An Emergence of Green (11 page)

“If I’m a Neanderthal, you’re an Amazon—and that makes you a
myth.
I’ve worked with women,
normal
women, in the North and South and now out West for
twelve years.
Thank God none of
them
were feminists. You’re the only feminist I’ve ever
met.
”

Out of her rage came the clear thought that she had never hated anyone with as much passion as she hated this man. She said in a low, deadly voice, “I’m not the first feminist you’ve met. You’ve met hundreds. Thousands. Do you think the slaves who said ‘Yes Massa’ loved their masters? Do you think there aren’t millions of women every day who say ‘Yes sir’ or ‘Yes dear’ and in their hearts hate their lives and hate—”

“Not
real
women. You call yourself a real woman? Look at you. Look at—”

“Paul!”

His rage was jarred by Carolyn’s expulsion of his name, another concussive sound amid the firecrackers exploding in the yards around them. He turned from Val Hunter. The red haze of hatred in his vision took in his wife.

“Ma, let’s go.” Staring at him, Neal Hunter backed away.

“You poor little bastard,” he said to Neal. “God only knows what your dyke of a mother’s doing to you—”

“Paul!”

Val Hunter rose and moved swiftly toward the house, the hem of her dress strained to its utmost by the length of her strides, Carolyn running after her.

Val Hunter stopped at the glass door. A hand reached, touched, clasped Carolyn’s bare forearm. “I’m truly sorry, Carrie. Good night.”

He did not hear his wife’s reply; he was outraged by the familiarity of Val Hunter’s touching Carolyn, by that offensively familiar nickname.

Val Hunter released Carolyn, disappeared into the house, her son in her wake. Carolyn whirled around and came toward him, her eyes narrowed slits, her fists clenched.

“That Amazon bitch. How could you possibly like that bitch, that—”

“You bastard.” Her voice was flat, glacial. “You
can’t stand
me having a friend of my own. You can’t
stand
it that I did one thing on my own, that I had the gall to buy a work of art—”

“Art, my ass. That piece of mud hanging on the living room wall is no more art than—”

She picked up the chair in which Val Hunter had been sitting—his director’s chair.

“Carolyn!” he screamed as he understood what she would do.

She swung the chair viciously at the barbecue. Foilwrapped potatoes and burning coals were strewn all over his manicured lawn, sizzling like lighted firecrackers.

“Christ, oh Christ.” He leaped for the garden tools he kept at the side of the house. “Jesus, look what you’ve done!”

Val tried to explain to Neal. “It’s like blending yellow and red and blue—it comes out black or gray. People can be like colors—fine by themselves but put them together and they’re ugly.”

He said fiercely, “I should’ve popped him one when he said you were dykey.” Still in his bathing trunks, he stood militantly in their living room, feet spread apart, hands on his hips.

She fluffed his hair, grinning at the image of her son wading into Paul Blake with his small fists flying. “Do you even know what that word means?”

“Ma, for crying out loud.” He gazed at her in disgust. “Don’t you remember Mr. Steinberg?”

She remembered when Neal had come home from school to talk only of the English teacher who had asked his students every hate reference they knew to groups of people, writing each word on the blackboard as it was volunteered. “I bet we came up with fifty,” Neal had declared, obsessed with his effort to convey the awesomeness of that list, the ugliness of those words, row upon row of them, beginning with
kike, hymie, hebe
, and
jewboy
, which Mr. Steinberg himself had written.

“Listen pal,” she said to Neal, “it’s the Fourth of July, remember? Why don’t we go watch some fireworks? Let’s drive out to Devonshire.”

She felt infected by her hatred of Paul Blake. She needed to get out of the house, as if open space and fresh air could relieve the festering. She would not dwell on the events of this night.

“You wearing that?” He was looking at her dress in disapproval.

“Is the pope Baptist? Last one to change clothes is a Winged Monkey.”

“Surrender, Dorothy!” Neal raced for his room.

Later, on the Ventura Freeway, with fiery flowers bursting and fading in the night sky, and Boy George singing softly on the radio, Neal said soberly, “Carolyn’s a good lady, Ma. I really like her. Why’d she marry such a creep?”

She returned to her analogy. “Some colors might not mix, sweetie, but others do just fine together.”

He shrugged and turned up the radio.

But it was incomprehensible to her as well. She called up the image of Paul Blake, and in the choking fullness of hatred that rose with the image, tried to analyze her emotion. She thought of her trip into the Mojave with Neal, and the solitary diamondback they had watched patrol its harsh terrain with easy, confident menace. While Paul Blake might not be as soulless as a reptile, he was the clear embodiment of the many men she had known whose arrogant superiority mocked her and the value of anything she said, thought, felt, created, accomplished. Men who expected to dominate and control, who viewed independence or rebellion with an amused tolerance, others might give to a child, or an idiot, and viewed more serious threats to their dominance with wary condescension, as if dealing with mental aberration.

Why had Carolyn subjected herself to such a man as Paul Blake? Val conceded with a moue of distaste that Paul Blake did have an aura of sexual confidence; he had conveyed that when their eyes had first met—not as invitation or comment on her as a desirable woman, far from it—simply as a statement. Many men were hopeless sexual performers, a condition even more likely when they were young. To Carolyn at the age of nineteen perhaps a mature Paul Blake had seemed the ultimate sexual sophisticate. God knows, Val reflected, it had taken an older man to give her the only sexual reassurance she had ever known.

Perhaps it was Henry Ingall’s stature—five feet seven (why, why did she always attract short men?)—and his age—fifty-five to her twenty-four—which had given her a feeling of confidence instead of the usual tension and apprehension. She had relaxed with him, and climaxed three times, all of them after intercourse, reaching orgasm easily each time from manual, then oral stimulation. “This is what you like,” he told her back in those days when women were trapped in the theories of Freud and Kinsey. “You’re remarkably responsive and that’s all that matters. Don’t feel guilty about what you like; there’s nothing wrong with it and don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.” That assurance had been gratifying but useless in the sexual battles of her two marriages and subsequent affairs. If she confessed her needs, men perceived her—or themselves—as inadequate. After she made the same dismal discovery again and again, it had become easier to accept whatever was offered.

Perhaps her clash with Paul Blake had occurred because she would not massage another male ego in the presence of her maturing son. Or maybe she had reached a place in her life when she did not care enough anymore to pretend to anyone—even if it meant losing the friendship of someone she’d come to like. And perhaps the truth was none of this—she simply had met someone she loathed so much that all the barriers had been pulverized in that closed circuit of hatred containing only her and Paul Blake.

No matter how much consciousness raising had seeped into the larger world, Carolyn Blake would cleave to Paul Blake because that’s how it worked, how it still worked. Except for the pitiful rebellion of changing her working hours, Carolyn Blake had given no indication that she was other than a dutiful wife. And that had to be the real reason she had married a man ten years her senior—to have someone to obey, a husband and father figure to tell her what to do.

But I’ll miss her. How very much I’ve come to enjoy her…

“San Diego Freeway’s coming up,” Neal said, snapping his fingers to a Michael Jackson song.

“Right you are,” she said, and changed lanes.

Carolyn flung herself onto the bed in the guest bedroom to stare dry-eyed at the ceiling. She could hear Paul in the yard cursing as he searched out the flaming coals she had scattered; he was so close to her window that if she lifted her head she would see him. She did not want to look.

Val blames herself, I’m certain she does. Whatever was said has to be his fault. I may not know her well enough to be sure, but I do know him.

Suddenly she rose, straightened the yellow print bedspread, and then her own skirt and blouse, and walked out of the house.

Twice she knocked on the door of the darkened guest house, and soon made her way disconsolately up the path. Jerry Robinson had come out of his house and stood in his driveway, peering at her with his watery, timid blue eyes. “Mrs. Hunter and the boy, they left a few minutes ago.”

“Thank you.”

“Heard you folks in your yard a bit ago. Seemed like some commotion.

Nosy old man,
she thought furiously. “Nothing of any consequence,” she said, and brushed past him.

“You and Paul, you come over soon now,” he called after her.

Paul sat on the sofa watching television. “I suppose you’ve been over there apologizing.” His tone was aggressive, heavy with resentment.

“They’ve gone out,” she said tensely. “I didn’t have a chance.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He spoke with clear precision. “But there are things you don’t realize. I’m sure she’s a dyke. What she really wants is—”

“Shut up! That’s enough!”

His voice was a lash: “Don’t raise your voice to me.”

“I’ll do what I damn please! Don’t you say one more word!” Her shout escalated to a scream. “Val Hunter is my friend. It was your idea to meet her—”

“I don’t like her, Princess. I can’t help it. I just can’t stand her.”

He had spoken with surprising softness, almost apologetically. Disarmed, she lowered her own voice. “You have no right to dictate my friends.”

“I’m not trying to. I can’t stand that particular woman.” He grinned with obvious effort. “Could you try someone else?”

Partly mollified, she adjusted her tone but said stubbornly, “She’s my friend and she’ll continue to be, if she’s willing after the evening she spent here—”

“You’re convinced everything that happened was my fault. But I took so much shit from her—”

She stalked over to him, her anger a flame. “Tell me all about taking shit, why don’t you. Lake Michigan wouldn’t hold all the shit I’ve had to take from the stupid leering clowns at your office parties. Smile, you tell me. Be gracious.” Her voice had risen sharply, her words approaching incoherence. “What’s good for the goose—if you need lessons how to take shit and smile—”

He held both hands over his head in surrender. “So be it. Can we make peace?” She sat at her end of the sofa, frustrated and still furious. “Are we going to have dinner?”

“I’m not hungry,” she said unforgivingly. She was looking at the gray painting on the wall, trying to calm herself. He went into the kitchen, quietly made himself a sandwich.

Later that silent evening, he followed her into the guest bedroom. “Aren’t you carrying this a bit far? Did I commit a capital crime?”

“I want to be alone. Is that a capital crime?”

His expression was both wary and baffled. He nodded, and left.

Her anger slowly dissipated; she thought of returning to their bedroom. But she was fully stretched out—spreadeagled—enjoying the unaccustomed freedom and spaciousness. Irresistibly, she drifted into sleep, pushing away any thoughts of him. The final image in her consciousness was Val in her white dress, her tanned body radiant with health and strength.

The next afternoon Val was not in the pool. But she answered Carolyn’s knock immediately, standing in the doorway in her usual shorts and T-shirt. Her smile was quick, and wry. “I don’t know how to break this to you, Carrie, but your husband and I have fallen in love.”

Carolyn’s attempt at a laugh was weak. “What can I say? I don’t understand what happened or why—”

Val shrugged. “Bad chemistry.”

“You don’t really know him—he’s different from what you saw. When I first met him he was so needy, like a lost little boy. It’s still there in him—” She broke off. It was useless to explain what Val could not see. Perhaps no one except herself really saw Paul. “Val…I hope we can still be friends.”

Val nodded. “I’m glad you still feel that way. We’ll do the best we can under the circumstances, okay?”

She saw that Val did not give her credence, that the words were rote politeness. Carolyn said quickly, “Do you have a barbecue? Can I invite myself over for dinner tonight? I’ll bring the steaks we were supposed to have last night. How does that sound?”

“It sounds good.” Val grinned. “Neal will be very glad to see you again. Can we go back to your house? I think I’d like a swim.”

Carolyn called Paul at his office to explain. “I’ll leave some chicken cordon bleu warming in the oven, honey,” she said softly, in a peace offering; the dish was one of his favorites.