Original Sins (60 page)

“Accepting it is one thing, seeking it is something else. You people are constantly changing jobs, apartments, lovers, ideologies, cars. As though by changing the surface appearance of your life you've accomplished something. Where I come from nothing changes from one decade to the next.”

“Where's it gotten you?”

“Where's there to get?”

“So why are you living here?”

Ignoring Maria's last question, Emily reached home determined to make her marriage and the verities on which it was founded endure. She often felt scorn reading Sally's boring letters about teething and new slipcovers and Bake-off recipes, but Sally had had the right idea all along: She considered it a privilege to make life easier and more pleasant for the people she loved. Emily defrosted the refrigerator, vacuumed under the couch, even paired and rolled the socks in Justin's drawer.

But Justin failed to notice because he'd taken to lying on the hall floor full time. The last straw was when a large paper company accepted his proposal regarding a public service announcement for television on their anti-pollution program. “I mean, I can see it all spread out before me, man,” he said. “Like, I'll do it, and they'll love it. They'll hire me to do more. On their recommendation, other firms will hire me. I'll start, like, renting offices, buying equipment, hiring employees. Eventually I'll, you know, go public. Sell shares, get bought up by a conglomerate. Retire to the Bahamas, spend my days fishing and lying in the sun. Man, it's just too awful.” He buried his face in the crook of his arm. “I'm so depressed.”

Emily was kneeling by his side trying to think how to comfort him. “I know what's bugging you, Justin. It's that party last week at Morris's, isn't it?”

He nodded miserably.

Most of FORWARD had been there. Ralph, a doctor now, had insisted on wearing his green operating clothes all evening, with an electronic pager at his waist. Morris, a lawyer, kept working Latin phrases into his conversation:
Sub rosa, de jure, habeas corpus.
Bud, a stock analyst, would whip out his pocket calculator to prove his points. Morris and his wife Susan served daiquiris made in a Waring blender. They barbecued steaks on a hibachi on the iron landing outside their Brooklyn Heights apartment

“Emily, Morris
boiled ears of corn.”

“There, there, it's all right, dear.” Emily scratched his back gently.

Dessert had been apple pie and Neapolitan ice cream. Everyone fondled new babies, and discussed vacation homes in Vermont, sailboats, and auto loans. These were the people with whom Justin had once plotted the Revolution.

Justin's major problem, as Emily saw it, was that he had planned on either Utopia or Armageddon. He had made no arrangements for dealing with the same tired old world he'd grown up in. Once you'd been a hero, how did you revert to being an ordinary mortal? Besides, it was in his genes to fight the sabre-toothed tiger.

“I feel used,” he moaned. “Devoured. Like an empty cereal box. Like Miss January for Fruit-of-the-Month Club.”

“But you achieved important things,” Emily insisted, trying on Maria's point of view. “Like what?”

“Well … uh … I mean you can't list things just like that. But a lot of learning went on.”

“Like what?”

Like about the limitations of collective human endeavor. “Hell, I don't know, Justin. That's your department.” Emily was feeling guilty. She for one had used Justin—to gain acceptance in FORWARD. Then she'd called it “love,” but recently she'd begun to wonder.

In the old days Justin's spirits would sometimes sag, but Emily was always able to cheer him up by telling him how important his projects were, assuring him how intelligent and competent and irresistibly sexy he was. Her words alone could make him puff up like a bullfrog about to croak. But the Great Ear was losing her touch. His strategy sessions and teach-ins and rallies and marches and committee meetings and phone trees and leaflet writing—they now seemed like designs children make against the night sky with a sparkler. The sparkler goes out, and you're left with only the empty black night. Emily was just beginning to realize how lucky the women had had it. All along they'd been cleaning and getting food on the table and tending the children. The Utopian expectations had collapsed, dragging some of the men down into a nightmare of the soul. But the women were just grooving along on the same old survival trip.

Emily wanted to help. Justin had helped her when she was an intimidated Tennessee hick. Besides, it was her role as Wife in this marriage she was determined to make work. She tried and she tried, but none of the Great Ear's old tricks got him up off the floor.

He decided to go for a few weeks to a meditation center upstate, which someone in his Advanced Massage course had recommended, to try to “get my head together.” At first Emily panicked and tried to persuade him that she was all he needed. But gradually the Great Ear conceded defeat.

Joe from the art department brought Harold the jacket design for Maggie's book. Harold exclaimed over it, then called Emily to see it. The title was
Making the Second Sex Suck: Women in Male Fiction.
The illustration was of Marilyn Monroe, her neckline plunging almost to her nipples. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth, pursed, looked remarkably vaginal, and in readiness for the insertion of a large cock.

“What do you think, Emily? Isn't it great?”

“Very nice.”

“Fantastic,” he assured her, walking back to his desk. “She thinks it's fantastic,” he said to Joe.

Suddenly Emily saw herself as Stepin Fetchit: “Yassuh, that noose is mighty fine. Law, it fits so good and snug! Why, boss, you just the smartest thing!”

She crept back into Harold's office. “Actually, Harold, I think it's awful,” she whispered.

Harold and Joe stared at her.

“You're doing just what Maggie's book says—degrading a serious achievement”

Harold gave a short laugh. “But I like women,” he protested. “Some of my best bunnies are women.” He and Joe killed themselves laughing. The corners of Emily's mouth twitched: She had to smile at her bosses' bad jokes. It was her job. By burning at least three hundred calories in her facial muscles alone, she managed not to.

“The trouble with you women's libbers,” said Harold, “is that you have no sense of humor.”

She looked at him. She hadn't known she came across as a “women's libber.” She'd thought she was well-established as the Great Ear, at least here if no longer at home. “… apart from exploiting female sexuality to sell your product,” she added, amazed at her daring.

“That's what we're all here for—to sell books. I'm sure Maggie wants as many people as possible to read it.”

“But the people who buy it on the basis of that jacket will be disappointed by the content. And people who'd be interested in the content won't buy it because of that repulsive jacket.”

“So who asked you?”

She decided not to point out that he had.

“The jacket stays as it is,” Harold snapped. “Coffee please, Emily. Cream, no sugar. Joe?”

The first Friday Justin was away, Maria had a women's fancy dress party. She greeted guests at her door in a maid's uniform, black with ruffled white apron, carefully helped everyone out of her fur or coat, then hurled each wrap into the hall corner, where it flopped to the floor.

Emily put a cigarette in her long tortoise-shell holder, drew on it, and looked around. Most of the women she knew at least by sight. The women's group was out in full force. Women were wearing flappers' dresses, rayon dresses with padded shoulders from the forties, wedding dresses. Sammie wore only a girdle, a fox boa, and high red boots with spurs. She kept tugging at the girdle and announcing through clenched teeth, “This girdle is
killing
me!” Elaborate hairdos, gobs of makeup. A dozen brands of perfume mingled in the air. Emily was wearing a long pink bridesmaid dress from Corinne's wedding to a Lowell. She stood by herself and watched. There was nothing wrong with this scene. She was determined not to get into a twit and start seeing these nice women as merely missionaries and consumers of political fads. They were her friends and potential friends. Just because she was straight and committed to her marriage was no reason not to enjoy them.

Lou came over and they embraced. A record of sixties' songs was playing, and they began dancing to “Mustang Sally.”

“Remember how we used to drive Joan crazy talking about my natural rhythm?” asked Lou.

“Weren't we terrible?”

“Wasn't
she
terrible?” said Lou. “You know, Emily, that hurt me real bad when you turned on me freshman year.”

“I'm sorry, Lou. I didn't know what I was doing.”

“Shit, none of us did back then.”

“Meaning we do now?”

“Getting there.”

Getting there, wondered Emily, thrusting her hip sideways. “…
ride, Sally, ride
…,” wailed the roomful of women.

Maria was by now stripped down to support hose, white nurse shoes, bloomers, and a Merry Widow long-line bra. Emily felt nostalgic looking at the bra. The Ingenues had called them Iron Lungs. She'd worn one to the Plantation Balls and the KT Formals. Maria glided and elbowed her way through the dancers, prancing and joking with women on all sides, several of whom had been or still were her lovers.

Lou and Emily wandered into Maria's bedroom, which she'd turned into a photography studio with a Victorian settee and a vase of feather dusters, backed by a velvet drape. Two women in high-necked Edwardian dresses were being photographed. They struck poses in their prim dresses, most involving shoving hands up each other's skirts or grabbing breasts, while sitting with their backs and necks rigid, their eyes straight ahead and their lips pursed like stern schoolteachers.

Emily contrasted this party to the scene she'd return home to. She'd pay the babysitter; look in on Matt and kiss him and tuck him in; climb between cold sheets and lie there, grateful to be alone if poor Justin and his un-together head were the alternative. Meanwhile, these women would be going off to do God knew what to each other.

She was close to thirty now. She had some grey hair, and her breasts and belly were starting to sag. She was about to reach her maximum sexual capacity, according to Justin, who'd read it in
Playboy.
Yet sex for her had become merely another household task, like taking out the garbage. The last time she was in Newland, her mother had said, “The thing about your generation is that you've never grown up. When I was your age, I had three children. I was running this house and Ruby and a yard boy, entertaining for your father.” As Emily saw it, they'd grown up too fast. At the age when her parents were dancing to Tommy Dorsey, Emily and Justin were marching on Washington. They hadn't seen how they could bring children into such an inadequate world, so they set out to remake it first. Maybe it was childish to think this was possible. But in any case, lots of people Emily knew were just now entering the adolescence they'd missed out on. And she could see their point, as she watched the raucous dancing to Booker T and the M.G.'s. Women were bumping, grinding, thrusting their arms pistonlike into the air, and shouting with laughter. She wanted to get out there and play, too.

She tried to tell herself that most of these women didn't have children, but there were Lou and Maria bumping with the best of them.

“…
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes indeed! All I really need
…
Good loving!
…”

Maria grabbed her for a slow song. Embarrassed, Emily said, “What's the politically acceptable way for women to slow dance?”

“No one leads,” she said, putting a hand around Emily's waist and one on her shoulder. Emily did the same, and Maria taught her a slow swaying step that involved pushing against each other with upper thighs. She barely caught the words: “…
after all these years of trying, self-denying, and lonely waiting
…”

The dancing stopped while two women in wedding dresses, one pregnant, were married by a woman in a blue doctoral gown and cap and hood. Afterward they embraced with mock desperation. One tossed a vibrator to the waiting bridesmaids. As they ran the gauntlet, everyone threw handfuls of Quaker Puffed Rice.

As Emily was leaving, Maria and she kissed on the mouth, Maria studied her, frowning. All the way home Emily could think only of the fact that there had been no beard.

The next morning Emily marched back and forth through the apartment, abandoning cigarettes and cups of coffee. Matt scurried after her, dragging toys. The Great Ear carried on a conversation about the likelihood of there being tadpoles in the Hudson. But the rest of her was locked in a silent dialogue: This is a big mistake. It is the last thing I need. It would be so inconvenient socially. How would I explain a woman lover to my friends and family? They'd feel they'd have to invite her places with me, and then they'd be uncomfortable.

She knew she was in deep trouble when Amy Vanderbilt took over.

Making love to a woman. Bad enough. But making love to anyone besides her husband was shocking. When she was growing up, every adult had been coupled. If someone was unhappy, no one knew it. When Doctor Borgard divorced his wife of twenty years to marry his nurse, the town talked about nothing else for weeks.

Monogamy: If her sex drive were released from it, what would happen? It was possible it would prove uncontainable. Maybe she'd lust after everything in sight. Broomsticks and doorknobs and gear shifts. No energy for her work or her child. No time to eat properly, or get enough sleep. Her health would begin to fail …

She looked in the bathroom mirror. Her face was wrinkled like an old oil painting. She was on her way to dying, and she hadn't thoroughly lived.

All right. Take a lover, she told herself. But how about some nice man? Why do you have to make yourself a pariah as well as an adultress? Packs of dogs will snap at your heels. Gangs of small children will throw large stones. Why are you doing this?