Superior Women (31 page)

After the foothills is a pleasant area of farmland: heavy white fences that surround cropped green pastures, large prosperous white
houses. And then with no warning they come to the sea: flat blue and shining, lapping against coarse gray sand, against barnacled rocks. In the warm summer air the scents of salt and fish are strong, wafted on a light wind.

“This was really a good idea, don’t you think?” asks Megan, tentatively, as Cathy turns left, heading south and down the coast.

“I guess,” says Cathy.

“My life in New York has been so crazy lately,” Megan tells her; is she explaining the unease that she feels now with Cathy, trying to blame it on New York?

“Really? Mine too, I guess,” is Cathy’s laconic contribution.

“I had a really insane weekend up in White Plains with Janet Cohen. Marr.” Cathy’s enclosed silence is making Megan babble, she realizes, and she wonders if this has always been the case, that she talked so much with Cathy for the very reason that Cathy said so little. In any case, she begins to tell Cathy all about the White Plains weekend.

Part of the craziness was that Adam Marr was present, and Megan soon understood from Janet that this was often the case. Divorced from Janet, and now married to Sheila, Adam still, quite often, arrived for weekends in White Plains—and if Sheila minded she was never heard from to that effect.

“I can’t exactly not let him come up,” was Janet’s explanation. “You know, because of Aron. And besides, I guess I still do care about Adam, in certain ways. I worry about him. This sounds silly, but I think he’s changing into someone I don’t quite know, and it’s as though I’m trying to stop him.”

“I see what you mean,” agreed Megan, not quite seeing.

“I think he’s a little nuts,” Janet added, and then, flushing: “He thinks we should have another child. Together.
Really.
”

“But Janet, Jesus, that’s outrageous.”

“Of course it is. Adam is outrageous, that’s his shtick.” But Janet sighed in an affectionate way.

Megan considered the implications of this preposterous idea: First, did Janet mean that she and Adam still went to bed together,
well, fucked, as Adam would put it, when he spent weekends with her in White Plains? Probably she did mean just that. And Megan further thinks, How can Janet, after the cruel way that Adam left her?

Not wanting to say that, of course not, Megan asked instead the most reasonable question that came into her mind. “But suppose you get into med school?” Janet had told her earlier that she had applied at Yale. “You can’t have another child, not now.”

“Oh, I know. The last thing I need is a baby. But Adam has this obsession about having kids.”

“Let him have children with Sheila, then.”

“He doesn’t seem to want to, or maybe she can’t? She is so thin.”

Megan snorted. “He doesn’t want Negro kids?”

“Oh no, you know Adam’s not like that.”

“I think Adam’s seriously crazy,” said Megan, seriously.

“I really hope I get into med school.” Janet’s voice was plaintive. “That would solve almost everything.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will.” Supportive Megan.

This conversation took place on the house’s narrow porch, in the long summer dusk, before dinner. Adam had gone off somewhere with Aron, announcing that they were coming back with lobster for dinner, and that some other people would be coming too. He would take care of everything, he said, in an arrogant way that implied that only he
could
take care of everything. Listening, absorbing, Megan thought, He’s really a fascist, where women are concerned. (The very idea of Janet having another child, with him!)

And that night at dinner it was exactly as though Adam still lived there; he had in no way given up his territory. Sheila, as a fact, was much less present than she had been on the night when she was so visibly anticipated by Adam; if Adam thought of her now, he did not say so. He was too busy with his party.

By midnight the rooms were all crowded, people had seemingly drifted in from everywhere, in their flashing foreign cars. The din in the house was cacophonous: people shouting and laughing harshly, too loud, somewhere records playing, hard rock. And
everywhere a lot of smoke, clouds of grayish, yellowish smoke, scents of marijuana. Smells of spilled drinks and too much perfume. The sort of party at which everyone screams at once, and all the clothes are much too bright.

Almost all the guests were celebrities, of one sort or another. Very public people: Megan could pick out many of the faces, actors and actresses, famous directors, blockbuster writers. What later came to be known as media people.

Scattered here and there were a few exceptionally pretty young women, nonactresses, to whom no one paid the slightest attention. They were unknowns, and no one had time for them, that night. As Megan explained to Cathy, the party was all about ambition, various forms of self-promotion; it was the least sexy party she had ever been to.

But Adam loved it, every frantic heightened pulsing minute of his party. He was a famous person, among other famous people, and his awareness of success, of arrival, made him raucously jovial, loudly and quite impersonally friendly to everyone—so that Megan wondered if he and she actually were friends, any longer.

She was slightly disappointed not to find Henry Stuyvesant there again, they could have talked, she thought. But she recognized that Henry was in most ways the direct opposite of these people, a quietly thoughtful person, rather shy, she thought.

Another thing very much on Megan’s mind, as she and Cathy speed south on the flat coastal highway, is the fact that the publishing house for which Megan works has just been acquired by a Texas oil conglomerate. And she tells Cathy all about this too.

Every day, at work, the lesser editors, the salesmen, and the secretaries were assured by the senior editors that this will make no difference; the house will maintain its high literary standards, high quality, etcetera. It will make no difference.

“Which of course is a patent lie,” as Biff put it to Megan. “Of course it will make a difference. Frankly I find it ominous as hell.
But besides being basically lazy, I am also basically a whore, and so I will stay on. But you, dearest Megan—truly, I think you might think about a move. Much as I personally would deplore it.”

“Oh, I am thinking. Seriously. But for me there’s the problem of women never becoming senior editors anywhere, anyway.”

“That is absolutely true.” Biff sighed heavily, his whole small body sagging with dismay. “Oh, but I can see the writing on the wall. You’ll leave, and you’ll be a terrific success somewhere else, and then who on earth will I talk to? No more laughs, no one else around who
reads.
”

“You’re probably wrong. Where on earth would I go? You know that all the other houses are just as bad, in their ways. But why don’t we leave together?”

“Holding hands and skipping along, like some comedy team? Well, that’s an adorable idea—but just perhaps not.”

But then a couple of days later, and not quite coincidentally, Megan had lunch with a literary agent, Barbara Blumenthal, whom she has liked and admired for some time. Barbara is a very successful woman, who manages at the same to be quite simply
nice
(or, perhaps her niceness is not simple at all). In the course of the lunch Barbara suggested that Megan might come to work for her. (Barbara has heard of the big oil takeover; she heard of almost everything first.) Barbara mentioned a handsome salary, plus percentages and commissions.

Some odd fate must have been at work, at just that moment, Megan thought: in the instant when Barbara had finished making her offer, across the fancy restaurant she, Megan, looked up and saw Lavinia—Lavinia out to lunch with a young blond woman who looked rather like herself, both so carefully, expensively gloved and coiffed, bejeweled. Catching sight of Megan, Lavinia smiled brightly and waved. But Megan could feel Lavinia taking in Barbara, could see Lavinia’s quick appraising glance, and could almost from across the room read Lavinia’s mind, her summation of Barbara: a real career woman, Jewish, looks aggressive, overweight, her suit needs pressing. Which of course would leave out almost everything of importance concerning Barbara.

Aware that her attention had wandered (when it perhaps
should not have), Megan explained, “That’s an old friend of mine from college. I don’t see her very much anymore though. You know how that goes.”

Surprisingly Barbara commented, “She looks so much older than you do.”

“Really? Beautiful Lavinia? Actually we both turn thirty this year—she already has, I guess.”

“She looks so much more—more rigid than you do. More set in her ways.”

“Well, I guess she is.” Understandably pleased, Megan smiled.

Barbara inhaled, then stubbed out the long cigarette. “I’ve got to stop this,” she said. “I cough.” And then, “Take a lot of time, Megan dear, but please give me some thought. I think you’d like the business.”

And so on the extraordinarily beautiful coastal drive, sitting beside silent, opaque Cathy, there is a great deal for Megan to think about: Janet and Adam. Her job. Biff. Barbara Blumenthal. And the rest of her life.

She observes with something approaching shock that not a single one of her concerns at this moment has to do with a love affair, not even remotely. She has not seen Jackson Clay for, dear God, a couple of years; there has been no one else. A few months back she had lunch with her old friend former section man Simon Jacoby, now married to Phyllis and working in his father-in-law’s investment firm, and Simon suggested that it might be nice if they “saw each other a little more.” But Megan said no, she was just too busy, just now.

She tells Cathy a great deal of what she is thinking, and is unable to resist adding, “Can you imagine? Barbara Blumenthal thinks I look younger than Lavinia does. I have to admit, I was sort of pleased when she said that.”

“Well, of course you were pleased.” With a visible but honest effort Cathy adds, “I think probably you do. To me you look about seventeen.”

•     •     •

The Mission Inn, where Megan and Cathy have chosen to stay, is at the farthest, southern end of town, past the English cuteness of the shopping area, and the expensive, dangerously dramatic houses that perch out on the rocks, above the violent sea.

The Inn itself is rather shabby, low-key: a cluster of cottages, overlooking a pleasant meadow of wild flowrers, where horses amble about and graze. A slow river winds through the meadow to the sea, where there is a wide sandy beach, at the river’s mouth. Families picnic there with their dogs and children; they swim in the river or in the sea, which is bright and cold.

All this is visible from the little cottages: the meadow, with its flowers and grazing horses, some cows, and the river. The bathers and picnickers, dogs, and the sea. And further along, the stark silhouette of Point Lobos, a cliff of sharp rocks, harsh dead trees, and large black birds, swooping down.

Megan and Cathy have the cabin that is farthest from the central lodge, closest to the meadow and the sea. There is a narrow porch, a small living room, and smaller bedroom. Tiny kitchen, tinier bath. Megan insists that Cathy take the bedroom, she will be fine on the studio couch in the living room, she says. For an instant, then, as Cathy is putting her things away, Megan strongly wishes that she were there with a lover, not with Cathy. The cabin’s very shabbiness seems to Megan highly romantic: love stripped down to its essentials—privacy, quiet, and a bed, with the further bounty of that view.

And very possibly Cathy could have just the same wish? It is impossible to tell, with her. Also loneliness of that sort is seldom if ever mentioned, in 1956—much less straight lust, a sense of sexual deprivation.

Cathy has brought along a bottle of Irish whiskey. “Actually a contribution from a friend of mine,” she explains, her mouth small and ironic. And her quick glance at Megan admits that “friend” does mean lover. The glance though also says that she does not want to talk about him, not now, and maybe never.

They have drinks on the rickety porch, seated on hard warped and rusted aluminum chairs; they watch the big horses who now lumber playfully, ludicrously, in the summer dusk, among the flowers near the river. And they talk about money.

“It’s very tempting,” says Megan, who has been speaking of the offer from Barbara Blumenthal. “I could end up rich. Biff says Barbara is really rich, although I must say she doesn’t look it. But somewhere along the line I picked up some puritanical prejudice against richness. I thought good people were poor. Which probably is true.”

“Some of us Christians tend to believe that,” says Cathy, with her small smile.

“Yes, that too.” Megan is quiet, musing, before she goes on. “And all that exposure to Lavinia certainly had its effect. Not to mention Henry James. I got the idea that being rich was a sort of state of grace, only all right if you didn’t work for it. If you have money at all you’re supposed to have inherited it.”

Cathy laughs. “But you’re tempted.”

“I really am. The truth is, I’m so tired of being broke, and that stupid old room, and old clothes. And New York, Lord, it’s so full of things to buy, it’s so tempting.”

“Even San Francisco is, these days. Not that I get up there much.” Cathy’s tone is level, hard to read.

After a small pause Megan says, “I’m very glad we came here. It’s so beautiful. And look at those silly horses.”

“They think they’re elephants.”

They laugh, and just at that moment the horses become quite still, as though suddenly self-conscious.

Cathy laughs again. “Can they possibly have heard us, do you think?”

“Well, maybe they’re especially sensitive? They felt something?”

Although Cathy is appreciably more relaxed now, with the drinks and the foolish familiar talk, to Megan she still looks and seems not well. In repose her face is pinched and sad. And it is still impossible to ask her what is wrong.

Megan wonders about the donor of the Irish whiskey, who is
presumably Cathy’s lover. And it comes to her that, of course, Cathy must be involved with a man who is married. No wonder she is upset, what a mess for Cathy to be in. Megan has seen several New York friends through such affairs, lonely girls in offices, and she thinks, Oh, poor Cathy, to go from Phil-Flash to a sleazy arrangement like that. Oh, how unfair.