Frances said abruptly, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you do. I guess that's what ails this family, all this hush-hush. Just like nobody knew about your friends. Or like it was a plague or something. This isn't the Middle Ages, they write books about people like that, for Christ's sake. Mari showed me one, by some psychologist."
"Have you been discussing my personal affairs with Mari?"
"It's her business too, as much as anybody's. She says she can't marry me if you go on with this."
"With what?"
"Mom, for God's sake!"
"I'm sorry if you don't approve of my friends," Frances said icily, "or if your fiancée doesn't."
Bob leaned forward. "Look, you know damn well what I mean. If you want to run around with a bunch of female queers, that's all right with meas long as you keep it private. It's no worse than sleeping around with other men, I guess, and plenty of married women do that. But when it comes to my mother being out all night with a bunch of lushes, and getting into drunken brawls and being tossed into jailwell, that makes it different. I know all about it, don't worry. Everybody knows, I guess, the neighbors and the people in Dad's office and all. Dad's been in hell."
"I'm sorry."
"Look, I wouldn't bring it up if it just involved me. It isn't so easy for a guy to talk to his mother about something like this." His voice was heavy with resentment. "Mari's scared her folks will find out."
Frances was unable to speak.
"Be reasonable," Bob said urgently. "In your day people married on impulse, that's why they had so many problems later. We know marriage isn't between just two people, it involves others too. Man is a social being." Frances recognized this as a quote from the heavy green textbook used in the high-school course on Marriage and Family Relationships. "As long as you're going around with a lot of queers, Mari's folks will figure I'm a bad marriage risk. See?"
"You're too young. You're both too young."
"We want to make our adjustments early. Besides, we'd like at least four kids. This being an only child is for the birds."
Something was the matter with her mouth. Her lips were stiff and numb; it was difficult to form words. "What do you want me to do?"
"Settle down and act decent. Look," Bob said, "you don't belong with those people. You've got a good husband, you've brought up a kid. Maybe this is some kind of a neurosis you've got. Okay, go and see a psychiatrist if you think it would do any good. Only for God's sake don't spoil my whole life!"
I suppose it does look like that from the outside, Frances thought. The tenderness and companionshipall overlooked She said, "What about my life?"
Bob said brutally, "You've had your life."
She tried to smile. Feels like novocaine, she thought, just before it starts to wear off. "You won't think so, twenty years from now."
"Mother, you know what I mean." He looked at her pleadingly, without embarrassment. "Look, if you'll do this one thing I swear I’ll never ask you for anything else."
So it was true. All the mushy movies and corny poetry, the stories in the women's magazinesthey were right after all. You laid down your life for your children. When it came to a showdown, your common sense disappeared and some idiotic instinct took over and made you do things you knew were senseless. For the first time she understood all the smug mothers, the martyred mothers who "worked their fingers to the bone for the children" and were uninterested in life except as it concerned their offspring. With Bob's eyes (so like Bill's eyes as they had been during courtship) fixed on her, she had no defense against his need. Neither her envy of his girl nor her knowledge that he would fall in love with someone else in a few months if Mari rejected him was any protection against his naked need.
He said, muffled, "It's awful to be ashamed of your parents."
A thin child in faded gingham came to stand beside him. fixing her with big solemn eyes. Little Frankie Kirby, ashamed to go to school because her father was drunk again! She blinked hard to dispel the ghost.
"All right," she said flatly, "if it means that much to you."
"You won't see thosepeople any more?"
"No."
"Or hang around the kind of places"
"No."
"Gosh, Mom, you're swell. Mari'll be as grateful as anything."
Like hell she will, Frances thought. The young are never grateful, they take everything for granted. "It's all right."
"Those things generally don't last long anyway."
"Is that in the book, too?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
She sat there, unmoving, after he slammed happily out of the house. On his way to Mari's, she supposed, to make plans for the wedding. Her face felt wooden. She thought that she might break into small brittle pieces if she tried to move.
Two years, she thought, automatically reaching back. Almost two and a halfthis is May, that was November. (A small scarlet leaf against infinite blue, falling slowly.) He's right, that isn't very long. And I suppose we've already had the best of it. Hasn't been so good, lately.
She tried to recall the quarrels of the past few weeks, the sodden hours wasted in bars, the irritability she and Bake had developed toward each other. It was all unreal. It made no difference in the way she felt. She was in the apartment for the first time, sitting in front of the fireplace.
I love you. I think I've loved you for quite a while.
And latermuch later, after the terror and the compulsion and the first scared, reluctant surrender and the incredible fulfillmentshe had waked up, not knowing for just a moment where she was and what had happened. Then there was the sinking down into perfect happiness, with Bake's arm across her body and the darkness like a soft warm blanket tucked in around the two of them.
She shook her head. I’ll have to tell Bill, she thought. He'll be pleased. He has me right where he wants me, everything his own way.
But she made no move to stand up, because she knew that thought and feeling would come back when she moved, and that the pain would be bad.
CHAPTER 21
She never knew when Bob told Bill about that conversation. Perhaps he called the office from a pay phone, or perhapsanger boiled up in herfrom Mari's house, with her parents listening interestedly. He telephoned home to say that he and Mari were going out; he wouldn't be in until late. Ashamed to face her, maybe.
Bill brought the subject up at dinner that evening, looking at her thoughtfully across the kitchen table. "Bob say anything to you about wanting to get married this summer?"
She pushed the food around her plate. "Yes."
"It's a good idea, don't you think?"
"I guess so."
"Mari's a nice kid."
"Sure she is."
Never fight a daughter-in-law, never say a word that can get back to her. She has all the weapons. She had heard them talking in the washrooms, the middle-aged women with grown children.
"Her folks are okay too. Her father's a circuit court judge. Nice people."
"I know."
Bill laid down the piece of bread he was buttering. His face was an odd mixture of expressions: exasperated and pleading. "I'm not so happy about this idea of changing schools."
"It's all right."
"Well, we're not getting any younger." He cut his chop. "Kid old enough to be married, and everything."
She couldn't help it, she was going to be sick. She pushed back her chair, its legs scraping along the linoleum. Bill jumped up. "Don't you feel good?"
"I'm all right."
He put his arms around her shoulders. The friendly touch dissolved all her antagonism. She wanted to cry. She turned her face away.
Bill said slowly, searching for words, "Looks like we haven't been getting along so well lately. Maybe that's my fault. Let's both try and do better, shall we?"
She moved away from him, out of the circle of his arms. "I'm going to bed."
"You want me to come up with you?"
She shook her h
ead.
He stood looking after her, puzzled and a little sad. She shut the kitchen door behind her and went upstairs without looking back.
But in the bedroomtheir bedroomshe felt restless and unable to sleep. She sat on the side of the bed, turning over a jumble of thoughts and feelings which refused to take on form. Bob, with that adult male look on his face. Bill, puzzled and hurt. Bake in a dozen familiar posesincoherent with drink, curled up in sleep, swinging down Michigan Avenue with an armful of books, the wind from the Lake ruffling her dark hair and blowing back her open coat.
I ought to feel terrible about all this, she thought. But she felt remote, as though it were happening to someone else.
She sat on the bed with her head bowed, unable to bring any order out of the chaos in her mind, until she heard Bill's step on the stairs. Then she threw off her clothes in a hurry and tumbled in between the sheets, shutting her eyes just as the bedroom door opened. He stood looking down at her. I'll scream if he touches me, she thought wildly. But he turned away from the bed without speaking, and went into the bathroom.
She lay awake for a long time after he came to bed, aware of all the night noisescars going by, the clock ticking on the bedside stand, a breeze rattling the leafy branches of the tree just outside the window. She was aware, too, of Bill lying rigidly awake beside her. If she moved, he would speak to her. She wasn't ready to talk, not yet. She supposed they would have to discuss the situationwhy in God's name can't anybody ever do anything without a lot of words? but please, not tonight.
She controlled her breathing, and after a long time he went to sleep.
She woke late, to an empty bed and the indefinable feeling of Sunday morning. Bob had eaten and gonehe was taking Mari to church. His room was empty, the sheets and blankets in a tangle on the floor. She put on a housecoat and went downstairs. Bill was at the dinette table, still dressed in pajamas, drinking coffee. He filled a cup for her. She sat down, feeling a sharp nostalgia for the old days when Sunday morning had been their best time together.
"You mad at me?"
"No."
Her tone wasn't encouraging, but he tried again. "Look, I guess I haven't been a very good husband. If I'm to blame for all this, I'm sorry."
"It's all right."
"Anyway, it looks like a good time to make a new start. The boy's going to leave home. Going to get married. It's funny how much more important that seems than going to college, isn't it?" He shook his head wonderingly. "I guess that leaves us sort of depending on each other from here on in."
"Or free."
He stared at her. The slow color rose in his face. "Do you mean you want a divorce?"
If he had asked six months earlier, the question would have been a rainbow-colored miracle. Now she hesitated. The question of her leaving Bill and going to live with Bake had been dropped, tacitly, somewhere along the way. Bake brought it up sometimes when she had had too much to drink, because it was a good solid grievanceshe liked to point out that she had been willing to pay the lawyer, even. Frances felt that Bake would be surprised and not too happy if she announced at this point that she was moving in. There was Jane, for one thing. Twice lately, when she. had telephoned Bake's apartment, Jane had answered.
She shook her head. "I thought maybe you did," she said dully.
"Aw, Frankie, you know better. I'm willing to forget and forgive if you are." He hesitated, then decided not to be more explicit. "Maybe it's better this way than if you were mixed up with some other guy. I don't know."
"Don't talk nonsense."
"Well. Anyhow, I want you to know I'm sorry for what happened the other day."
She said again, "That's all right."
"Looks like it's time to make a new beginning, huh?"
She got up silently and refilled her cup.
"Forgive and forget, maybe."
"ALL RIGHT!"
Bill said mildly, "You don't have to holler at me. Anyhow, the Congdons are coming over this afternoon. To talk about the wedding."
Oh God, Frances thought. The bride's parents, coming over to size up the groom's family. Do you suppose she'll expect me to have jeans and a D. A. haircut like the gals at Karla's? She said crisply, "Thanks for letting me know. I have to sew a button on my blue crepe."
"Wear your pearls," Bill said, willing to put off the big reconciliation scene in favor of the immediate situation. "Make a good impression."
"I'll try. Get the good teapot down off the top shelf, will you?"
"Oh no, not tea." Frances laughed.
But when she had found the blue dress, and thread to match, and even, miraculously, the button that had burst off several weeks earlier, she sat with everything on her lap and did nothing.
Nobody seems to know how it was, she thought rebelliously. They act like it was something shameful, or sordid, or evil. The fights and disappointmentswell, but you get those with the other kind of love, too, and God knows you get them in marriage.
It was good, she told herself. Not all good, but mostly.
She didn't notice that she began to think in the past tense.
She sat with the dress across her knees, forgotten, staring at the wall of her living room. A small red leaf drifted down on the lazy autumn air, against a sky of pure blue.
CHAPTER 22
Ferns and sweetheart roses. Lohengrin. Chicken salad. Heirloom veilMrs. Congdon's grandmother's veil, no less, proving that the bride had ancestors. Double ring ceremony. Six bridesmaids in shades of yellow, ballet length. Mother of the bride in pale rose. Mrs. Congdon suggested, "Have you thought about beige lace for yourself, Frances? You'd be lovely in beige lace."
She had passed the inspection, with the help of the blue crepe and the best teapot. Had shown the guests out, smiling and gracious, and come back weak with reliefto find Bill pouring a long drink which he probably needed, but she was in no frame of mind to be reasonable. The quarrel that flared up was a like a brush fire, crackling hot, soon over, leaving char and desolation in its passage.
He had been drinking too much ever since, not enough to keep him from going to the office, but evening after evening growing more flushed and silent, morning after morning getting up heavy-eyed and headachey. He spoke to her seldom, and then only on matters of necessity. And he had come home after a round of the night spots with a couple of customers, not only bloodshot and unsteady but looking guilty, the classic picture of the unfaithful husband. All that's lacking is lipstick on his shirt, she thought coldly.
Still, there was the wedding to get through. Nothing could be resolved before the wedding. They didn't discuss it, but there was a tacit understanding that everything else, including death if possible, would be postponed until the ceremony was over. In the meantime, it was necessary to keep the surface smooth and, above all, to keep the Congdons from finding out that all was not sweetness and light with Mari's future in-laws.
I don't want Bob to know either, Frances thought, panicking. Something like a prayer formed in her, finding expression not in words but in a wordless resolution. Please, for Bob.
So here she was with Bill's check in her pocketbook and a feeling that she couldn't quite identify, a feeling that everything was coming to an end and nothing, apparently, would ever take its place.
"Too fancy," she said to the clerk. "Don't you have anything without all those ruffles?"
"I'll see." The woman sighed, walking away as though her feet hurt.
Frances stood, bored, knowing perfectly well that she would take the next dress she looked at, simply because it was ten minutes before closing time and the wedding was tomorrow. It would have been a good idea, she thought, for the kids to elope. Maybe she would bribe Bobbut a mental image of Louise Congdon shattered this notion. She sighed, shifting from one aching foot to the other.
"Frankie!"
She whirled around, almost knocking over the rack of "better dresses." "Kay, how are you?"
"Fine, fine. But what in the world are you doing up here with all the plush hor
ses? Going into the movies, or something?"
Frances looked distastefully at the dress she had just refused to try on. "My son's being married tomorrow, and I haven't bought a dress yet. Her mother thinks beige lace"
"My God, how suburban." Kay shook her head. "Come on, get it over with and we'll go somewhere for a drink. I haven't seen you for a long time."
"Come on back to the fitting room and give me a candid opinion. I've reached the point where I'm thinking of going in jeans."
In the green-curtained cubbyhole, Kay wedged her parcels onto the small shelf and lit a cigarette in defiance of the "No Smoking" sign above the mirror. "You look beat. Everything all right with you? Have you seen Bake lately?"
"Not for about three weeks."
They were silent while the saleswoman came in. Frances pulled the dress over her head. Then Kay answered the question she had been afraid to ask. "Jane and I have broken up, you know. I've seen it coming for quite a whilenot that that makes it any easier."
"Has she"
"I don't think so. Not officially, bag and baggage." Kay stood back a step and considered her critically. "Hey, that's not bad. I mean, I suppose you want to look like the groom's mother."
"I'd rather look like Zsa Zsa Gabor, but I don't seem to have the build for it."
"Go ahead, take it."
"I have to, more or less. I mean, I've already bought all the stuff to go with it." She got out of the dress, allowing the waiting saleswoman to undo the tiny hooks at the side, "Thank God it won't have to be altered. Can you deliver it the first thing tomorrow morning, without fail?"
"You can go in your bathrobe if they don't," Kay suggested. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink. I just cashed my salary check."
They came out of the store into late-afternoon June sunshine, sweet and hot. Kay carried her suit jacket over her arm; her forehead was beaded with perspiration.
"Hot, isn't it? Let's find a place that's air-conditioned."
In the bar they relaxed, soothed by darkness and coolness, and looked at each other without any reservations. Frances said, "I'm sorry about you and Jane."
Stranger On Lesbos Page 12
