Rafael Yglesias: Hot Properties

Fred Tatter’s dinner party was about to begin. Invitations had been mailed three weeks ahead of time, making it — apart from his bar mitzvah and his wedding — the most formally schemed event of Fred’s life. Indeed, because of the guest list, Fred considered this gathering symbolic of the impending culmination of his life’s ambition. Four years ago he had been a dumpy Jewish guy (his own description) who knew a lot about sports. Now he was a New York Writer, all set to entertain an important agent, an editor, and several promising colleagues. He had shucked the dusty green shell of his Long Island background, and gleamed anew in fresh rows of friends and occupation. Armed with his coffee-table spread of cheeses and fish eggs, he felt his incarnation as Novelist was imminent.

Ironically, an afterthought on the guest list — Patty Lane — was the first to arrive. Patty used to work with Marion, Fred’s wife, at Goodson Books. They were assistant editors until a few months ago, when Patty was fired in a general cutback. Knowing this blow had come on top of Patty’s breaking up with her boyfriend, Marion felt sorry for Patty, and invited her without consulting Fred. Patty’s presence might have irritated Fred, especially in her current condition of unemployment (Fred wanted this evening to gleam with success; any tarnish on his guests might dull the general glow), if it were not for her considerable charms.

Marion was busy in the kitchen while Fred brought Patty a drink. She had come a half-hour early — in her state of mind, she tended to mishear things — and so Fred was alone with her, nervously sipping wine while he watched Patty hungrily eat cheese and crackers from the tray of hors d’oeuvres. Fred began to lean forward for the food as well when he discovered an incentive to do so.

He leaned forward in time with Patty: this choreography allowed him a clear view down the front of her pink cotton top. She wore no bra; thus Fred could conduct a detailed inspection of her white slopes. That is, until his vision reached her nipples. There the soft cloth resumed its task of mild disguise. Only when Patty had taken her piece of bread from the coffee table and relaxed back onto the couch did the two hard points her nipples made in the material become the focus of his attention. For Fred, hors d’oeuvres had suddenly become exhausting.

“Are you looking for a job?” he asked, forcing his eyes up: to look at her eyes. That wasn’t unpleasant. Patty’s eyes were enormous, their color green, their setting moist; she had the bewildered and astonished appearance of an innocent shocked by a corrupt world.

“Oh,” Patty sighed. Her eyes strayed to the window. She gazed at the view of the East River. Then she suddenly seemed inspired. “Are there any?”

“Jobs?” Fred said, laughing. “Of course there are jobs. What do you mean?”

“No.” She laughed at herself. “I mean, are there any openings? Why don’t they fire somebody besides me?”

Fred laughed, delighted by her dizzy and courageous good cheer. Patty leaned forward (reaching for the cheese board) and the forms of her breasts again appeared against the material of her top as she began the movement, gradually billowing out at the neck, until, as her knife sank into the cheese, Fred’s clear view of mammary mountainside made him catch his breath. Patty cut a slice and paused, looking up at Fred.

“Fred? Any for you?”

He was speechless.

“No, no.” he said abruptly, forcing his eyes away from the scenic route back onto the duller highway of cheese board, coffee table, large standing fern, and dark brown couch. “No one’s been fired.”

“Fred!” Marion yelled from the kitchen.

“Yes,” Fred said instantly. He got to his feet. Patty’s eyes widened with surprise at his prompt attention.

“Whoa!” she commented.

“My wife calls.” Fred said, and left the room.

She sure has you trained, Patty thought, munching her Brie and cracker. She was famished from her long day’s journey, all done on a ration of coffee, cigarettes, and one pastry, the last eaten more than six hours before. But once finished with the cracker, Patty reflected on Marion’s married life. Do I envy her? she asked herself. Should I like to work all week and then spend all day Sunday slaving in the kitchen to entertain my husband’s friends?

Fred appeared again, looking sheepish, with his arms burdened by a large bag of garbage. Patty laughed but repressed herself when she saw that Fred looked embarrassed and angry. He let the heavy metal door slam shut behind him as he carried out the load.

Men and women aren’t meant to be together, Patty decided, and sliced herself a huge piece of cheese. “Jeez,” she commented out loud. “I’ve got to have bigger breakfasts.”

“What?” Marion called from the kitchen. And then appeared at the doorway, dressed as if she were going to the office instead of giving a party: gray woolen skirt, a light pink ruffled blouse, a plain gold chain around her neck — a junior executive in drag. However, Marion wore an apron over her business outfit and this contrast made her seem more domestic: a modern Doris Day.

Patty believed Doris Day presented a comical and demeaning image for women; nevertheless, Doris’ movies were her favorites as a girl. She wanted to disdain Marion’s life, but she felt envy and admiration instead. “I’m eating all your cheese.”

“Good,” Marion said with Doris Day’s cheerfulness. “Do you have enough crackers?”

Fred opened the front door. “Yeech,” he said, holding his arms out and away from his body while he studied his pants.

“Did it leak?” Marion asked.

“Ow!” Patty said sympathetically.

“I’ve got to change,” Fred said, and disappeared down the hallway leading to the bedrooms.

“I’m sorry,” Marion called after him with a worried look. “I didn’t see it was torn.”

“Those plastic bags are treacherous,” Patty said with exaggerated solemnity. “They come apart all over me. My neighbors are used to seeing me outside my apartment covered with garbage.”

Patty’s gift for making the simplest statement funny through the contrast of her melodramatic language with a deadpan tone was enjoyed without remark by her friends. Marion resented this talent. Patty wasn’t wittier, Marion thought, she simply made a clown of herself. Marion was rarely able to make others laugh and yet Patty could keep a room of people amused for hours, effortlessly, merely by discussing the most ordinary and routine events of the day. And, indeed, Marion herself laughed now from the vivid image she got of Patty smeared with trash.

The doorbell cut her short. Marion went to answer it. Patty got up, heading toward the hallway.

“Hi,” said the fellow at the front door.

“Hello, Tony,” Marion said.

Tony looked cheerfully and expectantly at Patty as he stepped in. He had an air of accomplished sociability: he neatly removed his coat in the same movement with which he entered and kissed Marion on the cheek. Yet there was enthusiasm in the routine — as if to say that although he had stepped into a million living rooms, he could still greet this one brightly.

“Excuse me, Tony,” Patty said. “I have to use the john immediately or I’ll ruin the rug.” Patty turned away and walked down the narrow hallway, past a recessed bookcase (filled, for the most part, with books that Marion had edited, which meant there was a surfeit of exercise and cookbooks), and on past the master bedroom into a small bathroom. There she closed and locked the door. She felt breathless and sat down on the closed toilet seat. She had lied about the condition of her bladder. Patty had felt panic out there in the living room. Presented with Marion, with her plumage of domesticity, proudly showing off her bright-colored apron and dutiful husband (gallant carrier of garbage). Patty felt inadequate. Marion’s calm, settled tone, so different from Patty’s harassed, eager-to-please party voice, intimidated her. Watching Marion was like getting a phone call from Mother: silent rebuke and disapproving pity for Patty and her screwed-up life were behind the kindly tone and tentative questions.