My Dearest Friend

by Nancy Thayer

  Joe said, “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pass out,” and with a mocking smile at himself, weaved off to bed.

  As soon as he was out of the room, Daphne leaned forward over the kitchen table. “Well?”

  “Well?”

  “Well, Laura! Did you … meet someone nice?”

  “I met many nice people.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. You know what I mean.”

  Laura was stirring a huge pile of sugar and quite a lot of milk into her coffee. This seemed to claim her entire attention. Finally she looked up at Daphne.

  “I am grateful for what you tried to do. I know you were hoping I would meet someone special. And there were some nice men. But, Daphne, they all seem so young, or frivolous, after Otto.”

  “But why not enjoy someone young and frivolous for a while? I mean, Laura, you don’t have to look at every prospective man as a future father for Hanno. This is the time in your life when you should just have some fun.”

  “Meaning sleep around.”

  “Well, yes, why not? Yes!”

  Laura sipped her coffee. “I don’t think I want to sleep around. I don’t think I would be comfortable with it.”

  Daphne eyed her friend appraisingly. “You surprise me. No, really, I’m serious. You are so … sensual, Laura. You love the things of the senses so much—everything around you, you make appealing. Your food, your clothes, your house—”

  “And that makes you think I would like to sleep around?”

  “That makes me think you would like sex. Oh, come on, Laura, think about that Hal Dodson, what a gorgeous man he is. Don’t tell me he doesn’t make your juices flow.”

  Laura looked amused and superior. “What a way of putting it. Listen, for this conversation I need some brandy in my coffee.”

  Daphne accommodated her friend, poured some in her own coffee, then settled back in her chair. “So?”

  “We’ve been needing this talk when booze makes us honest,” Laura said. “You’ve been driving me crazy all year now. Telling me just to go out and get laid.”

  “Really, I haven’t put it quite so crudely.”

  “But that is what you mean. If I had gone off tonight with that Hal Dodson, you would have been happy? If I had gone to his house and slept with him?”

  “Yes. Happy and envious. I’ll admit it.”

  “Daphne, he’s much younger than I. We couldn’t possibly ever get serious about each other.”

  “So what? Why not have one night of pleasure?”

  Laura smiled at Daphne, a slow, almost seductive smile, looking up through her lashes as she sat with her head tilted down. “Because,” she said softly, “it would not be pleasure for me.”

  Daphne just stared at Laura, waiting.

  “I know I’ve said how good I am in bed with Otto, innovative and so on, and that is true, Daphne. I am good in bed for a man. But I’m not so good in bed for myself. Oh, here it is in graphic vulgarity for you. Maybe this will take that puzzled look off your face. Daphne, I almost never have orgasms. It is very hard work for me even to try. To tell you the truth, I really don’t like sex. When I hear you raving on about how you feel about Joe or how you lust after Hal, I know my body just operates differently from yours.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Daphne said. “I don’t believe this.”

  “My dear, you know so much about me. But you do not know the deepest things. I’m telling you now. You know how poor I was as a child in Germany. I’ve told you the story of my mother holding my hand and crying because I was hungry. I vowed that would never happen to me. I would never let my child go hungry. So I did what was necessary. I found a wealthy man and married him and made him happy. Well, for a while, ha. That is what all that ‘sensuality,’ as you call it, was about. That’s what all women’s charms are about, when you come down to it, you know. Making the home alluring so the man will stay in it and bring us some money. Give me more brandy.”

  “You’ll be sick if you drink any more, Laura,” Daphne warned, but Laura reached across the table and poured brandy into her empty coffee cup. “At least let me give you a glass.”

  “This is good for you, you know,” Laura said, after taking a large swallow. “You are such an idealist, such a dreamer. You need to know some things. You need to admit some things. Face facts. All women are whores, in a way, aren’t we? We need to keep our men happy so they will support us.”

  “Laura, you’re drunk. You’re saying awful things.”

  “Oh, come on, Daphne, sometimes you irritate me so much! You like to hide from the truth in your romantic literature. Your poetry. Men are basically animals. They are different from women, they’ll sleep with any woman who offers, while a woman has to work very hard to keep a man in her home.”

  “Laura, you’re just cynical because of Otto. Not all men are that way.”

  “Every man is that way. Every man, Daphne.”

  The two women stared at each other. Then Laura said it.

  “I could make your Joe sleep with me, you know. I could. I could get any man to sleep with me.”

  Daphne felt chilled and shivery and sick.

  “That doesn’t mean marry. That doesn’t mean love. That just means have sex. Men are promiscuous. We are all only pretending otherwise for the sake of civilization. Oh, look at your face, you look like a child and I’ve just stepped on your dolly. Sometimes you are just a baby.”

  “Well, you make me very sad. I’m very sad for you. If that’s how you feel.”

  “Don’t be so superior.”

  “I’m not! I don’t mean to be. Laura, truly I am sorry for you. That you don’t think men can be faithful. That you can’t just enjoy sex—”

  “And you can. Enjoy sex. You are the great sex queen.”

  “I didn’t say that! What’s gotten into you?” Daphne felt the night and the conversation and her friendship with Laura slipping away past her control or imagination.

  She rose from the table. “I think I see a light in the backyard in one of the paper sacks. I’m going to go out and check it. I want to be sure I’ve extinguished all the candles. I’ll be right back.”

  It was after midnight, but the early-summer night was bright with stars and moonlight. The air was fragrant and warm and slightly humming with insect noises and small animal rustlings. She had kicked off her high heels and walked through the grass, which was dewy now against her feet. No candle was burning; she knew that. She had only needed to get away for a moment, to think. But in case Laura was watching, she walked to the end of the yard and bent over a paper bag and looked in. She took a deep breath of the clean night air, then turned to go back to the house.

  Halfway to the house, she saw Laura coming down the lawn toward her. Laura had not kicked her heels off and she seemed very tall and as thin as a taper. Behind her, the kitchen glowed with light, so that Laura’s face was shadowed and unreadable. To Daphne’s surprise, she came right up to Daphne and drew her against her, folding her in an embrace.

  Holding Daphne against her, she said, “I have made you angry, and I never want to do that. You are my best friend. I need you.” Laura was crying now. She leaned against Daphne, her arms wrapped around her, and her words came like puffs of breath against Daphne’s temple. “I’m sorry if I offended you. You must not hate me. Don’t hate me. I love you so much, Daphne.”

  “I don’t hate you, Laura,” Daphne said. “I love you too.”

  “Oh, Daphne,” Laura said, and kissed Daphne firmly on the mouth.

  Shocked, Daphne drew back, pushing herself away from Laura.

  “Oh, God, I’m so drunk,” Laura said. “I must go home. I am so drunk.” She began to walk up the lawn toward the side of the house, headed toward the front, where her car was parked.

  “You shouldn’t drive, Laura,” Daphne said. “Not drunk.”

  “You’re right,” Laura said, and, veering off, made it to the long lawn chaise. She collapsed onto the striped crisscross of fabric. “I’ll
spend the night here.”

  “You can’t! You can’t sleep out here!”

  “Why not? It’s a warm night. This is comfortable. My mother-in-law will take care of Hanno. Daphne, I have a headache. I want just to go to sleep. Go away.”

  Laura turned on her side and raised her arm to cover her face. Daphne stared at her. Somehow it seemed so … disreputable for Laura to spend the night outside on a lawn chair. But she went into the house and found a light summer blanket. By the time she got back, Laura was asleep, or seemed to be, so Daphne wrapped the blanket around Laura, being sure to tuck the bottom under the cushions so it wouldn’t fall off in the night. Alcohol seemed to be steaming from Laura’s breath and every pore, mingling with the night’s fragrances.

  Daphne went inside to her bedroom, to the bed made warm by Joe.

  When Daphne awoke at eight the next morning, she looked out the windows and found that Laura and her car were gone. She fixed two huge mugs of coffee and brought them back to bed.

  Daphne told Joe about the conversation with Laura—omitting a few things: not telling him that Laura said she could get Joe to sleep with her; not telling him how Laura had kissed her. She must have been so very drunk.

  “Isn’t it sad, isn’t it surprising, Laura not liking sex, not being able to have orgasms,” Daphne said. “I mean, to look at her, you would think—”

  Joe shifted uncomfortably next to her. “Really, do you think you should be telling me all this? Surely she meant this to be confidential.”

  “Joe, she must know I tell you everything! Wives do that, they tell their husbands everything.”

  “Still …” Joe said.

  “But really,” Daphne pressed on. “Don’t you think it’s just amazing that Laura is that way about sex? I mean, Joe, looking at her, at the way she moves and talks and touches people, you’d think she just loved sex, wouldn’t you?” She waited for Joe to answer. He grunted noncommittally. “I don’t know,” Daphne went on, musing aloud, “you just never know about people, do you? You never know what’s really hiding under the surface. I mean, Laura is my closest friend and we’ve talked about everything, I thought I knew everything about her—and now look.” She turned toward Joe. “I don’t know what to do to help her.”

  “I don’t think there is anything you can do.”

  “Oh, there must be. Think how lonely she is. And I can’t help but think that it was marriage to that horrible Otto that made her think she doesn’t like sex. Anyone married to Otto would hate sex and men. Poor Laura.”

  “What are you going to worry about when Laura’s happy?” Joe asked, laughing, pulling Daphne close to him. “Listen, if I could get you to forget her and remember me for a while, perhaps we could take advantage of Cynthia sleeping late …”

  “Oh, Joe,” Daphne said, and put down her mug and wrapped herself around him. He was so very much there—all masculine and muscular and physical—and she quickly forgot anything else.

  Summer brought several changes. Otto and Sonya went back to Germany for the three months of school vacation, and Mrs. Kraft, resigning herself to the divorce, went with them. Laura, suddenly so alone, and realizing that at the end of the summer she would be legally divorced and Otto and Sonya would be married, went into a deeper depression. She seemed unable to take control of her life, to make even minor decisions. She spent more and more time at Daphne’s house. Sometimes she even sat there with Hanno, watching TV. Often she stayed for dinner, helping Daphne cook it or clean up after. Those evenings, Joe would retire to his study as soon as possible.

  But the more unexpected change came from a phone call for Daphne: the head of the English department at a nearby community college said that they were looking for a temporary part-time freshman-English instructor for the fall, and Pauline White had recommended Daphne: would she be interested? She was ecstatic. She accepted the job. Joe was happy for her, for he knew it was what Daphne wanted, and they could use the extra money.

  But “How can you leave your little baby?” Laura demanded. She was strangely angry with Daphne. “What kind of mother are you?”

  “Laura, Cynthia is a year old now. I’ve been with her constantly for a year. I’ll teach only two mornings a week. It’s not going to harm her for life to be with a babysitter. Don’t be crazy. Oh, I can’t wait, I love teaching so.”

  After the phone call, Laura began to take care of Cynthia for an hour or two in the mornings or afternoons while Daphne dug out old textbooks and lesson plans. The women didn’t plan it that way; it just fell naturally into place, since Laura and Hanno came over almost every day to lounge around with Daphne and Cynthia. Daphne bought a large blue plastic wading pool to put in the backyard, and while she worked inside at the dining-room table, Laura would sit in a bikini, drinking iced tea, watching her son play in the water, or helping little Cynthia toddle and crawl in the pool. Daphne would lift her head from a passage in an essay, and hear the shrieks of children’s laughter, and Laura’s low laugh, and think how happy she was.

  At the end of the summer, Laura said to Daphne one afternoon: “I think you should hire me to baby-sit Cynthia when you teach.”

  Daphne was sipping some iced tea, and she kept her head lowered so that Laura wouldn’t see her face. What was she to do? She wanted to put Cynthia with a sitter who had other babies Cynthia’s age. But she didn’t want to hurt Laura’s feelings.

  “But Hanno will be in kindergarten,” she said. “You don’t want to waste your time babysitting.”

  “I never think of babysitting as wasting my time!” Laura said. “That’s the most important work in the world, caring for little ones.”

  “But, Laura, I mean, you should get a real job. One where you could make a decent amount of money.”

  “I am getting quite a decent amount of money in the divorce settlement,” Laura said. “Otto is being very generous with child support too. And I will own the house clear and free. What do I want with more money?”

  Daphne gave in. That evening, when she talked it over with Joe, he seemed uninterested—whatever Daphne wanted to do was fine. So the fall began, and Laura came to the Millers’ house two mornings a week and Daphne went off to the community college to teach. Daphne would return home to find Cynthia in clean clothes and giggles, the house immaculate, and a freshly baked cake or bread sitting on the kitchen counter.

  “Don’t complain,” Joe said one evening as they finished one of Laura’s cakes late at night, when Laura had gone home. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. If it makes her happy—”

  “I feel like I’m exploiting her somehow.”

  “You’re only letting her do what she wants. She volunteers all this. You didn’t ask her to cook. You didn’t even ask her to baby-sit.”

  “But, Joe, somehow it just seems wrong. It seems as if … oh, I don’t know, as if she’s demeaning herself. My best friend, cleaning our toilet. Don’t you see?”

  “Your feminism is running away with you,” Joe said. “Stop a minute and remember all Laura has said. She really likes housework and cooking. Not every woman finds housekeeping demeaning.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t want to spend every day of your life at it,” Daphne said.

  Joe just looked at Daphne and sighed, letting his expression carry the message that she was now going past the rational in her thinking.

  So the semester unrolled. Joe taught, Daphne took care of Cynthia and taught, Cynthia grew and blossomed into a strong-willed and active little girl. Laura and Hanno spent Christmas with the Millers. Then Daphne took Cynthia down to Florida, where her widowed mother had retired. She returned after two weeks to find that the college wanted her to teach again, two courses, and Laura said she wanted to continue babysitting Cynthia. Much of Daphne’s energy went into the teaching, but underneath the steady pattern of her days ran an electric current of tension. She could not feel comfortable with all that Laura was doing. It just seemed wrong. She wanted more for her friend’s life than babysitting and housecleaning.<
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  In May Pauline and Douglas gave an enormous cocktail party. Daphne spent hours cajoling Laura into going and then planning with her what to wear. She had more fun getting ready for the party with Laura than with Joe, because Joe had been grouchy recently, one of the results of a large and painful hemorrhoid. After the doctor assured him it was not dangerous, he would not die of it, Daphne stopped worrying and found it secretly amusing. All the fuss he’d made over getting her hemorrhoid medicine after Cynthia was born! He deserved to suffer the same ailment, really he did. She tried to tease him about it, but he got angry.

  “It’s painful, dammit!” he said. “It’s nothing to laugh about!”

  “Joe, sometimes you are such a priss!” Daphne said in return.

  Joe had to drink a thick and slightly sickening fiber drink at night, and the doctor gave him a special cream to apply to the hemorrhoid twice daily. Joe was afraid the medicine would stain or smell. The hemorrhoid was so large that the doctor wanted to ligate it in the office, but Joe became ill at the thought. The entire episode embarrassed him horribly.

  “You should be a woman for just one day,” Daphne said. “God, how I would love it. I’d love it if you were a woman for just one day—after having a baby, or when you’re having the first few days of your period. Talk about mess! And staining! And smells!”

  “For Christ’s sake, Daphne, must you carry on like this?” Joe asked, stomping off into the bathroom for privacy.

  He didn’t want to go to the Whites’ party because he felt so awful. “Oh, no,” Daphne pleaded. “Please, Joe, I can’t go without you and I really want to go!” He finally agreed, as long as she would agree to leave when he got too uncomfortable. But it was a smashing party with lots of guests and food and booze, and before long Joe, like the others, was laughing and talking.