Superior Women (27 page)

Surprising they are still such good friends, really—Megan and Adam and Janet have not seen each other for over a year, the last time being a not terribly successful encounter at an after-theater party, at someone’s hyperchic upper East Side apartment. Adam was drunk, and noisily abusive to almost everyone there; he was taking them all on, and perhaps in self-defense Janet got drunk too, and sick. Megan felt worse than out of place; she was wretchedly sorry that she had come at all. In what she had thought was a good new dress, she was somehow never introduced to anyone, and still too shy to do much about introducing herself. She felt nearly invisible—an unwilling witness to an ugly scene.

This weekend, then, is to make amends for that admittedly bad evening, and for the lapse of time since. (Adam even wrote an apologetic letter, out of character for him, but it was funny and bright and very warm, making fun of himself as a novice drunk, “an arriviste mick,” he said.)

Crossing the porch, Megan still sees no one around, and she wonders: could they possibly be away?
Could
she have come on the wrong weekend? Almost wishing that this would turn out to be
the case, she goes up to the bright white front door; she lifts and lets fall the heavy gleaming brass knocker.

The door opens, and she is confronted with an enormous white starched apron, really immense; for a moment the apron is all that Megan sees. Also, the woman wearing the apron is so black it is hard to see her face, in that cavernous, shadowed entrance hall. Automatically introducing herself, Megan also extends her hand, but then as quickly retracts it, having registered the stark contempt on the other woman’s face.

The black woman says, “They was expecting you. I’ll take your bag,” and she snatches it from Megan’s hand, and begins a slow march toward the staircase.

Clearly Megan is supposed to follow, and she starts to do so, but suddenly, swooshing down the banister of those impressive stairs there comes a small boy who plummets to her feet. It is Aron, of course, much taller and thinner than a year ago, with Janet’s dark pretty face.

He squats there on the floor near Megan’s feet, looking up at her, not smiling.

She is not sure how to approach him, being unused to children, and generally shy with them. She says, “Hi, Aron.”

Aron smiles; it is Janet’s sweet tentative smile. He stretches his head toward her, and then he bites her leg, fairly hard, so that Megan cries out, “Jesus!”

“
Aron!
Aron, goddamn it, I’ve told you—” It is Janet, from the top of the stairs, then running down them and just not colliding with the big black woman, who has not even turned around during Megan’s exchange with Aron, but who now says, “You, Aron. You come on upstairs with me.”

“Oh, thank you, Elvira, how good of you,” Janet says, all in a rush, and then, “Oh, Megan, I’m so sorry, honestly, what a welcome.”

But Aron has begun to scream, and so most of what Janet says is lost.

Janet picks him up. (How strong she is, Megan thinks; small Janet—and he is kicking.) She hands him up to Elvira, who is coming down the stairs toward them, scowling.

“Megan, you met Elvira?” Janet asks. Elvira’s scowl deepens, as she turns to Megan, presumably in acknowledgment. “Elvira saves my life,” says Janet, and, to Aron, “Aron, you can do some fingerpaints till dinnertime.”

Janet is in her old familiar blue jeans and an old shirt, but in these odd circumstances, this White Plains mansion, with a big black maid and a small biting child, she still looks strange and unfamiliar to Megan.

The two women kiss a little awkwardly, and Janet asks, “Do you want to go up to your room? Oh no, let’s have a cigarette first. God, doesn’t that sound familiar?” She laughs as she leads Megan into a small, rather dark room; leaded windows, diamond-paned, do not supply much light.

The furniture there too is dark and stiff, small-scaled; Megan supposes that they bought the furniture along with the house, they cannot have chosen such stuff. The walls are lined with glassed-in bookcases, and the books are old and dark, leather-bound, and probably unread. Megan and Janet sit down on a sofa that feels like horsehair.

“
Shit,
where are my cigarettes?” Janet reaches into her pockets.

“Here, I have some.”

In a familiar way they light up, draw in. They lean back.

“I just feel so terrible about that biting,” Janet says. “He does it all the time. He bites anyone, but especially any new person. It’s so embarrassing at the playground, his biting the other children. The mothers scream, and one old cunt even said something about tetanus shots. Honestly.”

“It really didn’t hurt,” is all that Megan can think of to say, which is not quite true: small Adam has very sharp teeth, that is clear. “I was mostly surprised,” she adds.

“It makes me feel so terrible,” repeats Janet, hopelessly. And then, in a pondering way, “It’s as though I’d bitten someone myself, you know? I feel guilty in just the same way.” She stares at Megan, with the inward look of someone digesting a remarkable piece of self-knowledge.

Megan ventures, “Don’t mothers always feel guilty about what their kids do?” Sinkingly (selfishly) she hopes that they are not
going to spend much of the weekend in long talks about Aron, Aron’s “problems.”

“Not this guilty,” Janet assures her. “I must really be identified with him, in some very sick way. I wonder if I should call Dr. Bilding. We’re seeing a psychiatrist, of course, Aron and I.” She has brought this out in a brave, somewhat defiant voice. “Of course Aron thinks he’s just a friend that we go to see.”

“Oh, really?” is all that Megan can think of to say to this.

“But why would he bite
you
?” Janet muses; it was not a question. “I mean, if he’s acting out for me. I’m sure I don’t want to bite you. I have almost no hostile feelings toward you, I’m almost sure.”

“Oh,
Janet.
” In spite of herself Megan has begun to laugh, Janet having finally sounded too ridiculous.

For a moment, with a tiny frown, Janet stares at her, and then with a giggle she says, “Oh, you’re right! It gets crazy, it all goes around in a circle—” She giggles again, until she begins to cough, turning red and choking a little, with tears in her eyes.

They are both still laughing when from outside the house comes the sudden, violent noise of a fast-raced car, crushing crushed rocks, unbelievably loud; it could be heading right into the house, from the sound of it.

Immediately sobering, Janet exclaims, “Oh fuck, that’s Adam. And Jesus, I’m not even dressed, or
anything.
”

She gets to her feet, and for a minute Megan believes that Janet means to rush upstairs, to start dressing or whatever she feels that she was supposed to be doing. But something prevents her (it could have been an expression on Megan’s face); she sits down again, saying, “Well,
shit.
I’ve had a busy day too.” But in an agitated way she reaches for Megan’s Chesterfields; she extracts and lights another cigarette.

Adam is somewhat heavier but splendidly turned out, in blue blazer and bright regimental-striped tie. He bursts into the small dark room, exuding energy; almost simultaneously he manages to scowl at Janet and to turn an enormous grin on Megan, like a searchlight.

By custom Adam and Megan do not kiss. Instead he hits her on the shoulder, with a force that implies affection, some possible
sexual challenge, and a disciplinary sternness, a keeping of Megan in her place. The grin makes his eyes seem to slant downward at their outer corners, giving him a warm-clown look, although even grinning his mouth is tautly controlled.

“Christ, Janet, you’re not even dressed, and it’s almost dinner,” he shouts. And then, “Old fat Megan, but shit, you’re thin, you’ve lost your boobs. Go
home,
why do you think I invited you here, you dumb cunt?”

Megan finds herself grinning foolishly in turn, in sheer unreasoning affection; she simply likes Adam, even his outrageousness—despite a number of negative judgments.

“Where’s the kid?” Adam then asks Janet, but he turns to Megan before Janet can answer, saying, “You met my son the Jewish intellectual? He’s planning to grow up and persecute me. His father the mick. He’s just like his mother, a chip off the old cunt.” Another grin, this one a little mean, as he turns back to Janet.

She tells him, “Aron bit Megan.”

“Well, if that isn’t cute. Or is it what you and that high-priced headshrinker call oral aggression? Which of course he must get from me, I’m a very orally aggressive person. Anally too, as a matter of fact. And
phallic.
Honestly, Megan, old fellow mick, the amount of Jewish bullshit that goes on in this house, it’s enough to choke a horse.” All that was said half-jocularly, Adam in performance. In a more direct and serious way he addresses Janet, “They’ve got dinner under way in the kitchen? They know we’ll be eight?”

“Eight? But I thought—”

“I know I said seven. But I think Sheila’s coming by later.”

Janet looks at Adam, and seems to flush. Limply she says, “Oh.”

“Well, old Megan, how do you like this spread?” Adam asks then—a rhetorical question. “Isn’t it something? Did you see Elvira? The most hostile living nigger. A single-handed revenge on white exploitation. She may lead the revolution. I think she’s good for Aron, a living lesson in the true nature of womanhood.” And then, “Some old friends of yours are coming for dinner. You remember Price, and Lucy? And someone you wouldn’t know, but he’s just getting big in state politics. Henry Stuyvesant. He’s bringing
a rather dull woman, though, rich broad named Connie something, I don’t know why he sees her.”

Having been put off by his name—she assumed him to be one of the new “social” people with whom Adam is increasingly involved—too tall, nearsighted Henry Stuyvesant is a pleasant surprise to Megan. He seems instantly likable, kind and intelligent, a little shy, slightly awkward. And if he is rich, or social, those are not important facts about him, as they surely were with George Wharton, or even more with Lavinia’s husband, Potter Cobb (of course).

Connie Winsor Wharton is another sort of surprise, however. Having assumed considerable beauty, Megan is startled by her carrot-red hair, tiny pale blue eyes, and thin-lipped, unpretty mouth. (
Why
? an insistent voice within Megan cries out, startlingly, after so much time; why did George choose her?)

Striving for charity (people can’t help how they look, or not entirely), Megan watches Connie, observing her as closely as she can, without appearing to spy. And she concludes that Connie is a perfectly nice, unattractive, perfectly ordinary woman. She is rich, of course, her voice is loud and somewhat rude, in the way of the very rich. But George probably knew a lot of very rich girls. And Megan wonders: could it have been Connie’s very ordinariness that he found so appealing? Are some men put off by extremes of intelligence or even attractiveness in women—put off by superior women? This is a new thought, highly puzzling, unwelcome, and difficult to digest. And it is true; she is quite sure of that.

Henry Stuyvesant is on Megan’s right; on her left is Price Christopher, who tells her that he has left law school for business school, a move which he seems to find it necessary to explain and excuse to Megan. Actually she does not care in the least; she thinks, For all of me he could have switched to anthropology, although of course he never would—no money in it.

But, “Lawyers are really out for the big bucks in a very twisted, covert way,” Price tells her. “Businessmen are simply more honest. Anyway, this Cold War is going to end in the big blast, and if
anyone survives it’s not going to be some Village idealist, now is it. Of course I don’t mean you, dear Megan. It’s going to be the really rich, and that’s just what I’ve got in mind for myself. All the way on the Scotch and lobster train.”

Lucy, who (of course) seems to be a good friend of Connie’s, is looking at Price and Megan with an expression which Megan finds difficult to read, but surely not pride? Megan is thinking that he must be somewhat drunk, or did he always sound so simpleminded? And, perhaps Lucy has heard this so often that she no longer cares? she is (happily for her) quite deaf to Price?

In any case, Lucy has made the transition from being a very pretty girl to a beautiful woman. Her fair hair is long and smooth, her dark translucent eyes serene. It then occurs to Megan that perhaps Lucy was brought up to believe that once married one does not have to pay much attention to one’s husband. Not expecting much of marriage by way of companionship, much less rapport, such women can probably remain serenely married forever, to almost anyone.

The first course having come and gone (served by a young man even crosser and blacker than Elvira is), Adam rises to his feet. Picking up an opened bottle of red wine, with a great flourish he pours a large splash out on the spanking-clean white linen tablecloth. “Now, no one who spills will feel any shame!” he shouts. “And as the Jews say, enjoy!”

Not knowing quite how to respond, herself, Megan checks out reactions around the table. Janet looks mildly embarrassed, although surely Adam has done that before? It did not look quite spontaneous. Henry Stuyvesant too looks a little taken aback. Both Connie Wharton and Lucy Christopher look simply surprised; they can barely believe that
any
one would
do
such a thing. Only Price laughs, and he claps enthusiastically. And, out of some dim sense that Adam’s gesture has not gone over well, that he needs help, Megan too gives a feeble clap.

Price is muttering in her direction. “What an idiot, isn’t he. I love to watch him making an ass of himself.”

Megan stares, not sure that she has heard him right.

As Price goes on to ask, “I suppose you know all the news about your old pal Danny?”

“Well no, I haven’t heard anything. He doesn’t write.” But the mention of Danny at that moment seems cheering, to Megan; for an instant his blithe, graceful presence is restored to her.

“
Well,
” Price for some reason has begun to whisper. “You know that he’s in London, and he’s living with—–!”