Faith shook her head as she, Slip, and Merit helped themselves to the pack of Tareytons Audrey extended.
“Jeez, I start talking about libidos and everybody clams up. Why’s everybody so uptight about something as sinsational as sex?” Audrey squinted as the flame from her lighter met the end of her cigarette. “I mean, it’s how we all got here.”
“I don’t know about you,” said Slip, looking like a juvenile delinquent as she lit her cigarette, “but I walked.”
“What does uptight mean, anyway?” asked Merit. “I just heard it yesterday in the supermarket—the bag boy was telling the cashier she was too uptight for her own good.”
“It means to be self-conscious or overly worried about something,” said Kari. “I get all the current slang—all the groovy stuff—from my nieces and nephews.”
“I think we need some snacks,” said Faith, and as no one protested, she took a candle off the coffee table to illuminate her trip to the kitchen.
After dousing her cigarette under the tap and tossing it in the garbage disposal (having kicked her teenage habit, she was now only a social smoker, and since she hadn’t been very social, this was her first cigarette in a long time and she was light-headed from it), she arranged crackers and slices of cheddar on a tray, narrowly avoiding a thumb amputation as she cut the block of cheese in the dark room. She reapplied her lipstick from a tube she kept on the windowsill above the sink (Faith had lipstick tubes placed as strategically as land mines throughout the house; without lipstick she felt undressed) and then, carrying the tray and the candlestick, she made her way back to the shadowy living room.
Faith had the sharp eyes of someone who always had to figure out where she fit in, and the quick impressions she had of people were nearly always accurate. Strong-featured Audrey was sprawled across the chintz chair in a way that told Faith she came from money (the rich girls at school were the ones most careless with the furniture, spilling Cokes on the common-room couches and putting their feet up on the coffee tables). Of course, the gold jewelry and huge diamond ring that had taken up squatter’s rights on her finger were also a clue.
Merit sat primly (the little bow at the collar of her shirt would definitely have to go) on the edge of the couch, her lovely face hopeful, as if she was expecting something good to happen. When a person looked like that, why not expect something good?
Unlike Merit, whom Faith could tell had been pampered and protected from the hardships of life, there was something about Kari’s soft manner (as well as those dark circles under her eyes) that told Faith the woman had seen her share of sorrow.
It was the first time Faith had seen Slip without a stocking cap, and even in the dim candlelight, she looked as shockingly red-haired and freckled as Pippi Longstocking. She sat near Merit, but on the floor, making her seem smaller than she already was. But Faith could see by the way Slip held her body that, small or not, she was not one to be trifled with; she reminded Faith of DeRon Graham, the featherweight wrestler on her high school’s team. DeRon might have been the shortest boy in the senior class, but he walked through the school corridors as if he were a king and all the big beefy football players were his court jesters and all the tall gangly basketball players were his handservants.
Feeling relieved, the way a performer does after peeking through the curtain to see a smiling audience, Faith blew out a deep breath and urged everyone to help themselves to the cheese and crackers.
“So what are y’all talking about?” she asked after settling down on the carpeted floor by the coffee table.
Slip made a derisive snort. “One thing you’ll learn, Faith: if Audrey’s in the room, the answer is sex. Always sex.”
With a slight smile, Audrey inhaled her cigarette. “Not true,” she said, her voice choked with smoke. Jutting her chin, she exhaled one perfect smoke ring that floated, quivering, to the ceiling. “It’s just that I occasionally like to talk about something a little more fun than Johnson and this stupid war.”
“Me too,” said Merit softly. “I’d rather talk about anything than the war.”
Slip blanched, thinking of her earlier conversation with her brother.
“Not talking about it is not going to make it go away,” she said, looking at Faith with a can-you-believe-this? expression. “In fact, that’s what they want us to do—pretend it doesn’t exist. But how many lives have to be lost before we start talking about it—before we start doing something about it?”
In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Faith scrambled to say something that would somehow disperse the tension in the room—it was her duty, after all, not just as a hostess, but the person she was—but Audrey beat her to it.
“My point exactly,” she said, leaning over to stub out her cigarette in the ashtray. “How many orgasms have to be lost before we start talking about sex—before we start doing something about it?”
For a second Slip looked as though she wished Audrey were anywhere but in the same solar system, but the second passed and she laughed along with everyone else.
“Now, your husband,” said Audrey to Faith, helping herself to a large wedge of cheese and a handful of crackers. “He’s a pilot, right? He looks so handsome in his uniform—well, what I can see of his uniform when he runs out of the door with his coat open.”
Faith nodded, surprised at the thrust of emotion that nearly brought tears to her eyes. “Thank you, he is. A pilot, I mean. And handsome too, I guess.”
“He’s gone a lot, isn’t he?” asked Audrey, and it was beginning to dawn on Faith that this woman was the kind her MawMaw described as “pullin’ no punches, even when she’d be better off sittin’ on her hands.” Audrey washed down a mouthful of crackers with the last of her martini, and Faith wondered if her long nails, like her eyelashes, were fake. “I wouldn’t mind Paul and the boys taking the occasional trip—I could use a break now and then from this wife-and-mother thing.”
Merit shook her head. “Oh, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if Eric had to go away. I can hardly stand it when he works late into the evening.”
“That’s because he’s so cute,” said Audrey. “In fact, in the cute husband sweepstakes, he just might take first prize.”
Faith felt a defensive twinge—her Wade, with his dimpled chin and killer smile, could stand up to anyone.
“Audrey, let’s just try for five minutes not to talk about men,” said Slip, who, sitting on her knees by the coffee table, was playing with a line of wax snaking down a candle. “In fact, let’s talk about each other. You’re up, Faith.”
“Oh, lordy.” Faith felt her posture straighten, a reflex to being called on by the teacher. For a few moments she sat with a dazed smile on her face, wondering what to share and what to censor. Well, the first thing you should know about me—but never will—is I’m a big fraud.
“Let’s see. I went to the University of Texas at Austin,” she began, unconsciously twirling her wedding band. It was a first—no one in my family had ever gone to college, let alone high school. “That’s where I met Wade.” Everyone thought he was quite the catch, and why he picked me I’ll never know. “He was my roommate’s brother’s best friend—they were both navy pilots. He did have a tour of duty in Vietnam, but long ago, before all the fighting started.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I have a degree in English, although I haven’t done anything with it.” She lifted her glass only to find it empty.
“Are your folks still there?” asked Audrey.
Faith pretended to take a final sip from her empty glass. “No, my mother died in a car accident the summer before my senior year at college, and my daddy . . . my daddy died just a couple months after I was married.” She swallowed hard. “Of a . . . a heart attack.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Slip, and after the others murmured their sympathy, the room was quiet. The women seemed suddenly transfixed by the fire.
“So,” said Audrey finally, “how long have you and Wayne been together?”
“Wade
,” said Faith. “Let’s see . . . I married the summer I graduated, and had the twins two and a half years later.” Imagine that, I wasn’t pregnant at my wedding. Imagine that—I had a wedding.
“And what’s that like?” asked Kari eagerly.
“They’re fraternal,” said Faith, happy to talk about something she didn’t have to censor, “a boy and a girl, and their personalities are as opposite as their looks. Bonnie’s got straight dark hair—well, what hair she has is straight—and she’s real feisty, and Beau’s got light brown curls and he’s just the most sensitive little—”
“Bonnie and Beau?” said Slip. “Like the kids in Gone with the Wind?”
Faith wanted to deny what sounded like an accusation more than a question, but, flushing, she nodded. “It’s one of my favorite books. I wanted to name them Scarlett and Rhett, but Wade wouldn’t hear of it.”
She waited for the condescending reaction with which these Yankee women would surely greet this confession, but there was none; instead Slip surprised her, saying, “Oh, I loved that book too. I read it in the eighth grade, and I made a hoop skirt out of chicken wire. My dad helped me.” Slip smiled, remembering how she had paraded into the living room to show off the finished product, worn under the tablecloth she had fashioned into a skirt. “Guess what my daughter’s name is?” she asked Faith, her hazel eyes shining.
“Prissy?”
Slip laughed with the others. “It’s Flannery. After Flannery O’Connor. One of my favorite writers.”
“My comparative-literature professor went to school with her in Milledgeville.”
“No kidding!”
Faith held up her hand, Scout’s honor, and its shadow wavered on the candlelit wall. “They used to swap lunches. My professor said Flannery loved the date-nut bread her mother made.”
“No kidding!” said Slip again.
“Well, get this,” said Audrey, her tumble of dark hair falling over her shoulders as she leaned toward them. “Merit’s going to name her baby Anna Karenina if it’s a girl and Vronsky if it’s a boy.”
“I am not!” said Merit. “It’s going to be Eric, Eric the third.”
“Unusual name,” said Kari, “if it’s a girl.”
Still on the floor, Slip shifted her position and her fingers bumped against something under the couch. She drew out a book.
“Hey, I read this,” she said, holding it up to a candle.
“Is it good?” asked Faith. “I was just starting it when the lights went out.”
Slip waved her hand in a so-so gesture. “You’ll know who did it by the second chapter.”
“Not me,” said Kari. “I thought the meter maid did it the whole way through.”
“Mind if I fill us up again?” asked Audrey, holding up her empty glass.
“Oh, please, let me,” said Faith, embarrassed that she was remiss in her hostessing duties.
“I love mysteries,” said Audrey, heading toward the portable bar. “Only trouble is there’s never enough sex in them.”
“Not all of us think The Kinsey Report is a great piece of literature,” said Slip.
“It’ll teach you things you never knew,” teased Audrey, filling the shaker. “Really, Slip, you should broaden your reading tastes.”
“My goodness,” said Kari, “you two remind me of Mrs. Lundvall and Mrs. Seiderbaum. Only they never argued over The Kinsey Report, I can guarantee you that.”
“Okay, you got me,” said Audrey. “Who are Mrs. Lundquist and Mrs. Seiderberg and what would they argue about?”
Kari smiled, which did her plain and unadorned face a big favor. “Well, books, of course. Mrs. Lundvall and Mrs. Seiderbaum were in my mother’s book club. It didn’t matter what the book was—they’d argue about it.”
“How could your mother have a book club?” asked Merit. “Don’t you just sign up and order a book once or twice a year?”
“Not a mail-order book club. A book club where people read the same book and then get together to talk about it. My mother and her friends met the first Saturday of the month in the basement of Blessed Redeemer. I used to go with and sit under the portrait of Martin Luther and listen as they discussed Eudora Welty or Charles Dickens or Edna Ferber.” Kari’s smile once again brightened her face. “Dad played checkers with the other husbands in the kitchen, and when it came time for dessert, they served it.”
“I want to join a club like that,” said Audrey. “A club where I get to do the talking and the men run around serving dessert.”
“Oh, believe me, it had its critics. Mr. Moe—he ran the bank—told Pastor Curtis that he didn’t approve of church property being used by a bunch of idle women talking about ungodly things.”
“What sort of ungodly things?” asked Faith.
Kari tucked a section of her bowl cut behind her ear. “Well, I can’t remember what book they were discussing, but it brought out a lot of argument, and not just between Mrs. Lundvall and Mrs. Seiderbaum. Anyway, Mr. Moe—if he wasn’t at the bank, he was at church—heard all of this and came downstairs just livid, asking everyone why they weren’t home where they were supposed to be instead of making a ruckus in the Lord’s house.
“The men came out of the kitchen—Mr. Hanson was wearing an apron, and boy, that really sent Mr. Moe around the bend. ‘Men in aprons! Angry women shouting about books! What was the world coming to?’ ” Kari laughed, shaking her head. “I remember leaving my perch under Martin Luther to sit by my mother, absolutely terrified of what Mr. Moe was going to do.”
“What did he do?” asked Merit.
“Well, he raved on until Pastor Curtis and some of the husbands settled him down and escorted him back upstairs. There was a big silence after he left, but then Mrs. Gepperson—now, she was a card—got up and started mocking Mr. Moe, shaking her finger at everyone and yelling how she was sickened by all these idle women shouting about books. I tell you, I never saw grown women laugh so hard.”
“Hey,” said Slip, her eyes wide, “let’s take up where they left off. Let’s start a book club of our own.”
A log in the fire popped, spraying an arc of sparks.
“I’ve always wanted to be in one,” said Kari, petting Flicka’s broad forehead. “I know how much pleasure it gave my mother and her friends.”
“I’d join,” said Faith, feeling a warmth that was attributable either to the idea of a burgeoning social life or to her second martini. “I think it’d be fun.”
“Damn right,” said Slip. “Now, all in favor, raise your hands.”
Every hand but one went up.
“Well, I’m not exactly sure what I’m getting into,” said Merit. “We won’t have to write book reports or anything, will we?”
Faith wondered if she was making a joke.
“Merit, this isn’t supposed to be punishment,” said Audrey, “it’s supposed to be fun.”
“Okay,” said Merit, and her raised hand made the count unanimous.
WITH THE VOTE IN, the lights came on. No one applauded this victory for technology; electric lighting, when compared to that provided by candle and fire, was jarring, overly bright, and certainly a destroyer of ambiance.
“Well, that’s my cue,” said Audrey, standing. “Paul’s probably bound and gagged the boys by now.”
Her announcement reminded everyone else that yes, it was getting late, but hadn’t this been fun and wasn’t a book club a good idea?
“So I’ll figure out the details for our first meeting,” said Slip, “and let you all know.”
“What a pretty room,” said Merit as the group walked toward the foyer. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen peach living room walls before.”
“Sometimes I go a little crazy,” said Faith, who felt a pride in her decorating skills as well as a need to apologize for them.
Amid thanks for her hospitality and an offer from Kari to baby-sit the twins, the quartet of women readied themselves for the cold dash back to their own houses.
“I think it’s warmed u
p, ladies,” said Audrey as she opened the door and a blast of stinging air blew in. “It must be only thirty below now.”
Kari held on to the collar of her dog. “Come on, Flicka, I’ll race you back.”
“Bye,” said Merit, drawing up her coat collar so that its fur framed her movie star face. “I had a nice time.”
Faith was just about to close the door when Slip stepped back in.
“Good night,” she said, her cinnamon-colored eyes shining, her freckled nose already red from the cold. “See you at book club.”
May 1968
Dear Mama,
Wade’s mama, Patsy, has been complaining that she does ten times the writing and calling that we do, so after I dutifully wrote her a letter (why is it that the wife is always the communicator? why can’t Wade pick up a pen?) I thought: why not write my own mama? I could pretend you’re still alive and that we’re as close as Chang and Eng. I could write you the real truth because we’re each other’s best friends and we just love each other to pieces.
Hey, I can dream, right? So here goes . . .
Yesterday I was over at my friend Slip’s house. Her mother’s visiting from back east, and Slip’s kids were climbing over their grandma like happy little monkeys, and along with being jealous of Slip for being so lucky, I thought how nice it would be if I had a mother my kids could climb all over. But even if you were here, I can’t see you enjoying being their jungle gym—I can see you swatting them away and then asking me where the nearest “libation station” was.
Slip’s mom smelled of hand lotion and coffee, and I thought what a sad little habit it is of mine to try to get a whiff of every mother I meet—always trying to find that smell that reminds me so much of you. Funny, though—I have yet to meet a mother who reeks of whiskey, cigarettes, and clothes that should have been in the laundry bag. Funnier still—how come I miss that smell?
Oh, Mama, I don’t know why I’m being so mean. It’s just that . . . well, you know yourself, the meanest people are usually the ones who hurt the most.
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