Jill Churchill: A Farewell to Yarns

“Good God, Jane! You can't mean that!" Jane giggled. "No, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention."

“What terminal are we going to?" Shelley asked repressively.

“Damn it, Shelley! I've crocheted the door handle into my afghan!”

Jane didn't recognize the slim, expensively dressed woman who waved at her as she moved forward with the crowd at the arrivals gate. "Is that her?" Shelley asked.

“I guess it must be," Jane said through the side of her mouth. She glanced around to see if perhaps the woman was gesturing to someone standing behind her. But no one was reacting. Jane assumed a smile that was welcoming but not committed enough to embarrass her if this wasn't Phyllis.

The crowd got backed up behind a little girl who had tripped and was screaming bloody murder. Jane had time to study the woman she assumed was little Phyllis all grown up and rich. The Phyllis she remembered had mousy brown hair and an air of perpetual disarray just short of sloppiness. This woman was exquisite;expensively frosted hair swirled around a face that could have graced a magazine cover. This was the sort of beautiful, mature woman who was shown in the high fashion fur ads in magazines Jane flipped through at the bookstore but couldn't afford to buy. Tanned. Gorgeous teeth. Gorgeous teeth? Phyllis had disgraceful teeth back in the old Chicago apartment days. It was the one real drawback to her appearance.

As Jane watched, the woman turned to a young man standing slightly behind her. She said something and pointed to Jane. The young man, blond, tanned, smashingly handsome, and unquestionably the most sulky individual in the whole airport, glared.

“Who is that with her?" Shelley asked.

“Dear God! I hope it's somebody she met on the plane," Jane said. She could feel her plaster smile crumbling.

“He couldn't be one of her husband's sons, could he?" Shelley asked.

“Too young. They'd be in their late twenties. That one's not more than eighteen or nineteen. He's probably some flunky of Chet's who was sent along to see her on and off planes.”

The woman who might be Phyllis had shifted her carry-on case and several lumpy plastic bags to her left arm and slipped her right arm around the boy in a clearly intimate gesture. He looked like he was straining to get away.

Shelley asked, "You don't suppose he's her lover, do you?"

“Bite your tongue! I've got underwear older than that boy!"

“Well, he's not somebody she picked up on the plane. Look, their hand luggage matches."

“Oh, shit!" Jane said, hissing. "Am I going to have a middle-aged woman cavorting around my house with her gigolo? Oh, Shelley—what will I do? How could she? He's just a kid. How mortifying. How will I explain it to my kids?"

“You won't have to. They'll catch on right away."

“Don't say that! That's what I'm afraid of.”

“Then don't call her middle-aged. She's our age.”

Jane suddenly felt a wave of sympathetic understanding for the little girl who had tied up traffic and was now sitting, screaming, and kicking her heels on the floor. It was just what Jane wanted to do herself.

Three

Somebody picked up the screaming child, cut ting off its wails. The crowd surged forward. "Jane! Darling Jane!" Phyllis cried, dragging the young man behind her as she fought through the people blocking her. Jane found herself being embraced, her nose tickled by mink and Phyllis's scent—that of very new hundred-dollar bills dipped in Giorgio. One of Phyllis's plastic bags was caught between them, and Jane was being gouged by something that felt like a knitting needle.

“You haven't changed a bit!" Phyllis said, holding Jane by both arms and studying her.

“You have," Jane blurted out, not sure whether to be flattered or insulted by Phyllis's remark. Jane had hoped that maturity would have improved her.

“No, I haven't," Phyllis said. "It's just my teeth. Chet insisted on having all these porcelain things done to them. He thought it mattered to me, the darling. So I let him think so. It made him happy."

“Phyllis—" It was hard to call her that. Jane wondered how this expensively dressed individ‑ ual could be the same woman she'd once known. "I'm sorry that Chet didn't come along. How is he?”

At that, Phyllis's eyes began to fill, and her chin trembled almost imperceptibly. "He's just fine, Jane. We just needed some time apart." She sniffed, paused a moment to get a grip on herself.

And in that moment, with her chin shaking with incipient tears, the woman before her became the old Phyllis—poor little insecure Phyllis who'd spent her days befriending the old people in the apartment building and making Christmas ornaments. At the same time, Jane realized that her fear of marriage troubles was right, and she was probably in for hours of heart-to-heart girl talk. But for the moment, Phyllis had put aside her own woes to offer sympathy to Jane. "I just can't say how sorry I was about Steve's death. I still can't believe it. You—a widow before forty.”

Jane didn't know what to say. She didn't want to talk about widowhood. She certainly wasn't going to tell Phyllis that Steve wouldn't have been out on that icy road in the middle of a black February night, except that he was leaving her for another woman. That was something she wouldn't tell Phyllis. Not now or later. "Your teeth are beautiful," she said instead. "That was nice of Chet."

“Oh, but Chet did something much finer for me. I've been dying to tell you, but I made myself wait until I could see your face. Jane, I want you to meet Bobby Bryant.”

She dragged the sulky young man forward.

Jane had been vaguely aware of him standing in the background, watching their reunion with about as much joy as Jane felt emptying kitty litter. He was even more gorgeous up close. He had thick blond hair, beautifully cut and sun bleached to wheat-colored perfection. His nose might be a little too long and pointed, but it suited his thin, tanned face and didn't distract a bit from a fine, if petulant, mouth. Good God, Katie was going to collapse at the mere sight of him. Jane could see a terrible crush coming. "Hello, Bobby," she said.

He took her hand in a languid grip. It wasn't an effeminate gesture, just a supremely bored one. "Hi," he said listlessly.

“Isn't he handsome?" Phyllis gushed.

“Uh, yes. I'm sure he must be," Jane said, embarrassed at discussing him as if he were a pet.

As he was stumbling around trying to think of what to say next, Shelley nudged her in the ribs and jarred her into further introductions. Phyllis was very polite to Shelley but was obviously eager to getback to discussing Bobby. "Jane, do you know who Bobby is?"

“Come on, Phyl," the young man said. "Do we have to stand here in the middle of everything jawing about this?" Jane was surprised to hear a distinctly Chicago accent in his voice.

“That boy needs a fat lip," Shelley muttered.

Phyllis was hanging onto Bobby, gazing up at him with adoration. Jane was paralyzed with embarrassment. She'd heard about older women taking handsome young lovers. It wasn't something done in her circle, of course. Most of her circle of friends hung out in the school parking lots in their station wagons or in the grocery store. But among the jet set, it was fairly normal to have a tiff with your husband and take up with a pretty boy. Or so she was led to believe by such reliable authorities as People magazine and TV Guide, Jane's windows on the world.

But it was shocking that sweet, slightly boring Phyllis should have fallen into such pitiful ways. It was odd, too. She seemed genuinely grieved about her problems with Chet, whatever they might be. Even then, it wouldn't be quite so skin-crawling awful if the boy weren't so rude and contemptuous of her. Weren't paid lovers supposed to earn their keep by pretending love? Or at least courtesy? Surely there were rules about that sort of thing.