In Her Day

by Rita Mae Brown

  PRAISE FOR THE BOOKS OF RITA MAE BROWN

  VENUS ENVY

  “A hilarious and touching novel about a career woman who comes out as a lesbian when she thinks she’s dying—and then lives.”

  —Ms. magazine

  RUBYFRUIT JUNGLE

  “A powerful story … A truly incredible book.”

  —The Boston Globe

  SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT

  “Brown’s characters … are full of wisdom and sass. Spirited, funny, and moving, this novel will appeal to Brown’s many fans. It may also earn her some new followers.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  HIGH HEARTS

  “This expansive novel of the Civil War contains what must surely be the first in-saddle marital squabble between two members of a Virginia cavalry regiment .… Fine comic scenes and smart-talking characters … Admirable.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  BINGO

  “Bingo beams with Brown’s fondness for her characters and her delight in the oddness of the world of Runnymede .… We are intimately drawn into the town’s life.”

  —Boston Herald

  SUDDEN DEATH

  “Her books are funny, outrageous, bawdy, tender and filled with love. Sadden Death is no exception .… Through it all, Brown writes so beautifully of that special and mysterious feeling we call love.”

  —The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

  STARTING FROM SCRATCH: A DIFFERENT KIND OF WRITERS’ MANUAL

  “Funny enough in places to make you laugh aloud but honest enough to weed out the weak of heart who think writing is made by muses rather than writers’ hard work.”

  —The Columbus Sunday Dispatch

  This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

  IN HER DAY

  A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Daughters, Inc. edition published in 1976

  Bantam edition / November 1988

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1976 by Rita Mae Brown.

  Cover design copyright © 1988 by One + One Studio.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-7817

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-553-27573-5

  eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-5275-4

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  NOTE TO THE FEMINIST READER

  In art as in politics we must deal with people as they are not as we wish them to be. Only by working with the real can you get closer to the ideal.

  NOTE TO THE NONFEMINIST READER

  What’s wrong with you?

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to the Feminist Reader

  Note to the Nonfeminist Reader

  Introduction

  First Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  INTRODUCTION

  Trouble is said to be good for an artist’s soul but almost never is. In Her Day reflects the troubles inside the women’s movement at the beginning of the 1970s. It was a time of emotional hemophilia, and popular novels reflected that—here was lots of bleeding all over the page. I was determined in my crucial, second novel (the second novel is a killer) not to be a party to literary melodrama or political melodrama if I could help it. I was also determined to jump the Grand Canyon between first person narrative and third person. I landed safely on the other side despite a few frightening wobbles while airborne.

  This is not to say that In Her Day is splendid and I’m a scribbling wonder. It is only to say that I had a difficult challenge before me—made all the more difficult by the wild success of Rubyfruit Jungle—and I managed to complete the task of writing a second novel that would not be Daughter of Rubyfruit Jungle and would teach me something. Whether or not the reader gets anything out of it is another matter entirely.

  The cascade of years, fourteen, between the writing of this novel and today jolted me with surprises. The political world described herein has vanished or, perhaps more accurately, gone underground until a later time. Many of the protestors of the late sixties and early seventies became rebels with MasterCards. Lest I be too hard on them/us, it helps to remember that in order to create a political movement one must sacrifice much of one’s personal life. It was inevitable that the responsibilities of daily life would catch up with millions of people who had put their careers and family development on hold. The issues raised during the years of protest remain unresolved. We’ve moved the ball forward, but we’re nowhere near the goal line.

  In Her Day concentrates on inching that ball forward, and it revolves around the conflict between a young movement organizer and a middle-aged woman who has different priorities. Oddly enough, if I were to write the novel today, the issues would remain the same but the characters would be reversed: the young woman would be conservative and the middle-aged woman would be the radical. But then, how could I have foreseen the rise of the Sunbelt neofascists who seek only to make a purse out of their skin? Today we live in a society suffering from ethical rickets.

  The rise of the right isn’t the only surprise the years have brought. Consider the “new” woman. She’s trying to be Pollyanna Borgia, clearly a conflict of interest. She’s supposed to be a ruthless winner at work and a bundle of nurturing sweetness at home. It remains for each woman to find her place and each man his in this cultural chaos of mixed signals.

  One thing is certain. The definition of “normal” has taken a beating. What is a normal woman? What is a normal man? Maybe normal is the average of the deviance, and maybe every period of history was as chaotic, confusing, and even as silly as our own.

  We back into the future, and the past we can see has been shorn of the confusion and much of the conflict. The events are finished. We can make sense out of them, and looking back is curiously comforting. What was considered deviant then is now perceived as creative, and so it will be fifteen years hence when we glance over our shoulders at this time.

  In Her Day is true to its time, but is it true to me? As a reader it’s tempting to assume that a novel is a complete reflection of the author. It isn’t. It may reflect parts of an author’s personality, pursuing themes that hold that author, but the creator of a work is separate from the work. Today I read In Her Day as though it were someone else’s book, because I have stumbled along in my growth as a writer and as a person. Siegfried Sassoon expressed this reality quite poignantly in Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man. He wrote, “I did not anticipate that I should become different; I should only become older.”

  I am a different woman from the one who wrote In Her Day. I no longer assume that as a nation we will move forward. I see only too clearly that progress has both a forward and a backward motion. In our case, make that blacklash motion.

  I no longer idolize reason. I have come to accept that ninety percent of what we do is irrational and that we spend what little rational thought we have in justifying our irrationality.

  I
know that after all is said and done, more is said than done.

  I know that people often want to do the right thing but are too lazy to do it.

  I still hope that in those moments of great crisis we will rise up and try to do the decent thing, the just thing. Only, why do we have to wait for a crisis? I don’t know if I will ever reach a point where I understand and accept that facet of human nature.

  But I do accept that we are an absurd and frightened little species capable of great mischief. That glimmer of absurdity runs through In Her Day and everything else I have ever written.

  And I accept that as I change I also remain the same in certain fundamental respects. My spirit is informed by my gender but unencumbered by it. That part of me will never change.

  Nor will my sense of humor. I’m beginning to feel that the real endangered species on planet earth are not the whales and the elephants but those of us who can laugh at the world and ourselves. For instance: I envy Christ. He was born before the credit card. Who would write that but me? You might argue, who would want to? Well, I do. Why would God give me this sense of humor if S/He did not intend for me to use it? I fear the dry turn of the American mind, this focus on the literal, as much as I fear our capacity for self-destruction. We’ve become hagridden by facts, obsessed with product instead of process. Where’s the energetic wit, the looney outlook, the frivolity, the lightness of comforting laughter? It has become fashionable to know and unfashionable to feel, and you can’t really laugh if you can’t feel.

  Descartes said, “Cogito, ergo sum.” I think, therefore I am. I say, “Rideo, ergo sum.” I laugh, therefore I am.

  Yours,

  7 June 1988

  Charlottesville, Virginia

  “Notice the sensuous curve of the breast.”

  The whirr of the slide projector didn’t cover up the snicker of an immature male. Carole shot him a pitying look and continued with her lecture, “Ingres catches our eye with the sensation of movement and then holds us with a perfection of structure. As it’s three we’ll pick up where we left off next Tuesday. Let there be light, someone.”

  The room brightened and the robust women fondling each other in a Turkish harem faded from view. Carole gathered her notes then headed for the door. Three students quickly surrounded her for pearls of wisdom.

  She nodded, “Have a good weekend,” and raced for the elevator. Today wasn’t the day for pearls. Crawling slowly down New York University’s upper reaches, the elevator reminded Carole of mother possums, swaying under the weight of clutching children while backing down a tree. Possum and the Virginia summers of childhood receded from thought. A dangerous lurch on the fifth floor snapped Grandma’s peeling house from memory and securely in the present Carole thought one of these days this damn thing will break and I’ll plunge to my death with forty rich kids from Long Island.

  The door opened onto the main floor spilling the human contents across the hall. Carole crossed Waverly Place to enter an even more decrepit elevator whose operator was in similar condition. Riley, his face a roadmap with all the lines drawn in fine purple, greeted her with an unfailing, “Top of the day to you, Professor Hanratty. Up to the art department, is it?”

  “As always.”

  “Always watch the ball games in summer, you know.” Since he was hard of hearing Riley answered with whatever he thought he heard. “You ever watch ’em?”

  “Football not baseball.”

  “Baseball’s an art. A real art. Nowadays everybody wants things fast. Me, I’m slow like this elevator. Love baseball, especially the Red Sox. Baseball and pinocle. Here we are.”

  “Thank you, Riley.”

  Directly across from the elevator loomed a spacious office, with wall-to-wall carpeting, and the large walnut desk curiously facing the elevator doors. Those doors opened and shut like the slide projectors which make up an art department’s arsenal to attack uninterested post-adolescent minds. Resembling a student hypnotized by the changing images, Fred Fowler, head of the art department, blinked each time the doors revealed another passenger. It would have made sense to close the door or turn his desk around but Freddie Fowler didn’t want to miss a thing, especially if the thing was female. The slight draft coming up the elevator shaft used to lift up their dresses but since the advent of pants barely a calf was to be seen. Still as the doors rattled, Freddie lifted his eyes and the gleam of hope burned there. Recognizing Carole’s five foot eleven inch frame, slender and straight, the corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Carole, hello. How’s the introductory course on such a hot day? The Great Neck heathens must be restless.”

  “Drugged is closer to the truth. Either the heat or downs depress them to a level of fuzzed attention although a few exhibit signs of active intelligence. In fact, Fred, I’m almost enjoying the summer session. Thought I’d hate it at first.”

  “Glad to hear that. Glad to hear that. I know how you feel. We gear ourselves to a semester cycle and want to race off for the summer.”

  “I’m racing off to check my mail. Have a good weekend, Chief.”

  “You too.”

  God, how Fred adores being called chief but then what can you expect of a man who hangs his coat-of-arms in his office? I swear he got his Ph. D. on the social significance of paint-by-numbers. And will he ever raise his eyes above breast level? He says hello to my left tit. That guy will never give up. Carole reached into her mailbox and picked out the phone messages, backside up, spread them like a hand of bridge, closed her eyes and plucked one.

  * * *

  “Hi, Adele, just got back from class and got your message.”

  “Hey, darlin’, what are you doing tonight?”

  “Well, I was thinking of going to Rio de Janiero. On the other hand I might go to bed early.”

  “Uh-huh. LaVerne and I heard about a new restaurant in the Village, a kind of feminist eatery. Thought we’d try it. Want to join us?”

  “Love to. What’s the name of this place?”

  “Mother Courage.”

  “My dear, do I have to wear an Equal Rights Amendment button to get in?”

  “I doubt it. Just bring money. Sisterhood may be powerful but it’s still poor.”

  “Okay. What time should I come over?”

  “Seven-thirty? It’ll take us a little while to get there.”

  “Seven-thirty’s fine. See you then.”

  Adele hung up the black 1940’s phone and stared into her garden.

  I never thought I’d live to see thirty and here I am, forty-three. Carole’s forty-four. I’ve known that woman for over twenty years. Close to a quarter of a century. Funny after all these years our friends are still trying to figure Carole out. She’s easy enough for me to read. Must be her beauty. Americans make icons out of beautiful women. Doesn’t matter what a beauty does, she’s misunderstood. Perhaps we’re all misunderstood, they just get all the attention. Adele caught herself on that deflated thought and pushed her inner conversation with more vigor. Junior philosophers have been selling the essential loneliness of life since B.C. Nobody’s understood and we’re all alone in the cold, cruel world. I don’t think people are lonely because they’re misunderstood. They’re lonely because they think they’re misunderstood. Hell, they want to be misunderstood. That way they can be irresponsible. Besides, makes ’em think they’re gifted or intelligent. Suffering in public is a genuine ambition. Ties in nicely with being misunderstood. Ha. Well, I understand Carole and she understands me. Maybe I know Carole better than I know LaVerne. Hell, I even know myself. I’m gonna put those limp philosophy departments out of business.

  A piercing squack from Lester, a preening white cockatoo, shattered Adele’s triumph.

  “Shut up, Lester, you got no understanding. Furthermore, you got no couth, bird.”

  Lester unfurled his crown, let out another supersonic blast and relieved himself simultaneously.

  “You are a filthy thing. You know that?”

  If Lester knew he didn’t let on. By no
w the two mackaws were gossiping loudly and the toucan, mynah, and plain green parrot became interested and were contributing to the conversation.

  Adele, who could never be accused of being conventional, built an enormous bird cage all along one wall of her East 71st Street garden apartment. She told everyone it was little Africa although the style was Amazon rain forest. Carole dubbed it her jungle bunny wall. Adele spent far too much money on it with LaVerne bitching at every penny and calling her a spearchuker. The rock fountain, lush foliage, and brilliant, gabby birds were more than Verne could bear. Adele gloried in her creation. A woman has to have something of her own, lovers be damned. Carole sensed this and gave her Lester Maddox, a perfectly white cockatoo. Adele, in turn, taught Lester to say, “Bwana, White Devil!” everytime a non-Black entered her apartment. The first time Carole walked in and Lester laid his big line on her she nearly had a heart attack. Lester gave Adele more satisfaction than her Ph. D. in pre-Columbian art.

  “Adele, where in hell is this place, in the river?” LaVerne sputtered.

  “I forgot that the river doesn’t run by Seventh Avenue,” Adele apologized. “To tell you the truth I’m a bit lost. I never go below 57th Street. Speaking of going down, Carole, is Fred Fowler still after your ass?”

  “He’s incorrigible but about all he can do is leer.”

  “Honey, after all these years the poor man may be driven to such desperation he’ll try rape,” Adele hopefully noted.

  “We’d have to charge him with assault with a dead weapon,” Carole grinned.

  Giggling they arrived in front of the little restaurant; the painted wooden sign creaked in the wind.

  “Looks full. Imagine all these people trekking over here to the wild, wild West. Must be a good place,” Verne commented.

  They pushed the door open. People glanced up at them and then returned to their conversations and food.