5:45 to Suburbia

by Packer, Vin

  Also, there has been too much stress on the creative aspects of homemaking and less stress on the practical. The young homemaker wants to know how, and needs to know how, before she can innovate on her own.

  In addition, the recipes have featured food far above our consumers’ price range. Venison and the like are not young homemakers’ daily fare, and we cater to their needs, not their extravagances.

  It is apparent to me that in view of these facts, it is necessary for Cadence Publications to take definite action with regard to Miss Mann.

  Were it not for the fact of her persistent insobriety, I would advise that she be assisted by a younger editor who would better identify with the young homemaker; and that she take a cut in pay. In the past, her record at Cadence was excellent, and ordinarily I would feel that this fact warranted loyalty on our part.

  However, there can be no leniency with an employee who has taken to liquor, and certainly not with a woman who would represent us in the shelter field in any capacity.

  Therefore I am directing you to request Miss Mann’s resignation, effective this day, March 6, 1957; two weeks’ pay.

  Bruce Cadence, President.

  Charlie Gibson slapped the memo on the desk, and hit it hard once, with his fist. He saw that it was nearly noon, and he leaned on his elbows, thinking how he hated Keene’s guts; hated the gross exaggeration of the memo, the flimsy evidence offered with respect to the decline in quality of Your Home, the insidious suggestion that Marge was an alcoholic, far beyond repair. Christ, she always drank … And that mincing “two weeks’ pay” squeaked out at the end of the memo.

  For a second or two he entertained the idea of charging up to Cadence’s office and blowing his top, of going at Bruce the way he used to, head-on in hot rage, saying what he thought straight out. He wanted to say that he was fed up to here with young Keene’s step-on-the-toes, go-for-the-buck business philosophy, that all of Keene’s ideas were as vile as the dummy, and that if Marge Mann went, Charlie went — that as a matter of fact, Charlie should have gone the day Keene came.

  He would like to have done just that, and he wondered why he didn’t, why he just sat and let the anger boil through him.

  He didn’t know why.

  In a sweeping glance at his desk he saw the letter from his daughter; the memo; and the untouched dummy for Vile; and he thought how rotten everything was suddenly, how really rotten everything was.

  Then a dozen noon whistles blew.

  MARCH 6, 1957

  CHAPTER TEN

  AT NOON, Joan Gibson double-checked the arrangements for the party that evening.

  It was going to be a surprise for Charlie.

  She had invited the Tullets and the Carrolls, their very best friends; and Anna was going to cook chicken terrazzini, Charlie’s favorite dish.

  After she had finished going over the list with Anna, in the kitchen, she got up from the table and stood facing the window, looking out at the snow-splotched lawn, trying to think if there were anything she had forgotten.

  She was ten years younger than Charlie, and she looked ten years younger than she was — a thin, slender woman with black hair cut in the short-cropped Italian style, and a good, soft profile. She had large, dark flashing eyes, and a mouth with lips she thought were too small. As a type she was tweeds, tapered slacks, skirts and sweaters, station wagons and shaggy-looking poodles — but with a flair, always; a very feminine flair.

  She belonged in Greenwich. And in the summers when Charlie and she roughed it out at their cottage in Fair Harbor, on Fire Island, she belonged there.

  Those years during which she and Charlie lived on Central Park West were the only ones she had ever spent as a city-dweller; and she had hated it.

  But a lot of times she thought the reason she had such disagreeable feelings about city-living, when she thought back on it, was that when she and Charlie had that apartment, he had been involved with another woman. And Joan Gibson had never suspected it until Charlie made that awful mistake when he was in San Francisco — the mistake of writing Marge Mann a letter of proposal, then absent-mindedly addressing it to his wife.

  Even now — after all the years since that morning when she had opened the envelope and begun to read: “Dear Marge, I’ve decided to ask Joan for a divorce — ” she could never quite forget the feeling of utter despair that had overwhelmed her, the sense of mute bereavement that was a shadow cast across the days that followed when she didn’t know what to do about it — whether to call him and tell him, whether to write him, whether to simply readdress the letter to the person Charlie had intended it for, whether to pack her and Janie’s things and go home to Auburn, New York …

  “Don’t do a damn thing,” Aileen Tullet had advised, “not a damn thing! Just pretend you never got it, and wait and see. This is war, honey. Everything’s confused.”

  “I can’t believe Charlie loves another woman, Aileen. I simply can’t believe it.”

  “Have you heard it from the horse’s mouth?”

  “I’ve read it. Over and over.”

  “But he hasn’t told you, honey. At least he doesn’t think he has. Take my advice — until he does tell you, just sit tight. Don’t mention the letter — ever; and don’t do a damn thing about it.”

  Joan Gibson never did.

  Less than a week after Charlie had mailed it, he called her to say he was shipping out. He also told her he loved her, that he wanted her, that he wished to hell the goddam war was over and he was back with his “two girls.”

  “Meaning me and Janie?” she had said.

  Charlie said, “Who else?”

  And maybe because Joan Gibsonwas perfectly sincere when she had told Aileen Tullet that she simply could not accept the thought of Charlie’s loving another woman, she never had to.

  More than once, and from the very beginning, Joan’s persistent incredulity had been an asset, from the time she sat on the yacht club dock up in Auburn, New York, listening to Charlie tell her of his love for Mitzie Thompson (thinking only, This is the man I’m going to marry) — to the time Charlie held her in his arms on a night they had accomplished simultaneous climaxes for the first time in their marriage, and he had told her very solemnly that he didn’t want children — ever (completely oblivious to the fact she had, as usual, done nothing to prevent their conception, for the very reason she did want them).

  When Charlie came home from Missouri University the summer he was graduated, and took Joan out on “a friendly date,” he said — toward the end of the evening as he was fumbling under her sweater to rehook her bra — ”My God, Joan, what’s happening to us? We’re supposed to be buddies. What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered in a shy tone. But she did know; she knew perfectly well what was happening to them, and she thought to herself that it was about time.

  And the evening that she announced to Charlie that he was going to be a father in exactly seven months, the year they were living in the cold-water flat down on Bleecker Street in the Village, she knew then too — perfectly well — that Charlie would rave, “Well, you’ve got to get rid of it! Look, we can’t afford it! I don’t want children!” and that ultimately he would be helping her up and down steps, worrying over the fact she never had any strange desires for pickles in the middle of the night, pacing the hospital corridors importantly, fearfully, anxiously — and eventually referring to their progeny as “my Janie.”

  That noon, Joan Gibson turned from the window in the kitchen to face the maid. “Anna, is there anything you can think of that we’ve forgotten?”

  “No, ma’am. Unless you’re serious about wrapping up Mr. Gibson’s old re-soled shoes.”

  “That’s right! The shoes.”

  “I don’t know what kind of a birthday gift that is,” Anna muttered.

  “Mr. Gibson will know,” Joan Gibson said.

  At noon, Bruce Cadence paused by Sandra Scott’s desk on his way out to lunch.

  “Nothing from Charlie
’s office yet, hmmm?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  Cadence sat on the edge of the mahogany desk, his hat in his lap, his tweed topcoat over his arm. He frowned thoughtfully, rubbing his pudgy chin with his short, square fingers. “Charlie’s changed, hasn’t he?”

  “A great deal has changed, Mr. Cadence.”

  “Remember the old Charlie? He used to come up and give me hell about all sorts of things. He was usually right too. I needed him, depended on him. I don’t know. Maybe he just grew older.”

  “And if he were to give you hell about firing Marge Mann, would he be right?”

  “No, Sandy. He’d be wrong.”

  “I wonder.”

  “That bothers you, doesn’t it? It wasn’t an easy thing for me to do — make that decision … No, it isn’t that. It’s the whole business. He hasn’t even commented on the exposé magazine lately. Oh, I know he doesn’t like the idea, but he hasn’t really been adamant.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have the chance, Mr. Cadence. Around Mr. Keene.”

  “That never used to stop Charlie. He could always shout it out. He always did. He was never a memo-sender. Didn’t used to be.”

  “Before Keene, he wasn’t. But B.K., a lot of things were different.”

  “Sandy, as a personality, Keene may not be very agreeable, but as a troubleshooter, he’s a good man. He’s got confidence; he’s sure, and he’s thorough!”

  Sandra Scott said drily, “Oh, he’s all of those. No one’s denying that.”

  • • •

  “What do you mean the same thing used to happen with your mother?” the doctor asked, glancing at his watch, noting it was noon, getting hungry, thinking, Only fifteen minutes more with this analysand; feel like a potato salad for lunch; feel just like one but got to watch the waistline.

  “She destroyed my confidence too. I was never sure around her either. It always turned out she was right. Well, it’s the same way with Marge Mann. When I suggested the den idea for the do-it-yourself feature, she said it wouldn’t go over. She said the same thing Bruce said — that it over-reached our advertisers’ consumer … But I insisted on it, anyway … That and the venison recipes … They were my ideas, and they were bad ones. I couldn’t admit they were mine.”

  The young man squirmed on the couch where he lay and hit a side of it with his fist. “Damn!” he said, “I’m going crazy! Why should I feel guilty? She’s a drunk, an awful drunk. Last week at a party Continental Electric threw for homemaking editors she got up in the middle of everyone’s eating and began to sing some song. ‘Frigging in the Rigging’ or something like that. She’s a drunk!”

  The doctor decided he would settle for bacon and tomato on toast.

  “But I’m right to fire her, aren’t I?” the young man asked. “Should I be so goddam insecure because I suggested it? She’s a drunk!”

  “What do you think?” the doctor said.

  “If people at Cadence ever knew I was lying here saying these things they’d — Yes, I’m right to fire her. I think the reason I’m so worked up over it is that I’m confusing Marge and my mother. That’s all. That’s why I’ve lost sleep and been so goddam nervous. I hated my mother so! She was one of those C-cup bitches too.”

  “What exactly is a C-cup bitch?” the doctor asked.

  The young man began. “She’s the worst kind of bitch there is. She’s as power-happy as she is top-heavy. Our business is brimming over with them — ours and — ”

  Yes, the doctor thought, bacon and tomato on toast, with lettuce and mayonnaise.

  • • •

  At noon, Marge Mann thought of something which had happened a couple of weeks ago. Psychologists call it displacement, what she was doing — stopping in the aura of a larger misery to dwell on a lesser one, and worry it with the same force; but the scene came to mind as she sat at her desk at noon, remembering a midnight she had taken a cab after Blance Phelan’s housewarming party in the Village.

  It had been a rotten evening — a ‘hen party’ populated by food editors like herself; yet not. They dotted the living room with their plump legs crossed beneath their “basic” dresses, their countenances bovine and delighted. Giggling, they reached for the ginger punch passed on a tray with “ahs” and “ohs” and “Blance, darling, did you use a Chablis in this, or is it a white burgundy?” And a few of them hummed along to the bland waltzes emanating from the hi-fi.

  While Marge stood restlessly by the fireplace, fingering a shell Blance had found one summer on Shelter Island, thinking to herself: f’chrissake ginger punch — and later, back in the kitchen, gratefully accepted the shot of James Pepper Blance offered her in a tumbler, trying to sound casual before Blance’s concerned eyes, trying to keep her tone steady as she said, “Thanks. By God, I will have a little, Blance. You’re sweet!”

  The others — after Swiss Fondue served “cafeteria style” — played bridge and Scrabble and spoke of a jelly sauce for fritters; showed photographs of Jerry “two years old now” and Angie “taken at the picnic at Riis Park.” They admired Blance’s tambour desk in the foyer, and spoke of best-sellers; talked toward the end of the evening of leaving “soon”; laughed and sighed for long seconds afterward, smiling and smoothing their skirts to their thighs with capable and contented fingers, glad and enjoying themselves.

  While Marge barely touched the food on her plate, thought of excuses to make trips back and forth from the kitchen, watering down the bourbon near the end of the evening so Blance wouldn’t notice how much was gone from the bottle. She felt headaches come and go, and worried when her hands shook while lighting a cigarette and two of the guests noticed and looked quickly away, nudging one another, shocked. And Marge wondered if she had ever really cared, ever in that long ago, about Fricasseed Giblets or Hot Ham Mousse Supreme or Baked Quinces? As they still cared, had she ever? Must have!

  The others, when it was over, took cabs, doubled up, intending to drop one another en route. They sang good-bys happily at Sheridan Square, some going uptown, some down or cross.

  While Marge feigned an appointment “just down the street,” too tight to care how improbable it sounded — this appointment at midnight — and walked, none too steadily, into a drugstore, into a phone booth, to wait out their going. And she sat momentarily, desperate for a drink. Then she remembered the wadded Kleenex in her handbag, and its contents saved since lunch. She reached in and unfolded the tissue, took out the lemon peel which she had taken from the Martini, touched it to her lips, and from it sucked the memory of the taste of gin, sucked it with a savage satisfaction, until it was safe to leave, and get a drink in the bar at the corner.

  She had two.

  She slugged them down, one after the other. Most everyone in the bar was watching Steve Allen’s show, but one man was watching her.

  He said, “Thirsty, baby?”

  She hated Greenwich Village because of men like that. He said, “Hey, Lillian Roth, sing us something!” She tossed down two dollars, eager for her change, but again he said, “Hey, Lillian Roth, sing us something!”

  Hurrying, she lurched to the door and out into the street.

  The cab was waiting on the corner.

  “Eventually,” she told the driver, finding considerable difficulty with the word, “I want to go to Southgate ‘partments. Know where they are?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Sure,” she said. “But first I want to go to a nightcap. Not down in this damn stinking hole. Filled with all kinds ‘generates. Good for nothings!”

  “Greenwich Village,” the driver smirked, “where the boys wear their hair long and the girls wear their hair short.” He laughed enthusiastically at his own joke. Then, “Where to?”

  “Upto’n someplace,” she said. “Don’t have to drink in this stinking hole, huh?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said.

  She said, “Someplace uptown … What’s your name?”

  “Roosevelt,” he said.

  “I voted for you
,” she said. “Now get me a nice something that looks and tastes like bourbon, papa-doodle.”

  “Sure,” he said, looking at her through his mirror. “Okay.”

  For a while they rode in silence. He kept watching her. She had something in her hand. She was holding it to her mouth, sucking on it. A lemon peel.

  He said, “I got a little something that could tide you over.”

  “You have, papa-doodle?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Gotta be careful though. Can’t just pass it to you on the main drag.”

  “Look,” she said, “go where you can, huh? Mamma-doodle’s not quite up to par, papa-doodle.”

  He chuckled. “Okay, mamma-doodle.”

  He went crosstown, way East, passing warehouses. She sat behind him, scratching matches in an effort to light a cigarette. She couldn’t light it, and she cursed.

  He said, “In a minute now.”

  She said, “Where the hell are we, papa-doodle?”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Here, it’s all right.”

  He pulled the cab up to the curb behind a big truck, cut his lights, and waited momentarily, looking around him.

  “Where’s the drink, papa-doodle?”

  “Coming up,” he said.

  He leaned down and unwrapped a leather jacket, pulling out a bottle. Uncapping it, he passed it back to her.

  “Sorry, no glass.”

  She didn’t answer. She lifted the bottle and drank. Some of the whisky spilled down her chin. She wiped it with the back of her hand and licked her hand. She sighed.

  “Good?” he said.