Alison Lurie - The War Between the Tates - A Novel

For years she had enjoyed and excelled at that sort of harmless flirting which is not intended to lead to assignations and fornication but is only a pleasant way of passing time and informing the other person that they are attractive. Now the gay, confiding manner which she used to put on for parties is as inappropriate as a low-cut dress—and for the same reasons. It makes women look at her with wifely suspicion; it causes men to move deliberately and crudely toward her—or worse, deliberately away, with an expression of No Thanks.

“Hiya, Erica!” Chuck Markowitz, one of her former pursuers, greets her noisily, not at all abashed—perhaps not even recalling the day last December when he came up the road from his Glenview Home with his new snow blower, offering to clear her driveway after the first big storm of the winter. Since Chuck was a neighbor, a junior colleague of Brian’s and about ten years younger than Erica, she accepted gratefully and without suspicion. Even afterward, when be was having coffee in her kitchen and complaining humorously about family responsibilities (his wife Lily was then eight month’s pregnant with their second child), she remained off guard. She was therefore first flabbergasted, and then very angry when he put down his cup, leaned across the table toward her and said, “Hey, Erica. You, uh, wanna make out?”

“Hello, Chuck. How are Lily and the baby?” Though she has not spoken to him face to face since December, Erica has often driven by the Markowitz’s Glenview Home and seen Chuck working with his snow blower, pushing before him the large machine with its bright-red nozzle extended and spurting snow, its vigorous mechanical noise. Occasionally he has called and offered again to clear her driveway; naturally, she has always refused.

As soon as she politely can, Erica disengages herself from Chuck. Smiling and nodding at arm’s length, she makes her way through Danielle’s guests toward the dining room, where Dr. Bernard Kotelchuk stands behind the long oak table pouring drinks with large gestures, a loud red tie and an offensive hostlike manner.

“Good evening, Mrs. Tate! How’re you doing tonight?”

“Fine, thank you.” She smiles thinly, irritated to be addressed as “Mrs. Tate,” though aware that his intention is not facetious, merely formal.

“What can I give you?”

“Some white wine, please.”

“Coming up.”

Erica moves away with the glass, sipping sparingly from it: not only is she aware that she will have to drive home—she knows that she is being watched. Because of her separated condition, if she seems to be even slightly high both men and women will look at her with suspicious pity: is Poor Erica starting to drink?

The party is in full blast now, its density and volume increasing every moment Nervously scooping up cheese dip with a cracker, though she is not hungry, Erica scans the room. Years ago, and again for a time this winter, she went to every party with the fantasy that someone would be there—” someone whom (though they had never met before) she would recognize who would recognize her.

Foolish; pathetic. As usual, she knows every grown man present tonight, and doesn’t want to know any of them better. Most of them are out of bounds anyhow, being married—as is most of the male population of Corinth over thirty. Among the remainder there are two or three men (not now present) whom Erica has finally decided she might be willing to go out with. It is not that her opinion of men has altered, or that she has any desire to become romantically involved. But it would be nice sometimes to have a respectable, attractive escort to concerts, films and art shows.

As yet, however, none of these men has offered to escort her. The only man she has gone anywhere with for nearly three months is Sandy Finkelstein, who is neither respectable nor attractive, though he is—just as, long ago, in Cambridge—usually available. There are problems even with Sandy: he can’t afford to go to anything that costs money and will not let her pay for him; he has no car and his appearance is weird. Last Sunday at the afternoon concert he wore a secondhand Army overcoat he had bought for two dollars, and a red knit hat with a long tail and tassles like one of the Seven Dwarfs.

Erica thinks of something Danielle once said: that what men do if they can afford it is take a naive young woman, give her a couple of babies and a big house to look after, and then after fifteen years of hard work they discard her. By that time she’s used goods; damaged merchandise. Nobody wants her any more. Except maybe the sort of man who buys day-old bread and gets his clothes at church sales.

But she must not think that way. She is at a party, where people have come together to have a good time. She scans the room, looking for someone to talk to; but they all seem to smile and then turn away, avoiding her. It is a strange sensation. For years, as a beautiful, happy young woman, she was the object of general admiration and attraction; last fall when Brian first left she was also surrounded, wherever she went, by interested sympathizers and wolfish husbands. But now her story is no longer news, and as a lonely middle-aged woman with moral principles she is dull, an embarrassment. As Danielle said, it gets later and the buses run less often—finally not at all.

Taking a deep breath, suppressing these thoughts, she scans the crowd again and then moves through it toward Clara Dickson, her lawyer—also once Danielle’s. Indeed Clara, a motherly broad woman, long happily married, has helped to end most of the local unhappy marriages Erica knows of.

“Hello, Clara. How are you?” Good manners demand that she should not ask instantly whether Jack Lucas is still dragging his feet about the settlement; Erica begins the conversation by inquiring about Clara’s many grown and successful children. Before she can finish this polite ceremony they are interrupted by neighbors of Clara’s who are remodeling a house on the lake and intend to explain the process room by room. Discouraged, smiling chalkily, Erica drifts away, waiting for a better opportunity. She moves through the guests, keeping a becoming distance, stopping at intervals to smile, deplore the weather, and parry inquisitive remarks with conventional answers. (“How are you these days?” “Oh, fine.” “Well, what’s new with you?” “Oh, nothing much.” “And how is all your family?”)

In the front room, away from the bar, the crowd is thinner; in the hall there is only one person: a tall, very shabby, dim looking man standing by the stairs reading a magazine.

“Sandy.” Erica smiles. It is a relief to see someone who knows her story and won’t ask questions, and it is mildly pleasant to see Sandy. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

“Neither did I.” Zed puts the magazine down.

“I’m glad you came.” Erica smiles, but with mixed feelings. She had asked Danielle if she could invite Sandy for his own good, so that he might again meet people of his own age, background and intellectual sophistication. For in spite of his shabby appearance he is an intelligent and sophisticated man; he has been kind to her this depressing winter, and Erica wants to repay him—to restore him to his right place in the world.

But now that he is here, Sandy looks incongruous and uncomfortable. He has put on his only respectable shirt—a frayed white oxford button-down, an apparent survival from his years of teaching—and a narrow, limp black knit tie. The effect is somehow to make him seem even more of a dismal outcast than he does in his secondhand pants and sweaters.

Still, since he is here, he can’t spend all evening in the hall reading the New-York Review of Books.

“Have you had anything to drink, yet?” she asks. “There’s tonic and orange juice if you don’t want liquor, or I could make you some tea.”