The children weren’t much interested. They had grandmothers of their own, and even Holy Cross had computers in the kindergarten. She never spoke about this to Mary Arthur, never said she wasn’t quite as welcome as she’d hoped. And once, when the blank faces greeted her as a stranger, even the teacher couldn’t make her out, she’d wheeled her awkward cart all the way out to Father’s garage and wept beside the Karmann Ghia where no one would think to look for her. She was not a quitter. But now she wondered why that mattered, that quality. She’d already held a high head, but maybe life shifted. Maybe the things that sustained you just wore out and new things, new people, needed other qualities, and yours just went to sleep. Sometimes a life just finished, unexpectedly, and it was the ones still wandering around in foolish stiff bodies after they were already done who were the sorry ones. She cried and cried and no one came to comfort her because who could.
Ann McCleary told her children when they were small, when things were hard, if they were sick, or especially for the older ones, for Terry, when their father died and they were too little to lose him, she told them that one day they would realize they were better, and that they’d been better for a while. They hadn’t noticed the shift, it came so quietly, and that was God’s grace, she believed it, and she told them it was true. Only Terry gave her a hard time. He dove off the high dive two summers after his father’s death, and by a wicked chance made the inward arc just to the spot where his chin cracked the tile edge. Blood bloomed out into the deep end and she caught him first, unconscious, the concussion a sure thing, and forty stitches in two layers, and black eyes, both, and bruises on the shoulders, a mess, a terrible mess, and she was forced to revise her theory, her theology. Sometimes the pain needs to reverberate for a long time, for longer than even you or anyone else might think necessary or fair. Sometimes that’s how it goes, and God may or may not be a part of that, probably is, she told her boy. But it’s anyone’s guess, she said, surprising herself in the admittance. And later she remembered a smile in him, a long time later, too long she thought, when the others had bounced back, to her credit everyone said, they admired her, everyone did, to her credit her children thrived. And one day, Terry smiled a smile she recognized in her deepest self. He pulled a bit of onion grass out by the root; she just happened to spot him through her kitchen window. He was almost nine, now, and not so tall, with beautiful hands, like his father’s, long, someone made for a piano. Up came the grass, roots and blades and he examined it all closely, the whole package clutched in his hand and he smiled at the shape and the sharp stink of the roots. He put his face close, then wrenched back and laughed, his face so happy, and then happy to be happy, the double-happiness smile she called it, so hard won, and it never left him after that, it became the way he smiled, the way he lit every room he ever walked into.
There were Tuesdays and more Tuesdays and they got used to her, and didn’t stare when she pushed her squeaky cart into the classroom and took her time lowering herself into the armchair Sister Mary Arthur had placed in each classroom to accommodate her floating library. More like a falling library, they said, our reader falls asleep! And so she did every once in a while on those warm spring mornings. When the five-year-olds lay out their mats and curled on the floor like kittens, she dozed, too, the sound of her own voice putting her to sleep, sometimes first of all. She knew they complained about her. What part of a progressive curriculum did she serve? But Sister Mary Arthur was adamant, and Mrs. Guski whispered it was one of her conceptions. It’s a charity case, said Mrs. Kelly, who taught the brighter first grade. It’s fortunate I didn’t quite hear that, Mrs. Kelly. Sister Mary Arthur’s door was open, and even Mrs. Guski froze. But nothing more was said about it after that. And Ann McCleary became part of the landscape, along with the candy sales and the beanies worn to Mass.
There was a little boy, of course, after a year or two, in the kindergarten, who didn’t entirely dislike a story read out loud. His parents were nostalgic that way, and she let him chew on the covers of the books she wasn’t reading. Still teething are we? A big boy like you? And he smiled at her, and then a sly film of a second smile came, too, he had to pull the thick cardboard cover away to accommodate his own full delight. Look at you, she laughed, a double happiness. He dropped the book and tumbled off. His attention snapped away in an instant. But a few weeks later it happened again, though now she knew to watch and wait was death. She’d only catch it by the very quietest chance, she told Kathleen. And only now and then.
Acknowledgments
I wish to acknowledge the beautiful work of: Melanie Jackson, Elisabeth Schmitz, Jessica Monahan, Brigid Hughes, Fiona Maazel, Elizabeth Gaffney, Anne McPeak, Stanley Lindberg, Don Lee, David Daniel, Madison Smartt Bell, Beth Bosworth, Meredith Broussard, Rick Moody, Jennifer Egan, Ruth Danon, always Gary Giddins; everyone in Liam Rector’s extraordinary community at Bennington, especially Susan Cheever, Amy Hempel, Sheila Kohler, Charles Bock, Bob Shacochis, Mohammed Naseehu Ali, Priscilla Hodgkins, David Gates, and every dance with Jason Shinder; in the Hudson Valley, Louis Asekoff, Martin Epstein, Romulus Linney, Carole Maso, and Mary Gaitskill. Thanks to the Corporation of Yaddo and to the MacDowell Colony. Thanks to my family, always the McCarthys, Shaheens, and Hetzlers. I hold my mother and father and brother close in memory with love. I thank Duke Beeson, heart and soul, for his abiding, astonishing generosity.
A GROVE PRESS READING GROUP GUIDE
DOUBLE HAPPINESS
MARY-BETH HUGHES
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
We hope that these discussion questions
will enhance your reading group’s exploration
of Mary-Beth Hughes’s Double Happiness. They are
meant to stimulate discussion, offer new viewpoints,
and enrich your enjoyment of the book.
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QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. These stories have a surface lucidity that goes down briskly. But often time bombs have been set that detonate as one reads on. Rereading reveals even more buried explosives. Which stories operated this way for you? Go back and trace some of the clues that may have eluded you at first.
2. What is meant by the title “Pelican Song”? How close to the mark was old Sven growling over the speakerphone at Christmas (p. 10)? How could the title also relate, at least ironically to the legend of pelican mothers’ pecking out their own blood to feed their starving chicks? Could this have been the confused self-image of the narrator’s mother? Why? At the end we read “Sometimes I think my mother is still looking for me” (p. 13). Is the daughter still stuck in an unreal past, looking for a mother who wasn’t there for her except for money?
3. In “Pelican Song” appears what will be a recurring concern for women in these stories: body image. “My biggest obstacle to respect, however, had to do with men. I had an odd figure for a modern dancer. Rubenesque, my composer boyfriend called my body when pressed for compliments ... I believed a body could be different and still be okay. But when the composer mentioned Botero, I lost confidence” (p. 2). It’s a funny picture for us, those balloon-like sculptures marching up Park Avenue, but what can it mean for a dancer? How does her weight reflect or cause other problems in her life? “My mother ... took figures very seriously. I often felt this was another feature of her generation like the typing and the trays” (p. 2). What other stories in the book come to mind here? In “Aces” Raymond attacks Megan soon after the wedding, when she has been less watchful than before. “You look like a fat little boy” ... “She’d been on a diet ever since” (p. 98). How else does size figure in the story? Helena? Megan’s “joyful” pregnancy a decade later?
4. In “Horse” Hughes sets the mood with a cold, drab, gray seaside honeymoon setting and an insensitive, self-absorbed husband
. How does the bride Isabel struggle to connect? What is symbolized by the beautiful white horse in captivity? How does Isabel break Tom’s shell of cold indifference?
5. Eden in “Blue Grass” says, “I hate this about myself, crying all the time, and I know without a mirror that mascara has made two black half-moons under my eyes, which look ghoulish ... When I stand up from the white iron deck chair, the whole back of my dress is wet with dew. I pull the fabric away from my legs ... (p. 34). Hughes is unafraid to depict awkward, self-conscious women who may not be beautiful but are painfully real. How has the beautiful sister Cara affected Eden? Talk about her “pilgrimage” to Saks Fifth Avenue seeking “some device or potion, some answer” from Rita, the “conjurer” saleswoman (p. 21). Talk about Hal who keeps saying unconvincingly “You look great” to Eden but admits “Men are different. It’s more a visual thing” (p. 26). What other women in the stories try to change themselves to accommodate a man or standard of beauty like the “sliver-hipped blond” Eden imagines on the Vineyard (p. 27)?
6. “Mixed marriage. That’s the trouble. Nothing could be plainer” (p. 39), say the Benjamis in “Roundup.” What does the title refer to? How does it date the story? What does the term imply about our democratic process? On the other side of the family, how does Lucy Twitchell’s Mayflower family react to her marriage? (See p. 40). Would you call Lucy who “likes to be excessive” (p.37) a Yankee American princess? Examples? Why does she behave this way? What would it be like to be married to Philip? Is he ever unambiguously accepting of anyone? His wife (“Miss Two Left Hands” p. 46), his daughter, even his dog Gunner? How does the issue of suing snake through the story? Beyond mixed marriage, what are the fears of contagion and infection?
7. Talk about the vulnerable but plucky child trying to make sense of the world and her father in the story “Rome.” “On the street it was snowing harder now. The daylight was gray and dim but the Plaza lights were bright. The doorman’s booth glittered like a fortune-teller’s at a carnival. She knew her father was waiting for her, but Olivia felt a strong undertow of hesitation” (p. 60). How does this passage capture both the glitter and the menace of the story? Look at these details on page 55: “On Saturday?” “She reached for the soup pot, forgetting the mitt.” “Her mother’s kiss felt dry and too light, like a dead bug blown across her cheek.” “Her mother ... looked to Olivia like a big wishbone strained to the limit.” All these moments happen as the distracted parents send a third-grader on the train into the city alone. “She’d never been allowed to go anywhere in New York alone before. Her father must be making a mistake he would realize in a moment” (p. 60). What are the successive sinking insights Olivia gleans about her father? Is the town chauffeur, Nat, the only person who is truly careful about Olivia? He is protective enough to spare her full knowledge about her father who comes spinning out of his Plaza tryst.
8. In “Israel” how are the ideas of death, rebirth, neglect, abuse and forgiveness knit together? “Dr. Ovita was talking about physical therapy, not magic. There was nothing magical about Dr. Ovita, which is why I liked him. He never disappeared; he never changed shape” (p. 69). What are the consequences of the father’s hovering between two worlds in the nine months since he deserted the family? How is the mother an enabler? (see pp. 68-69). What are the results of the daughter’s moving to Israel? Do you see a parallel with the end of “Pelican Song”? How has abuse been a poison in both stories?
9. “The Widow of Combarelles,” the longest story, is a tantalizing whorl that coils and spirals with events, memories, and innuendoes. What do you make of Patty? A silver stiletto in a garden glove, how does she reveal herself to the reader through her own deliciously self-deluding strategies? Her story is part Austen’s Emma, part Charles Addams, with some Blanche of A Streetcar Named Desire and Amanda of The Glass Menagerie. Talk about her artfulness. Are characters left wounded in her wake? “She told him it was funny, his father had made his first million when he was even younger than Brad was now. Amazing, right?” (p. 80). What are the exceptions? Who stands up to her and how? Show how the tale is told through Patty who persists in thinking she is a loyal friend (“Aid and comfort, aid and comfort” p. 77), graceful, generous if unappreciated hostess, and irresistible, well-preserved belle. Rarely, Patty slips her manners: “Where the hell were her missing slippers anyway?” (p .81) and “Lifeless rot, both of them” (p. 87). Rot and decay she usually ignores or dismisses. Give examples. How does the book title Double Happiness give a clue to Patty’s mentality? Behind the merry widow tale lies the original “Widow of Combarelles” and echoes of the war in France. How do the double stories intersect? How does Guy serve as a moral compass even as Patty sets her sights? “But for now she knew to keep still. Let him sip and think as if she were nothing but a vapor, or maybe she would be a flame. His choice” (p .94).
10. Adultery may split marriages, be ignored or forestalled in four of the stories placed in the middle of Double Happiness. In “Aces” is a theatrical nexus of old girlfriend, husband, and wife meeting by chance in a café in Rome. How does husband Ray respond? To girlfriend Helena, “You remember Megan, of course. And Megan stood, too, belly pushed forward. She offered her hand and the victor’s smile he’d seen before.” Does Raymond enjoy the frisson of the moment, even as he recalls he’d been “a bit of a bastard” (p. 98)? How? To whom? He’s a man who wants things calm, his way, who looks appreciatively at a veiled woman in a newsreel because she keeps so much inside. Is he a case study in infidelity? “All the tears, all the drama. Not some fateful twine of love and work, as Helena had claimed. Just hormones, Megan’s favorite word” (p. 99). What role does Kamal play in the story? What is his fate? Trace the pattern of Raymond’s treachery in “Aces.” What does that title mean? (see p. 111). Is Raymond, the future father, really free of Helena?
11. In Double Happiness we meet a number of parents who fail to love their children adequately. (Which stories?) However, in “May Day,” how would you describe the aging parents waiting at the Rhinecliff train station for Melody, their long-grown daughter? What is the occasion? What is the weather on the Hudson? Why is the husband forlorn? May flowers are delinquent. “Wisteria hung with dessicated fronds. Wouldn’t you know it, said his wife” (p. 114). John Updike wrote, “Old age, he was discovering, arrived in increments of uncertainty” (a story called “Free”). Can this be the mother gripping the railing, stepping carefully as she descends to the platform? Melody, once off the train, responds to her mother with “Hey, Daphne, hi ... and quick as a leaf brush, the dry tired peck” of a kiss. The mother wonders at how silly it is that this “this teetering frowning wretch” who won’t even call her Mother can make her so happy (p. 115). The father in turn, excited, says “Boat’s in the water. You think I’d miss it asked the girl, who looked committed to missing everything” (p. 115). What creates the cruel insouciance of grown children, like this “child” of thirty-five with the misnomer of Melody who comes home after years to feel “quick and light and lovely” while her father struggles up a long staircase with her suitcase?
12. Does the title “Guidance” seem to relate to Fawn’s life from Denmark to Tokyo to Djakarta to Kuala Lumpur? What has been the pattern of abuse? Why does Betsy say “Just call him Mommy” about the old American? (p. 123). What happens to jostle Fawn’s absorbtion with her legs, naked swims, and pregnancy? “Up until my birthday at the Hilton I never really took guns seriously” (p. 121). How are Americans depicted? Her husband? Officials in Kuala Lumpur (pp. 133-134)? What is the role of Mustache? How much do we trust the instincts of this teenage narrator with her “fluid, unpredictable style of friendship” (p. 135)? “Betsy always said I had a fatality imagination. Not that I foresaw the worst, the opposite: I saw love and opportunity in every future, and that was fatal” (p. 130). What can become of Fawn and her twins?
13. What is the irony of the title “Double Happiness” for the last story? There are, after all, two devastating deaths in Ann McCleary’s life in
a New Jersey still in the lost shadow of the fallen Towers. Is it surprising that Ann returns to the school that has helped her raise five children when she looks for a job? What is the most vivid memory for her in the waiting room? What has propelled her here at this time? What are the series of afflictions that culminate in the Kitrees’ pond? What is symbolized by the young Terry’s pulling up onion grass? (p. 147). How is the moment inevitably connected with the little boy at the end “who didn’t entirely dislike a story read out loud” (p. 148). Is Ann McCleary both hopeful and realistic in choosing life over her “proclivity to slip away” (p. 144)? Why is this story not only the title story of the book but chosen to be at the end? Is it a kind of summing up? A valedictory?
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