Five Women

by Rona Jaffe

  What did she and all those boys talk about on dates? What did it matter? They laughed, they flirted, they went to football games and to parties, they were happy. Did they really know each other? No, but who cared? Kathryn hardly knew herself, so how could she understand much about someone else, particularly a man? Life was heady, and spring held limitless possibilities. She went home for spring break.

  To her surprise she found herself thinking about Mike, since she had thought she was in love with Ted. She decided she would write Mike a joke love letter; it would make him laugh and he would think about her, too.

  “Dear Mike:” she wrote. “I am thinking about you and what you always want me to do for you. I have decided that even though it’s against my better nature, I will give in. I love you and I’m yours. So bring ’em over, and you’ll see that I’m better at it than any of your other girlfriends. Devotedly, Kathryn.”

  She smiled. She could just see Mike howling with laughter. She folded the letter and put it into her dresser drawer. She would mail it later when she bought some stamps. Then she got busy and forgot about it.

  She came back to the house that evening to find her father standing at the door to her bedroom, wild with fury. His fists were clenched, his face was red. He was in uniform, and his gun was in its black holster at his hip. Behind him Kathryn could see that her bedroom was a shambles, the dresser drawers emptied and all their contents strewn on the floor.

  “What have you done?” she screamed. “That’s my room!”

  Then she saw that her father had her “love” letter crumpled in his huge hand. Kathryn felt her stomach lurch. He would never understand. She tried not to tremble.

  “What are you doing at college anyway?” he demanded. “You’re nothing but a slut! All the money I spent on school and all you want is to get laid?”

  “It was a joke,” Kathryn said. “Mike always wants me to darn his socks and I was kidding that I’d do it. It was his socks, that’s all, his socks.”

  “Socks? I’ll sock you. Brazen little whore! I’m not going to spend any more money on your schooling. Not for a worthless little parasite like you. This is your last term at college, you’re out. And you’re out of this house, too, as of today, for good. No more money from me, you’re on your own. I’m not going to support you ever again. Get packed and get out before I throw you out myself.”

  Her mother had come quietly to the head of the stairs to listen; she was deathly pale and said nothing.

  “It was a joke,” Kathryn said. “A joke. He’s a friend, like a brother to me.” She stood her ground and stared at her father. But this time it didn’t work. She supposed it would never work again. Her life as the favored child had ended years ago, the night her father had hit her. She pushed past him and went into her room and shut the door, choking back her angry tears so he wouldn’t see her cry.

  She didn’t have time to pack much, but most of her things were at school. Her mother drove her to the railroad station. “That was a silly letter,” her mother said. “But I trust you. Maybe he’ll come to his senses and change his mind.”

  “I hope so,” Kathryn said dubiously.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Kathryn went back to the nearly empty dormitory and brooded. Vacation ended, the girls came back, spring term went on, and then Kathryn’s mother called with bad news. Her father really wasn’t going to pay for her next year at college, and her mother couldn’t manage it alone. The tuition wasn’t so much, but room and board on top of it were prohibitive. Kathryn felt as if he had beaten her in a worse way than with his fists, in a way he knew would last.

  She knew without asking that her mother hadn’t defended her; she never stood up to him because she was too frightened. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway. Now Kathryn would have to leave school, when she had been doing well and loved it so. Kathryn was devastated. She had always assumed that college would be her life and then she would graduate and go on into her other life, whatever that might be, but in a moment it had all been taken away from her.

  But what was even worse, almost unimaginable, was that her father was adamant that she couldn’t come home to live. She’s eighteen, he had told her mother, let her get a real job. But where would she live? And how could she afford to live anywhere on the kind of job she could get? At the Lancaster School she had been taught secretarial skills, but a secretary started at sixty dollars a week, and menial jobs paid even less. Kathryn had never been alone in her life, and had not had time to prepare for this. She was terrified.

  Mike, of course, was home free. Inadvertently connected to her disaster even though the letter itself was in no way his fault and she had been too ashamed to tell him the story, he was getting on with his life. He was graduating next month, and he was moving to New York where he would have his own apartment and a good job. Kathryn wondered if she would ever see New York, if she would ever be anybody, if she would ever be happy again. She could go to New York herself, she daydreamed, and become a model. To be a model was what pretty girls all over the country wanted to be when they couldn’t think of what else to do, because it seemed glamorous and easy. But she knew in her heart that she could no more be a model than grow wings and fly.

  At the dorm the girls were planning what they would do all summer. Some were engaged, some would be working, others just wanted to get a tan and meet boys. All of them would, of course, be going home to their families. Kathryn found it hard to join in. Her father had stopped sending money altogether, although her mother still sent a little for her expenses. She looked again in the newspaper at the low-paying employment ads for women. Girls lived with their parents until they got married, and married women were supported by their husbands. Why should companies bother to pay them much?

  Ted took her out to dinner. He was graduating, too, and he had gotten a job at Filene’s department store because he was interested in retail. But even though he would be living in nearby Boston, Kathryn knew she would probably never see him again because she was merely a part of his past and now he was going on to be an adult.

  “I’m interested in fashion myself,” Kathryn said, toying with her shrimp cocktail. This was probably the last shrimp cocktail she’d ever see.

  “You could get a summer job as a salesgirl,” he said.

  She had already thought of that and discarded the idea. Girls who got summer jobs as underpaid sales clerks thought it was fun because they did not have to live alone. “Actually, I’m going to quit school and go to New York and be a model,” Kathryn said. It was part bravado and part fantasy, but she didn’t want him to leave her life thinking she was nothing.

  “You’d quit school?” he said.

  “You bet.”

  “I thought you liked school.”

  “Models have to be young.”

  He was looking at her differently, she thought. “I sort of planned we’d still see each other after I graduate,” he said then.

  “You did?”

  “Yes. Well, date. Sure.”

  How ironic, Kathryn thought, both flattered and saddened. Yes, Ted would date a college girl, someone he could bring home to his parents. She shrugged. “Maybe you’ll get to New York,” she said.

  “How do your parents feel about this?”

  “They feel I should have my chance.”

  “You’ll be a famous cover girl and you won’t want to go out with me,” he teased.

  “Maybe not,” she teased back.

  “You know, modeling is a very hard job,” he said.

  “And well paying.”

  “Do you really want to be independent?”

  You should only know how I’m going to hate it, Kathryn thought. She looked away, trying to appear mysterious, but he took her hesitation for ambivalence.

  “If you don’t like school, there are other options,” he s
aid.

  “Such as what?”

  “Well, you could stay here and get married.”

  “Marry who?” Kathryn asked.

  “Me.”

  Kathryn just stared at him in amazement. She had never known he liked her so much, and she had never dreamed of this, especially not with him. Ted had such a short attention span with girls that she couldn’t picture him as anybody’s husband, and she had never wanted to marry anybody in the first place. Marriage had never been a solution she had even considered.

  “Well?” he said.

  She wasn’t in love, not the way you were supposed to be to get married. A crush wasn’t love. But he was so good looking, really gorgeous. It was very tempting.

  “Well?” he said again.

  “I could do that,” Kathryn said. It was all totally unreal.

  “We’ll get married right after graduation,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll pick out the ring.”

  * * *

  “I’m getting married!” she screamed to her girlfriends when she got back to the dorm. “Ted just proposed!” They all started screaming, too, and hugging her, and her friend Barbara was jumping up and down, looking like a rabbit in her white bunny slippers.

  “She’s marrying Ted!” they shrieked. “Kathryn, you’re the first one in our class to be a bride! This is so exciting!”

  They all believed in romance and living happily ever after. As for Kathryn, she didn’t know what to think. She didn’t have much choice. It would be an adventure, she supposed, at least it would be that.

  Her friends gave her a shower, with the usual joke presents: a how-to book about married sex, slinky underwear, and a baby bottle for when the inevitable happened. Her days were a whirl of plans. The wedding was a small one, held in Boston the day after graduation. Since Kathryn did not want her father to come, not that he would have, she and Ted went to City Hall with her mother and brothers, Ted’s parents, and a few friends. She had invited Mike, but he had already gone to New York to begin his new job. A judge performed the service. Ted was wearing his good suit and Kathryn was wearing a little white cocktail dress she thought she could dye later and wear to parties. She still couldn’t think of this as real; it was just an adventure. She had known Ted Hopkins for only six months. They had never had a revealing or intimate conversation. They had hardly even been alone together.

  The wedding dinner after the brief ceremony was held at the Bull and Bear, and then the newly married couple went to the very nice Copley Plaza hotel, where Ted had booked a room for their wedding night.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins,” he said proudly to the desk clerk when they checked in.

  Who? Kathryn thought.

  Their room was not very large, done in dark furniture and wallpaper that were supposed to make it look antique. There was a painting on the wall of somebody’s ancestor. “You can’t get rid of me now,” Ted said cheerfully.

  “I won’t.”

  She went into the bathroom to change into the nightgown and negligee she had bought for their first night together. She locked the bathroom door. I’m going to have to have sex with him tonight, Kathryn thought, shivering with terror, not anticipation. I’m married to him. For the first time she was beginning to comprehend. We are married. I hardly even know him. Six months ago I didn’t know he existed, and now he’s my legally wedded husband. I never wanted to be married!

  Suddenly it was real. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart was pounding and she felt as if she were choking. Sweat was pouring down her sides, and when she looked into the mirror above the sink, her face was deathly pale and covered with moisture. Her hands were trembling. She was gasping for breath. Her past and her life and her fear descended on her and she couldn’t escape them, any more than she could escape what she had just done. She was married.

  Chapter Twelve

  BLLLIE REDMOND was in a mellow mood. Business had been very good tonight, and now with the evening winding down she could relax with a real drink and a cigarette. During the course of an evening at Yellowbird she sometimes drank vodka, but more likely ice water, and no one knew the difference. She liked to keep control. It pleased her that at this point in her life, at forty-eight, she had a successful career that made her a good living, a little son who was her favorite companion in the world, interesting acquaintances, employees she could trust, and the ability to balance excess and sanity in all things. It was time for a vodka on the rocks and a chat, time to hear a few special songs, and then she would collect Little Billie, who was napping on his cot in her office, and they would go home. On weeknights she always made it a point to have him tucked into his own bed by eleven-thirty.

  “Sammy,” she said to the waiter, “put on the night tape.”

  All the tapes Billie played were specially made double-length tapes that were collections of songs she had carefully chosen for various moods during the evening. The one she called the night tape was the only one that included songs she had sung herself on tour, long ago, with her couple of hits, and her one big hit, “Texas Stars.” She played that tape only when she felt like it. No one recognized the woman singing some of the songs on it as Billie. How could they? That robust and vibrant voice, its clarity and power, its raw energy belonged to a being who no longer existed. Or perhaps just to a voice that no longer existed—the woman was still here, wiser, stronger, a little worse for wear.

  Sometimes when people asked who the singer was she told them, waiting for the surprised look that always came, the disbelief they sometimes tried to hide, the questions she knew they were afraid to ask.

  What happened? How did you lose your voice? Did it have anything to do with that, well . . . you know, that scar? Yes, she would have said, if anyone had been brave enough to ask, yes it did, but not in the way you think. But no one asked. Only their eyes asked, always. They stared, they looked away, they did all the things people do when confronted with something different and a little frightening, with deformity hinting of violence.

  She could have plastic surgery to get rid of it, they were thinking. A lot of times she doesn’t even try to cover it. Doesn’t she notice it anymore? How could she not?

  I want to keep it, she could have told them, if they had been tactless enough to say anything like that, but they never did. I paid my dues, she would have said with calm equanimity, and I don’t want to forget it. I’m a survivor. If you can’t deal with it, that’s your problem.

  * * *

  She looked around the room. At table four, Gara Whiteman was still here, the therapist; with Kathryn O’Henry, or O’Mara Henry, or whatever, the rich one. Felicity Johnson, the black lawyer, had been with them for dinner, but she had gone home to her husband. That nice gay guy was with them tonight, Brad, who was Gara’s friend. Eve Bader had not been here, obviously having other plans, but Billie knew Eve could show up late in the evening, alone. She would sail in with that wild-eyed look of hers, her hair crackling, nervous about being by herself and trying to hide it.

  Too bad for Eve there were two big producers having dinner together here tonight, Billie thought, chuckling. And good for me she isn’t here to bother them.

  Billie stubbed out her cigarette, picked up her vodka on the rocks, and went over to table four and sat in the empty seat. “Hey,” she said.

  “Oh, Billie,” Brad said in a pathetic, pleading way, “give me a cigarette, just one, please.”

  “Don’t,” Gara said. “He’s on the patch.”

  “I’ll take it off,” Brad said. “Right here at the table.”

  “Stop that, Brad,” Gara said.

  “Oh, come on. . . .”

  “You two are like a married couple,” Billie said. “Bicker, bicker.”

  “We are a married couple,” Brad said. “We’re all either of us could get.”

  They all laughed. “Husbands are easy to come by,” Kathryn said. “Friends are hard.”

&nbs
p; “Oh, for a hard friend,” Brad said.

  “Ooh, corny,” Gara said. They laughed again.

  “I’m flying to London tomorrow,” Kathryn said. “The daughter of a girlfriend of mine is getting married to an Englishman. In a castle in the country. I’m going to wear a big picture hat.”

  “You have the life,” Gara said.

  “It’s about time.”

  “Texas Stars” began to play on the tape. Billie closed her eyes and held her head back, listening to it.

  “What a great voice,” Brad said when it was over. “Who was that?”

  “Billie,” Gara said. The four women already knew.

  “Really? Weren’t you terrific!”

  “Thank you,” Billie said. “Those were the glory days. ‘Texas Stars’ was on the Billboard top ten. I was on the road having adventures.”

  “I remember that song,” Brad said. “I was in high school. My parents went on a vacation as usual and didn’t take me, so I had the whole house to myself. I gave a party. I invited boys and girls because I hadn’t officially come out yet. I got kissed twice that night, once by a girl in my math class and once by a football player. Billie, you were a star.”

  “Yeah, well,” Billie said, but she was pleased. She sipped her vodka. It tasted nice. “Can I buy anybody a drink?”

  “Absolutely,” Kathryn said. “White wine.”

  “Pete,” Billie said, “White wine.” The empty bottle of the expensive stuff they had been drinking stood upside down in the cooler next to the table, but they would, of course, get bar wine. They would have paid five dollars a glass for it; it cost her less than one, and it wouldn’t even rot their teeth.