When She Was Good (32 page)

“Well,” said Lloyd; and “Great!” said Roy—“Don’t forget who took your picture first, Ellie-o”; and Alice said, “Your parents didn’t know this till today?” And here Lucy had gone off for her glass of water. She had closed the kitchen door behind her. When it opened, it was Roy, to say that Ellie’s parents hoped they would all come over for coffee.

“Roy, was this all planned—and when?”

“What do you mean ‘planned’?”

“Did you know Ellie was coming here?”

“Well, no, not really. Well, I knew she was in town. Look,
they want to see Eddie, that’s all. And they want to see us too, I think.”

“Oh, do they?”

“That’s what Ellie says. Well, obviously she’s not lying. Lucy, look, we’ve been the ones who have been boycotting them—and with good reason too, I know, don’t worry. But it hasn’t been that they haven’t wanted to see us, not that I know. And anyway, it’s over. Well, it is. The mistake they made was a bad mistake, and the mistake I made was a bad mistake, but it’s over. Isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

“Well … sure. You know, another thing is that maybe this really isn’t that fair to Edward any more—if you want to talk about his welfare in this thing.”

“It was his welfare in this thing, Roy, that I had to bring to your attention—”

“Okay,
okay
—and you did! And so now I’m doing it to you, that’s all. Whatever you think about Uncle Julian, or even Aunt Irene, whatever the two of us may think, well, they’re still Eddie’s aunt and uncle too, and he doesn’t know anything about this, needless to say … Oh, come on, Lucy, Ellie’s waiting.”

“She can wait.”

“Lucy, very honestly—” he began.

“What?”

“Do you want me to talk very honestly with you?”

“Please do, Roy.”

“Why are you being so sar
cas
tic all of a sudden?”

“I’m not being ‘sarcastic.’ If I am, I can’t help it. Talk to me honestly.
Do.
”

“Well, honestly, I really think that at this point, given all that’s happened, and all that hasn’t happened too, and this isn’t a criticism, to begin with, but I think that at this point you might actually be being a little silly about this. I mean, without knowing it. Well, that’s what I think, and I said it. And to be honest, it’s sort of what I think my parents think too. It’s over a year already that everything happened, about the way I behaved and so on, and now it’s over, and maybe where
the Sowerbys are concerned enough is enough, and we just sort of all ought to go on, and so forth … Well, what do
you
think?”

“The opinion of your parents is important to you? That’s a surprise.”

“I’m not saying
opinion!
I’m not saying
important!
Stop being so
sarcastic!
I’m just saying about what it looks like to a neutral party. Don’t confuse me, will you, please? This is important. It’s just not sensible any more, Lucy. Well, I’m sorry if that sounds like a criticism of my own wife, but it’s not.”

“What’s not?”

“To keep up with a war, when the war is over, when nobody is even fighting any more, at least that I can see.”

Ellie called from the living room, “You coming? Roy?”

“Roy,” said Lucy, “if you want to go and take Edward, you go ahead.”

“… You mean it?”

“Yes.”

His smile dimmed. “But what about you?”

“I’ll stay here. I’ll walk over to Daddy Will’s.”

“But I don’t want you just walking around, Lucy.” He reached out and flipped her bangs with his fingers. “Hey, Lucy.” He spoke softly. “Come on. Why not? It’s over. Let’s make it really over. Lucy, come on, you look so pretty lately. Did you know that? I mean, you always look pretty to me, but lately, even more. So come on, huh, what do you say?”

She felt herself weakening.
Let’s make it really over
. “Maybe I ought to go down to Chicago and be introduced to Martita, the most famous model in the history of America. Martita and Skippy Skelton—”

“Oh, come on, Lucy, you
are
pretty. To me you are, and plenty prettier than Ellie, too. Because you have character and you’re you. You don’t have to be a glamour puss, you don’t have to have mink coats, believe me, to be pretty. That’s just a material thing, you know that. You’re the best person there is, Lucy. You are. Please, you come too. Why not?”

“Roy, if you want to go, you can.”

“Well, I know I
can
,” he said sourly.

“Pick me up at Daddy Will’s at four.”

“Oh, damn,” he said, pushing one of the kitchen chairs into the table. “You’re going to be angry later. I know it.”

“What do you mean?”

“… If I go.”

“Why should I be? Are you planning to do something there that I might disapprove of?”

“I’m not planning
anything!
I’m going for a visit to a house! I’m going to have a cup of coffee!”

“All right, then.”

“So just don’t get angry when we get home … that’s all I mean.”

“Roy, you assured me a minute ago that the past is over, that I can rely on you. You have to admit that hasn’t always been something I could do.”

“
Okay.
”

“For six months now you have been assuring me that you no longer hold certain childish ideas—”

“I
don’t
.”

“That you have decided to be responsible to me and to Edward.”

“Yes!”

“Well, if that is really the case, if it’s true that I have nothing to worry about when you are in the company of that man—if you haven’t been fooling me, Roy, and just pretending—”

“I haven’t been fooling anybody about anything!”

“Hey!” Ellie was calling them again. “Lovers! You coming out of hiding, or what’s going on in there?”

In the living room, Alice was sitting in a chair, already in her coat and galoshes. Whenever Roy and Lucy quarreled, it was Alice’s assumption that the fault lay solely with her daughter-in-law; it was something Lucy had had to accustom herself to long ago. She ignored the face that Alice turned to her, the compressed lips and the clenched jowls.

Ellie was kneeling down in front of Edward, zipping up his snowsuit; her skirt and coat had ridden up above her knee.

“Hey, let’s go,” said Ellie, “before we all catch puhneumonia.”

“Lucy can’t,” said Roy.

—while Lucy was thinking, “Don’t you dare dress him to go without my permission. It is up to me whether he sets foot in that house of yours, and sees those parents of yours, and not up to you at all.
I
am his mother.”

She should never have weakened in the kitchen and said yes to Roy. The war over? The war was never over with people you could not trust or depend upon. Why, why had she relaxed her vigilance? Because this ninny was up for the weekend from Chicago? Because this
fashion model
was kneeling beside her child, playing Mommy while showing everybody her legs?

“Can’t you?” said Ellie sadly. “Just for an
hour?
I haven’t seen you in decades. And all I’ve done so far is talk about
me
. Oh, Lucy, come with us. I envy you so, married and out of the rat race. It’s what I ought to do.” Instantly her eyes became heavy with melancholy. “Please, Lucy, I’d actually like to talk to you. I’d just love to hear all about married life with that one.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Roy, pulling on his coat. He smiled knowingly. “I’ll bet you would.”

“Wow,” said Ellie, “how we used to sit up in that room.”

“Sorry,” said Lucy. She called Edward to her and hiked his snowsuit around. “You go with Daddy. I’m going to visit Grandma Myra.” She kissed him.

He ran to his father, took his hand, and commenced staring at Ellie again as she pulled on her gloves. Roy laughed.

“He thinks they’re his,” he explained to Lucy. “The gloves.”

“Gurrr,” said Ellie, making one of her gloved hands into a claw. “Gurrr, Edward, here I come.” The child broke into giggles, and when Ellie took a step toward him, drove his head into his father’s side.

Roy looked at Lucy, then to Ellie. “Hey, El, Lucy’s mother’s getting married. Did you know?”

“Hey, that’s terrific,” said Ellie. “That’s fabulous, Lucy.”

Lucy took the enthusiasm coolly. “It’s not definite yet.”

“Well, I hope it comes off. That would be great.”

Lucy neither agreed nor disagreed.

“Hey,” said Ellie, “how’s Daddy Will?”

“Fine.”

“I really love him. I remember him at your wedding. Telling those stories about the north woods. They were really great.”

No response.

To Edward, who was still staring, Ellie said, “Don’t you, little Edward? Love Daddy Will?”

He nodded his head to whatever it was he thought Eleanor was asking him.

“I think it’s Edward who has fallen in l-o-v-e with somebody,” said Alice Bassart.

Ellie said to Lucy, “Give him a hug for me, will you? You do just want to hug him, don’t you, when he starts telling those stories? He is really absolutely old-fashioned. He’s just perfect. And that’s what you miss in Chicago, all the fun aside—that kind of really genuine person, who really cares about people and isn’t just a fake and a phony. When we were on this ranch down in Horse Creek, there was a man there, and he was the foreman, and he was just so polite and old-fashioned and easygoing, and you kept thinking that’s probably exactly the way America used to be. But Skippy says that’s all dying out, even out there, which is sort of the last outpost. Isn’t that a shame? When you think about it, it’s really awful. It sure has died out in Chicago, I’ll tell you that much. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and I hear all those cars starting up outside, and I wish I were right back here in Liberty Center, where at least you don’t get all that hatred and violence. Here you leave your house unlocked, and your car unlocked, and you could go away for a week, for a month even, and not worry. But you ought to see the locks we have on our door alone. Three,” she said, turning to Alice.

“My goodness,” said Alice. “Lloyd, did you hear that? Ellie has to have three locks, because of the violence.”

“
And
a chain,” said Ellie.

“Eleanor, I don’t know why you want to live in such a place,” said Alice. “What about muggers? I certainly hope you don’t walk on the streets.”

“Sure, Mom,” said Roy, “she walks on the air instead. What do you expect her to walk on, Mother?”

“It certainly doesn’t seem to me,” his mother answered, “that she should be out after dark in a place where you need three locks and a chain, Roy.”

“Well,” said Lloyd, “they’ve got a big colored problem down there, and I don’t envy them.”

“It isn’t Negroes, Uncle Lloyd. You people think everything is Negroes—and how many Negroes do you actually know? Really know, to talk to?”

“Wait a minute,” said Roy. “I knew one who I used to talk to a lot, Ellie, down at Britannia. He was a darn smart guy too. I had a lot of respect for him.”

“Well,” said Ellie, “I know a girl who dates a Negro.”

“You do?” said Alice.

“Yes, I do, Aunt Alice. But you know what my father said? She’s probably a Red. Well, the laugh is on him, actually. Because as a matter of fact she happened to have voted for President Eisenhower, which isn’t exactly very communistic of her, do you think?”

“She goes out on dates with him, Eleanor? In public?” said Alice.

“Well, actually she met him at a party—and he took her home. But right on the street, and in a perfectly ordinary way, and color didn’t make a bit of difference … That’s what she said. And I believe her.”

“But did she kiss him?” Roy asked.

“Roy!” said his mother.

“What are you getting excited about? I’m just asking a question. I’m just making a point.”

“Well, that is some point,” his mother said.

Roy went right on. “I’m only saying it’s one thing to be friends and so on, which I am completely in favor of and have done myself, as I just mentioned. But to be very frank, Ellie,
about this girl, well, I think very frankly intersex and so on is a whole other issue.”

Ellie turned haughty. “Well, I didn’t ask her about sex, Roy. That’s her business, really.”

“I believe,” said Alice Bassart sternly, “that there is a child standing here with two very clean e-a-r-s.”

“Well, all I’m saying is that every time something terrible happens everybody blames the Negroes,” said Ellie, “and I refuse to listen to that kind of prejudice any more. That’s all. From anyone.”

“But what about all that violence, Eleanor?” Lloyd Bassart asked. “There’s an awful lot of violence down there, you said so yourself.”

“But that’s not the fault of Negroes!”

“Who then?” asked Alice. “They do most of it, don’t they?”

“Actually,” said Ellie, “more than anyone else, it’s actually the dope addicts—who are really very sick people who need help. Jail is not the answer, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Dope addicts?” said Lloyd. “You mean dope fiends, Eleanor?”

“—are on the
street?
” asked Alice.

“Dopey!” Edward was grinning. “Dopey, Mommy!” he said to Lucy.

Ellie threw her head back, and the mane of hair shimmered. “Dopey! Wait’ll I tell Skip. Oh, how delicious.
Dopey!
” she said, rushing to Edward and lifting him up. “And Grumpy. Right?”

“Uh-huh,” he said. He put a hand out to touch the collar of her coat.

“And who else?” asked Ellie, jiggling him in her arms. “Sneezy?”

“Sneezy!” he cried.

“Lucy,” said Ellie, “he’s wonderful. He’s fab, really. Hey, let’s go!” She lowered Edward to the floor, but he kept hold of one of her hands.

“Let’s go,” the child said.

Roy said, “You want to come later, Lucy? After you see them? I could pick you up.”

She said, “I’ll be at my grandparents’.”

Alice said, “You’re coming later, Lloyd?”

“Right, right.”

Out the door they went, Edward tugging on the coat of his newly discovered relative. “And Bashful.”

“Bashful! Little Bashful! How could I forget Little Bashful? He’s just like you.”

“And Doc too.”

“Doc too!” said Ellie. “Oh, Edward what a little fellow you are. I can’t even believe you exist, and here you are!”

“And the bad stepmother.”