by Nancy Thayer
John and Cynthia were healthy, intelligent, graceful children, well liked by everyone. They had the normal childhood illnesses, an occasional broken leg from skiing or sprained arm from playing tennis, but they were never seriously ill. Ron’s business flourished. Judy organized and ran her days with the efficiency of possessive love.
Ron and the children left the house at eight-thirty, and by nine-thirty Judy had cleaned the bathroom sinks, made all the beds, done the breakfast dishes, and vacuumed the front hall. She then had plenty of time to devote to charities and committees, and the years went by just this way. Because it is in the nature of the human creature to be continually amazed at the trials with which life besets him—no matter how fortunate he may seem to others—Judy always assumed that she had a lot to cope with. It was not until the fortuitous gathering by the fireplace at the Sloans’ house, when Carlos made his startling pronouncement, that Judy stopped to think that she had lived her adult life with really unusual ease. She did not attribute any of this good fortune to the intervention of God. She had joined the Londonton church for the same reason she had joined every other socially prominent organization in town; and she did not plan to be taken in by anything the ministers or hymns or Scripture readings said. Still, she enjoyed the rituals, and it was nice to see the children, when they were little, dressed in white robes and singing Easter songs. Over the years she had become friends with Jews and atheists and Catholics, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that one’s fortune in life had absolutely no connection with one’s belief in God. She did not believe in God; and yet for the past twenty-five years of her life she had been fortunate.
Why, then, was she always afraid? It really had nothing to do with religion—she probably would have led an even more anxious life if she had believed in God, because she knew so well what that belief could do. Not until Carlos had spoken with her at the party had she realized that in a way she had come through it; through much of her life, unscathed. She decided, as she sat in church listening to Reynolds Houston finish the Scripture reading, that it was probably not fear that she felt after all. It was just that she was so vividly aware of the possibilities of each moment, and she wanted desperately for each of those moments to be as perfect as possible. What else was life about? She was proud of the standards she set herself, and if fear provided the necessary energy, so be it: look what she was accomplishing. Look at all she had: her intelligent daughter, her admirable husband, her handsome, devoted son.
Liza Howard
I saw the look you gave me just now, Judy Bennett, that quick judgmental glance. I am familiar with that look. You have never looked at me any other way, you have never given me a chance. Every time I stood at the entrance to your life, you have judged and dismissed me swiftly and harshly; it is always as if you were slamming a door in my face. But it’s done you no good, Judy Bennett, for I am in your house.
How women like you tire and anger me with your pretentions, your cold superficialities. You really do believe you are better than I am, and you’ve consistently tried to impress this fact upon me. Well, your husband liked me well enough—and your son, your precious son, loves me.
If one can call it love.
It was in Londonton’s most elegant, expensive gift shop that we first saw each other, just two months ago. Johnny was there, sort of hulking around looking foolish, while Sarah showed him place mats and pottery bowls. I was standing by a high table covered with black velvet which displayed a variety of old-fashioned glass paperweights. I was looking for a gift for one of my midwestern friends who was soon to have a birthday, and I was so surprised to find the paperweights that I would not have looked up and seen Johnny if it had not been for Sarah’s voice. If he never thanks me for anything else, Johnny should thank me for sparing him a lifetime of listening to that voice—high, whiny, nasal. Sarah speaks as if she’s trying not to move her lips.
“John, please,” she said. “I want to get some of these things down for the bridal registry. Do you like the place mats with the jelly-bean print or the butterfly print?” It was obvious that she was trying to show him off, but was irritated because he wasn’t suitably involved in the selection of wedding gifts.
“Well,” Johnny said, trying to please, “they both seem kind of young to me. I like the plaid.”
Oh, how exasperated she became! “Johnny, we have plaid already,” she hissed. Hadn’t he been paying attention?
“Oh, Sarah, you have such good taste, and it’s sort of a woman’s thing to do. Why don’t you just decide.”
“But it’s a new world,” Sarah said, nearly in tears now. “You’re supposed to take an interest in the home if our marriage is going to last. I want you to like our place mats.”
“Well—the jelly-beans. Yeah, the jelly-bean place mats are good. I really like them. All those different colors.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Sarah said, and immediately she perked right up. “They are cheerful, aren’t they? I wonder how many we should ask for. I mean, they aren’t right for a formal dinner. But if we have friends stay the night and for breakfast—”
“Six. Or eight. Get eight to be sure,” John said.
Sarah searched around in her handbag for her notebook and pencil, and called out brightly to the saleslady, “I’m just adding a few more things to our list here.”
“Dear, if you like those jelly-bean place mats, you might want to see these,” the saleslady said, spotting an easy sale.
Sarah tripped off to talk with the saleslady, and Johnny looked up and saw me staring at him.
Looking at Johnny was like looking at a thick sable coat. All my instincts said: Touch. Feel. Stroke. Rub. It had been a while since I’d paid serious attention to any man, but even so, Johnny would have stopped me in my tracks any day. Six feet two inches tall, with big shoulders, a wide chest that tapers down to a smooth slim stomach, and such lovely long long slim legs. He was wearing a green and blue striped sweater, and oxford-cloth button-down blue shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. I just stared and stared. He has such thick blond hair—none of that thinning stuff that other men (like his father) have, but real thick, vibrant hair, falling down over his forehead. His eyes are green and his lashes are long. Honey child, I thought. I smiled at him. He smiled at me, a slow, easy, confident swagger of a smile. In a flash I saw that life had always been good to him, that he had never lacked for the love of family or women, that he had always had his own way. You great big baby, I thought. I’d like to play with your toys.
“I wonder if you could help me a moment,” I said, still smiling. “I’m buying a gift for a friend of mine—a man—and I’m not sure just which paperweight a man would like best. Men’s tastes are so different from women’s. Could you come give me your opinion?”
He was so obviously delighted to be reassured of his masculinity after standing there choosing jelly-bean place mats that he just grinned all over.
“Sure,” he said, and ambled over to the black velvet table.
“I’m Liza Howard,” I said, and gave him my hand.
“John Bennett.”
“Oh, yes, I can see the resemblance. I know your parents—slightly.” (I’ve been in bed with your father—twice.) “Well, now, I really would be grateful for your help. I tend to like this one, with the flower, but I suppose a man might like the spiral?”
We were standing close enough to smell each other. He picked up a paperweight full of red and white and green geometric designs that made me think of Christmas candy in a crystal bowl.
“This is the one I’d like,” he said. “It’s beautiful.” He turned it over in his huge long-fingered hand. “God, it’s two hundred and fifty dollars. Imagine spending that much on a paperweight. You must really love this friend.”
So I knew immediately just how to make that first subtle but definite invitation.
“No,” I said, and took the paperweight from him and placed it carefully back on the black velvet. “Actually that man doesn’t mean that much
to me. I guess I’ll look for something else. But thank you so much for your help.”
Sarah, in the meantime, had been on the other side of the shop, too engrossed in her bridal registry choices to have the sense to be jealous. He moved off from me, and I felt the reluctance in his blood.
“John,” Sarah said, “what do you think of this solid-brass rooster-shaped napkin holder? Don’t you think it would be real cute on the table at breakfast?”
I quickly went out the door, thinking: Sarah, you dummy, you’re paying attention to the wrong cock.
Later that afternoon I went back to the gift shop and bought the Christmas-candy paperweight. I had it beautifully gift-wrapped, and I sent it to Johnny with a plain white card on which I wrote: “I hope you like this. I can think of lots of things you might like. Please call.”
He called the day the paperweight arrived, and came to my house that night. I led him into the living room and gave him a drink of brandy, which I could tell he badly needed, because he was almost white with fear.
“Listen,” he said, “I’m not sure what I’m doing here. I mean—well, I’m engaged to Sarah Stafford, and her father’s president of the college, and she’s a real nice girl, and I’d hate to hurt her feelings. And my mother—”
I could see through Johnny as easily as through the glass of the paperweight. The only part of his body that’s ever been broken in his life is his leg, from a skiing accident. In high school and college he only had to smile for girls to pull up their skirts and lie down for him. He has a pale blue MG his parents bought for him, with condoms in the glove compartment and bourbon in the trunk. I don’t suppose he’s genetically dumb, but life has never called upon him to exercise his intelligence in any way that would sharpen it—but an easy luscious charm steams off him like the scent of lilacs on a hot May day, and that takes care of everything. He doesn’t need to think, so he’s never really bothered.
I lured and snared him with such obvious intent that I was embarrassed for us both. Sweet huge delicious animal, he watched me construct my trap, and then he cheerfully plunged right into it.
I let him talk. I assured him of his moral strength and selflessness; here he was, thinking of his fiancée, mother, father, friends, community, before thinking of himself. And all he was possibly intending to do, after all, was to have one last pleasant fling before settling down to years and years of fidelity with Sarah Stafford. I wanted nothing of him but to look at him—and maybe hold him—poor lonely widow that I was. I was planning to move from this town as soon as the house was sold, and I had no friends to gossip with anyway; all his secrets were safe with me.
“Well,” he said at last, weakening, grinning that lovely grin, “lots of guys do have stag parties …”
“That’s right,” I said. “I could be your own private stag party.”
He kissed me then. We were standing in the living room, with brandy snifters in our hands, and that first kiss grew so intense that I nearly let the glass just drop to the floor. Instead, I pulled away from him, and led him up the winding stairs to my bedroom. We were both nervous. I can’t even remember how we got out of our clothes; in the past few weeks I’ve managed to do some rather drawn-out striptease routines when undressing in front of Johnny, but that first time we just got out of our clothes and into the bed as fast as we could.
“My God,” Johnny said as we lay together. “You are so beautiful. I didn’t know real women could be like this, so—curvy …”
He ran his hands over my breasts and stomach, he kissed my neck and breasts, he made some attempt to be a good lover. It was obvious that he was experienced, for he did know what to do, where to touch, but suddenly he just lost control, forgot himself, forgot the new etiquette of lovemaking that even the youngest men are learning these days. He stopped being gentle and considerate: he grabbed me, held me down, and entered me with all the finesse of a rapist.
“My God, you’re so beautiful, you’re so soft,” he said, “My God.”
They were sweet words, but he was hardly articulate, he was breathing so hard, and he was moving against me with the speed and sensitivity of a jackrabbit. I wanted him to realize whom he was with; I wanted him there with me. So I slid my hands between our stomachs to slow him down. I pressed, palms upward, against his flat stomach, so that each time he fell against me he felt the pressure of my palms, the teasing cut of my fingernails against the skin between his crotch and legs. I thwarted his rhythm. I slowed him down. Johnny raised his head from where he had buried it in the pillow and looked at me.
“Johnny,” I said, “hey.”
Then I began to move my hips, slowly. I wrapped my legs around his legs and brought my hands around to press down gently on his backbone.
“Slow down, Johnny, there’s no hurry,” I said, and smiled.
He looked at me. He did not smile. He saw who I was. He said, “Liza.”
He wanted to heave against me. But I stayed in control, I stayed slow. I arched and sank away, tightening and pulling, taunting Johnny’s body into a different mood. I remained deliberate, controlling the cadence of our colliding bodies until I could sense just how he ached, how he yearned; we were both trembling, and our stomachs were slick with sweat. Then I too lost control and just held on, the rhythm quickened, and finally we both came, not in one quick explosion, but with the prolonged shuddering power of a rocket leaving earth. We rose, and flared and flared.
I had concentrated him; I had won. He collapsed against me, grimacing, rubbing his head against my neck, the pillow, gasping. I stroked his back. Ha, darling Johnny, I thought, you’re mine now. And I was right.
Didn’t you warn your son about older women, Judy? No, I don’t think you did. You don’t have the imagination. And you obviously have all the sexuality of a straight pin. All the times that your son has come home to you from my bed, and you’ve never once suspected: it makes me laugh, makes me want to laugh out loud in this church right now. God, how I despise you, you and this town, with its placid, rotten people with their smug and plastic smiles. I can’t wait till Friday comes. Then I will crack their foolish complacency, and especially yours, Judy Bennett. I will have to use my entire life as a hammer, and I’ll cause only a minute hairline crack, but that crack, that fracture, will be crucial in the dam of their lives. Once Johnny and I break free, who knows what else will follow?
It will be marvelous for this town, our little escapade; it will wake them up. I sit here, looking around me, and I want to stand and scream: how passionless you are, every one of you! I burn to think how all the roiling ages of conquering disease, ignorance, and poverty have come down to this: this congregation of tidy people simpering through the service of this mealymouthed minister. Does even one person here actually believe there was an Annunciation? An angel appeared in Mary’s room to tell her she was pregnant, and all the space and air in the room was broken into shafts of gold that glittered like the sound of bells. Brilliance flamed from the angel’s hair and body like a fire, and his great beating wings whirred the air. No diamond I possess can flash like that angel’s voice. He was magnificent.
Why does the Bible cheat us so of all the details? I want to know if the wings of that angel were made of soft feathers attached to his back with a hornlike shaft in the manner of birds or if his wings were made of mist and light. Or if, as some pictures show, they were made from molded gold. I want to know if Mary ran out into the streets after the angel appeared, calling to the neighbors, touching the walls of houses, the dirt of the road, the rough bark of trees, to assure herself that the earth was real, that she had not gone mad. What did people say to her when she told them an angel had appeared to her? I think I know: the worst people mocked and scoffed, and the kindest feared for her mental stability. She probably feared for her mental stability herself: although the vision of that angel was undoubtedly burned into her mind, how could she be sure it had not been a hallucination? If only the angel had left her something tangible to hold in her hand as proof. Well, there
was the baby in her womb—but that’s not exactly what I mean.
I do not think anyone in this church is prepared to deal with what the Bible teaches. Do we believe a transparent human being slipped through plaster walls and levitated a few feet off the ground? No, we don’t, not really. We are so scientific these days; spaceships and Martians are the miracles we’re expecting, and the vision of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock beaming on and off the starship Enterprise has more validity for us than the appearance of an angel. We doubt God and yearn for UFO’s. Never mind. We doubt, because we are too lazy for the burden of belief.
Religion is by nature passionate, or should be to be real. But here in this prissy place it’s been subdued. It’s been perverted. It’s become a lie.
Look at the Reverend Peter Taylor, the prig, staring out at me with his collection-plate eyes. All the other women in this church sniff around him like bitches, hoping to leave their scent accidentally on his robe so he’ll come search them out. How surprised they would be to know that he searched me out—and then could not even follow through with his pathetic little seduction.
It was a surprise last week when Peter asked me to go with him on his mission of mercy to those little boxes in the woods. What a parody that afternoon was—didn’t he realize he was only doing a bad imitation of every adolescent first date? The trip to the countryside, the sinuous approach, the timid attempt to hold hands; I’ve seen it all a million times. The oblique attack: muttering about our hearts, for heaven’s sake! “It’s what lies in our hearts that really matters.” Meaning if our hearts were pure we could commit adultery and still be good Christians. At first I thought he was being subtle from some gallantry, but then I realized he was only scared. As a minister he could not come right out and say, “Liza, I’d like to fuck you.” He probably doesn’t even let himself think such things. No, he had to camouflage his words, but he was surprised to find that I’m a hunter as much as he is, not ever the prey, and while he finds sneaking necessary because of his profession, I can spring and pounce.
