Superior Women (20 page)

But her own room is beautiful and perfect, and French; all the fabrics, the silk-hung walls and even the pale pink bed linen, are imported from France. Heavy silver toilet things on her glass-lined dressing table, small crystal perfume bottles, and a three-way mirror, ornately framed, in silver.

Just now she is staring into that mirror, the contemplation of her own face being Lavinia’s form of meditation. In that way she can concentrate, and sort things out.

One of Lavinia’s minor problems at this moment, this sunny fall morning, early in October 1949, is where to meet Megan for lunch. Minor, and perhaps easily solved; still, any area has its implications. For example, Lavinia does not want an uptown restaurant, partly because she does not want to be in a position of having to say, after lunch, Well, since this is so near to where I live, how about coming back with me for coffee? (Well, of course that is unlikely; “uptown” is an enormous area and besides, Megan will have to get back to work, won’t she?) The real reason for not wanting an uptown lunch, which Lavinia faces with a slightly embarrassed smile into her mirror, is simple, obvious, and inadmissible: she does not,
does not
want to run into anyone she knows. When she is with Megan. Having to introduce Megan, and later to explain to whoever, whomever, why it is that Megan does not lose
weight. Why she wears those clothes. Even after that year in France, in Paris!—and her really good job.

However, since Megan is working somewhere almost in the Village, some publishing house near Union Square, Megan has said, she, Lavinia, will simply get into a cab and go down there. Let Megan choose a place she knows. Her own turf, as it were.

Lord knows what Lavinia should wear, though. Probably not too dressed, so far downtown. And it actually, almost, doesn’t matter what she wears, or infinitely less so than usual. Maybe she should wear Levi’s, for a joke, the way they all used to, all the time, back in Barnard Hall.

The truth, though, the frightful, ghastly truth that has been pushing toward the forefront of Lavinia’s mind, is that it does not matter where she and Megan have lunch, or what she wears—
Lord,
not in the least, of course not. Because she has recently realized, or faced a fact that diminishes all other possible problems, which is that already, at twenty-three, she has made a fatal, absolute mistake:
she should not have married Potter Cobb.

Lavinia’s true, main, basic problem is that simple and that terrible, and it has taken her three years to bring herself to admit and even partially to face it, three years and all her strength (Lavinia, in her way, is an honest woman).

This gradually and painfully emerging view is not the same as a mere discontent with Potter would be; that could be taken care of, in one way or another. No, in his way Potter is perfectly nice, a perfectly okay husband, very presentable and rather quiet (and if in some ways he is a little less than nice, well, only a very naive person, like Megan, probably, would expect good sex in marriage). Lavinia can even appreciate the irony of its being she, wise Lavinia, who made this mistake, she who did not confuse sex and love with marriage, who
knew
what marriage meant.

It is simply that having seen as much as she now has of New York, Lavinia has also seen how much better she could have done. Dear Lord, how infinitely better, a young woman like herself, with
everything.
(A girl who has everything: that is a perfectly fair description of herself, Lavinia somewhat bitterly decides.)

And part of the excruciating pain that she is experiencing (and
it is excruciating: the face that she sees before her in the mirror is anguished, almost too anguished to be beautiful, she looks almost
old
)—much of that pain comes from her recognition of how
dumb
she was, how deeply stupid, to take Cambridge and Harvard standards for the world’s. What looked superior, what looked to be the cream of the crop, as it were, at Harvard, is very small potatoes in New York. If she had come down to New York after graduation, a pretty, single girl, with a pretty, small apartment (something on Sutton Place? her father likes that neighborhood; he would have paid for it, probably), oh! then she could have met anyone at all. She could have not married until she was twenty-five or twenty-six, even. And then have really chosen well, instead of taking the first “suitable” person who came along.

For an instant, in a quick hot flash of rage, Lavinia blames Gordon Shaughnessey for this terrible, this fatal error. It is all his fault. If he had not ditched her, they could have gone along and had a nice college romance, until she was ready to ditch
him
(as she surely would have, eventually; never in the world would she have married a person with that name, in Boston). And she would surely
not
have married his roommate. A moment of colder reflection, however, forces her to abandon that view, and the comfort of that anger. Besides, it’s difficult, with Gordon dead.

In any case, New York is full of really superior men; cruelly, almost all the men she meets are superior to Potter. Or does she simply think that, is—oh, God!—sexual frustration actually damaging her mind? Is that possible? A monstrous notion—she pushes it away. Even thinking of sex will only confuse what is already irreparably bad. Her marriage.

In any case, almost everywhere Lavinia goes she sees wonderful-looking men, sleek blond men, with great tans, wearing marvelous tweeds and rich silk ties, or dark interesting men in dark (bankers’) gray flannel. Men who all stare at her, and who smile, acknowledging her beauty.

Most recently, there has been a man whom she seems to have seen everywhere, has met at a lot of parties. Henry Stuyvesant. Not handsome, he is almost funny-looking, really: too tall, six feet five or six, with big ears, a long nose, wearing glasses. Once he took
off his glasses, though, and Lavinia saw the most remarkable eyes, so dark, so liquidly deep. There is something about Henry Stuyvesant that is very interesting. He is obviously intelligent—very. (At Harvard he was on the Advocate
and
in the Signet Society, she has found out that much.) He is usually with someone very beautiful, some deb, or young divorcée, but she has never seen him with the same woman more than twice. No one seems to be sure exactly what he does, and therefore, Lavinia believes, he must be very rich. Also, she has given his shoes a very careful look (a sure test, in her view): his are invariably dark English wingtips, still new-looking, very well polished. Maybe he is the richest man in town?

So far, they have had only a couple of silly party conversations. But Henry Stuyvesant likes her, Lavinia can tell. She will see Henry tonight, she then remembers, cheeringly; she and Potter and some friends, including Henry, are going out.

She will not have an affair with Henry Stuyvesant, though. But even this thought makes Lavinia smile, however, and she notes that the very idea is making her prettier. If we even go out to lunch together, ever, she thinks, it will have to be in a very public place. Maybe the Oak Room, where everyone will see us.

Lavinia next telephones Megan. “Megan baby, I know you’re terrifically busy, with that job and everything, so I’ll just jump in a cab and come down to you. We can go wherever you like, down there. Well, where do you usually go? There must be some place. Megan, why are you sounding so difficult? There’s no point in your coming all the way uptown, and then having to go all the way back. Of course I know where Gramercy Park is, some cousins of Potter’s live there. We had dinner down there last month, a beautiful old apartment. Well, of course I can find the hotel. Honestly, Megan, you’re not in California. Cabdrivers know where they are. Okay, I’ll see you at twelve thirty. In the lobby—okay, the dining room.”

The Gramercy Park Hotel turns out to be perfectly okay, quite a pleasant dining room. Actually, had she known it was going to be
so attractive, all the nice white linen and fresh flowers on the table, quiet waiters, Lavinia would have worn a newer suit, she now reflects. Not this leftover from college, her old Blackwatch plaid; too good to throw out, it seemed both appropriate and amusing, for a downtown lunch with Megan.

Sipping from her frozen daiquiri, Lavinia frowns as she realizes that Megan is now ten minutes late, and in an idle way she scans the room. Her wandering gaze is unfocused, until it is caught by a perfect gray flannel suit, long full skirt and short trim jacket, on a thin young woman who looks very much like—dear Lord, it is, it is Megan. Megan, who comes up to Lavinia, smiling and blushing. Very pretty, and
thin
—Lord, she must have lost thirty pounds. Even her breasts are much less visible.

Megan sits down, saying, “I’m really sorry I’m late. There’s so much work, and more this afternoon.” To the hovering waiter, who seems to know her, she says, “I don’t think I’ll have a drink, thanks, Bill. A glass of tomato juice?” Her smile at Lavinia indicates, somehow, that being late is not nearly as important as her work.

Lavinia gives her own smile. “I hardly know my baby Megan without her baby fat,” she says.

Megan blushes again. “What’s funny is that I actually don’t think of myself as thin.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about that. People who have plastic surgery and think they still have big noses. Or breasts.”

“Well, yes.” Megan’s tomato juice arrives. She squeezes lemon into it, somehow managing to squirt juice into her left eye. “Oh,
shit.
” She wipes at the eye with her napkin.

Lavinia giggles, briefly. “Well, I can certainly hear the effect of Adam Marr.”

Megan seems not to understand, at first, but then she grins, and acknowledges, “Well, he certainly is, uh, influential. And I did see them quite a lot. In Paris.”

“You don’t see them now?”

“Not nearly as much. They’re up in Connecticut, and Adam’s so busy. And Janet and the baby.” Megan looks slightly uncomfortable.

In her old way, Lavinia presses on. “From what
I
hear, Adam’s giving her a really bad time.”

Megan’s eyes cloud, unhappily, as she says, “Well, you hear a lot of gossip, when someone gets really famous.”

“Where there’s smoke there’s always fire, I always say,” Lavinia remarks, and she wonders: Can one drink have made me drunk? How silly I sound. She feels herself not quite in control, a condition she despises. She sips at ice water, which does not alleviate the burning intensity of an emotion which she is forced to recognize as the purest rage: rage at Janet Cohen (Janet
Cohen!
) for being married to a famous man, even to a vulgar theatrical success like Adam Marr, a success that will never last. And Lord, for having a baby. A boy. (And horrible Adam is supposed to be very sexy; he probably does it to her all the time, when he’s not doing it to someone else.) “I’ve heard a lot about Adam Marr and ‘aspiring young actresses,’ ” Lavinia manages to say. (She is as angry now at Janet Cohen and at Adam as she was earlier this morning at Gordon Shaughnessey, and quite as fruitlessly; there is something wrong with her, clearly.)

Propitiously, at that moment the waiter arrives to take their order. They both want seafood salads, coffee later.

Pulling herself together, as best she can, Lavinia in her cool social voice asks, “Well, Megan baby, now tell me all about your life as a working girl.”

Megan’s face, divested now of what Lavinia has chosen to call her baby fat, reveals strong bones; even her small nose looks stronger. Irish peasant bones, Lavinia decides; she is barely listening, as Megan names books and writers dealt with by her publishing house. e e cummings, Robert Frost. Not exactly what you would call a best-seller list, but then Megan has never been practical.

“—of course if you don’t care a lot about poetry it doesn’t make a lot of sense, what I’m doing,” says Megan. Does Lavinia hear a certain sharpness, a small rebuke in that last sentence? She is hypersensitive today, she reminds herself; she feels fragile. She is getting the curse, probably. Again.

“But tell me all about successful young married life,” Megan is saying, with what looks like an innocent, inquiring smile.

At that, unaccountably, what Lavinia had not at all meant to say bursts out (or one of the things that she had not meant to say). “I want to have a baby, and I never do. Every month, it turns out that I’m not pregnant, again. And everyone is having them but me. Peg, twins, and now that boy, Rex, and now she thinks she’s pregnant again. And Janet Cohen, I mean Marr, and her boy. And I’ve taken tests, and there’s nothing—Oh, I don’t know why I’m saying all this!”

“Oh, Lavinia, that’s really too bad. But you haven’t been married very long, really. Doesn’t it take some people years?”

The intensity of Megan’s concern further mortifies Lavinia; Lord, what’s wrong with her? She does not “confide” in people, and now, seemingly, she is unable to stop. “I just have this feeling,” she says. “This sense that it won’t work out with Potter. Pregnancy, I mean. I won’t get pregnant, by him.” Seeing that Megan seems to believe her, and (dear Lord!) that Megan
pities
her, her plight, Lavinia recklessly (lyingly!) adds, “Although otherwise of course we’re absolutely perfect, in every way. Potter is, well, he’s just terrific. I’m sure you know what I mean, little Megan.” And she gives Megan a long, probing look, faintly smiling (back in control).

By now Megan looks so flustered, so utterly confused, that Lavinia is able to reestablish their connection as she feels that it should be, to regain what is her necessary upper hand. “You know, Megan, it’s really time you thought about getting married yourself,” she says. “Isn’t there some handsome editor down there?”

“Actually not. They’re married, mostly, and the not married one is, uh, queer, I think. But he’s very nice.”

“Oh, swell. What a great environment you’ve picked. But Megan, you must know someone. You don’t want to turn into one of those awful New York career women.”

Surprisingly, Megan announces, “I think I’d like to earn a lot of money.” Those words seem to have surprised her too; she looks taken aback, as though she had not quite intended to say that.