Evan Connell - Mrs. Bridge

“How are you, Naomi?” Mrs. Bridge asked.

“Just fine,” said Naomi.

“I saw your mother the other day.”

“That’s what she said/*

As this exhausted their common interests, Mis. Bridge said, “I’ll see if Gorky’s come home yet.” She put down the receiver and went to look, but Carolyn had not returned from having her hair set.

“I didn’t want to talk to her anyway/* said Naomi. “I’m chairman of the Activities Committee for the sorority dance and we decided on you for one of the chaperons/’

“Why, how nice! This Is quite a surprise/*

Naomi guessed maybe It was a surprise.

“Well when Is the dance to be?” Mrs. Bridge stalled,

“Two weeks from Friday from eight o’clock to twelve-thirty In the Elbow Room/”

Still fighting for time to set up her defenses Mrs. Bridge asked about the Elbow Room.

“It’s downtown. It used to be a pool hall, I think, only they took out the pool tables.” There was a pause. Naomi added hopefully, “Lots of fraternities have parties there, I think.”

“It’s very nice, I’m sure/*

Naomi guessed probably it was.

Another pause ensued, a longer one, during which Mrs. Bridge could hear Naomi breathing. Obviously the question had already been put and some kind of an answer was expected.

“Well, just a minute, Naomi, 111 see if we’re busy that evening.” She slid the tabulator of her plastic engagement book to the proper date and pressed: up popped the cover and Mrs. Bridge found, to her dismay, that nothing was planned.

“I sure do hope you can do it,” Naomi said miserably. “I already called up almost all the mothers.”

Mrs. Bridge was a bit disconcerted by this confession, but she was touched by Naomi’s despair. Then, too, Carolyn had been a sorority member for more than a year and during this time Mrs. Bridge had not been called upon to serve as a chaperon at any of the parties, so she said, “That’ll be grand, Naomi. I’ll make a note of It right now.” And while jotting it down she asked, “What sort of decorations are you planning?”

Naomi said they hadn’t gotten a majority vote on anything, but probably it would be a Hawaiian party.

“Well, you have lots of time. I’m sure it will be exciting.”

Naomi sounded despondent. “I sure do hope so.”

This seemed to conclude their business, so, after a pause, Mrs. Bridge said, “I’ll tell Carolyn you called.”

“She knows.”

‘Ohl Well, thank you for asking me, Naomi. I’m flattered.”

“You’re welcome,” said Naomi phlegmatically. “Well, good-by,”

Mrs. Bridge replaced the receiver and murmured, “Oh, dear!” for it sounded like a dull evening.

The Elbow Room was decorated with Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling and with hundreds of yards of crepe paper lividly criss-crossing the windows, framing the doors, and connecting the lanterns. Mrs. Bridge, who was quite sensitive to odors, was certain the moment she entered that it had Indeed been used as a pool hall, If not worse. The orchestra consisted of a piano, a complicated arrangement of drums, a bass viol, and five saxophones, all played by high-school boys. There was a girl about thirteen years old on the stage; she was wrapped as tight as a mummy In a piece of flowered silk and it was evident she Intended to sing. Mrs. Bridge, surveying this scene, found there were three other chaperons, two of them high-school teachers of whom she had heard a great deal and whose photographs Carolyn had pointed out to her in the school yearbook, and a swarthy young man named De Falk who was the father of one of the sorority girls.

The first half of the evening moved along smoothly enough; Mrs. Bridge thought the orchestra played remarkably well, considering, and the dancers some of them at least looked as though they had been accustomed to this sort of thing for years. The boys In the stag line stood around with their hands in their pockets and did a great deal of staring and whispering. Later in the evening a fight broke out near the punch bowl, and shortly after this two boys in tuxedos began burning holes in a lantern with their cigarettes and had to be warned by Mr. De Falla that If they did it again they would have to leave. Naomi was there in white taffeta, enormous, alone, and wretched; Mrs. Bridge smiled to her and talked with her occasionally and wondered if, as a chaperon, she could flatly order one of the stags to dance with Naomi.

She had a feeling there would be trouble if she attempted this.

Carolyn danced by every few minutes; Mrs. Bridge waved and smiled and during the evening was introduced to a number of boys. Mr. De Falla asked her to dance, and though she did not want to she felt it might look rude if she refused. He danced with a rather wild, swooping motion, but otherwise proved to be more cultured than she had expected and she found herself half-hoping he would ask for another dance. But he did not; when the music ended he escorted her back to her chair and resumed talking to the female mathematics teacher, who was wearing a low-cut gray satin gown, with a gardenia looking quite mashed in the crevice.

About eleven o’clock a game of dice was discovered in the cloakroom by Mr. De Falla, because the sentinel was at the punch bowl, and the gamblers were dismissed from the party. Beyond this there were no incidents until shortly after midnight. This last affair was witnessed by Mrs. Bridge alone. She never mentioned it to anyone.

She had been sitting quietly, partly concealed by the piano, for quite a while when she noticed a couple dancing in the corner where the lantern had burned out. Their motions were definitely erotic, though in time to the music. In a lesser degree such dancing had been evident throughout the evening, modern dancing being more suggestive than the dancing of Mrs. Bridge’s youth; but, because the other chaperons had taken it all without comment, she had not objected. This couple, however, thinking themselves un-observed in the darkened corner, were consciously beyond the limit: Mrs. Bridge knew it immediately from the girl’s apprehensive eyes. The boy was dancing, shuffling, in-sinuating himself, with his eyes closed and his nose thrust into the flower she wore in her hair, and on his pimpled face lay a sleepy smile. The girl, too, was dreamily smiling, though she remained alert. Mrs. Bridge leaned forward in her chair and attracted the girl’s attention; instantly the couple broke apart and went dancing rapidly to the other end of the room and on out the door. She saw them both look back to see if she had gotten up and was coming after them. She never saw them again and never learned who they were. She did not ask. This was the thing she remembered longest and most vividly about the sorority party, and the thing that caused her to look more carefully at the boys who came by the house for Carolyn. The horrifying part of it had been that the girl’s back was turned to her partner.

Carolyn was dating a clumsy, bumptious boy with crew-cut hair and an idiotic laugh whose name was Jay Duchesne, and about whom Mrs. Bridge had her doubts. Duchesne chewed gum with awful assurance and reputedly drove too fast, but because she wanted Carolyn to learn to judge people she said nothing, always greeting Duchesne with a neutral smile and saying, “Good evening, Jay. Won’t you have a chair? Carolyn will be down in a few minutes/

“Why not?” Duchesne would answer, and after shaking his own hand in congratulation he would sit and twirl his hat on his index finger and chew gum with a loud snapping noise.

Until Carolyn got in at night Mrs. Bridge would lie awake or would sit up reading. Carolyn knew this and consequently talked to Duchesne in very low tones at the front door; Mrs. Bridge could hear them murmuring because their voices carried much farther in the still night air than they realized. One evening, after they had been saying good night at the door for about an hour, she heard the next-door neighbor’s fox terrier which was often left out overnight begin to growl, and she concluded that Duchesne must be molesting Carolyn. Throwing back the covers she hurriedly pulled on her robe and went to the banister, prepared to call out, but at that moment a cat hissed; with a sigh of relief Mrs. Bridge prepared to go back to bed. Then, however, she heard Duchesne ask Carolyn for a kiss.