A Southern Exposure

by Alice Adams

  Partly for that reason, Russ’s final unfamiliarity, Cynthia had managed not to feel too guilty toward Harry about Russ. Or not very guilty, and not often. Just as with Russ she had managed not to think of Harry, so now when she was with Harry, Russ was rarely on her mind.

  Harry was extremely busy, often leaving home at eight in the morning, sometimes earlier, and not back until eight or so at night—unless, as was frequently the case, the popular Bairds had a dinner date or a party somewhere. They suddenly seemed to know a lot of Washington people; old friends had new jobs there, like themselves. People from Connecticut, from New York. Everywhere.

  Cynthia in Washington spent much more time with Abby than she had in Pinehill. Uncertain of new friends in a brand-new school (the public school that Abby had insisted on), Abby had more time for her mother, and together they explored a lot of the city, museums (Abby especially liked the Smithsonian) and monuments, old houses and old gardens. Churches. Department stores. Art galleries.

  As Abby became more involved with school friends, though, Cynthia thought that she herself could and really should get a job; however, she soon saw that without either a degree or secretarial skills, what she got would have to be very lowly indeed. And so, somewhat lazily at first, she registered and began a few courses at Georgetown University. She loved it. Enrolled as a special student—which is to say, a student not necessarily headed for any specific degree, although credit would be granted should she so choose—she grazed among courses: history, art history, literature. Psychology, architecture. She found this last, which was called Design and most of which was new to her, especially absorbing. The instructor had wonderful slides of new buildings by Le Corbusier, Erich Mendelsohn, F. L. Wright, and—in Barcelona—Gaudi. “After the war we have to go back to Europe,” Cynthia said to Harry. “That trip with my parents doesn’t count. I was missing you so much that I didn’t see a thing.”

  “If there’s any Europe left. All the bombing, and the talk about more.” Harry, like everyone in Washington, knew much more than he could say, and from time to time he threw out dark hints, dire prophecies—though he was hardly alone in a desperate concern for the architecture, along with the populace of Europe.

  When Dolly’s letter came, then, it was probably not surprising that Cynthia reacted strongly to the news of Deirdre Yates’s house (along with other strong reactions). But since the first time that she had seen that group of clearly once-elegant old brick houses, as she and Jimmy High-tower drove out on one of their early excursions, she had been fascinated by those houses. Later, as Abigail and Deirdre developed their friendship, Cynthia longed to be invited over, or just asked in. And knew that she never would be.

  Without too much trouble she talked Harry into a weekend at the Inn. “It’s so lovely down there in April, everything’s just starting to bloom and we haven’t been in such a long time. And I do just want to look at that house. Honestly, Harry, it’s an architectural gem, I know it is. Eventually some historical society will get its hands on it, but I want to see the house first.”

  Deirdre was staying with some cousins in Hillsboro while her house was being shown to prospective buyers (there were very few), and while she waited for her wedding, to be in June. Russ was spending a couple of weeks in New York, conducting some sort of business with his agent, his publisher. All in all, it was a convenient time for Cynthia and Harry to see the house—and so they did.

  So far, in the Bairds’ scattered Pinehill weekends since moving up to Georgetown, Cynthia had seen Russ only twice, both times a fleeting glimpse across gardens, at large parties. A friendly wave, a split second of smiles exchanged, but enough to break the spell, the wall of no contact at all. Cynthia had thought, So that’s how it is to be, we’re friendly acquaintances. Well, good. And then she thought, Thank God no one ever knew. That makes it even less real, somehow.

  Literally nothing by way of renovation had been done to Deirdre Yates’s narrow dark house, except for the most scrupulous cleaning; everything smelled of strong kitchen soap, Oxydol, and floor wax. In the bedrooms upstairs the flowered wallpaper had yellowed in streaks. (And in one of those rooms—in this one?—Deirdre must have been with Russ, they must have made love.) Downstairs dark panelling had long ago been painted over, an ugly brown, now chipped and mottled, discolored.

  But: “This could be wonderful!” Cynthia exclaimed to Harry, and to Mrs. Riggsbee, the agent. “The most perfect small house for us, and really not much work. Just some pretty new paper upstairs—a toile, I think—and downstairs get someone to strip off that ugly old paint, there may be some really beautiful wood underneath. And look, there really is room for a pool in back, and a little pool house. And if the place doesn’t work out for us we can always sell it and make a lot of money.”

  They bought it.

  “Deirdre, I’m just so happy we’re getting your house, it’s going to be absolutely perfect for small vacations, and just between us I really need to get out of Georgetown more than we do. So does Harry, though I’m not sure he knows it. And it’ll be great for Abby—this way she can keep up with all her friends down here. And with a swimming pool! I’m sure she’ll have a lot of new friends too. Oh dear, I’m sounding just like Dolly! I think I always do when I’m down here. Anyway, about the pool. Do you think you could do me this terrific favor and let them start digging on it before absolutely everything is all signed? I mean of course Harry gave Mrs. Riggsbee a check, and I know it’s good, but if they could get started now we’d be that much ahead, I mean closer to having it ready for this summer. It’s all going to be so much fun! You and Russ will have to bring everyone over to swim, all your kids. Yes, I really hope we can get down in time for your wedding, we’re counting on that. You’ll congratulate Russ for both of us, won’t you? And, Deirdre, thanks so much for being so helpful, you’ve made the whole thing so much easier for us. Yes, I’ll have Mrs. Riggsbee call you first thing. And Abby’s dying to see you—”

  “Odessa, if you could just come over for an hour or so. Just to look around and see what ideas you have. You know, like when you and Miz Bigelow came, a couple of years ago, when we were moving into the Hightower house. It’s so dark around Deirdre Yates’s house, and I thought—well, Odessa can really go to town, in this place. Odessa, how’s your daughter? How’s Nelly doing?”

  Russ’s wedding was more difficult for Cynthia than she had imagined it would be. But her upset only lasted for the actual day of it; both before and after she was perfectly all right. But all during the reception at Russ’s, in the somewhat straggly but bountiful garden, she felt slightly unreal, an impersonation of herself. She had dressed very carefully, in a dress from the newest shop in Georgetown, recommended by a new friend. The dress was a simple navy silk with white polka dots, but cut most elegantly, and fitted; Cynthia wore it with a tiny navy straw hat and white kid gloves (of course white gloves), patent bag, and shoes. She knotted up her very long blond hair, applied the most discreet but flattering makeup—only the bright slash of scarlet lipstick was bold. She knew that she looked really good—and conspicuous, among all the Southern pastels, the pale dotted Swiss and flowered dimity. (Will Southern women ever learn the chic of dark clothes in summer, especially black? Cynthia doubted that they would.) She had never looked better, Cynthia knew, and she behaved well too; she chattered away to everyone there, she smiled all afternoon. She did not think in any extended or wistful way: That could have been me, I could have been the one in the center of all this celebration. I could have been the new Mrs. Russell Byrd.

  For as soon as that voice began to whisper in her mind, another contradictory set of sentences would start, and would tell her very clearly: No, you could not have married Russ. Something always would have happened to prevent it. For starters, neither of you really wanted to marry the other, you were only “madly in love.” That was all, and that is all over now. Best forget it and concentrate on who you really are. You are Harry’s wife, and the mother of Abigail, and these days you are go
ing to school. In a year or so you will have a degree, if you want to, and then you can do almost anything.

  This is true; despite the random nature of her course work, it has turned out, made clear in a conference with the dean of women, that Cynthia by now has almost the full requirement for a B.A. degree. And then, as the dean points out, she would have an easy shot at almost any graduate school. With so many young men away at war, there are vacancies. All she has to do is decide what she wants to do. She could not get into medical school, no pre-med courses, but then, a doctor is one of the things she has never wanted to be. The two fields that most interest her (curious, their apparent lack of relation to each other) are architecture and the law. With almost equal ease, according to mood, she can imagine herself as either an architect, designing wonderful new “modernistic” houses, or a lawyer, defending poor people (she thinks), maybe Negroes, who otherwise haven’t a chance, who need good lawyers.

  And how incredulous Russ would be at either plan! She cannot help thinking this, at his wedding, imagining the deeply furrowed high white brow, and the thicker country accent as he might say, “A pretty lady like you with all that schooling? I just plain can’t see the point to it.”

  Harry thinks either choice would be great, but he wishes that she would make up her mind. He likes to plan ahead, to know what’s going to happen.

  It was very hard, though, at Russ’s wedding, to think of herself as either an architect or a lawyer—as Cynthia chatted with Dolly, so lively and pretty in a very bright pink dress, and sad widowed Irene Lee, also pretty in pale blue, and drinking too much. And her old friends, Jimmy and Esther Hightower (they now seemed like very old, cozy friends).

  All these people whom she liked and cared about but whom, she often thought, she would never really know. (Perhaps because they are the least “Southern,” the Hightowers also seem the least opaque, the least alien to Cynthia.)

  From time to time someone would mention Abby: “Where’s Abby? Is she here this afternoon?” or “I just caught a glimpse of Abby—my, she’s a great big girl now, and just as pretty as she can be!”

  No one, that afternoon of the wedding, mentioned (to Cynthia) Abby’s Infamous Integration Paper (Harry referred to it in this way), although Cynthia could sense that thought; she could hear it in the voices that asked after Abby, could see it in the eyes of those asking, “How is Abby?” She could hear and see the steel-cold sound and look of disapproval.

  Cynthia herself felt a huge, heart-swelling pride in her daughter. For one thing, Abby had worked so extremely hard on that paper, hours of research and pages and pages of notes; a meticulous outline, meticulously followed, and three long drafts of the paper itself, with footnotes. And Abby’s conclusions seemed (to Cynthia) both logical and moral: the present laws and the customs having to do with Negroes were both unfair and (often) illegal. Of course they should be able to vote, and if people wanted to inter-marry, whyever not? Cynthia was quite furious that Abby should be so criticized. (And amazed and moved by Abby’s courage.) “Misunderstood” is how she thought of it.

  “Yes,” Harry had said, “of course I agree with all that, and you know I love Abby too. Unconditionally. But why did she have to send the goddam thing to Betsy Lee, that dumb little Southern twit?”

  “Betsy’s her friend, Abby thinks, and she still thinks that a friend is a friend all the way. No holds barred. Maybe this was even a way of testing the friendship. She was sort of saying, Look, this is who I am, and what I think.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, our poor little girl. She’ll have to learn that many friendships are very partial.”

  “Oh, I know! Suppose I tried to really talk to Dolly! But Abby just doesn’t know that yet.”

  Sometimes, in her fantasies of herself as a lawyer, Cynthia imagines defending her willful daughter. Along with the rights of Negroes (Odessa! Odessa’s daughter Nelly) to vote, and to live wherever they chose to. To go to whatever schools, and marry whomever they wanted to. If she put all her mind and her energy to it, she might get to be a famous, successful lawyer, maybe even a judge (were women ever judges?—she does not remember ever hearing of a woman judge). She could do all that in Washington, and really affect things, and then come back to Pinehill to defend herself, and Abby.

  For every reason, then, strong feelings in so many directions, Cynthia was more than a little tense at the Russ-Deirdre wedding. It was hard for her to be there. And although it was too late to reconsider, with the swimming pool already started, all that digging, she even asked herself if they really wanted a house down here, in this extraordinarily pretty town. Among all these exceptionally kind and graceful people, most of whose ideas on “race” and certain other social issues were appalling.

  34

  Abigail Baird is over-sexed, very over-sexed. She will probably grow up to be a nymphomaniac, or maybe in just a few years she will be one. When she goes to college. A boy from her school, Jack Cutter, took her for a walk in Rock Creek Park, and he held her hand and then he stopped and kissed her, standing there, his mouth on her mouth, and she felt insane. Bursting, hot, and weak. And she doesn’t even like Jack Cutter. He is not tall or cute, he has ugly little teeth. She never wanted to see him again after that. He’s really a dope and gets all bad grades. So this must mean that she is over-sexed.

  Of course she knows the mechanics of the sexual act. What grownups do. She has not, though, been able to make the imaginative connection between that, the penis-vagina business, and her own feelings, which she knows to be sexual, but do those feelings mean that she really wants to do that? She is not at all sure about the connection between that and kissing. It sounds embarrassing.

  Her mother has said it feels better than anything, she can’t describe how it feels, and Abby is willing to believe her mother. She thinks how lucky grownups are, to be able to get married and do it all the time. Until they get too old for it, as her parents must be by now.

  She is not so sure about Deirdre and Mr. Byrd. When she first got to know Deirdre and went over there a lot, she used to catch them kissing sometimes, holding on to each other as though they were drowning. But she does not know if they have done that other thing too. Now that they are married she guesses that they do.

  Abby hated the actual wedding. The giggling, snickering way all the grownups there behaved; it was embarrassing, awful. And as usual they all drank too much, except for Mr. Hightower, who has stopped drinking; he used to drink much too much. Mrs. Lee, Betsy’s mother, really drank a lot, she always does, especially since Mr. Lee died. He died just sitting up in a car with Mrs. Bigelow. Walker Byrd says he thinks they were kissing too—he had caught them a few times parked somewhere near his house. Everyone, all the grownups, made such a fuss about his dying like that, with Mrs. Bigelow, so there must have been something, not just sitting in a car. Mrs. Lee didn’t speak to Mrs. Bigelow for almost a year after that, Walker said.

  Walker thinks they were probably doing it in the car, going all the way. “Grownups don’t stop once they start,” he says. “Why should they?”

  “But in a car?” Abby does not see how this could be done.

  “College kids do it all the time. What’d you think they were parked out on Crest Road for, just plain old necking?”

  “I don’t see how you know that.” Abby is finding this conversation very disturbing. She frowns uncomfortably, not looking at Walker.

  “Well, Miss Smarty Pants, I am sure. Archer and me, we found these things on the ground. Near where the cars are parked. Lots of times. These rubbers. Ick! I’d never touch one.”

  Abby does not know exactly what he is talking about (rubbers?) except in a very vague way. Certainly she knows enough to know that she does not want Walker to explain any further. She suddenly hates Walker. She would never kiss Walker Byrd.

  The kids down in Pinehill whom Abby knows, her group, are all about a year younger than those in her class in Washington, and for that reason (partly) they are nowhere near as fast; there is muc
h less sex in the Pinehill atmosphere. In Washington there’s so much sex everywhere that it’s scary, if you’re not used to it. Boys and girls holding hands as they walk down long brown dusty corridors, couples dancing in the gym at lunchtime, very closely, glued to each other. Girls in the washroom crying because of some boy. And items in the school paper about big love affairs at the school. Jokes told that Abby almost but does not quite understand, but that she finds vaguely exciting. Disquieting.

  At the beginning she found everything about that school disturbing; she was deeply uncomfortable. In Pinehill the girls were not wearing lipstick yet, but here in Washington they are, and very, very dark red. Dark red nail polish too, a lot of them. The first afternoon after school, last September, Abby went out to the Georgetown drug-store right after she got home and bought a lipstick, and the next day she wore it to school. But she still had those dumb long braids and straight bangs.

  “I want my hair cut! I can’t stand looking like a Dutch twin, or some child.”

  “But, darling, you look marvelous, and not like anyone else—”

  “I want short hair!”

  They compromise, Abby and her mother, on hair for Abby that was fairly long but curled, and never braided again. The wedding was the first time that Abby had worn her hair like that in Pinehill, so that some people looked at her twice, seeming for a minute not to know her.

  Her parents stayed in the suite at the Inn for Deirdre’s wedding, but Abby got to stay with Betsy Lee, whose mother was still very lonely, they all said, and who liked to have company. “It just does me so much good to hear those little girls whispering all night,” she confided to Cynthia. Who later confided to Harry, “Well, it does us good not to hear them, doesn’t it, darling Harry?”