by Sally Mandel
He peered sideways at Maggie’s photograph and could not help smiling. He remembered that they had just made love minutes before he snapped the picture. Christ, they’d been crazy about each other. In those days, Maggie could barely keep her hands off him. Even at the movies, he would feel her fingers between his legs hidden under an extra sweater or a raincoat draped across his lap. It was the same with him. Her breasts were like small round magnets; even in public places, he was always managing a sly touch.
The first time he had gotten close to her, she was standing at the checkout counter in the Cambridge five-and-dime. Silently he calculated that spot on his rib cage where her breasts would hit him. He liked the way she carried herself, proudly, like a beautiful woman. There was a cloaked quality of specialness about her that he found tantalizing, perhaps all the more because she was, at first glance, rather plain. Matthew was well aware of the bewilderment people like Helene Sargeant tried to mask when meeting Maggie for the first time. Matthew’s reaction was inevitably one of smugness. Maggie was a secret treasure. No one else knew her sensuality, her talent, her intelligence, her warmth.
He saw her work at the student gallery in May of their junior year. The energy of the compositions intrigued him. At the first opportunity, which turned out to be that sparkling September day in Harvard Square, he had slipped his arm through hers.
He could still visualize her sitting across from him in the coffee shop. The flat surfaces of her face hid nothing, and yet she took such care in what she revealed with words. She had lightly freckled skin and a wide smile that showed teeth still grooved at the edges like a child’s. There was a gap between the front two that created a slight lisp. Matthew found it enchanting. He could see the tip of her tongue as it appeared behind that space when she spoke.
Matthew was accustomed to being gazed at by faces that oozed adulation. Maggie’s eyes, however, seemed to be measuring him. Their clear message said: Look, mister, I know you’re supposed to be a hotshot, but I’m not impressed yet. From the start, he was eager to earn her regard.
His clock bonged ten times. He would have to get a move on if he was going to make Susan’s conference on time. Regretfully, he snapped off the radio.
Matthew was the only man wearing a suit in the subway car. At this hour, it was almost empty. In the corner slouched a heap of filthy rags with a pair of naked blackened feet protruding from the bottom and a rope of greasy hair on top twisted into a grotesque tiara. Two Puerto Rican men rode directly across from Matthew. They talked animatedly in Spanish with much gesticulation. One was angry, the other apologetic but calm. The louder the angry man became, the more silent his companion. Finally, at Fourteenth Street, the quiet man began speaking. He permitted no interruption and restrained the other man’s speech by holding his hands down. By Thirty-third Street, he had finished. As the train pulled into the station, they stared at each other. Then the angry man, with tears on his cheeks, reached for his friend and they embraced. Both men’s eyes were tight shut. After that, they sat next to each other without speaking until Fifty-ninth, where they got off.
Since subway trips were normally for catching up on reading, Matthew was seldom aware of such interchanges. But something about the relationship between the two men captured his attention. Matthew had no close male friends. There were other lawyers to meet for lunch, men at the Harvard Club with whom he played an occasional game of squash, and there were the husbands of Maggie’s friends, yet no one but Maggie was allowed access to his deepest feelings. Perhaps these men were brothers. Matthew was an only child, but he knew from watching Maggie and Joanne what passion siblings could rouse in one another.
Matthew had been born late to busy parents who often left him alone to fend for himself. He became accustomed to long hours on his own when companionship meant books or imaginative games with his stuffed bear. When Matthew was five, his father confiscated the bear and incinerated it, believing his son had become overly dependent upon it. It was the only time Matthew could remember raised voices in his home. Matthew’s mother bought him another bear, but Matthew kept it on his shelf and did not play with it again.
He was always well liked and was elected president of his class at Andover every year. There were plenty of other boys around to study with or joke with in the locker room, but nobody ever really knew what Matthew was thinking or feeling. The boys he was drawn to were the loners, the types who baffled the popular group or were despised by them. Matthew admired the solitary boys’ independence, their individuality, and he understood their loneliness. One’s name was Bobby Hughes, he still remembered, a gawky, sheepish fellow with a genius for botany. Any attempt to become closer to such a boy, however, was ridiculed by the others or met with incredulity by the boy himself. Matthew kept himself busy with schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and finally girls, so that he rarely felt anything was missing. Anyway, Maggie was his best friend now.
The cool air tasted delicious after the sour heat of the subway. Matthew took deep breaths as he hurried along Eighty-sixth Street. Susan and Fred’s school was in a handsome stone town house just off Fifth Avenue. Around the Central Park reservoir, joggers made splashes of color like bright tropical birds as they flashed through the trees. What kind of work did those people do that they could take a run in the middle of the day? Matthew wondered.
Maggie was waiting in the reception area. Matthew bent to kiss her, but they parted quickly when a trim young woman approached them with her hand outstretched. The teacher wore her hair pulled back into a ponytail tied with colored yarn. Today the bow was hot pink.
“Miss Lennox. Good morning,” Maggie said, and shook her hand.
Miss Lennox drew them into a quiet room away from the reception desk’s shrill telephone.
“Is Susan aware that you are here this morning?” Miss Lennox began. The woman never used contractions. Susan did a devastating imitation of her, which Maggie was trying hard to put out of her mind.
“Yes,” Matthew replied. “She heard us making plans to come up. She didn’t seem disturbed, just curious.”
“I think she is depressed,” Miss Lennox continued. “There has been a decline in her work this term. She is doing all right, but not as well as she should be. Her demeanor has changed. She sits by herself sometimes in homeroom, and appears to be close to tears. I have checked with her other teachers, and they have all noticed the shift.”
“Maybe it’s too much pressure from that play,” Maggie said.
Miss Lennox nodded. “I did consider that, but then I realized that she really seems like herself only when she is discussing it. Her face lights up, she sits up straighter, and so on. I wonder if perhaps it could still be her problem from last winter.”
“What problem?” Matthew asked.
“You know, Matthew,” Maggie said. “When she started her period.”
Matthew looked stunned.
“It is harder for some girls,” Miss Lennox continued. “It came late for her, which can be upsetting. And of course, Susan is very sensitive. She takes her womanhood seriously.”
“What can we do?” Maggie asked.
“I am not sure what is going on, as I said. Perhaps she will snap out of it over the summer. It is such a crazy age. I just hate to see her looking so down, you know? I am very fond of her. It’s been a joy having her in my class.”
Maggie was thinking that this was the second time this week she had heard the word “down” used as an adjective, and also that Miss Lennox had ultimately surrendered to the contraction.
At the luncheonette on Eighty-sixth Street, Maggie stirred her black coffee with a spoon to cool it off.
“What’s the matter with the way that woman talks?” Matthew asked.
“She’s very formal.”
“I’ll say.”
“What should we do about our daughter?”
Matthew took a gulp of his coffee. Maggie maintained that the inside of his mouth was lined with asbestos.
> “Nothing,” he said. “Typical adolescent angst. She’ll be fine once she’s in camp. When was it again she started menstruating?” he asked casually.
“You’ve forgotten about it altogether.”
“Weren’t there a lot of false alarms, ever since she was … what, twelve, thirteen?”
“Don’t you remember what a state she was in? Ashamed to go to school, everybody would know? How could you forget something like that?”
“February, wasn’t it?”
Maggie’s face was stony like an ancient sculpture with empty sockets where the eyes were supposed to be.
“I didn’t forget,” he said. “Please don’t tell me you had a lot on your mind.”
“Okay.” He put his hand over hers. “Mag, you want to take a vacation with me this summer? There’s a really nice tennis camp in Vermont.”
“I don’t know.”
“How come you don’t know?”
“I don’t know why I don’t know. Let me think about it.”
“All right.” He glanced at his watch and rose. “Gotta run, honey. You sit and enjoy your coffee.”
“What about dinner?”
“I’ll call you later. I’ll probably make it home.” He gave her a comradely slap on the back and disappeared out the door.
Maggie took a sip of her coffee and gasped as it seared her tongue. Most likely he would forget to call, or call too late for her to organize dinner. She hated to phone him at the office. His voice always sounded like a tape-recorded message or else she was put on hold. She was left with the usual choices: prepare dinner for the children at six-thirty or ask them to wait until their father came home, just in case he made it. Eat early with them or try to wait until later. Or perhaps he would end up grabbing a sandwich at his desk after all. Phyllis Wheeler served dinner no later than seven P.M. and thereafter declared the kitchen closed. But Maggie found she was incapable of doing that to Matthew when he worked such long hours and came home looking as though he had been sucked dry.
Anyway, today was hardly a time to be looking for extra consideration from Matthew after he had trekked all the way uptown for the conference.
A twelve-year-old girl was looking through the coffeeshop window, and Maggie imagined Susan’s face chastising her. Twelve years old was just about the time in her daughter’s life when Maggie began to lose control, not in the sense of discipline but in her confidence that she was making valid decisions about Susan. Up until she was twelve, Susan had been deeply involved in art. Suddenly, however, Susan declared that she was finished making messes. She would become an actress or a writer. The art teacher spoke with Maggie about the sudden loss of interest, and Maggie had felt a strange sense of deja vu listening to Susan’s protestations that if she could not be great she didn’t want to try anymore. She had snatched a watercolor off her bulletin board, ripped it up, and then burst into tears. She slammed her door against Maggie’s sympathy, and Maggie had gone into her own room to cry, for the destruction of a quite beautiful painting and for the pain of a young girl who could not tolerate her own talent.
Maggie wondered if psychiatry might help. Matthew would accuse her of overreacting, and yet she was at a loss as to how to help her daughter. Maggie envied Matthew his laissez-faire attitude toward the children, but she wished there was someone she could talk to about Susan. The only person who came to mind as a sensible, sympathetic listener was Fred, and of course, the thought was absurd.
Susan was propped up in bed, coming into the final pages of Green Dolphin Street. Maggie slipped in quietly and sat by her feet.
“What do you think of it?” Maggie asked.
“Pretty excellent.”
“Honey …” Maggie began. Susan’s face was buried in the book. Maggie gently removed it, taking care to keep the place with her finger. “You haven’t asked about our conference with Miss Lennox.”
“Nope.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“I guess so.”
“She’s a little concerned about your state of mind.”
“I am okay.” Susan began tracing the designs in her quilt.
“Don’t mock her.”
“I didn’t know I was.”
“Miss Lennox says you seem depressed.”
Susan shrugged.
“Is it your period?”
“That.” Her voice was filled with disgust.
“Are you having trouble?”
“I’m getting it, isn’t that trouble enough?” The reading light glinted off her braces.
“It shouldn’t be trouble. It should be a joy.”
Susan burst out, “A joy! That’s rich!”
Maggie dipped her head and smiled. “You’re right. That sounded like something my ninety-year-old exgynecologist would say. Let’s call it a mixed blessing.”
“Well, I’d just as soon be a guy.”
“You seemed so happy when it first came, and then I don’t know what happened to you.”
“Mom, it’s different before,” Susan explained patiently. “There’s, like, this crazy idea that it’s a magic event or something. Everything’s going to be perfect when you get your period and it’s practically all anybody ever talks about in junior high. You’ll be beautiful and, oh, womanly, or something. You wait and wait, and then, God …” She shuddered. “Who knew it would just be gory and disgusting.”
Maggie fingered the soft tendrils that waved around her daughter’s cheeks. “It’s not so bad being a woman.”
“Mom, I don’t want to hurt your feelings …”
“But?”
“I don’t know how to say this without …”
“Never mind. Just out with it.”
Susan dropped her eyes. “I’d just rather not end up like you.”
Maggie sighed.
“If you’re not miserable, you ought to be,” Susan declared.
“Why?”
“It’s nothing here. You wait on everybody, do chores, tuck us all in, and I’m not saying I don’t appreciate it. But, Mom, I don’t want to grow up and be everybody’s nursemaid. I mean, God, Mom, you went to Radcliffe!” Susan’s eyes had filled with tears. “I want to be pretty,” she went on. “I want to grow up and have babies. I love babies. I mean, when I’m baby-sitting and I hold Meredith, I pretend she’s mine. But …” Her voice had deteriorated into a strangled choke. Tears spilled onto her nightshirt.
Maggie held out her arms. “I’m not saying it’s easy,” she said, rocking her daughter. “I guess I’m still looking for answers too.”
Susan’s voice was muffled against her shoulder. “I don’t want to learn with you. I want you to show me. I want you to know.”
“But those would be my answers, honey. You have to find your own.”
Susan sniffed. Maggie reached for the Kleenex box, handed it to her, and sat back to watch her blow her nose. “God, Mom, sometimes I’m so grim I can’t stand myself.”
“That’s your job. You’re a teenager.”
“I just want to be happy.” She grinned at Maggie. “Tall order, huh?”
Maggie nodded. “It’ll require some effort.” She picked up Susan’s book and skimmed the last page. “You’re going to like the ending.”
“Don’t tell me!”
Maggie gave the damp cheek a kiss. It tasted cool and salty. “I’m nuts about you,” she said.
“Well, I’m just plain nuts,” Susan replied.
When Maggie crawled into bed later on, she realized that sometime after her conversation with Susan, she had decided to unearth her oils and her easel.
Chapter 6
Maggie telephoned Hilary in the morning and turned down the job.
“Why?” Hilary asked.
“I’m not ready for that yet. But, Hil, I’m going to get back into it, my work. I don’t think I would have if you hadn’t prodded me.”
“What exactly are you going to do?”
“Enroll in a
life class.”
“What’s that?”
“Where you sketch a live model.”
Hilary sighed.
“I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it scares me half to death.”
“Okay, love, but you tell me the minute you change your mind.”
They hung up and Maggie sat in the kitchen and tried to find the courage to take the next step.
It was as if over the past fifteen years she had given herself away piece by piece until there was practically nothing left. A week of all-nighters with a sick child guaranteed the depletion of creative energy. Paintbrushes fell out of her hands from numbed fingers more times than she cared to remember. Or there would be a crucial dinner party for the partners in Matthew’s firm. Making art and making hors d’oeuvres did not comfortably coexist. After Susan was born, Maggie had struggled to salvage at least half an hour a day with her paints, but then Fred arrived. He was beautiful and miraculous, just like Susan, and he required everything Maggie had left to give. Every now and then there would be a moment when both children were napping and the house was in reasonable order. Maggie would sit at the kitchen table with her drawing pad and try to make some lines on the blank pages. But her compositions turned out tortured and stilted. After a while, Maggie found that a month would pass without any thought of her work. She told herself that one day it would be there for her again. Now the moment had arrived, and she was terrified that it could all be gone.
She marched to her bedroom, dragged a metal box out from under the bed, and slipped open a manila file marked “Art Classes.” Inside were clippings and articles she had squirreled away over the years. Maggie reached for last month’s item captioned “Austin Presides at Life Classes on West Side” and went to the telephone. The summer term had already begun, she was told. Maggie had missed only one session, however, and could join the class this evening.
The rest of the day was plagued with panic. It rose in her throat and lodged just behind her larynx. At three o’clock Matthew telephoned with an errand and remarked on the tone of her voice. “You’ll do great,” he said after she explained. “It’ll be like riding a bicycle, you’ll see.”