by Alice Adams
Well, the most interesting news from our little Peglet: she’s pregnant. I can just see her with a whole family of great big children, can’t you? And she will get bigger and bigger. So much for all those silly people who used to say she was a dyke.
Last week I had to go up to New York to do some shopping and I called little Cathy. I thought she could just hop on a train and meet me for lunch. But she said she had a bad cold and she sounded terrible. In fact a little strange. Do you think everything is all right with her and Phil? I didn’t want to ask. Between us, I think our Cath is a very strange and complicated girl.
Potter’s letters are very satisfactory, both as to frequency and content. In fact he is a perfect darling, and I miss him very much.
Please be careful of all those California boys, dear little Megan. I hear they are really wild.
Cathy to Megan:
I don’t know quite how to say this, but I guess Phil and I are divorced, without getting married, that is. He just suddenly stopped doing everything he had been doing, no more phoning or flowers or anything. He never said why, in fact he never said anything at all. My guess is a combination of pressure from his parents, since I am not just what they had in mind for their only son and heir, probably, and knowing him, some girl closer to hand, so to speak. I rounded up all his presents and sent them off to Cleveland, but he didn’t even say if they had come. I guess he is not a very nice person, but I also guess that my judgment is not very good.
What have you been reading? I could use something good. I guess you are not recommending Jack London. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book about life among Mormons. Probably they would be on the Index, whose proscriptions as you know I scrupulously follow.
Not being any longer a fiancée, or whatever I was, I am getting fat.
Janet Cohen to Megan:
Guess what? I am not going to med school after all because Adam and I are getting married. On New Year’s Eve, because that is also his birthday. We are going to live in Brooklyn in the cheapest place we can find. I will get a job and he will work on his play and we will save all the money we can, and then the year after that we are going to Paris. I guess when all our twenty kids are grown up I will go back and finish college. Adam says I could even go to med school later on, but I am not so sure I will want to, by then.
After you graduate I really think you should come to see us in Paris. Adam likes you very much, and we could have fun.
Megan to Lavinia:
Actually I thought Cathy sounded okay, when she wrote, but of course even if she were dying of a broken heart she would not say so. You and Potter certainly were right about Phil-Flash. He is absolutely an SOB, I think. It is really lucky that Cathy didn’t marry him. I hope she meets some nicer man this spring.
I am just back from four days in Los Angeles, which is the worst place in the world. You really would hate it. But actually I was there seeing a friend of mine from New York, who is a musician. A trombone, of all things. We went to a lot of jazz places and interesting restaurants. I never got any sleep but it was a nice change from Palo Alto.
But no, Lavinia, I am not “serious” about him. I am not getting married. Maybe not ever. I feel that marriage is probably overrated.
Occasionally, unavoidably alone with her mother, in the small ugly kitchen or the smaller “breakfast nook,” having coffee, Megan experiences a jarring combination of strong emotions, almost unbearable, as Florence sighs and says—wistfully? accusingly?—“Seems like you just got here and now you’re off, back to Boston.”
“But, Mother, I’ve been here all winter.”
“Well, probably it’s gone faster for me than for you.” Another sigh, but the remark at least sounded merely factual, descriptive.
“Well, you were working. I wasn’t, really.” Despite herself Megan is defensive.
Still another sigh as Florence, who may also have run out of things to say to her daughter, gets up and begins to rinse out the cups. “It’s got to do with age,” she throws back over her shoulder. “The older you are the faster time goes by.”
“But, Mother, you don’t look much older than I do.” And you should look older, you’re supposed to look like a mother, not a carhop, Megan does not add.
“Megan honey, what a sweet thing to say. I just never—”
As Florence turns away, too quickly, Megan is left with a sense of having somehow given the wrong present, and to the wrong person.
Although Florence is surely, surely her mother. Their bodies are so different in size and shape, and their hair is different, but their hands are almost identical, Megan has noticed, and her mother’s still-eager mouth is very much like her own.
12
There is at Radcliffe, in these mid-forties war years, a small but highly visible group of girls who seem to do nothing but study. They are of a slightly older generation than Megan and her friends, and they chose the college for its academic excellence, or in some cases geographic necessity; many of them commute from Boston and environs. They did not arrive in Cambridge filled with fantasies concerning all the men around Harvard Square, as the Cabot Hall technical virgins did (probably), nor were they prompted by some flimsy summer love affair, as poor Megan was.
Megan knows a few of these heavy studiers in a more or less peripheral way, through an accidental walk with one of them between the dorms and Harvard Yard, an encounter in the smoking room. She likes them, on the whole, but she imagines (probably correctly) that in their eyes she is seen as entirely frivolous, fat but an intellectual light-weight (despite all her A’s); they would know that she cares about boys and dates, sex, even clothes—whereas they would seem to care for such things not at all; they are seldom, if ever, seen wearing anything but jeans and baggy sweatshirts.
It is astonishing, then, to Megan, to realize that almost behind her back Cathy has become a part of that group. Cathy, who the previous summer was always pincurling her hair for her next date with Flash, now rarely even bothers to wash her hair, much less to curl it; she goes around in dirty Levi’s and baggy gray sweatshirts. She spends almost all her time with a strange girl called Vince, who is also studying economics. Instead of Levi’s, Vince wears gray slacks, as heavy and shapeless as Vince herself is large and un-indented, with dark gray-blond hair and skin of about the same color. Even Vince’s eyes are gray and dull, behind heavy glasses.
Or, Megan wonders, is she seeing Vince in such a harsh light out of sheer jealousy, because she misses Cathy? And if that is so, just exactly what does it mean? She has to face the fact that the sight of Vince and Cathy, always together, makes her truly unhappy.
Megan knows, she knows perfectly well that this is not something that she should discuss with Lavinia—Lavinia the merciless, with her relentless intelligence, her overwhelming sophistication.
Nevertheless, there Lavinia is, often present and available for conversation, when she is not off somewhere with Potter. And finally the temptation is too much for Megan, who says (as casually as she can, which is not very casual), “It’s funny, isn’t it? Here we were hoping Cathy would meet some really nice guy this spring, and instead she’s taken up with Vince.” That was not exactly what she had meant to say; it came out wrong, but having spoken there was no way for Megan to amend her words, especially not under Lavinia’s cold clear scrutinizing gaze.
And Lavinia has obviously given this odd new pairing considerable thought, herself, for she answers judiciously, “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. I mean, I’m quite sure it isn’t what it may look like. Cathy isn’t, uh, like that, we both know she isn’t.” (This with the sidelong, complicitous smile.) “And actually Vince isn’t either. I can always tell. A couple of girls like that were thrown out of the school I went to, our senior year.” And Lavinia, in detail, tells a long story of lesbianism at boarding school: the discovery of love notes passed back and forth at chapel, the expulsion of both girls, and the reigning silence as to its cause.
“But of course we all knew,”
proclaims Lavinia, in her satisfied way.
But is that what she, Megan, really thought about Cathy and Vince? Megan uncomfortably wonders, and she is more uncomfortable yet after talking to Lavinia.
“The real point about our little Cathy,” Lavinia explains, “is that she is basically a follower, like most Catholics. And don’t ignore the fact that Vince is a Catholic too.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Her name, for heaven’s sake. Clara Vincent. Anyone named that has got to be a Catholic. Besides, she’s from Somerville, or one of those Irish places.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, for a long time Cathy seemed to be following you around, she even began to sound like you. And then Flash, and now Vince. They always have to have a stronger personality.”
Not feeling that she has an especially “strong personality” and unable to see herself as an object for imitation, Megan is less convinced than she generally is by Lavinia’s arguments. Also, since the episode of Gordon Shaughnessey, Lavinia’s anti-Catholicism has got out of hand, Megan thinks.
Lavinia and Potter plan to be married a year from the following June, in 1946, just after graduation. But their engagement will not be announced until Christmas. “There’s no point in my being tied down for longer than that,” Lavinia confides, with a sexy laugh. “And besides, Christmas seems a perfect time for engagement parties. Potter and I will go to all the regular parties, plus our own. It will be just right for him to meet everyone then.”
As always, listening to Lavinia, Megan’s imagination creates glamorous (if more than a little celluloid) scenes: crystal chandeliers glinting candlelight, above silver-laden tables. Marble mantels, blazing aromatic fires in huge fireplaces. And the rooms all filled with exceptionally beautiful people, in satin and velvet and furs, laughing and talking and drinking champagne and eating exotic, wonderful food. Christmas parties in Washington. Christmas engagement parties.
But in the meantime, Lavinia has a curious escapade with a young man named Russell Finnerty, which Megan finds out about only by accident.
Seated alone in the stairwell, on the top step where she used to sit and smoke with Janet Cohen or with Cathy, Megan first hears and then she sees Lavinia, who trips several times as she makes her way slowly up the stairs: Lavinia, with a white, clean-washed look on her face, her lipstick and powder clearly all kissed away, to reveal her own fine white dry skin—unlike other girls, who come in from sexy evenings with their lipstick smeared, their faces a mess. Lavinia also looks just slightly, delicately drunk. She and Potter must have been to another Porcellian party, Megan thinks, or something at the Pudding.
Lavinia sits down beside Megan and gets out a cigarette, as Megan, in a fairly perfunctory way, asks her how Potter is.
She is not at all prepared for Lavinia’s snort and giggle. “Oh, little Megan, how sweet and naive you are, au fond. I was with the most divine new boy, named Russell Finnerty. I think I’m in love.”
Very surprised, Megan asks what is to her the obvious question: “Oh, you and Potter broke up?”
Another giggle. “Of course not, silly. I’m going to marry Potter. We’re engaged. Russell is just, just someone very cute. And the most terrific fun to kiss.”
At what must have been a look of even greater surprise on Megan’s face, Lavinia begins to scold. “Honestly, Megan, it’s time you found out a few things. Marriage is one thing, and love and sex are two entirely others, and if you can have a little sex and love mixed up in your marriage, you’re just damn lucky, but that’s not what it’s for. Potter and I were brought up in exactly the same way, we might as well be related. And I do love Potter, he’s a dear sweet man, and I think the sex part will be okay. But I’m nowhere near crazy about Potter, not sick over him the way I was with Gordon, and the way I could be with Russell Finnerty, if I didn’t know any better. I know how to handle things now.”
Vastly interested (of course she is), Megan admits, “Well, I had sort of worked out that love and sex are different. I mean, I was in love with George Wharton, and kissing him was terrific, and then he goes off and marries Connie Winsor.”
“Exactly,” Lavinia cries out. “Connie Winsor is one of the richest girls in Boston. George Wharton is no fool.”
“Well, I guess not. But what I mean is, after George there was Simon, and I was not in love with him, but kissing him was even better than with George. He was more fun to kiss, I mean.” (Saying this, Megan wonders: Does Lavinia also use the word “kiss” as a cover term for, uh, everything?)
Suddenly looking absolutely sober, Lavinia comes close to answering Megan’s not-spoken question. “Megan, you’d better be very careful with those ‘Simons’ you insist on going out with. You just be careful that kissing is all you do, or nearly all.” She giggles then, and in quite another tone she adds, “Honestly, Potter is really too funny, wanting to know just how far I went with Gordon. As far as he’s concerned I’m as pure as Ivory Flakes, but he keeps asking these questions about Gordon, and of course I’m not about to tell him. He knows perfectly well that my precious virginity’s intact, and that ought to be enough for him, I think.”
Megan is still caught up in earlier parts of Lavinia’s not-quite-coherent conversation, and she has been thinking of several things at once. One of them is how totally, unbelievably shocked Lavinia would be if she knew about Jackson Clay. Lavinia, who worries about Megan “kissing” Jews. If she knew what Megan was actually doing, with a Negro, a jazz musician, would she die of shock? Would she never speak to Megan again? Would she tell the dean, and get Megan expelled?
Of course there is a strong part of Megan that has always judged Lavinia very harshly, coldly, even; that part of Megan has (silently) called Lavinia a rich Republican bigot, an immoral person. And in that way Megan is strongly tempted, for a moment, to tell Lavinia everything, in full detail, about herself and Jackson Clay, including how they met. How she “picked him up” and went to bed with him the very next night.
In that way she could clarify her connection with Lavinia, once and for all; they would have it out, as the girls sometimes did in the old boarding-school books that she and Cathy talked about, those four girls—and at that moment beautiful rich Lavinia would be exposed for the wicked person that she truly is.
However, Megan does not tell Lavinia anything about Jackson Clay; they do not have anything out, and the moment passes, or nearly, but not before clever (rich and beautiful, wicked) Lavinia has read a little of Megan’s mind. “You’re not telling me something, baby Megan,” Lavinia croons. “Mustn’t keep things back!”
“Really, there’s nothing to tell. Honestly, I haven’t done a thing but study lately. I’m turning into one of those grinds. Soon I’ll look just like Vince.”
As usual, in her way Lavinia has been right: even apart from (well, quite aside from) Jackson Clay, there is something else that Megan is not telling, which is her increasing obsession with the works of Henry James.
She began, as in academic circumstances so many do, with The Portrait of a Lady, which she liked very much, but no more, perhaps, than many favorite novels. Then, though, she read all the later novels, starting with The Ambassadors, and from then on everything by James that she could find, the stories, introductions, notebooks, travel notes—a considerable undertaking, even an impressive one.
And that obsession, that literary mania has for Megan the magnitude of an actual move to another culture; it has, in her life, an impact comparable to that of moving from California to New England. This is a move to the climate of Henry James. Her mind has become filled with vistas of perfectly smooth green lawns, large houses, long conversations at tea and over formal dinners, and everywhere manners so exquisite that the slightest deviation from that perfection has the force of an earthquake. Gilbert Osmund seated, as Mme. Merle is standing. And what is more exhilarating even, to Megan, than the perfection of lawns and the length and frequency of conversations, the perfection of manners—more thrilling still is the James
ian exaltation of personality, the infinitude of human possibilities, the personal capacity for grandeur. Very heady stuff, to a girl from Palo Alto High.
But, to see the world in Jamesian terms, or rather, to imagine that one lives in such a world, can impose some fairly strange distortions on ordinary life—and so it is with Megan. Certain people, including Cathy and her grimy new friends, and certain circumstances, such as not having five dollars for a new sweater that one wants, must be simply and absolutely ignored.
Lavinia, however, in a Jamesian way becomes considerably more interesting. She is perfect for a certain sort of antiheroine: richly evil, infinitely manipulative. Megan now spends more time with Lavinia than formerly she did, thus (possibly spuriously) motivated. They have long conversations; Megan notes Lavinia’s perfection of manner.
And Megan, as a friend for Lavinia, at this particular time in Lavinia’s life, her “free” pre-engaged senior year, works out well too. Megan is interested, admiring, noncensorious (or so Lavinia believes), and undemanding. Almost anyone else would expect to be included in Lavinia’s life, at various lunches or teas at the Ritz, for example; Megan seems to like to hear about such occasions, but she would never imagine or presume her own inclusion. Or so Lavinia imagines.
Thus, with their somewhat conflicting, erroneous but convenient ideas of each other, the two young women become even closer friends, that spring and summer of 1945, and from then on into another vibrantly beautiful New England fall, during which Lavinia continues her clandestine connection with Russell Finnerty, but manages to preserve both her virginity and her engagement to Potter Cobb. And Megan discusses Henry James with her tutor, and the thesis that she intends to write, on the significance of private incomes in Henry James. Megan, the ardent disciple, fears that this is rather a vulgar choice of topic, but her tutor, a young Marxist, assures her that it is both original and of great potential interest.