Jane Smiley - Early Warning

“Let’s try what?”

“Let’s try you taking a little advice.”

Janet did not think that Lucas was looking for someone to tell him what to do. She could see it when he was watching Reverend Jones — when Reverend Jones was saying something he agreed with, his face looked receptive, and when Reverend Jones was saying something he disagreed with, his face looked blank. He was like a radio that could receive only what it wanted to receive. His face went blank now. Janet took a little breath and held it in.

Marla leaned toward him, took the book, and opened it to a page. It was the first page of Miss Julie , from a book of one-act plays Janet had studied in college. She said to Janet, “You be Miss Julie, I’ll be Kristin, and Lucas can be Jean.” Then she read the stage directions in a clear voice and handed the book to Lucas. Lucas stared at it and handed it back. Since she had her hand on his arm, Janet could feel it go tense. “Oh, come on,” said Marla. “It’s my favorite game. Just a page. Or two.”

There was a feeling Janet hated — the feeling of looking back and forth between two people who did not agree. She glanced at Marla, who was smiling, and then down at the blanket, which she smoothed over her knee. The room no longer seemed cold.

Lucas cleared his throat. As far as Janet knew, Lucas didn’t have a temper, but she was beginning to get nervous, as if he did have a temper. Marla, however, was never intimidated. She said, “Just say the first line, ‘Miss Julie’s crazy again tonight; absolutely crazy.’ ”

He said the line in a natural way.

Marla took the book and said, “ ‘Oh, so you’re back, are you?’ ” She made it sound a little teasing, as if she was glad to see him and would be more glad in a minute or two. She again handed Lucas the book.

Lucas stared at the far wall for a space, then said, “I’m not into this. I hate plays.”

“Why is that?” said Marla.

“People keep talking and talking, and if they don’t start yelling eventually, the audience falls asleep. I can only take so much talking.”

Janet realized that this was true.

Marla was not to be deterred by mere theory. She said, “Just read the speech.” The two of them stared at one another for a long moment, Marla looking more and more like a teacher — a French teacher, stylish and haughty, but a teacher nonetheless. And then she shifted, actress that she was — a smile burst out that was both saucy and cheerful, and she said, “You could do me a favor, Mr. Jordan, just this once.”

Lucas’s gaze went back to the page. After a minute of silence, he looked back at Marla and said the speech, shaping it, giving it warmth. Then he put down the book, took Janet’s hand, and set Janet’s hand on top of the book. He held it there. Marla said, “My Lord, you are stubborn. But I thought you’d be good, and you are. Just because I’m telling you what to do doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”

Yes, it does, thought Janet.

Lucas smiled his brilliant and charismatic smile. No wonder Marla wanted him to act — if he was in your play, audiences would come back for more and more and more.

There was a long silence, during which Marla sat down again and picked up the French play. She said another line, Janet corrected her, and she said it again. Lucas leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. With her hand still on the book underneath his, Janet and Marla finished The Madwoman of Chaillot. As soon as they had read the last line, Marla stood up, leaned toward Lucas, and said, “I’m going to write a play just for you. A one-act.”

Lucas opened his eyes and smiled, then said, “No dialogue, though.”

“You think I can’t do that?”

“We’ll see,” said Lucas.

Marla zipped out the door and down the hall as if she was going to get started that very night.

In the eighteen months they had been seeing each other, Janet had been careful of boundaries, as her mother would have said, not because Lucas was touchy, but because she was always careful of boundaries. As a result, though, she knew nothing about his boundaries. She, perhaps, didn’t have any, at least where he was concerned. He was three years younger than she was, but six inches taller, five years less educated, but 50 percent better-looking, 20 percent less self-confident, but twice as talented, half as well traveled but half again more experienced. Really, they were equal in no way, and her support of the civil-rights movement told her nothing about how to manage herself or him. She looked at her watch. It was after ten. Usually, they stayed up until midnight, but she said, “It’s cold. You want to go to bed?”

“What do you think?”

“About what?”

“You think I’m stupid?”

“Do I think that a person who can recite lines from a play after a single reading is stupid? Or who can do a drum solo that is actually worth listening to without having smoked six joints is stupid?”

He laughed, but then said, “They did use to put that dunce cap on my head. Sit me in the corner.”

“What were you doing that was bad?”

“My own thing. Looking out the window and thinking of songs. Refusing to pay attention. When the teacher called on me, I’d pretend not to hear her.”

“My cousin Tim really would have liked you.”

Lucas stripped down to his shorts and got under the covers. Janet finished straightening the room, then pulled down the two shades and got in with him. He took her in his arms, and that was enough.

DEBBIE AND HUGH AGREED ON everything having to do with Carlie, who was now four months old, weighed sixteen pounds, and was twenty-four inches long. She had been born with plenty of reddish hair, though that had fallen out, and a darker fringe was growing in. They agreed that she would be breast-fed until she gave it up on her own; they agreed that, pacifier or thumb, it was her choice; they agreed no baby food and no table food until she seemed interested; breast milk was a complete nutrient for a baby. They agreed no hot peppers until she was eight months old. (But this was a joke. They had taken a visiting historian out for Chinese food, and Debbie, in her attentive way, had pointed out the dried peppers in the Kung Pao chicken. The historian, from Ghana, had picked one up and, with a smile, swallowed it down. Another man in their party, who had visited Ghana and was eager to demonstrate his worldly savoir-faire, had done the same thing and burst into tears. The Ghanaian man had then explained that where he was from, mothers introduced hot peppers at eight months.) They agreed no playpen. They agreed no crying herself to sleep. They agreed no pink or baby blue, and an equal number of girls’ toys and boys’ toys — Carlie could choose. They agreed on this partly because Hugh’s mother had taught her three sons to knit when they were eight or ten, and he had knitted Carlie a red baby hat with flaps and a pom-pom. If the baby had been a boy, they would not have agreed on circumcision, but they had avoided that conflict.

However, after four months, Debbie did not like getting up in the night to nurse. She had asked her mother about it, but Lillian, of course, had never nursed. Aunt Andy had—“smoking the whole time, and turning her head to keep the ash from dropping on the baby.” When the twins were babies, there were two nurses named Sally and Hallie who brought Richie and Michael to Aunt Andy in bed. What a pleasure that would be, Debbie thought. She lay on her back in the dark, wide awake. Hugh was snoring lightly, facing the wall. Carlie had not started crying yet, but she would any second now. Debbie often awakened before the crying began, and what could be the signal from the next room? Some biological connection? Carlie could move now, which made Debbie a little nervous. Her aunt Claire had always been told to lay the boys on their stomachs, and now you weren’t supposed to do that. Backs were worse, in case they threw up and aspirated the vomit. You were supposed to lay them on their sides and prop them with a rolled blanket. Debbie had been propping with extra punctiliousness lately, because what if? And then there was a woman she knew in her feminist reading group who said she had worn a sling over her shoulder with the baby in it for eight months, only putting him down when he was ready to crawl away. She wore long skirts to meetings and said that real feminism was not getting a better job but reclaiming the matriarchy and the Goddess. She was undecided about whether her son was going to be allowed to learn to read and write, because reading and writing privileged analytical, left-brain thinking. Debbie despised this woman, who, when she said the word “Goddess,” smiled slightly, as if she was thinking of her ample self.