Beautiful Girl

by Alice Adams

  Johnny and Margot fought a lot and stayed together, and gradually a sort of comradeship developed between them in our small house on Russian Hill.

  I went to Stanford, where I half-heartedly studied history. Harriet was at Radcliffe, studying American literature, writing poetry.

  We lost touch with each other.

  Margot, however, kept up with her old friend Dolly, by means of Christmas cards and Easter notes, and Margot thus heard a remarkable piece of news about Emily Farr. Emily “up and left Lawrence without so much as a by-your-leave,” said Dolly, and went to Washington, D.C., to work in the Folger Library. This news made me smile all day. I was so proud of Emily. And I imagined that Lawrence would amuse himself, that they would both be happier apart.

  By accident, I married well—that is to say, a man whom I still like and enjoy. Four daughters came at uncalculated intervals, and each is remarkably unlike her sisters. I named one Harriet, although she seems to have my untidy character.

  From time to time, over the years, I would see a poem by Harriet Farr, and I always thought it was marvelous, and I meant to write her. But I distrusted my reaction. I had been (I was) so deeply fond of Harriet (Emily, Lawrence, that house and land) and besides, what would I say—“I think your poem is marvelous”? (I have since learned that this is neither an inadequate nor an unwelcome thing to say to writers.) Of course, the true reason for not writing was that there was too much to say.

  Dolly wrote to Margot that Lawrence was drinking “all over the place.” He was not happier without Emily. Harriet, Dolly said, was traveling a lot. She married several times and had no children. Lawrence developed emphysema, and was in such bad shape that Emily quit her job and came back to take care of him—whether because of feelings of guilt or duty or possibly affection, I didn’t know. He died, lingeringly and miserably, and Emily, too, died, a few years later—at least partly from exhaustion, I would imagine.

  Then, at last, I did write Harriet, in care of the magazine in which I had last seen a poem of hers. I wrote a clumsy, gusty letter, much too long, about shared pasts, landscapes, the creek. All that. And as soon as I had mailed it I began mentally rewriting, seeking more elegant prose.

  When for a long time I didn’t hear from Harriet, I felt worse and worse, cumbersome, misplaced—as too often in life I had felt before. It did not occur to me that an infrequently staffed magazine could be at fault.

  Months later, her letter came—from Rome, where she was then living. Alone, I gathered. She said that she was writing it at the moment of receiving mine. It was a long, emotional and very moving letter, out of character for the Harriet that I remembered (or had invented).

  She said, in part: “It was really strange, all that time when Lawrence was dying, and God! so long! and as though ‘dying’ were all that he was doing—Emily, too, although we didn’t know that—all that time the picture that moved me most, in my mind, that moved me to tears, was not of Lawrence and Emily but of you and me. On our bikes at the top of the hill outside our house. Going somewhere. And I first thought that that picture simply symbolized something irretrievable, the lost and irrecoverable past, as Lawrence and Emily would be lost. And I’m sure that was partly it.

  “But they were so extremely fond of you—in fact, you were a rare area of agreement. They missed you, and they talked about you for years. It’s a wonder that I wasn’t jealous, and I think I wasn’t only because I felt included in their affection for you. They liked me best with you.

  “Another way to say this would be to say that we were all three a little less crazy and isolated with you around, and, God knows, happier.”

  An amazing letter, I thought. It was enough to make me take a long look at my whole life, and to find some new colors there.

  A postscript: I showed Harriet’s letter to my husband, and he said, “How odd. She sounds so much like you.”

  What Should I Have Done?

  A couple of weeks ago I had an experience so upsetting that my breath tightens, my heart beats too fast, crazily, whenever I think of it, and I do think of it, obsessively. I wonder what I should have done.

  The incident that so upset me was really the final chapter in a rather long story, the story of my friendship with Maggie, and looking at the whole of it, I wonder if all along I could not have acted differently—although it is hard to see how I could have saved her life.

  This last chapter, then, took place at a large dinner party. It began when a certain man came in and sat across the room from me, and I was filled with such pure rage at him that I trembled, my blood ran cold and I longed to get up and cross the room, to slap his face very hard and to say something violent, possibly obscene. Instead, I suppose to explain what must have been a visible reaction, I told the woman on my left an abbreviated version of the cause of my fury. The man sat there on the other side of the room, smiling, plump and red-faced, white-haired, a happy priest, out in good company.

  A couple of relevant facts about myself: I am a lapsed Episcopalian, not a virulent anti-Catholic. Generally nonviolent, a “liberal” (actually I am a closet radical). No more ill-tempered, really, than the next person. You know the type.

  We were in a large room; the dinner was buffet. The priest could not have heard the story I was telling, but he could have figured it out, not being at all stupid—reading a great deal from my expression. In any case he left the party very early, before I had said or done anything directly to him. And so I still don’t know.

  The real story begins a long time ago, in the Forties, during what was called Freshman Orientation Week, in a good New England college. I am in the smoking room, and across the room I see a red-haired (in pin curls) dark-eyed girl in pale-green cotton pajamas, who is saying, in a rather tight, shy voice, “I’m supposed to have an aptitude in history.” I thought, Well, how terrific for you.

  But on another level I had heard her say, They have invented something called an “aptitude in history,” and stuck it on me; what idiots they are.

  In any case, Maggie, as we will call her here, and I, over the next weeks and months and years, became the closest friends.

  Maggie: an exceptionally bright, complex, distrusting, witty girl, an Irish Catholic, from Philadelphia. At that time she wanted to be an engineer, which is what her father was. (“I want to build bridges.” Such an exotic ambition was perhaps too much for her, and she soon gave it up.) She was not pretty, by those exacting Forties standards. Beautiful rich red hair, which she tended either to curl too tightly or to neglect entirely. Small brown eyes (she sometimes referred to herself as Rat Eyes), tiny breasts and a tendency to wide hips. Not generally “popular” with boys, but a girl of strong sexual feelings (this is important to the story). Too often, when she did have a date, she would drink too much, nervously, and then “neck heavily” with the boy—always, unfortunately, with the sort of boy who would conclude from such behavior that she was not “nice,” and would not call her again.

  We were friends mainly on the basis of shared or similar humor: we made each other laugh for hours, sitting in the smoking room or out on the drafty steps of our dormitory. We made elaborate fantasies together. I remember one involving Cassandra—“For God’s sake don’t invite her, she’s so gloomy.” Another about a mythical family named White, who subscribed to the National Geographic and had linoleum on their bedroom floor. Several routines involving what we thought were funny accents: Brooklynese, East Boston.

  During one vacation, Maggie came to visit me at home, and I introduced her to all the friends of my childhood, those nice Southern girls and boys; I am from Washington, D.C.

  We had a wonderful time laughing at them, imitating, late at night, after parties. The boys took her out on dates, and she had the brief experience of a popular visiting girl, though of course they thought her “fast” and didn’t write, as otherwise they might have, inviting her to V.M.I, or Charlottesville.

  And I went to Philadelphia to stay with Maggie and her parents. Her mother was small and
round, voluble and affectionate; her father, whom Maggie resembled, was silent, almost dour, but one sensed in him a striking and original intelligence, and wit.

  During her senior year, a rich Midwestern boy named Bill fell in love with Maggie, and there ensued a frantic courtship: flowers and presents, much eating and drinking and dancing in expensive places (Maggie was somewhat greedy in that way), a lot of rushing around the New England countryside in Bill’s red convertible.

  As the Best Friend, I was introduced to Bill, and I didn’t like him very much at first. He was O.K., but so ordinary, and Maggie was remarkable; no one else was so funny, or so bright. But then as Bill’s mania for her continued, along with the orchids and jewelry, the steak and lobster dinners, dancing on the Ritz roof, I thought that he must be at least all right, and Maggie was in love with him. She said so, one night, quite out of character: we didn’t generally talk about strong feelings—or, rather, she didn’t; I’m afraid I always have. They were going to get married.

  Bill wanted them to marry right away, or at the latest the following fall, when we would all be out of college. Maggie, for whatever reasons of her own (unspoken and perhaps unconscious), wanted to postpone it. I was enlisted by Bill to plead his cause, a mission that romantically appealed to me, but I soon saw the uselessness of what I was saying. Irrefutably Maggie said, “Why rush?”

  And so we all graduated and Bill went back to his Midwestern city to start work for his father, in whatever they did, making a lot of money; and still there were no definite wedding plans. Maggie was holding off.

  And then it was all over, Bill not writing and Maggie scrupulously sending back (postpaid, insured) his expensive presents.

  I don’t know quite what happened, nor, I think, did she. And, remember, we didn’t actually talk a lot, Maggie and I; we just made our jokes. Once, somewhat later, she said, of Bill and his defection, “I think it was a combination of parental pressure—I wasn’t just what they had in mind—and, given him, most likely another girl.” Much later still, she said of Bill, “He really wasn’t very nice.”

  At another time, during an uncharacteristically intimate conversation about sex, she said, “Bill and I never actually went all the way, but everything but.”

  Now we skip several years, during which I got married and Maggie, as my maid of honor, comforted my bridegroom in the face of my curious ambivalent behavior. “Maggie was always around to hold my hand,” he accusingly said. (I knew the marriage was wrong, but while it was taking place I could not admit such a gross mistake. An unhappily familiar story.)

  My husband and I moved out West, and after a few years (for professional reasons: she had become an economist, not an engineer) Maggie came out too, with a good teaching job, and we were friends again.

  Once she invited us to dinner, and there was a young man with whom she was obviously “involved”—a dullish person, I thought; and then a few weeks later she said that it was all off. I doubt if it was ever serious (meaning, I doubt if they went to bed).

  And then I became aware that she was tremendously involved with someone; he came for dinner often, and presumably stayed on. I am not sure how I knew this; certainly Maggie did not say it. Someone whom I was not to meet. Married—a sick wife? I was on the whole pleased; he seemed lavish with champagne and roses, and as I have said Maggie liked that kind of thing, and she looked happy, and loved. But in another sense I was not pleased; I would have wanted a more complete relationship for her, of course. By that time I knew a little about the disadvantages of the illicit myself.

  And then—and then she told me that she was pregnant. Of course (as a free-thinking Protestant) I counseled an abortion. Interestingly, so did her mother. I insisted that that was her only solution, if she couldn’t get married. (We are now talking about the Fifties, when women from San Francisco went to Seattle or Mexico for abortions.) But she pointed out that no, as a Catholic she could not have an abortion. (I have not said this: her religion was another thing we never discussed; it was simply there, a fact of her life.) She was going down to some nuns, near Los Angeles, who took in unmarried mothers, who arranged for placements. Placements.

  “Is your friend being nice about it?” I asked her that.

  “Oh, very,” she said with some warmth.

  Pregnant, Maggie looked pale and fat and wholly miserable. Her skin broke out and her small eyes seemed to recede.

  She gave birth to a red-haired daughter.

  And the baby was placed.

  Maggie stayed pale and fat. Not curled hair (sometimes not washed). Sad old clothes, despite her good job.

  • • •

  Skip more years. I was divorced and involved with a man who was married, and I thought I was pregnant. I went to Maggie’s for dinner, and we discussed symptoms.

  I drank too much wine and in a somewhat maudlin mood I asked her if she still saw her friend.

  “Oh, yes, all the time.” Not saying, We still love each other tremendously. But that was clear. And I looked across at Maggie, in her old sweater, her hair dull and lank (at that time I was making the most excruciating efforts as to frosted, shining hair, and terrific clothes—all for that man), and I thought, How wonderful not to have to make such an effort, to be so secure in someone’s love.

  And so I said, “Oh, Maggie, can’t you live together or something? Anyone can get a divorce these days.”

  “Uh—you haven’t guessed what’s wrong?” A very tight voice.

  I muttered about a sick wife, maybe crazy—

  As Maggie is saying, “He’s a priest.”

  My mind literally reeled with shock, revolving in images of long black skirts, and I asked the only thing that came to mind as possible to ask: “Jesus—what do you call him?”

  She smiled, and in her wry, shy voice (“I’m supposed to have an aptitude in history”) she said, “Sometimes Father Feeny. Sometimes Dick.”

  So, a few years later, at a party I am introduced to a handsome priest, whose name I miss. He, however, has heard a mention of the college I went to (how did that come up? I can’t remember) and he says, “Ah, yes, I know a girl who went there. Did you by chance know Maggie———–?”

  “Yes, very well.” (My breath is suddenly tight.) “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Father Feeny. Richard Feeny.” And he beams.

  I have had two strong drinks. I am not drunk, but not wholly controlled, and very upset.

  Then, quite incredibly (to me), he says, “Well, since you’re a friend of Maggie’s, I can tell you that I’m rather worried about her. She looks so bad, and lonely. You look like the sort of young woman who knows a lot of people, perhaps you could introduce her to someone. She really should marry.”

  I am wild-eyed, stammering.

  Insensitive (perhaps he has also had a couple of drinks), he continues, “Lately she’s been talking about a former fiancé. Bill? It’s sad, as though she wants to say that she could have married.”

  I want to say, You are horrible—you hypocrite! I hate you! But to say that or anything like it would be to betray Maggie, her confidence in me. You see? He had me, utterly. I got away from him as soon as I could.

  Over the phone a couple of days later I say to Maggie: “It was really strange, meeting him, and of course his not knowing I knew who he was. And then his wishing you would marry—”

  In a tight, judicious voice she says, “Well, I guess at least partly he does wish that.”

  After that some terrible drift apart began, and at last Maggie and I were not seeing each other. Our lives diverged, and I think that she also regretted telling me so much; we all know how that works.

  And then a few years ago I read in our college magazine that Maggie had died, of cancer. Grief—rage—anguish: I felt all that, and some guilt at never having called her, instead of, from time to time, thinking that I would.

  And I wondered, Just when did that start, that malevolent process of her cells?

  Which brings us to a couple
of weeks ago, when I again saw the priest. Saw Father Feeny—Richard, Dick.

  And wanted to hit him, or to say, Well, your daughter must be almost twenty by now, wouldn’t you say? Or, Have you been saying a lot of masses for Maggie? Do you think they help?

  Well, as I have said, he left before I could do or say anything, except to stare at him with a pure electric hatred—he must have felt it.

  And now I wonder if my feelings were not somewhat unfair. He fell in love with Maggie and took her to bed (she felt very loved by him, I am sure of that). He was no more sexually restrained than the rest of us are, although he was supposed to have been. In his way he was kind and generous to her. Probably it is too much for me to have expected heroism of him, which in my view would have been to leave the priesthood and marry Maggie, although I do think he should have. (It is also possible that Maggie didn’t want him to do this, for her own good Catholic reasons.)

  • • •

  But I still wonder what, if anything, I should have done, or said.

  For Good

  “How I hate California! God, no one will ever know how much I hate it here,” cries out Pauline Field, a once-famous abstract-expressionist painter. It is lunchtime on a ferociously cold Sunday late in June—in a beach house near San Francisco: Pauline’s house—and her lunch party that is assembled there in her enclosed patio, drinking sangrias. Almost no one (in fact only one person) pays any attention to Pauline, who tends to speak in an exaggerated way. She is a huge strong woman, dressed outrageously in pink; she has wild white hair and consuming dark-brown eyes. It is possible that she has made this impassioned complaint before.

  The house is some three or four years old; those years (the years, incidentally, of Pauline’s most recent marriage) and the relentless wind have almost silvered the shingled walls, and beach grass has grown up through the slats of the planked-over patio, where now all those guests, twenty or so, are standing with their cold fruity drinks, their backs to the wind and to the sea. The drive home, over steep winding hills and beside great wooded canyons, will be somewhat dangerous even for a sober driver; these weak drinks are the inspiration of Pauline’s (third) husband, Stephen, a cautious former alcoholic.