by Susan Isaacs
Mrs. Avenel at last spoke to me. “My dear, Henry and I are so very, very happy for you.”
All those years, Gladys had actually been managing to mimic Mrs. Avenel pretty well. “My dee-ahr.” From the imitation, I’d always imagined an overpowering woman with a bust so commanding it could easily lead a battleship across the Atlantic. But Mrs. Avenel was tiny, barely five feet tall, and so thin the bones on her chest stuck out, like a chicken’s. She was wearing a floor-length bottle-green dress with a deep V neck and a sash, which looked more like an overdone bathrobe than a hostess gown.
She took my arm and led me across a hallway with a marble checkerboard floor, toward the living room. “Now tell me, my dear, how long have the two of you been married?”
“Five days.”
“Ah! Five days! You must call me Florence.” She smiled up at me. I smiled back; it felt unnaturally broad—the smile you make standing in front of a bathroom mirror looking for food stuck between your back teeth.
But after a second, I realized she was no longer appraising me. Her eyes finally fixed on John, and now that she’d done what was proper with me, she could concentrate. Concentrate was putting it mildly. Little Flo was beaming at my husband with the intensity of a radio signal on top of the Empire State Building. Her gaze broadcast a powerful message: Wow! Wow! Wow!
And he, of course, was smiling back. Hey, I could have told her, that’s the smile he gives to hatcheck girls and the building superintendent’s wife. And to secretaries. Obviously to every female. That smile is his routine you-are-bewitching-and-you’ve-captivated-me-completely smile. It’s pure reflex, like a jerking knee, and he does it to reduce you—and all of us—to jelly, so just in case he wants something from you, you’re ready, available, thirsting to do whatever it is he wants. Come on, Florence, you’re fifty years old, not very bright, eagle-beaked and chicken-breasted. Do you think he wants you?
She did. And so did they all. Florence led us into her living room, with its high ceiling, tall windows and long sofas, and every woman in the room fell into silence and gaped at my husband. Then John smiled, a general nice-to-see-you smile, but the women, obviously remembering previous, more personal smiles, like the one bestowed upon lucky Florence, all broke into joyous grins of gladness.
“Everyone!” Florence Avenel trilled. “This is Linda.”
It was only then that the women’s eyes turned to me. And their husbands’ too. Seven or eight partners of Blair, VanderGraff and Wadley opened up the tight knot they’d been standing in by the fireplace, glanced over and smiled at me. Not the way John smiled, of course, but courteously enough. A couple of them waved. After all, I’d become a wife. Their faces were a blur, but then Mr. Wilson lifted his cocktail glass in a toast. “To the newlyweds!” he said, and suddenly glasses were raised and ten or fifteen cultivated voices were repeating: “Nyoo-lyweds!”
And then there was silence as all those well-bred people, the toasting out of the way, just stared. For the men, seeing me in black faille, with makeup on and hair loose, was discomforting. It upset the normal balance of things, as if their barber had all of a sudden showed up at a partners’ meeting in a three-piece suit and plunked himself down at the conference table and said, Hiya, guys.
The women gazed in cool assessment…well, maybe not so cool. A couple of fast looks were flashed between two older women in print dresses, and a stunner of about forty, with ivory skin, gray-blond hair pulled tight into a chic chignon, and brilliant red lipstick, lowered her glance from my suit (which I guess was okay) to my shoes (which, from her quickly sucked-in cheeks, obviously weren’t).
“Well,” boomed Mr. Avenel as he came over. He pushed a martini into my hand with so much heartiness I nearly spilled it. “How’s the new bride?”
“Fine,” I said, and then everybody, relieved, began to talk again, lots of tight, buzzing conversations.
“Well, let me introduce you to the ladies.” He grabbed my free hand and pulled me across what I think was a Chinese rug—anyway, it was blue, with flowers—to the women. “Claudia Boland, Mimi O’Connell, Sarah Weedcock, Lorraine Wilson…” He spoke so fast I had no way of knowing who was who, although I guessed Lorraine Wilson was the freckled one with a big jaw, because she was such a good match for Mr. Wilson, who also had freckles and resembled a ventriloquist’s dummy. “Mary Shawcross, who’s here with Ed Leland…” I hadn’t seen him. I made myself not turn around to the pack of partners by the fireplace. Mary Shawcross smiled just enough to show teeth like perfect tiny white tiles. She was the elegant one, with the pale, pulled-back hair and red lipstick. More than elegant. Almost beautiful, with high cheekbones and sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes.
I took a gulp of the martini. “Carrie Post,” Henry Avenel continued, and I came face-to-face with the woman whose husband was spending all his evenings with Wilma Gerhardt and paid for Wilma’s manicures—to say nothing of her fox jacket and an endless supply of silk stockings. The pudgy, cheated-on Mrs. Post summoned up her good manners and managed a “Glad to meet you.” It took some summoning; this quiet, double-chinned woman had to work at being cordial because she knew—I just knew she knew—and the sight of a former secretary with a lawyer’s wedding band on was, to say the least, painful.
“Oh,” Mr. Avenel boomed on, “let me not forget our Ginger Norris!” I turned, expecting a pug-nosed tennis player. Instead, I saw a woman in her mid-fifties, who was a real pill; while all the others had managed a decent “So pleased,” or even a plain “Hello,” Ginger just inclined her head, as if she was doing a Queen Mary imitation.
And then, right after the introductions, things went back to normal. Mimi spoke to Sarah, Lorraine spoke to Mary, and everyone spoke to everyone—except to me. All of a sudden, I was alone with my martini. And I realized then that all that momentary graciousness had been exactly that: a warmth that lasted about sixty seconds.
So I just stood there, the only one not being talked to, and the only one being watched. I sensed it. Quick, sideways glances. And if I’d wandered over to inspect the Avenels’ framed flower pictures or toddled off to the bathroom, they would have known how I’d felt: frightened and alone—heart pounding—in enemy territory.
I took another long sip of my martini. I hated gin, and vermouth and an olive didn’t help the situation. I glanced across the room and watched the men murmuring to each other. They stood around the fireplace, which was filled with a giant urn of yellow chrysanthemums. A deep, manly hum arose from them, an uninterrupted hum, as if they were having an endlessly fascinating conversation. John was sandwiched between Mr. Norris and Mr. O’Connell, and all three were nodding in absolute agreement. I took a step to the right and saw they were nodding at who I thought they’d be nodding at: Edward Leland. Mr. Leland looked content, content with whatever he was saying, content with the way his high-powered partners hung on to his every syllable, and probably most content that after dinner was over he’d be taking Mary Shawcross, her chignon, her exquisite cheekbones and her bright red lips home.
There was one good thing about the dinner itself—the hot rolls.
There was more than one bad thing. First, watching the crazily elaborate ceremony of carving the roast beef. A maid carried the roast into the dining room and slowed down as she passed Mrs. Avenel, who gazed at it with so much pride you’d have thought it was her firstborn. Then the maid, with the heavy silver platter resting on both palms, continued down the length of the table, all the way over to Mr. Avenel, and lowered it before him. He pushed back his chair and lifted up the fork and carving knife laid out before him, cut a slice and held it up on the fork. Some blood dribbled back into the platter, and he said, “Voilà!” I looked away for a second; the martini—and maybe the pregnancy—had made me dizzy, and queasy.
As Mr. Avenel began to carve in earnest, he breathed hard. His eyes bugged out even more than usual, and his face got all flushed and damp. He was nervous, anxious to do it just right, as if he was the high priest of some religion, finishing up a sacr
ifice to a bad-tempered god. As he labored, the maid ran up and down the table, handing out the meat. I couldn’t stand the smell.
The next bad thing was watching John at the far end of the table, seated between Florence Avenel and Carrie Post, being charming, laughing at Florence’s clever remark, which I knew couldn’t be clever, admiring Carrie Post’s locket and listening seriously as she told him about something like her gall bladder or her son in boarding school. It wasn’t that I was jealous. It was that I realized, observing John from a distance, how he gave himself equally to everybody—or, more accurately, to nobody.
He didn’t look down the table at me even once. Why should he? I only had one reason for being; all I could do for him at the Avenels’ would be to embarrass him, and since I hadn’t, he could forget me until we got home—or partway home, when he’d take his hand from the steering wheel, reach over and grab mine, and press it between his legs.
Another bad thing was sitting back and having to listen to a roomful of Republicans talk about the presidential campaign. Okay, Wendell Willkie wasn’t the worst person in the world; he’d even started out a Democrat. But to hear these so-called smart lawyers go on and on about him, you’d think he was Jesus Christ.
They called him Wendell, as if he was one of theirs, and I suppose he was. Edward Leland, of all people, sitting on Florence Avenel’s other side, who I’d thought had more brains than the rest of the table combined, referred to FDR with sarcasm, calling him “our esteemed leader” and saying, “The average American cannot comprehend that it’s a tacit New Deal policy to encourage unemployment. Their bureaucrats have nothing to gain from a healthy private sector. What they want is a perpetual Depression, so they can keep their jobs.” I couldn’t believe he was saying things like that. Of course, he was better than Henry Avenel, who called Roosevelt “the cripple” and said Willkie would “kill him” on election day. I felt like taking his wife’s potato soufflé or whatever it was and dumping it on his fat head.
And the last bad thing was that after the soggy apple pie, the men went someplace to have brandies and smoke cigars, and I was left in the living room on a club chair, while the other women gathered in tight twos and threes and admired each other’s outfits and hairdos. Occasionally one of them would allow a glance to pass over me. There’d be a whisper and then a soft “Shhh!” They didn’t try very hard to hide their elbow nudgings; they barely muffled their giggles. And that was how I knew these ladies weren’t ladies.
I wasn’t going to fall apart. When the men came back, I made myself stay in that stupid chair; I’d be damned if those rich bitches would see me leap up and run to John.
So I sat there, staring out the night-blackened window, deliberately not watching John, although out of the corner of my eye I saw him swirl his brandy and nod at whatever Russell Weedcock was spouting off about. And just then, a man sat on the arm of my chair and said, “Well, how are you enjoying yourself?” I didn’t have to look up, although I did. I knew Edward Leland’s voice.
“It’s a very nice party.”
“You seem to be having a fine time,” he said coolly.
“Very fine.”
“Good!” he said in his deep voice, and everyone turned and stared. “I noticed how enthralled you were with the political discussion at dinner. No doubt you’re a great fan of our Mr. Willkie.”
“He has wonderful hair.”
“Oh, come on. You can give him more than that.”
“Okay. Other than FDR, he’s the strongest supporter of the Democratic Party platform we have around.”
“Please,” he said, looking annoyed and disappointed, as if he’d overestimated my intelligence by five hundred percent.
“Look, Mr. Leland—”
“Please, call me Ed.”
Oh, God, I thought. As if this night wasn’t hard enough. “Willkie’s a me-too candidate. He’s for everything Roosevelt’s for: the draft, aid to England—”
“Nonsense!” He shifted on the chair arm so he could look me right in the eye. I sensed, more than saw, the whole room watching us, trying to hear what we were saying. “He made it quite clear he feels Roosevelt is courting a war—a war we’re completely unprepared for.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s a war we could have been prepared for if your isolationist Republican buddies, your big hero Lind-bergh and Senator Vandenberg, hadn’t been holding us back—and sending Hitler kissy-kissy, do-whatever-you-want signals.”
“You must know better than that. Wendell Willkie has always been a friend of European democracies.” I looked up and noticed a thin white scar running down the side of Edward Leland’s face, from his temple all the way down to his jaw. “He’s not that sort of Republican.”
“There are a lot of dead Dutchmen and Poles and Czechs and Belgians saying, ‘You made us what we are today, O Party of Lincoln.’”
He shook his head and began to smile. “You certainly fight the fair fight, Mrs. Berringer.”
“Why not fight the way I want to? What can you do?” I smiled. “Fire me?” Then I looked straight into his eyes. “Oh, and please, call me Linda.”
He let go and started to laugh. Really laugh. And everyone in that room turned and watched Edward Leland being amused, and suddenly, all of them, including my husband, were moving in, smiling at me.
John was pretty detached later that night. God forbid, he could have said, Well, that must have been a real strain for you, but you did just fine. Or even a casual, husbandly, What the hell was that potato glop? Instead, he whistled to himself on the way home, and not something nice, Rodgers-and-Harty, but a slow, creepy classical thing that sounded German, probably some Wagner stuff, a lament for Wotan or Kriemhild or one of those types.
“What did you think of tonight?” I finally asked, when he was sitting on the edge of the bed, pushing a shoe tree into his shoe.
“It was all right.”
“Did you have fun?”
“No.” He started on the other shoe. “But these things aren’t fun.”
“So why do you go?”
He stood, walked to his closet and slipped the shoes into their place in the lineup, between another pair of black ones, exactly like the ones he’d just taken off, and some cordovans. “I go,” he said, as he took off his pants and folded them over the hanger, “because it’s part of my job. It’s a professional obligation. Just like a Bar Association meeting or sending out Christmas cards to clients.” He took off his jacket. “Did you order the Christmas cards?”
“Yes.”
“From Tiffany’s?” He put the jacket on the hanger, buttoned it, and shook out the suit before returning it to its place among eight other dark, dark pinstripes.
“Yes.”
“Did you pick out the one I showed you, the one I sent”—the one they sent—“last year? White with—”
“No. I picked out something with chartreuse polka dots and naked elves.”
He smiled. “Sometimes you’re very quick.”
“You could say smart.”
He moved close to me. I took off his tie. “I’ll consider it,” he said, and kissed me.
“I have some smart things to say about the party,” I managed to say between kisses. “Want to hear them? Like about Roger Post. You know about him and—”
“Let’s forget tonight,” he said, as he took off my suit jacket and then my blouse. And so we did forget.
But the next morning, a warm, hazy Sunday, as he sat in the living room, surrounded by newspapers, it was clear he remembered. “What were you talking to Ed Leland about?”
“Willkie.”
“Oh, Jesus! Did you say anything?” he demanded, his voice filled with something close to dread. “Ed’s a personal friend of Willkie’s.”
“I didn’t call him a creep or anything.”
John let the Tribune financial pages drop to the floor. “What did you call him?”
“Hey, what are you so upset about? I didn’t start anything. He…”—I made my voice very low—“‘
Please call me Ed’…he asked me what I thought about the candidates.”
John made a small circle with his lips and exhaled very slowly. “And so you told him. Leaving nothing out, I’m sure.”
“Well, if I call him up on election day and say, ‘Hey, Ed, I voted for FDR,’ I don’t think he’ll clutch his chest and fall down with a major heart attack from shock.”
I picked up the Times—the London one! After sex, and knowing that for the rest of my life I could look across the dinner table and see this extraordinary man, and (I hate to make myself look grasping, but I was, a little) being able to walk into Saks Fifth Avenue with a hundred bucks, the best thing about being Mrs. John Berringer was that I could buy every single newspaper and magazine I wanted—even English and German ones—because he wanted them too. Still, I was like a kid given a giant spoon and absolute freedom in an ice cream parlor.
I started to read again. Even though you had to take everything in the British papers with a grain of salt because of wartime censorship and their need to keep up morale, it was pretty clear that the Battle of Britain wasn’t going to be the fast triumph the Germans had thought it would be: a few bombs, then invasion. That Wednesday, the Royal Air Force had lost twelve planes. Not good, but the Luftwaffe had lost nineteen.