Alison Lurie - The Nowhere City

“Thank you,” Katherine said. She rolled over and sat up. Mrs. Skinner looked a most unlikely friend for her, but beggars cannot be choosers. “That’s very nice of you.” She drank from the glass Susy had brought, because it was the only liquid in sight.

“And maybe I could even help about finding a job. What kind of work do you do?”

“Well, usually secretarial.” Katherine had learned from experience that the phrase “research assistant” conveyed nothing to most people. “Back in Cambridge I used to work for some of the professors.”

“Gee; well then, that should be easy. I bet you could find something up at U.C.L.A. I’ll ask Fred. You’re lucky to have secretarial training.” Katherine did not have secretarial training—only an A.B. from Wellesley—but she did not contradict Susy. “I wish I had sometimes, it’s so easy to get typing to do when you want to make a little money for Christmas or something, but the only thing in the world I know how to do is teach nursery school.”

“Nursery school?” Katherine’s voice rose in surprise. “Gracious.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, that is—” But Katherine could not think of an evasion. “I’m surprised at your being a teacher. I suppose I thought you probably were an actress or a dancer or something like that,” she admitted with embarrassment.

“Golly, thanks. I’m awfully flattered: I adore the theater. But honestly, I never had any talent that way. I couldn’t even get into dramatic club in high school. Hey, you need another drink. Shall we go back in? I mean, how do you feel?”

Katherine felt better; there was a dim buzzing in her head, but it was painless. She looked at the tall glass in her hand, empty except for a cube of ice. I mustn’t drink any more, she thought.

In the other room, the party was still going on, only louder. Nobody seemed to notice her return. “Honey, Katherine needs another drink,” Susy said to her husband.

“Just plain water and ice, please. Lots of water: I’m very, very dehydrated.” Katherine giggled, and then bit her tongue. Oh dear, she thought. I must sit down and not say anything.

She sat on the sofa, stiffly upright, and pressed her knees together.

“Water and ice coming up, ma’am,” Fred Skinner announced, handing her the glass with a flourish which splattered her skirt. “Sor-ry!” Lurching a little, he sat down beside her. “Well, good to see you here.”

Katherine tried to think of a topic of conversation. “How is your report coming?” she asked.

“Report?” He frowned like a cross ape.

“Yes, you know, your report on the secret materials that blew over the fence.”

“Who told you about that?” Skinner exploded, in irritation rather than inquiry, for the answer was obvious. “I suppose your husband told you that story,” he answered himself, loud enough for Paul to hear him across the room and turn around. “Hey, Cattleman, whatsa big idea, breaking our security in bed! Doncha read the regulations?”

“It’s all right, Chief. I know I can count on her,” Paul replied. “I just thought it was a good story, the way it showed up Leon.”

“Yeah? Never trust a broad is my motto,” Skinner said. By this time, most of those present were listening and laughing. “Take it from me. And while we’re on the subject, Cattleman—” (he lapsed back for a moment from tough into academic style)—“I don’t wanna hear any more of this disloyal talk about Howard Leon. He’s a pretty committed guy.”

Paul smiled along with the rest, but Katherine could see that he was disconcerted. “Wow! Now hear that,” he exclaimed. “I get it. Gripe all you want in camp, but don’t let on to the civilians.”

Skinner gave Paul his monkey-like grin. “Yeah. Something like that.” The attention of the party remained fixed on him, and therefore on Katherine, but she refused to start another topic, or even to look at him. After a moment, he stood up and went away. Relieved, she lifted her glass and took two big swallows before she realized that he had deceived her—her “ice water” was full of some kind of strong, colorless alcohol.

Katherine glared across the room at Fred Skinner; but when she caught his eye, he winked. She had a strong impulse to get up, walk across the rug, and slap his face. That’ll make him wink, she thought, rising, dizzy, half out of her seat—and then subsiding in horror at the idea of the spectacle she had nearly created.

The party was in full swing now, with people laughing, shouting, and hugging each other. A few of them, like Fred Skinner, were dressed in conventional Eastern clothes; but most, like his wife, were disguised as Martians. A young woman with the face of a spinster school-teacher wore vivid purple velvet pants and sash and a yellow ruffled blouse printed with violets; a blond man about forty had on a Mexican shirt with blue embroidery and peculiar leather sandals—his behavior, however, indicated that he could not possibly be a homosexual. Most of the guests, unlike Susy, looked all right from the neck up (these two even had horn-rimmed glasses), but somehow that made it worse.

Katherine had hoped no one would speak to her until she felt clearer in the head, but now a girl sat down next to her on the sofa. “I’m Natalie Lenaghan,” she said pleasantly, “and you must be Mrs. Cattleman. How do you do?”

“How do you do,” Katherine said, since this was safe.

“We live in the next building but one,” Mrs. Lenaghan went on. “My husband’s at U.C.L.A.; that’s him over there.”

Katherine made no response. This was even safer. She observed Mr. Lenaghan: he was all right from the waist up, but below that he wore red plaid shorts. Mrs. Lenaghan, however, would have passed in Harvard Square.

“You’ve just come out here, haven’t you?” Mrs. Lenaghan said. “How do you like Los Angeles? ... Or don’t you really know yet?”

“Oh, I know,” Katherine replied. She realized dimly that this was a wrong answer.

“Susy says you’ve found a nice house quite near here,” Mrs. Lenaghan tried again after a pause. “That’s really wonderful luck. What’s it like?”

“It looks like a gas station,” Katherine said. “I mean, lots of these houses here look like gas stations, with those flat roofs, don’t you think so? ... They do, because they’re white and made out of cement, and they have flat roofs.”

Mrs. Lenaghan laughed. “Well, but that’s because it hardly ever rains in L.A. A sloping roof wouldn’t be any use here. Still, I see what you mean. When you come to think of it,” she added, “there are a lot of gas stations here that look like houses. There’s one up in Brentwood that’s exactly like a New England lighthouse.” She laughed again.

Katherine did not laugh. She wished that this agreeable and apparently intelligent woman would leave and come back some other time. I’m drunk, she thought of saying, so would you please go away now, before I make a fool of myself? But the utterance of this statement would be the action it was designed to prevent.

“Of course there are some ridiculous things here,” Mrs. Lenaghan went on. “But then think of the climate! That’s what I always say to myself.”

“I don’t like the climate,” Katherine said. “I don’t like the sun shining all the time in November, and the grass growing. It’s unnatural, it’s as if we were all shut up in some horrible big greenhouse away from the real world and the real seasons.” She raised her voice. “I hate the oranges here as big as grapefruits and the grapefruits as big as, I don’t know what, as big as advertisements for grapefruit, without any taste. Everything’s advertisements here. Everything has a wrong name. I mean the name of everything, you see, it’s always a lie, like an advertisement. For instance, this is Mar Vista, which is supposed to be Spanish for ‘view of the sea.’ But it has no view of the sea; it’s all flat, it has no view of anything. Mar Vista!” she repeated scornfully. “Spoil-the-View, I call it; Spoil-the-View, California.”