The Women's Room (21 page)

The music changed to a slow dance and he grabbed Mira’s always stiff body around the waist with his free arm and held her close. He looked into her face. ‘Oh, those cat’s eyes,’ he murmured. ‘I wish I knew what was behind them. Why don’t you give me a chance to find out? Come to the Bahamas with me, I’m flying down on Tuesday.’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ she grinned.

Norm was dancing with Adele, teasing her all the while, so that their dance was really just a moving conversation. Hamp was sitting on the couch talking to Oriane. Hamp never danced. Sean was dancing with Samantha.

‘I’m jealous, can I cut in? I haven’t danced with Paul all night, have I, Pauly baby?’ Natalie was a little drunk.

‘Come to Poppa,’ Paul said, opening his arms to enclose both of them, but Mira laughed and slipped out. ‘Spoilsport!’ he called after her.

Mira went into the bathroom. After a time – she was retouching her makeup – there was a knock. ‘Be right out!’ Mira called.

‘Oh, Mira?’ It was Samantha. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure.’

Samantha came in and pulled up her skirt. ‘Damned thing,’ she muttered. Mira glanced at her. ‘Can I help?’

‘No, it’s this damned corselet. Whenever I have to pee, it’s a major production.’

Mira smiled. She did not ask why anyone as slender as Samantha would be wearing a thing like that. She was wearing one herself. Samantha finally got herself adjusted and sat on the toilet. Mira sat on the edge of the tub and lighted a cigarette. This sort of intimacy had shocked her when she first came to Meyersville, but she was used to it now.

‘Mira,’ Samantha began uneasily, ‘I saw you dancing with Paul. Paul – O’Connor?’

‘O’Neill. Yes.’

‘Well, what sort of person is he? I mean, is he a friend of yours?’

Mira laughed. ‘What did he do?’

‘Mira!’ Samantha leaned forward and nearly whispered. ‘He put his hand on my – bottom! I was so embarrassed I nearly died! I didn’t know what to say! Luckily, my back was to the wall, so I don’t think anyone else saw. And then he said I had a – well, he said a
sexy ass
. Can you imagine?’

‘And then he asked you to go to the Bahamas with him.’

‘Yes! How did you know? As if I could – I have to take the baby to the doctor on Tuesday. Besides, I never even met him before.’ ‘He’s going to have quite an entourage on this trip. He’s asked every woman in the room.’

‘Oh.’ Samantha looked disappointed.

‘Except Theresa and Adele, I warrant.’

‘Why not them?’

‘Because Theresa’s always pregnant, and Adele’s his wife.’

Samantha gazed at Mira. Mira felt superior, sophisticated. Her voice took on an ‘older-woman-giving-advice’ quality. ‘Oh, he only does it
to attractive women. I’m sure he meant part of what he said. But the rest … it’s just a game, the way he gets along socially. It is a little shocking at first, I guess, but at least he tries to talk to women. And he’s harmless.’

Samantha’s face brightened. ‘Oh, I like him! I mean, I thought he was fun even if he did … I don’t know, Mira, these people seem awfully sophisticated to me. Maybe I’ve been too protected. I went to a junior college in the South and when I came back I lived at home and started dating Simp. Then we got married and lived with my folks. This is the first place of our own we’ve ever had. I feel like an awful baby.’

Samantha stood and washed her hands and combed her hair, or rather, ran a comb along the top of it. Her hair was bleached light blond, almost white; it was piled in a high puff and sprayed hard, and there were little rigid curls around her face. She heightened the red on her cheeks. Mira watched her, thinking she looked like a mechanical doll.

‘Why do you dye your hair? Surely you’re not gray yet.’

‘I don’t know. I started because I thought it would make me look more sophisticated. And Simp likes it.’

‘Do you?’

Samantha turned in surprise. ‘Why? I mean, I guess so.’ She was a little offended.

‘Oh, it’s just that it must be an awful lot of trouble.’

‘Oh, it is! It takes me all day, on and off, to do it, and I have to touch it up every two weeks or the dark roots show.’ She began to explain the process to Mira.

Paul had stopped dancing with Natalie and was now doing a slow fox-trot with Bliss, holding her very close. Hamp was sitting on the couch with Adele. He was telling her about a new book about the Cold War. He hadn’t read it, but it had been reviewed well. Adele was bored, but sat there sympathetically, listening with apparent intentness. She was thinking that his eyes never met anyone else’s, that he looked at people a little awry. He was a nice guy, though, everyone liked him. He never said an unkind thing. But his color was bad.

Natalie had been talking to Evelyn, but stopped abruptly. ‘I need another drink!’ she announced. Her face was splotchy. She staggered a little as she entered the kitchen, where a group of men were talking. She poured her glass almost full of straight rye, and stood there for
a moment, but no one spoke to her. ‘You men make me sick!’ she burst out suddenly. ‘All you know anything about is football! God, it’s disgusting!’ Carrying her drink, she stumbled out of the room.

The men glanced at her and went on talking.

She came into the living room, toward the couch where Hamp was sitting. ‘God, you’re as bad as they are. You sit on the couch all night like a lump of lard talking, talking, talking! About books, I suppose! As if you ever read! Why don’t you talk about form letters, or TV? That’s all you know anything about!’

The room hushed. Natalie looked around, embarrassed, and enraged with them for her discomfort. ‘I’m going home! This party stinks!’ And did: not even taking her coat, but still carrying her drink. She walked through the snow in her red satin high heels, slipping all the way down the street and falling twice.

No one said anything. Natalie was known to drink too much on occasion. They shrugged and resumed their conversations. Mira wondered how they were able to write it off that way, as though when people were drunk they were no longer persons, were not to be taken seriously. Of course, Nat would sleep it off; of course, she would probably even forget she’d done it. But meantime there was that anguish in her voice, despair underlying the anger. Where did those come from? Mira glanced at Hamp. He was still talking, unperturbed. He seemed to be a good sort, a bit lethargic, maybe even dull, but most husbands were rather dull, a woman had to find her own interest. And Natalie seemed happy enough during the days.

Paul was whispering in Bliss’s ear; Norm came over and appropriated Mira and they danced awkwardly. He held her close, and her heart sank: she knew he would be feeling erotic later.

Then somebody she barely knew asked her to dance. Roger and Doris were comparative newcomers to the crowd; Roger was attractive, dark, intense looking. He put his arm around her with assurance, something none of the other men did. Paul’s touch was sexual – he was tentative, delicate, questing. Roger touched her as if he had a right to her body, as if she were his to be handled. She felt this instantly, although she could not articulate it until later. But instantly, she resented him. He was a good dancer, though. She did not know what to say, so she held herself stiff and kept talking. She asked him where they lived, how many children they had, how many bedrooms in their house.

‘Don’t you know how to be quiet?’ he said, pulling her closer. He
meant it to be romantic, she knew. And in a way, she felt it so. He had a good body, a good smell. But she could not let herself slide into that, accepting his scolding as a child would, accepting, somehow, his terms.

‘I’m quiet when
I
want to be quiet,’ she said fiercely, pulling away from him.

He looked at her with astonishment for a moment, then his face changed. ‘You know what
you
need,’ he said contemptuously, ‘a good lay.’

‘Yeah, I saw that game. They lost it on the last down.’

‘The hell they did,’ Simp said. ‘it was that pass Smith threw.’

Hamp grinned. ‘Well, one way or another, they lost it.’

‘Sure, but they were playing better than they are. They should’ve lost that game by twenty points.’

‘I don’t know,’ Roger argued. ‘They always play better at home. All that ass in the stands, cheering for them.’

‘Yes, she crawls now. Which is nice because I can let her out of the playpen. But of course, she’s into everything.’

‘Fleur won’t stay in the playpen at all. She screams if I so much as put her in it.’

‘She’s your first. When you have five, they stay in the playpen.’

‘Did I hear that you’re pregnant again?’

‘Oh, yes! The more the merrier.’

‘You certainly don’t look it.’

‘Oh, it’s only the third month. I blow up like a balloon.’

‘You’ve really kept your figure for having had five kids.’ Samantha’s eyes wandered toward Theresa, who was standing near the wall talking to Mira. She was tall, with a hunched-over back. Her belly literally hung, like a stone-filled sack attached to her body. Her breasts sagged, and her hair was limp and full of gray.

Adele followed Samantha’s glance. ‘Poor Theresa. They’re so poor. It makes everything so hard.’

Samantha leaned toward Adele with wide eyes and whispered. ‘I heard the milkman feels so sorry for them he leaves them his leftover milk free.’

Adele nodded. ‘Don’s been out of work for a year now. He gets odd jobs, part-time or temporary things, but that’s not enough with six kids. Most of the time he just sits around the house. She was trying to get a
job as a substitute teacher – she has a college degree – but now she’s pregnant again. I don’t know what they’ll do.’

Samantha looked at Theresa with loathing and fear. It was terrible that a woman could let herself get to look like that. It was terrible what had happened to her. What could you do if a man didn’t work? It was awful. She would never let that happen to her, no way, never. You had to have some control over your life. She turned to Adele. ‘Is she Catholic?’

‘Yes,’ Adele said firmly. ‘And so am I.’

Samantha blushed.

‘I haven’t seen Paul in a while.’

‘Oh, he left.’

Mira turned in surprise. ‘He left? Adele’s still here.’

Bliss laughed. ‘He went after Natalie. Said he felt sorry for her, said he thought she was upset. Adele knows he’s gone. He’ll be back.’

Mira was surprised. She had not thought him that sensitive, that caring about other people. A suspicion curled around the edges of her mind, but she flattened it out. ‘That was nice of him,’ she said seriously. ‘I was concerned about her.’

She wondered at the odd look that Bliss gave her.

Bill was in the kitchen with a small group of laughing people. He had just returned from a flight to California, and he always came back with a packet of obscene funny stories. ‘So the stewardess says, “Is there any more I can get you, Captain?” And he turns around and looks her up and down. And he says, “Yeah, you can get me a little pussy.” And she just stands there and looks at him, cool as a cucumber, and she says, “I can’t help you there, Captain, mine’s as big as a bucket.” And goes off.’

Laughter exploded in the room.

‘I don’t get it.’ Mira looked around appealing for help. ‘Why did he want a cat?’

14

‘He didn’t like women!’ Val cried, and Kyla attacked: ‘Oh, the sophisticate!’ and Clarissa grinned and said, ‘That’s juicy!’ and Isolde shook her head: ‘I can hardly believe it.’ All at once they burst out after Mira had finished telling us about this party.

‘I mean, how could you all have been so … naive?’

‘I’m telling you, Iso, that was the point. That’s the way we were. That’s why I say things are so different now. To Sam, we looked like sophisticates. That was the fifties.’

‘And you, you woman of the world, you!’ Kyla taunted lovingly.

‘Isn’t it awful? I remember feeling so superior and cool, and then I wondered how it had happened, how I had suddenly become this knowing woman of the world when only that morning I was still feeling like a child. And so serious, so earnest, so moral! God! It was all just fun, good for the spirit. I really believed that. It would never have occurred to
me
to have an affair, so I assumed it would never have occurred to them. They couldn’t! They were –
good
. God, how I’d internalized sexual morality.’

‘But that Roger fellow,’ Clarissa put in. ‘You had a raised consciousness even then.’

‘I had a raised
un
conscious,’ Mira corrected her. ‘I couldn’t have articulated it; I had no words to describe what I felt.’

They went over it all, seizing on one person or another, asking about motivation, the feel of their relationships, about consequences. They milked it dry. But Val was unsatisfied.

‘You say this guy – Paul? – liked women. I say he didn’t. He used them. They were just sexual objects to him.’

Mira shook her head back and forth slowly, as if she were debating. ‘I don’t know, Val.’

‘Was he really expecting something to come of all his lines?’ Clarissa suggested. ‘I mean, you said it was just his social posture.’

‘Yeah,’ Mira sighed. ‘I don’t know, you see. Maybe he just sent out lines and didn’t care who caught them. But Samantha stayed friends with Adele and Paul for a long time. And once, when she was having terrible trouble, and they were very kind to her, especially Adele, Paul started pressuring her sexually. She told me about it and I was furious because I thought he was trying to break up her friendship with Adele
by introducing jealousy, you know. But she said no. She said he acted sexual because that was the only way he knew how to treat a woman with kindness. He was trying to tell her he was her friend, but couldn’t do it without offering to become her lover. It made sense to me.’

Valerie snorted.

‘At least he tried to talk to women,’ Mira finished sadly.

‘And like a good woman, you were grateful for that,’ Kyla said nastily.

‘Listen,’ Iso started up. ‘Look who’s talking! Whenever Harley puts down his book and looks at you, you practically jump up and down with joy!’

‘I don’t, I don’t,’ Kyla protested, but they were all on her then. ‘Well,’ she surrendered finally, ‘at least I’m a good woman.’