Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady

by Florence King

  During exam week, Bres switched carrels so we could sit across the aisle from each other. One day a boy came in and spoke to the girl in front of me.

  “Let’s go eat.”

  “But I’m not finished yet.”

  “Aw, come on. All work and no play …”

  “But—”

  “Come on,” he insisted.

  “Oh, okay.”

  I wanted to holler “Sit down!” I had heard “All work and no play” all my life. Americans in general used it to hex intellectuals and well-behaved children, but specifically it was a corrective warning that men issued to women who were not malkins. It was closely related to cosmetic advertisements of the “Go Crazy!” genre, whose enduring popularity indicated a great career on Madison Avenue for Aunt Nana, and to the plaintive inquiry, “Whatcha lookin’ so sad about?” that male strangers hurled at pensive women in airports and hotel lobbies. Any woman who worked half an hour overtime, or stopped by the podium to continue a discussion with a professor, was likely to hear “All work and no play.” It was a declaration of war against female seriousness. Even Ralph had said it once. No matter how serious-minded a man is, the day will come when he decides he wants a good kid, and tag, you’re it. Boiled down to its essence, heterosexual womanhood was Evelyn Cunningham slapping her knees in a Charleston.

  Looking across at Bres as she wrote in Latin as rapidly as someone dashing off a letter, I felt that my spinster fantasy had come true. The musty library smells, the rattle of paper, the click of looseleaf rings were beloved talismans of school, of her, of us. I pictured us like this always, two women living a life of the mind, she a classicist like Edith Hamilton, and I … who?

  I still had no idea what I wanted to do. In common with nearly everyone, I “liked history,” but it occupied no particular place in my heart, it was simply the major I had fallen into after French fell in on me. Now, with a master’s in sight, I was falling into a career as a history teacher, but I still did not want to teach. God knows, I did not want to teach. My hatred of watery moles made teaching in the grades out of the question, but a little bird told me that I was unfit for college teaching as well.

  Like my love of uniforms, my love of reading and study stood alone, untainted by any personality traits that could conceivably make it pay off. Getting along in the groves of academe required a gift for manipulating people, a willingness to attend meetings, a tolerance for male hens, humility in the presence of important alumni like Billy Bo McAdoo the Popsicle King, a hungering and thirsting after petitions to sign, and an ability to keep one’s mouth shut during earnest liberal debates about why so many former colonies fell apart the moment the British left.

  If, by some miracle, I managed to skirt these pitfalls, all of which had my name written on them in big bold letters, there would still be the problem of handling students. As an only child, I was drawn exclusively to people older than myself; everyone younger symbolized the sibling rivals I might have had if Mama and Herb had gone back for seconds. I didn’t hate them the way I hated watery moles, but I had a hard time seeing them. When you came down to it, the only school I was psychologically capable of teaching in was the studentless academy of my spinster fantasy.

  What, then, could I do for a living that would enable Bres and me to remain together? I discussed it with her.

  “Apply for a grant. You can drag out a doctorate for three years, and if you get a graduate assistantship as well, you’ll be qualified to rent a Faculty Shack.”

  “But why should I go for a doctorate in history if I don’t want to teach?”

  “Because it makes you eligible for a grant.”

  Studying Aristotle had not diminished her gift for arguing in a circle whenever she got on her favorite subject. We went round it several times but I could not penetrate her blind spot. At twenty-eight she had perfected the arts of fellowship bumming and professional studenthood, and now she seemed content to let matters drift on: a grant here, a renewed assistantship there, a Faculty Shack, safety nets like the Darnay sisters, a gift car every few years, and enough left over for hooch. She claimed she intended to teach eventually, and in fact had taught English for a year at an American military base in Germany, but she had looked on this job simply as a means of keeping afloat between grants. The grants had become her raison d’être.

  She was doing what I had once resolved to do—stay in school as long as possible—but she had what it takes and I did not. I was a worrywart, and fellowship bumming requires the detached serenity of Buddha and the nervous system of a clam. Bres had them, plus something else that threw me for a loop when I heard about it. She was an expert poker player. Recently she had won three hundred dollars in the faculty floating game said to be in its fifth year. I hated to admit it even to myself, but she was a bluffer.

  She never lost her nerve and she had a way of making me feel déclassé whenever I gave way to worry. I gave way a lot because some of the things she did were incredible, like her income tax caper. Having neglected to file a return for the past two years, she got regular letters from the IRS, which she dropped unopened into the trash basket. The first time I saw her do it I went to pieces. “Open it!” But all I got was a shrug. “Why read it when I already know what it says?” Finis.

  I did not understand how a woman so detached and blasé could be so electrifying in bed. When we made love she turned into a taut, quivering wire of sensation, but the rest of the time she was like an evanescent lamp of antiquity flickering somewhere beyond my reach. She eluded all my efforts to analyze her and remained an enigma, but I was too blinded by love and need to consider the possibility that there might have been something wrong with her. My only thought was to arrange things so that we could be together always.

  Before I could arrange the distant future I had to arrange the immediate one. Bres had lined up another year at Ole Miss, so I had to do the same.

  “I could get a job on campus,” I suggested. “I type ninety words a minute.”

  “Why do that when you can get a grant? Besides, that’s a state job, and you’re a niggah-lovin’ Jew Communist, remember?” She paused trenchantly, letting it sink in, then added, “There’s nothing you can do except apply for a grant.”

  I felt checkmated. It was a familiar feeling; Herb always won our games but he never gloated over his victories. Bres, despite her serene expression, was gloating over hers. Somewhere in the back of my brain a tiny spark of anger flared, but it died for love. I had found the erudite spinster of my fantasy; to keep her I would even consent to coach field hockey.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll apply for a grant.”

  Immensely pleased, she went to her vast file of Ford, Guggenheim, and Rockefeller material and gave me the applications.

  The next day I took them up to my carrel and started filling them out. They were unbelievably officious. One of them asked for the titles of all the books ever read by the applicant, another asked for a detailed autobiography (Here it is, David!), and still another wanted to know what I planned to do for democracy. At least there would be one short answer.

  At some point I became aware of a queasy feeling in my stomach. Maybe it was the bilious green paper of the form I was working on, but a better guess would be psychosomatic rebellion. I belched, wondering if I was going to throw up. Soon my mental block took the form of a splitting headache and a powerful thirst. Needing water, aspirins, and a break, I went downstairs.

  Here we come to one of those but-for-a-nail situations that make people sit up all night arguing about Fate. Something was about to happen that would change my whole life. If the forms had not made me sick, I would not have gone downstairs. If I had not gone downstairs, I would not have run into Vanny, and if I had not run into Vanny, I would not have ended up in the reference room, because that was where she had left her Army surplus bag containing the aspirins I asked her for.

  I was chewing on them when I noticed a book called The Writer’s Market on one of the reference shelves. I had n
ever heard of it, and purely out of curiosity, I took it down to see what it was.

  Would it have happened anyway, on some other day, in some other library later on? Probably. But we can never be entirely sure, which is why we sit up all night arguing about Fate. I am sure of one thing: if I had never known Ann Hopkins, I would not have turned to the section on “True Confessions,” and if I had not done that, I would not have read the first guideline. It said:

  For the housewife with a high school education. First-person stories with sympathetic narrator, emotional impact, and strong reader identification. Stories may be about any subject of interest to the homebound woman: premarital and extramarital sexual temptation, sexual maladjustment in marriage, adultery, problem children, alcoholism, illness, accidents, religious crises, or the loss of a loved one. Upbeat ending essential. Some sadder-but-wiser okay. Narrator may sin but must feel guilty about it; no blithe spirits. No humor; our readers take life seriously. Length 3,000 to 5,000 words. Payment 5t per word on acceptance. Enclose SASE.

  I remembered snatches of the confessions stories Ann used to pass around study hall; but I needed to refresh my memory—or “study the market,” as I now knew it was called. I went to the campus newsstand and bought the issues they had and took them back up to my carrel. Pushing the grant applications aside, I opened the first magazine and began reading.

  Two hours later I was finished in both senses of the word. My sick headache was gone but otherwise I felt like a veteran of the Hundred Years War. Had I not already known how malkins talked, I would not have believed lines like: “Dear God, how can I face the children? A one-armed bandit stole my life before I could admit that I was addicted to gambling like a drug—yes, a drug!” Analyzing the stories, I discovered that many of them were close to being shaggy dog jokes. Whatever sin the narrator committed, it was seldom as bad as the titles and blurbs implied. For instance, “I Spent the Night With My Husband’s Best Friend” was about a misunderstanding over a delay caused by a snowstorm. “They Called Me Locker Room Sal” was about a terrific girl and her steady boyfriend who were accidentally locked in their high school overnight; while there they found God and decided to wait for the church wedding her mother had planned instead of going through with the elopement they had planned.

  What really mattered in all the stories was not what actually happened but what the heroine believed she had done, or what she seemed to have done in the eyes of other people. Once in a while a heroine went out and got plastered and fucked, but it was never worth it, never. Every plot was constructed on a solid foundation of free-floating female guilt.

  The thought struck me that while I had never enjoyed reading true confessions, my whole life had prepared me for writing them. I should have gone to a crackerjack private school like Miss Porter’s and then on to one of the Seven Sisters, but Fate had plunked me down in the shabby genteel class and sent me to public schools and a shitty college where I had met the kind of girls whose psychology I now needed to know. Thanks to Fate, I knew it.

  I returned to the dorm and got out my typewriter. I spent the first hour doodling while I fixed my mind on Ann Hopkins, missions of mercy with Granny and Jensy, “Help Me, Mr. Anthony,” and El washing her fiancé’s gummy socks. I sang “The Curse of an Aching Heart.” I thought of Daughters drinking tea and talking about who was in the hospital, I thought of Mrs. Bell talking about death, I reviewed all of Aunt Nana’s gladsome tidings about nervous breakdowns. I sang “In the Baggage Coach Ahead.” I thought about terrific girls who did it for him and of other terrific girls who would never do that. I sang “Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl.” I told myself that having … a … baby … is … the … most … wonderful … experience … on … earth. I imagined a tricycle under the wheels of a truck and a small shoe lying in the road. I sang “The Sunshine of Paradise Alley.” I devised a mantra, letting malkinnnnnnnn buzz through my brain until it gave me my title.

  I COMMITTED ADULTERY IN A DIABETIC COMA

  Three hours later I had thirty-five hundred words. The next day I cut all my classes and stayed in my room to write a second story. I was in the process of arranging a meeting between Evelyn Cunningham and God, when my eye fell on my dog-eared copy of Bérénice. The pages were swollen from countless readings, their margins overgrown with a blue forest of notes and remarks. How odd that I should have found so much to comment on, I thought; it was such a simple story when you boiled it down to its essentials.

  JILTED!

  Tim did what he had to do, so I don’t blame him. It was my fault for not being more understanding about his many responsibilities. The look on his face when he said, “You’re too selfish, Bernice,” still cuts through my heart, but with God’s help I’ll be able to pick up my life and go on.

  I wrote THE END and mailed both stories to the first magazine in the market list, saying nothing to Bres. She thought I had been cloistered with the grant forms, so I let her think it and told her I had mailed them. I hated the stealth, but having heard her pan Marjorie Morningstar, which I loved, I could easily imagine what she would say about pulp magazine stories. It was a bridge I would cross if and when I came to it. If the stories did not sell there would still be time to apply for a grant.

  Bres noticed that I was haunting the post office and teased me about it. It reminded her, she said, of the time she was stranded in Athens with fifteen dollars when the Arthur Bell Smallwood money arrived in the nick of time. Her good mood increased in direct proportion to my mounting anxiety over the mail. I tried to keep up an academic front but even my enthusiasm for my thesis had died. Finally I put it aside and wrote another story, “My Baby Died While I Was Partying,” which I sent to another magazine.

  Meanwhile, Tulaplee achieved her heart’s desire that spring when the student newspaper named her Campus Cutie. They ran a picture of her in a bathing suit, standing on tiptoe at Biloxi Beach with foaming waves caressing her slim ankles. It reminded me of something but I could not think what it was until I noticed the scattered oyster shells on the sand in the background.

  Tulaplee rising from the sea …

  Tulaplee turning Langston Bob Treadwell into a grease spot like Circe turning men into swine …

  Tulaplee sending boys on errands, the bring-me-three-of-something motif that runs through mythology and fairy tales …

  She was a pagan goddess; hurling thunderbolts, casting spells, enraged one moment, seductive the next, sadistic beyond belief but endlessly fascinating. In short, Venus.

  But that’s not all she was. Oh, no. Ordinary American women strive for one Henry Adams image or the other, but Southern belles go for the jackpot. Beneath Tulaplee’s photo was the personality profile she had given the reporter.

  Favorite book: The New Testament

  Favorite movie: The Song of Bernadette

  Favorite song: “Ave Maria”

  Favorite hobby: babysitting

  Ambition: motherhood

  I folded the paper and looked at the clock in the coffeeshop. The mail was up by now so I hurried out to the post office. When I opened the door, my eye went to my box like a rifle shot and my stomach throbbed with anticipation as I made out that beautiful sight: the thin white slant of an envelope. I tried to read the return address as I worked the combination but the letter was turned the wrong way.

  It was from the confession magazine. It contained a check for three hundred and fifty dollars and a note from the editor: “Adultery” and “Jilted” are great! Let us see more of your work.

  I walked out the door in a daze and sat down on the post office steps. I was a writer. It was as simple as that. I had been one all along. In high school, doing French translations, I had been a writer without even knowing it. But Herb had known it—“You have an ear for music gone awry.” Sound, melody, rhythm—I was a good dancer—and that odd certainty somewhere in my head when I just knew something was right or wrong without being able to explain how I knew. Herb was the same way. “How do you know where to put your fingers
?” I used to ask him. “I just know,” he would say.

  As soon as the first wave of ecstatic shock wore off, I thought of Bres. Now we could be together no matter what wandering scholarship came her way—I could do what I was going to do anywhere! I hurried off to find her and tell her the news, smiling as I imagined the lofty lecture on crass commercialism she would deliver. Well, she would deliver it over hooch, because I was going to treat us to a massive raid on Memphis. Besides, the Bernarr McFadden Fund sounded so much like one of her salt licks that she might eventually come to believe that I was a wandering scholar, too.

  As expected, she was in her carrel. I caught her eye and waved her into the corridor. Smiling, she rose and came out. I rushed into speech.

  “I didn’t tell you before because I wanted to surprise you, but I’ve been writing true confessions and I sold two! Look, here’s the check.”

  She looked at it an unusually long time but she did not speak. When at last she raised her eyes, I saw that they were hideously flat. Something was happening to her face.

  “Look,” I went on, “here’s a note from the editor. Read it.”

  “No.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “How could you write those things?” she said contemptuously.

  “It’s money, I need it.”

  “I told you to get a grant!”

  It echoed in the hall, grant-grant-grant, and then went on its fading, spiraling way, leaving me alone with the pinched white face from which it had come.