Smart Women

by Judy Blume

  “Desire is the next best thing,” Andrew said, holding her.

  “No . . . it’s not the same at all. I know him, Andrew. He’s just a fucking machine. He doesn’t care about her.”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it now. Try to get some sleep. Talk to Michelle tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is too late. You wouldn’t be taking it so calmly if it were Sara.”

  “Maybe not,” Andrew said. “Why did you give him your address in the first place?”

  “You know how those things are. You have a nice time, you think you might want to get together again . . .”

  “Was he that good?” Andrew asked.

  “He’s a kid.”

  “You just said he’s a fucking machine.”

  “He was all right. It was pure sex, Andrew, nothing more.”

  “I keep picturing the two of you together. I keep thinking that if you hadn’t met me, if I hadn’t been here when he came to visit . . .”

  “That’s a whole different story. Besides, I wouldn’t have been interested. You’re not jealous, are you?”

  “About as jealous as you were the night we came home from Early Sumner’s.”

  “That jealous?”

  “I think so.”

  On the night of Early Sumner’s dinner party Margo had been blinded by sexual jealousy. She had been furious—at herself, for feeling vulnerable and insecure, at Early Sumner and other women like her, for not knowing how to relate to men except in a flirtatious way, and most of all, at Andrew, for allowing it to happen.

  Oh, she hated women like Early Sumner. But she also recognized her former self in them, her married-to-Freddy self, when going to a party meant an evening of flirtations that would go nowhere but which would bring immense pleasure for a few hours—eye contact across the dinner table, a brushing of arms, of thighs, tingles followed by fantasies. She’d put out vibes in those days. Here I am . . . come and get me . . . if you can. She no longer put out those vibes, but other women did. And she could not stop them from coming on to Andrew.

  It’s your life, the voice inside her head had said that night. You’re in charge. If this is how he’s going to behave and it makes you unhappy, then get rid of him.

  I don’t want to get rid of him.

  Then what do you want?

  I want him to want me as much as I want him.

  Oh ho! That old song.

  Is that so unreasonable?

  Depends who you ask.

  So what should I do?

  Tell him how you feel. See how he reacts. Maybe he’ll understand. Maybe next time he’ll be more aware of your feelings.

  You know something . . . for once you’re making sense.

  Margo . . . I always make sense.

  THE NEXT DAY, at noon, Margo drove out to the building site in Sunshine Canyon. She wandered through the new house until she found Eric. “I want to talk to you,” she said.

  “Sure, Margo.”

  “Not here. In my car.”

  “Be back in a few minutes,” Eric told another worker, who raised his eyebrows in response. Margo knew what he was thinking, but she didn’t care.

  “What are you doing, Eric?” she asked, opening the car door.

  “Mainly laying the floors and the patios.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean, what are you doing with Michelle?”

  “That’s not something I’m going to talk about with you, Margo.”

  “She’s too young for you. Too inexperienced.”

  “She’s seventeen, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’m twenty-one. That sounds just right to me.”

  “Damn it, Eric! I won’t have you pulling any Mother-Daughter number on us.”

  “What’s with you, Margo? Are you jealous? Is that it?”

  “Jealous?”

  “Yeah, that’s how it looks to me. Oh, sure, you’ve got yourself some guy, but he must be what . . . forty, forty-five? It’s not the same, is it?”

  Margo thought about smashing him in the mouth, kicking him in the balls, telling him what an immature asshole he was. But she held back her rage and said, instead, “You’re so far off the wall I won’t even attempt to respond.”

  “You’re afraid I’m going to tell her . . . that’s it, isn’t it?”

  “It would be destructive to tell her.”

  “Hey, look . . . I don’t brag about my sexual experiences. I don’t have to.”

  “So why, when you could have any woman in town, does it have to be Michelle?”

  “I like her. She reminds me of you.”

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER DINNER, while Andrew and Stuart cleaned up the kitchen, Margo went to Michelle’s room. “Honey . . . I’d like to talk to you.”

  “I don’t have much time, Mother. Eric’s coming by at eight. He found a room on Arapahoe. He wants me to see it.”

  “Don’t you have schoolwork?”

  “I already did it.”

  “You can’t ride on the Honda at night.”

  “I know. We’re borrowing the truck. Andrew said it was all right.”

  “Michelle, listen . . . there are some men who go through life taking whatever they want, without ever giving in return.”

  “There are women like that too.”

  “Maybe. But some men, like Eric, think that nothing else matters . . . that no woman can resist them and all because of their good looks . . .”

  “Good is putting it mildly, Mother . . .”

  “I never thought you would be so sexist, Michelle.”

  “Me? You’re the one who’s being sexist. You’re the one putting him down just because he’s so good-looking, without even giving him a chance, without even bothering to find out what’s underneath.”

  “I know what’s underneath.”

  “How . . . how do you know?”

  “I sense it.” She wasn’t making herself clear. She wished she could come right out and say, He slept with me, Michelle. We were lovers for a week. I know what I’m talking about. But in this case honesty was out of the question. “Don’t sleep with him, Michelle . . . please.”

  “My sex life is my own business.”

  “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  “Are you jealous, Mother? Is that it?”

  “Jealous of what?”

  “Us. Our youth. Eric says that women of your age sometimes resent their daughters’ youth.”

  “I don’t resent your youth, Michelle. I’ve had my own.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that, Mother.” Michelle pulled a blue t-shirt out of her dresser drawer. “I’ve really got to get changed now. Don’t worry about me . . . okay?”

  “I’m trying not to.”

  “Remember when I was little and you used to read me that Maurice Sendak book, Higglety Pigglety Pop!”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Remember Jennie, the dog who was trying to get experience . . .”

  “What about her?”

  “Well, that’s me, Mother.”

  “MICHELLE’S AFTER EXPERIENCE,” Margo told Andrew later that night. They were in bed, reading.

  Andrew ran his hand up her leg. “How about you and me having a little experience tonight?”

  “You’re not listening. You think it’s all a big joke, don’t you?”

  “Mmm . . .” Andrew had his hand between her legs now.

  “And speaking of jokes,” Margo said, “our Polaroid pictures are missing. I only hope Eric didn’t find them. He used our shower last Sunday.”

  “More likely Mrs. Herrera found them.”

  “If Mrs. Herrera found them she’
d quit. She doesn’t approve of me living with a man who’s not my husband . . . a man who used to be married to Mrs. B.B. She thinks I’m a sinner. Those pictures will prove it.”

  “Come here, sinner.”

  “You have a one-track mind.”

  “It’s not my mind,” he said, “it’s this.”

  “Oh,” Margo said, “I see.” And in a minute she forgot about the pictures.

  40

  ANDREW’S PARENTS CAME TO TOWN on the day that Clare left for Miami to visit B.B. Andrew and Sara had met the Broders at the airport, had spent a few hours alone with them, then had dropped them at the Harvest House. Now Andrew was on his way back to their hotel to pick them up and bring them to the house.

  Margo sat in the living room, waiting. She had dressed in southwestern style—a denim skirt, her concha belt, a brightly colored vest, boots, and silver bracelets. She waited nervously, fussing over a tray of cheeses from Essential Ingredients and a bowl of chopped liver from the New York Deli. She had picked up a tulip plant at Sturz and Copeland, which she moved from the coffee table to the dining table then back again. She wanted the Broders to like her, to appreciate her, to see that she was just right for Andrew. Freddy’s parents had accepted her, but they had never thought she was good enough for their son. No woman would have been good enough for their son, which is why their son treated women like shit.

  She had had a call from Freddy that afternoon, accusing her of using his support payments to care for another child.

  “That’s ridiculous!” she’d told him.

  “You’ve taken in his kid, haven’t you?”

  “She’s living with us while her mother is in the hospital.”

  “The looney bin, as I understand it.”

  She’d held the phone to her chest and inhaled deeply. She would not allow him to throw her into a frenzy.

  “Do you think it’s fair, Margo,” Freddy had continued, “taking in his kid at the expense of your own?”

  “It’s not at the expense of my own.”

  “You have to devote time and attention to her, don’t you?”

  “It’s not your business, Freddy.”

  “Anything relating to my children is my business. And I don’t want my money used to take care of his child.”

  “Not a penny of yours goes toward the care and feeding of Sara Broder!”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that. Now that we’ve got that straight, what about graduation?”

  “What about it?”

  “Have you booked us a room yet?”

  “I sent you a list of hotels.”

  “I’m trying not to remind you that if you had stayed in the city Aliza and I would not have to fly out to never-never land for Stuart’s graduation.”

  “All right,” Margo said. “I’ll book you a room.” She no longer blamed Freddy for his hostility regarding the distance she had put between him and the children. She had learned, from living with Andrew, what it’s like to lose your children to the geographical whim of a former spouse. She had learned how it could tear a person apart and she was not sure the law should allow it under any circumstances.

  If only Freddy had made the time for Stuart and Michelle when they had all lived together, if only he had made it clear that he had loved them and had not wanted to lose them. Life was full of if onlys.

  Maybe divorce should be outlawed, Margo thought. Divorce screwed up as many lives as disease. She tried to imagine a world in which there was no divorce, a world in which she would have been forced to make some kind of life with Freddy. Probably she’d have taken a lover. More than one. Probably Freddy would have too.

  Michelle came into the living room and eyed the tulip plant, the cheeses, the basket of crackers and pumpernickel bread. “It looks like you’re expecting the queen, Mother.”

  “It does look that way, doesn’t it?” Margo said, surprised at how easy it was to avoid unpleasantness. A year ago she would have become defensive at Michelle’s remark and there would have been a major confrontation.

  “Eric is coming over at six. We’re going to an early movie.”

  “Don’t you think you’re seeing too much of Eric?”

  “I don’t have time for a lecture now, Mother,” Michelle said, skipping down the stairs.

  No, not now, Margo thought. She closed her eyes, picturing Andrew and herself on a sailboat, moving silently through the emerald green waters of the Caribbean. She could almost smell the salt air, taste the spray, feel the wind whipping through her hair. She had not been sailing since the day she and Freddy had capsized in Sag Harbor Bay, but she and Andrew often talked about a sailing trip. Maybe this summer . . . if they could get it together.

  Stuart came barreling up the stairs and began to attack the food Margo had set out so carefully. “Please, Stu . . . wait until the Broders get here.”

  “I’m hungry now,” he said, his mouth full of food.

  “Then take something from the kitchen.”

  “Jesus, you’d think Andrew’s parents were more important than your own kids.”

  Margo clenched her teeth.

  Stuart laughed and pecked her cheek. “Just a joke, Mom. No one’s more important than your own kids, right?”

  “Right,” Margo said.

  Finally, the front door opened and Margo ran down the stairs to greet Andrew’s parents.

  The Broders were a handsome couple, in their early seventies, both slim, silver-haired, and perfectly groomed. Nettie Broder wore a pale pink Ultrasuede suit with a strand of coral around her neck. Her lipstick was bright, with a purple cast, and when she smiled Margo noticed that it had smeared onto her front teeth. In Sam Broder, Margo could see Andrew in thirty years. The same jaw, the same smile, but without the sparkle in his eyes.

  Sam Broder had sold his Buick agency in Hackensack twelve years ago. He and Nettie had settled in Florida, not just because it was the place to go when you retired, but because Andrew and Francine had lived there, with the grandchildren. Now Bobby was dead and Francine had brought Sara to Boulder. So much for carefully conceived plans.

  Margo wished again that she and Andrew had shared the last twenty years so that by now they would know each other so well, would love each other so deeply, that nothing could ever come between them.

  Margo would have embraced the Broders, but she did not want to come on too strong. So she offered her hand and each of them shook it warmly. “Well,” Margo said, “shall we go upstairs?”

  “Upstairs?” Nettie asked.

  “The living room,” Andrew explained.

  “The living room is upstairs?” Nettie said.

  “Yes,” Margo told her. “It’s an upside-down kind of house.”

  “A split level?” Sam said.

  “No, not exactly,” Margo said.

  “We looked at a house once with the living room halfway upstairs,” Nettie said, “but you still had to go up another four steps to get to the bedrooms. Remember that house, Sam?”

  “But that was a split,” Sam said.

  “Our bedrooms are on this level,” Margo said.

  “You don’t mind sleeping on the ground floor?” Nettie asked. “You’re not afraid someone will come in?”

  “We’re used to it.”

  Andrew started up the stairs and his parents followed.

  “How about a glass of wine?” Margo asked, after they had settled on the sofa.

  “Just club soda for me,” Nettie said. She opened her purse, took out a compact and looked into the mirror. She quickly wiped the lipstick off her front teeth, then smiled awkwardly at Margo, and Margo realized that Nettie was not at ease either, in this house in which her son was living with a strange woman.

  “So where’s our l
ittle Sara?” Sam asked.

  “She’s taking a bath,” Margo said. “She’ll be up soon.” Margo had insisted that Sara bathe before dinner. Sara had argued that she didn’t need a bath, that she had taken a bath yesterday, but Andrew had backed up Margo, telling Sara, no bath no dinner at John’s French Restaurant.

  “Andrew tells us you have two children,” Nettie said.

  “Yes . . . they’ll be up in a minute too.”

  Nettie tapped her foot nervously. Sam sipped a glass of wine.

  Margo heard the sound of the motorcycle turning onto the dirt road, then Eric banging on the front door and Michelle, calling, “It’s for me . . . I’ll get it . . .”

  “My daughter,” Margo said.

  Nettie and Sam nodded.

  Why didn’t Andrew engage them in conversation? Margo wondered. Why was he just sitting there like a lump across the room? She still wasn’t used to him without his beard. She had asked him what he looked like without it so many times he had finally shaved it off, surprising her. That night in bed, in the darkness, she’d felt as if she were with a stranger.

  The next morning he’d said, “Well?”

  “I miss it,” she’d told him.

  He’d laughed. “I can grow another one in a month.”

  At breakfast Michelle had said, “Why, Andrew . . . you’re good-looking. Who would have guessed?”

  “Guessed what?” Stuart had asked. He hadn’t even noticed.

  But Sara had taken one look at Andrew and had cried, “Why did you have to go and do that?” She had left the table in tears.

  Now Margo wished that Andrew were sitting next to her, with his arm around her shoulder, showing his parents how close they were. But he was acting as if he hardly knew her, as if he were a visitor in her home, like his parents.

  Michelle and Eric clomped up the stairs, both of them wearing hiking boots and work clothes. They looked like soldiers in the Israeli Army, Margo thought. All that was missing were the rifles slung over their shoulders.