The Housewife Blues (12 page)

"Sounds like a great idea," Jack told her when
she broached the subject of this Janey or Jenny receiving the coat. By then the
situation was a fait accompli, both of them treating it as a challenge to be
faced, with this last detail of delivery to be accomplished.

"If you don't hear from me to the contrary," she
told Jack, "the coast is clear."

"Great. Next weekend we'll have a party."

"Don't we always. I'll wear it when we make
love."

"I can't wait."

"So I see."

Then it was decided. A perfect shill. Myrna was certain the
woman would cream in her jeans at this opportunity to be a good neighbor.

Even that first brief visit had indicated the whole story;
the woman seemed so open, so natural, so midwestern, so corny, that the
potential request actually gave her a pang of conscience, as if she were using
her for some nefarious purpose. In a way, she was. Hell, it was only a
delivery, for crying out loud.

Myrna Davis rang Jenny's buzzer at exactly nine-thirty in
the morning on a Wednesday in June, precisely when the tall antique clock Jenny
and Larry had bought at a Soho store chimed the half hour. Jenny was drinking
her second cup of coffee and making a list of ingredients she would be buying
later for chicken Kiev, which was to be the centerpiece for Friday's dinner
Larry had arranged for Vincent and Connie Mazzo. Larry had on occasion
mentioned Vincent, referring to him as the only one in the agency who knew his
ass from first base.

Although she was quite confident about being able to put
together a wonderful meal, Jenny was not as confident about meeting the wives
of Larry's colleagues, although she didn't express these reservations to Larry.
Up until then he had not made any demands for her participation in any social
obligations that had to do with his work.

Not that she didn't have expectations of this happening one
day. Larry had on occasion expressed the necessity of husband-and-wife teamwork
effort in the corporate world, and she assured herself repeatedly that she was
fully prepared to shoulder the burden. But now that it was imminent she wasn't
so confident. Worse, Larry had told her that the dinner was not merely socially
important, but crucial.

"Crucial?" She was surprised that he had elevated
the occasion to such importance. That part was unnerving.

"It's a bonding mechanism," Larry told her.
"Vincent and I have made big plans together, and we both think it's
important to put the wives together. At first we were thinking of going out,
but I told him that my little woman is one great cook. After all, why not step
out with your best foot forward?"

"I'll do my best, Larry," she had replied, hoping
that the nervousness about meeting one of his colleagues' wives wouldn't hurt
the dinner.

"Wives need to feel part of it, Jenny," Larry
said.

"But I do feel part of it, Larry. Whatever happens to
you happens to me, doesn't it?"

"In that respect, yes," he agreed. "I'm not
particularly worried about you, Jenny. You know your place in the scheme of
things. But Vincent and Connie have a different kind of relationship. She's a
lawyer and a lot more involved than you are in business. Anyway, Vince thinks
it's important that the wives meet and that the four of us get together."

"I hope I'll make a good impression."

She admitted to herself some concern about dealing with
Vincent's wife. It was hard to envision what kind of a woman she was.

"It wasn't my idea, Jenny. I prefer the gals to stay
out of the way. Just be the way you are."

The discussion had taken place in the kitchen. He had
embraced her from behind as she stood in front of the sink, and the entire
conversation had taken place in that position. "Some wives can be real
bitchy. You know. Influencing their husbands when they don't know beans about
anything. Vince and I are setting up this partnership, and I don't want
anything to louse up the deal."

"I certainly won't."

"You? No way. But Connie could. Vince says she's got a
good sixth sense about people. That always worries me."

"Why so?"

"It implies that her judgment about people is
infallible, which it can't be. And even if it's pretty good, some people are
very clever about hiding who they really are. What they really think." He
pressed her closer to him and whispered, "Not you baby. What you see is
what you get."

Did that mean he thought she was transparent? She wasn't
sure, but it did not seem the time to raise that particular point. Instead she
asked another question that was rattling around in her mind.

"Are you saying that if Connie Mazzo doesn't like me,
you and Vincent wouldn't go ahead with whatever you're planning?"

"I'm not saying that," Larry replied. "But
the fact is that some wives have more to say than others. Who knows. She might
wonder why Vince wants to get in bed with us in the first place. People make
judgments based on emotion, first impressions. Not me. I want to know the facts
first. That's why I'm in research. I want to know hard facts."

"So in a way it's some kind of a test ... for me."

"Let's say for both of us."

"But mostly for me."

"What happens to you happens to me."

For the first time in their marriage a flicker of doubt
crossed her mind. "But you've met her," she said, taking a chance
that it was true.

"Yes, I have," he admitted, averting his eyes.

"So it really is a test for me," she persisted.
"I'm the one on the hot seat."

He seemed to sigh with resignation. "For us, Jenny.
Why are you being so defensive? Neither of them has been to our home, met us as
a couple."

Yes, she decided, there was some truth to that. But then
she hadn't been to their home.

"But suppose I can't stand her? Or him? Would you
still go into business with them?"

"There it is," he snapped. "That's why it's
really better for the women to stay out of it."

She decided it was a good moment to change the tenor of the
discussion. "And you're satisfied with Vincent?" she asked, wondering
if she had overstepped. It was quickly apparent that she had.

"Would I be inviting him if I wasn't?" he asked,
showing a flash of irritation. "I'm telling you, Jenny. He's the best. He
controls two of the agency's biggest clients, and we could be in business in
ninety days. He'd be Mr. Outside and I'd be Mr. Inside."

"Sounds terrific, Larry." I think, she told
herself.

She sensed an undercurrent that wasn't to her liking. Were
they planning to steal the two accounts away from their present employer? She
didn't pursue the idea. That wasn't her place.

"I hope she doesn't think I'm just a Hoosier hick,
unworldly and naive."

"And if she does? Maybe that's a plus. One thing
she'll know, and that's that you're never going to interfere with the business.
If you came over as some pushy bitch, she might think you were a threat."

"Suppose I think she's a pushy bitch?"

"She probably is. But I'm not prepared to queer the
deal because of that. Wrong timing. I need Vince now. But I'll promise you one
thing. Soon as we get rolling, she'll have to keep her nose out."

"I'll do my best," Jenny sighed.

"You are the best," he whispered. "That's
the point."

"No. This is the point." She giggled, caressing
his erection. He began to raise her dress, and she felt his fingers reaching
for the elastic of her panties. "Here? Right now?"

"Well, you've already loaded the dishwasher," he
said, and she could feel his nakedness behind her and her own rising desire as
she braced her hands against the rim of the sink and arched her body.

Certainly Larry could guide her in what was required of her
in a business sense, and she was determined to fulfill his expectations. Business
was his. The house was hers. At least in theory. But he was a bit
overprotective in his attitude about New York and New Yorkers, and she was
finding herself less and less in step with his opinions on this subject. Yet
she did not feel secure enough to challenge his attitudes on a regular basis.
She also found herself beginning to question his judgment on some issues about
what did and did not go on in the real world. In fact, sometimes she felt
vaguely confused by his assertions.

Just yesterday she had discussed the subject of neighbors
with her mother on the telephone.

"You mean you don't know your neighbors?" her
mother had exclaimed after Jenny had told her that it was not generally
accepted in New York to be neighborly.

"Well, I've met them. We had one couple for dinner.
But I don't know them in the way you know your neighbors," she had
admitted. "Sensible people find it better not to get involved." The
episode with Teddy passed through her mind. For a brief moment she was tempted
to tell her mother what she had done, then thought better of it, although in
her heart she felt her mother would understand.

"Surely you've made new friends," her mother said
with an obvious twinge of alarm.

Her mother's notion of "friends" had an entirely
different definition from what she had encountered so far in New York. Jenny
decided it was far too complicated to explain the gap that had opened between
her mother's world and her own.

"Mostly Larry and I have spent the time getting to
know one another," Jenny said. It was, she thought, a reasonably honest
answer, as near to the truth as she could get without it becoming an outright
lie.

"That probably makes a lot of sense," her mother
replied. "But sooner or later you'll want for friends. And you never know
when you might need a neighbor."

At that point Jenny's mother began a long recitation on the
subject of neighbors, citing the Robinsons, who had been an integral part of
their lives, and how their fortunes had intermingled and how they had come
through in emergencies. Penny Robinson had been her best friend in high school
but had married a naval officer and had drifted away. And Celia Robinson,
Penny's mother, was to this day her mother's best friend. After a while it
sounded to Jenny like a voice from an alien world, a kind of rambling lecture
on the subject of people needing people. There was only one way to stop the
lecture.

"This is New York, Mom. Not Bedford, Indiana."

At that point her mother branched off onto another of her
favorite subjects, people being the same everywhere. Jenny listened with less
than complete attention until her mother exclaimed with a prescience that
seemed a bit scary:

"You mustn't become like them, Jenny."

It was, of course, the heart of her mother's worry, and it
came out in the most seemingly benign but telling ways. Jenny supposed that all
mothers of children brought up in small towns were afflicted with the same
fundamental fear of the impersonal corrupting alien world that confronted their
offspring in the big city. And despite her dismissal of her mother's remark as
typical, she had not challenged it, although she was completely convinced that
she could never, ever, become like "them." How could she?
Nevertheless, the idea that her mother would be concerned about such a thing
happening was worrisome and disconcerting and brought on a mild depression.

Finally Jenny began the withdrawal from the conversation
with the usual regards to the rest of the family and the promise to visit Bedford for the Fourth of July if Larry could manage the time. This last cautionary note
was designed to soften the blow, since it was more likely that Larry would
decline the trip and she would, of course, not go without him.

The lingering effects of her depression were still
bothering her when she opened the door to Myrna Davis on that June morning.
Myrna, whom she had barely seen since delivering the shoes from Bloomingdale's
and getting snubbed for her effort, was beautifully groomed in a yellow cotton
suit and matching shoes. Around her neck she wore a silver pendant, which she
fingered nervously as she stood in the doorway, offering a broad,
pink-lipsticked smile that set off her very white, even teeth. She was quite
striking, in marked contrast to Jenny in her loose sweats.

Larry was usually long gone on his jogging trip to the
office when Jenny awakened. At first she had attempted to rise with him to make
him breakfast. But that had ceased when she'd discovered that all he had for
breakfast on weekdays was a cup of coffee and a piece of whole-wheat toast. She
would have been content to make even that, except that he was not very
communicative in the morning, preferring the company of
The New York Times
.

She also discovered that he was quite content with this
arrangement, and after a while she fell into the pattern of sleeping a bit
later without the slightest guilt. It was just one other dose of reality that
separated New Yorkers from Hoosiers.

Her mother had risen to make breakfast for her family every
day of her life, and she still made it for her father. And breakfast was
abundant, with juice, hot cereal, eggs, sausage, bacon or ham, toast, rolls,
jam, and fresh-brewed coffee. Just thinking about it these days summoned up
memories that often brought tears to Jenny's eyes.

"I hope I haven't disturbed you," Myrna said,
looking beyond Jenny to the interior of the apartment.

"Not at all," Jenny said, again feeling the same
awkwardness that she had felt in her first confrontation with Myrna Davis. For
some reason this woman, with her air of superiority and confidence, made Jenny
feel diminished, a clumsy hick.

"I have a favor to ask," Myrna said.

Despite her own sense of intimidation, Jenny sensed Myrna's
nervousness, as if she were more ill at ease than Jenny. It gave Jenny the
courage to invite her in.

"Of course," Jenny said, standing aside as Myrna
entered the apartment. Jenny observed her as she inspected the place. She
seemed to fill it with her presence, her tallness, her coloring, her wonderful
perfume.