When She Was Good

by Philip Roth

  So, with no real discomfort and even with a certain remote curiosity, she listened to the Eleanor Sowerby story, bits and pieces of which she had been hearing since Ellie had graduated from Northwestern in June. With three friends Ellie had spent the summer at a dude ranch in Wyoming, where one of the girls’ families lived. Now she was down in Chicago, with the same three girls, crammed into what was, according to Ellie, a “crazy” apartment on the Near North Side—just off Rush Street, or “Lush” Street, as Skippy Skelton, a roommate of Ellie’s, called it. Of course Lucy already knew that “this Roger” (the second young man at Northwestern to give Ellie a fraternity pin) “this Roger,” to whom she was to have been engaged following their graduation, had suddenly decided in the last semester of their senior year that he really didn’t like Ellie as much as he thought he had. One day, out of the blue, he dropped her; and so unexpectedly, so cruelly, that Irene had had to rush all the way down to Evanston and stay for a whole week while Ellie got her bearings again. The family had only given their consent to the idea of a dude ranch way off in Wyoming in the hope that it would help get her mind off what had happened. As for this Roger, said Alice Bassart, he must have been quite a person. Do you know when he asked to have his precious pin back? A week to the day after having spent a perfectly lovely Easter vacation in Liberty Center as Ellie’s house guest!

  But despite his cruelty toward her, Ellie was beginning to bounce back at last; beginning to understand how much better off she was with a person such as this Roger out of her life entirely. And she wasn’t having the crying sieges any more, which was a relief to them all. It was the crying that had almost made it necessary for Irene to get on a plane and fly out to Wyoming. But Skippy Skelton had apparently turned out to be a very strong young lady, and had given Ellie some kind of talking-to that made her stop feeling so sorry for herself; and now Ellie was so busy down in Chicago that she just didn’t have the time any longer to spend whole days on her bed, weeping into her pillow. She was working as a receptionist at some kind of advertising research firm; and the people there were “fabulous”—she had never met so many “brainy” men before in her life. She hadn’t even known that they existed. What she meant by that, they weren’t quite sure as yet. Irene, frankly, was nervous, knowing how important it was for Ellie to get through the coming year without any kind of shock that would cause her another emotional setback. And Julian didn’t at all like the sound of who it was she might be hanging around with down there. As he understood it, they had a university down there full of so-called brainy men, half of them Commies.

  And to make matters even worse, Ellie just kept blooming and blossoming: each time you saw her she was more beautiful than the last. She had filled out so very nicely, and though she now saw some reason to wear her hair down into her face so that you could hardly even see those wonderful dimples, she was still the kind of girl who unfortunately attracted boys to her just by walking down a street minding her own business. But boys wouldn’t be so bad; it was these brainy men they were worried about. She was even more of a fashion plate than she had been as a child—to walk around in Chicago a person apparently needed twenty-four pairs of shoes, said Alice—and what worried the Sowerbys was that a man without scruples would see her, make up to her, and then take advantage of her, with no regard for her feelings whatsoever. Ellie was still on the rebound from this Roger, and what with her sweet, generous, trusting nature, she might easily fall head over heels in love with somebody who would break her heart a second time in a row. The Sowerbys were particularly upset now because it turned out that Skippy, who had seemed to be such a good influence on Ellie, was going out with a thirty-seven-year-old man who wasn’t living with his wife—and who was thinking of taking Skippy (age twenty-two) and going off with her to hide away in Spain for about ten years; maybe even forever. Why Ellie was home for the weekend was to talk over with her parents the kind of a girl this Skippy Skelton had turned out to be.

  A few minutes later they were all in the living room when Ellie drove up in her mother’s car.

  Lucy didn’t even have time to turn to Roy to ask if this visit had been planned: her old friend was up the walk, up the steps, and into the house.

  In the first instant Ellie seemed somehow taller than Lucy remembered her. But that was an illusion, created partly by her hair—she had let it grow long and thick, like a kind of mane—and partly by her coat, which was made of some honey-colored fur and had a belt pulled tight around the middle. How dramatic. She stepped into the living room as onto a stage. Nothing Lucy could see indicated that Eleanor was a person recovering from a disaster; she did not look as though she even lived in a world where disaster was possible.

  Lloyd Bassart had opened the door and so was the first to be embraced. “Uncle Lloyd! Hi!” and Ellie got him directly on the lips. Lucy could not recall ever having seen anyone kiss Lloyd Bassart on the lips before. Then Ellie’s hair, cold and crackling, was against her own cheek. “Hi!” and then, Ellie was looking down at Edward: “Hey! Hi! Remember me? No? I’m your cousin, do you know that? Aren’t I his cousin? I’m your second cousin Eleanor, and you’re my second cousin Edward. Hi, second cousin!”

  The child stood by Roy’s chair, his head pressed against his father’s knee. In only a few minutes, however, she had coaxed him onto her lap, where she let him cuddle up on the fur coat—which Ellie said was only otter, though the collar was mink. Edward slid his hands into her fur-lined leather gloves and everybody laughed; they fit him clear up to the elbow.

  When Lucy reminded Roy that it was time to visit her family, he said that Ellie wanted to know if they would all come over to her house first. He had followed Lucy into the kitchen, to which she had retreated, offering the excuse that she wanted a glass of water. If she had to hear the name Skippy Skelton one more time, she would go out of her mind. Skippy was somebody you didn’t have to worry about. Skippy had been on the Dean’s List every semester but her last at Northwestern, and then she had just stopped caring about grades. Skippy had no intention of running off to Spain with the kind of phony Greg had turned out to be. Spain, in fact, had been a slight exaggeration of Eleanor’s. She didn’t know why she had said it, except that speaking to your mother long distance once a week, you finally ran out of things to say. Greg was back now with his wife and children, so there was nothing to fret about, at least where Skippy was concerned. You didn’t have to worry about Skippy, she could just joke herself out of a tight situation, that’s the kind of person Skippy was. It was Skippy herself who had told Greg that he should scoot on back to his family, once she had found out there were three little kiddies involved. Now Skippy was dating a really “hip” guy who thought that Ellie was a jerk to be wasting her talents behind a receptionist’s desk for fifty dollars a week … Which was why Ellie was home for the weekend. Her parents might think she had made the trip up to explain about Skippy, but actually why she was here was to tell them that through Skippy’s friend she had gotten an introduction to Martita. They didn’t know who Martita was? Well, she just happened to have been the most important model in America before the war. Now she was retired and ran the only real agency in Chicago. Ellie’s news was that in a matter of a few weeks she would be leaving the receptionist job to plunge headlong into a new career. “Fashion model!” she said. “Me!”

  “Well,” said Lloyd; and “Great!” said Roy—“Don’t forget who took your picture first, Ellie-o”; and Alice said, “Your parents didn’t know this till today?” And here Lucy had gone off for her glass of water. She had closed the kitchen door behind her. When it opened, it was Roy, to say that Ellie’s parents hoped they would all come over for coffee.

  “Roy, was this all planned—and when?”

  “What do you mean ‘planned’?”

  “Did you know Ellie was coming here?”

  “Well, no, not really. Well, I knew she was in town. Look, they want to see Eddie, that’s all. And they want to see us too, I think.”

  “Oh, do the
y?”

  “That’s what Ellie says. Well, obviously she’s not lying. Lucy, look, we’ve been the ones who have been boycotting them—and with good reason too, I know, don’t worry. But it hasn’t been that they haven’t wanted to see us, not that I know. And anyway, it’s over. Well, it is. The mistake they made was a bad mistake, and the mistake I made was a bad mistake, but it’s over. Isn’t it?”

  “Is it?”

  “Well … sure. You know, another thing is that maybe this really isn’t that fair to Edward any more—if you want to talk about his welfare in this thing.”

  “It was his welfare in this thing, Roy, that I had to bring to your attention—”

  “Okay, okay—and you did! And so now I’m doing it to you, that’s all. Whatever you think about Uncle Julian, or even Aunt Irene, whatever the two of us may think, well, they’re still Eddie’s aunt and uncle too, and he doesn’t know anything about this, needless to say … Oh, come on, Lucy, Ellie’s waiting.”

  “She can wait.”

  “Lucy, very honestly—” he began.

  “What?”

  “Do you want me to talk very honestly with you?”

  “Please do, Roy.”

  “Why are you being so sarcastic all of a sudden?”

  “I’m not being ‘sarcastic.’ If I am, I can’t help it. Talk to me honestly. Do.”

  “Well, honestly, I really think that at this point, given all that’s happened, and all that hasn’t happened too, and this isn’t a criticism, to begin with, but I think that at this point you might actually be being a little silly about this. I mean, without knowing it. Well, that’s what I think, and I said it. And to be honest, it’s sort of what I think my parents think too. It’s over a year already that everything happened, about the way I behaved and so on, and now it’s over, and maybe where the Sowerbys are concerned enough is enough, and we just sort of all ought to go on, and so forth … Well, what do you think?”

  “The opinion of your parents is important to you? That’s a surprise.”

  “I’m not saying opinion! I’m not saying important! Stop being so sarcastic! I’m just saying about what it looks like to a neutral party. Don’t confuse me, will you, please? This is important. It’s just not sensible any more, Lucy. Well, I’m sorry if that sounds like a criticism of my own wife, but it’s not.”

  “What’s not?”

  “To keep up with a war, when the war is over, when nobody is even fighting any more, at least that I can see.”

  Ellie called from the living room, “You coming? Roy?”

  “Roy,” said Lucy, “if you want to go and take Edward, you go ahead.”

  “… You mean it?”

  “Yes.”

  His smile dimmed. “But what about you?”

  “I’ll stay here. I’ll walk over to Daddy Will’s.”

  “But I don’t want you just walking around, Lucy.” He reached out and flipped her bangs with his fingers. “Hey, Lucy.” He spoke softly. “Come on. Why not? It’s over. Let’s make it really over. Lucy, come on, you look so pretty lately. Did you know that? I mean, you always look pretty to me, but lately, even more. So come on, huh, what do you say?”

  She felt herself weakening. Let’s make it really over. “Maybe I ought to go down to Chicago and be introduced to Martita, the most famous model in the history of America. Martita and Skippy Skelton—”

  “Oh, come on, Lucy, you are pretty. To me you are, and plenty prettier than Ellie, too. Because you have character and you’re you. You don’t have to be a glamour puss, you don’t have to have mink coats, believe me, to be pretty. That’s just a material thing, you know that. You’re the best person there is, Lucy. You are. Please, you come too. Why not?”

  “Roy, if you want to go, you can.”

  “Well, I know I can,” he said sourly.

  “Pick me up at Daddy Will’s at four.”

  “Oh, damn,” he said, pushing one of the kitchen chairs into the table. “You’re going to be angry later. I know it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “… If I go.”

  “Why should I be? Are you planning to do something there that I might disapprove of?”

  “I’m not planning anything! I’m going for a visit to a house! I’m going to have a cup of coffee!”

  “All right, then.”

  “So just don’t get angry when we get home … that’s all I mean.”

  “Roy, you assured me a minute ago that the past is over, that I can rely on you. You have to admit that hasn’t always been something I could do.”

  “Okay.”

  “For six months now you have been assuring me that you no longer hold certain childish ideas—”

  “I don’t.”

  “That you have decided to be responsible to me and to Edward.”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, if that is really the case, if it’s true that I have nothing to worry about when you are in the company of that man—if you haven’t been fooling me, Roy, and just pretending—”

  “I haven’t been fooling anybody about anything!”

  “Hey!” Ellie was calling them again. “Lovers! You coming out of hiding, or what’s going on in there?”

  In the living room, Alice was sitting in a chair, already in her coat and galoshes. Whenever Roy and Lucy quarreled, it was Alice’s assumption that the fault lay solely with her daughter-in-law; it was something Lucy had had to accustom herself to long ago. She ignored the face that Alice turned to her, the compressed lips and the clenched jowls.

  Ellie was kneeling down in front of Edward, zipping up his snowsuit; her skirt and coat had ridden up above her knee.

  “Hey, let’s go,” said Ellie, “before we all catch puhneumonia.”

  “Lucy can’t,” said Roy.

  —while Lucy was thinking, “Don’t you dare dress him to go without my permission. It is up to me whether he sets foot in that house of yours, and sees those parents of yours, and not up to you at all. I am his mother.”

  She should never have weakened in the kitchen and said yes to Roy. The war over? The war was never over with people you could not trust or depend upon. Why, why had she relaxed her vigilance? Because this ninny was up for the weekend from Chicago? Because this fashion model was kneeling beside her child, playing Mommy while showing everybody her legs?

  “Can’t you?” said Ellie sadly. “Just for an hour? I haven’t seen you in decades. And all I’ve done so far is talk about me. Oh, Lucy, come with us. I envy you so, married and out of the rat race. It’s what I ought to do.” Instantly her eyes became heavy with melancholy. “Please, Lucy, I’d actually like to talk to you. I’d just love to hear all about married life with that one.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Roy, pulling on his coat. He smiled knowingly. “I’ll bet you would.”

  “Wow,” said Ellie, “how we used to sit up in that room.”

  “Sorry,” said Lucy. She called Edward to her and hiked his snowsuit around. “You go with Daddy. I’m going to visit Grandma Myra.” She kissed him.

  He ran to his father, took his hand, and commenced staring at Ellie again as she pulled on her gloves. Roy laughed.

  “He thinks they’re his,” he explained to Lucy. “The gloves.”

  “Gurrr,” said Ellie, making one of her gloved hands into a claw. “Gurrr, Edward, here I come.” The child broke into giggles, and when Ellie took a step toward him, drove his head into his father’s side.

  Roy looked at Lucy, then to Ellie. “Hey, El, Lucy’s mother’s getting married. Did you know?”

  “Hey, that’s terrific,” said Ellie. “That’s fabulous, Lucy.”

  Lucy took the enthusiasm coolly. “It’s not definite yet.”

  “Well, I hope it comes off. That would be great.”

  Lucy neither agreed nor disagreed.

  “Hey,” said Ellie, “how’s Daddy Will?”

  “Fine.”

  “I really love him. I remember him at your wedding. Telling those stories abo
ut the north woods. They were really great.”

  No response.

  To Edward, who was still staring, Ellie said, “Don’t you, little Edward? Love Daddy Will?”

  He nodded his head to whatever it was he thought Eleanor was asking him.

  “I think it’s Edward who has fallen in l-o-v-e with somebody,” said Alice Bassart.

  Ellie said to Lucy, “Give him a hug for me, will you? You do just want to hug him, don’t you, when he starts telling those stories? He is really absolutely old-fashioned. He’s just perfect. And that’s what you miss in Chicago, all the fun aside—that kind of really genuine person, who really cares about people and isn’t just a fake and a phony. When we were on this ranch down in Horse Creek, there was a man there, and he was the foreman, and he was just so polite and old-fashioned and easygoing, and you kept thinking that’s probably exactly the way America used to be. But Skippy says that’s all dying out, even out there, which is sort of the last outpost. Isn’t that a shame? When you think about it, it’s really awful. It sure has died out in Chicago, I’ll tell you that much. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and I hear all those cars starting up outside, and I wish I were right back here in Liberty Center, where at least you don’t get all that hatred and violence. Here you leave your house unlocked, and your car unlocked, and you could go away for a week, for a month even, and not worry. But you ought to see the locks we have on our door alone. Three,” she said, turning to Alice.

  “My goodness,” said Alice. “Lloyd, did you hear that? Ellie has to have three locks, because of the violence.”

  “And a chain,” said Ellie.

  “Eleanor, I don’t know why you want to live in such a place,” said Alice. “What about muggers? I certainly hope you don’t walk on the streets.”

  “Sure, Mom,” said Roy, “she walks on the air instead. What do you expect her to walk on, Mother?”

  “It certainly doesn’t seem to me,” his mother answered, “that she should be out after dark in a place where you need three locks and a chain, Roy.”