Fast Start, Fast Finish

by Birmingham, Stephen;

“Cope!” Alice Mayhew’s voice was indignant. “Why is getting a job coping? She’s just running out on him! I tell you, the woman is basically cold.… Oh, dear! Where did that trump come from? I thought I counted …”

  “Alice, didn’t you have any spades!”

  “Getting a job simply gives him more time for his high jinks. The rest are ours.”

  “Hate to disappoint you,” Genny said, producing another trump from what now seemed an endless supply. “I tell you what—why don’t I give a little lunch for her? On the pretext of asking her into the Rootlets or something. We could sort of sound her out—indirectly, of course. Find out where she stands.”

  “I’d like to see anyone top that!” Alice said triumphantly, slapping down the ace of spades.

  Hotly Vera Phelps said, “But if she does know about him, and just condones it, we do not want her in the Rootlets! Or even on this Lane. Alice, why didn’t you play that ace earlier?”

  “Oh, that is a good idea, Genny,” Jane Willey said.

  “Just a little lunch—nothing promptu. In your hand, sweetie, with the ace. I’ll fix a main dish. Sweetie, you’re in your hand.”

  “I can’t get to the board!” Alice wailed.

  “I’ll have Mary do her chocolate mousse. Oh, a very good idea, Genny.”

  “Why didn’t you play that ace earlier?”

  “It’s your fault, not mentioning your hearts. I had fifteen points.”

  “Fifteen! That’s not enough for a two opener. Goren says—”

  “Don’t mention it, glad to do it,” Genny said, “because it would be nice to know just what the hell goes on over there, and where she stands.” Genny spread her remaining cards face upward on the table. “Alice, I’ll concede you three more tricks. My jack takes the last.”

  “Yes, it definitely would be nice to know,” Jane said.

  “Down six,” Genny said, totting up the score. “Doubled, vulnerable. Partner, we’ve got to get some score below the line.”

  “Doubled! We weren’t doubled!” Alice cried.

  “Genny doubled you, dear,” Jane said.

  “Whose deal?” Genny asked.

  “I think Vera’s.…”

  “Is it mine?”

  “How about next Wednesday? Everybody free?”

  “When is Rootlets? Oh, that’s Thursday. Yes, Wednesday’s fine.”

  Dealing, Vera said, “Partner, you shouldn’t have cut me off like that. According to Goren—”

  “Girls, girls! No post-mortems! If we keep gabbing we’ll never finish this rubber! Gracious, Edgar will be home in half an hour.”

  “And I’ll tell you something else about her,” Genny said.

  “What?” several voices demanded.

  “Well,” Genny said, picking up her cards, fanning them out, and then quickly, with little clicks, sorting them into suits. “It’s kind of interesting.”

  “Tell us!”

  She sneered at the result in her hand. “Who dealt this mess? Well,” she said again, lowering her voice. She leaned forward over her fan of cards, and the others leaned forward too, across the bridge table, over their fans, elbows on the plastic cloth blocking out Mr. Goren’s printed system, while Genny, taking her time, began, slowly drawing the three others into her lovely web.

  “But why can’t I, Mother?” Maggie said.

  “Because I say you can’t. That’s all there is to it, Maggie.”

  “But why not?”

  “Because I don’t like that Buck Holzer. There’s—something about him that I just don’t like.”

  “Oh, Mother!”

  “You’re in my way, dear,” Nancy said. She was in the kitchen, fixing dinner.

  Maggie moved away from the refrigerator door, and Nancy opened it and stared into the unlovely interior, trying to remember what it was she wanted there, while Maggie continued, “I’m always in your way, aren’t I, Mother? I’ve always been, all my life.”

  “Don’t be silly, dear.”

  “I don’t know why you’re being like this. Buck Holzer is one of the most popular boys in the whole school. I should think you’d be honored he’s asked me for a date.”

  “The answer is no.”

  “He’s Harold’s best friend!”

  “Is that any recommendation?” The cucumbers, she remembered. She lifted the bowl of soaking cucumbers from the refrigerator shelf and set it on the kitchen table. She lifted one peeled cucumber from the icy water and began to slice it. She cut thin, even slices, and fluted the edges with a fork. She liked to do little things like that, little extra motions such as fluting cucumber slices, that made a dish look pretty.

  “Why are you so down on Harold, Mother? Gosh, you’re down on everybody these days. Nobody can have any fun at all these days.”

  Without looking at her, Nancy said, “Your idea of having fun got you into some serious trouble, if you recall.”

  “Gosh! Just because I made one little mistake, do I have to be punished for it forever? Do I have to spend my whole life like this—like a prisoner behind bars?”

  “You haven’t been punished at all, Maggie. Nobody’s punished you.”

  “But can’t I ever have another date?”

  “Not with Buck Holzer.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, he’s much too old for you. He’s eighteen. You’re only fifteen. He’s—”

  “I’ll be sixteen in three months. And Harold will be at the party too.”

  “What Harold does and what you do are two different things. I don’t care what Harold does. What kind of a party is this, anyway?”

  “Just a party some kids are giving.”

  “There’ll be drinking, of course. I can imagine the kind of party Harold goes to.”

  “How do I know if there’ll be drinking? Why are you so down on poor Harold?”

  “Poor Harold,” Nancy said. “Anyway, the real reason I don’t want you to go out is that it’s too soon after … what’s happened. You’ve had an operation, don’t forget, and a thing like that can be a shock to your whole system. You should be taking it very easy for these next few weeks—not going out on dates. The first six weeks after a thing like this are terribly important, and you should get all the rest you can.”

  “Oh, Mother! I feel fine.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course.”

  Nancy turned and looked at her critically. “Everything back to normal? No more pains?”

  “I just told you.”

  “You wouldn’t deceive me about a thing like this, would you? Because it’s terribly important that you tell me if there’s anything that doesn’t seem—right.”

  “Like—like what wouldn’t seem right?” Maggie said.

  “Anything. Women have been known to die from having abortions, Maggie.”

  Maggie looked away. “Die?” she said.

  “Yes. During—or after. The first six weeks are critical. There can be all sorts of complications. That’s why—”

  “Who told you all this, Mother?”

  “I have a—a friend who’s in the medical profession,” Nancy said. “That’s why I want you to be sure to tell me if there’s anything at all, so we can—”

  “But I’m fine. Do you want me to do a cartwheel to prove it?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Look, I’ll do a cartwheel,” Maggie said and threw her arms up above her head.

  “Stop it! I don’t want you doing cartwheels in the kitchen.”

  Maggie lowered her arms slowly. “Anyway, he’s a nice boy,” she said. “And he likes me. I mean he must like me if he’s asked me for a date, Mother!”

  “It’s too soon for dates.”

  “You’re just down on me, that’s all!” Maggie said, and Nancy saw Maggie’s eyes begin to fill with tears. “You’re just punishing me, that’s all—just like you’re trying to scare me about dying! Just because I made that one little mistake, just one! I wouldn’t have made that mistake, Mother, if you’d ever to
ld me anything about anything! But you never tell me anything, you never talk to me at all!”

  “Maggie—” Nancy put down the knife and dried her hands on a paper towel. Looking at Maggie’s streaming face, she said gently, “Maggie, that isn’t true. Is it? Here.” She handed Maggie a dry towel. “Use this. Wait a minute.” She dampened the towel with warm water from the faucet. “Here, darling,” she said. “Wipe your face with this.”

  Maggie blew her nose noisily into the towel. “Just … never tell me anything,” she sobbed. “Just want to scare me.”

  Nancy waited for a moment. Then she said, “Maggie, we’ve had many, many talks.”

  “Oh, you told me about waiting till I was married and all that. But you always made it all romantic. You never told me how tough it was. Mother, weren’t you ever young?”

  She continued to study Maggie’s face. Was I ever young? Did I make it sound all romantic? Nancy reached for a cigarette in her apron pocket and lighted it. “Maggie, sit down a minute,” she said.

  “Oh, never mind.”

  “No. Come here. Sit down here.” She sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and patted the seat of the chair next to her. “Please, dear.”

  Reluctantly Maggie slumped in the chair beside her mother, and Nancy covered Maggie’s hand with her own and tried to think of what there might be to say. “Darling,” she said, “I know we haven’t talked much about—about what happened, but—”

  “What?”

  “But you haven’t seemed to want to talk about it, and so—”

  “And so—what?”

  “And so I keep wondering, dear—was there any lesson learned? Was there any terribly big, important lesson learned?”

  Maggie’s look now was sheepish. “Sure, I guess so. Don’t get pregnant,” she said.

  “Well—yes, but wasn’t there something more than that?”

  “What more?”

  “Maggie—” Nancy hesitated, wondering how to put it. “Didn’t you learn something, perhaps, about not trying to do things that grown women do until you’re old enough to take on a grown woman’s responsibilities? Until you’re ready to have a home, a marriage to a man you love, and children—and to take on all the responsibilities a woman must take on to have those things? None of those things are easy, Maggie. Those things are terribly, terribly hard, and terribly important, Maggie. Have you thought of that?”

  “I guess so, Mother.”

  “Much more important than the—brief pleasure of sleeping with a boy?”

  “I didn’t sleep with Wally, Mother. I just—”

  “I mean sleep in the broad sense. I mean going to bed with a boy.”

  “I only went to bed with him once, in the motel.”

  “And the other times?”

  “There weren’t any other times!”

  “Maggie.”

  “Oh, maybe a few other times.” She was blushing now.

  “Yes. Well, anyway, that doesn’t matter now,” Nancy said. “Because that’s all over now. But what about in the future? What about another boy who may—attract you in that way.”

  “It wasn’t that he attracted me, Mother. I told you—it was because he just kept begging and begging and begging me to do it.”

  “But what about other boys who may beg and beg and beg? Because I’m sure there will be, Maggie, boys like that. It’s what boys—usually do. But—” Her voice trailed off. “You’re a very pretty girl. You’re going to be a very pretty young woman. There will be boys who beg and beg and beg. And there will also be boys who will, believe it or not, attract you. What will you do then?” Oh, she thought despairingly, am I making any sense? Am I just being romantic again, delivering the old clichés, asking the same old mother-questions? Somehow she could remember her own mother speaking to her in almost these same words, and had she ever really listened to them, and was Maggie really listening now?

  “I’m not going to sleep with any more boys, Mother.”

  “Well, that isn’t really what I meant,” Nancy said. “There will be times when you may want to—unbearably. But there are so many reasons why you shouldn’t—indiscriminately, I mean. They may not seem to you important reasons, but they are.”

  “What are they?”

  “Well, there are health reasons, for one thing. And also, even more important—when a girl gets that kind of reputation, Maggie, at your age—a reputation for being willing to have intercourse with boys—it’s a funny thing, but it follows her for the rest of her life, that reputation. She may marry, have children, be a wonderful mother—but still she’ll have that reputation, of the girl who was always the easy—the one with the easy morals.”

  “Oh, Mother!”

  “It’s true. I’m serious, Maggie. I’m thinking of a particular girl, in college. She’s my age now, married, with grown children. But still, when any of her old friends think of her, they think of her as a girl who used to sleep around, as a—tramp.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Never mind.” Her name was Nancy Aylesbury. At her coming-out party in Grosse Point she had overheard a group of boys talking … a pushover … Nancy Roundheels. Have you laid her yet? You’re missing something, buddy. She puts out for everybody. Coming out? Buddy she’s been out for years! And when her mother found her in the john she had asked her why she was crying. Where were all her old friends now? Their names turned up on Christmas cards. “Hi! Hear you’re married, with kids. Golly, how time flies. Remember Rahar’s? Come see us if you ever get to Cincinnati.” Why had she been so eager to move to California, where no one knew her, and more important, where no one cared, where she could start a whole new life? She had only had one truly loyal friend who stuck up for her—Charlie’s sister, and she was dead. Why, for that matter, had she been so eager to marry Charlie Lord, and once married, so eager to have children quickly? To shake off that reputation! Nymphomaniacal Alice, used a dynamite stick for a phallus; they found her vagina in North Carolina, and one of her tits down in Dallas. She passed her hand quickly in front of her eyes.

  “Mother?”

  “And another reason has to do with marriage, Maggie, and the kind of man you want to marry, and the kind of marriage you want to have. Does this just sound romantic? Maybe it is. But you don’t just want to marry a man you love. You want to marry a man who loves you, who respects you, who honors you. You should be sure he is that sort of man, and sure that it will be that kind of marriage, before you—give yourself to him, Maggie. Before you—cast your pearls before swine.”

  “You mean sleep with him before you’re married, Mother?”

  Nancy hesitated. “Well—sometimes it happens. But it should only happen if you’re sure.”

  “Did you sleep with Daddy before you were married, Mother?”

  Nancy smiled. “I’ll give you an honest answer, darling. Yes.”

  “Gosh, Mother!”

  “But I loved Daddy, and was sure of his love. And I married Daddy.”

  “Yes, but even so—”

  “Anyway,” Nancy said, confused by the turn the talk had taken, not at all sure of what to make of Maggie’s scandalized look or how to answer it. “Anyway, I think you should begin now to think about the standards you want to have for the man you marry—standards you want that man to meet. I think you should apply those same standards, Maggie, to any boy you date. It’s a good habit to get into, dear—it really is. I wish—”

  “I’m not going to marry Buck Holzer, for gosh sakes, Mother!”

  “Of course not. I didn’t mean that. I just meant, ask yourself—when you’re with Buck Holzer, or anyone else for that matter—”

  “You mean I can go with him?”

  “Let me finish. I mean ask yourself—is this the kind of man I can respect as well as love? Will I be proud to have him with me, proud to bear his children? Will he give me a proud and decent life? Will he be kind and gentle and truthful with me? Will he care for me and my children, work to support me, give me a nice home—”

&nb
sp; Maggie snorted. “You married Daddy, Mother. And Daddy doesn’t even have a job.”

  “Don’t say that!” Nancy snapped. “He certainly does have a job. Your father is an artist. He works very hard.”

  “Some work,” Maggie said. “Playing tennis all day long with Tessa Morgan.”

  “Now, see here,” Nancy said. “I won’t have you talking about your father like that. You know perfectly well—”

  “I should think you’d be jealous, Mother. I really do.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Nancy said. “Anyway—”

  “Anyway, you still haven’t said whether I can or not. Go to the party with Buck.”

  “Oh, Maggie—does anything I’ve said make any sense?”

  “Oh, sure!”

  “And will you promise—just promise to bear in mind the things I’ve told you?”

  Maggie jumped quickly to her feet. “You mean I can?”

  “And I hope you’ll also bear in mind that I wouldn’t have told you any of these things if I weren’t sure you had reached—years of discretion.” She reached out for Maggie’s hand again. “A woman’s life is such a precious thing,” she said. “Such a precious thing. Don’t waste it.”

  “Can I?”

  Nancy hesitated, shaping the end of her cigarette against an ashtray. “Will you promise to make it an early evening? Home by eleven?”

  “Eleven! Oh, Mother!”

  “Eleven-thirty, then.”

  “Yes! Oh, gosh, thanks, Mother!”

  “And will you also—” But she was interrupted by the telephone’s sudden, insistent ring. She reached for it and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Lord, this is Mort Singleton.”

  “Oh, hello!”

  “Mrs. Lord, how’d you like to come to work for me a week from Monday?”

  “You mean I’m—”

  “I mean you’re hired, if you still want the job.”

  “Oh, yes! Yes, I do!”

  “Happy?”

  “Oh, very—I—”

  “Then I’ll see you a week from Monday at nine A.M.,” he said.

  “Thank you.…”

  She hung up the phone and sat there, bewildered. She had done it. She had got herself a job. She had never really believed she would, but she had, and now giant problems rolled across her mind like thunderheads. A week from Monday! What would the children do all day long? Who would fix dinner? Laundry! Ironing! Housework! How could she possibly take a job? But she had taken one, and there was nothing to do now but pray that all the problems would find their own solutions. She jumped to her feet.