Superior Women (21 page)

“Well, that’s certainly the most sensible thing I’ve ever heard
you say. But why not marry some nice rich man? Now that you’re so thin and all. And Megan, I must say, that’s a terrific suit.”

A blush. “You like it? I just got it yesterday. At Lord & Taylor.”

To have lunch with me, Lavinia thinks, and she is touched by this tribute, although of course it is no more than her due, from Megan. “Their things are nice,” she concedes, of Lord & Taylor, “but you really should try Bendel’s sometime.”

After a small pause, Megan asks, “Well, what do you hear from Peg?”

“Well, she’s absolutely wonderful. Of course she adores living in Texas, and sometimes they go to New Orleans for weekends. And all those adorable babies. Old Peg was obviously made for motherhood, it makes me so jealous. You know, I think you were pretty hard on her sometimes, little Megan. I don’t think you appreciated the true old Peg.” This is said with a very severe look, which ends in a forgiving smile.

“Probably that’s true.” Saying this, however, Megan does not blush; she does not even look particularly concerned. Lavinia doubts that Megan is even thinking of Peg, at that moment.

With her small frown Lavinia asks, “What do you hear from Cathy?”

Megan comes back into focus. “Oh, she really loves it in California. She says she is getting fat from all the great restaurants. Can you imagine Cathy fat?” Megan is smiling as she asks this, affectionately (quite fatuously, Lavinia thinks).

Lavinia gives her own smile, having just realized that she is as uninterested in Cathy as Megan is not interested in Peg, and she further reflects that it is odd how clannish the Irish are; even generations later, Megan and Cathy, those micks, are so drawn to each other, atavistically. “Darling Megan,” Lavinia purrs, “if I can imagine and even see you thin, I can certainly see Cathy fat.”

Megan’s interest seems caught by this. “Maybe we’re all changing in some profound way?” she asks. “Shifting roles, and identities. It’ll be fascinating to see what happens in the next ten or twenty years. The next five, even!”

“Well, if you’re thinking of a best-seller about our lives, or a
movie, just give me at least three sons,” says Lavinia, quite conscious of the sadness of her smile. “Tall dark thin sons, and they’ll all go to Harvard. Or maybe one will rebel, and go to Yale.”

Soon after that they separate, with a flurry of talk about getting together again, very soon.

Friends, perfect friends. Why not be friends forever, she and Henry Stuyvesant? That solution comes to Lavinia, as that evening she again contemplates her silver-mirrored face, and thinks of Henry. This time she is less meditative, somewhat hurried, though; people are coming for drinks before they all go out for dinner, and dancing, most likely at LaRue. Smiling, Lavinia calculates that all the other young wives will be in their pearls and black, whereas she has on her new gray chiffon.

But:
friends.
She and Henry Stuyvesant. The idea of such a friendship, with such a brilliant and attractive man, fills Lavinia with a warm and virtuous pleasure. She thinks of the Duchess of Guermantes and Swann, although
of course
Henry is hardly Jewish (and Swann wasn’t
very
Jewish). But, if they could be friends for life, she and Henry, it would be like owning something wonderful, an enviably beautiful house in the country, or a lovely boat. Or jewels. And no one will ever quite understand the nature of their friendship, hers with Henry; there will be false rumors, suspicious speculation, as over the years they are so often seen together, lunching in the Oak Room, laughing together in the corners of large parties—even, on rare occasions, dining together, Potter having been called away to Chicago, or somewhere on business. Or maybe Potter could even be in a hospital, with some tiny minor operation, a hernia or something safe like that.

Perhaps tonight, as they dance, Henry will ask her out for lunch, and she will say, Yes, I’d love to, are you fond of the Oak Room, as I am?

There have been times, since her marriage and their move to New York, when Lavinia has experienced moments of discouragement
with the accoutrements of her life, moments at which she has perceived her own apartment as discouragingly similar to those of her friends. They all live on the upper East Side; their rooms all are filled with family antiques, plus a few bold “contemporary” touches, here a Noguchi lamp, there an Eames chair. And everywhere a similar weight of wedding presents, the silver or crystal ashtrays, Paul Revere bowls, pewter cocktail shakers. And at such bad moments even their friends have seemed remarkably alike, and unoriginal. For some reason all the wives are blond, or almost; they all went to Vassar or Wellesley or Smith—Lavinia’s having gone to Radcliffe is a little outré, in many eyes. The men all wear Brooks clothes, perhaps an occasional fling at J. Press or Chips, a wild pink shirt. They all work in law firms or brokerage houses. (She wonders: what kind of parties do Janet Cohen and Adam Marr go to, and where?)

On the night after her lunch with Megan, however, Lavinia’s contentment with her apartment and her friends seems at least for the moment restored. Hers is the most truly elegant apartment of them all; the graceful effect of her (real) Louis Seize chairs is not marred by anything clumsy, Jacobean. And she and Potter are the only couple to have a Robsjohn-Gibbings dining room table.

And, as for friends, what other young woman has a friend like Henry Stuyvesant, who is standing just now beside that Robsjohn-Gibbings table, where the drinks are?

Henry looks across at her, at Lavinia, and he smiles. He takes off his glasses, and winks! as though he has understood everything that she has been thinking, all her plan. Without glasses his eyes are very beautiful, Lavinia again observes. So dark and thick-lashed, almost like a woman’s eyes, and so intelligent.

Hours later, though, late that night, Lavinia’s bright mood has entirely dissolved; she can barely remember any earlier optimistic hours, ever.

For one thing, they are not dancing at LaRue, they are listening to
jazz,
at some place way down in the Village—all the fault of that stingy George Wharton, whom Lavinia has decided that she
despises. The Village and this jazz place were George’s idea, and of course that dopey red-haired ugly Connie went along. “We can go to La Rue any time,” George Wharton said. “Jackson’s playing down at the Vanguard, let’s go hear him.” And tacky George also suggested a spaghetti dinner first, at some downtown place. (Well, maybe the Whartons are not really rich?)

And so, a dumb dinner over checked tablecloths, even sawdust on the floor—so utterly cornball. Candles dripping wax onto rivulets of more colored wax, down the sides of huge wine bottles, just like that tacky place in Cambridge that certain people (Megan) always thought was so terrific. The Oxford Grill.

And for some reason everyone was seated next to their husband—and so Henry Stuyvesant, with his silly date, some young deb, was not even at Lavinia’s table. There she was, next to Potter, with her terrible private thoughts.

And now this ghastly jazz place, where the Negro with the trombone is practically blasting them all out of their seats.

It is the sort of place that Megan probably comes to, Lavinia thinks, and she looks around apprehensively, as though Megan really might be there (Megan twice in one day would be much more than she could bear). She sees a lot of college kids, and some older couples, not very attractive. But fortunately not Megan.

However, having Megan so much on her mind gives Lavinia an idea. Leaning across the table to where George Wharton sits, with ugly Connie, quite audibly she shouts, above the pounding music, “Oh, George, I had lunch with a very dear old friend of yours today,” with one of her smiles.

“Oh?” Mean-faced Connie looks inquiringly at her husband.

“Megan Greene, of course. Such a career girl, and you wouldn’t believe how thin she’s got. You wouldn’t know her, but on the other hand I guess
you
would.”

“Megan?” Stupid George is actually blushing, as, ridiculously, Connie asks him, “Who is Megan Greene?”

“Now, George,” Lavinia begins to lecture, but at that moment the loud music gets even louder, a long crescendo, as though that awful black man were purposely drowning her out.

Did Megan and George Wharton ever actually, uh, do it?
Lavinia considers that possibility through the next few long passages of music. George looked so miserably embarrassed at the mention of Megan’s name (so gratifying: that should teach him not to make everyone have cheap Italian food, and listen to this God-awful music). And, did Megan really do it with all those men, the way everyone said she did? Where there’s smoke there’s fire, but still, Lavinia isn’t as sure as she would like to be. At that moment an ugly, unbidden image has entered Lavinia’s mind, of Megan, naked, and as fat as she used to be, with a dark naked man on top of her, pumping into her, battering, with his huge, uh, thing. Lavinia closes her eyes against this hideous vision.

Then, to dispel what she sees, she opens her eyes as wide as she can, and finds herself staring into the eyes of that trombone player, Jackson something, who is smiling—Christ, smiling directly at her, and singing,
to her,
“You are my baby, you my sweetest darling little baby”—
right at her.

Horrible! Intolerable! He should be arrested. In Washington, D.C., he probably would be, for looking at her like that.

Lavinia jerks her head around, and the nightmare in which she finds herself increases as she sees that Henry Stuyvesant is not even looking at her (not with the knowledge, the understanding that could save her life); he is looking at his date, some silly black-haired girl who looks (why didn’t Lavinia notice this before?) very Irish. Henry and that Irish girl are laughing, talking; with so much noise, that horrible trombone, it is impossible to make out what they are saying.

Saying nothing to anyone, and not even excusing herself (why bother? no one could hear her) Lavinia gets up and gropes her way through the noisy, crowded darkness, toward the ladies’ room, which turns out to be as dirty as she had feared.

She throws up into the toilet.

Not feeling better, Lavinia is washing her face when Connie Wharton comes into the room, of all people she did not want to see. Connie, with her mean little pale blue eyes, who will undoubtedly ask some dumb girlish question about Megan.

Connie does not; she barely smiles, and she rushes into the toilet stall, as Lavinia fleetingly observes that Connie looks even
worse than she, Lavinia, did (but then of course she began looking worse). Obviously something was wrong with the food, at that crummy Italian place.

But it seems only polite to wait for Connie, who might need help.

Emerging, Connie again just barely smiles, as Lavinia says something about spaghetti, a poisoned sauce.

At which Connie turns on her and says, “It’s not the food. Don’t be so dumb, Lavinia. I’ve had much too much to drink. Surely that must be apparent, even to you? But I can only say that if you were married to George Wharton you’d drink a lot too.”

Lavinia murmurs something about being sorry—though precisely for what she would not have been able to say.

Seeming suddenly to feel a great deal better, Connie breaks into a smile, showing all her teeth and even further narrowing her little pig eyes (or so Lavinia perceives Connie’s face). “Don’t be sorry,” Connie tells her. “You may congratulate me. I’m going to be first in our group to get a divorce. How I wish George had married your friend, Megan what’s-her-name. Tell me, Lavinia, whatever was she like?”

“Well, actually she’s one of the prettiest and the most brilliant girls I ever knew.”

Connie sniffs. “In that case the more’s the pity,” she says.

A letter from Peg Harding Sinclair, in Midland, Texas, to Megan, in New York: