by Packer, Vin
“And of course,” Fern Fulton said, “Freddy imagines himself as something of a Lothario. I suppose his ego was hurt because you showed how uxorious he is. That’s a divine word, darling — uxorious! I had to look it up in the dictionary.”
• • •
Gloria was dying to bring up Pitts’ name. She said: “My literary agent said only a woman could write a book in whichall the wives had such fawning husbands. Pitts is — ”
“He should get a look at the husbands around here,” Fern cut her off in the customary way. “You can have them, for my money!” Then she looked across at Glo and laughed, crushing her cigarette in the saucer, reaching over and pressing her large hand on Gloria’s wrist. “Ah, butyou don’t need anyone’s money any more, do you, honey! You’re rich and famous and still as cute as a bug! Look at you! Haven’t changed a bit! Still running around like a bobby-soxer, wearing Milo’s old shirts and — ”
This time Gloria interrupted. As she spoke, she had to strain to discipline her eyes from wandering back to stare at Fern’s huge ears; at the crushed cigarette, too, put out in the saucer. Had Fern always put out cigarettes there? Had she ever before put one out there?
Gloria said, “Poor Milo. He’s the one I feel sorry for.”
She knew she should mean it, but she didn’t. She remembered Milo’s hang-dog look while he was doing the dishes last night, how it had repulsed her. Yet often she suspected she was too hard on him. It was her agent who had made her see that. She remembered one session with Pitts nearly a year ago, when the book was being rewritten. They had been talking about the way her main character (who was Milo, thinly disguised) told fairy tales to his wife when they made love.
Pitts had insisted: “You’ve got to cut that, Gloria, that part about the fairy tales.”
“Why?”
“In the first place,” said Pitts, “you’ve made him into a shell of a man right through chapter twenty-three. Then suddenly you have him telling these enchanting fairy tales to his wife in bed, all about the great big Prince and the little bitsy Cinderella.”
“Enchanting?” Gloria had guffawed at the idea.
“Well, they are, dammit! You expect the readers to believe that a man as colorless as your hero has that much imagination?”
“They were dull stories, Pitts.”
“Not by a long shot. They were intriguing! I’m telling you, Gloria, you have to cut them out, or rewrite the book altogether. Cut them out and make him impotent.”
Gloria had said, “Milo was never impotent, Pitts.”
“I don’t care what he was or wasn’t. The way this book is now, he’s a very dull character up to chapter twenty-three, and then he’s suddenly transformed. Don’t you see, Gloria? A dull man who makes love by telling stories is no longer dull!”
Gloria couldn’t see it.
Pitts had said, “You know, your husband might very well be a much more fascinating person than you think he is. He reminds me of the fellow in the Viceroy ads. You know, the bank clerk who studies marine biology on the side. The man who thinks for himself.” Pitts chuckled.
“Milo’s a drip.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call him an average man, from all you’ve told me. He seems to have many facets to his personality.”
“What personality?” Gloria had scoffed.
“Okay, have it your way. He’s a drip. But have it my way with regard to the novel, agreed? We’ll cut the fairy tales. If you want him to be dull and foolish, we’ve got to.”
Gloria agreed to the cut. She said, “I bet you don’t tell any stories in bed, Pitts.”
Her literary agent had answered: “I can’t think of any. That’s why I have to make my living selling other people’s.”
That had been a year ago. Still, though Pitts had made her see, in some vague way, that she had painted Milo too blackly, he could never make her feel differently toward Milo. She could not even feel sorry for him, and she knew the moment she told Fern Fulton that she was sorry for Milo, her own voice belied her.
Fern said, “Milo will hold up all right.”
“You and Freddy must have seen a lot of him while I was away.”
Fern lit another cigarette. “He was down the day before yesterday helping Freddy prune the hydrangea. He never acts as though anything’s bothering him. That’s one of the nice things about him.”
“Every night he does the dishes,” said Gloria, “and every morning; and if he comes home for lunch, every noon!I can afford a maid now, whether he can or not. But you know Milo. ‘Oh, no,’ he says. ‘Your money is not going to finance this house. If you won’t clean up around here, then I will.’ It’s hilarious when you think about it. He plays a man by tying an apron around his waist and doing the dishes!”
Fern had nothing to say to that.
There was a pause while both women sucked on their cigarettes. Gloria thought of telling Fern about Pitts then and there, the whole story in delicious detail, but Fern spoke before she could start.
Fern said, “Freddy thinks Milo is unbelievably patient.”
“Oh?”
“He said he’d have tossed your belongings into the street long ago. Oh, you know Freddy, Glo — big, old take-the-bull-by-the-horns stuff!”
“What makes him think it’s patience?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Milo has no spine, that’s all. I think he even loves me more, in fact, because I’ve made an — pardon my French — ass out of him! Doesn’t Freddy know Milo by now, Fern?”
Fern shrugged and chuckled. “I told him he’d betterwatch out, because I was making some notes of my own, for a little project of my own. And honey, don’t think I couldn’t write a book about that man!”
Gloria glanced out the window again, thinking how boring a book about Freddy would be. He was on his knees by the hedges, pulling up weeds. Anything Freddy Fultondid know about gardening, Milo had taught him.
In Gloria’s novel, she had made the character Miles a stamp collector. That was another of Pitts’ changes.
“Make him a collector of plain, ordinary stamps. Not foreign stamps or anything romantic, but plain stamps, the kind you can buy in a package for twenty-five cents at any dime store.”
“Milo buys lots of seeds in the dime store. What’s the difference?”
“Listen, Gloria,” Pitts had said, “I’m not going to try and make you appreciate your husband, at this point. I’m interested in the novel. You’re writing about a stupid fellow, but that stuff your character Miles says about plant life, for instance, in the twenty-sixth chapter, is too damn clever.”
“For someone who’s as sophisticated as you are,” Gloria had laughed, “you certainly come up with peculiar ideas about what’s clever in this life.”
“You just take my word about books,” said Pitts, “never mind life.”
Gloria had told him she’d take his word about both; and anything else he could come up with.
As Gloria looked out the window at Freddy, she saw Virginia. She was sitting on her haunches beside her father, in her beige and brown jumper, and her short no-color hair; sitting watching him, looking for all the world like a huge, devoted, cross-eyed Siamese cat.
Gloria said, “I suppose Freddy’s on Milo’s side.”
“Oh, who’s choosing up sides, honey? It hasn’t come to that, has it?” She waved away some of the smoke spiraling up between them. “You know Freddy. He’s always liked Milo. Freddy likes people who are different. He likes that subtle stuff Milo’s always talking about, the stuff about the life cycle of insects and saints and all. You know how Freddy is. He hates the corny American Legion, hail-fellow-well-met type!” She paused a moment before she said, “I guess I don’t have to tell you he was never overly fond of you, honey. Freddy’s awfully stuffy when you come right down to it.”
“Stuffy?” Gloria Wealdon looked at her hard. “That’s a funny word to use about Freddy.”
“Well, you couldn’t use it about me, could you, honey? I’m a money snob,
in some ways, but money snobs are happy as long as they’re not poor, and we’ve done all right. Freddy’s different. He’s a taste snob. That’s why we never had a Cadillac. God knows I love those big chrome boats, love them! But Freddy thinks they’re in bad taste.”
“Freddy!” Glo said.
“Half of our arguments are about my bad taste, honey. He thinks I fill the house up with too much senseless ornamentation. You know me! I like pretty things. I like them all done up fancy. Not Freddy!”
“Well,I don’t overdress.”
Fern smiled at her. It was the same patronizing smile Gloria could remember from scores of long-past tea parties, sit-down dinners, coffee klatsches with just the two of them; it was always the same, that smile.
Fern said, “Youunder-dress, dear.”
“Is that Freddy’s business?”
It was a senseless rejoinder.
“Of course it isn’t his business,” said Fern, “but you asked me why Freddy’s stuffy where you’re concerned, didn’t you?”
Gloria couldn’t remember. She sipped the Nescafé wordlessly.
“Honey,” said Fern, “Ilike the way you are! I’m not like Freddy. I don’t care what you wear, or if you belong to the Birthday Club, or whether you take the right fork at dinner, or what kind of comment you make about food, or finger bowls, or any of it! Don’t you see that?”
“Freddy … stuffy,” was all Gloria could manage.
“Yes, Freddy stuffy,” said Fern more sharply. “Of course he has his naïve side too. For instance, he didn’t believe the part in the book about — what did you call me? Oh yes,Fernanda. He simply refused to believe the part about Fernanda seducing her psychoanalyst.” She let her large brown eyes raise to meet Gloria’s straight on. “I’m glad he didn’t believe it,” she said without a trace of a smile. She was angry, in fact, really angry. “It would have caused a lot of trouble for meand Jay.”
Gloria Wealdon glanced at the clock on the kitchen shelf. It was five minutes past eleven. She was sorry the subject of Jay Mannerheim and Fern had come up, even though she knew that eventually it was inevitable.
She also knew that given enough time she could reason with Fern, help Fern to see that Jay was a selfish egotist using his so-called profession (he wasnot an M.D.) for his own gain, just as Gloria had shown inPopulation 12,360. Despite the fact that Gloria Wealdon felt less and less impressed by Fern Fulton lately, Fern was probably the only friend she had in Cayuta, New York. Until she was positive that she was not going to be in Cayuta through the summer, Gloria decided she had to make an effort to stay friends with Fern.
She said, “I want to have a long talk with you about why I used that in my book, Fern. I really do! Not now — now I haven’t got time, but let’s make a date to discuss it. I’d like to let my hair down with you.”
“Itdoesn’t look attractive in Milo’s old socks,” Fern answered without any humor in her tone. Then she stood up. “I’ll heat more water. You have time for another cup, don’t you?”
The chameleonic mood of the morning threw Gloria Wealdon off. For the first time since her arrival back in Cayuta, she felt less sure of her ground. She could not pin down Fern’s attitude toward her.
“I have time forone more,” she said. And now, Fern’s huge ears seemed somehow less grotesque than ominous, like two surreptitious listening posts that had been there all the time, of course. But before she could decide what was frightening about the thought, Fern’s face was cut with the familiar large smile, her voice was bright again, as she gathered up the cups and saucers. “I have some divine coffee cake. I want you to try it. New York City or no, you won’t taste anything like this anywhere!”
She walked toward the kitchen, her pale yellow chiffon robe trailing along the thick amber rug.
Outside in the yard, Freddy and Virginia were still attacking the weeds by the hedge. Gloria could not help feeling sorry for Fern, naming that unattractive child with the brave hope she would turn out to be as “maidenly and pure” asWhat Shall We Name the Baby? promised a Virginia would be. Gloria remembered that Fern had once said, “It’s funny, but I don’t really want the baby to grow up and be some kind of wild heart-breaker. I want her to be modest and maybe a little old-fashioned, you >know?” That was when “Ginny” was five, when they still believed growth would correct her eyes, and before she had developed into the slow, odd and unpopular maverick she was. It was before Fern realized the child was not going to be a heart-breaker of any kind, neither wild nor modest.
Gloria looked away from the window and back at Fern, who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Fern’s expression startled Gloria. Her mouth was tight, her nostrils slightly flared, and her eyes narrowed for those slow seconds before she spoke. The two women looked at one another — Gloria’s face puzzled, Fern’s cold and hard.
Then Fern said, “It doesn’t — itwon’t — do me any good to knowwhy you wrote about Jay and me, Gloria. I think you’ve always been jealous of me. But you abused a confidence! You’ve made my life very difficult now.Very difficult! I’ve never been laughed at before. It’s a new experience for me!”
Gloria started to protest. “But why should anyone laugh atyou? You weren’t the fool! It was Jay Mannerheim who was — ”
“A fool? Jay?” Fern Fulton’s mouth slid into a lopsided grin that became an unseemly sneer.“You may think so.”
“Fern, listen — ”
“You listen for once,” said Fern, “I’ve listened to you for years! I’ve listened to your whining and complaining about being poor, about being a misfit, about being clumsy. I’ve listened to everything you’ve ever said, and most of it — all of it — was about poor little Gloria Wealdon! I felt sorry for you! All right! I was nice to you! All right! Will you just ask yourself what I ever did to deserve your using my insides for plot material? That’s all! Just ask yourself that! And don’t explain it to me, or apologize to me. I don’t want to hear about it. I just want you to know I think it was rotten of you to write about Jay and me!”
“I’m sorry,” Gloria managed to say to Fern’s back.
• • •
She sat there stunned. She had never heard Fern speak so vehemently. Her impulse was to get up and run back through the fields, to escape this scene which was so completely unpredicted and unprecedented. But as she started to move, she heard Fern’s voice call: “The coffee water is boiling.” The old, easy tone. “I’m cutting the cake. It’s really divine cake, honey! Come on out and jabber with me while I fix it.”
Gloria Wealdon walked warily into the kitchen.
Fern, all smiles, said, “Now tell me about my New York! How’d you like it, hmm? Bygones be bygones, ah?” She poked Gloria’s waist playfully with her long finger. “Who’d ever have thought our little Glo-worm would write herself a best seller!”
Four
Fernanda’s husband was a dull robot, still in love with her, too insensitive to be anything but proud of and anxious over the lisping maverick they had spawned.
— FROM Population 12,360
VIRGINIA FULTON yanked a clump of weeds from between the two shrubs and demanded to know why she shouldn’t say such a thing.
“Because,” her father answered, “threats are vulgar when there is no way of carrying them out.”
He squatted beside his daughter. He remembered two days back when Milo Wealdon had dropped by to help him prune the hydrangea. Milo hadn’t seemed any different at all, except during one brief interval when they were examining these very shrubs he and his daughter were working on this morning. Milo had looked at them thoughtfully for a few seconds, running his tongue along the lower lip inside his mouth, the way he did sometimes. Then he had remarked: “I’d get rid of these shrubs if I were you, Freddy.”
“Are you serious? They were here when I bought this place.”
“I don’t care. You have to get rid of them. They’re lycium halimifoliums. I suppose that doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“What’s wr
ong with them?”
“The popular name for them is Matrimony Vine. They have an unquenchable desire for conquest. They have these underground suckers that can just take over the whole place! You can’t eradicate them by cutting them down or grubbing them out! Matrimony Vine — that’s the right name for them, all right!”
“And I should get rid of them?”
“You have to kill them, Freddy.”
Milo spoke those words with such emphasis that he broke the stubby black pencil he held in his hands. It was hard for Freddy to keep his mind on the rest of their conversation. All the while Milo discussed the effectiveness of Trichlorophenoxyacetic Acid sprays and Dichorophenoxyacetic Acid sprays, Freddy thought of the way Milo’s big hands had snapped the piece of short lead pencil, of the way Milo had said, “Matrimony Vine — that’s the right name for them!” Maybe Freddy was just projecting; maybe he was just trying to imagine how he would feel if his wife had published that best seller.
Virginia Fulton was sixteen, medium height, plump, with muscular legs, frizzy brown hair, a freckled nose and corrective glasses. She squinted at the sun from behind the thick black frames and said, “Just the same I feel like feeding her some of this stuff!” She shook the small can which she held in her hand.
“Well, I’m afraid we’ll have to settle for killing mere weeds this morning, Ginny. Unless you can come up with a better idea for murdering Mrs. Wealdon. Herbicides aren’t dependable. She’d probably suffer little more than a belly ache.”
Freddy Fulton stood and stretched. He had been a very handsome man once. There were still traces of this in his height, his broad shoulders, the thick crop of coal-colored hair, the piercing dark eyes and the good rugged profile. But at thirty-eight he had developed a paunch, the sort that made his stance sag, and his jowls were heavy now and flaccid. He was still impressive, partly because he was so well-tailored, mostly because he had such an air of self-confidence.
Fulton was not at all displeased with the figure he cut, and when he had read Gloria Wealdon’s portrayal of him as the anxious father of a lisping daughter and the fanatically devoted husband of a wife who was busy debauching her psychoanalyst, he had guffawed aloud. He remembered that he had been sitting up in bed reading the book, and that Fern, opposite him in her bed, had demanded: “What’s so funny, Freddy?”
