irritating French overpronunciation, his little mouth filled with saliva, “which is the term for force-feeding the animal with a tube to the stomach.”

  “Ooh!” Zelda said, pulling a face but still laughing, her painful titter now intermittently audible, like the whine of a dog.

  “That’s why the liver has that distinctive flavor,” said Edgar.

  As if on cue, the waiter reappeared with the foie gras, which was sweating viscous rivers of yellow grease.

  Edgar pulled up his cuffs, took the small blunt knife next to the foie gras, cut himself a piece as the waiter held the trembling tray, and lathered a piece of toast. His eyes fixed intently on Mrs. March, a small smirk playing on his lips as he popped the toast into his mouth. She returned his gaze, fixating on his thick, clear-colored eyeglasses and thin, milky, wispy hair, like a baby’s. The color of his skin was a nauseating white tinged with pink—the pink of his knuckles, of his raised moles, of the spider veins streaking his nose.

  The sound of a spoon clinking repeatedly against a glass interrupted her momentary odium, and she and Edgar both turned away from each other, toward the source of the noise. It was George, God bless him, standing awkwardly in front of the fireplace, thanking everybody for coming. Zelda had sidled up to him at some point, without Mrs. March and Edgar even realizing she had left.

  “I want to thank everybody here,” George began, “because if you’re here, then it means you had something—big or small—to do with this book. Be it editing, promoting, dealing with my writerly whims these past few months, or simply inspiring this latest story.” His eyes fell on Mrs. March, whose buttocks immediately clenched.

  Zelda interrupted to say something about how the industry’s winter fiction lists had looked especially crowded, and what a feat it was that George’s book had yet to meet its match.

  “Well, the fans are loyal—” George said, looking down as he clutched the stem of his champagne glass.

  “Nonsense, nonsense, don’t be modest,” interrupted Zelda again as she turned to the partygoers: “He’s being modest!” She laughed, and it wheezed out in a barely audible grate.

  Mrs. March brought her fingers to her burned earlobe, stroking the crackling scab with her thumb. She was reminded, fleetingly, of a pork rind, and without realizing she was doing it, licked her thumb.

  “The truth is,” Zelda continued, “this is a game-changing book, one that appeals not only to his fans, but to everyone, no, hold on”—she wagged a finger at George, who had begun to protest—“and, I’m compelled to say, is my favorite book of the past decade! And I hate to read!”

  Raucous laughter erupted. Mrs. March eyed the slightly crooked vase on the mantelpiece behind Zelda, forgetting to join in.

  “So without further ado, let’s raise a glass—to the charming, talented George! Edgar?”

  Mrs. March
’s gaze turned to Edgar as Zelda pulled him out of the crowd. He raised a hand in a modest gesture as the audience cheered, urging him to speak. “Well … you know what?” he said, adjusting his dotted silk scarf. “Let’s not toast to this book, because—let’s be honest—it doesn’t need it. Let’s toast instead to George’s next book, because that one is screwed.”

  “Hear, hear!” As people searched for others to clink glasses together, some turned toward Mrs. March, whose face stretched into an exaggerated, almost maniacal smile, her eyes wide and gleaming—before she thrust her champagne glass toward her mouth and the now-warm, bubbly liquid burned its way down her throat.

  Mrs. March took advantage of the toast and the ensuing merriment to slip out of the living room and into the kitchen, where Martha bent over the island, swaddling the leftovers tightly in plastic wrap. The cook had left already, the waiters had moved on to serve digestifs, and it was now time for dessert.

  The strawberries sat in the colander in the kitchen sink, washed and ready. Mrs. March placed them, one by one, on a porcelain platter, marveling at their freshness, their dewy porosity. She asked Martha to prepare the cream and moved to take the strawberries into the living room, in the hopes that they would be admired beforehand.

  Just as she was about to cross the threshold to the hallway, a clear, impassive female voice made its way to her from the living room:

  “Do you think she knows? About Johanna?”

  Mrs. March stopped, one heel in the kitchen, the other in the hallway. There was laughter, in the midst of which Mrs. March was certain she could discern George’s hearty guffaw, followed by shushing and scattered giggling.

  Dread rippled through Mrs. March. Her ears rang, then seemed to clog. Her arms sagged, and the platter she was clutching drooped. The strawberries tumbled in a scarlet hail all over the floor, rolling into corners and under furniture (some would not be found until weeks later).

  She stood there blinking, until Martha made a little noise behind her and her thick, blotchy hands appeared to pry the platter from Mrs. March.

  “Oh, dear, I—what a mess. I’ll get cleaned up,” said Mrs. March in a strangely drowsy sort of voice, as Martha kneeled to pick the strawberries off the floor.

  Mrs. March stumbled past the living room and into her bedroom, pacing in circles before entering the adjoining bathroom, where she closed and locked the door. She sat on the edge of the bathtub and fumbled the silver cigarette case out from her bra, stopping to caress the engraved initials before unlatching it with a little click. She took out a cigarette and, hands shaking, lit it with a match from a matchbox in one of the bathroom drawers. She smoked one, then two, then three cigarettes, sucking in the foul air greedily. She tipped the ash into the bathtub and left the cigarette butts in the drain. As she finished what she promised herself would be her final cigarette, a black blur scuttled across the floor. Her eyes followed the sudden movement and she identified—a dark veil of horror settling over her—a cockroach running across the tiles. Mrs. March yelped and ran out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from screaming, and another to the wound behind her ear. Then she snatched the pillows from the bed and placed them to block the gap between the floor and the door.

  Drained, she sat on the bedroom floor, resting her back against the bed. She considered briefly the prospect of not returning to the party, but custom dictated she make her way back. Perhaps she could feign a terrible illness? But people would talk. They would see her absence as confirmation that Johanna was based on her, and more pitifully: that she cared.

  “Did you hear about Mrs. March?” she pictured George’s private banker saying to his wife. “The poor woman. She now spends her days locked up in their apartment. Terrible shame.”

  She then imagined his wife (whom she hadn’t met, and who may in fact not even exist) pitying her, this pathetic ugly stranger (the banker would have rushed to describe her as plain) whose husband despised her so much that he based this dreadful character on her. “What character, exactly?” the wife would ask as she dried her delicate hands on a kitchen towel.

  A smile would play on the banker’s lips, and he would describe Johanna, the whore, and how no one wanted to sleep with her, even her regulars. “The book’s really rather good,” he would say. “There’s talk the clever bastard will win the Pulitzer for insulting his wife.”

  They would chuckle somewhat guiltily about it, and the wife would remark what a pity the whole thing was, as she had thought the Marches were a happy couple. “Well, I guess now we know the truth.”

  Mrs. March wondered how other women would suffer this humiliation if they were to find themselves in her position; surely Patricia, the simple-minded baker, with her frizzy hair and stupid, dumpling face, would find it hilarious that her husband had based a sad whore on her. She wouldn’t give a damn about anybody else’s opinion. But was this the type of woman Mrs. March wanted to be? The type of woman who couldn’t care less about her image, about how the world might see her? She attempted to picture how Gabriella would take it. But this would never happen to Gabriella, she concluded miserably. Gabriella, without a doubt, would be portrayed as an attractive, vulnerable yet resilient goddess, someone the male characters would duel and die for. A less profound character, most likely, less “realistic” (what was it about realism anyway, that people praised it so?) but much more likable. Of course, Mrs. March’s problem wasn’t so much that Johanna herself was unlikable. It was that there seemed to be no doubt in people’s minds that she was, too.

  Had the guests even noticed she was gone? Or were they relieved? She considered changing her stupid dress, wearing something simpler, sexier, but everyone would notice, would judge her, would write her off for caring too much. She yearned for some sort of revenge, and although stealing Gabriella’s cigarette case—which she had returned to her bra—had somewhat soothed this itch, they deserved worse. She should poison them, she mused—with arsenic. In Victorian days, George once told her, every household was equipped with poison. Arsenic was sold, unregulated, to anyone, and used in pigments in wallpapers and dresses. She could bring out another dessert—poison them all with a dish of toasted cheese and opium. She pictured them falling all over her living room, then the silence, an odd peace after such a boisterous party, and herself stepping over the bodies in a stunned daze.

  She was jolted out of this fantasy by the realization that the party had gone silent. What if the guests had left, urged by a still-giggling George, because they had upset his oversensitive wife, you know how she is, fragile, can’t bear this sort of embarrassment, you’ve read the book?

  She stood up from the floor, went to the bedroom door, and opened it a crack. The party—its music and noise and laughter still alive—trickled down the hallway. She took a deep breath before stepping out and walked, with hesitation, to the living room, holding on to the walls with her hands as she ricocheted in slow motion from one side to another. Something crunched underneath her feet. She glanced down at a winterberry twig, as several little red berries rolled across the floor.

  How silly, she told herself, to assume that anything would stop on her account. The party continued on with the clinking of glasses, the record spinning on its turntable, the grandfather clock ticking in the foyer, its red-cheeked moon face smiling down at her. Everything was as she had left it.

  On a side table the last of the strawberries lay scattered on the platter, some splotched with cream, some drowning in it, others bleeding red. Mrs. March contemplated them with a small sadness before sinking back into the party, as if she were submerging in water and looking up at the other bathers’ limbs from the depths.

  She approached a group engaged in conversation. “The book,” they were saying, and “talent” and “his generation.” She smiled and nodded at them, but they did not acknowledge her presence so she turned away, her smile frozen in place as she wiped a drop of sweat from her temple. It was then that she saw Gabriella standi
ng next to George in the middle of the room, the two glowing under their own self-made spotlight, leaving everything—and everyone—else dimmed. Gabriella was pressing one hand on his arm while she covered her mouth with the other, as if laughing were a social faux pas, like a yawn or a burp. Mrs. March watched them, drinking from a random glass of room-temperature champagne she had picked up near the strawberries. George stood beaming—that irritating smile of his, detestable in its false humility—until a friend of his approached to introduce himself to Gabriella.

  Cheery under the influence of the alcohol (and the attention, no doubt), George spotted Mrs. March and steered her by the elbow to introduce her to two women, a blonde and a brunette, who, George explained with pride, had been among the last of his students before he turned to writing full time. Mrs. March hadn’t invited either woman—presumably George had invited them himself without telling her, although it was unclear how he had resumed the relationship after all this time.

  “Professor March—”

  “Oh, please, you’re not my students anymore. Call me George.”

  “Okay … George,” said the brunette, giggling.

  Mrs. March stared at the women, unsmiling. They couldn’t be much older than thirty, she guessed, but she wasn’t sure if that made sense. When exactly had George stopped teaching? She tried to recall the year.