“It was a story, Mrs. Grey, not a personal remembrance.”
“Of course it was, dear. Twenty-four-year-old women writers always invent stories about the love of their life.”
“There is something called imagination . . .”
“Not when it comes to a story like yours. It’s a common enough genre: romantic confessional box; the sort of thing one usually finds in the Ladies’ Home Companion . . .”
“If you are trying to insult me, Mrs. Grey . . .”
“Hardly, dear. But do answer me this . . . and note that I am phrasing this as a question: did you actually spend the night with your sailor in a cheap hotel?”
I narrowed her in my sights. “No, he actually spent the night at my apartment. And he wasn’t a sailor. He was in the Army.”
There was a pause, during which she raised her coffee cup and took a sip. “Thank you for clarifying matters.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And if you think I am going to tell George about this, you are mistaken.”
“I sense George already knows.”
“Don’t be so certain of that. When it comes to women, men only hear what they want to hear. It’s one of the many failures of their sex.”
“You think your son George is a failure, don’t you?”
“George is a well-meaning boy. Not one of life’s natural leaders, but modest and humane. For the life of me, I don’t know what a smart girl like you sees in him. Your marriage will fail. Because, eventually, he will bore you.”
“Who says we will marry?”
“Trust me: you will. C’est le moment juste. It’s how it happens. But it will be a ghastly mistake.”
“May I ask you a question, Mrs. Grey?”
“Of course, dear.”
“Did your son’s death transform you into a misanthrope, or were you always so bitter and joyless?”
She pursed her lips, and considered her reflection in the black sheen surface of her coffee. After a moment, she looked back up at me. “I’ve enjoyed our conversation enormously, dear. It has been most enlightening.”
“For me as well.”
“I’m so glad. And I must say I’ll come away from our little talk with a splendid realization . . . what I think you writers call an epiphany.”
“Which is what, Mrs. Grey?”
“We are never going to like each other.”
Later that morning, I boarded a train back to Manhattan with George. We sat in the club car. He insisted on buying us a bottle of champagne (which turned out to be New York State sparkling wine). He insisted on holding my hand all the way to Grand Central Station. He could not take his adoring eyes off me. He looked lovesick—that same morning-after glow which I must have radiated on that Thanksgiving morning eighteen months ago.
Somewhere south of Port Chester, he said, “Marry me.”
I heard myself reply, “All right.”
He appeared stunned. “What?”
“All right, I’ll marry you.”
“You mean it?”
“Yes. I mean it.”
His stunned expression quickly gave way to elation. “I don’t believe it,” he said.
“Believe it,” I said.
“I’ll have to call my parents as soon as we get to Manhattan. They’ll be so thrilled. My mother especially.”
“Of course they will,” I said quietly.
I didn’t say a word to George about the little chat that his mother and I had had over breakfast that morning. Nor did I relate its contents to Eric. Because I knew that—had I described the conversation with Mrs. Grey, or told him about the extraordinary stiffness of the family into which I was marrying—he would have tried to talk me out of the engagement.
So I said nothing—except that I was happy as hell, and knew I was making the right decision. He met George for that drink at the Astor Hotel. He found him benignly pleasant. Afterward, when George asked me if he’d made a reasonable impression on my brother, I said, “He thought you were great.”
Just like your mother thought I was wonderful. Oh, the lies we tell each other to dodge everything we don’t want to face.
Of course, immediately after accepting George’s proposal, a doubting voice began to amplify inside my head. More troubling was the discovery that, the more time I spent with George, the louder that voice became. Eventually—after a few weeks—it was so omnipresent that I started to think: I must bail out. Quickly.
But then, a day or so later, I woke up to discover myself violently ill. For the remainder of the week, my morning would begin with a manic dash to the bathroom. Certain that I had been felled with some amoebic bug, I made an appointment to see Dr. Ballensweig. He ran a few tests. When he gave me the results, I felt as if I had been hit by a car.
As soon as I got home, I phoned George at the bank.
“Hello, my darling,” he said.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“What’s happened?” he said, suddenly worried.
I took a deep breath.
“Is it something terrible?”
“That depends on how you look at it.”
“Tell me, darling. Tell me.”
Another deep breath. Then I said, “I’m pregnant.”
ELEVEN
A FEW TERRIBLE DAYS later, I went over to Eric’s apartment and told him my news. He flinched, then fell silent. Finally, he asked me a question. “Are you happy about this?”
That’s when I burst into tears, burying my head in my brother’s shoulder. He held me and rocked me. “You don’t have to go through with this if you don’t want to,” he whispered.
I pulled my head off his shoulder. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m just saying: if you want out, I can probably help you.”
“Medically, you mean?”
He nodded. “An actress friend knows of this doctor . . .”
I held up my hand. “I couldn’t do that.”
“Fine,” he said. “I was only offering . . .”
“I know, I know—and I appreciate . . .”
I broke off and buried my head in his shoulder again. “I really don’t know what the hell to do,” I said.
“Let me ask you this: do you really want to marry this guy?”
“No. It’s a mistake. His mother even said that to me.”
“When?”
“After that night I spent at their house in Greenwich.”
“Was that the night you and George . . . ?”
I nodded. And blushed. “Somehow she knew.”
“She was probably standing outside the door, listening in. Anyway, if she says it’s a mistake, then she wouldn’t be too shocked if you decided not to go through with the wedding.”
“You cannot be serious. George knows I’m pregnant. His parents know I’m pregnant. There is absolutely no way that I am going to be allowed out of this.”
“This is not a feudal state—despite the best efforts of the Republican Party. You are not chattel. You can do whatever the hell you want.”
“You mean, raise this child on my own?”
“Yes. In fact, we could do it together.”
It took a moment or two for this to register. “I’m touched. Deeply touched. But it’s an insane idea. And you know it. I couldn’t raise this child on my own.”
“I would be there.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“You’re worried about what other people would think.”
“I’m worried about being completely marginalized. You’ve said it over and over: at heart, we’re a puritan country. We ostracize anyone who commits a sexual transgression. And having a child out of wedlock—then raising it on your own—is considered a very big sin.”
“So being in a terrible marriage is a better alternative?”
“I’m sure I can make it work. George is not a bad man.”
“Not a bad man. That’s one hell of an endorsement, S.”
“I know, I know. But . . . w
hat can I do?”
“Make the tough call. Tell him you’ll have the kid, but you won’t have him.”
“I’m not that brave, Eric. I’m too damn conventional.”
“Well, by the time Georgie-Boy and his parents are finished with you, you’re going to feel like a character in an Ibsen play.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“How did they take the news?”
I considered this question, and finally answered, “They took it reflectively.”
“Reflectively? What the hell do you mean by that?”
“They had a measured response to the news.”
“They’re WASPs, for God’s sake, not Italians. Of course they’d be measured. But I bet they were a bit glacial as well.”
I said nothing. Because glacial was the right word. Though George had informed his parents of our engagement on the afternoon I accepted his proposal, it was agreed that we’d wait at least a month or two before deciding on a date for the wedding.
Then I got the news from Dr. Ballensweig, and had to pass it on to George. He took it pretty well, telling me how much he wanted children with me. I did point out that a child might put a strain on a new marriage—especially one where the two people involved had only known each other for a month before getting engaged. But George reassured me that all would be fine.
“We’re going to be just hunky-dory,” he said. “Because when we’re as much in love as we are, all problems are easily solvable.”
Hunky-dory. Wonderful.
“Naturally,” he said, “Mother and Father might be a tad concerned about the fact that the wedding will now have to be brought a little forward.”
“You’ll break the news to them, won’t you?”
There was a long silence on the phone. When he spoke again, he sounded like a man who had just been “volunteered” into leading the advance party into Injun Country.
“Of course I’ll tell them,” he said, his nervousness so apparent. “And I know they are going to be thrilled to be grandparents.”
He went up to Connecticut the following night. Early the next morning, the phone rang at my office. It was my future mother-in-law.
“Julia Grey here,” she said crisply.
“Oh, hello,” I said, sounding seriously thrown.
“I am planning to be in the city tomorrow. It is important that we meet. Say four p.m. in the Palm Court of the Plaza. All right?”
Before I had time to reply, she had put down the receiver—making it very clear that she didn’t care whether or not that time was suitable for me. I was being summoned. I would be there.
Instantly I picked up the phone and called George at his office.
“Darling, I was just about to call you,” he said.
“Your mother preempted you.”
“Oh. I see.”
“And from her brusque tone, it’s pretty clear how she took the news.”
He cleared his throat. Loudly. Then said, “Naturally, it came as a surprise to them. But after the initial . . . uh . . .”
“Shock?”
“Yes, well, uh, they were, truth be told, quite shocked. But that only lasted a moment or two. After which they became . . .”
“Furious?”
“Reflective.”
“Now they really hate me.”
“Darling, they don’t hate you at all. On the contrary . . .”
“They think what? That I am a great social catch? The perfect banker’s wife?”
I could almost hear him squirming at the other end of the phone.
“Darling, everything will be fine. Just fine. Trust me.”
“I have no choice, do I?”
“And don’t worry about Mother’s brusqueness. It’s just . . .”
“Her style, I suppose?”
“Gosh, we’re already completing each other’s sentences.”
I put down the phone. I put my head in my hands. I felt cornered, trapped. There was no way out.
The next afternoon, I left my office at three thirty and walked up Fifth Avenue, full of dread. I entered the Plaza Hotel at the appointed time. Mrs. Grey was seated at a table in the Palm Court. She saw me approach. She did not smile. She did not proffer her hand. She simply motioned to the chair beside her and said, “Sit down, Sara.”
I did as ordered. She stared at me for a long time, her lips pinched, turning them into a fine inflexible line that bisected her face. I tried to meet her disdainful stare. I began to knead my hands together. Naturally she noticed this.
“Are you feeling anxious, Sara?” she asked mildly.
My hands froze. “Yes. I am feeling anxious.”
“I suppose, were I in your situation, I would feel anxious as well. The fact is, though—I would never have landed myself in such a situation. One always pays a huge price for impulsiveness.”
“And, I suppose, you’ve never been guilty of impulsiveness?”
Her lips expanded into her telltale tight smile. “No,” she said.
“Not a single act of rashness in your entire life?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“How controlled of you.”
“I will take that as a compliment, Sara. But back to business . . .”
“I didn’t realize we were talking business.”
“Oh yes. This is, without question, a business conversation. Because, as far as I’m concerned, we have nothing else to talk about but the practical matter of arranging a wedding posthaste. We don’t want you walking down the aisle visibly enceinte, now do we?”
Another of her narrow smiles. I said nothing.
“Of course, everyone at the wedding will naturally know why we have so expedited the scheduling of the ceremony. Which, in turn, means that we will want to keep the event small and discreet. No doubt, this will not tally with your childhood fantasies of a big all-white wedding . . .”
“How do you know what my childhood fantasies were?” I asked, the anger showing.
“Don’t all girls dream of a big wedding?”
“No.”
“Of course I forgot—you and your brother were always a little out of step with things, much to the distress of your very nice parents.”
I glared at her, wide-eyed.
“How dare you make such an assumption . . .”
“I’m not making an assumption, dear. I am simply reporting established fact. We have these very old friends in Hartford—the Montgomerys. They were your parents’ neighbors, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes. They lived a few houses away from us.”
“Well, when Mr. Grey and I discovered—somewhat abruptly, I should add—that you were to be our daughter-in-law, we decided to do a little checking into your background. It turned out Mr. Grey knew Mr. Montgomery from Princeton. Class of nineteen oh eight. And Mr. Montgomery and his wife, Miriam, were exceedingly informative about your family. I never knew, for example, that your brother is a Communist.”
“He is not a Communist.”
“He joined the Party, didn’t he?”
“Yes . . . but that was during the thirties, when it was fashionable . . .”
“Fashionable? To the best of my knowledge the Communist Party wishes to overthrow the government of this country. Is that your idea of chic, Sara?”
“He left the Party in forty-one. He made a mistake. He’s the first to admit that now.”
“What a pity your poor parents aren’t around to hear his renunciation.”
I felt myself getting very angry.
“Eric mightn’t be the most conventional of men, but he was always a good son to our parents . . . and he is the best brother imaginable.”
“I do so admire familial loyalty. Especially in the face of such unconventionality.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Oh yes you do. So too, I gather, did your late parents. In fact, word has it that your brother’s unconventionality so upset your father that it hastened the stroke which killed him.”
“I
t’s outrageous to blame Eric . . .”
“No one is apportioning blame, Sara. I’m just reporting what I heard from others. Just as I also heard that you directly contravened your father’s wishes by moving to New York after Bryn Mawr. And shortly thereafter, the stroke felled him . . .”
I was on the verge of screaming at her. Or slapping her. Or spitting in her face. My heart was pounding, my rage immense. She saw this, and responded by affording me another of her little smiles. A smile which invited me to do something reprehensible . . . and pay an even bigger price than the one I was paying now. A smile which forced me to remain in control.
So, taking several deep steadying breaths, I simply stood up and said, “We have nothing more to say to each other, Mrs. Grey.”
Her tone remained temperate, steady.
“If you walk out of here now, dear, you will be creating enormous problems for yourself.”
“I don’t care.”
“Oh yes, you do. After all, I can’t imagine a respectable family magazine like Saturday Night/Sunday Morning allowing an unwed mother to remain in their employment. And once Saturday/Sunday dismisses you on moral grounds, who on earth will hire you? Then there’s the matter of your apartment. Isn’t there some clause in the standard New York City tenancy lease . . . Mr. Grey mentioned this to me en passant . . . about landlords being able to evict tenants who have committed acts of moral turpitude? Granted, having a child out of wedlock might not fit the letter of the law . . . but could you afford to fight such an eviction in court?”
I sat down again. I said nothing. Mrs. Grey lowered her head for a moment. When she raised it again, she was the picture of civility.
“I knew that, at heart, you were a sensible girl, Sara. I’m certain that, from this moment forward, we will get along just fine. Tea?”
I didn’t respond. Possibly because I felt the way a convicted felon must feel when he’s been sentenced to life imprisonment. This was the abyss. And I was in it.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes,” she said, motioning toward a waiter. “Now then, back to business. The wedding . . .”
She outlined the plans. Under the hasty circumstances, a wedding at the family parish church in Connecticut was out of the question (“one simply does not organize such an event with two weeks’ notice”). Instead, there would be a simple straightforward service at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan—to which I would be allowed to invite four guests, including my brother (“I presume he will be giving you away?” she asked dryly). There would be a simple, straightforward reception afterward here at the Plaza. George would be organizing “the honeymoon details,” though Mrs. Grey had suggested to him “a nice, modest hotel” in Provincetown, into which he had subsequently booked us for a week. After the honeymoon, we would be moving into our new home . . . in Old Greenwich, Connecticut.
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