Alison Lurie - Truth and Consequences

“It’s so there won’t be people barging in when she’s working,” Susie had explained. “She has to protect her privacy.”

Alan, when Jane had complained of this breach of authority and proper process, had not been sympathetic. In his opinion, Delia was right to have summoned someone out of the yellow pages. “You know how long she would have had to wait if you’d put in a requisition to B and G,” he had told her. “It took them over a month to fix the kitchen ceiling. And this isn’t an emergency.” When Jane suggested that what Delia wanted to lock out was not fans and students, but people who might catch her doing something shameful, Alan told her that she was being ridiculous. It was the same phrase he had used before, when denying that there was anything wrong about his friendship with Delia.

Of course, if she waited long enough, Jane thought, she would or would not see Alan come out of Delia’s office. But that would prove nothing, at least in his opinion. Also she had work to attend to, and no respectable reason to be hanging around the upstairs hall of the Center. If anyone saw her now, they would wonder what on earth she was doing there.

She was acting irrationally, Jane knew that. Because it wasn’t so much that she cared about Alan, it was that her mind was so full of confusion and doubt. Probably, though she couldn’t be sure, he and Delia had been laughing at her and lying to her for weeks, or months maybe. And what was much worse, Henry had probably been lying to her too, saying he loved her but not doing anything about it, not leaving Delia even after he knew he wasn’t really married to her and she was cheating on him. Yes, maybe he did sort of love me, Jane thought. But he wasn’t going to change his life for that. So it was right that she had stopped seeing him or speaking to him, that she was trying to forget him and put her marriage back together.

The trouble was that she kept thinking about Henry anyhow, remembering places and words and gestures: the barn full of stacked hay, the way he said “Janey,” a slow touch on the back of her knee—She couldn’t stop thinking about Henry; she couldn’t even stop loving him. Meanwhile, her marriage was not back together, it was lying around in disordered ugly metallic bits, like the pasta machine she had once thrown not exactly at Alan.

Gritting her teeth, Jane went back downstairs. She knew what her mother and Reverend Bob would say: they would say that she must not dwell on doubts and suspicions or immoral desires, but must go about her daily life cheerfully and prayerfully, trusting that her love for Alan and his for her would bring them back together in the end. Only she doubted more and more often now that she would ever love Alan again and that he would ever love her.

With a sigh that made Susie look up anxiously, she opened the file of this month’s expenses on her computer.

“Jane? Are you all right?” Susie asked.

“Fine,” Jane lied. “It’s just the bill from the caterers again. I’ve told them before not to bring milk or sugar, because we have our own, but they keep charging for them—” She allowed herself another sigh, almost a groan.

“Should I make us some tea?”

“No—yes, that would be nice,” Jane admitted. “Thank you.”

“Red Singer or Early Grey?”

“Red Singer, please.” Jane had given up correcting Susie’s cute names for her two favorite brands of tea after realizing that they had been invented by Charlie Amir. Susie had forgiven him for the lunge he had made at her earlier in the term, and lately they often had lunch together on campus. “He’s really awfully nice,” she had said last week, “and really smart and funny. His wife has left him, but he’s such a good sport about it.”

A few moments later a gust of fresh, cold air entered the hall, followed immediately by Henry Hull, whom Jane had not seen since their meeting by the lake over a week ago, and hardly expected to see alone again, though in spite of herself she kept imagining how this might happen. A hot pulse began to beat in her forehead, and she felt faint. He’s here, she thought. He’s not as tall as Alan, but there’s so much of him somehow, even more than I remembered.

“Oh, hello,” she said nervously. “I think Delia’s upstairs—” But don’t go there, she started to say, then thought: No, go. Maybe you’ll find out what’s happening in that room, if anything’s happening.

“I’m not looking for her,” Henry said. “Is Susie around?”

“Yes, she’s in the kitchen making tea.”

“Let’s go into the other room, then. There’s something I need to tell you.”

Jane gave a gasp and trembled slightly, but did not move.

“About Delia and the Center,” he added.

“All right.” She followed him out of the office and then into the big reception room at the right of the front door. “What is it? I can’t stay long.”

“Delia’s leaving.”

“Leaving? Leaving what?”

“Well, everything. You name it. The Center, Corinth University, Hopkins County. Me, probably.” Henry leaned against the carved mahogany molding of the doorway and began to unfasten his duffle coat. An awful impulse came over Jane to rest her head against it, as she had so often done before.

“But why?”

“She’s decided that Corinth is making her ill. You know she’s had two very bad migraines in the last week. She thinks it’s the cold and the humidity: she’s used to a Southern climate, mild sunny winters. Here it’s so dark and damp and cloudy all the time now: like living in an industrial freezer, she says.”

“But Delia’s signed a contract with the Center till the end of next term. How can she leave now?”

“Easy.” He smiled slightly. “She packs her bags, gets on a plane, and flies away. Then afterwards I make excuses for her and close up the house.”

“But that’s not fair. You shouldn’t have to—”

Henry shrugged. “I’ve done it before. Last time was worse. Delia was teaching a writing seminar at Converse College; it nearly drove her crazy. And when she left in the middle of the fall term, it nearly drove the department crazy.” He laughed.

I’ll bet, Jane thought, not laughing.

“I thought for a while this gig was going to work out, because she didn’t have to teach. And she did stick it out a lot longer. It’s better in a way: she’s not walking out on a class or anything. The Humanities Council won’t be so enraged.”

“They’ll be enraged,” Jane said. “Some of them will, anyhow.” She paused, thinking. “You know, Bill Laird predicted something like this months ago. He said Delia wouldn’t be able to take the weather.”

“It’s not only that, though. She can’t really work here, she’s interrupted all the time. Ever since her lecture people are after her to read manuscripts and recommend agents and publishers and write blurbs.”

“When is she leaving?”

“I don’t know. End of this week, probably.” Henry stared out the window at the icy overcast landscape. “She’s been saying for a while how much she longs to be in her house in North Carolina, where she can see the snow fall through the sunlight onto green grass, the way it does there sometimes in December.”

Jane disregarded this, struck by the administrative repercussions of Delia’s departure. “You know, if Delia leaves, we’ll stop paying her.”

“Yeah. That bothers her. Maybe it’s even kept her here a while longer.”

“But that can’t matter so much. I mean, she must make a lot from her books.”

“Sure, she does. But not as much as she needs to feel safe. See, Delia’s been poor much of her life, in ways people like you and me know nothing about. She worries about money a lot. And then, writing is chancy. The creek could dry up, like it did with me. Most writers, if they can’t live on their royalties, they get a teaching job, but Delia can’t stand teaching.”