“Yeah,” Sam said. “What can you do?” The second bottle of cider was gone, and he was feeling good.
“My parents had this kind of mythology about themselves, you know?” Jerry said. “Something about the way they got married so young, how they made it through the war and all.”
Sam’s dad had served, but he was training in Alabama when the war ended. “At least they’re still married.”
Jerry shrugged. “They’d be happier if they weren’t married, but they’ll never break up. Stupid. They don’t understand what I’m doing up here, why I didn’t settle right down with some girl after coming back.”
Sam felt an expansive rush of goodwill toward Jerry, the unexpected way he’d unburdened himself. “You did the right thing. I’m sure they’re proud of you.”
Jerry turned his palms up in a who-knows gesture. “I guess. But also a little afraid of me.”
* * *
It had been a long time since Sam had felt this good. After the cider and joints (he couldn’t remember how many of either), he was out of it in the best possible way. He’d been hanging out at the Topos party for a couple of hours, and now Elodie sat next to him. They were in tune; they were together. Anything could happen. When she took his hand, a current raced through his body, and he leaned closer. She bumped his shoulder away but kept hold of his hand, studying his veins and knuckles. As she turned his hand over to examine the lifeline, she asked about the frats, and about his frat, what the vibe was there. “What do you love about it?” she asked.
Sam laughed. “I don’t know if I love anything about it. It’s just a place that feels okay, where the guys are okay.”
“You like that word, don’t you,” she said. “Okay. ‘The guys are okay.’”
“Well, that’s what they are. They’re fine, how about that. They’d probably say the same thing about me.” At least he hoped they’d say he was okay. Or fine.
“I mean, what if the guys were incredible? What if you couldn’t live without them?”
He laughed in embarrassment, felt himself heat up as she held his gaze. What if I couldn’t live without you? he wanted to say.
“I like you,” she said, as if she’d read his mind.
“I like you too,” he said. But the noisy group that had been across the room was somehow all around them, or had they always been there, and he just hadn’t noticed? And Elodie had let go of his hand. He gathered that they were talking about the big protest in Boston a year ago. Everyone except him had been there, and he kept quiet, not wanting to admit his ignorance.
“And God, Abbie Hoffman,” one of the girls said. “That speech! Incendiary. Amazing.”
“John Hancock was no fucking insurance salesman!” Hank yelled.
“John Hancock was a goddamn revolutionary!” some of the others yelled back, in unison.
“Cosmic day,” another guy said. “Completely cosmic. A hundred thousand of us, or more.”
“But the riots in Cambridge, the fights, we’re not about that, man,” Hank said.
“It was cosmic. And beautiful,” Elodie said. “And also brazen and awful.” Now she was telling about being in Cambridge that night, how she’d seen the riots up close—the guys throwing things, throwing rocks at cops, bricks at cars and buildings. A guy threw a burning log through the Harvard Coop’s window. And the police charging, beating people to the ground. She’d gotten knocked over by someone running from the cops, and some stranger had pulled her up to standing, had taken her hand to help her get out of the mayhem of Harvard Square. “I was pretty scared,” she said. “But the worst were those Harvard boys looking down from their dorm windows, just watching the whole thing, doing nothing. Although people in the street were yelling some pretty obnoxious things about them.”
Elodie was brave; she was something different, and she made him feel different too. If only he could have been that guy, helping her reach a safer place. He tried to get her attention. “Can I see you sometime?”
“You can see me right now.” Her smile let him know that she hadn’t misunderstood him. She knew what he’d meant. “I’m only visiting, but I’ll be back.”
* * *
Virginia was sliding backward. The brief visit home to Norfolk had undone her. She’d fled without helping to untangle Momma’s financial mess. She’d done nothing. Her brother, Rolly, had said to leave it to him, he’d let her know how things were turning out for Momma. She hadn’t admitted to her siblings how dire her own situation was. She had to get a job. She had to get up the gumption to go back to Arthur Gage and beg him for some teaching work. But she needed a salary, not substituting as an occasional instructor for one hundred dollars a term. In the middle of the night, Virginia tried to call forth her school tour with Toby Dickenson, the way she’d felt smart, witty and attractive enough, but Foster Burgess, with his smirks and horrible coded phrases, kept intruding. Oliver, could you please give me a little something? she asked. I need help, I’m sure you can see that. But nothing came.
* * *
At the college employment office, Virginia sat to fill out applications for the two secretarial openings. “You’ll have to take a timed typing test for these positions,” the woman behind the desk said, and she stood to move around the desk, her nylons scritching against her knit dress, then led Virginia down the hall to a room with two typewriters. Virginia arranged herself at the typewriter, and began to type a document, “Revised Rules and Regulations Pertaining to the Use of Clarendon Hall by Westfield Residents.”
Ten minutes later, the woman scanned Virginia’s typed pages, frowned at them. “Why don’t you work on your typing for a week or so, and then come back and try again.”
“I didn’t pass?”
“You can use this test if that’s what you prefer, but it’s better to have a slightly higher score,” the woman said. “To give you the best chance against the younger applicants.”
The younger applicants; so she was an older applicant. “I have plenty of other skills that could be useful.”
“Yes, I see,” the woman said. “Nevertheless, it couldn’t hurt to improve your score.”
The younger applicants. Who were these younger applicants? No doubt younger meant unmarried. Virginia was no longer married. Or maybe younger meant attractive. Virginia couldn’t understand what people around her were saying; or rather she could understand what they said, but not what they meant. Virginia imagined the younger applicants streaming into the employment office, fashionable and high-heeled, even though you couldn’t navigate a late-winter sidewalk, never mind a snowbank, in heels. Once these younger applicants sat down at the typewriter, their fingers would fly across the keys.
In the A&P that afternoon, she grabbed bananas, oranges and carrots, and ground coffee into a paper bag. Younger applicants. She wanted to reshape the typing test into a funny story for Oliver, to make him laugh as they did the dishes. She missed his presence, his solid portliness close to her in the kitchen or in their bed; she missed his belly that pulled at his shirts. And meanwhile all these other tiny details that had made up her life had disappeared, like getting the Clarendon gossip, hearing from Oliver about the latest scandal. She stopped at the butcher counter, and one of the young butchers leaned over the glass case. “Rib eye or porterhouse?” He gave a quick wink, his dimples showing.
“I—uh—some stew meat...” Her face went hot and blotchy. She couldn’t afford a steak; she couldn’t get a job as a damn secretary. He turned away, and she wiped her eyes and caught her breath. A minute later the butcher handed the package over carefully, as if he’d been holding a baby.
She spun her cart around, intending to escape. “Hello,” a man’s voice called to her, and she looked up, but couldn’t place his face. Someone on faculty, someone new.
“Henry,” he said. “Henry Jernigan.”
Right, Henry. He rented the upstairs apartment from the Gompers, four hou
ses down. He taught math or maybe economics, and she’d met him in the fall when Mrs. Gompers had taken him around to meet the neighbors. She managed to ask how he was, keeping her gaze on his springy, flyaway hair. If she made eye contact, she’d fall apart.
* * *
Pulling out of the parking lot, she spotted Malcolm Ferber, a retired English professor who was a fixture on the campus green on nice days. He was at the wheel of his ancient Oldsmobile. Wispy hair, driving cap, pendulous ears. Why did old Malcolm Ferber get to live so long? “You useless, stupid old man,” she said to the windshield, glaring at Malcolm. “You should be dead.” Malcolm smiled and tipped his cap to her.
On the way home she tortured herself with memories of long-ago fights, the memories too well-preserved. Like the time when Rebecca had started reading the women’s pages in the newspaper. That was Virginia’s doing because little Rebecca had been sounding out headlines with Oliver, which were invariably about Vietnam body counts or Soviet missile launches. One morning Virginia had handed Rebecca the women’s page, and after that Rebecca read the household hints from Heloise and Dear Abby’s advice to the lovelorn every morning. “Our little hausfrau in training,” Oliver had said.
“Unlike her mother, you mean,” Virginia said.
Oliver laughed. “Well,” he said.
Virginia’s laugh died. “Where is it written that only I have to do all this stuff, the cooking, the shopping, the laundry, the mopping. Your mother used to get onto me for not ironing the sheets. Sheets, for God’s sake.” The stab of fury had been inside her, ready to pour out.
“I cook.” Oliver put his hand to his chest as if protecting the hurt inside. He did cook a little. He made pancakes on Saturday mornings, and once in a while, hamburgers fried in butter. “And I don’t mind, you know I don’t mind if—” He stopped. “But I work, you know. It’s a lot of pressure, trying to move ahead, get along with some of these morons, never mind the deans.” Every week a new headache, like that cheating business last spring, never mind his research and publishing, which were imperative, she had to know that. Imperative. “And it’s not like we have five kids, we’re not the Koslowskis,” he said. “It’s—the thing is, it’s not easy when your wife has professional ambitions,” he said. “People get ideas...” He trailed off.
“Well, I’m sorry you didn’t marry the right kind of woman,” she said.
I’m sorry, Oliver, those were such dumb fights, she thought now. I was full of anger and foolishness. I didn’t—I don’t—know how to be the right kind of woman.
* * *
Monday morning, she hadn’t heard anything from the employment office. In the bedroom, her old typewriter mocked her with yet another task she hadn’t completed. Instead of sitting down to practice, she stripped the sheets off the bed and went to the basement to start a load of laundry. On her way back upstairs, the woodstove called to her—she hadn’t touched it since Oliver—he’d always stacked the wood, kept the stove going on weekends. She opened the little door and peered inside: piles of cold ash made a tiny, desolate landscape. She reached inside to sweep it clean, and as she tipped the dustpan into the trash can, a cloud of ash flew up around her, leaving a layer of fine pale dust on the carpet and the wood trim. She would not let the dust remind her of Blossom Hill Cemetery down in Concord, where they’d put Oliver’s ashes. She’d clean and freshen up the house.
At Sears, she bought a stack of fresh green towels and a bright new bedspread for Rebecca’s bed. Through the afternoon she vacuumed up ash, wiped down baseboards and chair rails with damp rags, mopped the kitchen floor. She tidied Rebecca’s room, put the new bedspread on the bed.
She got a stew going, and she drank a glass of Cognac as she browned the meat, since the stew called for it. She had to open a bottle of wine to add to the stew, and she poured herself some wine, too. It tasted wonderful, a little floral. She slid the stew into the oven, poured a third glass of wine. She was doing better, yes, she was! She decided to make a special dessert: Queen of Sheba cake from Julia Child. She separated the eggs, whipped the whites and the sugar, melted the chocolate and the butter. No almonds in the cabinet. Walnuts? She poured the walnuts into a paper bag and crushed them with a rolling pin—she should do this more often, bang the rolling pin hard on the walnuts, crush things to powder.
She heard Eileen’s car rolling into the driveway, then the slam of the car door—Rebecca, home from Girl Scouts. The wine bottle was empty and she was a tiny bit tipsy. Wait, how had that happened? Thank God it hadn’t been her turn to pick up the girls. She hurried to the bathroom and splashed her face with water. At least the stew smelled good. She opened the oven to peer at the Queen of Sheba cake, which lay flat and gray in its pan. She’d left out something critical. Or maybe she’d baked it at the wrong temperature.
At the table, she ladled out stew for Rebecca and herself, spilling a little. She asked Rebecca about Girl Scouts and the newspaper collection drive they were planning. She was saying what a good idea the paper drive sounded like when Rebecca interrupted.
“Mom, are you—are you drunk?”
“No, of course not,” Virginia said.
Rebecca squinted at her, took a bite of her stew, then another two bites. Set down her spoon, pushed back her chair and stormed out of the kitchen.
Oh, God, she was a mess. She needed—what did she need? She needed someone to talk to. She couldn’t call Eileen; Eileen had already helped too much, picking up Rebecca, taking her in, taking Rebecca skating and to Girl Scouts, making countless meals for them. And Eileen had five children, five! Virginia called Gerda’s house, but Gerda was at the PTA executive committee meeting, Dwight said.
She called Corinna. No answer.
She called Helen and Lily’s apartment. No answer there, either.
She didn’t want to think about how few friends she had, and she found herself dialing Louise’s number. Louise, who she didn’t even want to see. When Louise said hello, Virginia felt herself starting to cry. “I just—could you—I seem, to be a little...”
“I’m on my way,” Louise said.
* * *
Virginia let her elbows splay out on the kitchen table, leaning her head on her hand while Louise boiled water for tea and ran soapy water into the stewpot. Virginia heard herself talking, talking, talking, droning on about her family in Norfolk, how they wanted her to come home and help out, but she didn’t think she could ever go back there. About the meeting with Arthur Gage before Christmas, and then Foster Burgess at the academy. About the other wives in Westfield, how she didn’t belong anywhere. She was going to be a secretary or a shopgirl because she hadn’t finished her dissertation, one misstep leading to another. But she was too embarrassed to admit that she’d flunked a typing test, that she hadn’t put her best foot forward, that no one would hire her because she was old and slow.
Louise leaned against the counter, listening, as she waited for the tea to steep. At the table, she poured a mug for each of them, pushing one across the table. “I think it’s going to be tough for a while. And Gage is a pompous ass, but you knew that already. I can’t speak to Foster Burgess, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen his kind before. Way too many times before.”
Rebecca clomped into the kitchen with her French homework, and Virginia introduced Rebecca to Louise, then cut her a piece of the misformed Queen of Sheba cake.
“I worked with your dad,” Louise said. “He was a wonderful teacher. He loved his subject areas and his students.”
Rebecca nodded, taking in this angular woman with her Dutch-boy haircut and straight-across bangs.
Oh, no, Rebecca surely had heard Oliver complaining about Louise, and now she’d blurt out something. Virginia tried to catch Rebecca’s eye, but Rebecca wouldn’t look at her. “Isn’t that—” Virginia began.
“He would have gotten it,” Rebecca said, gazing down at the table, tracing the edge of her plastic place mat with her
finger.
“Gotten what, Bec?” Virginia said.
“Tenure. He’s very smart, you know. Was. Very smart.”
In her mind’s eye, Virginia saw Rebecca sitting in Oliver’s little home office on a Saturday afternoon, reading while he graded papers, and listening to his comments. He’d told her a lot about his work, probably too much, and she’d taken it all in.
“You’re absolutely right, Rebecca,” Louise said. “He would have. He deserved it.”
“Do you need help with your French, hon?” Virginia asked, afraid of whatever Rebecca might say next.
“I thought I did, but I think I know what to do now,” Rebecca said. “Nice meeting you,” she said to Louise. She gathered up her book and notebook and left the kitchen. Virginia closed her eyes, rested her head in her hand again.
“I wonder if—” Louise stopped. “Never mind. I’ll try to think of something.”
Later that night, Virginia realized that Louise had never said, Buck up and stop the self-pity act. Or, Why not practice your typing? Or, Finish your dissertation already. It’s ridiculous that you haven’t. Go and do it and then you’ll have that backing you up. No one can argue with that, even if you are a woman.
Still, she vowed to do so.
She cringed at the way she used to talk to Louise in her mind, back when everything she knew about the woman came from Oliver’s complaints. She’d imagined that Louise would look down on her for spending so much energy on shopping and cooking, on her piecrust, her boeuf Bourguignon, following Julia Child.
But maybe Louise cooked from Julia Child too. Or maybe she ate soup from a can every night because she was swamped with her research and her teaching. Louise had complimented the sad Queen of Sheba cake, but only ate half a piece.
The Wrong Kind of Woman Page 10