My Summer With George

by Marilyn French

  Listening to my siblings, I realized that my own speech was decaying swiftly from constant exposure to Bert and his family, with whom we frequently had Sunday dinner. I thought about Shaw’s Pygmalion and realized that my Millington teachers had hoped I’d improve myself at Mount Holyoke. Maybe I could still get educated—not by college but by the women’s magazines. They, after all, were the only honest and direct source of truth about women in the world. They and only they openly admitted that for women, class and money were everything. Oh, they mentioned virtue, touted as the highest good: women had to be virtuous. But if you considered what they really meant by virtuous, it had to do with appearance and manners. The virtuous girl was rewarded with marriage to a prosperous, faithful, well-spoken man. For a girl like me, a girl who had fallen, redemption was the only hope. And redemption was marriage to a man with some money, a man who wore a suit to work. And the only way to get him was to speak well, dress well, be humble and chaste. I sadly realized I was already unredeemable.

  10

  FROM THE QUALITY OF the light, I guessed it was time to get up. Yawning, stretching, and listening to bird chatter (which had dwindled a bit since daybreak), I thought about the day ahead. Tuesday. A croissant and coffee for breakfast, work until noon, a swim. Then I’d have lunch and rest, sitting in the sun reading my New York Times. Afterward, I might do a little weeding. A gardener took care of the grounds, but I liked to put my hands in the soil once in a while. Later in the afternoon, Alma Nutley, the publisher, was holding a tea for the British writer Edith, Lady Haswell, who was staying on the Island with her for a few weeks. It should be an elegant affair, everyone in high gear. I would probably end up going out for dinner with someone there. If not, I could nuke my leftover blanquette de veau from dinner at Citron the other night. It would be a pleasant day.

  After my swim, I sat outside on a chaise, drying out, a notebook on my lap, a sandwich and a pitcher of iced tea, the portable phone, and my Rolodex on the table beside me. I called the plumber to look at the outdoor shower, which was dripping; I made a dentist appointment. Then I lay back in the lovely warm sun and sipped iced tea. I was sleepy, and didn’t feel like reading the Times. I baked in the sun, remembering my first acceptance…

  It took nearly two months for an editor to read and approve my manuscript, but eventually someone did and called Susan—I couldn’t leave my own number—to say her company would publish it and pay me five hundred dollars. Susan called me at home. “Can you talk?” she screamed, and gave me the news.

  Of course, they wanted a few changes, and needed to set up a meeting. I was going to have to go to New York. For a while, that seemed impossible. I considered telling Bert the whole thing, but the mere thought of getting him to understand what I had been doing—and why—was overwhelming. Besides, I intended to leave him without any warning. I knew he’d try to stop me, not because he loved me or even enjoyed my company, but because I was his property, I belonged to him. I didn’t want to fight with him or listen to him yell and threaten. It would be a waste of time.

  But I could tell Jerry now: I’d hesitated to confide in him, afraid he might discourage me. Jerry couldn’t take Lettice for me, but Delia could, and Jerry could talk her into doing it. She had finally become pregnant and, forced to leave her job in her fourth month, was sitting at home, bored and miserable. And indeed, it all worked out.

  So in October 1951, just before my first wedding anniversary, I took the bus to New York. There, I met with Eda Doyle, an editor at Swan Books. She was a well-dressed, hard-looking woman in her late forties, a little portly, a dyed blonde with a thick, hard mouth and skin toughened by years of foundation makeup. But she would show herself over time to be a woman of great kindness. She suggested some changes and said they’d like the finished manuscript in a month. I signed a contract without even reading it. She asked if I had an idea for another book. I told her my idea about a paranoiac heroine, and she liked it. It was not all that original, even I knew that, but given the conditions of my life, I’d probably recounted it with some fervor. I said I’d like more money for it—$750. Her eyebrows rose, but she agreed. “If we like it, if we accept it, okay.

  “One more thing,” she added tentatively. “We feel—well, the authors of romances usually use pen names. They like to take somewhat romantic names…”

  “Yes, I know. And Elsa Schutz isn’t romantic.” I’d written the book under my maiden name. In fact, I never in my life called myself Elsa Shiefendorfer. “I’ve picked out a name.”

  “Yes?”

  I felt my face grow hot. I was as embarrassed as if I were laying my sexual fantasies on the desk for her perusal. “Hermione Beldame,” I offered shyly.

  She looked as if she were going to choke. After a moment, she repeated, “Hermione Beldame?”

  I watched her face.

  She finally met my eyes. Was her complexion a little pink? “Let me think about it. You like it, huh? You think it’s beautiful?”

  My eyes were somewhat damp, and I made my lips thin and mean to keep them from trembling. I could tell she didn’t think it was beautiful. She thought it was ludicrous. I wanted to sink under the desk and disappear, but I held my head up stiffly.

  “It’s a name I think women will like. Trust me.”

  My authoritative tone made her head snap up. “Really.” She looked at me sharply. Was I an idiot hick twenty-year-old or a smart cookie who had figured the angles? I could see her mulling this over. I decided to play it tough.

  “Yes. I’m sure of it.”

  In fact, I was. I had tried it out on Delia, Susan, Merry, even Jerry. All of them felt it had solidity and trustworthiness, but also a fluttery, lacy femininity. I left Eda’s office buoyant. I was launched on my secret career, on my way out of Bridgeport and away from Bert, on the freedom road.

  The sun was hot. The ice in my tea had all melted. I stirred, thinking I should get a move on, do something. I could hardly avoid finishing the present novel within a day or two, no matter how much I continued to procrastinate. I should start thinking about the next one. Maybe I should give myself a change of scene to get the imaginative juices flowing, go someplace that would inspire a romantic story: Venice, Bombay, Suzhou, Paris. I could simply pull out old guidebooks and recall these places, but cities change, even Paris, and it’s better if one’s impression is fresh. Perhaps I’d go in August, when it emptied out. Of course, all the decent restaurants in Paris were closed in August. Maybe better to wait until September. But I’d like to go soon—next week, or the week after. The hell with George. If I went to Paris next week, I’d beat the August exodus. I could stay three or four weeks, come home at the end of July. But then, Paris was full of tourists in July. Ugh. Perhaps I should go to Africa. I hadn’t been there in a few years, and the weather was fine there in July: skies clear as ether, broad as the sea, a world of sky. I could visit West Africa, countries I hadn’t visited—Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, say. Yes, that was what I should do! I was searching my Rolodex for the phone number of Marlene, my travel agent, when the phone rang. I answered it absentmindedly.

  It was George.

  Heart-stop.

  “Hi!” Hearty as ever, never know he’d been away. “What the hell are you doing way out there, wherever you are?”

  “Hi! Where are you?”

  “I’m in New York,” he said, as if it were self-evident. “In a really snazzy apartment Warren got for me, midtown, walking distance to the office. It’s really neat.”

  “When did you get back?” Did my voice sound cool? Why was that?

  “Last night. Called you but just got your machine. Called again this morning and got somebody called Lou. What a great girl! Really nice! Terrific! She said you were out in Bag Bar, or whatever you call it. So when're you coming back?”

  I’m not coming back, I wanted to say, I’m here for the summer. Or: I’m on my way to Paris. Or Harare. Or Ouagadougou.

  But what came out of my mouth? “Oh, probably tomorrow. Why?”
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  “Want to do something?”

  “Sure.” I considered. “Why don’t I get us tickets for a play?”

  “We-ell…don’t get anything too highbrow, okay? Remember I’m just a country boy.”

  I decided to take some control. “Why don’t you give me your number there, so I can call and let you know where to meet me?”

  “No, I’ll come and pick you up. Plays start around eight, don’t they? So I’ll be there about seven-fifteen. See ya tomorrow!”

  And he was gone.

  I did not allow the thought that he had outmaneuvered me to perch even briefly in my mind. Swinging into action, I called Lou and asked her to get tickets for The Good Times Are Killing Me, and make a hair appointment with Antoine for tomorrow afternoon. And buy fresh milk and oranges and croissants for my breakfast. I ran indoors and tossed soiled towels in the hamper and dishes in the dishwasher, preparing to leave the house for an unlimited time. Accra would have to wait.

  I did not pause to say to myself, Hermione, what are you doing? I did not question how it was I was abandoning all my resolve, all my plans, to fly back to New York, dropping everything at the mere sound of George’s voice. In my soul, in some deep part of me, I felt I was fighting for my life, struggling, like a drowning person trying to keep her head above the waterline. Perhaps my brain knew I was fighting not for my life but for the life of the dream, the fantasy, the yearning, the need. But so enmeshed with, so identical to my own life had it become that I knew I could not live unless the dream came true. Anything at all was warranted; I would do whatever I had to to preserve it.

  I can’t say I was happy. My excitement was nervous, penetrated, with anxiety; my head and heart pounded. I longed for some resolution. Tomorrow, perhaps.

  So there we were Wednesday night, in a cab heading crosstown to the theater to see the off-Broadway production of The Good Times Are Killing Me, when George, sitting half-assed on the taxi seat, facing me and leaning toward me as if he wanted to press against me, said: “The reason I don’t want to get involved with you, Hermione, is that I don’t want to end up a character in one of your novels.”

  I did not want to discover what he was really telling me, because I suspected that he really meant what he said and the different signal his body was sending out came from his body alone, an entity with which he was not in close or regular contact. For a moment, I searched my mind to find a way to make him feel happy or pleased or at least comfortable, but I could discern no way to do that, so I just sat back and let him take control. I wanted to ask him: If you don’t want to get involved with me, why do you keep calling me? But I said nothing. He relaxed. As we stood in line to enter the theater, I slipped my hand through his arm, and he smiled down at me, his eyes bright with pleasure. Maybe, finally, I’d done something right.

  And he liked the play, was amused and moved by it, and was pleased I had chosen it. He had himself picked out a restaurant near the theater and made reservations. This pleased me, and I avoided thinking about his need to stay in control. We had a fine dinner at a steak house: he ate a huge sirloin and I ordered lamb chops I could not finish. We both had the baked potato and excellent creamed spinach that are typical steak house fare. He liked his meal. He seemed to like me. He gazed at me with warm eyes and a sweet smile, listened to me with interest, spoke about himself more easily than usual. I wondered if perhaps he had missed me.

  That evening was the best time we had spent together, and he did not seem in any rush to get home. It was a beautiful summer night, and we walked over to Columbus and then uptown for nearly a mile before we decided to take a cab to my apartment. He asked if I wanted to have lunch the next day. I did. I was almost in bliss, I was right outside the door to bliss, the door was ajar. There was just this anxiety…

  He said he’d keep the cab to take him back to his place. It was on the West Side, downtown, back where we had come from. Oh, I said. At my building, he stepped from the cab. I slid over and got out, and looked up at him standing there. The light from the canopy shone on his fair hair, and, his head illuminated, he was beautiful and austerely sweet, like an angel in a Van Eyck painting. I gazed up at him, and my heart lurched: I could not bear to let him go. It was breaking my heart, making my body scream, to let him go. I wanted to reach out, to clutch at him, to beg, “Come upstairs with me!” And without thinking, suddenly, I stood up on tiptoe and kissed him. On the lips.

  I shocked him. Horribly. His shock was so extreme, waves of it hit Jack, the doorman, who was standing behind me: I could feel him reverberate. Yet he was used to seeing me kiss my friends good night at my door. George must have gasped, jumped back, looked pale, must have done something I didn’t see but felt—chill, horror. The goddamned cabdriver was probably shocked! Not only was everyone shocked, but there wasn’t even any pleasure in it: he didn’t kiss me back, so there was no passage of electricity. He didn’t really even accept my kiss, so there was no tenderness. My kiss was like a bird peck on a pole, immobile and inanimate: my head bobbed forward, his bobbed back, like two wooden birds on sticks and strings in an old children’s toy. I walked into my building, holding myself erect, and did not look back.

  It had been a terrible, maybe fatal, mistake.

  I prepared for bed with a sense of dread, sure that my move had damaged things. I considered calling a friend to talk about it, but the situation was really beyond help. And I was tired of talking about it.

  My skin moisturized, my teeth flossed, I sat in bed looking out over the park, a large dark space dotted with tiny lights. I wished I smoked. I would have smoked if I’d had a cigarette. I decided to let an idea into my mind that I had heretofore barred the door to, very firmly: I entertained the possibility that George was impotent. I’d had experience with that, in a number of different men, both older and young. I had been able to help those I was willing to take in hand, to speak metaphorically. But all of them—all but one, anyway—were eager for sex, were raging with desire. Whereas George alternated between abrupt propulsion and abrupt revulsion and seemed to be in control of neither.

  I remembered Harvey, a lawyer in a publishing firm, who for three years pursued me with relentless fury. While I was married to Charles, he offered me eloquent conversation, much of it about poetry, over long lunches at La Grenouille and La Caravelle, after morning visits to art galleries and museums. After Charles died, he offered it over dinners at the Four Seasons and Lutèce before or after the theater, a jazz club, a carriage ride through Central Park. I say “fury” because he pursued me ardently but with a cold rage at my intractability. Yet he never tried to make love to me, never made any physical contact beyond holding my hand. Pouring out his desire in lacy language, he never asked me how I felt about him. Sometimes I felt like a statue he’d chosen for his delectation, an idol he used to stimulate his poetic impulses. He’d sit and gaze at me, reciting poetry and defining me—at least, that’s how it felt. “You’re really above it all, aren’t you, Hermione?” he’d say. “So brilliant. One of these days you’re going to write a real novel, one that shows your true talent. So brilliant and cold, so glittery you are, your eyes cold and beautiful…” Stuff like that. His descriptions varied from time to time, but in all of them, I was beyond his reach. So of course I didn’t want to go to bed with him. I would just smile, and he would scrunch up his eyes as if he were dying and order another martini. We drank martinis in those days.

  When Andrew began laying siege to me—and he did, oh, he did!—I saw less of Harvey. And once I realized I was in love with Andrew, I told Harvey I couldn’t go out with him anymore. He began to cry, great gasping sobs came out of him, tears poured down his face, right there in La Côte Basque. The waiters were shocked. And I felt terrible—after all, I did like him a great deal—so I said that I’d never been beyond his reach, that all he had ever had to do was just that, just reach out to me. He didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about, so as a parting gift, I took him home with me and led him to my bed. But of course, I
was out of his reach, not because I was the unapproachable lady of the sonneteers but because he had stuck me on top of a pedestal—no, a pyramid—and he knew that if he climbed to the top, I would be standing there waiting to cut his heart out. I wasn’t the troubadours’ cold lady he’d made me out to be: I was a fucking Aztec priest.

  I didn’t see him for years after that, but one night around Christmas, when I was with Mark, I ran into Harvey in the Pool Room at the Four Seasons. He smiled and made conversation, while his eyes regarded me with hate.

  But George was nothing like Harvey. Was he?

  George pursued me with such intensity. So had Harvey.

  George had such kindliness in his face. Well, so did Harvey.

  George gazed at me with such warmth. So had Harvey.

  But George left in a hurry; Harvey had never wanted to let me go. And George spoke a funny male language, full of boyisms and sincerity and enthusiasm, whereas Harvey used a rhetoric of poetry, high-blown and sentimental, often soaring into true eloquence. And George had recently been involved with a young woman he had mentioned to me—sexually involved, I was sure. Whereas Harvey had not been involved with any woman for several years before I met him and (I thought) for several years after. They were nothing alike, I decided. I put out my imaginary cigarette and slid down to sleep.