“Maybe you don’t understand marriage.”
Virginia let out a breath. “Maybe you’re right.” At this, Rebecca’s face crumpled and she started to cry. At last Virginia was able to put an arm around her daughter and walk her upstairs and hug her good-night at her bedroom door, telling Rebecca that she loved her more than anything and was so happy she was home and safe.
* * *
Awake as usual in the middle of the night, Virginia replayed Rebecca’s accusations. “Marriage is a great mystery,” she’d stood up to read at June’s wedding, twenty-some years ago. Ephesians. And “he who loves his wife loves himself...the two shall become one flesh.” Anyone who’d read the New Testament would know what came right before those: “Wives, submit to your husbands.” It made her laugh in the middle of the night; June had never once submitted to Jim, her husband, in any matter—their house, Jim’s wardrobe, the boys’ schooling, the azalea varieties in the yard.
She could only grasp at bits and pieces, things about Oliver that she’d loved and hated, maybe in equal measure. Like his wild enthusiasm for jazz, the tiny smoky clubs he’d found in Boston. Oliver had claimed the title of musician in their marriage as well as academic. Why had his jazz band rehearsals taken precedence? And always a meeting, an extra set of office hours, that he had to go to. She got up and ran a glass of water, to slow her stream of thoughts.
Oliver must have known he was a cliché, a European history prof who played jazz and smoked a pipe. Virginia would grouse about the pipe, its smoke, the mess he made with it, and Rebecca would squeeze Oliver in a hug. I like the pipe, Rebecca would say, it smells nice. And Oliver would shrug and smile at her over Rebecca’s head.
How she’d envied his work, even all those meetings, the way his students hailed him when the three of them were out on Main Street. She recalled a moment from last summer. After supper, a perfect late-summer meal of roast chicken, sliced tomatoes and corn, Oliver had said he was going to quit the jazz band. That he needed to focus on work.
Oh, she’d said, surprised. Was this because she’d agreed to fill in for Dan Mason while he was on sabbatical, teaching the one class in the fall and another in the spring? It wasn’t fair that he didn’t want her to work, and she said so.
“How did you—that’s not what I said.” Oliver sounded exasperated. “I said I was thinking about quitting the jazz band. How did you get to that other conclusion?” They were at the table, Rebecca upstairs with her math homework. She’d started eighth grade, and she was slipping away.
Virginia pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice softer.
“I guess I’m afraid I’m not up to it. I haven’t taught in such a long time, and I feel like a fraud. They’re all going to know—”
Everyone felt that way, he’d said, and he felt like a fraud all the time. “Well, not all the time, but some of the time. Anyway, you’ll be fine, you know those Italian and Dutch artists like the back of your hand, Virginia.”
“And Flemish,” she said. She wiped her nose with a paper towel.
“And Flemish. And if you have to bluff a little, they’ll never know.”
She looked at him, hoping for something, tricks, tips, something.
“I only mean, to expand, share your own theories, and so on. It’s all there.”
“Wait, we were talking about the jazz band,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—let me start again. You love the jazz band, don’t quit the one thing that gives you joy.”
“You give me joy, Rebecca gives me joy.”
The word joy echoed in her head, round and elastic, a strange, old-fashioned word. There wasn’t much joy between them. “You’ll make time for it, like you always do,” she said. “Everything will be fine, Oliver.”
She’d wasted days, months, years, refusing the joy between them, and now he was gone.
Chapter Seventeen
The brief New Hampshire spring had given over to a heat wave, and Commons was noisy and hot this morning, the industrial fans blowing bacon-scented air over the long tables. Sam’s friend Stephen was the only one at the Lambda Chi table, his sheet music and chemistry notes spread out around him. Sam wished there were some way to get Stephen’s take on things, whether it could be worth it to help Elodie out, to meet her and Hank on Thursday night. He’d tried to persuade himself that he’d find a way to help Elodie while not supporting anything violent. Still, a part of him wanted to break something. He was sick of feeling like a loser.
“Dougie’s looking for you,” Stephen said, gazing at him for a second before returning to his chemistry notes.
“Me? What does he want now?”
“His car got stolen.”
“Stolen? I doubt it. Probably a couple Lambda Chi guys took it and forgot where they parked it.” Sam saw himself slipping Dougie’s keys under the floor mat, and as the memories of that shining night with Elodie rushed back at him, something clicked into place, like when he used to solve the Jumble puzzle in Bubbe’s Daily News, the mess of letters resolving into a word. He drank half his coffee and ate three bites of Cheerios. “I gotta go.” He grabbed up his tray with a clatter, the cereal sloshing out of the bowl.
In Lambda Chi’s common room, Sam found Dougie pacing and muttering. “I heard about the car,” Sam said. “When did you last see it?”
“Yesterday morning,” Dougie said. “I think. But I’ve had all that stupid-ass IFC stuff and I had an econ test and an Eastern Religions paper, and I wasn’t thinking about the car, I mean, I shouldn’t have to watch it every second, you know?”
“Right, you shouldn’t.”
“Fuck, I hate this place,” Dougie said. “It could be anybody. The guys can be such assholes, nobody gives a shit about anything.”
Sam considered whether to contradict Dougie, who had more Clarendon Bobcats sweatshirts than anyone, who ran cross-country and played JV tennis, who served in perpetuity on the IFC. Dougie had been awarded a Silver C junior year for being the kind of rah-rah guy he was. “Did you check out the other lots?”
Dougie nodded.
“All of them?”
Dougie shrugged.
“I have class at ten, but we can go around to the lots and look if you want,” Sam said.
“My dad’s going to kill me.” Dougie followed Sam out the back door to the alley behind Frat Row, where the frats’ tiny backyards and dirt parking lots formed similar eyesores. Beer bottles, plastic cups and cigarette butts lay scattered in the patchy grass and dirt, with other assorted dropped items, bikes on their sides, an open notebook, a windbreaker, one high-top sneaker, an apple core. Along the back of one house all the first-floor shutters hung loose, probably because some guys had tried to pull them off the building for fun. On another a window screen showed a giant football-shaped hole. One car at KA had a bashed-in headlight, and Charlie Biddle’s MG was striated with scratches from a recent sideswipe. Dougie’s car wasn’t in any of the frat lots.
“I don’t want to graduate,” Dougie said, as they turned around to march back up Frat Row. “I don’t want to lose my deferment. I don’t even have a job.”
“You’ll find something, Dougie. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t call me Dougie.” Dougie straightened up, then deflated. “It’s Douglas. Also you still owe me, Waxman. I mean, it could have been you, for all I know.”
“Jesus, Dougie. Douglas, I mean.” He didn’t call Dougie an asshole even though Dougie was behaving like one. He had to get to class. “I’m sure the car will turn up. This is Westfield. Nothing ever happens here.” He didn’t share the other thought that had asserted itself; he pushed that thought back down.
Maybe Sam could ask Jerry, casually mention Dougie’s missing car. But Jerry wasn’t in math class. Leave it alone, the reasonable part of his brain chanted, go do your own thing. But he wanted to know what Elodie and H
ank and the others were planning, and he wanted to see Elodie. It hurt to admit that he wanted to see her.
* * *
Inside the Topos farmhouse, Sam found only Cyril, alone in the kitchen with his ledgers, like last time. Jerry was gone; he’d left for Queens late last night, Cyril said. “His dad had a heart attack. Don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“Ah,” Sam said. “I’m sorry.”
Cyril nodded. “Anything else?”
“Is—uh—Elodie around?”
Cyril shook his head slowly. No. No, Elodie was definitely not around, and Sam felt at once relieved and deflated. “She’s not coming back,” Cyril said. “They’re going to get us all thrown in jail. If people find out they’ve been based here, Topos will go away. All our work for nothing.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“New York, I imagine.” Cyril regarded Sam over his reading glasses, another appraising look. “Do you have something to do with this nonsense? If you do, you’d better get going.”
“No, no. No, I was just looking for Jerry.”
Cyril’s wife, Martha, came through the kitchen door carrying a clutch of eggs in a basket. “Something’s eating the strawberry plants, Cyril. Chipmunks or voles.” She nodded a hello to Sam. “It’s always something.”
Why had Cyril and Martha gotten involved with these younger people, Sam wondered. Martha stood at the counter, settling each egg carefully into a hanging basket. A vein stood out on her forehead; she was upset.
“This is like your family, isn’t it,” Sam said, before realizing he’d spoken his private thought aloud.
“What we have here is something good,” Cyril said. “We made something good.”
“I know,” Sam said. “Thanks.”
* * *
In Clara’s hair salon, upstairs on Main Street, Virginia poured herself a coffee. The salon always smelled a little exotic; Clara ordered her coffee from Vienna, where she’d grown up, and she sprinkled cinnamon in the coffee grounds.
“Time for something new?” Clara led Virginia to the sink, where she washed Virginia’s hair, more gently than usual, then massaged Virginia’s temples with the pads of her fingers. She wrapped Virginia’s head in a towel, put a hand to her back to help her sit up.
From the styling chair Virginia took in her own reflection as Clara combed out her hair. It spilled over her shoulders onto the blue plastic cape. “Um, maybe just a trim.”
Clara stopped combing, and they looked together at her reflection. “A little something that frames your face? And maybe a little frosting? The longer hair can be a bit heavy. Wait just a moment.” She turned to pull a magazine from a stack: Mod Hair, a magazine devoted to nothing but hairstyles. “There, you see? Something like that.” The model wore a short, pixie-ish style, rather like Jeannette’s. Jeannette was too good-natured to be irritated at Virginia copying her hairstyle.
“Sure.” Why not.
“It’s only hair,” Clara said. “It will grow. We can count on that.”
* * *
Virginia emerged onto Main Street smelling of the frosting chemicals. She felt lighter. New. At the first window she passed, she tried to catch a quick glimpse of her reflection, to see what someone else might see. Her hair was layered and shaggy now, and half-blond, and with the frosty lipstick that Clara had given her, she looked like a different person. It was too much; Rebecca would be offended. Virginia kept doing the wrong things.
She spotted Louise half a block away, and she waved as Louise approached, but Louise didn’t see her. “Louise!” she called.
Louise took in that someone had called her name, staring at Virginia. “Oh! Virginia? Wow, I didn’t recognize you for a second there.”
She patted her new short hair. “What do you think?”
“It’s—uh—it’s—”
“You think it looks bad.”
“No, not at all,” Louise said “It’s nice, but you look a little like a stewardess, or something.”
“A stewardess!” She’d gone too far.
“Don’t take it the wrong way, don’t listen to me,” Louise said. “It looks nice. I don’t know anything about fashion. You want to get some lunch? I’m done for the day.”
“Sure.” The Tavern’s basement door was directly across the street. “The Tavern?”
Louise shuddered. “God, no. Never going there again.”
Settled in a booth at Mo’s a few minutes later, they both ordered the diet hamburger special and ice teas.
“So what have you heard?” Virginia asked.
Louise shook her head. “Still waiting for the hearing. I’ve got an interview at Wellesley next week. They have a couple of openings in history they haven’t filled yet, and it’s one place where it’s not a crime to be a woman.” She held her hands out, palms up: What can you do?
“If you could hold on a little longer, things are changing, I’ve heard that there’ve been extra trustee and committee meetings, and Weissman’s pushing a new—”
“I’ve heard that too, but that’s not going to change how my situation goes. If there’s a plausible way for them take away my tenure, they will,” Louise said. “I’ve always known that my tenure was different from all the others’. I don’t belong here anyway.”
Virginia laughed with recognition, then saw that Louise was offended. “No, no, that’s it. That’s how I’ve felt since we moved to New Hampshire. That I don’t belong here. It’s just funny to hear you say that.”
“Hysterical.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not making light of your situation.”
Louise nodded. “Let me tell you about not belonging. My father said I’d never get a husband because I was ugly and I read too much. He said I thought I was too good for our family. He died before I finished my doctorate, but even my mom didn’t come to the ceremony. I was the only one there without family. The only woman, and the only one there alone. I stood out then, just like I always do.” Louise slumped to the side, letting her head rest against the wall.
“Oh,” Virginia said. “I’m sorry. My father wasn’t that far off from yours, I think.” The waitress set their plates on the table. “You have to keep going,” she said. “We all do. And I owe you so much...” She’d leaned on Louise, she’d barely expressed any thanks, and she’d made things worse for her. She had to find a way to help.
Louise was cutting into her burger, and she shook her head, eyes on her plate. “Let’s talk about something else,” she said. “Do you think I should get a new hairstyle too?”
* * *
The next morning, Virginia called Mimi Higgins, President Weissman’s secretary. She didn’t know how she’d explain wanting to meet with him, but Mimi only asked how much time Virginia would need. If she could come in at the tail end of the day, Mimi would squeeze her in.
She sat to write out her concerns and questions, tore the paper up. She wouldn’t need to wait for Rebecca to come home from school, since Rebecca had to stay late for the ninth-grade orientation meeting, picking classes and clubs for next fall.
In the afternoon, she changed into a dress and checked her appearance, fluffing her short hair and running her new frosty lipstick over her lips. She did look like a stewardess—Louise was right. Louise’s problem had never been that she talked too much and pushed ahead of others, as Oliver used to say. It was that she told the truth. Louise had tried to include Virginia, asked her to help out with something political, right after Oliver died, and Virginia had said no, and probably in a rude and hurtful way. The Gang of Four all welcomed her, and all she’d done was question that welcome, and then lure Louise into Oliver’s old frat.
In the president’s outer office Mimi Higgins gestured at a row of chairs. “He’s on the phone, but he shouldn’t be too long. I blocked off fifteen minutes for you. Will that be enough?”
“Yes, thanks, Mimi.” Outside
the office’s windows, the trees lining the college green were almost fully leafed out. Spring in New Hampshire came on late, and every year the transition from buds and pale baby leaves to deep summery green took her by surprise.
“You can go in now.” Mimi gave Virginia a quick smile, then bent to her typing.
“Thanks.” She stood up and smoothed her skirt, as if she were heading in to a job interview.
President Weissman stood inside his door, and he took both her hands, kissing her on the cheek as though they were at a cocktail party. He leaned back and smiled, eyes crinkling at the edges. “You’re looking wonderfully well, my dear,” he said. “Very nice.”
Virginia smiled back, wondering about the compliment as she followed him to his sitting area. Was he flirting? He was the president of a college, too remote for anything like flirting. On the chair across from him, she crossed her legs at the ankle rather than the knee.
“And how can I help?” he asked.
“Well, the thing is, I learned—that is, I wanted to ask—” She stopped. She began again more firmly. “I’m here because of Louise. Louise Walsh.”
“Ah.” His expression shifted at the mention of Louise’s name, a closing off—he’d had enough of this tired subject. “Professor Walsh. Yes.” He waited, tapping the ball of his foot.
“They’re making a big mistake,” she said. “Something needs to be done.”
“A mistake,” he repeated.
“Yes.” Her mouth was dry, she needed a glass of water, but she knew what to say, and the words came tumbling out. “Did anyone on the committee, anyone at all, check to find out more about the women’s meeting? Did any committee member take the time to talk to anyone who’d attended the meeting? Or did they see the headline in the Clarendon paper and that was all they needed, one little push?”
He lit his pipe, looking at the glowing tobacco rather than at her. “As you may know, I’m not on the discipline committee. But it must be said that she hasn’t always made things easy for others. She isn’t much of a team player.”
The Wrong Kind of Woman Page 22