A Southern Exposure (13 page)

“Come on, he’s just trying to be a good host. Even Yankees know to do that. Sometimes.”

“He’s going to be mighty cute in that old sailor suit.”

“Come on now, Harry’s a grownup man. They’re not going to put him in any sailor suit.”

“Oh look, there’s Abby now, with the darlingest little boy.”

“Do we know that child? Someway he looks like we do.”

“Just looks like a plain little old boy to me.”

“Oh, he must be Deirdre’s brother. Look, he’s running to her.”

“Yep, hiding his face. Must be real shy, poor little fellow.”

“And Cynthia didn’t like that one bit, his hiding in his sister’s lap. Cynthia had it in mind to introduce him all around.”

“But he’s not having any of that. No, not that kid.”

“Look a there, heading right back up the stairs again. Going up there fast, sky winding.”

“Do you think Russ and Brett are going to show up, after all?”

“That little old boy sure did remind me of someone.”

“Just plain boy, that’s all. Maybe a little on the pretty side, but then take a look at his sister.”

“These beaten biscuits of Odessa’s, I declare, they do beat all.”

“How comes Odessa did these? She working for Cynthia now?”

“Lord no, you know Dolly’d never in a month of Sundays let her go. She just lends her out sometimes.”

“And this funny thing about Cynthia, she likes to do for herself. No help at all.”

“Well, there’s just the two of them. The three, with Abby.”

“And just the two when Harry goes off to D.C.”

“I just think
Rebecca
is about the loveliest book I ever did read.”

“Oh, I’ll take
The Yearling
any day. Although I reckon the literary folk over to the college would call it sentimental.”

“You know what Russ keeps saying, that old William
Faulkner from Mississippi’s the only writer worth talking about.”

“You’d better eat some more, Jimmy. And looks like you need another drink.”

“Oh look, there’s Odessa! Looks grand in that white apron, don’t you think?”

“Is that apron a tad too small? That’s a mighty big woman, you give her a real good look.”

“Funny, always looks to be swimming when she walks.”

“But colored don’t go swimming ever, do they?”

“Well, of course they do, at their places in the creek and all.”

“Russ don’t even think much of our own Thomas Wolfe.”

“I think they were to the university about the same time, and they didn’t hit it off too good.”

“And how about this colored fellow Russ thinks is such a writer. Richard Wright?”

“A Communist too, I heard.”

“What’s Esther been up to in New York City, Jimmy? Apart from her work, that is.”

“Well, the Pulitzer folk seem to think
The Yearling
is good enough for them.”

“You know how Russ is about prizes.”

“Esther saw
Our Town
and she said it was truly wonderful, she thinks that Thornton Wilder’s some kind of genius.”

“Oh, I’ve heard.”

“And she’s trying to get tickets to some show,
Pins and Needles.
Supposed to be a hit.”

“Heard of that too.”

“Supposed to be real funny. She could use some cheering up.”

“Have you heard the new Eleanor story? Well, it seems like she—”

“Harry darling, it’s a terrific party, don’t you think?”

“The best, but you always carry it off.”

“Have you noticed how Southerners get more and more Southern as they drink? So interesting.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Did I tell you I wrote to Lord & Taylor? Well, I owed them just this tiny amount, and then when I got that birthday check from Daddy—”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Well, it was really about Odessa. My letter to Lord & Taylor, I mean. I told them how—”

“Seems like we’re going to have an early frost this year.”

“Might snow?”

“Of course Dolly’s going to be absolutely furious.”

“Don’t you-all ever get tired of all those Eleanor stories? I personally think she’s just a first-rate lady. I don’t care what anyone says.”

“
Well
!”

“
Well.
”

“
But so far it’s been the warmest winter we’ve had, oh, forever
.”

“But the leaves, the leaves have been just, just unreal. The color.”

“Have you heard that he’s really dying, Mr. Roosevelt? Can’t walk one single step unaided?”

“If Russ and Brett do come, they’re going to be mighty late.”

“Yes, even for them.”

“Looks like old Jimmy’s really hitting the bottle again. Thought he went on the wagon.”

“Misses Esther and the girls, most likely.”

“No man really likes to be a bachelor, do you think? Not past a certain point.”

“Well, I had this uncle, but he was just not the marrying kind, you know what I mean?”

“Oh, I surely do. My husband’s brother, he was like that. Poor thing, he got drunk one night and shot himself.”

“Why on earth would Russ Byrd be growing a beard, at this time of life?”

“Whatever do you mean, time of life? Russ is young yet. Talented young poet and playwright. That’s what they all say. They still say.”

“Wonder how Brett feels about the beard.”

“Tell you what, doesn’t matter a tad what Brett feels. You know that as well as I do.”

“Have you heard about this new doctor, down to Southern Pines? A psychiatrist is I guess what he is. Cures drinking problems, and all like that. Name of Clyde Drake, or Duck, or something like that.”

“Sounds expensive, right off. Rich Yankee place.”

“Drinking problems. What I’d like to know is, who hasn’t had a touch of that, one time or another?”

“No one from round here, that’s for damn sure, now, isn’t it? The men I mean to say.”

Laughter all around.

“That Jimmy looks drunk as a skunk, or drunker.”

“Boiled as an owl. But how come they say that about owls, will you tell me that? A sober-looking bird, I would have thought.”

“Speaking of birds, you think that Russ and Brett—?”

“Harry, you’ve got to hold off on the drinks a little bit. Everyone’s getting really plastered, look around you. God, you’d never know most of these people are professors.”

“Not to hear them talk you wouldn’t. Isn’t it funny how the most educated people down here all imitate the ones that aren’t.”

“Darling, that’s really profound.”

“I try to be.”

“Oh, Deirdre, do you really have to go. I’m so sorry—we’ve hardly—Graham, I hope you’ll come again, Abby would love—”

“That little old boy’s a pretty fellow, but he doesn’t much favor his mother, do you think?”

“Pity that little Baird girl didn’t get her mother’s looks.”

“She’ll do all right, you mark my words.”

“Well, look a there, coming up the walk. If it isn’t Mr. and Mrs. James Russell Lowell Byrd.”

“Walking funny. Could they be drunk, the both of them?”

“Oh we’re so terribly late, we’re so sorry. It’s all my fault, I said to Russ—”

“Brett, for God’s sake—”

“My name is not Brett. Not anymore ever. It’s SallyJane.”

“I suppose everyone’s practically gone home.”

“No, only person you missed so far is Deirdre Yates. She just left with that little brother.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, how is Deirdre?”

“If Russ isn’t plastered, Brett is for certain sure. You hear what she just now said about her name?”

“Well, high time for that, is what I say. How come she ever let Russ stick a new name on her in the first place. Like he was God, or at the very least her father?”

“Well, will you look over there? There’s Russ and Jimmy all over each other like long-lost brothers. Can you beat that?”

“It’s what Jimmy’s always wanted.”

“Well, Russell and Brett, I’m just so glad to see you.”

“My name is SallyJane.”

“Honey, of course it is. But you mean for us all to call you that all the time?”

“I said my name is SallyJane.”

“Well, of course, but you know it’ll take some getting used to.”

“Russ, old man, what you need is a good stiff drink.”

“Well, Jimmy, my boy, I’m not sure you’re right about what I need, but I surely would like one.”

“My name is SallyJane.”

“Goodbye, Odessa, I can’t thank you enough for coming along to help out. Here’s a little something for your trouble. And I’ll let you know about you-know-what. In New York.”

“Mmm. Ma’am.”

“Well, darling, was that a good party?”

“Oh it was, but everyone got so drunk! Did we do something wrong?”

“I don’t think so, they always get drunk. It only seemed worse than usual today. I don’t know why.”

“So odd, Russ and Brett—SallyJane—showing up just after Deirdre Yates left.”

“Coincidence. What do you imagine, they sat in their house and waited for her car to pass?”

“Oh, Harry.”

“I think you over-planned that one, my love.”

“Harry Baird, whatever do you mean?”

“Come on, Cynthia. Don’t give me that Southern stuff. You know perfectly well that you were doing some arranging there.”

“Well, of course I did want to see what they’d all look like together.”

“And what on earth are you cooking up with Odessa?”

“Oh, never mind, just an idea.”

“Dolly Bigelow will kill you, you know that?”

“Oh, Harry, whatever will I do with you off in Washington? Sometimes I think there’s really something wrong with people down here.”

In the days and weeks that follow Harry Baird’s departure for Washington—he was quite unexpectedly and urgently summoned just after the first of the year, in early January—Cynthia observes very strange and quite new moods within herself. Unanticipated. Having imagined a lowness of spirits, she had planned to keep very active to combat this. And having expected depression, a sagging and heavy heart, she had also planned activities, diversions.

But instead she finds her heart as light as a very young girl’s (a pretty, spoiled girl, as she herself used to be). She feels energetic, and warmly affectionate toward the world. In a word, she is happy, is happier in fact than she has been for years. Each day seems a possible fresh adventure, to which she wakens with pleasure and enthusiasm.

But how very alarming! Does this mean that she and Harry are supposed to separate—to, finally, divorce? How terrible! She does not want to be a “divorced woman,” with all the sleazy, tacky (a new favorite word), and needy connotations of that phrase. She thinks with dread, with fear and a little pity of the several (maybe three) such women she knew in Connecticut, and the awful condescension with which everyone else—all the safely married or respectably widowed folk—viewed these strays, these derelicts.

It is only when such vivid thoughts occur that Cynthia’s warm happiness is chilled, a black cloud across the sun—so that she wonders if she is as happy as she thinks she is living apart from Harry.

Which is not to say that she does not miss Harry, for she does; but as she herself might put it, almost “only in one way.” She misses Harry in bed, his mouth and his knowing, expert hands. Making love to her, over and over (they are both very greedy in that way)—that is what she most misses.

And not just at night. Some midmorning, with Abby safely off at school, Harry might look at her, in his way, and he might say, “How about it? Don’t you really think the smallest nap, about now?” So delicious, so wicked-feeling, lying there afterwards in the full sunlight, entangled in sheets, sea-smelling.

Also, Cynthia read somewhere, in some magazine, that it is bad for you not to do it, once you’re used to a lot of sex. Bad for your body and your emotions too. But did she actually read that, or did she make it up? Or is it something that Harry once told her, trying to talk her into doing it more often? Not that she has ever needed a lot of persuading along those lines. As she sees it, she has been all too eager, once they got married and started in. Never hard to get, as she read somewhere else that even wives are supposed
to be, sometimes. “Play hard to get occasionally,” this article said (at least she is sure that this was not something made up by Harry). “Your husband will appreciate you more.” But even if she wanted to play hard to get with Harry, Cynthia is not at all sure how she would go about it. They know each other too well—Harry knows when she is as eager as he.

Cynthia has many times thought how nice it would be if women ever discussed these things among themselves. If she could talk to some other woman, say, a woman who thought she loved her husband but found herself very happy—in fact especially happy—when he was away. And who finds herself mostly thinking of sex. She could never have had such a conversation with any of the women she knew in Connecticut, not with Pipsy or Pol or Sudie or Amanda, and most certainly not—especially not—with anyone she has met down here. For one thing, she does not know them well enough, and for another, Southern women are different from other women, she thinks. In ways that she has not yet been able to formulate. Maybe, possibly, they’re just like other women only more so? In any case, there are a lot of subjects that one would simply never bring up with any of them.

She wonders about somewhat younger women, and thinks of Deirdre. But an intimate conversation with Deirdre Yates? This is unthinkable. Out of the question.

The idea of discussing sex with Southern women is as bad as that of discussing race, the Negroes—another out-of-the-question topic. With any Southerners. Aside from their endless stock of funny-maid or dim-witted yard-help stories. As she and Harry have said to each other, if an educated, smart, middle-class family of Negroes showed up, the Southerners would not know what to do with them.

Cynthia misses Harry in that way too, their talking.
Making jokes. But mostly it is sex that she misses, and she notices that its lack in her life has driven her to embarrassing fantasies and dreams of other men. As though her mind were an open book, to be read by casual observers, when she sees Russell Byrd in the A&P, for example, she feels a warm blush on her face, as though he could tell what she dreamed the night before. What he did in her dream.