The Women's Room

by Marilyn French

  Then Bill asked her to dance. This was an occasion, for he rarely danced, and when he did it was awful. But one could not say no to such a rare request; one could not wound a male’s vanity. So she smiled gratefully and let him put her through the one dance he did, a manic lindy. He jumped around on the floor like a monkey and tossed his partner with abandon. It was graceless, exhausting, and chaotic: there was no sense of the formed movement that was so satisfying in dancing. Bill had short hair and a cowlick, a freckled, open face: he looked like the all-American boy, and, she imagined, probably looked just as he had at twelve. He had no conversation except for a running stream of dirty jokes, each followed by a whoop of shrill laughter, almost a whinny. One of the grounds of Mira’s respect for Bliss was that, intelligent as she clearly was, she always looked at Bill with respect and affection. She never showed in the slightest glance that she found him ridiculous, although it seemed to Mira that she could not do otherwise.

  Bill was tossing Mira in circles and jumping from one foot to another, telling her a joke at the same time.

  ‘So the Captain says he’s just gonna run back and get some sack time, and everybody laughs, you know.’ He bent and gave his hysterical giggle as he approached the punch line. As he gave it, he stomped, and flung out his arms and hit a glass that was standing on the TV set and it flew off and straight at Mira and hit her in the breast and spilled its contents down the front of her dress. Bill bent double laughing, pointing at her. She must have looked funny, stuff dripping all down her front and that look on her face. Her new dress! She couldn’t believe it, she couldn’t accept it. After all these years she had finally gotten a good dress and the first night she wears it, that clown, that jerk, that stupid, giggling fool …!

  She went to the bathroom to wash it off and saw that the liquid was Coke. It would never come off the taffeta. She washed it down as well as she could, but she was nearly in tears. Someone knocked on the bathroom door, so she vacated it, but she could not go back downstairs. If anyone spoke to her she was sure she would burst out crying. She did not want to act like such a fool, crybaby, caring so much about a trifling thing. She decided to sit for a while in Samantha’s bedroom, and she swung open the door to go in. And stopped.

  Bliss and Paul were standing there talking. Had they been kissing, she would have been less surprised: people did get sexy at parties. But they were standing talking, standing so close together and talking so seriously that it was clear that theirs was an intimacy of some length and some seriousness. Had they been kissing, they would have stopped and turned and made a joke and she could have laughed too. As it was, they just turned and looked at her and she had to find some excuse.

  ‘Bill got too enthusiastic doing the lindy,’ she said pointing to the stain on her dress. ‘I thought I’d see if Sam had anything that would fit me.’

  It passed; they picked it up, they gave some explanation for their being there – something about plans for Adele’s birthday – and they left. She sank down on the bed, her tearfulness forgotten.

  She thought about it. She didn’t blame Bliss. Being married to Bill must be constant torment for a woman of Bliss’s mind and manner. And everyone knew what a horror divorce was for a woman: it meant poverty, stigma, and loneliness. So what else could Bliss do? She was awed by Bliss’s courage: Mira would have been terrified to do what Bliss was doing. She didn’t think much about Paul: the rumors were he was always having affairs. She had put the rumors down as untrue. She thought they arose out of his behavior at parties, the way he acted with women. She had assumed it was all innocent flirtation.

  And that was what pained her. She felt as if she had been shot, as if there were a hole right through her forehead, and moreover, that she deserved it. She had believed they were all happy children playing ring-around-the-rosy. All except Natalie, and Natalie was different, she’d always been rich, she had her own rules because she could afford them. But now here was Bliss. All the flirting she’d seen Bliss do, all the going round and round that sometimes bothered her, had had real consequences. She sat there feeling stupid. For all her reputed intelligence, she was the stupidest person she knew, so stupid she could not function in the world. That was the reason she had retreated into marriage. She was too stupid to survive in the real world. Living in dreams, illusions about the way things were, she was so egotistical that she insisted they were as she wanted them to be. All her intellect and pride had ever done was to blind her. A category she never thought in, a word she never used, came flaming up at her: she felt like a sinner.

  21

  Bliss had none of Mira’s stupidity. She had known the instant she saw Mira’s face in the doorway that Mira had recognized the truth. She was terrified. It was not that, after all these years of friendship, she thought Mira would try to hurt her. She knew Mira was honorable. But she mistrusted her for that very reason. Mira had too many principles; she might decide that it would be in the best interests of all involved that the thing be made public, open. She might come up with some crazy idea about putting marriage on a new basis in which all concerned parties agreed to mutual infidelities. She might do anything. Unquestionably, she would tell Norm. She might even tell Samantha: they were pretty thick these days. And they would tell others. Of course, there was no evidence, but Bliss knew things like this did not require evidence. Even if she and Paul were not having an affair and the story got started that they were, she would end up paying.

  But she did not know what to do. Luckily, Bill was going out on a flight on Monday, and she would be alone for five days and could do some real thinking. The first thing she had to do was sound out Mira’s attitude toward the thing. If she were judgmental and reproving, strong action would be necessary. If not, they could be more subtle.

  She did not have to wait long. She went to Mira’s for coffee on Monday, and as soon as they were seated, Mira looked her in the eye and said, ‘So.’

  Bliss laughed and waved her hand in the air. ‘Yes, so.’

  ‘How do you manage it?’ Mira asked, really curious.

  ‘Well, Bill’s away.’

  ‘I know, but the kids!’

  ‘I give them tranquilizers when he’s coming.’

  Mira looked shocked.

  ‘Oh, Bliss!’

  ‘It doesn’t hurt them. I just give them a little, so they sleep more soundly.’

  ‘Don’t you feel funny talking to Adele?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  As they talked further, Bliss saw that Mira on the whole approved, but she also saw the grounds of Mira’s reservations: the children and Adele. Bliss did not exhort Mira to silence: she was too proud, and it would not have done any good anyway. Mira would talk or not as she judged right. And Bliss sensed she would not. But if Mira saw Adele upset, or saw the children’s eyes looking glazed – there was no telling then. Action had to be taken.

  Paul was supposed to be with her on Tuesday night. By then she had formulated a plan. He arrived a little early: ‘I couldn’t wait,’ he said. Her heart leaped almost out of her chest when she saw him. As they embraced, she thought it would quite literally be death to be torn away from him. They could not let go of each other. Every time they tried, one or the other pulled them together again. Bliss had put some music on the record player, and their embraces and kisses felt like a dance. They floated in each other. For a moment as she lay against his chest, Bliss wondered what it would be like to be married to him, to have him all the time. But she brushed the thought away: it was impossible, and feeling brave and dry-eyed, she looked up at him.

  ‘Come sit down. We have to talk.’

  She fetched a pitcher of the martinis he had taught her to make and poured them into the two iced glasses. She was wearing a floaty new robe, emerald green, and her hair down. He gazed at her as if she were some incredible treasure he had stumbled on and could not yet believe was his. He kept reaching out to touch her, gently, touch a strand of her hair, her cheek, run his hand lightly over her lips. Sometimes she would
grab his hand and kiss it, and then they would be in each other’s arms again. But she pulled away at last and moved to the couch beside him.

  ‘Paul.’ She put her hand over his. ‘Mira knows.’

  ‘How?’ He put his glass down. ‘You didn’t tell her?’

  ‘Of course not. Saturday night. She saw us.’

  ‘We weren’t doing anything.’

  She made a face. ‘You may be dense, but she’s not.’

  ‘Did she say she knew?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no point in going into details, she thought, laughing to herself. Men were just dense, that was all there was to it.

  ‘Do you think she’ll say anything?’

  ‘No. Not now. But I can’t be sure. You know how het up she gets about ideas and principles.’ Bliss stood and paced, her slender body held in the careful languor she aimed for, looking tense and sensual at once. She spoke rapidly and bluntly, then lowered herself back into the couch, her grace barely masking the terrific coiled-up energy caged in her slim ribs, the narrowly spaced pelvic bones. She sat looking at him, prepared for almost anything – protest, recoil, perhaps even contempt. Courage, she thought wryly, I don’t lack. But he was laughing. He thought it a splendid idea.

  ‘To her, of all people! That tight-assed virgin!’

  Bliss laughed in satisfaction. She and Paul were of a kind.

  It was a simple plan. It would take time and careful playing of roles, but both Paul and Bliss were adepts at that. And as it happened, Adele played right into their hands. Over coffee with Bliss a few days later, she repeated some remarks Doris had made about Mira. Roger and Doris didn’t like her, Adele said. They thought she was neurotic. ‘I know you’re a good friend of hers, Bliss, and I don’t mean to offend you, but I don’t think I like her so much either.’

  Bliss looked down, stirring her coffee. ‘Why?’ she asked in a tone that sounded concerned-trying-to-sound-offhand.

  ‘Well, I don’t know, I’m not comfortable with her,’ Adele said uneasily.

  Paul had been supposed to stand staring out toward Mira’s house at a time when he knew Adele would see him, and to act startled when she said something to him. Bliss gathered he had done this, but Adele didn’t mention it.

  Bliss said nothing, kept stirring her coffee, looking down.

  Adele gazed at her. ‘Didn’t you tell me something about her and Natalie? About letters Hamp supposedly wrote?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Bliss said carefully.

  ‘What was that?’

  Bliss sighed and raised her head. ‘Oh, nothing. You know how Natalie was. She thought Mira was having an affair with Hamp.’

  ‘Well, was she?’

  Bliss shrugged self-consciously. ‘How should I know?’

  ‘She’s close to you.’

  Bliss gave a small shrug. ‘Not that close.’

  It worked. They kept it up. Paul looked out at Mira’s house long and longingly; he would look guilty when Adele caught him. Bliss acted very kind to Adele – kinder than usual. She acted almost as if she were sorry for Adele. Every once in a while, as if she were testing, Adele would make a small uncomplimentary remark about Mira to Bliss. She watched, but Bliss never responded. She did not defend Mira. One day, Adele asked how Mira was, and Bliss shrugged and said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t see her much anymore.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh,’ Bliss waved her hand, ‘I don’t know. It’s just well, you know, friendship can go just so far.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t talk about it,’ Bliss said sadly. She took Adele’s face in her hands. ‘I’m sorry, Dell. But I can’t.’

  Before Christmas, there was a party. Adele watched Paul carefully. He danced almost all night with Mira. He kept going over to her, talking to her. That week, over coffee, she turned her gaze straight at Bliss.

  ‘Mira’s having an affair with Paul, isn’t she?’

  Bliss looked up startled, embarrassed. ‘Adele!’

  ‘Isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s been my friend for over four years now, Adele. Don’t ask me to stab her in the back.’

  ‘Isn’t she?’

  Bliss put her elbows on the table and laid her head in her hands. ‘I don’t know’, she said in a muffled voice. ‘I’ve heard stories. But I don’t know. Honestly.’ She looked up, straight at Adele. ‘I honestly don’t believe them. Honestly.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  1

  One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape; they have beginnings, middles, and endings. Whereas in life, things just drift along. In life, somebody has a cold, and you treat it as insignificant, and suddenly they die. Or they have a heart attack, and you are sodden with grief until they recover to live for thirty petulant years, demanding you wait on them. You think a love affair is ending, and you are gripped with Anna Karenina-ish drama, but two weeks later the guy is standing in your doorway, arms stretched up on the molding; jacket hanging open, a sheepish look on his face, saying, ‘Hey, take me back, will ya?’ Or you think a love affair is high and thriving, and you don’t notice that over the past months it has dwindled, dwindled, dwindled. In other words, in life one almost never has an emotion appropriate to an event. Either you don’t know the event is occurring, or you don’t know its significance. We celebrate births and weddings; we mourn deaths and divorces; yet what are we celebrating, what mourning? Rituals mark feelings, but feelings and events do not coincide. Feelings are large and spread over a lifetime. I will dance the polka with you and stamp my feet with vigor, celebrating every energy I have ever felt. But those energies were moments, not codifiable, not certifiable, not able to be fixed: you may be seduced into thinking my celebration is for you. Anyway, that is a thing art does for us: it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear. Whereas in life, from moment to moment, one can’t tell an onion from a piece of dry toast.

  Mira lived contentedly through the last months of 1959 without realizing that her life had already drastically changed. Natalie was gone; Theresa was a destroyed person, no longer accessible. Mira had not been close to Adele for some time, but because of her other friendships, had not noticed that until now. She had grown intensely close to Bliss, whom she loved second only to her family. Their intimacy was not especially verbal; it arose out of their feeling the same way in a situation, from their being able to look, simply glance at each other in a situation, and know they knew, knew the same things, felt together.

  For some weeks in the fall, Bliss stopped in only once or twice a week; she had been distracted all summer, humming and off buying paint. For a while, she didn’t stop in at all. Then, suddenly it seemed, she was busy when Mira stopped in to see her. She was spending much time on her house, painting the living room, making new drapes for it, painting her bedroom, making a new bedspread, new lampshades, new pale pink opaque curtains. Finally, Mira challenged her, asked her what was wrong, what had happened. Bliss hummed and raised her eyebrows. Nothing was wrong, nothing had changed, she was just busy. Mira went home with a numb spot in the middle of her forehead. What she had thought of as love and support had simply stopped, stopped with no reason or at least no reason given. She knew there was no point in pushing Bliss; she understood how tough Bliss was. Bliss was through with her and she did not know why and she would never know why. Maybe it was because she knew about Bliss and Paul. But even suspecting that, she still did not know why.

  Late in the fall, before Bliss cut her off completely, Paula and Brett had a party. Mira had a vague feeling of being an outsider in her own group, and she got drunker than usual, faster than usual. She recalled, the next day, that Paul had come over to her frequently, more often than usual, to ask her to dance. She had thought it odd, and she had refused him many times. Yet he returned, over and over again. She had a strange feeling, but drunk as she was, disoriented as she felt, did not draw any conclusions from it except that sh
e was disorganized. The feeling she had, not solidified into perception until later, was that she was being used as a decoy. But there was no way she could talk it out, no way to check her perceptions against reality. She no longer got more than mere social politeness from Bliss. Then, one blustery January day as she was removing the frozen bedsheets from the laundry line, Adele came out her back door to shake a dust mop. Mira hailed her. Adele looked up, looked straight at her, and turned and went back in the house.

  Then she knew. She thought about it on many evenings, sitting up late in the dark with a snifter of brandy, and smoking. She had worked it out that Paul’s reputation was deserved; he had had affairs, and Adele knew it. But what could she do about it? With all those kids, alimony payments being what they were, she and the children would have to live like paupers. That is, if she even considered divorce. Someone who would not use birth control was not likely to use divorce. That in itself gave Paul enormous freedom. He might think twice if he felt he was risking loss of his family, his home, his wife. They are easy enough to ignore or abuse when one has them, but losing them is unpleasant. Adele’s only alternative was to beat him up. Probably they had an unspoken agreement: he did not insist on using birth control, but the kids then were her responsibility and he retained his freedom. Nevertheless, Paul and Bliss would want to keep Adele from knowing about them so the couples could continue to have an easy social mingling; they figured the best way was to find a substitute target for Adele’s suspicions. Bliss was not too worried about Bill, who was oblivious, but even if he did suspect, the story about Paul and Mira would serve to deflect him too. After all, how many women can a man handle at once? It was an ingenious plan. Mira thought bitterly about the two of them sitting together, plotting it, giggling.