Jane Smiley - Early Warning

But Minnie didn’t envy any marriages at all. She still loved Frank in the way that ghosts inhabited abandoned houses, but if your job was to monitor the products of all sorts of marriages as they paraded through your office between September and June, then the whole institution of marriage became suspect, didn’t it? Minnie, fifty, could see that little Billy Crocker resembled Mom’s brother, who had come to no good, but the parents themselves were stunned, still had hope, still thought Minnie could turn the kid around by talking to him, giving him Saturday detention, making him do some extra work, or agreeing that more beatings might be the ticket. To Minnie, they were all bent twigs, for good or ill.

The Baked Alaska was more successful than the lamb. Nedra had piped the meringue in a neat spiral, then dusted it with brown sugar and burned it with real conviction. Inside, the strawberry ice cream was hard and delicious, and the chocolate cake was steeped in some sharp but tasty liqueur. They all cleaned their plates. In absolute desperation, Minnie got up from the table and went into the kitchen, where she insisted upon helping Nedra with the dishes.

When the dishes were done, the kitchen had been sterilized, and Nedra finally shooed her away, Minnie went back into the living room. The girls had gone upstairs; Andy had switched from whiskey to brandy. Frank’s hands were on his knees, and he was gazing steadily at his wife, who was holding her drink in one hand and her cigarette in the other. The ash was an inch long and ready to fall on the carpet. Lillian and Arthur were sitting on the couch, thigh to thigh, arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder. When Minnie came in, they looked up at the same time. Andy was saying, “I’m talking general principles only. Nothing personal. But now that we know how chimps operate, we could structure our families like chimp families. Lillian, Lois, and I would have a group house, and we’d stay in there with the children. It would be warm, so we could go everywhere without shirts or bras, and the babies would cling to us, and take breast milk whenever they wanted to, until they were three years old, and then we would allow Frank, Joe, and Arthur, who had been displaying themselves and hunting together, to impregnate us, and then, when those babies were born, the earlier ones would give us a hand with them. That maybe could solve all of civilization’s problems.” She was slurring her “s”s and her “t”s. Frank glanced at Minnie. Minnie sat down and said, “What’s the control?”

“Everyone else is the control,” said Andy. “The whole fucking civilization.”

Minnie didn’t think she had ever heard that word in a living room before.

Arthur turned to Lillian and said, “I thought we did rear the kids like that. We were certainly trying to.” Lillian smiled. Andy tossed off what was left in her glass, and let her head drop against the back of the chair. Arthur said, “At least Rosanna believes that we stuck to those principles.”

“I’m for nature over nurture, myself,” said Minnie. “You see that line of Dugans pass through your office, and you never believe in nurture again.”

Frank smiled. “My first triumph.”

“Bobby Dugan has not stinted himself on the reproductive side. Closest thing to a litter I ever saw in a homo sapiens.”

Frank said, “Bobby Dugan used to bully us. I set a mousetrap for him in the school outhouse when I was two and a half.”

“Oh, you were seven,” said Minnie. “But it was enterprising. Anyway, he has eleven kids with two wives, and it’s like they’re stamped out by a press. They all have the same dimple in the chin and the same lopsided grin. And they all think they’re going to get away with smoking in exactly the same spot on the high-school grounds.”

“Nothing wrong with smoking.” Andy’s head was still resting on the back of the chair. “A pack of cigarettes is a little treasure, is what I think.”

Frank got up and walked out the front door.

It was Lillian who took her up to bed, laughing and cajoling and talking about plans for tomorrow. Minnie sat with Arthur and waited, even though she would have liked to turn in. She said to Arthur, “You don’t think this is a real Frank Lloyd Wright, do you?”

“Good imitation,” said Arthur. “Wright, but you can actually live in it.” He glanced up the stairs. Minnie saw that Lillian was in charge now. It was a poignant thought.

When Lillian came down, she said, “Minnie, you must be tired.”

“I could go to bed. I suppose the girls are all right?”

Arthur said, “Tina may be giving Annie a tattoo.”

“A tattoo!”

“Oh, you know. With markers. I have one.” He pulled up his trouser leg to reveal a psychedelic snowflake on his knee. “This is from an earlier collection — say, two weeks ago. Now she’s into snails.”

Lillian said, “I’m waiting for flowers, but she says they’re too ‘static.’ ”

Both parents smiled fondly. Lillian said, “You should see her room. San Francisco by way of the French Riviera.”

“How’s Debbie?”

“Strict,” said Arthur.

“She will graduate cum laude, I am sure. You know she is at Mount Holyoke, right?” said Lillian. “The boyfriend disappeared.”

“As he was destined to do,” said Arthur. “You could tell that he wasn’t quite formed yet. I think she’s going to go for an older man myself, preferably married.”

Lillian shook her head, but affectionately.

“It’s the Freudian thing to do,” said Arthur.

“Speaking of that,” said Lillian, leaning forward, “this psychiatrist of Andy’s has a terrible reputation. Frank is beside himself. They have spent tens of thousands of dollars on this guy, and as you can see…”

Minnie knew that back home, at just about this point, someone would say, “I just don’t understand those Easterners.”

—

THERE WAS A balcony off Minnie’s bedroom that she hadn’t noticed earlier. Since she had her robe and slippers with her (in case she had to deal with some problem among the touring honors students after curfew), she bundled up and went outside to look at the view. She had been out there only a minute or so when another balcony door opened, and Frank appeared, still dressed. Minnie put her hand on her door, but Frank said, “Did you look to the right there?”

Minnie looked to the right. Nothing but trees. She said, “Is there a view?”

“No.”

“Then why look to the right?”

“Just to start the conversation.”

Minnie laughed.

“How are you?”

Minnie wrapped her robe a little more tightly, then said, “Could be worse.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

“Oh goodness, Frankie. You have a beautiful house, and I read about you and your innovative weapons company, was that it, in the paper, and Richie and Michael—”

“Are safely confined for the moment.”

“Rosanna showed me their school pictures. They are very handsome boys.”

“Worse news.”

“You were a very handsome boy.”

“You told me so.”

“Me and everyone else.”

Frank leaned his elbows on the railing and stared out over the greenery. As always, he didn’t seem to feel the cold. Finally, he said, “Did your dad whip you?”

“No. My dad was reserved, as they say, and he didn’t even drink in the old days, hard as that is to believe. My mother used the flat of her hand every so often, but only on our behinds. My grandfather had a riding crop for all his boys. I know Walter whipped you.”

“By the time the others came along, he realized it was ineffective. I never whipped the boys, but now I wonder if I should have. I was in Caracas once when Richie nailed Michael on the head with a hammer. Knocked him out cold. I found out a year later.”