American Appetites (7 page)

“Just tell me, please,” Ian said, with a peculiar sort of urgency. “It's important to me to know what you think.”

“But that isn't what you asked a minute ago.”

“What?”

Glynnis took pleasure of her own in such needle-sharp rebuttals. “You asked what did I
feel
.”

“Of course. Of course I did. Yes, I want to know, not what you think, but what you feel.”

“I
feel
. . .” But suddenly, with, almost, a stab of fear, she did not know what she felt; or even, with Ian standing there, staring toward her, so unnervingly intense, what she thought. She said, less patiently, “Oh, Christ, honey, I'm perfectly happy to
be
a soul or to
have
a soul; whatever suits you.”

Ian said, hurt, “You really do think me a fool, don't you.”

“Of course I don't. I love you.”

“Is that a refutation?”

“A what?”

She saw he was smiling at her, trying too to joke, even clowning a bit, mugging. He rubbed his head with both hands energetically, like a cartoon character. “At least, if one is neither a soul nor possesses a soul,” he said, “one can't
lose
his soul. That's a cheerful proposition.”

“Come to bed,” Glynnis, laughing. “Make love.”

“Which would prove—?”

“
Dis
prove.”

Though Glynnis hadn't been serious—the hour was alarmingly late; she and Ian were both very tired, and were, in any case, no longer in the habit of making love with much frequency, and never at such odd, impromptu times—she began to feel, as Ian approached, a warm dark pool of desire, rather blurred, amorphous, both desire and the memory of desire, pulsing in her loins; and felt a moment's anguish, as at a loss undiscovered until now.

Ian said practically, as he slipped into bed, cool-limbed, coltish, always taking up more room than Glynnis anticipated, “It's too late for love.”

IN HER BATH
, Glynnis recalls that night; and other nights, since then, when Ian has behaved not oddly, or even disagreeably, but not as “himself”; even when making love, or attempting love, with her. At such times his thoughts are clearly elsewhere, careening and darting and plunging: elsewhere. Glynnis thinks, He doesn't love me in the old way. She thinks, hurt, angry, baffled, yet hopeful, Things will be better in a few months. (A political situation is brewing at the Institute: Dr. Kreizer will be retiring in the fall of 1988, and his successor must be named within the next six months. Though Ian has not cared to talk about it, Glynnis knows, from Denis, that Ian is Max's favored choice to take over the directorship. And Ian does not know, is in an anguish of not knowing, if he wants the honor, and the work, and the responsibility; or if, in fact, he wants to cut back on his professional commitments, with the hope of taking a year off fairly soon and working on an old project of his—political theory? historical theory?—set aside when the McCulloughs moved from Cambridge to Hazelton.)

Now that Bianca is away at college and Glynnis and Ian are alone together, for the first time in nineteen years, it seems to Glynnis that their relations are more tentative: at times more romantic, yet nervously so, as if something were not quite settled between them. There is relief, certainly, in Bianca's absence, since the strain between mother and daughter has been, these past two or three years, considerable, yet not the kind of relief Glynnis might have anticipated. If, for instance, she touches Ian, in affection or playfully, he is slow to respond: and then responds as if by rote. In sleep, he no longer responds at all, as if sleep were a counterworld, into which he disappears, and Glynnis cannot follow.

She thinks, How far he has come since that morning in Ann Arbor. In the cafeteria, stricken by nosebleed.

Stricken. Helpless.

He misses Bianca, of course; misses that other, if unpredictable, corner of their triangle. Misses, in Bianca, a part of his youth. (As Glynnis understands she does too; it's pointless not to acknowledge the fact.) When Glynnis telephoned Bianca at Wesleyan, to tell her about the birthday celebration and to invite her, Bianca had been guarded at first, as if suspecting that Glynnis wanted something from her, or of her; then she became enthusiastic, almost excessively so, as if the idea had been her own. “Of course I want to be included,” she said. “It isn't every day Daddy has his
fif
tieth birthday.” During their ten-minute conversation Bianca returned to the subject of Ian's age several times, as if the fact were a surprise to her; as if, like those countless statistical facts with which her father conjured in his demographic studies, it had to be interpreted in a social and not merely a personal context. “Well, fifty isn't really old any longer, is it?” Bianca said. Then, “For a man, I mean.”

You little bitch, Glynnis thought.

But said, only, laughing, “Honey, it isn't old at
all
.”

It is in her bath, conscious of her breasts buoyant and warmly lifting, as if caressed from beneath, that Glynnis is likely to recall her pregnancy, her pregnancies: thinking, rather unfairly, of Bianca as she is now in terms of Bianca as she'd been before her actual birth . . . those many hours, those terrible hours, of labor. How true it is: bringing forth a child is labor; bringing forth
that
child was labor! Glynnis had worked to give birth to Bianca, and Bianca, it seemed, had resisted, as if not wanting to be born; one body, pain-racked, had expelled another body from it, in order that both might live. We have never quite forgiven each other, Glynnis thinks.

Though in fact Glynnis has forgotten the pain, mostly. As she has forgotten, except as a minor stab of a loss, Bianca's infant brother, to be named Jonathan, who died aged three days. It is a few minutes after six. Glynnis dresses with care, regarding herself critically in the largest of the bedroom mirrors; feels an urge, quickly suppressed, to get herself a glass of wine and sip from it as she dresses, a habit of some years ago. (When the affair with Denis—begun, really, as play, quite innocent play, on Glynnis's part—became something rather more serious than either had intended.) Like most extremely attractive women, at least during the period of their lives when their attractiveness is incontestable, Glynnis has always enjoyed dressing for special occasions: takes delight in making herself up, fashioning her hair, painting her nails, wearing jewelry, perfume. There is something about the ritual that is reassuring, Glynnis thinks, though with the passage of time one will not want to look
too
closely in the mirror.

She has chosen a chiffon dress, not new but allegedly Ian's favorite: a soft, romantic apricot shade, with numerous narrow rippling pleats and a low-cut beaded neckline, that shows her breasts to advantage. Her shoulders and arms too are partly exposed; bare, and rosy from the bath, they suggest the boneless yet resilient flesh of a woman in a Renoir painting. She stares at herself as if hypnotized. Is this the person, the face and body, others see? But who
is
it, they see?

The telephone begins ringing. She hears Marvis answer it, in a distant room.

3.

And the celebration, so long anticipated, cannot be more successful: at the outset, at least.

Ian, with Bianca, arrives home just after seven-thirty; and it is immediately evident, from their faces, that Bianca has told him nothing, and that Ian—ah, Ian!—suspects nothing. He hangs his trench coat in the closet, retires briefly to his bathroom, and, when he emerges, having washed his face and combed his hair, Glynnis, under the pretext of serving him a before-dinner drink, leads him back to the semidarkened room where their friends are waiting, as easily, she will say afterward, as a lamb is led to slaughter. How could he follow her so trustingly? so unquestioningly? Hadn't he noticed her chiffon dress beneath the apron? Her hair, her perfume? The pearls around her neck, the pearls screwed into her earlobes?

But no: he is taken totally by surprise.
Happy birthday, Ian! Congratulations, Ian!
He is moved, quite deeply moved, by his friends' greetings: their handshakes, embraces, kisses; the warmth and obvious love they feel for him. And Bianca, who throws her arms extravagantly around his neck:
Happy birthday, Daddy!
For a minute or two Glynnis sees that he is rather disoriented: adjusting his glasses, smiling, blinking, peering at faces, looking around, as if for someone not there. (But surely Glynnis has invited their closest dearest friends? Is there someone Ian would have added?) One of the men fixes a drink for him, and Malcolm Oliver takes a series of quick flashing shots with his Polaroid camera, and Glynnis links her arm through his and leads him into a quieter corner of the room and says, “Ian? You aren't angry with me, are you? Is it too much of a surprise?”

Ian kisses her, and says, “Of course not; why would I be angry with you? I'm delighted. I am absolutely delighted. It is worth it, almost, after all, to be fifty years old in America.”

BUT NO ONE
will acknowledge the pink roses.

Glynnis makes inquiries; Glynnis is curious and perplexed and, of course, flattered—for the anonymous sender was thoughtful enough to say
Happiness to both
—but no one will acknowledge the roses. The Kuhns had had delivered, that afternoon, a rather regal floral display, too large, in fact, for Glynnis to use as a centerpiece; and Glynnis herself had ordered flowers, as she always does for a party, when flowers from her own garden are not available; and Leonard Oppenheim and Paul Owen brought, in hand, an assortment of red roses and carnations. “But who sent us these?” Glynnis asks, holding the cut-glass vase aloft. “Who is so sweet, and so teasing?”

They tell her, “Maybe you have an unknown admirer, Glynnis,” but Glynnis says, “No, the card says ‘Happiness to both.' It must be one of you,” she says, looking at them half pleadingly—at Denis and Roberta, at Malcolm and June, at the Kuhns, at the Cassitys, at the Hawleys, at Leonard and Paul. But no: no one will acknowledge the pink roses.

Later in the evening Glynnis whispers, in Denis's ear, “
Did
you send them? Please tell me if you did.” And Denis says, guiltily, “Darling, I wish I
had
.”

THE SURPRISE PART
of the party is an unqualified success, Glynnis sees. Her husband is in as high spirits, as boyish, as flush-faced, as eloquent and witty and tender, as she has seen him in a very long time. And the appetizers are excellent, as Glynnis McCullough's appetizers invariably are; Beluga caviar, and two kinds of pâté, and a fastidiously prepared vegetable platter. “But don't serve them too much,” Glynnis instructs Marvis. “After all, there is dinner yet to come.”

Leonard Oppenheim and Paul Owen, who have lived together in one of the old “historic” houses in Hazelton for nearly twenty years, have brought the McCulloughs a half dozen bottles of champagne, and a stunning champagne it is—Taittinger Blanc de Blancs 1976. (“Is this as good as it tastes?” Malcolm Oliver asks the room, holding his champagne glass aloft.) Others have brought bottles of Scotch, brandy, liqueur, candied fruits, chocolates; Ian's fellow squash players—Denis, Malcolm, Vaughn, Vincent—have chipped in to buy him a “custom-sculpted” milk chocolate squash racquet, from the Hazelton Gourmet. There are birthday cards, most of them comical, one or two quite blackly comic, turning upon the theme of being fifty years old. (“I was really quite surprised, browsing through gift shops,” Roberta Grinnell confides in Glynnis. “The extraordinary number of joke cards, in
very
bad taste, that have to do with men turning fifty.” “Men, and not women?” Glynnis asks. “Men, and not women,” Roberta says. “Why, do you suppose?” Glynnis asks, frowning. “Wouldn't the other kind sell?”) Glynnis had virtually pleaded with their friends
not
to buy Ian presents,
not
to be extravagant, but of course they ignored her, for what is a birthday celebration without presents, they protested, and, before dinner, seated in a high-backed chair rather like a throne, Ian McCullough unwraps these gifts, taking care, as Glynnis cautions him,
not to rip the beautiful wrapping paper
. And some of these presents are indeed more extravagant than Glynnis might have wished: a wheat-colored shetland sweater, for instance, from Meika and Vaughn, bought at Hazelton's notoriously overpriced scotch Wool shop; an enormous art book, from the Olivers—
Treasures of the Etruscans;
and, of course, the costly liquors, the gourmet shop items. And then there are the funny gifts, the gifts that make Ian laugh, an ebony and brass dress cane, for instance, from the Hawleys, with a rolled-up backgammon set (board, chips, and dice) inside; an elegant silk tie in the shape of a stylized but aggressively ugly fish, from a friend, Leo Reinhart, who couldn't be with them tonight; a gigantic roll of athletic support tape, also from Ian's squash buddies—says Ian solemnly, brandishing the tape aloft, “This
is
just what I need.” And Glynnis's present to Ian, fussily wrapped in tissue paper of all colors of the rainbow, is a ten-speed Schwinn racing bicycle: hardly an extraordinary surprise, since Glynnis and Bianca have been after Ian for years to replace his battered old three-speed bicycle with something newer and more à la mode; but Ian seems genuinely taken with it, and thanks her, and kisses her, and makes as if to ride the bicycle out the door. And there is a good deal of laughter, and more drinks are poured. Glynnis hears another of the Blanc de Blancs being uncorked.

And this leaves Bianca, who had, pleading exhaustion from the flight and the general busyness of the day—“I had classes this morning, Mother, you seem to forget”—slipped away from the party after the initial toasts.

But now, dramatically, as if on cue—for Glynnis is about to summon her guests to dinner; it is almost nine-thirty—Bianca reappears, in theatrical attire: a black cutaway coat and trousers, starched white shirt, black derby jauntily aslant on her head. The McCulloughs' friends turn to her, make way for her—
What on earth, Bianca! Ah, look at Bianca!
Glynnis and Ian merely stare at their daughter, so suddenly the center of attention; they are taken totally by surprise. They know that Bianca has been involved in theater, dance, and “performance arts” at college; but they are not prepared, ah, they are
not
prepared, for this.