“And at that moment, if you are very good, and if you say please . . .” he began to whisper, his eyes shining at the thought of bringing me to a place of gratifying discomfort, and then making me wait to discover an older man’s secrets, his tricks for bringing the uninitiated to pleasure. But as his whispering had intensified, I had squeezed my knees together and at the same time tried to shift the files once more, to contain and rebalance them, and at that moment they all slid, slowly at first and then into a chaotic blizzard of papers, all over the floor.
As I struggled to pick them up, grimacing at the confused mess, he handed me one fallen file folder and glanced at his wristwatch.
“That’s all right,” I said. “Go ahead.”
“It’s just that Meyer is expecting me. Five-minute chat, before we gather back at the testing room.”
“That’s fine. Go.” I took a few breaths, arms shaky. “I’ll be there.”
“We’ll finish this little talk soon, I promise.”
“You and your ‘little talks,’” I said, but I was smiling.
I plopped down on my knees to better sweep all the muddled papers into a single pile, while the sound of his footsteps faded. Then I was alone, with a messy filing job to do, and my heart beating still too quickly, and a feeling of damp between my legs, and an exquisite and exasperating ache.
So this was what the big deal was about: the context for a third or more of all human behaviors.
Any day now, I fully expected him to seduce me in his office, but in truth, I didn’t want it to be there. I could still picture Essie and her lifted skirt and ivory girdle, up against the filing cabinet, and maybe other nurses before her.
I wanted a fresh start for us. And just as John had his own ideas about how and in what conditions sexual intercourse should take place, so did I. Not that we didn’t grab an intimate moment where we could. Yes, when we turned a corner in a stairwell, or closed the door in his office, the sound of a nurse advancing toward the door even as I stood with the doorknob digging into my hip, or the flickering shadow of a mailboy’s passing feet, the sound of Curt calling out in the main room, or another Hopkins researcher or visiting academic friend—Kubie, Knight, Leslie—coming looking for John. Those moments were brief, and we cursed the limitations. But John must have known, even if I didn’t. It’s the limitations that arouse us most.
Meanwhile, we were drowning in data. We’d breezed through so many infant trials—not just our two satisfactory trials so far with Albert, but dozens of one-time tests with all the other babies, investigating a wide range of unconditioned responses. John wanted each finished sequence translated into a publishable paper, as soon as possible. I had my own learning experiments, to be continued after the completion of our Albert work. John wanted help polishing letters to editors and drafts of speeches, and help procuring and reviewing more papers for the psych journal he was helping to run, which had been interrupted by the war, trying to get it back on a regular publishing schedule again. It was because of our efficient partnership that John continued to take on more than he’d ever taken on before. It was because the experiments were going so well—and they needed to go well, he reminded me, they absolutely had to go well—that John could manage to be both sexually frustrated and yet still professionally energized, able to delay the full consummation of our union.
Of course, it hadn’t been even two full weeks since our first consensual kiss, the one I’d initiated. But already it felt like a lifetime. I couldn’t imagine that for four months we’d held back, when it was obvious that this was where things were leading—where things had always been leading, since the first day I’d watched him step up to the lecture podium, the man that every girl and woman in that room had been pining over. And I’d won him. John always said that the only things that mattered were those that could be measured, but this couldn’t be measured: my luck, my longing, my infatuation.
As a woman, I’d never imagined such heights of happiness: of being both so wanted and so needed, my mind equally filled with our scientific tasks and, during the briefest of pauses or delays, immediately shifted onto a different daydreaming track, reenacting in my mind the latest moment of fondling and heavy breathing, teasing descriptions and tender endearments. When you are in love for the first time, when sex and all of its antecedents are fresh and new, your mind simply can’t leave it alone. In the absence of the act itself, the lingering sensory impressions are dizzying.
And also, sex aside, if there’s anything I was learning about the nature of human contentment, it was that we are happiest when we are occupied, completely occupied. The flirting and lovemaking—or even more distracting, the deferred lovemaking—were part of our shared bliss, no doubt. But it was the work, too, that made us fly through each day, always ready to take on more. It was being fully and busily absorbed, together.
I was still in the hallway, alone, picking up papers, and wondering what the hotel rooms at the Regent were like, and how one registered, if there was a way to do so discreetly. It would be reckless to stay overnight there—my Bearcat and both of our faces so recognizable by now, since we’d already had lunch in the Regent’s dining room twice.
“Rosalie?”
I was so absorbed that Georgie, with her slow gait and heavy footstep, had managed to sneak up on me. “I’m waiting for you.”
I was supposed to be somewhere. What time was it?
“In the testing lab?” Georgie said, with a smirk in her voice. “With Albert?”
“I’m sorry, Georgie,” I said, and tried to fix a stern expression on my face, as though I’d been crouched there intentionally, not only picking up scattered papers but mentally engrossed—multiplying sums, for example—when in fact, the only thing I was tallying was how many more days a man should be expected to stay with a wife he couldn’t tolerate.
Chapter 12
Our session that day with Albert went well, even if I was distracted, thinking not only back to my hallway moment with John, but also ahead to the dinner that Sunday, when he’d be coming to my parents’ house with Mary. The room was, as always, small, and the menagerie of animals made it feel more crowded yet. We verified first that Albert was still afraid of the rat. He also showed a strong fear response to a brown rabbit (“a most convincing test,” we’d report in the final paper, later), to a short-haired dog, and to a sealskin coat. A package of white cotton elicited only a mild response. In a spirit of play, John lowered his head and let Albert run his fingers, still sticky from sucking, through his hair. Albert didn’t mind. Nor did he mind when I moved my hair into his reach.
The generalization of the fear response, from furry rat to furry rabbit, dog, and coat was satisfying, but overall, the responses were mixed. Even so, that day, John didn’t look antsy or disappointed, pushing too hard for certain desired results. I’d like to think he was as buoyed by thoughts of me as I by thoughts of him. It was hard to imagine our shared life as scientists would ever be anything but this: the successes shared, the unexceptional results made less disappointing, the truly significant discoveries celebrated. It was hard to believe there would come a day when I would not bring him joy, when he would not accept a modest outcome, when he would not retract an outrageous statement that might be hurtful. We were happy, that’s all: productive and happy, and hurting no one.
The night the Watsons were expected at dinner, John arrived on foot, thirty minutes early, confounding my hostess mother, who was upstairs and trying to fix, with Bertha’s help, a series of rhinestone hairpins into her upswept hair. Over our heads Mother could be heard calling out with effortful gaiety, fussing and apologizing at top volume, and in a hushed but still audible voice, issuing last-minute commands. “The hothouse flowers, they’re still on the sink. Careful Bertha, you’re piercing my scalp.”
My father, who had been finishing his newspaper, ushered John into our parlor and provided a refreshment. I delayed my own entrance, lurking in
the dining room on the opposite side of the hall, waiting for my overexcited heartbeat to settle. In the front parlor, John was saying, “No, of course we don’t enjoy bothering babies. But you know, they’re nowhere near as frail as the average person thinks. A hammered steel bar: how is that more damaging than a crash of thunder? Time away from a suffocating mother—well, that’s a blessing at any age. If anything, infants are made to be frail by individuals without any interest in scientific parenting. Society’s goal should be to make modern children more independent of their family situations.”
“Speak of the devil. Here’s my own independent child,” said Father, noticing me standing at the threshold. He slapped his knees, as if he expected me to come and sit on his lap. Out of habit, I went to give him a kiss on the cheek and then stopped myself, several feet away, my hands behind my back, feeling like a schoolgirl in my plain blue dress and flat shoes.
“Good afternoon, Rosalie,” John said, not bothering to rise.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Watson.”
“I’m just a few minutes early. I hope you and your parents don’t mind.”
At first I thought John’s arrival was a mischievous trick on his part, sneaking into our home early to catch everyone at their natural behaviors, all the better for a thorough investigation of me, his true love. But when I saw how quickly he sucked dry his glass and heard him explaining, in too much detail, how he loved a healthy walk and how Mrs. Watson preferred a drive—they didn’t own a motor car, but she’d arranged to borrow a friend’s vehicle, and a driver—and how difficult it could be to time their joint arrivals, I changed my mind. They must have been fighting. Something had come up at the last minute and he had stalked out, while she had gone on some errand without him, and he had simply had no patience for dawdling in the park in front of our house, when what he really wanted was a damn drink—preferably something stronger than the legal red punch my father had made available.
“And of course, Mrs. Watson had to stop by to pick something up. She isn’t one to come empty-handed,” John explained, halting his explanation when my mother entered the room. At the sight of her in the doorway, he bounded to his feet. She hurried forward and reached out to clasp his hands and hold him there, like a dancing partner, letting go only for the briefest moment to move her grip farther up, to his forearms, in that square-on near-embrace she reserved for people she was truly eager to meet.
“Oh no, no. Mrs. Watson can’t bring anything, especially if it’s an inconvenience. Absolutely not.”
“Well, she already is, and Mary is unstoppable, I’m afraid.”
“Dr. Watson,” she said, looking at him again, unwilling to give up her grip on his sleeves. “It’s been one half of a year that I’ve wanted to stand with you here in this very room.”
My father, standing behind them both, started to lower himself back into his chair, looking to me for permission, which I granted with a quick nod.
“I’m ashamed at the delay,” Mother continued. “But I feel like I know you already. And I’m so, so very pleased.”
“Mutually,” John said, his entire face ablaze with pleasure. “Mutually.”
John liked to be liked. Certainly, he also liked competition and argument. But that came later. First was the pleasure of an openhearted dose of—no, not just affection, but respect, which both my parents were doling out lavishly, in greater supply than he’d ever received from Mary’s family.
Later, when my mother took her own chair, she pressed John about my role in the lab. “You’ve done such a favor, allowing Rosalie to help.”
“The favor’s to me,” John said, “She’s the best assistant I’ve ever had.”
My father winked at me, excess pride making his eyes glassy. He was more prone to emotion even than my mother, who was distracted anyway, with all of her attention turned toward John. She sat near the edge of her seat, feet crossed at the ankles, head and shoulders and well-bound bosom all pressed forward in the service of demonstrating concentration and interest. She’d stored up a dozen smart questions for John—about science, about funding, and about his behavioral recommendations to the military. I’d been worried about my part in the day’s conversations, about what pose I should strike in order to give nothing away. But so far, I couldn’t have added a word if I’d wanted to.
Then we heard Agnus at the door. Mrs. Mary Watson had arrived, with a driver standing behind her, holding a large white box that Agnus took and shepherded to the kitchen, allowing the driver to turn and leave with a touch of his cap. (Drivers usually came around back, separated from their passengers, but then again, I couldn’t recall any guest who wasn’t a close relative ever arriving with a culinary item.) In the entryway, where we all hurried to gather, Mother radiated anxiety—where were the cut flowers? Had Annie still not put out the flowers?
Mary Watson stood in the hall, looking up and around: pert nose, fair heart-shaped face surrounded by a high bob of permanent-waved brown curls. She was pretty. Eyes tired, and with a downward slant at the outer corners that made her look like she was slightly sad, or shy. But undeniably pretty. Frank shuffled into the hallway and took Mary’s fur-collared coat. She shrugged out of it without even looking at him, her eyes still diverted up and around, over all of our heads: the winding staircase, the large hall.
When I took her small hand quickly, introducing myself, she returned a quick, warm smile.
“My,” she said, looking not at me, but past me. “Well, my. What would you call this?”
Father looked confused.
“The architectural style, I mean.”
“Oh, it’s just home sweet home,” Mother said.
“Richardsonian Romanesque, actually,” Father said. “If you’re interested in buildings.”
She took her time, fixed to that spot, clearly captivated. Since our Friday dinners and Sunday brunches were most often attended by family and extended family, which included a fair part of the neighborhood, it had been a long time since I’d seen our house through anyone else’s eyes. Eutaw Place had many fine homes, but it was true, ours was at the top of the street, one of the largest and finest.
“Just around the corner,” Mary said to my parents, “I saw the most impressive church.”
“Yes? It’s a lovely edifice,” Mother said, more than willing to play along.
“It’s a synagogue, actually,” Father said.
Mary turned all her attention to him. “Is it?”
“This house was built four years after its completion,” he said. “The entire neighborhood was farmland not so long ago.”
“Well,” she said, still having trouble communicating her admiration. “I’ve never been up here. It’s sort of another Bolton Hill, isn’t it?”
My father just smiled, not explaining that until just recently, our people would have been excluded from neighborhoods like Bolton Hill, which is why this separate neighborhood of millionaires’ mansions had been built. We never called our house a mansion, of course. But I could see it confirmed in her eager, wanting eyes: it was a mansion. My father had worked to earn it. As had several other siblings and cousins, who had built houses next to ours, and farther down the street. Our family had come far in just a few generations. If she’d imagined my upbringing was hardscrabble, like John’s, if she’d thought my own father was some sort of bourbon-swilling, hard-luck farmer, like Pickens Butler Watson, she was wrong.
Mary, gloves in one hand, thin-lipped smile unreadable, tipped her face and looked at me, ready to focus now, to understand who I was, to know how John’s new graduate assistant fit into all this: whatever she’d heard, whatever she was now seeing.
“I’ll go help with the flowers,” I said, suddenly desperate to disappear.
“Oh yes,” Mother said. “Bring a vase into the parlor, Rosalie, if you wouldn’t mind. And tell Annie she can come in to serve.”
I walked away from the sounds
of contrition and mirth, as Mother teased my father for having allowed himself refreshments before the guests had all arrived, as Father shared the blame with John, as John in turn teased Mary for her separate arrival, and as all of them continued speaking in stage voices—a little louder, with clearer articulation—than any of them would use when they’d gotten to know each other better. It was clear even in those first moments, in the way they all hurried to laugh, compliment, and talk over each other that they were all on their best behavior, and all genuinely pleased to be together, in a strange confluence of mutual desires and anxieties I hadn’t predicted.
My mother had tired of the social circles she’d relied upon in the years just after we’d settled on Eutaw Place: the philanthropy committees and neighborhood beautification clubs and women’s self-improvement leagues. On top of it all, my older sister had moved away, and nearly all my college friends lived in distant cities, leaving our house less busy and cheerful than Mother would have liked. Mary Watson, too, seemed to have a less-than-full dance card, perhaps because her own tense marriage had resulted in a few too many canceled dinner parties, or because their strained budget limited attendance at various events, the places she wanted to attend in order to meet the right people. I’d wanted them to get along. I didn’t think they’d get along this well, this soon, this desperately.
In the kitchen, Annie stared down into the open white box with her chin tucked into her neck, repulsion wrinkling her features.
“I can’t serve this,” she said.
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