Superior Women (51 page)

The overflowing, heavy, fragrant wisteria provides some shelter from the sun for Megan and the others on that side of the table; still, all the warmth and the wine combine to produce a certain blurriness in her mind.

Which is probably at least in part why she has this thought, of which she is later ashamed; she thinks, Why do we have to be a shelter? Why keep driving to Atlanta, to Washington, for all those people? We could all just live here together, we could keep busy.
Especially after Jackson goes. Just Peg and Vera, and Florence. Henry and me. We’d be fine.

However, dismissing that not-even-practical idea (what else would they actually do, with all their time and space?), Megan recognizes that she is experiencing her familiar apprehension; as always, she is dreading the drive, the new people.

And she recognizes too that that is precisely what she is going to do, as always: she will get up early and take the van to be checked at the local garage, in Edenborough; by nine thirty or ten at the latest she will be off, down the white, red-clay-lined highways, past the pale green summery meadows, and over still-swollen rushing brown muddy creeks, past densely leafed-out woods—to the city, Atlanta, where nine women who need a place to stay are waiting for her.

Henry and Jackson are clearing off the table now. Rising, Biff offers to help, but he is turned down. “No help from temporary guests,” he is told.

In a few minutes Megan, who has decided to do it by herself, will get up and go in to get the frozen soufflé. Her mother’s birthday cake. With the 8 and the 3 on top. June 1983.

Careless Love

Families and Survivors

Listening to Billie

Beautiful Girl (stories)

Rich Rewards

To See You Again (stories)

Superior Women

Return Trips (stories)

After You’ve Gone (stories)

Caroline’s Daughters

Mexico: Some Travels and Travelers There

Almost Perfect

A Southern Exposure

Medicine Men

The Last Lovely City (stories)

After the War

The Stories of Alice Adams

Alice Adams was born in Virginia and graduated from Radcliffe College. She was the recipient of an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She lived in San Francisco until her death in 1999.