Alice Adams - To See You Again - Stories

At that instant the tiniest doubt as to her intentions may have stung at Walker’s love-swollen heart, but, like most children, he denied ambiguity; things were what they seemed, and a beautiful lady who said he was smart and lucky meant just that, and he was. “But how do you spell Posey,” he insisted, believing that they were having a conversation.

“P-o-s-e-y. And I’ll bet I can spell your name without you even telling me how to do.”

“W-a-l—”

But his father had cut in. “Now, Walker. Mrs. McElroy didn’t come to our party for a spelling bee. Why don’t you go and ask your mother if you can’t do something to help? You be the butler.” He turned to Posey McElroy. “You wouldn’t believe the help problem around here since the war began.”

“Oh, would I not! Why, down home every darkie in town has got a defense job.”

Wounded, frightened and angry—for Walker, a familiar constellation of emotions—the boy turned and made his way between the tall thick clumps of people, their legs firmly planted, arms and hands in motion. A few women caught at him and asked how he was; they seemed pleased at remembering his name, although several of them got it wrong and called him Walter.

His mother was near the corner window, with two much older ladies. “Dad said to ask if I should pass something, or do anything,” said Walker.

“Oh, no, darling. I don’t think so, not now. Mmm—did you meet Mrs. McElroy?”

“Her name is Posey. P-o-s-e-y. But that can’t be a real name, can it?”

Beyond the window the lake was ruffled with waves, frilly whitecaps on the dark bright blue. A few sailboats were out, faraway sails as small as handkerchiefs, against the black opposite shore, another state. It was a brilliant October afternoon, an hour or so before sunset.

Althea sighed. “Posey. Well, I suppose it must be a nickname. They’re Southern, although I know some people don’t consider Texas the South. Her husband is that young Army captain over by the bar.” And luckily John doesn’t like very small women, thought Althea, hopelessly, and mistakenly. Distrust of her husband had made her give up what had been a promising career, but she still practiced all day, on most days, always intending to take it up again—and to lose some weight.

From another corner of that inconveniently shaped room, another woman also had her eye on John Conway, who was still talking to Posey. Lucienne Malaquais, a widow (her husband was rumored to have been in some way a French hero, in the Resistance), she had recently (inexplicably) settled in that small suburb of a great Midwestern city, on the lake. “It’s the perfect climate for a rose garden,” she said, but no one believed her. Lucienne wore, that afternoon, an old Balenciaga, whose extreme chic no one in the room could recognize; they thought her rather plain, with her short gray hair, that brown dress, no jewelry to speak of. Earlier that afternoon, as she put on the dress, which was her favorite, Lucienne had caught herself thinking of John, who was powerfully attractive to her. Surely, on seeing her, he would make some gesture? But there had been nothing in his eyes as he greeted her, as they talked for a moment or two. Neighborly, he had been.

And, watching John’s face as he listened to Posey, even from that smoky distance, what Lucienne saw written there forced her to several conclusions, the first addressed to herself, an admonition: Don’t be a fool. And secondly, more gently, she thought: Ah, poor Althea. She must have witnessed such a scene quite often, in her time. Lastly she thought, And that sad little boy, that funny tall Walker.

The house in which the party was taking place, the splendid house that Posey had already fallen in love with, was relatively new, completed the year before. John’s detractors said that he imitated Frank Lloyd Wright, or Saarinen; others, a smaller but noisy group, spoke of the house’s originality. Built on a huge outcropping of rock, on the lakeshore, it jutted into and over the water, with cantilevered balconies, a lot of steel and plate glass; inside, there were giant fireplaces of massive, indigenous stone. But somehow the construction had not quite worked out. In the high narrow passageways between those eccentric rooms, the floorboards creaked, and everywhere the cold Midwestern winter winds leaked in. What was a wonderful house for parties was also, for three isolated people, quite miserably uncomfortable: cold, damp and wretchedly lonely, with so much space. John traveled a lot, was often away. Off in her wing, Althea practiced furiously, relentlessly, although she complained that the damp was wrecking the strings of her piano. And Walker, in his narrow, built-in bed, in his long ship’s galley of a room, told himself long interwoven stories. In his favorites he was the son of some very plain but substantial Midwestern people, who lived in a big plain square house that was warm.

It was never clear to anyone who observed them at what point John and Posey became lovers in actual fact—not to Althea, nor to Walker, nor to Lucienne Malaquais, who remained an interested friend. But that historical date hardly mattered. What was important, for many years, was the lively friendship between the two couples, a friendship animated, of course, by the strong attraction between Posey and John. For a long time the others felt themselves to be included in that liveliness, that excitement. They all had fun together.

Captain Jamie McElroy, a rather prissy young man, seemed as pleased by John’s attentions as Posey was—big flamboyant John, with his store of dirty limericks and his hard-core Midwestern isolationist opinions, although now that the war was on of course he was all for it: let’s slaughter those Japs. Too bad a punctured eardrum had kept him out of the Army, Jamie often remarked to his wife; what a fine general he could have been. Posey agreed.

Also, Jamie cared a lot about music, in a knowledgeable way, which gave him a bond with Althea. Usually unfriendly Althea liked Jamie, and she chose to take John’s word for what he felt about Posey, that she was a helluva lot of fun, a nice gal. Her private view was that Posey was exceptionally stupid, which of course her brilliant, talented John could perceive without any comment from her, couldn’t he?

Young Walker, brought along on visits to the McElroys, at various Army bases, had a pretty good time. He enjoyed the comfort of Posey’s overheated houses, and he liked the piles of bright cushions that she moved from Fort Benning to Fort Bragg, Biloxi to Sill. He still thought Posey was the prettiest grown-up woman he had ever seen, and her unfailing effusiveness (a contrast to his somber mother) beguiled him, as it beguiled his father, and soothed an innately suspicious nature. For quite a while, he thought she liked him. She served him wine at dinner, like an adult, and strange sweet after-dinner drinks, even arguing with his parents: “Now, Althea honey, you know a couple of little sips of that créme de menthe is not going to hurt a boy.”

Sometimes what Posey said to him was puzzling, even vaguely troubling, as, “I think it’s absolutely wonderful, the way you’ve always got that cute big old nose of yours stuck in some book,” or, “Such a tall boy you’re getting to be, a person’d think twice ’fore calling you a sissy.” Eager for love, Walker chose not to understand. Also, like many exceptionally intelligent people, he was slow to perceive exceptional stupidity. And, perhaps worse, an awareness of his own deficiencies in physical charm—knobby knees had persisted, along with a nearsighted, narrow-shouldered stoop, and a non-cute big nose—made him overvalue grace and beauty in others. Surely such a perfect physical specimen as Posey must also be good?

Lucienne Malaquais, in quite another way from Posey’s, became and continued to be a good friend of that family; more precisely, she was a friend of each of theirs, seeing them individually rather than as a group. With each of them she had a separate topic of conversation: with John it was architecture, and painting, about which she was highly educated; with Althea music and with Walker books. Novels, poetry—she urged him to read Mann’s stories, Proust, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf. She was a woman of extraordinary modesty, a remarkable listener who almost never spoke of herself. And her vast charm somehow summoned from everyone his or her best qualities; even troubled, difficult people, the three Conways, were at their best and quietly happiest with Lucienne, in her small memento-crowded house that smelled of roses.