The Wrong Kind of Woman

by Sarah McCraw Crow

  She wondered if Louise was as lonely as she was.

  In the middle of the night, she woke from a dream of numbers and department meetings, as if Oliver’s old worries were streaming into her head. A frightening yet tedious dream. But in another part of the dream, Louise sat at a conference table, hands folded on a stack of paper. I’m sorry, Virginia. You’re not one of us. You’ll never be one of us. Next to Louise was Eileen from next door, who shook her head sadly. Not one of us, either. Can’t sew a curtain. Can barely sew a Halloween costume. Never dusts the baseboards.

  She wanted to tell them all she was trying, but the dream had evaporated.

  Chapter Nine

  “Listen,” Lily said, on the phone. “Helen and I are hosting a get-together. Next Saturday, six thirty. Just Louise, Corinna and us. Can you join us?”

  Louise must have told the others what a complaining mess Virginia had turned into. And how amusing, that she couldn’t even get work as a secretary. They didn’t have to include her out of pity, Virginia wanted to say. “Umm, did Louise—”

  “Yes, and I thought about going too, but Helen’s sister was visiting.”

  “Ah.” Instead of asking where Louise had gone, Virginia exhaled, then asked what she could bring. A salad, Lily said.

  * * *

  Lily and Helen’s apartment took up the second floor of a big house near the town pond. Along with packed bookshelves and stacks of books on the floor, one wall of the living room featured an arrangement of black-and-white photos.

  After Helen brought her a glass of wine, Virginia went to look at the photos, a mix of landscapes, a grove of silvery birch trees in the snow, the town pond in summer, and portraits. One portrait drew her eye, a nude woman draped in a sheer scarf, one knee drawn up. The photo turned the woman’s body into a kind of sculpture. “Beautiful photographs,” Virginia said.

  “Oh, Lily used to take a lot of pictures,” Helen said. “She was a paid photographer at Smith, she took all the team and club photos, and candids for the yearbook. She thought she was going to be a photojournalist.”

  “Oh,” Virginia said. “Why didn’t she? What changed her mind?”

  “Her father. No daughter of his was going to work for a newspaper.” Helen’s voice had turned gruff, approximating Lily’s father, and then she patted at her hair, which she wore tonight in a low, old-fashioned bun that made Virginia think of Mrs. Dalloway. Or maybe it was Helen’s long face and big eyes that reminded her of Virginia Woolf. “No, newspapers were too dirty, too crass for his daughter. And he didn’t want her traipsing off to Korea or China or some such place where the men would—Well, anyway.” Helen shrugged. “So she went to Columbia for English a year after I started, and her father still disapproved, but not quite as much. Now her father is long gone and here we are.”

  “Ah.” Virginia considered how none of the Gang of Four wore pantyhose or plucked their eyebrows or colored their hair. And Louise most likely cut her own hair. Practical to a fault, Momma would say.

  But no, that wasn’t right, because Helen and Lily’s apartment was beautifully furnished, not only those arresting photos, but with pale furniture and beautiful silvery-cobalt bowls that looked hand-thrown, and a warm Persian rug, all reds and golds and blues. It was a little like being back in Cambridge. Virginia told herself to stop thinking, stop judging; she cared far too much about appearances, about surfaces. She liked to think of herself as utterly different from her sisters—June and Marnie were shallow, materialistic beings, reveling in their traditional lives. But she was far more like her sisters than she wanted to be.

  Louise had just arrived and was calling out hellos.

  “I’m sorry,” Virginia blurted out as Louise approached. “And thank you for helping me out, I don’t know what came over me that night, and I meant to call, it’s just that—” She sounded ridiculous.

  “No need, you would have done the same for me,” Louise said. “Everyone has those moments, and it’s only been such a short time, since Oliver and all.”

  “Rebecca enjoyed talking to you.”

  Louise nodded. “Smart girl, like her parents.”

  “Thanks.”

  At the dining table, two fondue pots bubbled over blue Sterno flames, one with hot oil for the cubes of meat, the other with cheese sauce for bread. Virginia didn’t like beef fondue, the way the meat was either tough and overcooked, or red and cold in the middle. But the intimacy of it, their arms and elbows knocking together as they set their spears of meat in the pot, was lovely and made them all laugh. Virginia remembered with sudden clarity another dinner party, maybe at Ronald and Betsy Garland’s house, when Ronald had said something crude about the Gang of Four, some crass double-entendre about the four women’s love lives, or lack thereof, and Oliver and Frank Randolph had roared with laughter, and Virginia hadn’t been bothered enough to tell them to cut it out. Her cheeks and throat heated up in belated embarrassment.

  Helen was talking about Kate Millet’s book and the overwhelming masculine hostility in the literary canon, as the others nodded knowingly. Louise mentioned another book Virginia hadn’t heard of, something about sisterhood. Virginia vowed to be better read, to catch up to the rest of them.

  “So, the Bread and Roses meeting,” Lily said. “How was it, Louise?”

  “Well,” Louise said. “I wish I could say it was terrific, but it was pretty chaotic.” She turned Virginia’s way. “I went to an organizing meeting of a women’s collective in Boston last week,” she said.

  “Ah,” Virginia said. If only she’d listened, or asked a question or two, instead of yammering on about herself last week, she would already know about Louise’s trip to Boston.

  “They don’t believe in leadership roles—if you try to run a meeting, they call that star-hogging. And they don’t believe in parliamentary procedure, either, so we spent three hours listening to one woman and then another talking about this and that, and nothing related to anything else, and hardly anything got done.”

  Now the others were talking about the marches for equality last August—Louise had gone to the big New York march and rally, while Lily and Helen had gone to the Boston march. “Even with all the hecklers and the cops being aggressive, the whole day felt organized,” Helen said.

  “Same in New York,” Louise said. “Something like fifty thousand women marching in New York and listening to the speakers. This Bread and Roses meeting was nothing like that.”

  Virginia could have gone to the Boston rally last summer, or even the giant New York rally, and she could have linked arms with strangers, other women. She could have listened to Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. She could have brought Rebecca with her. Instead, she’d only read about those rallies and the thousands of women in Time magazine. Until now, it hadn’t occurred to her that she too might take part.

  “But there was one thing,” Louise said. “A health collective. They’re pushing for women-centered health care, and the woman whose idea it seemed to be was very persuasive. They’ve been running those consciousness-raising meetings around Boston too.”

  “Clarendon could use some consciousness-raising,” Helen said.

  “Maybe we should engineer another takeover of the president’s office,” Lily said. “Demand that more women be hired.”

  “Yes, since it worked out so well the first time,” Louise said. “But why not. We could demand coeducation too.”

  “We should demand a normal-size women’s bathroom in the library.”

  “A bathroom that’s not in the basement.”

  “Demand that all fraternity members learn to sew their own clothes.”

  “And take care of a baby.”

  “And a toddler at the same time!” They were all laughing now as their demands got sillier.

  “But Weissman,” Corinna said. “He’s a scientist. I’d hate to make him unhappy with another tak
eover.”

  “He’d understand, in the long run,” Louise said. “He has to know that coeducation is an essential first step. If he doesn’t, well, maybe his time has passed.”

  “I could host a meeting,” Virginia heard herself saying. “One of those consciousness-raising meetings.” She’d read about these meetings in Time, women filling up New York apartments, getting together to talk about their lives, to talk about political issues and the world. Without any men. She had friends now, and maybe she could make something happen.

  “Yes, it’s time,” Lily said.

  Corinna had left the table for more coffee, but she’d returned with her coat on, her empty plate in hand. “I left some brownies on the counter,” she said to Helen.

  “You’re leaving?” Lily asked.

  Corinna nodded. “I—uh—I just can’t afford to rock the boat. I’m not even halfway through this study, and if I were to lose my funding for Woods Hole...” She held her free hand out in a half shrug.

  “If we don’t speak up for ourselves, no one will,” Louise said. “This would be a small meeting, that’s all. Surely that’s well within our—”

  “I’m not against people speaking up,” Corinna interrupted, her forehead red. “But I need to put my head down and work. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “That’s what we’re all here for, Corinna,” Lily said.

  “I know,” Corinna said. “I’m not explaining myself well, I’m sorry.” She thanked Lily and Helen, said goodbye to Louise and Virginia, and turned to go out the door.

  They sat in silence, Corinna’s footfalls as she went downstairs echoing in the apartment.

  “Are the rest of us still in?” Lily said. “It’s just one meeting.”

  * * *

  In a basement practice room, Sam made notes for the other Granitetone singers while Stephen tapped out “In the Still of the Night” on the piano. Stephen was from Vermont and on ski patrol, and something about him reminded Sam of Tommy, although Tommy would be mortified by the falsetto solos that Stephen was willing to sing. Stephen moved on to “In the Mood”—he’d rewritten the lyrics to put the song into a guy’s perspective. Despite the laughable lyrics, the song had a great structure and melody. The word melody reminded Sam of Elodie. Elodie, who’d talked to him, who’d held his hand, traced his veins with her finger, who said she’d be back soon, who might be willing to see him again. It wasn’t just her beauty; it was all the experiences she’d had, like being in the middle of the Cambridge riots, and that calm certainty she carried. She knew what was important.

  Two girls went clacking past the practice room, probably on their way to the ceramics studio. He wondered if they’d come from Wellesley for the term, and whether they knew Elodie. He was seized with the urge to run out and ask them. “Maybe things will get better if Clarendon goes coed,” he said, trying for a nonchalant tone.

  “Huh?” Stephen looked up from the piano as the girls turned a corner and disappeared. “I don’t know, man. My older brother went to Middlebury, and he said it was like two completely different species. The girls are super smart, and the guys are either unmotivated or just plain dumb. So the guys resent the girls and the girls look down on the guys. Not all, but most.”

  Probably Elodie looked down on all the Clarendon guys. The most basic, everyday insult at Clarendon was to tell a guy he was acting like a girl. Don’t be such a girl got said more than Don’t be a dumbass or asswipe or moron. And yet Clarendon guys obsessed over girls. “You think having more girls here would make the guys look dumb?”

  Stephen shrugged. “Not necessarily. I just don’t know how much better it would be.”

  The other Granitetones trickled in, and when Stephen started banging out the parts to “In the Mood,” a couple guys groaned.

  “Come on, man, we gotta be more relevant,” Theo Burke said.

  “Okay, how about Janis? Let’s do Janis,” Stephen said, and he plunked out the opening chords to “Piece of My Heart.”

  That song belonged to Erma Franklin, Sam wanted to say. Janis was only covering it, but no one would care.

  “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,” someone else sang, mimicking Neil Young’s wavery tenor.

  “Okay, that’s a little too obvious,” Theo Burke said.

  “All right, you pick something, Theo, and you arrange it,” Sam said. “Then we’ll sing it.” He was sick of this in-between time of year, too late for skiing, too early for hanging out outside and playing Frisbee. And Elodie: Would he ever see her again? He’d missed his chance last fall when she was on campus all the time as an exchange girl. He let himself wallow in the painful pull of his crush.

  In the snack bar after rehearsal, Sam grabbed a burger and fries, then stopped to say hi to Jerry, who sat alone with open books spread out around him, his ashtray full of butts.

  “This Restoration drama class is completely useless,” Jerry grumbled. “I put off this paper too long. Not that old Professor Parker will even notice, but I gotta work.”

  “Right,” Sam said. “See ya.”

  “Later, Manhattan,” Jerry said, and Sam went to sit with Stephen a few tables away.

  “That guy,” Stephen said, inclining his head in Jerry’s direction. “What’s his deal? He always looks mad enough to murder somebody.”

  “He’s okay,” Sam said. “He’s—” but maybe better not to say anything about Topos, because Stephen wouldn’t get it “—we’re in the same math seminar.”

  But Stephen had already moved on, talking about the Granitetones doing a whole set of protest songs, how they could work on that after the tribute concert for Professor Desmarais. At the mention of Professor Desmarais—Oliver—Sam felt his face heat up. An image of Oliver popped into his head, Oliver playing his clarinet, looking left and right at his bandmates, all of them kind of laughing about something. He could see Oliver smiling in greeting, nodding at his solo, and he felt something dark and a little bitter. Oliver had been gone—dead—by the time Sam bailed out on that dinner. Sam would never learn what Oliver had meant by that invitation, and Oliver would never know that Sam had failed to show up. Whatever else Oliver might have wanted, Oliver had thought Sam was someone worth befriending. Oliver hadn’t thought Sam was the kind of guy who bailed out, who disappeared.

  He changed the subject, asking Stephen about his plans for next year. Stephen said he might go out West after graduation, maybe Sun Valley or somewhere in Colorado. “You know, spend a winter doing nothing but skiing and working a dumb job. Before med school and the rest of my fucking life.”

  Sam had dunked a fry in ketchup and was popping it into his mouth when something hit him on his cheekbone then skittered across the table. A balled-up straw wrapper.

  “Bull’s-eye,” he heard. He looked up to see Teddy Burnham sitting with Charlie Biddle. Teddy, the biggest asshole on campus, thought he was God’s gift to Clarendon. Freshman fall, Sam had had something like a crush on Teddy, those pale gold curls, and the memory of his own stupidity made him feel sick to his stomach.

  “What was that?” Stephen said.

  “I don’t know.” Another straw wrapper hit him on the neck.

  “Let’s go,” Stephen said, pushing back his chair. “I need to get going anyway.” He grabbed his tray.

  “We just got here, I haven’t finished my fries, and Teddy Burnham is an asshole,” Sam said, a surprising flare of anger grounding him.

  “I’ve got an orgo test tomorrow, so I should go.” Stephen stood, grabbed his sheet music folder, his half-eaten burger in his other hand. “I’ll see you at LC.”

  Sam nodded. He couldn’t blame Stephen for wanting to avoid an asshole like Teddy Burnham. But he wanted to finish his fries, goddammit. And he wanted to put off the walk across campus in the cold rain. He wasn’t in seventh grade, and neither was Teddy Burnham. Something hit his hand, a spitball this time. Fucking Teddy leaned bac
k in his chair, clutching his belly, cracking up. Drunk, or high on something.

  Sam stood up. He wavered, hands on the table, debating. He made himself walk across the snack bar to Teddy and Charlie’s table.

  “Hey, Sam,” Charlie said, looking up in surprise. “What’s up?”

  Teddy smirked at him like an obnoxious ten-year-old.

  “Hey, Charlie,” Sam said, then turned to Teddy. “Will you quit it, please.”

  “Will you quit it, please,” Teddy mimicked, in a high-pitched, irritating voice.

  Sam felt too old for this tired crap. He hated that guys like Teddy got away with such asinine behavior, and that everyone else—Charlie Biddle in this case—would act all clueless, like nothing was going on. He was sick of it all, the teasing at Lambda Chi, the way he was always the butt of other guys’ jokes. There was nothing more he could say, so he turned around and went to stack his tray, head down. As he dropped off his tray, he sensed a commotion behind him. Oh, fuck, it had to be Teddy coming after him. He didn’t want to get walloped in a fight, and he turned around, cringing in expectation of whatever was coming at him next. But Teddy lay on the floor, still in his chair, legs waving in the air, gazing up at the ceiling, a stunned look on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam took in Jerry, walking quickly in the other direction. Jerry never looked Sam’s way; he just headed out the back door, and out of the student center.

  Charlie stared down at Teddy, but didn’t move to help him up. Teddy rolled over to all fours, cursing loudly. Neither of them even looked Jerry’s way.

  Sam turned and moved faster, past the college mailboxes. Shit. This wasn’t going to help things. But on the other hand, those guys didn’t have any idea that he was friends with Jerry now. Jerry had helped him out in a way that no guy in Lambda Chi would ever do, and he’d done so silently, expecting nothing for it. Sam wanted to be different, like Jerry, like Elodie. Not like Stephen, and definitely not like Teddy Burnham.