A Regular Guy

by Mona Simpson

  She laughed amiably. “Well, I’m a litigator in a small firm that does everything from white-collar crime to antitrust—”

  He looked at her intently. “Do you love being a lawyer? Would you say it’s a passion?”

  He said the word so carefully it made her want to laugh. This, Julie understood, was her chance: he was waiting for her to prove she was interesting. But she detested making speeches about herself. Most of her life, she’d conducted herself in a quiet, diligent way that encouraged others to speak on her behalf. Her grades in elementary school, the names of her college and law school, her record, and, even now, working where she worked—that was enough for most people. But Owens didn’t seem to recognize her credentials, so she smiled and fumbled on. “Well, I don’t know if I’d call it a passion. I don’t consider it an art or a vocation, but it is exciting. And trial work is very … dramatic. Years of somebody’s life are at stake. So I don’t know if I’ll do it forever, but for now I like it a lot.”

  Just then Jane swung back, colliding into him, huffing. “This girl I know from the park? Mona? She’s up there getting her ears pierced at Woolworth’s tonight for a dollar. Only a dollar! And her parents say she can wear studs to school.” She used every opportunity she could to say the word school.

  “Well, she’s pretty lucky to have those parents. ’Cause you’re stuck with us, and you’re going to have to wait.”

  “For school too or just to get my ears pierced?”

  “Ears pierced,” he said quietly. The neighborhood was falling into darkness now, and a concentration of birds called from the trees above. They skated toward the center of town, Owens detouring briefly to a bank parking lot, where the blacktop was smooth.

  I really, really like him, Julie said to herself, with an excitement that was not unlike fear. Maybe this is what it is. She thought of the small bird Eli had placed in her hand; she’d felt its heartbeat, racing in terror, through its whole body. That was how she was now. And she knew that what she’d said about herself didn’t sound very good. Had it been the talent portion of the Miss America Contest, she’d have been knocked out of the finals. If you’re going to have a job, you might as well sound enthusiastic about it. That was something her aunt Amber would say. But her job, she thought to herself in a harsh inner argument, was mostly a foil, much as accomplishments in music or handiwork “finished” a young woman a century ago. These were the years before family—which Julie fully expected to be the great work and devotion of her life. But it would be impossible for a woman of Julie’s time and background not to have a career in her twenties. To wait overtly for a proposal, with a flimsy job or no work at all, would have made her seem undesirable or even desperate. So young women entered law or medical or business school, only to someday drop those hard-won skills and titles once they became, not wives, but mothers. Julie had no doubt that this was true. This is how we—in our time—meet our husbands, on the way to something else. Her only mistake was letting the edges and incongruity show. The problem was that she found it all mildly funny, and Julie knew this meant she was ready to quit.

  “We used to live here,” Jane said as they passed their first apartment in Alta, but no one stopped or said anything.

  She just skated by the garage apartment, with its huge wire aviary, where Eli lived, without telling. Then she wanted to go into the post office: the tiled floors were the best surface for skates.

  “You hurry up,” Owens said. “We’ll wait outside.”

  As he said that, Julie knew, all of a sudden, that he would kiss her.

  The high-ceilinged long pavilion echoed every time Jane’s wheels passed over a tile bump. The barred windows were closed for the night, but the chandeliers were on and the doors open, in case residents came to open their own boxes or to slip mail into slots in the wall. Jane slowed, as she did every time, at the gallery of criminals. He wasn’t there, of course. She’d long ago stopped associating that narrow face with Owens, but she still looked for the young man in the picture, who every year came closer to her own age.

  Together again, they skated down the main street, past the stores and little restaurants. Julie felt a warmth in her chest as she looked over at him. He smiled and shrugged. Kissing him had been so easy, as if it was something she’d always known how to do.

  “Noah!” Jane shrieked. They’d almost passed, but Jane sensed him there. The world always seemed toy when she ran into someone by chance. For so many years of her life, no matter how much they’d thought of him, Owens had never materialized.

  “Here you are,” Owens said, putting a hand on Noah’s shoulder.

  Noah and Louise had been talking for the first time about romance, a subject that made Noah excited and happy. After chatting for half an hour about drosophila, Louise had told him about Andy Ruff, who seemed to be dumping her. This is my chance, Noah thought, and that’s all anybody gets. The last thing he wanted now was company, but Owens was straddling a chair. He signaled the waitress, then ordered four large orange juices to start with. Noah, who’d intended to pay for Louise’s dinner, winced.

  “So how’s science?” Owens asked after introducing Julie.

  “I don’t know; we haven’t seen too much of it lately.”

  “You’re a scientist too?” Jane said to Louise. “But don’t you work for him in his lab?”

  “Jane,” Julie said.

  Louise launched into a detailed explanation of the hierarchy in science, explaining precisely how far behind Noah she was.

  Noah looked around the humming room. I’m in love with Louise, he thought, but that’s no problem yet.

  “But just ’cause you’re younger,” Jane said. “Not ’cause you’re a woman.”

  This introduced another long disquisition, because in fact Louise was not younger.

  “She won’t admit it,” Noah interjected, “but she’s better than me.”

  Owens was less than fascinated with the problems of women in science, and he began a second conversation with Noah, about his cooks. “We haven’t said so explicitly, but I think this’ll be a chance for us all to reevaluate if we want to keep working together.”

  “I think they want to stay working with you,” Jane said, popping up from her conversation and then returning to it. Jane often talked to Susan and Stephen in the kitchen when Owens was late.

  Noah was seething. First Owens barged into his quiet supper with Louise, and now he was trying to engage the whole table in a discussion of his small domestic problem. It was as if Noah had brought up the subject of lab storage and told them all about his weeklong struggle to decide whether to buy neat metal cabinets or just scavenge cardboard boxes from liquor stores.

  “And the few of them there were worked in their husbands’ labs,” Louise added.

  “How long are they gone for?” Julie asked idly. She was following both conversations, finding little to add to either. No one answered her, and as she watched Owens talking animatedly with his friend, she suddenly understood he hadn’t really liked her. She could almost hear him telling Jane, “She’s not that pretty.” Fine. For all his success, he didn’t seem particularly nice. He could have found something polite to say about her measly job, which she didn’t care about so much anyway, she realized, as she listened to this woman go on and on about biology.

  Julie actually liked Louise, her intense narrow shoulders and exotic face. Once in a while, a woman like her would come along, who, having become something, would wish to stay it, probably even as a wife and mother. But not me, Julie thought. Maybe if I were a designer or an illustrator. But not a lawyer. And I’m glad she’s not my mother. It’s a shame, Julie thought, and not for the first time, that all the people who really wanted traditional marriages couldn’t just raise their hands.

  “I think Kaskie here’s a really great scientist,” Owens said.

  “Me too,” Jane chimed in.

  Noah smiled. It was Owens’ nature to believe that any artist he liked was a great artist and that Kaskie himself wa
s a genius in science, when what, really, were the chances of that for any of them? Just this once, it didn’t matter to Noah whether he was or wasn’t one of the elect. Within his small circle of friendship, in this soft winter evening air, he was honored, his efforts acknowledged. Louise laughed next to him. He felt a lessening of pressure, the happiness of reprieve. “Tell it to the cells,” Noah said, and laughed.

  Eventually, the moment he’d been dreading for the past hour arrived: the bill came. Noah had intended to take Louise to supper, and of course he didn’t mind buying a sandwich for Jane. The friend—Julie—had considerately ordered only a hot chocolate. The question was, what about Owens, who’d had a total of six large orange juices and two dinners, each of which he’d picked at? Noah knew, as the waitress was writing, that Owens would probably offer to pay. But if Noah let him, he wouldn’t be taking Louise out. And Owens himself probably deserved to be treated once in a while, even if he never understood how unusual it was to order six large orange juices.

  “You know, I’m not sure I can make it back on skates,” Julie said, not caring what Owens thought of her. Her ankle hurt, and a half hour earlier, in a calculation much quicker than she was aware of, she’d decided he was no longer worth discomfort.

  “Oh, there’s a back way,” Owens said winningly. “We don’t have to go up that hill.”

  But she was already unlacing her skates. If there was a back path, she was thinking, why didn’t you take us there in the first place?

  “I can drive you in the van,” Noah said. He noticed some friction between them and wondered, for the first time, whose friend she was. She seemed pretty, though too thin. But almost instantly, Noah assessed Louise’s view of her—off the map, she doesn’t count—and accepted it. Years afterwards, he would think back to that moment of easy judgment.

  Owens slid his hand over the bill.

  “No, this one’s on me,” Noah said, putting down his credit card. “You know, I’m wondering,” Owens said, after Noah had dropped the three of them off at his house. “I’m not sure Mary’d like the idea of us all skating tonight. Maybe we shouldn’t mention it.”

  “Not say we went skating?” Jane asked.

  “Well, you can say we went skating, but maybe don’t mention that we all did.”

  Julie stood next to her car, holding her keys. I get it, she thought. He has no intention of seeing me again, so it’s not worth riling Mary up. “That’s fine. I won’t say anything,” she said, getting in her car and slamming the door. And in the course of that one evening, Julie changed. She would no longer say with perfect sincerity that she’d never been in love. From then on, she spoke of “that kind of love” as something dangerous and immature. She called Peter when she got home, and they talked for an hour and a half.

  Jane walked through the empty house in silence. She wasn’t used to keeping secrets from her mother.

  “Jane, wake up—it’s me. Come on, get dressed. Eli’s waiting in the car.” Her mother’s face was alive and hard, leaning over the futon. She wasn’t supposed to be back from New Orleans yet. She had finally had her own adventure. It was all her, she was the center now, in the middle of the night.

  “Mary?” Owens’ voice stopped them, halfway down the hall. “Everything all right?”

  “Thanks, Owens, for taking her.” His voice, Mary remembered, had often been kind.

  Eli sat with the motor running, like a getaway. No one talked as he drove the dark roads home. They told Jane to get into bed, but she couldn’t sleep and she shuffled into the kitchen. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jane, this isn’t for you, this is for grown-ups. Go to sleep. It’s past your bedtime.”

  “Then why’d you wake me up in the middle of the night!” All of a sudden, she was supposed to have a bedtime.

  “I wanted you home, that’s all.”

  And Jane was glad to be back in the bungalow. She always sneezed in Owens’ mansion, up and down in her jacket, the way dogs shake. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and hoped he didn’t notice.

  So many times, the night rinsed her mother back to what Jane knew.

  Owens gave Jane a camera for Christmas. It was the same thing he gave Olivia. He gave Mary perfume, which was what he’d given her the year before.

  Julie and Peter drove to his family’s ranch, two hours east. When she called on Christmas morning, Julie said they had artichoke and almond orchards. “Well, we’re engaged, but we’re not telling anyone yet,” she said to Mary and Jane, who had their faces pressed together near the receiver. “Any news on your end?”

  “Oh, no.” Julie still didn’t know that Mary had left Huck in a French Quarter hotel room and come home early.

  “Well, hurry up,” Julie said. “I will if you will.” She laughed.

  Mary and Jane had known beforehand it was going to happen. They had even helped, with the blue velvet from Jane’s coat. But still, when they hung up the phone, they didn’t know what to do the rest of the day. Eli slacked around. Mary suggested they go to a movie.

  A week later, they were at Julie’s cottage. She’d found little tin charms in Chinatown, and they helped her hang them on ribbons all over. It was going to be a New Year’s scavenger party, and at the end, you’d string them together for bracelets.

  While they were making dinner, Jane slipped into the bathroom. Sitting there among plaid towels and a plaid shower curtain, she overheard them talking.

  “I don’t know if I’ll keep it,” Mary said softly.

  “Whose?” Jane yelled out, over the flushing, before she even thought it.

  “What are you talking about, honey?”

  “Whose baby?” She was winging it, guessing, being smart-alecky, with every sureness she wasn’t right.

  “Well, Eli’s, of course.”

  “Why of course? You went to New Orleans with Huck.” Jane was stunned. She’d said the most shocking thing she could imagine, now it was true, and she was the one who was shocked.

  “Honey, that didn’t really work out.”

  The way her mouth went, with the lip, Jane wasn’t sure she believed her.

  “I guess the question is, you’ve done it this way already,” Julie said. “Do you want to repeat yourself or do something different this time?”

  Mary sighed. “I’d like to try it the right way once, being married and having enough money.”

  “You deserve that,” Julie said, her hand flat, at a sharp angle. Sometimes Jane could see her being a lawyer.

  Eli was waiting on their porch. The bungalow glowed from inside. He’d put lightbulbs in all the lamps and swept the anthills from the corners. When they came in, he put his palm over Mary’s belly, and then Jane understood: he wanted her to know. As far as he was concerned, this was her sister or brother and they were going to be a family now.

  It seemed almost nice that night. Eli had stopped at her grandmother’s old bakery and brought them each a dessert. Years later, Jane would remember that as part of the problem, those little pretty fancy pieces of pastry. That night, her mother wanted the whole cake, big and decorated, even if there were only three of them and it would be a waste.

  It didn’t help that the ring Eli stuck on top of Mary’s nasturtium poppy tart, her favorite, looked more like one of Julie’s Chinatown charms that there were a hundred of than anything meant and precious. He’d gotten it out of a bubble gum machine. He seemed sheepish saying that, not like himself, then admitted he’d put in nineteen quarters. Jane knew that a year before, her mother would have loved it. She and Eli didn’t want to live the way their parents did, they used to tell her. But Mary and Jane weren’t hungry, even though he’d remembered their favorites.

  “Eat some dessert,” her mother ordered, as Jane’s fork dallied and scrolled. Eli stood up and shut the back door. “He brought it,” Mary whispered. Just then, Jane realized what was horrible: it was all up to her.

  Afterwards, people would always tell her it had not been. Because of her age and all. Sh
e was the daughter only. She knew the decision should never have been hers to make at twelve, but it was. Nobody ever judged her, but she did, gravely. And it was something she would struggle with for a very long time.

  Owens didn’t know. He lived high up and far away those years, like a rumored emperor. He didn’t know what they were really like. Eli did know, and he understood that she’d been the one. Ever after, he looked at her as if he’d been harmed.

  When Jane finally made the decision, she was alone in the bungalow, doing laundry and trying to clean up. They’d been to Julie’s cottage, which was becoming Julie and Peter’s, and which more and more put them in a bad mood. The work they had to do at home was infinite. Every little drawer you opened had a whole new universe of mess.

  Jane worked furiously. Julie had them over for celebrations, and her house always stayed perfect, while theirs was in the perpetual process of becoming.

  “Do you want a little brother?” her mother asked, walking into the kitchen.

  On her knees, Jane was scrubbing the tiles, one by one. “You don’t know it’s a brother.”

  “I kind of sense it. Do you ever feel like that, like you can’t really know but you do?”

  “No, I don’t, really. And I don’t especially want a brother or sister. I feel like we should get our lives the way we want them first. I think if you and Eli have a baby, we’ll never catch up and be on time.” She plunged her arm into the bucket of suds water.

  Jane didn’t fully mean what she said, but her mother didn’t question. The next day, they went together in Eli’s car. The clinic was like any clinic, with stupid cat posters on the wall. Jane sat in the waiting room while her mother and Eli went inside. Eli looked in the toilet bowl and said it was a boy.