Alison Lurie - The War Between the Tates - A Novel

“In love? ” Erica giggles again.

“Uh huh.” Danielle finishes zipping up the back of her dress and sits down again on the bed. “Well, you know, he hasn’t had much experience for a man his age. I used to think that when he praised me, when he told me how great I was in bed for instance, he was just being polite, I would think how I was probably a poor substitute for his wife Marnie, whom he always spoke of with such awe and restraint.

“But the truth seems to be she was really rather a bitch. Not in ways anybody could see; but she was always getting at Bernie in private because he drank and smoked and didn’t go to church enough. He says he used to envy his friends who could grumble about how their wives burned the dinner or dented the car, or couldn’t manage a budget. But Marnie was a superb housekeeper, and an elaborate cook. She braided her own rugs and canned her own tomatoes and baked her own bread and spent all her free time doing good works. Everybody thought she was just about perfect. Bernie never told them she didn’t like to make love and thought he was a weak, corrupt, unreliable man who was a bad influence on his own sons. Partly he agreed with her, that’s the really sad thing. Sometimes when he was out of town he’d get drunk, or once in a while pick up a girl in a bar. Marnie never said anything, but he was always sure she knew. ‘How could she know a thing like that?’ I asked him. ‘I don’t know, but she did,’ he said. ‘She used to tell the boys she had x-ray vision and could see right into their brains.’”

“That’s rather creepy,” Erica says, feeling distaste for both characters in the story. “And does he still get drunk and pick up women?”

“I don’t think so. He didn’t enjoy it much even then, he told me. He says he’s never known a woman who liked sex the way I do.”

“Really.”

“Well, it is good.” Danielle laughs with uncharacteristic embarrassment. “It’s funny, but he suits me better than even Leonard did. Of course Leonard was amazing in bed, but he was so unpredictable. He was always wanting to do something new. I used to like that too, but it didn’t always work out. Maybe I’m just getting old, but it’s nice to know what to expect, and not have to keep trying uncomfortable positions somebody saw in a book on Oriental art.”

“I know what you mean,” Erica says, in full agreement for the first time in the conversation. “I feel exactly the same.”

“Another thing, I think Bernie’s lonely,” Danielle continues, standing up. In front of the mirror she releases her dense dark-brown hair from its tight ponytail, and starts to brush it back and out from her head, so vigorously that the air in the bedroom crackles. “Both his sons are away now, and he doesn’t like living by himself. I’m afraid if I don’t marry him he’ll find somebody else.”

“Well, if he does, so can you.” Erica says with some enthusiasm.

“Maybe.” Danielle pauses, holding her brush out at the end of a stroke. “You know that old saying, about how men are like buses? And if you miss one. don’t worry, because there will be another along in a few minutes. Yep, maybe. For a while. But as it gets later they run less often.”

“Yes—well.” Erica laughs uncomfortably. “I don’t know. You’ve always” found them without any trouble whenever you wanted them.”

“That’s different” Danielle opens her make-up drawer. “If you just want to screw, there’s always somebody around. That’s all right for a while. But you get tired of all the coming and going.” She pencils her emphatic dark brows even darker. “I’m like Roo; I sort of want a horse of my own.”

“Not a farm horse, though.” Erica smiles. “Not that Bernie Kotelchuk really reminds me of a farm horse, he’s more like—” She breaks off, noting Danielle’s expression in the glass. Perhaps it is just the effect of holding her facial muscles stiff while she outlines her eyes; all the same, Erica does not go on to say that what Dr. Kotelchuk reminds her of is a farm dog, that she can see him as this dog: a large old St. Bernard padding along a country road on a cold late winter night to where Danielle is waiting for the next bus—trudging up to her over the snow, slobbering over her, offering her his cheap domestic brandy.

“I know you don’t fancy him much,” Danielle says, thickening her already thick lashes with mascara.

“It’s not that.” Again Erica looks into the mirror where Danielle is framed by mahogany Victorian scrolls and leaves. With her hair down and her face made up, in the mahogany-red dress, she is still a very beautiful woman; much, much too good for Bernie Kotelchuk. “What I think is—” Downstairs the bell twangs. Danielle turns her head.

“Oh, hell, there’s somebody already. Roo, honey! Could you answer the door? Say I’ll be right down.” She steps out of the mirror frame and goes to feel in the closet with one foot and then the other for her black silk pumps.

“I’ll be with you in a few moments,” Erica says, moving toward the bathroom. While her friend clatters downstairs, she locks the door and inspects herself in both mirrors: the small one over the sink and the long one on the door. The result is the same. Up close under the light her face looks like a stone rubbed with pink chalk, powdery and worn. But as long as she keeps a certain distance from people—a bit over two feet—she will seem perfectly normal, though a little pale.

This shouldn’t be too difficult tonight; indeed in some cases she will have cooperation. Among those who are sure to keep their distance are the men who tried to get too close last fall. Corinth being the size it is, Erica has not been able to avoid these rejected adulterers completely—especially since many of their deceived wives are close acquaintances who would be surprised and hurt if she dropped them without apparent reason. Several of them are coming tonight; and she will have to speak to them in a friendly, open way, and to their husbands; not showing what she knows, not knowing what she shows—and moreover, not knowing what they, or anyone at the party, know about anything.

Officially, for instance, Brian isn’t living with Wendy, but alone. Erica, according to her promise, has never contradicted this, though surely by now some people must have heard the real truth, or part of it. But she has no idea who these people are. Which of Danielle’s guests still believe the official version, which know the whole story? And which, aware of Wendy’s existence but no more, regard Erica as yet another middle-aged wife whose marriage has failed—another deserted woman whose husband has, as Leonard Zimmern once put it, traded in a forty for a twenty?

The doorbell rings again; more voices below. Erica looks for a last time into the two mirrors and, sighing, leaves the bathroom; she descends the stairs, fixing a social smile on her chalky face.

Already the rooms are filling; Danielle is an impulsive last-minute hostess, and has invited most of her freshman seminar, all the members of her feminist rap group, and several neighbors. But the bulk of the party is composed of her colleagues in Romance Languages and their spouses. These tend, as usual, to cluster in tight small groups, laughing and speaking rapidly in foreign accents, and occasionally in foreign tongues. Erica passes among them, smiling and nodding; pausing sometimes for a few words, but always keeping her predetermined interval of two and a half feet. It is not as easy as she had hoped, because of the Romance Languages habit of standing rather too close—close enough to breathe, and in some cases spit, on one’s companions. But Erica manages it. Over the last months she has learned to keep her distance with everyone—a distance not only physical but psychological.