Ramona Ausubel: Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty

They talked in the drone of the party. They did not mention jobs. Money was another thing they did not talk about.

A leather-vested man with sideburns to his jawbone and rose-colored sunglasses, booze-breathed and too close to Glory, said, “You look hip. I’ve got a stash in my van.”

Glory sidestepped him and moved closer to Edgar. “I’ve got a stash in my bra. Oh, wait, no bra. Guess it must be somewhere else.” She winked.

“You shouldn’t drink. It’s bad for the soul,” the man said.

“Men could stand to be reinvented. Men are due for an update,” she said. “But you seem okay,” she told Edgar. “I like you.” She looked him over — he was all sinew and blue eyes, his day in the sun made obvious by the color in his cheeks.

“Thank you,” he said. She made him feel small in a way that he liked.

“Don’t worry. I’m married too.” Glory pointed out her husband who was sitting in the corner wearing a button-down shirt with a big collar, high-waist brown pants and loafers and smoking a long, thin cigarette. He looked like someone trying to sell something for less than it was worth. She half loved him for it. He was real, at least. Dumbish, and no way would he be there when a revolution swept them all away, but honest and fair. He was probably talking about human evolution, which was one of the topics Glory had approved for social situations. That and political corruption in southerly nations, or food. He was not allowed to discuss anything about Glory or her family, his family. Their wedding was unmentionable. Everyone knew that they were husband and wife and that this had been a decision made by other people and that Glory tolerated while John waited at the gates of her broad and lush paradise. It was obvious, to look at them.

At 11:00 p.m., drunk and stoned, Glory said, “Do you want to get some air?” and Edgar took Glory out to his sports car, which was either a brave or disgusting car for someone who had just claimed to believe in socialism. Glory admired the pale blond leather seats and the wooden gearshift.

“You’ve never had an affair, have you?” she said.

He said, “I’m sorry. I should go home.”

She leaned over and kissed him well, like it was enough, not a short and irritating detour on the way to the good part. Edgar had never kissed someone he did not love.

He pulled his head back and closed his eyes.

Glory looked out the window at the party. Everyone inside was enjoying the trap they had set for themselves. They were in the process of making the exact mistakes they had hoped for. Edgar saw John’s leg in the window, in the same chair he’d been in all night. There were people near him. Smoke swirled around him. “I worry about him like a mother,” Glory said. “I always hope he’s gotten enough to eat and made friends.”

“My wife—” Edgar started, but she interrupted him.

“I shouldn’t have brought up spouses again. Let’s not.” She reached out to his thigh. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” she said, teasing him.

“I’m feeling very confused right now.”

Then a knock, and Glory and Edgar looked out his side to see who it was. A woman with long pale hair that looked like it had been carefully matted and a headband. “Are you leaving? I can’t find a place to park.” It was too dark to see the woman’s face, but Glory knew the voice immediately because it was her mother’s. Her mother, double-parked in her comfortable luxury station wagon and clothes a few years out of date that even Glory was too old to wear. She looked like she was in a play. “Mother,” Glory said. “Mother, mother, mother? You can’t be here.” Glory’s mother edged away. The outfit was worse than Glory could have imagined: her midriff was exposed (and very perfect, which made it all the worse) and her skirt was a mere strip of denim. She had silver anklets and no shoes on, and hers were the scrubbed and painted feet of a princess.

Glory’s mother recognized her daughter at the same instant and, without trying to defend her right to stay or offer an excuse, she began to run. She passed her own car, the lights still on and the door open, and she ran. Glory ran after her and Edgar ran after Glory. They rounded a corner, sprinted the straightaway. Glory’s mother was surprisingly fast. She took another turn down a dirt road and Glory let her go. She watched her little mother whip away like a rabbit and Glory collapsed onto someone’s lawn and Edgar fell beside her. They panted. They started to laugh. They had each hated their parents but had forgotten the surprising pleasure of being embarrassed by them. It made Glory feel young. Like they were living on the inside and the grownups were on the outside, and she half wanted to thank her mother.

“This is already better than other affairs,” Glory said.

Edgar thought of Fern in their bed with their children nearby. She would be reading a book and checking her watch. She would be waiting to talk about a future that had been suddenly upended. Maybe she would tell him that she was willing to give it all up, the houses and the cars and the comfort. Or maybe she was waiting to thank him for being the man he had always tried to keep from becoming. He felt like an impossibility — how could he do what was needed and continue to exist as himself? To Fern, Edgar silently said, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m almost completely yours,” and he leaned over and kissed Glory. She kissed him back, reached up and tried to take his glasses off.

“No,” he said, grabbing them. “I’m too blind.”

“Four eyes,” she teased, but he did not give in. He only took his glasses off to sleep. He felt unmoored enough without being sightless too.

Eventually, they walked back. Edgar pulled his car out and Glory parked her mother’s and turned it off. She put the keys under the seat and left it unlocked and then she got into his passenger seat and said, “I’m taking you home. I’m taking you home and I might not ever let you leave.” Later, he would look back at the unraveling and see that this instant was the point of departure. Edgar decided: once. And just like that, he set his life aside. He set his husband-self, his father-self, his son-self, aside. He was all body, all sensation. His heart was a flapping wing. He was simultaneously jealous of himself for what he was about to do and scattershot with regret. They drove a mile to her house, grey shingles and a big porch, a thousand paperbacks on the shelves. The bedroom looked out at the windward side of the island where waves battered and crashed.

As Glory undressed him, Edgar felt like he had a new body. He appreciated her hip bones and shoulders because he was a man with good taste and these were beautiful prizes, but the stronger drug was the version of himself he was meeting. This woman had never in her whole life, in the history of everything she knew, run her hand up this chest. He was the entire westward migration, the whole untrodden prairie, the shaggy peaks, the snow, and the cold sloshing Pacific on the other end.

Glory knew what he was feeling because she had felt it before. She also knew it never lasted. Everyone became familiar. There was no time, pretty soon, to bother kissing the ankles, the knots of blooded veins underneath the wrist. It was neck, ears, lips. Even lovers got tired. They had families. They had nothing to wear for the big fundraiser. They had a million things to do before school started and husbands or wives to lie to and love, and the empty mouth of nighttime.

When they were done, Glory put two cigarettes in her mouth and lit them, handed one over. “Where do you live?” she asked.

“Cambridge.”

“No shit. Me too. Then we can do this again sometime.”

A beat of terror in Edgar’s pulse. This woman would not vanish into the summertime haze.