Alison Lurie - The War Between the Tates - A Novel

Finally, there was a long, severe reaction. Danielle was “through with all that, thank God,” as she declared many times with a stoic grin which made Erica want to weep—or possibly go to New York on the next plane and assassinate Leonard Zimmern. If she could help it, Danielle announced, she wasn’t going to have anything to do with love, or men, or any of that garbage, for the rest of her life. (“If it really starts bothering me, I can always masturbate.”) This dismal state of mind, which shows no sign of letting up, has lasted nearly a year.

“I think he has some idea that I might come across because I’m so weird by his standards. I mean, I’m forty-one, but I have long hair and wear arty clothes and I read books in foreign languages, so I might do anything, even sleep with him,” Danielle continues with a half-laugh. ‘You’re kind of a hippie, aren’t you?’ he said to me last night. ‘I didn’t know that when I saw you up at the clinic. The way girls dress these days, you can’t tell them apart.’”

“You know, that’s true,” Erica says, looking around the Blue Cow again. “It’s not like when we were in college. When somebody wore jeans and no make-up, instead of the standard plaid skirt and sweater set, and didn’t have her hair set, you knew instantly that she was one of us.”

“That’s right.” Danielle drains her coffee cup and sets it down. “It was the men you couldn’t tell apart then. They all had short hair and button-down shirts and chino pants. You had to talk to them to find out if they were interesting, or kind of spooko, or just club boys or sheep.” She smiles reminiscently, and so does Erica. “Now everything’s reversed. I know exactly how antiestablishment my male students are by the length of their hair; but the girls all look alike, whether they’re Delta Jello or SDS.”

Yes, Erica thinks as she backs her car out of the lot and starts home, it was different then. Better. But it isn’t quite true that all the men looked alike. Sandy Finkelstein, for instance, who is now possibly in Corinth—there was always something peculiar about him. He wore ordinary clothes, but they never fit right, perhaps because he was so thin. His pants flapped around his legs, his socks sagged, and his shirts ballooned and fluttered in the slightest breeze, as did his untidy red hair. She remembers him best in Greek class, struggling over sight translations in a room on the third floor of Sever Hall, raising his pale eyes to the ceiling in a pantomime of despair.

After class Erica occasionally had coffee with him on Mass. Avenue; and once Sandy, who was rather pathetically stuck on her for a while, took her to hear The Magic Flute. At the end of that year he left Cambridge, but he came back now and then for a visit. He had been at her wedding on one of those trips; not that she’d invited him, but somebody had brought him along. He was rather sweet, really, Sandy—amusing to talk to, and intelligent—but sort of a lost soul even then. It wasn’t so surprising that he should end up out of a job, involved in Eastern mystical nonsense. But it was a little sad.

Erica turns north at the edge of campus onto the main road. A hard, high wind is blowing across it, shifting banks of cold-looking clouds. The last she’d heard of Sandy was a picture postcard of some Japanese temple; a shiny color photograph—on the reverse no address, no message, only his name and a haiku he’d copied out, something about crickets. That was several years ago ... three, four? She tries to recall whether the card was mailed directly here, or forwarded from Cambridge. In other words, does Sandy know the Tates are in Corinth? Were it anyone else she would have assumed not, otherwise they would have called. But with Sandy you couldn’t be sure—especially if he has turned into some kind of superstitious eccentric.

If she goes to the bookstore with Danielle, and it really is Sandy, then she will have to invite him to the house, to dinner, whatever he has turned into. But there is no need to do it instantly. Next week would be soon enough, or next month. If he has joined one of those vegetarian religions, it means a special meal, too. Well, that egg curry from the United Nations cookbook is quite good, with walnuts and chutney. Danielle can come, though Brian will not like that; nor will he like the vegetarian curry. He always demands meat for dinner. And Sandy himself will probably annoy Brian, or at least bore him. But perhaps it would not be unpleasant to bore and annoy Brian a little. And when you learn that an old friend is in town, the right thing to do is invite him to dinner, for instance next weekend.

Out on Jones Creek Road the wind is blowing even harder, scraping down the grass in the fields, pulling the few remaining wrinkled leaves from the oaks. As Erica comes up the hill past the latest Glenview Homes, which always look particularly exposed and vulgar from now until the first snowfall, she sees that there is someone, a young girl, sitting on the top step of her front porch next to two suitcases. From her attitude—body huddled against the wind beside a post, head down, eyes shut—it appears that she has been sitting there a long time; or is very cold, or very tired, or both. As Erica’s car enters the driveway, however, the girl hears it, and sits upright.

Erica turns off the ignition and sets the brake. Her thought is that this person is at the wrong house; that she has come to visit someone in a Glenview Home. Her suitcases, which are of molded plastic, pinkish tan, suggest this. She has yellow hair, most of which is pulled into braids that hang limply on either side of a round, ordinary Glenview Homes sort of face, while escaped shreds blow across it.

Erica gets out of the car with her books, and walks around it. “Can I help you?” she asks in a neutral, pleasant voice.

Slowly, the girl stands up. She is short—hardly taller than Erica though she stands a step higher—and not quite as young as she first looked. Her eyes are red-rimmed, worn, as though she had a bad cold, or had been weeping.

“Are you Mrs. Tate?”

“Yes.” Erica smiles encouragingly, not puzzled, since the name is within view, painted by her in script on their mailbox.

“Mrs. Brian Tate?” she repeats, with a sort of tired eagerness.

“That’s right.”

“I’ve come to apologize to you, before I leave town. I’m Wendy Gahaghan.”

“Wendy Gahaghan?” Erica shields her chest with the facsimile edition of the Book of Kells. Wendee? But she’s not beautiful; not even terribly pretty. She’s just ordinary.

“Uh huh ...You know who I am?”

“Yes.” Erica has a sense of speaking with difficulty, through her teeth. “I know all about it.” She grips the books tighter. It is for this limp, snuffly, ordinary girl that Brian has behaved so atrociously, caused so much pain, so much rage! Wendy looks at her blankly, waiting; it is not clear for what. If she is to be scolded, insulted, even struck, her stance suggests she will not have the energy to defend herself. Her head hangs sideways. You miserable, cheap, nondescript—But Erica has not been brought up to insult strangers; she cannot voice the words. Besides, if she does insult Wendy, she will be jumping back into the wrong-hole. Wendy came here at last to apologize, and I—

“You’d better come inside,” she says.

Awkwardly, she holds open both the screen door and the front door, while Wendy, weighed down lopsidedly with suitcases, plods past her, and stands dumbly in the hall.

“In here.” Erica leads Wendy toward the sitting room, where last night’s paper still lies on the sofa, and the curtains are due to be cleaned. The kitchen, where she usually sits with Danielle and other friends, is tidier; but Wendy is not a friend, and probably will not notice anyhow.