Sharyn McCrumb - If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

Margaret MacPherson’s hand-drawn map had led them down a pleasant country road into the rolling green hills of the county, and finally up a long, graveled drive to a two-story white farmhouse, gleaming in the last rays of the evening sun. “This looks quite homey,” Bill remarked as he maneuvered the car onto the grass beside half a dozen vehicles belonging to the other dinner guests. “Very nice. Two women on a farm, managing on their own. Reminds me of a book by somebody or other.”

“D. H. Lawrence?” Elizabeth suggested.

“No, that wasn’t it,” said Bill, frowning with the effort of recollection. “I think it was a chapter in Huckleberry Finn . Or was it Anne of Green Gables ?”

“Never mind,” said Elizabeth. “It isn’t a working farm, anyhow. Mother says they plan to have a small herb-and-vegetable garden, and maybe a few free-run chickens, but nothing in the way of major crops or livestock.”

“Good, because Mother never took any agriculture courses at the community college, did she? Just conversational Spanish and macramé.”

“I believe she’s been branching out lately,” murmured Elizabeth, thinking of the unfortunate white-water rafting episode the previous spring.

“But not into farming, I hope,” said Bill. “I was afraid that sooner or later we might be invited to a barn raising.”

“No,” said Elizabeth. “Since Phyllis Casey is an English professor, specializing in nineteenth-century literature, I doubt you’re qualified to give her any help whatsoever.”

They got out of the car and walked to the front porch. “Maybe we should have brought a house-warming gift,” Elizabeth murmured, with a last anxious glance at the lawn full of strange cars.

“I have some root beer in the trunk,” said Bill. “Some pork and beans, too. Actually, I forgot to unload the groceries this morning.”

Elizabeth shuddered. “Never mind. We’ll bring flowers next time.”

“Okay. Well, is there anything else I should know about this party?”

Elizabeth’s hand froze in midair on its way to the door knocker. “Why? What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know. Taboo subjects? Is the new roomie a Republican, or a vegetarian, or a fan of pro wrestling? Any conversational hints?”

His sister shrugged. “I’ve never met her,” she said truthfully. She hit the knocker against the brass plate. “You might not want to say anything caustic about k.d.lang. Otherwise, just be your usual charming self.”

Bill was still trying to place k.d.lang within the ranks of nineteenth-century authors when, moments later, the door opened, and a beaming Margaret MacPherson ushered them in. “Just in time!” she said. “The hors d’oeuvres have just come out of the oven. Come in and meet everybody.”

She led them into a cozy parlor with a freshly polished pine floor, overstuffed sofas covered in rose chintz, and a collection of large, well-tended plants, all of which were visible only in glimpses around various clumps of people. The guests were congregated in groups of three and four, laughing and talking over Celtic harp music in stereo, most of them holding glasses of white wine or balancing paper plates on their laps.

“Do you know anybody?” Bill whispered to Elizabeth.

“No,” she hissed back through an unmoving smile. “Just wing it.”

“There certainly are a lot of women here,” Bill muttered. “You don’t think Mother’s trying to match me up with someone, do you?”

“I think it’s… unlikely,” Elizabeth assured him.

A hasty round of introductions told them that the guests were all members of the college English department or professors from neighboring colleges or local artists. Elizabeth tried to keep track of the names and faces as they gathered around while her mother plowed through the traditional sound-bite resumes of such gatherings. “Bill and Elizabeth, my children-everybody. He’s a lawyer, and she’s a forensic anthropologist, currently unemployed.”

“ Mother !”

“But she has a Ph.D. Bill, Elizabeth, I’d like you to meet Megan Holden-McBryde, of the English department. She’s working on feminist critical theory in the works of Jack London, and this is her husband, Skip Holden-McBryde, who is a poet.”

Elizabeth shook hands with the willowy couple in matching running suits. “Ah. A poet,” she murmured, hoping that he was in the dormant phase of the condition.

“Here are Sadie Patton and Annie Graham-Robeson, feminist deconstructionists.” She nodded toward two heavyset women in their early fifties.

“Architects!” said Bill with a happy smile.

There was a brief pause while everyone tried to think of a quick way to explain literary theory on a third-grade level. Simultaneously, everyone gave up. “Something like that, dear,” said his mother, shrugging. “Miriam Malone, a kinetic sculptor. She does the most marvelous things with bathtub toys floating in blue mouthwash. And Tim Burruss, who coaches wrestling. They’re not together-his lover can’t be with us this evening.”

Elizabeth was about to mention her own bereavement-presumptive, when Tim said, “He’s driving a stock car at the speedway tonight. I said, ‘You can break your neck if you want to, but don’t expect me to go and watch.’”

“-And this is Virgil Agnew, who’s in theatre and dance.”

“He’s our token heterosexual,” said Sadie (or possibly Annie).

“I’m in therapy for it, though,” Virgil informed them. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his tweed jacket and frowned at nothing in particular.

Elizabeth ignored Bill’s elbow in her ribs. “Token hetero-wait!” she exclaimed. “I thought you said Megan and Skip were married.”

Megan Holden-McBryde nodded happily. “We are. But actually I am a gay man trapped in a woman’s body. I had past life regression and discovered that I used to be a medical student in turn-of-the-century London. I was a friend of Oscar Wilde. It explained so much.”

Skip put his arm around his spouse’s shoulders. “So we feel that we really count as a gay couple.”

After a short, leaden silence, Annie (or Sadie) remarked to Bill, “I have a son who practices law.”

“You have a son?” Since Bill’s brain was completely occupied in reformatting a mental image of his mother, he was in no condition to think before he spoke.

“Oh, yes. And two grandchildren.”

“Three if you count the step-grandchildren from your third marriage,” her partner observed.

“Third marriage?”

She nodded. “Sadie and I have only been together two years. Between us, we’ve had five husbands.”

“Political lesbians?” asked Elizabeth, who thought she was beginning to get it all sorted out.

“No. That would be D. J. Squires, over by the fireplace, talking to Barnie Slusher, the chemistry professor.” She nodded toward a scowling young woman with close-cropped blonde hair, a leather biker’s outfit, and riding boots. She looked like the title character in a postmodern production of Shaw’s Saint Joan . “D.J. is a feminist historian, and she said that when she realized as an undergraduate that all seductions are a form of rape, and that marriage would mean sleeping with the enemy, she just broke off her engagement to the star quarterback. She contends that she’s never looked back.”

“It has done wonders for her career,” Tim Burruss remarked. “She’ll be one of the youngest tenured professors ever. If she makes it, I mean.”

“She’d better make it,” grunted Sadie. “The university couldn’t afford to fight the discrimination suit she’d bring if they turned her down.”

“And this is Casey,” said Margaret MacPherson, with an air of saving the best for last.