Portrait of a Married Woman

by Sally Mandel

  “Why are you staring at me?” she asked finally.

  “You have an interesting face.”

  Maggie smiled. “Good bones, my mother says.”

  “Your mother’s right. Do you mind not being pretty?”

  “I did when I was fifteen. Not now.”

  He nodded as if she were confirming something he already knew.

  “Do you mind being pretty?” she asked him.

  “Yes,” he answered instantly. Then they both laughed, and Maggie began to relax.

  They had talked about art that night, Maggie remembered, and she was impressed with his sensitivity and profound admiration of creative performance. On the way back to her dormitory, he had tried to kiss her.

  She had pulled away. “Why are you doing this?” she asked him.

  “Doing what? Kissing you? I like your gap.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “The gap between your front teeth. It’s sexy.”

  “I mean all of it. Taking me out, giving me the rush.”

  “You’re cute.” He tried to draw her close but she resisted.

  “I may be many things, but I am not cute. I’m a novelty, that must be it.”

  “I’d say special.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I want to. I’ll tell you something else. I’ve been thinking about you all summer.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw your pictures at the student exhibition. I liked them a lot.”

  “Listen, I’m just an ordinary person with an ordinary talent. I’m no Mary Cassatt.”

  He held her by the shoulders and shook her slightly. “Why are you giving me such a hard time?”

  “Because you could make hash out of me.”

  He was silent a moment. “I won’t do that,” he said at last.

  “How do you know? It can’t be easy to break the beauty-queen habit.”

  “Exasperating woman,” he said, then kissed her and held her very close to him the rest of the way back.

  He called her every night, but Maggie, though cordial, told him she was busy.

  Phyllis paced their little room. “What does he say when you turn him down?”

  “ ‘God damn.’ ”

  “You’ve got the Adonis of Harvard hot after your ass.”

  “He doesn’t want me really,” Maggie explained. “He just thinks he does.”

  “So what, so what? If you pass up a chance to sleep with that man, I’m transferring you to Mass Mental.”

  “Phyl,” Maggie said, “I like him. He’s not just another pretty face.”

  Phyllis held out her hands in a gesture that said: So, then?

  “I’m going to get mangled and shredded by this one.”

  “Then have a night or two of bliss to remember the remainder of your mangled and shredded life. Am I right or am I right?”

  Maggie regarded her silently. Phyllis and Maggie had been paired as roommates freshman year. Maggie remembered being appalled by her language. It was one thing to read the word “cunt” sprinkled among abstruse paragraphs of Chaucer, but quite another to be confronted with the actual spoken word. As the weeks went by, it became clear that Phyllis’s formidable mouth was matched by an equally formidable intellect, with which she was just as generous. If Maggie was baffled by a Statistics problem, Phyllis was always there to explain. She shared her Biology lab notes and read all of Maggie’s English term papers, offering patient, tactful criticism. They had continued to room together except for junior year, when Phyllis spent the year abroad, and Maggie had missed her terribly. When Phyllis asked Maggie to analyze her reactions to Matthew Hollander, it did not take Maggie long to get up off her bed and telephone him.

  “It’s me,” she said. “Can I take you out to dinner?”

  “Yes,” Matthew said, and it began in earnest.

  The sight of Phyllis’s apartment house roused her from her reminiscences. The newsreel was happening again, Maggie thought. Eventually she would work her way up through the years, and then what? Something cataclysmic, surely.

  The linoleum flooring in the lobby was coming up around the edges. Even the plastic plant by the elevator seemed dustier and more forlorn than usual. But Phyllis was fastidious about her apartment. It was decorated in beige and white, sparsely so that the cramped space seemed larger. There were touches of rattan here and there, and lots of mirrors. Maggie marveled at the contrast between the orderly home and the chaotic marriage that inhabited it.

  The others were already sitting at the card table. Three pairs of eyes stared at Maggie as she let herself in. She found refuge in Robin’s, which were deep brown and, as always, filled with warmth. Robin was five months pregnant, but even in profile, her figure barely showed it.

  “Did somebody die?” Phyllis asked. The long dark braid of Radcliffe days had been replaced with an attractive cropped haircut.

  Maggie shook her head and sat down. There was a glass of white wine beside the pile of cards Hilary had dealt her. “Thanks,” Maggie said, and took a swallow.

  “Gee, in all these years, I think you’re the only one who’s never been late,” Robin said. The soft eyes were plainly worried.

  “Sorry. I was attacked by Marcel Proust on the way over.” Maggie hurriedly arranged her cards.

  “You going to explain?” Phyllis asked.

  Maggie shook her head. “Not to worry.” She had a good hand. The second time around the table she bid two no-trump.

  “Oh, Christ, I always forget what I’m supposed to say to that,” Hilary moaned. Even with her face screwed up in dismay, Hilary Vonderhyde was beautiful. She had thick wavy hair, honey-colored but streaked pale around her face. Her eyes were light brown, almost gold, and her skin always seemed tanned. Her eyebrows and lashes were dark, making the blond hair suspect, but the fact was, Hilary was one hundred percent natural. She drew her long fingers through the tangled mane.

  “You must be asking for another suit,” she murmured.

  “No hints,” Phyllis warned.

  “Oh, three no-trump,” Hilary finally decided. The others passed.

  “Damn, I hate playing no-trump,” Maggie muttered.

  Robin led the six of diamonds and Hilary laid down her hand. Maggie looked it over in silence. There was a conspicuous gap in the diamond suit, and, as always, Robin had ferreted it out. Somehow she always seemed to guess her opponents’ weakness. She was the kindest, gentlest person Maggie knew, but she was deadly at the bridge table.

  “I’m sorry, Mag,” Robin said mournfully as she ran through the last of her six-card diamond suit. It was a joke with them about Robin’s card sense. She was good, she was lucky, but she could not bear the fact that someone had to lose. Sometimes she seemed almost exultant when she drew a three-point hand and was unable to bid.

  Maggie watched helplessly as the pile of cards accumulated in front of Robin, and was amazed to feel her eyes sting. She was losing it all. She glanced up and saw Phyllis studying her. With shaking fingers, Maggie took the next trick, and then proceeded to relinquish transportation from her hand to Hilary’s strong club suit. She finished the game down four. “Sorry, partner,” she sighed.

  “I left you in the lurch. Those were sucky diamonds.”

  “What’s the matter, Margaret?” Phyllis asked.

  “Nothing,” Maggie replied.

  “Oh, yes,” Phyllis said.

  “Getting my period. Whose deal?”

  “Mine,” Phyllis said, “but I think I’ll wait until you tell us what’s with you.” She tapped the pack of cards on the table while, as always, Maggie doodled on the score pad. This time it was a drawing of a chicken with human features.

  “Do you feel as if you’ve changed?” Maggie asked them. “Over the years, since college, I mean? Oh, I don’t know what I mean.”

  “I’ve gotten a hell of a lot older,” Hilary said.

  “That’s not …” Maggie began, but Phylli
s interrupted her gently.

  “I remember the energetic, confident young thing who was going to conquer the art world—first Boston, then New York.”

  “I used to go after the things I wanted, didn’t I?”

  “You got a case of the regrets?” Phyllis asked.

  “I don’t know what I’ve got.”

  “Talent. Which you don’t use,” Hilary said.

  Maggie drew heavy pencil marks through her doodle.

  “I don’t think she needs criticism tonight,” Robin said. “Go ahead and deal, Phyl.”

  Phyllis began to distribute the cards. “What she needs is a lover.”

  Hilary laughed incredulously.

  “All you ever think about is sex,” Robin protested.

  “All anybody ever thinks about is sex, honey.”

  “I promise I’ll go right home after this and attack Matthew,” Maggie said. “You bid a club? I pass.”

  “I don’t think that’ll do it,” Phyllis said, “but go ahead and give it a try.”

  “She’s got late-thirties ennui. It’s practically an epidemic,” Hilary said. “It’ll pass, Mag, really.”

  Maggie was beginning to feel dizzy and feverish, as if she had had too much wine.

  “Are you okay?” Robin reached her hand out to touch Maggie’s arm.

  Maggie nodded. “Fine, but I think I’d like to play some bridge.”

  “Two hearts,” Robin said.

  “Jump shift, that bastard,” Hilary murmured. “I pass in the face of rampant balls.”

  After that, the hands got interesting and Phyllis concentrated on her cards instead of Maggie. It was past eleven by the time the last rubber was finished and they had chosen Robin’s house for the first Tuesday in June.

  Matthew was sitting in front of the television set when Maggie got home. There was always restraint between them on bridge night, particularly if Matthew preceded her home, as if somehow Maggie was supposed to be there first, waiting for him. Neither of them spoke of it, but Maggie was always conscious of an impulse to rush if the game lasted past ten-thirty.

  “So how’s Robin?” Matthew inquired as she dropped her bag and sat down next to him.

  “So far so good. This week’s five-months.”

  They were silent for a moment. Maggie thought of her remark at the bridge table about attacking him. It seemed like a pledge. He had changed into his faded brown corduroys, V-neck sweatshirt, and battered Top-Siders. The hair on his chest was soft and pale, several shades lighter than the hair on his head. “How tired are you?” she asked, giving him a half-smile.

  Matthew grinned. “What did you ladies talk about over there?”

  “Oh, this and that.” She leaned against him and turned her face up for a kiss. He reached behind her neck, and at his touch she felt herself grow lethargic. She was sleepy, sensuous, deliciously helpless.

  “Come on,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her up off the couch. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Maggie stumbled to her feet as if he had roused her from a pleasant dream. “Why?” she asked.

  He was halfway down the hall as she trailed along behind him. “More comfortable. And besides, the kids.”

  They stood naked on opposite sides of the bed. Matthew threw the covers back crisply and climbed in.

  “Turn off the light, okay?” Maggie asked. She crept in next to him and he began to stroke her body. Maggie trailed her fingernails lightly up and down his back. She knew that within a minute, he would be kissing her breasts.

  Later he asked her what happened.

  “Overtired, I guess,” Maggie said. Between her legs, she ached from straining to achieve the impossible.

  “You seemed interested enough out in the living room.” His voice was thick with impending sleep. Matthew could never keep his eyes open after sex. Maggie, on the other hand, found it rejuvenating and would often slip out of bed to balance her checkbook or tackle some long-neglected chore.

  “I guess I lost it on the way down the hall,” Maggie said.

  But he was already breathing deeply. Maggie felt tears leak out from under her closed lashes. She let them come. They trickled into her hair and grew cold. Then she put her hand between her legs as if to soothe a wound and finally fell asleep.

  Chapter 3

  The children’s key in the lock brought Maggie the usual relief. It was past six-thirty already.

  “I’ve got Zach, that okay, Mom?” Fred asked.

  Maggie smiled at the dark slender boy, Phyllis’s son. “Sure. I’m kicking you all out in a little while anyhow. Your father and I have ballet with the Brodys tonight. I can’t imagine why I forgot to tell you. Here, Zach, let me take your backpack, too.” He was a year older than Fred, and four inches taller, but to Maggie, he always seemed rather fragile.

  Susan shrugged off her light jacket. “That’s two nights in a row, Mother,” she protested. “Why can’t we ever sit down and have dinner together like a normal family?”

  “You always have rehearsals for that dumb play,” Fred said. He headed for the kitchen. “What’s to eat?”

  “Our Town is not dumb and you’re getting chubbier every minute!” Susan called after him. “Better have a grapefruit!”

  “Tell me about it, Jaws!” he shot back.

  Susan looked at her mother furiously. “I’m the only person in the whole universe who’s got braces at fifteen years old. Why didn’t you do it when I was nine and sex appeal didn’t count? Fred’s don’t show at all and I can’t even smile without blinding somebody. Is there any chocolate cake left?”

  “You’d better hurry or there won’t be.”

  Zachary and Maggie trailed after the other two.

  “I hope I’m not screwing things up,” Zachary said. “Fred says he needs help with his Lit final …”

  Maggie laughed. “And on into the next generation. Without your mother, I never would have made it through Radcliffe.”

  Fred had sliced three squares of cake and set them on the kitchen table. Susan smiled at him. Maggie always marveled at the way her children’s animosity converted to goodwill. A display of affection between them, however limited, filled Maggie with a special kind of pleasure, perhaps because she and Joanne were strangers, or worse.

  “Is it just because I’m their mother,” Maggie asked Zachary, “or are these two extremely engaging?”

  “We’re extremely engaging,” Fred replied.

  “It’s because you’re our mother,” Susan said.

  “Don’t eat any more of that because there’s something else I forgot to tell you,” Maggie said. “You’re invited to eat with Veronica at the Brodys’. You go too, Zach, but call your mother.” She dipped her finger in Fred’s icing and licked it.

  “She’s always snorting coke in the john,” Susan said.

  “I can’t believe that. She’s just a baby.”

  Zachary nodded somberly at Maggie.

  “I’ll go anyway,” Fred said. “Mrs. Brody’s a great cook.”

  “How come you’re forgetting all this stuff, Mom? It’s not you.” Susan looked at her mother with concern.

  “Momentary lapse, I guess. Do Robin and Jackson know about Veronica?”

  “Mother, don’t you dare tell them we said anything!” Susan cried.

  “Mrs. Brody’s not dumb, Sue,” Fred said. “I bet she already knows her stepdaughter’s a loony-tune. Anyway, stepmothers are required to hate their stepchildren. It’s in all the fairy tales. Except stepmothers are supposed to be ugly, and Mrs. Brody’s a piece of ass.”

  “Fred,” Maggie complained. She realized with a shock that her discomfort rose not so much from Fred’s language as from the knowledge that he was becoming a sexual person. It was happening too fast.

  “You’re a horny little thing,” Susan said, setting her dish in the sink. “First it’s Zach’s mother’s legs and now Mrs. Brody, and she’s even pregnant.”

  “That oth
er friend of Mom’s not bad either,” Fred said. “Vonderhyde.”

  “My mom has nice legs?” Zachary asked Fred.

  “I can’t stand it,” Maggie said.

  Later on, she sent them off to the Brodys’ in a cab. The housekeeper would be there as chaperon, but Maggie still worried.

  “We’ll be fine, Mom,” Fred assured her. “If Veronica wants to rot holes in her nostrils, that’s her problem.”

  “Anyway,” Susan added, “as Marie Antoinette said, ‘Let them snort coke.’”

  Maggie shut the door and heard them chattering on their way to the elevator. Zachary, as always, had been too quiet. The expressions on his face did not provide the open easy reading of her own children. Fred and Susan seemed so confident that nothing terrible could ever happen to them. When Maggie was growing up, she was always convinced that catastrophe was imminent. She read statistics about leukemia, automobile accidents, and spinal meningitis and assumed they applied to her, if not today, then first thing next week. Somehow, her children had eluded the paranoia of her own adolescence. Perhaps it was because they had no older sister like Joanne to create emotional pandemonium. Or parents like Phyllis and Stephen.

  An hour later, Maggie arrived at the Cafe des Artistes. She liked the place, with its lovely murals and dim light that was mysterious rather than oppressive. The European ambience was a respite from the raw pounding energy of the street outside. When Maggie felt like plugging into New York’s potent current, she chose one of the bustling Third Avenue restaurants. There, plate-glass windows revealed the mob inside to the mob outside, not like the Cafe, where even the entrance was covert.

  Robin and Jackson were already seated. Jackson, always gallant, rose to greet Maggie and settle her in her chair. Maggie almost expected to have her hand kissed. It would be a natural gesture for Jackson Brody, though she had never met another man who could have gotten away with it.

  Jackson was sixteen years older than Robin. He looked like General Robert E. Lee in a Brooks Brothers suit. Tall, elegant, silver-haired, he should have been Savannahbred, but in fact he was born in Jackson Heights—hence his name—just across the East River. Jackson had spent most of his life scrambling to support his parents, both now dead, and an alcoholic sister. He had met Robin—and Maggie, too—while working as an advertising executive at the mammoth Woman’s Companion magazine. Then recently separated from his wife, he had lost his secretary besides. When Robin showed up for an interview, tripped over the extension cord, landed in Jackson’s lap, and said hello with perfect equanimity, Jackson hired her on the spot. They were married as soon as the divorce went through.