Superior Women

by Alice Adams

  They have had a couple of old-fashioneds in the bar downstairs; they are seated and talking about their dinner—maybe some wine?—when suddenly there is a loud clumping noise in the dining room, above all the din of silver and glassware and conversation. Everyone looks up, Lavinia and Gordon too, and there is Potter, who is supposed to be skiing in North Conway. Here he is, though, with a huge cast on his leg. Potter Cobb.

  Laughing, his face flushed and his pale blond hair less sleek than usual, he is moving toward their table, hobbling along. As he approaches they can see that both his progress and his balance are impeded by two heavy bottles, one carried in each hand. French champagne—Lavinia knows that label.

  Potter is in love with Lavinia, he has been since they first met, last fall, at an after-game party. But he loves her in a pleasant, silent, untroubling way. Lavinia is used to inspiring such feelings, and she really likes Potter, he reminds her of some of her very nicest cousins. But tonight her heart sinks a little at the sight of him.

  Potter is sensitive, generally, and his manners, of course, are impeccable. And, tonight, he seems to sense that he should not be there with them, with Gordon and Lavinia, despite his gifts of champagne. “Well, talk about barging in with four left feet,” he says, somewhat breathlessly. “But I couldn’t resist showing you this terrific piece of contemporary sculpture that seems to have landed on my left foot. And just as I was going out of the house the old man pressed these cold bottles into my moist hot hands. As a matter of fact I wasn’t at all sure you’d be here tonight.”

  “Well, where else?” To Lavinia, Gordon’s voice has an uncharacteristically hearty sound; it seems to boom. “And pull up a chair if you can make it,” Gordon says. “Of course you’ll have dinner with us. And you can tell us all about your bloody skiing accident.”

  Lavinia smiles in an automatically flirtatious way at Potter, who responds, “Our Southern beauty is yet more beautiful, wouldn’t you agree, Gordon, old man?”

  “Definitely, definitively. Come on and sit down, you old fool.”

  Potter really didn’t have to sit down and have dinner with them, Lavinia is thinking. He could have one glass of wine, and tell them about his stupid ankle, all in about ten or fifteen minutes. Not stay all through dinner, ordering even more wine, and until dessert and coffee. Brandy.

  But that is exactly what Potter does; he stays and stays and talks and talks and talks, and orders drinks that he insists are to go on his tab, like some garrulous rich old uncle. “In all my skiing years I never saw ice like that,” he seems to have said several times.

  “What you mean is that you didn’t see the ice,” chimes in Gordon. To Lavinia, it is not an especially funny remark, but the two men really break up over it. In fact Gordon seems to be having a wonderful time, and worse, he does everything to encourage Potter to stay with them.

  At some point in all the ski talk, Lavinia catches a familiar name: George Wharton. A demon on skis, according to Potter. George Wharton, the beloved of foolish Megan, although Megan doesn’t seem to see him very often.

  And so Lavinia asks, “George Wharton, really? Was he by himself up there?”

  “Oh, you know George? Well, he was with Connie, of course. Connie Winsor. They’re practically engaged. But you must know Connie too, if you know old George.”

  “Well, not exactly. He’s just sort of the friend of a friend.”

  By that time they are drinking brandy, and the dining room is almost empty; everyone else is downstairs, dancing, celebrating New Year’s Eve.

  Potter says, “Well now, I insist that you two kids go on down and rush into the fray on the dance floor. I absolutely insist.”

  Well really—at last. But when Lavinia looks over at Gordon she sees that his pale face is paler yet, is dead white, and breaking out in sweat across his forehead and on his upper lip. Gordon is drunk; he is going to be sick.

  Probably just in time, he gets up and lurches across the room, to the men’s room. Lavinia does not watch him go, nor does she look up when Potter says, “Well, the poor old guy. All my fault, really. Ordering all that stuff,” and he looks regretfully in the direction of his departed friend.

  Gordon does not come back. More time passes; a weak conversation limps along between Potter and Lavinia, and still no Gordon.

  At last Potter says, “Well, I’d really better check.” He gets up and clumps across the floor.

  In his absence Lavinia peers at her own face, in her small gold compact; she is okay, she sees, nothing smeared or shining, or out of place.

  Looking embarrassed, Potter comes back alone. “I think I’d better take you home,” he says. “He’ll be okay, but it may take some time. I’ll come back later and pick him up.”

  Lavinia smiles, radiantly. “I’d love for you to take me home,” she says.

  Potter drives slowly, in the big car that, although actually his, Lavinia thinks of as Gordon’s; they have spent so much time necking in it. In the streets of Cambridge people are blowing horns, making noise, all over Harvard Square. There is a near traffic jam; it takes almost twenty minutes to get from the Pudding over to the Radcliffe dorms—twenty minutes during which Potter and Lavinia do not speak. It is easy not to, with all that noise outside.

  Somewhat surprisingly, Potter parks the car at the far end of the quad, near the tennis courts, where Lavinia and Gordon often have parked; it is darkest there. Potter’s intentions seem innocent, however; he only asks, “Want a cigarette before you go in? Actually it’s quite early, for New Year’s Eve.”

  Not answering him, on a quick impulse which she neither understands nor examines, Lavinia moves toward Potter; her hands reach and clasp the back of his neck, her mouth presses his.

  For an instant Potter simply allows himself to be kissed, like a man savoring some new sensation, passively. But then, very gently, smoothly, knowingly, his hands reach into her coat; he pulls her to him, and he is kissing her deeply, as Lavinia thinks, How odd this is, we might be anyone at all, any couple on New Year’s Eve. How impersonal sex is, really, after all. She thinks all that even as she responds, returning his kiss and the pressure of his body.

  At last they separate. For a moment Lavinia is afraid that Potter will say something wrong, will say that he loves her, or something, ruining it all. Instead he reaches into a pocket, probably for a handkerchief. She is also afraid that he has come to some false conclusion, that his silence is ominous.

  Having found the handkerchief, Potter offers it. “You need this?”

  “Thanks, I have one.” Lavinia applies her own small handkerchief to her mouth, and then, expertly, fresh lipstick, as though she could see in the dark.

  Potter says, “You’re very beautiful, you know, Lavinia.”

  She smiles, as she thinks that that was the perfect thing for him to say. Exactly right, not spoiling or defining anything. She smiles upon him, in the dark, as she says, “I’d better go in now.”

  He clumps along beside her to the steps of Barnard Hall, where, of course, they do not kiss again. Lavinia touches his arm. “Thank you, Potter. Really, thanks very much.”

  “My pleasure.” He makes a gesture as though touching his hat to her (so like Potter, that) and then he is gone.

  Lavinia does not hear from Gordon all the next day, New Year’s Day. Rather expecting that he will just come over, in Potter’s car, probably, and take her somewhere (she plans to be very kind and understanding; anyone can drink too much) she spends the day alone, reading, but she is all dressed, all day, in one of her best white sweaters, and she stays carefully within range of the floor phone; she has let the girl on bells know where she is. Thank God the dorm is almost deserted, and especially that none of her friends are around: no Peg with her booming questions, “Well, where’s Mr. Shaughnessey keeping himself today?” Or Megan, with her too-intelligent, hypersensitive eyes; Megan would not ask but she would visibly wonder. Cathy at least would be incurious; in fact heaven knows what Cathy is thinking, most of the time. Very poss
ibly she disapproves of a nice Catholic boy like Gordon taking up with a wicked Episcopalian. (Gordon has told Lavinia that his religion is not very important to him, but sometimes she wonders: does he only say that for her benefit, in the same way that he says that he never really cared for his old girl friend, Marge?)

  • • •

  No word from Gordon, not that day or the next, and then vacation is over, and everyone is back. Lavinia tells all her friends that Gordon has been restricted, such a bore.

  She admits to herself that she is suffering, and admits it to no one else, of course not. She is in actual pain, and it takes all her tricks of makeup, eye cream, and varieties of powder, not to let it show. When Megan was suffering most over George Wharton, she used to slop around in her Levi’s and a torn old sweater, no makeup, her broken heart all over her silly fat face. (But Lavinia really likes Megan, the little fool. She will never tell Megan about Connie Winsor; Megan will find out for herself, and Lavinia will be as comforting as she can. She has even thought of introducing Megan to one of Gordon’s friends, maybe Potter?—but then Megan is so—so fat, and her clothes are never right.)

  And how ridiculous all this love is, Lavinia concludes. She is deeply contemptuous of her own pain, as she was of Megan’s; she is aware of being extremely foolish, she knows. “Love,” finally, turns out to have no meaning at all. Harvey was madly in love with her, and she was (she is) madly in love with Gordon, who (quite possibly) still loves Marge. And Megan is in love with George, who is practically engaged to Connie Winsor.

  Nevertheless, she will not allow Gordon to drift off from her like that, or whatever it is that he imagines himself to be doing.

  She sends him a telegram, at Eliot House. “Please meet me at St. Clair’s for tea at four on Thursday.”

  Lavinia, in her softest sweater, looks fragile, delicately bruised, rather than accusatory. And she speaks very softly. “I just wanted to see you again,” she says. “I missed you, and I wondered.”

  “Ah, Lavinia, you’re too good and beautiful for me, I always knew it. And there’s things, things with my family, friends of my family. Things you’d never understand.”

  Smiling sadly, “understandingly,” Lavinia is at the same time thinking how Irish he sounds; God, almost a brogue. She says, “You mean your family won’t approve of me? Of us?”

  “Well, that’s a hard way to put it, but you could say that, you could indeed. But Lavinia, when I see you I only know that I love you. Ah, beautiful Lavinia—”

  Dear God, is he going to cry? The cheap lower-class mick. “I love you too,” she says.

  Gordon leans toward her, and there are indeed tears in his eyes. “Besides,” he says, “no one’s supposed to know this, but we’re shipping out next week.”

  “Shipping out?” For a moment sheer panic makes it hard for Lavinia to breathe. A second later, though, she is able to wonder just what it is that she fears: his being away? being killed?

  “Yes, just for a practice cruise. On the Enterprise.” He looks at his watch. “Look, I have to get back now. I’m on duty. But I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll see each other for sure. I have to see you.”

  Gordon does not call, not that day or the next. Lavinia continues to keep herself looking beautiful, and to say that Gordon is restricted, on duty—as she feels her thin blood blacken with rage and pain.

  Only to Peg does she confide that Gordon is shipping out, and only that; she does not mention not hearing from him. “Oh Peg, I’m so frightened! I don’t know what to do.”

  “Poor little Lavinia—oh, poor thing! But you mustn’t worry, Gordon will come back safe and sound to you. No one gets hurt on a practice cruise. And in the meantime, would you like a nice back rub?”

  “Oh Peg, you’re so nice. Whatever would I do without you?”

  Big kind Peg, whom Lavinia secretly suspects of being a lesbian.

  At last, beneath Peg’s big strong clumsy well-meaning hands, Lavinia allows herself to cry.

  • • •

  A week later, on board the Enterprise, on the trial cruise, Gordon Shaughnessey dies of a burst appendix. Only the circumstance of its happening on an aircraft carrier makes it seem a military death.

  6

  By early spring of that year, 1944, the four friends have divided themselves into twos; it is now Lavinia and Peg who are always together, and Megan and Cathy. By everyone else the four are still perceived as a group (to which Megan was once so eager, so desperate to belong), and they are still friends; there has been no falling out. But Megan, for example, has spent no time alone with Lavinia, has had no private conversations with her since Christmas vacation; nor have Cathy and Lavinia spent any time together. Cathy and Peg were never more than friends of friends, and so it is less remarkable that they have hardly talked; they never really did. All in all there has been a distinct change, though, in the four-way relationship.

  Undoubtedly the death of Gordon Shaughnessey had something to do with this new patterning. Since that happened Lavinia has spent even more time with Peg; they go to movies in Boston, even out to dinner together. It is as though Lavinia were newly widowed, and being cared for by her friend.

  Megan and Cathy find it interesting to talk about.

  “It’s very strange,” Megan says, one morning in Hood’s, between bites of bran muffin, sips of coffee. “It’s as though in some way she’s happier now; she’d almost rather be going to matinees with Peg than waiting around for Gordon, the way she did all last fall.”

  “I know what you mean.” Generally Cathy simply listens and agrees, she is not inclined to put forward theories of her own. But sometimes there is a sharp thrust to her observations. “Lavinia does everything in such a beautiful, ladylike way,” she now says. “And ‘war widow’ is an especially good thing for her to do.”

  They laugh, and Megan agrees, “Oh yes.” She enjoys Cathy so much, she finds Cathy so very bright, and funny. She adds, “Lavinia is a terrific widow, one of the prettiest and youngest around the Square.”

  They laugh again, until at the same moment the possible unfunniness of being a war widow strikes them both, in a sobering way. But they do not express this perception to each other; they never talk about the war. It isn’t funny.

  “And Peg is the perfect comforting friend.” Megan carries it on, in their usual tone. “Peg’s not going to like it when Lavinia gets tired of being a widow and starts going out again.” Some time ago Megan faced the fact that she just does not care much for Peg, jolly noisy old good-hearted Peg.

  “Oh, you’re so right,” agrees Cathy. “This is the best time of all for Peg.”

  Megan is aware that envy, sheer unacceptable and generally inadmissible envy, is making her more malicious toward Lavinia than she should be. Whatever was going on between Lavinia and Gordon (and Megan sometimes caught a vague sense that Lavinia was not quite as “sure of him” as she sounded), it is probably easier to bear a lover’s death than his living absence in your life, which is the case with Megan, who now hears from George Wharton perhaps once a month. One beer at the Oxford Grill and then some furious necking, somewhere, and then a miserable month or so of silence. Megan has wished that George were dead; if he were dead she would behave much better, she is sure. “I’m surprised Lavinia isn’t wearing black,” she now says, quite viciously, to Cathy.

  Cathy looks at her and giggles, as in a somewhat academic way she says, “Actually in some cultures white is the mourning color. And she is wearing mostly white these days, if you’ll notice.”

  “God, what she must spend on clothes.” This remark does not make Megan feel guilty: it is okay to envy someone’s large clothes allowance, whereas it is certainly not okay to envy the death of a friend’s lover.

  Cathy suddenly giggles again, clearly at some random thought, as she asks, “Did you ever read those really old books about girls’ boarding schools? Grace Harlow or someone? There were a lot of them at a resort we used to go to. Anyway, there were always four girls. One beautiful
and rich and wicked, and one big and fat and jolly. That’s Lavinia and Peg, of course.”

  “I’m not the big jolly one?” Megan asks, somewhat anxiously.

  “You’re not so jolly. And Peg is much bigger than you are.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  Cathy goes on. “I’m not too clear about the other two. I think one was poor and virtuous and the other one was very smart, or some combination like that.”

  Megan laughs. “Well, I’m poor and you’re virtuous, and God knows both of us are smart, so I guess it’ll work out all right?”

  “I guess. But is Lavinia wicked, really?”

  In a speculative way they regard each other, and then, again, they both begin to laugh. Later Megan wonders: was Cathy thinking of the four girls in those books when she said that it would be better if there were four of them?

  One of the things that Megan thinks about a lot, that spring, is her own virginity, her “virtue.” Despite all that violent necking with George, she is still technically a virgin; hands don’t count.

  “Technical virgin” is a favorite phrase of Janet Cohen’s, with whom Megan has continued to be friends. “All those technical virgins from Cabot Hall,” Janet will say, indicating an especially good-looking, mostly blond, and handsomely dressed group of girls, who all live in Cabot Hall.

  Uncertain as to her exact meaning, Megan cannot quite ask; she is forced to conclude, on her own, that the phrase could apply to herself; she herself is someone who has gone “almost all the way.” But does that mean that Janet and Adam Marr really do it, go all the way? She supposes that it must; they would surely feel that real sex is more honest.

  Megan wonders: should she and George have done it? Would he then have loved her, and taken her to the Cape, sailing, meeting his parents? Would he have said that he loved her? Megan believes that Janet is right; actually doing it would have been more honest, and somehow cleaner.