Superior Women (3 page)

They stop at a bridge, and George says, “I’m always curious about what’s underneath a bridge, aren’t you?”

Underneath that particular bridge is very hard, sharply sloping ground, onto which they nevertheless fall, and kiss, and kiss.

A few days later, walking along Brattle Street, Megan experiences an extraordinary recognition: she suddenly, blindingly sees that at that moment, in the brilliant June New England air—she understands that she is perfectly happy (in a way that most people, sadly, recognize only in retrospect: Ah,
then
I was happy). Everything that Megan could possibly want is either present or is imminently possible for her, just then. The new air is distinctly not Western, it could not exist in California; the air is as novel to her as the architecture is: she deeply responds to the bright strict lines of wooden houses, so much wood and paint and sometimes silvered shingles, or softly aged, rose-colored brick, and the violet-tinted, diamond-shaped glass, in rare ancient windowpanes.

Nowhere adobe or tiles, no California stucco, painted pastel. No Bayshore Highway. No Junque!

The air and Brattle Street form her most beautiful immediate present. And Megan’s racing warm blood even suggests that George
Wharton could come to love her, and say so. And that those three girls whom she first saw in Cabot, those so-Eastern girls, whom she watches having coffee and muffins together in Hood’s might someday be her friends. (She understands that they all live in Barnard Hall, just across the way from Bertram.) At this very moment she is hurrying along Brattle Street, toward Hood’s, where they all might be.

However, on this particular day, the only one of the three who is sitting in Hood’s is Lavinia, the thinnest and blondest, the most Eastern, richest-looking—the most lovely and delicate. The kind of girl, Megan has decided, who does not even let boys kiss her, much less all the writhing and touching that she and George do, every time they see each other, ever more feverishly.

Very carefully not looking at Lavinia, Megan, who is still perfectly happy, goes over to get her coffee; she takes out a book and begins to look at French verbs—she has French next. She is thinking that George could call her tonight; at that moment even that seems possible. She smiles to herself.

Absorbed in that thought of George, Megan forgets the time; looking at her watch, she sees that she is almost late. She picks up her books and is about to hurry out when from behind her she hears herself addressed, a light voice saying, “Well, good morning, Bertram Hall.”

She turns to find Lavinia, teasingly smiling, saying, “Oh! you’re always in just the biggest hurry!” Her accent is faintly Southern—sometimes.

Megan grins, feeling heat in her face. “I guess so,” she says.

Lavinia asks, “What do you have next?”

“French.”

“Oh. I have Gov.”

And so, within minutes Lavinia and Megan are walking up toward Harvard Square, they are circling Brattle Street, passing the Coop, and crossing through traffic, over and into the Yard. Anyone seeing them would take them for good friends, the two of them, chattering as they walk.

“You look to me as though you came from some place really far away,” Lavinia observes, at some point along their walk. She has narrowed her eyes, as though her observation had been profound.

Megan says, “California. Palo Alto, actually. It’s fairly near San Francisco.”

“Ah, you see? I could tell—I know all about you, Bertram.” Lavinia laughs provocatively.

“Oh, you do?” Eager, ungraceful Megan.

But Lavinia is leaving her, Lavinia is going into Harvard Hall, for Gov. She smiles delicately as she says, “Well, see you later, Bertram.”

“Oh, yes. See you.” Megan is left dizzy in the sun, and just slightly less happy than before.

Why is it, almost from that day of meeting at Hood’s, that Lavinia quite aggressively invites the friendship of Megan—why does Lavinia so clearly seek her out? On the surface, as friends they seem a very unlikely combination: tall thin blond, impeccably expensively dressed Lavinia—and plump dark Megan, in her slightly wrong California clothes. And, as the two girls do indeed become friends, it often occurs to Megan that other girls must find their friendship strange, especially those who themselves would like to be friends of Lavinia’s.

Lavinia, if asked, could easily explain; she would simply and quite emphatically say that Megan is one of the most brilliant people she has ever met. Megan has read everything; her term papers come back with invariable A’s and flattering professorial comments. (Actually, perhaps surprisingly, Lavinia herself has a remarkably high IQ; in those numerical terms the two girls are identical.) Before Radcliffe, Lavinia went to a Southern boarding
school (it is not true, as Megan at first imagined, that Lavinia and Peg and Cathy were all at school together); at that school, as well as being the prettiest girl, Lavinia was also by far the brightest, as well as the most formidably sophisticated. She enjoyed her position, all that devout praise from wondering teachers, themselves generally “unattractive” (a frequent word of Lavinia’s, of course; one of the many that she generally sets off in quotes, for a special, private emphasis)—“unattractive” and nowhere near as bright as Lavinia. But Lavinia was often bored silly, at that school. She welcomes the intelligence and the wit of Megan, and of Peg and Cathy too, who are both, in their separate ways, also very smart.

A deeper reason for Lavinia’s seeking her out, which Megan only comes to understand much later, is that Lavinia has two and only two patterns of serious friendship with women. Her first and most usual kind of friend is a not-very-attractive (as opposed to “unattractive”), somewhat maternal sort of girl, Peg being the perfect example, although of course there were others, quite as perfect in their ways as Peg. The other kind of friend is pretty,
attractive,
also bright, but sexy,
wild.
Lavinia’s wild friend at boarding school, Kitty, was finally thrown out, having been discovered in a “compromising position” (how Lavinia relished that phrase!) with a boy from St. Christopher’s (“We both had our pants down, it was really terrific,” Kitty reported to Lavinia) in the chapel of the school, an episode much enjoyed by Lavinia, all around. Actually, although less apparently, Lavinia’s own sexual impulses are also wild, strong and imperative, but her deepest nature is intensely conservative; appearances are almost everything for beautiful Lavinia.

Many years after college, still puzzling over it all, Megan wonders if maybe, at first, Lavinia could have chosen her, Megan, as another in her line of exploited maternal friends, perhaps equating fat with motherliness, as people frequently, so mistakenly will. It would have been only later, as they began to talk, that Lavinia recognized Megan as the wild and sexual sort of friend, the kind whose sexuality would get her into various forms of trouble—whereas sexy Lavinia just liked to hear about others’ escapades.

•     •     •

Peg’s function in Lavinia’s life was absolutely clear, even in those earliest days. Peg mothers Lavinia, in a jolly, masochistic way. And sometimes she scolds, as mothers will: “Lavinia, you’ve gone and lost four boxes of my bobbypins already this month.” (Bobbypins: in those war years a valuable commodity.) And so Peg jokes, the tiredest, heaviest joke of all by now: “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” (Actually it could of course be said that none of them do.)

The connection between Cathy and Lavinia is less clear to Megan, beyond the fact that Cathy has simply fallen prey to Lavinia’s powerful charm, as everyone does.

One afternoon, in August of that first Cambridge summer, Megan walks that short distance from Bertram Hall to Barnard; that morning in Hood’s, Lavinia, there alone, has said, “You never come to see me! You just stay stuck over there in Bertram all the time. But I’ll bet you have some terrific night life going on, now don’t you, little Megan?”

Megan blushes. Could Lavinia know about George, or has she just made a wild and accurate guess? But the fact is that Lavinia would find it very unlikely that Megan would “have someone.” Megan instantly grasps this, and uncomfortably she realizes that she is being teased, and not kindly.

Barnard Hall, where she has not been before, feeling not invited, is considerably bigger than Bertram, and probably newer. The girl at the switchboard (this duty is passed about; it is called being on bells), says to Megan, “Oh, they’re all up on the fourth floor.”

And so Megan begins to climb up the wide, dead-white brown-banistered stairs.

And the first person she sees, at the top of the stairs, is small Janet Cohen, sitting out there alone, smoking, a heavy book across her blue-jeaned knees.

In the split second before they greet each other, Megan sees that for an instant Janet has believed herself to be the object of the visit. Just as quickly, and as visibly, Janet sees that she is not. I might have known you wouldn’t come over here just to see me, is what Janet’s second expression says.

But, “Well, how’ve you been?” they both say, warmly, and at precisely the same instant. And, as a muttered afterthought, Megan adds, “I told Lavinia I might come by.”

“
Oh.
” That is all that Janet says, but her sharp upward look continues a sentence: Oh, you’re friends with
them
?

“I don’t really know them very well,” Megan has felt it necessary to explain. And then, “What’re you reading?”

Janet shows her. Dos Passos,
U.S.A.

“Adam gives me these reading lists,” Janet proudly explains, and complains, “Honestly, it’s all I can do—”

“I’d love to read it, when you’re through,” says Megan. “Maybe I could borrow—”

“Oh sure, I’ll be through in a week or so. I read a lot every night, since of course I don’t go out.”

“Oh—” Megan has suddenly remembered that she has Janet to thank for having urged her to call George. “Oh, I did what you said, I called that guy I know at Harvard Med. Remember I told you, and I didn’t want to call?”

“You did? That’s wonderful! You see him a lot?” Janet is beaming, and her instantaneous vicarious pleasure is so warm and true that Megan is tempted to lie and to say, Yes, we see each other all the time, and it’s wonderful, we’re really in love. But some quality in Janet precludes such lies, and so in a wry way Megan (honestly) says, “Well, sometimes it’s wonderful, sort of.”

Janet laughs, perhaps because she recognizes just that wry sadness as a frequent mood of her own; and the two young women part on that note, having exchanged a warm smile of mutual recognition.

“Well, see you later,” they both say, as Janet lights another cigarette and Megan pushes through the wide swinging doors that lead to the open hall, the top floor of Barnard.

Lavinia’s room is at the farthest end, Megan has been told, and she walks that echoing distance with something akin to stage fright: of course this is just a casual visit, but will she behave quite casually enough? For instance, what will she do if Lavinia isn’t there? Suppose there is only Cathy, or Peg; how could she explain having come over at all?

But Lavinia is there, with Cathy. The door is open, and Megan sees them sitting close together on what must be Lavinia’s bed. And they are both in the robes in which Megan originally saw them, in the smoking room at Cabot, Lavinia’s bedraggled white satin and lace, Cathy’s red wool.

Seeing Megan, Lavinia jumps up and comes to the door; she greets Megan as though she, Lavinia, were wearing something very elegant, or at least a clean, untattered robe. “Well, here’s our little Megan! You came to see us! We’ll have to make tea. Wicked Cathy, you go on down to Peglet’s room and borrow some tea bags.”

Cathy, not glad to see Megan, mutters that she thinks Peg is out doing archery.

“Just take them, then, and some of those really good cookies her mother sent. The chocolate chip. Megan will love them, I can tell.” Megan is given a complicitous smile as Cathy leaves; and Lavinia confides, with a small laugh, “Cathy was
very
naughty last night. On her very first date, with a brand-new boy, in the ROTC. The good Lord is punishing her with a terrible hangover.” She laughs again, very gently, as though to prove a lack of real malice.

Some of Lavinia’s hair is up in pin curls, and there are traces of cold cream around her eyes, but still, despite all that, despite the untidy robe, her presence is impressive. Also, scrupulously analyzed, Lavinia’s features are not actually beautiful; she simply gives a strong impression of beauty. Her hair is not blond but an ashy color, an ashen light brown; her large gray eyes are too close together, and her nose a shade too large. Her upper lip is short, and her chin rather long, almost a Habsburg chin. Her skin is fine but uniformly white, too pale. She is very thin, with small breasts and long narrow feet.

Lavinia knows what she looks like. “Actually I’m not at all prettier than you are,” she is to say, to Megan. “We just have opposite defects. I’m too thin, and you’re a little plump. I’m flat-chested, and you’re—you’re ‘overendowed.’ My skin is dry, yours isn’t. And my feet are too big, and too narrow for most shoes.”

However, although it has a sound of reason, even of fairness, this diagnosis fails to cheer or even to convince Megan. Only years later is she able to diagnose its basic fallacy, which is that the
defects Lavinia mentions as her own are quite acceptable—are classy, “aristocratic,” even. Of course it is preferable to be too thin, and to have dry skin rather than a face that perpetually shines and is often red, not to mention a tendency to bumps. And small breasts surely suggest greater refinement than large ones do. And what could be more regal than a long, narrow, high-arched foot?

Lavinia has a carefully, delicately nurtured air about her; her look is ethereal, and certainly nonsexual. Whereas Megan looks strong, and clearly sexual. She sees herself as a peasant, in contrast to Lavinia.

Cathy comes back into the room, and Megan thinks how
punished
she looks; wicked or not, Cathy looks miserable. Her pale skin is mottled, as though on the verge of breaking out, and her eyes are clouded. Megan feels a surge of sympathy for Cathy which is almost as strong as her curiosity as to what really happened. How awful Cathy must feel, and obviously does feel—but what exactly did she do, with the boy from the ROTC, besides just drinking too much?