by Susan Isaacs
If it had been a Saturday, Buddy, a telephone company installer, would have yelled across the street, Shut up, you goddamn bitch! and Sally would have tried to hush him up and then, later, tiptoed over and asked, in a voice like liquid sugar, Can’t you do anything about your mother, Linda? I always wanted to ask her a question back: Can’t you do anything about your idiot hairdo, Sally? Thirty-one years old—like me—and still pinned back the sides of her hair with bows. Teeny orange bows that Sunday, like dead goldfish glued to the sides of her head.
You really got to know your neighbors in the summer, and it wasn’t only from sitting on the stoop. Summer meant wide-open windows, and I could hear them all, just like they could hear my mother. Mrs. Schwarz next door talked to her cat, Peaches, like they were best friends: What do you think, Peaches? Too low-cut? Think it’ll cause a riot? On the other side, Jerry Morrissey practiced the “Toreador Song” endlessly on his accordion, even after his mother begged him to stop. And the Herrmanns, who lived above their candy store on the corner, kept their radio tuned to a shortwave band that broadcast Hitler’s speeches. They were a fat couple who obviously ate too many of their own Baby Ruths. Their mouths were usually stuffed; they hardly said anything, except Danke when you paid for your paper, although now and then a little chocolate dribbled out between their lips. But certainly no political opinions. So I never knew if the Herrmanns sat on their couch listening to Hitler with nougaty smiles or expressions of horror on their faces.
“Sweetie,” my mother called, quieter this time, but more hopeful. It was eleven in the morning, the second Sunday in July, but already it was a scorcher. I got off the couch, lay down on the living room rug and spread out the Times. I always splurged for it on Sundays. The carpet sweeper, unused, stood straight, soldierlike, prepared, against the wall a few feet away. I ignored it—and the dusty furniture—as I studied maps and charts like a general about to wage his ultimate battle.
Over a month ago, in May, Germany had gone and done what I knew was inevitable: invaded France. The Nazi bastards had done it so easily, so quickly, that even I was stunned; the French military genius General Huntziger had probably been yawning in front of his mirror, pomading his hair or aligning his medals, when the German high command stuck the armistice papers under his nose to sign.
Soon after that, in June, Churchill proclaimed that the Battle of France was over. The Battle of Britain was about to begin. “Let us…so bear ourselves,” he intoned over millions of radios, “that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: ‘This was their finest hour.’” Boy, could that guy talk!
In her bedroom, my mother had had it with dreamy patience. She yelled, “Sweetie, get over here!”
I thought: A thousand years. You’ve got to hand it to the Europeans. I mean, Roosevelt maybe is thinking beyond November, beyond his third term, all the way to the 1944 election. But a thousand years? That’s for Reichs and Empires. In America, nobody really thinks much beyond next Tuesday.
The Times that morning was full of news about the Free French. General de Gaulle was already picking a fight with the British—although you wouldn’t think he was in a position to be picky. But de Gaulle probably had his own thousand-year Etat on his mind and so wasn’t about to worry about everyday niceties like politeness and gratitude to allies.
They all seemed so different from us. And that’s what I was dying to ask John about: Why do Europeans have this sense—not just of history but of the future too? Are we missing something? Or are we the smart ones? John had gone to school in Germany for three years and was brilliant. He’d know.
I realized then that if I started mooning over John I’d go off into a fog. I didn’t have time; I had to meet Gladys. I slid over a few inches and peered through the door, to the kitchen clock; it was five after eleven, and I was supposed to meet her at twelve. I was so late I couldn’t believe it!
Gladys and I were going to walk on the Brighton Beach boardwalk, so she wouldn’t actually have to descend to the beach. She hated sand, and the bathing-suited crowd, so near to naked, seemed to make her nervous. We’d sit on a bench. She’d say something like what she said the week before: Mr. B. must be coming out of his funk. He’s not working till midnight anymore. Her voice would fall to a whisper, as if there were spies all around us: Helen Rogers saw him waiting for the elevator Wednesday night and it wouldn’t come and he kept pushing the button. Very impatient—Gladys would do her eyebrow lift—like he had someplace to go, if you get my drift. Linda, has he gotten any calls from people of the female persuasion? No, I’d say. Then why, she’d demand, is he acting like he has someone? She sensed I was holding something back. Linda, swear to God, no crush? No, Gladys. Well, Marian says she sees a gleam in your eye whenever—No!
How could I explain to Gladys, who didn’t like to see bare arms and legs, what was making Mr. B crazy to get on that elevator? And so, just like the week before, she would finally give up, and we’d go for a hot dog, corn and a beer at Nathan’s in Coney Island.
I did a fast top-dusting and raced the carpet sweeper around the room, banging it into couch legs; it was a good thing Olga was already dead, because if she’d seen what a sloppy housekeeper I’d become, she’d have wanted to die.
In the bathroom, I turned on the faucets. The plumbing belched, then water gushed into the tub. I was in a mad rush, but too sticky and dusty from housework not to bathe. I stepped in; the water was so cold around my ankles, it took a second to work up the courage to lower my body into it.
And just as the icy water shocked me, the phone did too. I vaulted out of the tub, grabbed a towel and ran. The only calls we usually got were about my mother’s family—another dead Johnston—or wrong numbers. But Gladys had my number, and if she hadn’t been feeling well, maybe she’d dragged herself to a phone booth…. Not that I wished it on her, but I wasn’t overjoyed at the thought of a stroll along the boardwalk, knowing that at three forty-five I was doomed to eat a hot dog and corn even if I was positively drooling for an ice cream sundae, and then to watch Gladys salting her corn with tiny little sprinkles and to hear her saying, with each shake, When (shake) do you (shake) think (shake) Mr. Berringer (shake) will find himself (shake) some (shake) feminine (shake) consolation?
I answered, a little breathless, on the third ring. “Hello.”
“Linda?”
I nodded, then managed to come up with a word to say into the phone. “Yes.”
“John Berringer.”
“Oh. Hi. How are you?”
“Fine, thank you.” What did I expect: Read any good newspapers lately?
“Are you in the city?” I managed to ask.
“Yes.”
“I guess I just assumed you spent your weekends in the country or…” I’d pictured him as he looked in that picture locked in his desk drawer, in a hammock strung between two leafy old trees—but with no Nan curling around him.
“I’d like to see you,” he said at last.
I could tell by the deepness, the slowness of his voice that he was still in bed, lazy, sexy, probably stroking himself—and had just decided I could do it better. He was right.
“I’d like to see you too,” I said softly.
“Then why don’t you come over?”
“When?”
“Now.”
John didn’t say “You look so pretty” or “What a great idea, spending Sunday together.” What he did was grab my wrist and pull me into the apartment. “I’ve been waiting,” he said.
“Oh, my God!” I whispered. Riding in on the subway, I’d pictured him in his Sunday best: tan slacks, a shirt—maybe striped—opened two buttons’ worth, sleeves rolled up. Instead; he gave me his real Sunday best; he was naked. In the dim light of the foyer, his chest and shoulders gleamed like a Greek statue in the Brooklyn Museum.
He pivoted slowly, not showing off—more like a fashion model displaying a priceless dress. “You love looking at me, don’t you?” he demanded. This
was a new John, full of himself, his beauty. Away from the office, he could do what well-bred men do not: preen, strut, display. “Don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I know. Tell me about it.”
“You’re…you have a beautiful physique.”
“What do you like best?” I couldn’t help it; my eyes shifted downward. “I know that, Linda. What else?”
“All of you.”
He leaned against the wall, standing right in the narrow column of light thrown by the small ceiling fixture, and observed me impatiently. “Be specific,” he insisted. “Come on. My shoulders, my legs.” He did a complete—and astoundingly graceful—turn. “My ass. Pick something and talk. You’re always complaining we don’t talk. Now I want to.”
“Your legs are wonderful.”
“Tell me about them.” He stepped close, reached around me and started to unzip my dress. He did it not like a man undressing a woman but in a neutral way, like a Gimbel’s salesgirl. I put my arms around him, but he withdrew. “Later. Talk now.”
What does a girl say when a guy wants to hear about his legs? It wasn’t a topic I was naturally eloquent on. And worse, I sensed from his impatience that this game of Naked was one he’d played before, with someone else, someone with a bigger vocabulary—and a Smith College accent. “I love the muscles in your thighs,” I said at last.
“Keep going,” he said.
But I couldn’t. He pulled my dress over my head. I raised my arms so it wouldn’t tear, praying there were no sweat circles after the sweltering subway ride into Manhattan.
It was my favorite dress, a cotton, the softest pink, the pink I’d always thought of when I heard “peaches and cream.” Such a lovely, gentle color, but—as Gladys might say when she was in one of her utterly Margaret Dumont moods—a dress utterly inappropriate for the office. Its skirt was all right, full, but it fit much too tight on top. It had been on sale, and that had been my excuse for getting such an eye-popping dress. It had looked so sexy in the dressing room mirror, with its wide, deep V-neck and I even remembered standing there and daydreaming about John staring at my bust. Then, after I’d bought it, I’d been too embarrassed to wear it anyplace. It was a she’s-asking-for-it dress. But John hadn’t even noticed it; he just pulled it off and dropped it onto the floor.
“I like…I love…” I couldn’t be specific the way he wanted me to be specific.
“Don’t be self-conscious.” He drew my slip over my head, then started to work on my girdle. “You shouldn’t wear these. You’re so beautiful, so female. I hate seeing you constricted.” He let me step out of the girdle and pull off my stockings. “Keep talking,” he urged. “Say anything that comes to mind.”
“The hair on your legs is like red gold.”
“A simile!”
“Don’t talk down to me.”
He moved in close, unhooked my bra and threw it on top of my dress. “You have beautiful tits.”
“Stop.”
He put his hands under my breasts and pushed them up as high as they would go. “I’m sorry. Beautiful breasts.”
“Please.”
“Please what? Do? Don’t?”
“Don’t say things like that.”
“But it’s the truth. You have ravishing breasts. Impeccable breasts. The Platonic ideal of breasts.” He paused, smiled, then put his mouth to my ear; his words came out hot and damp. “Someday if you’re a very good girl, I’ll explain what ‘Platonic ideal’ means.”
I stepped away from him. “I know what it means.”
“You do? What?”
“Something to do with Plato.”
“What to do with Plato?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know.”
He pulled off my underpants. “Of course you don’t. That’s your charm. Come on, don’t give me that hurt look. You’re too sensitive. I’m not talking down to you.” He smiled. “I’m just grateful that when I’m with you I can relax, be myself. I don’t have to parade my intellect.” He took my hand and put it on him. “I just have to parade this.”
“But there’s more to life than—”
“I know,” he said, as he pulled me to him. “Oh, baby, I know.”
Later that afternoon he was talkative. Well, talkative for John. He went into the kitchen and brought back two glasses with ice, and an open can of orange juice. He put the can on the shiny black night table, then quickly lifted it off, as if someone had snapped, Don’t! It will leave a ring.
Then, defiantly, he banged the can back onto the night table. Juice splashed out and made two puddles on the black surface. He put down the glasses and poured the orange juice. “You’re right, you know. There’s more to life than…I haven’t been giving you the attention you deserve.”
“Five minutes on the strength of the RAF would take care of it.”
“You’re entitled to much more than five minutes—but you’re too distracting.”
He smiled again, but it was just the mechanical movement of his mouth; his attention was on the night table. He rested the freezing glass on my stomach. I managed to grab it before it spilled. “What are you thinking about?” I asked.
He stared at the glass of orange juice. At last, when the long silence became too heavy for him to bear, he murmured. “There’s a name for gin and orange juice. Everyone in Bucks County was drinking it last summer.” Just like that. He was giving me genuine chitchat. “It’s not a mimosa. That’s champagne and orange juice.” He looked away from the glass on my stomach and out the open window. “Nan loves mimosas.” I stared at him. Since the first night we were together in the taxicab, he had not mentioned her name.
“You still miss her?” But although it came out as a question, John knew I already knew the answer. He just shrugged and kept staring straight outside, as if watching Nan in a window in the building across the street.
He finally answered me. “Yes. Of course I still miss her.” His cheeks and lips moved slowly, almost stiffly, as if talking like this was so against his nature he had to force the words. “I’m not going to pretend—”
“I know.”
“I can’t give you what you want, Linda. I wish I could. You’re a fine, decent girl. You deserve—”
“I’m happy with what I have.” But I was sure there could be more. All he needed was time. I mean, here we were having a conversation that a couple of days before I would have thought was impossible. I asked him, “Have you spoken to her since she remarried?” John shook his head, but he didn’t seem as if he wanted to break off the discussion. In fact, he poured himself an orange juice and sat on the edge of the bed beside me, waiting for the interview to continue. “Were you surprised when she told you about”—I almost slipped and said Quentin—“the other man?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He pushed me toward the middle of the bed and stretched out on his side in the space where I had been lying. He propped his head up on his hand. After he drained about two thirds of the glass, he said, “Our separation…it was inevitable. If I’d been the least bit objective, I would have seen it. You see, you can’t look at Nan from a conventional perspective.” He paused. “I mean…” he began to explain.
And I thought: To hell with it. I’ve had it. “You don’t have to tell me what you mean. I can figure out the big words. Tell me.”
For a minute he looked as if he didn’t want to, but the subject was irresistible. “Nan is a law unto herself. It’s not just that she’s different from other women. It’s that she’s above them, beyond them.” He looked at me for the first time since Nan’s name had been dropped into the conversation; his eyes were so bright, so alive, you could almost see the picture of her he had in his mind. “Do you understand what I’m talking about?”
“You know, you never ask that question in the office. You assume I understand everything: words—ideas, even. Why would I suddenly turn into a moron when I leave Wall Street?” Exhaling slowly, he made a big deal of showing me how patient he was being. “I happen to kn
ow exactly what you’re talking about, and you want to know something? I think you’re dead wrong. She’s not above anyone.”
“Then I’m sorry, but you don’t understand.” He turned over, away from me, so I got to look at his back. It was a magnificent back.
“Okay,” I said to it. “She went to fancy schools, so in that way she’s certainly above and beyond anyone you’d find punching a cash register at Woolworth’s. But she’s not God, not even close. Okay, so she’s brilliant. Terrific. I’m a big fan of brilliance. And she’s pretty—”
The back stiffened. “Beautiful,” he muttered.
“Fine. But there have to be other brilliant, beautiful girls walking around. Who else goes to Smith College? Are they all above and beyond?”
“How do you know Nan went to Smith?”
“Does it take a Ph.D. to figure out why you’re sending a check to the Smith Alumnae Fund? I answer your mail. I balance your checkbook. I’m your jewel of a secretary. Remember?” He turned, reached over and poured more juice. “Is she really different? Was she born that way?” I honestly wanted to know. “Or is it just how she’s been brought up?”
“She’s different,” He turned onto his back. I couldn’t help glancing down. I knew it; he was ready for me (or someone) again, but he was too involved with Nan to realize it. “She has an extraordinary, analytical mind, almost a man’s mind—even though she’s the most feminine person I ever met.” Talking about her, John’s voice was almost reverent, as if he was in church. “But Nan’s restless, terribly restless. All that brilliance, all that beauty…She was too much for Smith. Smith couldn’t hold her. She had to have more.”
Oh, God! It sounded like an advertisement for a bad Mae West movie: She had to have more! But I just nodded.
“It was the same when we were married. There’s something larger than life about her, even though she looks so incredibly delicate.”