The Wrong Kind of Woman

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The Wrong Kind of Woman Page 13

by Sarah McCraw Crow


  “Maybe.”

  Planning a march sounded worse than planning the annual fraternity Spring Sing, which he always got roped into. “I haven’t been so into that kind of thing. I mean, I want them to end the war as much as the next guy. The whole thing is a charade. The military-industrial—”

  “Exactly,” she said. “But it’s bigger than that. We need more fundamental changes than just ending the war. American society is completely fucked up, you know? We need to get people to sit up and take notice. We need a new world.”

  There had to be something he could say about American society and a new world, but he was too addled with sex and stunned by her body, electric and warm, next to his.

  “Are you with me?” she asked.

  “Sure, I’m with you. I’m right here.” He took her hand, let his thumb trace the veins and tendons under her skin.

  “No, I mean are you with us. With the movement.”

  “Sure, although—”

  “Although. There’s always an although around here.” She let out a tired sigh.

  He tried again. “I didn’t mean that I’m not interested, I just meant that Clarendon’s, you know, it’s Clarendon. Apathetic.”

  “Right. That’s what I meant too, sort of.” But she looked at him, taking him in, not saying anything. “The thing is, when you know something is wrong, when you feel something strongly, you have to act. You have to make something happen. You can’t just take it and take it.”

  Elodie sounded so sure. Hardly any Clarendon guys cared about anything except the next beer, or maybe the Red Sox.

  “But I can tell that you care.” She tugged on his arm so that it went around her, and they were face-to-face. “Action is the thing,” she said. “But first you have to be open. Awake and aware about the big problems in our society.”

  “I think I’m pretty aware—” he said, but her gaze stopped him. “I guess I just need to know a little more.”

  She sat up, reaching for her sweater. “It’s been lovely, Sam, but it’s time for me to go.” She leaned back to shimmy into her jeans and sweater, then reached up to tug her hair into a ponytail.

  He wasn’t enough for her. “I could do something.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head. “I want to help. I could—I could—”

  “I have to go to New York, but we’ll see. Drive me back?”

  He nodded, praying that Dougie’s car was still in the back parking lot.

  He led Elodie down the stairs, his usual awkwardness descending over him like the lead blanket the dentist placed on you before X-rays. At least no one was hanging around in the hallway, so he didn’t have to hear the catcalls and insults that the more obnoxious guys did whenever a guy brought a girl into the dorm. Out back, Dougie’s car was right where he’d left it, thank God. He pulled the keys from under the floor mat and started the car, the Beatles’ “Oh! Darling” blaring out of the radio and the heater blasting cold air on them. She leaned her head on the window, arms crossed over her chest. Yes, maybe he could join the movement, make a difference. If only he had some talent, or some charisma. If only he were someone else.

  “Thank you, Elodie,” he said. “I really—”

  “Me too.” She turned her radiant smile on him, then went back to her window leaning.

  He did have something to offer, he realized, and wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. “A cipher, a code,” he said.

  “What?”

  “If you want, I’ll make an encryption code for you. You can use it, or someone else can use it, if they ever need a way to communicate without any...” But now he sounded so stupid, so fucking juvenile, he had to shut up. He turned onto Topos’s long driveway.

  “Huh,” she said. “I mean, we do have telephones these days, you know—”

  “Forget it, it was a dumb idea.”

  “No, it’s a good idea, Sam. I think I know some people who could use it. It could be a help to them. Thank you.”

  She squeezed his hand and jumped out of the car without saying goodbye.

  She hadn’t gone into town after all. He thrummed with too much feeling; she’d wanted to be with him. And now Stephen Stills was on the radio, telling him what to do, steel drums and backup harmonies advising him to love whoever he was with. Did he love Elodie? He didn’t know. Anyway, by tomorrow morning, Elodie would have forgotten him, and she’d be off planning something brave and crazy with some other, better guy—but for now he felt all right.

  Chapter Eleven

  “It’s a special invitation,” Mom said. They were both in the kitchen after school, Rebecca grabbing some Oreos and Mom opening the mail. Mom held out the card. “It’s important for us to be there.”

  Rebecca read the invitation. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t. She’d rather stay home and watch TV, or even follow Molly and Todd, wherever they were going. Okay, that last part wasn’t true. She just didn’t want to go to the concert.

  “I know,” Mom said. “Believe me, I know. It’s hard. Dad should be there. But the jazz band wants to give Dad a tribute, and we owe it to them and especially to Dad to be there.”

  Dad wouldn’t be up onstage tapping his toe, his belly jiggling, and someone else would play the clarinet. She didn’t even like that stupid old jazz music, music for old people. She felt tears threatening; she was so sick of herself lately.

  “Let’s go out and look for something nice for you to wear, how about that?”

  She shrugged because if she said anything, she’d probably cry. She didn’t want the rest of her Oreos, even though she’d thrown away half her ham sandwich at lunch.

  Mom took her to Dixon’s junior department the next afternoon, and she picked out a dress, dark blue velvet. Short. I’ll listen for you, Dad, she thought, checking her appearance in the dressing room’s three-way mirror. I’ll let you know how the concert goes.

  The night of the concert, she slipped on the dress, her tights and her short boots. She stood in front of her mirror swaying back and forth the way Molly’s sisters Kath and Lacey and the other high school girls did, so her hair swung out behind her. She felt tall and grown-up, even a little bit pretty. She tucked her hair behind her ears and took the stairs two at a time.

  * * *

  As the auditorium filled up, some women Rebecca didn’t know sat down with them, and Mom introduced her. One who taught biology, another who taught English, and then Louise, who she did know. Louise leaned over and asked her how school was going, and which class was her least favorite, which surprised her.

  “Earth science, it’s so boring,” Rebecca said.

  “It’ll get better,” Louise said. “School, that is. And maybe you’ll go to Clarendon.” Louise began to tell Rebecca about coeducation, that Clarendon might go coed before long. Rebecca had so many questions about that, but the houselights blinked and dimmed, and the stage filled with a group of boys, one of the choral groups. They launched into “Just My Imagination,” and they made it sound even nicer than the radio version. The one boy who sang the lead sounded so full of longing that she felt like running up there and taking his hand to console him. Could only boys sing this kind of music? Because she wanted to sing like that when she was in college.

  When the jazz band took the stage, a man with a mustache announced that they were dedicating their performance tonight to Oliver Desmarais, a stellar clarinet player and a wonderful history teacher. The band stomped and yelled, while the audience clapped loud and long. Louise and Corinna both let out whoops as if they were at a football game. Rebecca saw Mom wipe a tear and then put a hand to her face, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Five-six-seven-eight,” Rebecca heard from down in front, and the band’s horns played a staccato introduction to “Take the ‘A’ Train.” Those horns sounded so festive. The song flowed into another familiar song, one of the albums Dad used
to play on the stereo. Dave Brubeck, she read in the program. All around her, Mom and the other women snapped and swayed, kind of dancing in their seats to the jazzy music. Thank God no one from school was here to see her with these weird older women.

  She looked around at the theater, at its concrete walls, its long mesh curtains. Kind of modern and bare, the opposite of the little English library. She’d never looked closely at this place. So what, Molly would say. What is there even to look at?

  I don’t know, she’d answer. It’s just that my dad spent a lot of time here, and I’ve spent a lot of time here too, and that makes it special.

  Then came another old song that she recognized, and after that “A Taste of Honey.” And last of all, Ray Charles’s “Hallelujah,” with a young black student singing. The audience stood to applaud after that, and now she felt like there was this bigger thing embracing her, only she couldn’t give a name to whatever this thing was. It was mostly a good feeling, but kind of itchy and uncomfortable too. At this moment she wanted to be older, and she wanted to be younger. Just something other than what she was right now.

  * * *

  From the car, Virginia spotted Sam outside the Westfield Inn, hunched against the late-March morning. She was about to give him a ride to Boston, a little unorthodox, but somehow related to getting her own act together.

  After the concert, the jazz band’s version of Ray Charles’s “Hallelujah” still swirling in her head, Virginia had steered Rebecca upstairs to the meeting room. She’d gotten a glass of wine for herself and a ginger ale for Rebecca, and stood with Lily and Helen. Lily said that Louise had gotten the health educator from Boston to agree to speak at their meeting.

  Rebecca wandered off to the snack table, where she filled a plate with cookies. Virginia watched as Rebecca sat carefully with her plate, and crossed her legs at the knee, and as Corinna seated herself next to Rebecca a minute later. Rebecca chatted with Corinna as if she were a college student. From this distance, Rebecca looked older, taller; Virginia could see Oliver’s lips and Momma’s cheekbones in her face.

  Virginia sighed at the passage of time and at her mess of feelings. But she felt a pulse of gratitude too. She had these friends now, and she had a job. She’d do her part, host that consciousness-raising meeting. And she had Friday off—it felt good to use that phrase, a day off from work. She’d take herself to Boston on Friday, get herself back into the mindset of a researcher. She felt a surge of energy: she was moving forward.

  Sam Waxman, her student from last fall, passed by, and she turned to compliment him on the performances.

  “Thanks,” he said. “We worked hard on our set, had double rehearsals these last two weeks.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Well, you sounded wonderful. Professional, honestly.”

  At the snack table, she overheard Sam talking to one of his bandmates about needing to get the fuck out of Westfield.

  “I’m going to Boston on Friday,” she blurted out, instead of chiding him for his cursing. “If anyone needs a ride.”

  “I could use a ride,” Sam said. He introduced the other boy, Stephen.

  “What would you do in Boston?” Stephen asked.

  Sam shrugged. “Take the train to New York. See some old friends.”

  “You should go to jazz clubs downtown, you moron,” Stephen said. He turned to her. “You know his dad runs Red Wagon Records?”

  “No kidding,” Virginia said. “Oliver would have been excited to hear about that. Did he, did you ever—”

  “Yeah, I mean, we talked about it a little, at rehearsals sometimes.” Sam was blushing. “Not that there’s all that much to tell.” He shrugged again.

  She tried to give him an encouraging smile. “Well, give me a call if you want a ride,” she said. “We’re in the book, the only Desmarais in Westfield.”

  * * *

  They got on the highway in Lebanon, Sam quiet in the passenger seat. Virginia considered telling him how when they’d first moved up here, the highway hadn’t been finished. There was that scenic stretch of Route 4, the river on one side, Mount Kearsarge on the other, but so curvy and narrow that it had made little Rebecca carsick. Now they had the interstate and could whoosh along at seventy miles an hour all the way into Massachusetts. But she didn’t say that; he’d only look at her blankly the way Rebecca did, unable to imagine how things used to be.

  On the radio, a jazzy horn sequence opened the next song. “A-a-a-nd up next, we’ve got ‘What’s Going On,’” the DJ announced, in an unnecessarily dramatic voice. “By Ma-ar-ar-vi-in Ga-a-aye!” Sam asked if he could turn it up a little, and she nodded an okay.

  He drummed on his corduroys, and after a minute he sang along. Marvin Gaye had the loveliest voice, a voice full of grief about the war, the riots, everything wrong with today. Sam too. “You have a nice voice, Sam,” she said, as the song wound down.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been trying to work out an arrangement for the Granitetones, but I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “You should,” she said. “It’s a great song.” She thought of those mothers of sons in high school and college, having to listen to Nixon saying that the war was ending, but first they needed to finish invading yet another country in order to push back the creep of Communism.

  She asked about his classes and he said something about computers and running equations on the mainframe computer. “There’s this new language you can use to run it, and also these smaller computers they have there. It means that now anyone can use a computer.”

  “A new language, wow.” She couldn’t make much sense of his description, but his enthusiasm was wonderful to hear.

  “President Weissman says that pretty soon there are going to be little computers everywhere. Someday everyone can have one in their school or their office.”

  “Wow.” She tried to picture a grown-up Rebecca sitting in an office, feeding punch cards into a computer, all while talking to someone else at the next desk, as if that was no big deal.

  On the radio, a Carpenters song faded away and the CBS Radio News minute began. “As reported earlier, the US Capitol Building was bombed early this morning. We have reports of a demolished men’s lavatory, and possible damage to the structure under the Senate side. No reports of injuries or fatalities thus far.” A sound of papers rustling, then the newsreader starting again. “The Weather Underground has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which they say is in protest of the United States’ invasion of Cambodia.”

  “Ohhh,” Sam said. He covered his eyes with his hand, as if he couldn’t take this kind of news anymore.

  “Are you okay, Sam?”

  He shook his head and blinked. “Uh, fine. Sorry. It’s just that, I mean, when is this war ever going to be finished?”

  She started to say that bombing federal buildings wasn’t the way to force an ending to the war. But what was the way? The protests hadn’t done it, Congress hadn’t done it, Nixon certainly wasn’t doing it. Instead, she asked Sam whether he knew any of the vets on campus.

  Only one, he said. “Jerry. He’s a good guy, and he—” Sam stopped. “Most of the vets think we’re pampered morons. Which I guess we are. But this guy Jerry is okay, we’ve gotten to be friends, I guess.”

  The bombing news and talk of vets and the war seemed to have upset him, so she looked for safer conversational territory. She mentioned Copley, the reason for her trip to Boston today, and Copley’s time in London, how he’d turned into a major portrait painter in England, like Gainsborough or Reynolds, even though he’d come from the colonies.

  “An American,” Sam said.

  “Right, although there wasn’t such a thing yet. He left Boston in 1775, and he stayed in England during all the years of the Revolution.”

  “Ha. Smart guy.”

  “Yes, he was. Very canny.”

  “I liked your class,” Sam
said. “I didn’t know anything about that stuff, and now I do. I impressed my mom talking about Caravaggio and chiaroscuro.” He pulled a notebook out of his backpack. “Math,” he said, and bent to his work, still nodding along to the radio.

  In Boston, she parked on Huntington, and she pointed out the T stop and told him how to get to South Station, where he could catch the New York train. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Sure. I take trains all the time,” he said. “I’m from New York, remember?” He grinned; he’d straightened up and he looked more confident standing on this city sidewalk. A bit of lightness bubbled up inside her—it was good to feel useful—and she laughed and waved goodbye.

  Inside the museum, the American gallery was quiet. Only two other women here, who stood in front of Sargent’s picture of the Boit daughters, the girls in their corners staring out at the viewer, except for the one half-shadowed girl, who faced away. Sargent’s early portraits, especially of children, were appealingly creepy.

  She girded herself and strolled past the Copleys, taking them in as a group. Watson and the Shark, Sam Adams, Mercy Otis Warren. The early Boston portraits had more verve. Paul Revere, 1768: his gaze was direct, and here he sat in his shirtsleeves, engraving tools before him—Revere didn’t pretend to be a gentleman. Maybe she could draw comparisons between Copley and Sargent, how their years in London changed them, forced them into a stylistic corner.

  Midday, Virginia went downstairs to the basement cafeteria, ate a sandwich and a cookie, eavesdropped on a table of old ladies in cardigans. She thought about Copley and Sargent, Copley’s precision and Sargent’s loose brushwork, the way they handled fabrics and other surfaces.

  After lunch she wandered into an exhibit of American portraits, and found herself standing before two pendant portraits, a Philadelphia husband and wife. She considered the wife’s lace collar and cuffs, indicated with only dots and dashes of white over black, the blue and yellow brushwork making the nap of the black velvet dress gleam softly. “Sarah Miriam Peale, b. Philadelphia 1800; died Philadelphia, 1885.” One of the Peales, perhaps a daughter of Charles Willson Peale, who’d had all those children, all of them artists. Virginia studied the two portraits. You must take me seriously, for I am a man of means and ambition, the husband’s gaze said. Perhaps, but you whimper in your sleep, the wife’s calm eyes answered. As a grad student, Virginia had dismissed the Peale brothers as boring, as mere disciples of Copley who’d never achieved the aliveness of Copley’s portraits. But now she wondered about this Sarah Miriam Peale, how she’d gained these skills as a teenager and made these portraits at age twenty-one, so long ago. She wondered what else this Miss Peale had done, what other pictures she’d made. Maybe Virginia could focus on Miss Peale’s portrait work instead of Copley. But already she could hear Professor Kimball at Harvard: Come now, Virginia, the quality just isn’t there. I’m sorry to say it, for the Peales are such an interesting family. But you must spend your time on artists worth studying. Go back to the Ashcan School, you wrote good papers on them. Professor Kimball wouldn’t mention Miss Peale’s femaleness and how studying a female artist would put Virginia at a disadvantage; he wouldn’t need to.

 

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