Women Within

by Anne Leigh Parrish

  Eunice introduced Sam to Barry. He shook her hand weakly. He, too, looked tense, as if he’d rather be sitting down, watching television, or out of the house altogether, maybe back at his bar. When the invitation came, Sam asked why Eunice wasn’t hosting the party there. Eunice said it wasn’t the nicest atmosphere.

  Angie Dugan was present, too. Her olive pants were drab, though her silver top gave her a festive air. She had two orange bracelets, obviously plastic, on one wrist. The other had a modest silver bangle. Beside her was a tall, black-haired young man who instantly caught Sam’s eye. He wore black jeans and a white T-shirt under a light-weight leather jacket. Even his shoes were stylish. He reminded her of the guys in L.A. He nodded to her, though said nothing.

  “This is my brother, Tim,” Angie said.

  “Timothy,” he corrected her.

  Even his voice was pleasing, low, gentle. Sam wished her clothes were nicer. She had on khaki pants and a blue knit top to which she’d added a necklace with blue stones she’d gotten for herself in L.A. right after the fiasco with Suki’s brother. A reward for her bravery and resolution, she’d told herself.

  Two more people arrived, one of the bartenders from Barry’s place and his girlfriend. Looking at everyone, Sam realized that Eunice and Barry were the oldest people there.

  Eunice directed everyone to a table where glasses and beverages had been arranged. Timothy grabbled a bottle of beer from a tub packed with ice. He offered one to Sam. Sam took it. She inspected the end of the table where food had been laid out. There were crackers with cheese and some nasty-looking red stuff that Eunice said was roasted red bell peppers. Sam chose a baby carrot from another plate and shoved it into some dip, which to her dismay turned out to be onion-flavored. She used a pink cocktail napkin to receive the partially chewed carrot, looked around for a trashcan, then shoved the napkin in the pocket of her pants.

  “Not a fan?” Timothy asked. Sam hadn’t been aware that he’d seen her. They removed themselves from the group and occupied a window seat covered in white leather.

  “Great view,” Sam said.

  “It would have taken some big bank to level the lot like they did. Most of the houses around here are built to accommodate the slope.”

  “You’re a contractor?”

  “I work in retail.”

  “Where?”

  “The GAP.”

  “Their stuff never fits me.”

  “You have to go a size up.”

  “They don’t have sizes for fatties.”

  “You’re not fat.”

  Sam drank her beer.

  “Big-boned, then,” she said.

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  They sat in silence. The others had remained in the kitchen. “Such a wonderful time of life really,” Angie said. Laughter followed. The telephone rang. No one answered it. The mellow jazz that had ushered Sam in changed to classical.

  “How do you feel about Mozart?” Timothy asked her.

  “It’s all right.”

  “You mean, ‘he.’”

  “Yeah, he.”

  They laughed. Sam didn’t like feeling ignorant, though she knew she was, about many things. Timothy, though, didn’t seem ignorant at all.

  “Let me guess. You went to college,” Sam said.

  “Right here at Dunston University.”

  “Ivy League. That’s pretty rad.”

  “Took me five and a half years.”

  “Why so long? Working on the side?”

  “No. Had a little trouble getting focused.”

  Sam could see him drop into himself at the memory. Then he lifted, and said it was his mother who’d wanted him to go to school. Angie was already in college over in Cortland. It was his mother’s plan that all her kids benefit from higher education. Sam asked how many kids there were.

  “Five,” Timothy said.

  “Wow. That’s a lot.”

  Timothy’s face drew into a small passing frown.

  His mother hadn’t gone to college, herself, he said. Nor had his dad. She left him for a rich guy, a real bonehead, in Timothy’s opinion, though he had to give the guy credit for improving his mother’s life, at least in a material sense. At the time, though, he’d thought she was just a greedy jerk, but then he realized that not having money is a huge pain, and while having it doesn’t guarantee happiness, it makes life a hell of a lot easier.

  Sam wanted to ask him why he worked if he was so well off, which made her think. If she got money out of Henry Delacourt, would she quit Lindell? Obviously, that depended on just how much she got, but yes, she’d probably quit. And do what? You had to spend your time somehow, even if you didn’t need a paycheck. Which is no doubt exactly what Timothy figured. Also, the step-dad’s generosity might not extend to him, but just to the mother.

  “And do you like it? Selling clothes?” Sam asked.

  “No.”

  “What would you rather do?”

  “Draw.”

  “Draw?”

  “Cartoons.”

  He pulled a folded up piece of paper out the pocket of his jacket. He opened it and handed it to her. It had an image, done in pen, of a penguin playing an accordion. The penguin was smiling. Its head was perched at a jaunty angle on its little round shoulders.

  “Very good. Does it have a name?” Sam asked. She gave the paper back to him.

  “Not yet.”

  “Patty, the penniless penguin.”

  “Playing for her fishy supper.”

  Angie approached them from the kitchen. She asked if they needed anything. Sam said she was fine. Timothy did, too.

  Timothy said Angie always did that, play hostess in someone else’s home. He said she wasn’t being bossy—though God knew she used to be, when they were young—she just had a keen sense of responsibility to other people. Sam suggested that such a trait would be necessary—and highly valuable—in a social worker.

  “You thinking you want to sell your cartoons?” she asked.

  Timothy put his empty beer bottle on the carpet.

  “More like write a children’s book.”

  He said it quietly, not meeting her eye, as if the statement were embarrassing. Or maybe Sam was the first person he’d shared that ambition with. She hoped it was the latter.

  “And if it sells a lot, then you quit the GAP, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  He looked at her then and didn’t seem embarrassed.

  Then he turned toward the water. The wind was up. The surface was all choppy. He stared at it a long time, until Sam asked what he was trying to see below the surface. He apologized if he looked like he was brooding—hardly appropriate for a birthday party. It was just that back in college he’d stood at a window once, looking down at the lake when it was gray and full of white caps, just like today.

  “Is that what you meant about trouble focusing? Nature was more fun than the inside of a book?” Sam asked.

  Timothy smiled for the first time since meeting her.

  “No, not more fun.”

  He’d rushed a fraternity—against his mother’s wishes. He saw later that she’d been right about the culture, but at the time it was very important to him to belong to a group of people outside of his family. Sam had no doubt heard about some of the really stupid things pledges did just to get accepted. Usually these involved alcohol and running around half-naked soaked in shaving cream, that sort of crap. His assignment had been more subtle. There’d been a girl, a student, who
belonged to some Christian group that preached abstinence until marriage. In that day and age? It was all positively medieval, which made the idea of seducing her all the more intriguing.

  “Wait. You had to seduce someone you didn’t even know?” Sam asked.

  “Well, I got to know her, obviously, by joining her group, pretending to care about it.”

  He took her out on a few dates, played it cool. She saw through him at once. She’d been down that road before with at least one other guy, though not from the same frat. He apologized and said he’d leave her alone if that’s what she wanted. She didn’t. One evening, she had him up to her place and made him dinner. That was where he’d stood, watching the water, though from a different direction, obviously, since she lived in College Town.

  Well, to make a long story short, the reason this girl preached abstinence was to diffuse all the sexual tension around her. She was pretty—beautiful, actually—and guys were always hitting on her. But that wasn’t the whole story. She’d been raped when she was a teenager, by one of her father’s business partners. Her father didn’t believe her.

  “That’s rough,” Sam said.

  “The partner assumed she was interested in him, so he might not even have felt he was forcing her.”

  “She say that?”

  “No. But that’s what it sounds like to me.”

  “You’re saying she gave the impression of consenting.”

  “She said they were friendly, sometimes a little more than friendly. He might have gotten the wrong idea.”

  “Maybe she claimed rape for the sake of protecting her own reputation.”

  Timothy looked at her closely. Her cheeks warmed.

  “So what happened?” she asked.

  “With what?”

  “You and her.”

  “Nothing. We went our separate ways.”

  His voice carried a tone of regret. Maybe he’d been in love with her.

  She stared at the water, longing to be in a sound boat heading for the far shore. She’d been on a boat only once, when she was quite young. Her grandfather was there, and someone else, not Flora or the grandmother. The sun had been in her eyes; the motion of the waves threw her off balance. She almost went over the rail. For an instant, there had been fear in her grandfather’s eyes, something she never saw again, even when he knew he was dying.

  Sam looked at her empty beer bottle. More laughter flowed from the kitchen. Eunice called out that they were cutting the cake. Sam and Timothy went to see. The bartender was patting Barry on the back, which Barry didn’t look like he cared for. There was a big space between them, and the bartender stopped patting. Then he put his arm around his girlfriend, who stood on his other side. She didn’t warm to his embrace, and Sam decided, watching all this, that they weren’t going to be a couple long.

  “Shall we sing?” Angie asked.

  “No,” Barry and Eunice answered in unison.

  “No candles?” the bartender’s girlfriend asked.

  “Too many to count,” Eunice said. Then she seemed to regret her words, but Barry was unperturbed. He looked less tense than he had at the outset. He held a full glass of wine, which was no doubt the reason.

  Eunice cut the cake. She did it badly. Sam offered to help. Eunice handed her the knife.

  “I never could slice a cake properly,” she said.

  “Nothing to it,” Sam said.

  People handed her plates, and she filled them until everyone had a share.

  “Forks?” the bartender’s girlfriend asked.

  “Oh, right, so sorry!” Eunice spun around and yanked open a drawer. She dug out a handful of forks. Sam and Timothy still came up short. Sam helped herself to the same drawer, and was amused to find that along with utensils it held a lot of rubber bands.

  The cake had a lemon flavored frosting, which Sam recognized at once.

  “Velma made it, didn’t she?” she asked, her mouth full.

  “She did. She even offered. I think Velma secretly yearns to be a pastry chef,” Eunice said.

  “Who’s Velma?” the bartender’s girlfriend asked. Her eyes were brown, almost beady, and looking at them. Sam disliked her all of a sudden.

  “She’s the cook at Lindell,” Eunice said.

  “This is pretty damn good,” Barry said. He’d had to put down his drink to manage the plate of cake. He looked around for it, though it was on the counter directly in front of him.

  “Lindell? The old folks’ home?” the bartender asked.

  “Retirement community,” Angie said.

  “Same dif.”

  Angie smiled warmly, to hide her annoyance, Sam thought. Angie turned away and helped herself to a glass of something from the drinks table.

  “Happy birthday,” Sam told Barry.

  “Thank you, dear,” he said.

  Dear?

  Sam and Timothy returned to their perch in the living room. Sam took a second slice of cake along. She was enjoying it a lot. The sugary flavor reminded her of a birthday party for one of Lucy’s kids several months before. Balloons, shrieking, wrapping paper in shreds on the floor. The cake Lucy made hadn’t been as tasty as Velma’s, but then Velma baked from scratch. Thinking that, Sam decided that she must be moving on if she could recall something without sadness that only a short while ago would have made her ache.

  She found Timothy studying her.

  “What you said before, about a woman making a false accusation,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Where did that come from? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Get me another beer first. Please, I mean.”

  Timothy did as she asked. He didn’t bring another for himself. Sam put her dirty plate on the floor and accepted the beer. He hadn’t opened it for her, but the cap twisted off easily. She put the cap on the plate and drank. She could see tension in the way he held his shoulders. He sat forward, elbows pressed to his knees.

  She told him about her mother and Henry Delacourt.

  “Jesus. That’s a hell of a lie, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Just a little.”

  “You think it’s true, what she’s telling you now?”

  “I thought about that. She has no reason to lie now. She had a reason before. So, yeah, I guess I believe her.”

  Then she added that her mother thought she could make some financial claim against Delacourt. Provided she could prove they were father and daughter. She’d need to find a lawyer, one who was willing to take her on with the promise of a cut of the money later.

  “A contingency fee,” Timothy said.

  “If that’s what it’s called.”

  Footsteps fell from the front door into the kitchen. Whoever it was walked slowly, almost hesitantly. Words of greeting were made. Then Eunice led Meredith into the living room where Angie was sitting with the bartender and his girlfriend on a blue velvet sectional on the other side of the room from Sam and Timothy. Sam hadn’t realized they’d left the kitchen, which meant Eunice and Barry had been in there by themselves.

  Not too sociable, now are they?

  She wasn’t surprised to see Meredith. Eunice had mentioned that she might come. She looked woeful, and Sam wondered if Constance had died. But if she had, Meredith wouldn’t be there, would she?

  She was elegantly dressed, as always, in a lightweight, boat-necked sweater and a pair of pressed linen slacks. She put her leather shoulder bag on the table in front of the sectional and shook hands with the bartender and then with the girlfriend. When Eunice led her over to the window, she shook T
imothy’s hand, and nodded politely to Sam.

  “How’s your mother?” Sam asked.

  It was a stupid question, because Sam had seen her just the day before, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “The same.”

  Eunice stood with her arm looped through Meredith’s. She was claiming her somehow. Or protecting her.

  “You should try the cake,” Sam said.

  “Yes.”

  Then Eunice led her away, as if she just couldn’t navigate the room by herself.

  Sam drank her beer and enjoyed the scudding clouds. She didn’t feel like she had to keep the conversation going, and neither, apparently, did Timothy.

  Then after a moment, he asked, “So, aside from working at Lindell and needing a lawyer to slam dunk your biological father, what else are you into?”

  “Poetry.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mostly Sylvia Plath, these days.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  “Hang on.”

  Sam went into the kitchen where she’d left her purse on the counter. Eunice, Meredith, and Barry were seated at the table, drinking, speaking quietly. An untouched slice of cake sat before Meredith. Sam took the book she carried with her these days and returned to Timothy.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to him. It was Ariel.

  He opened the book to the page she’d turned down.

  “Read the last paragraph,” she said.

  There’s a stake in your fat black heart

  And the villagers never liked you.

  They are dancing and stamping on you.

  They always knew it was you.

  Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

  “I didn’t mean aloud,” she said. She turned to see if the others had taken note. They hadn’t.