Stranger On Lesbos (13 page)

Jane said, "Looks like it's time for me to go. I'll see you girls later." And left.

Frances said again, urgently, "But Bake."

"What?"

"You know I can't get away for two weeks just now. Or a week, even. I thought maybe we could go somewhere for a week end."

"Look, you went without a vacation all last summer when everybody else was going off on cruises and what not. You've got all that time stacked up. There's absolutely no reason why we can't go to Canada for a couple of weeks
or a month if we feel like it. Ski in the Laurentians, see the old French farms where they use the bullock carts
"

"That's not it."

Bake dropped a handful of change on the cashier's desk, and held the revolving glass door open for her. "Look, that boy of yours is a senior in high school. He'll go away to college next year
I suppose Bill's still set on an eastern school for him? Okay, nobody's going to wipe his nose for him then. Don't you think it's about time you cut the apron strings?"

"Bill would make a terrible fuss."

"Bill doesn't need you either, for heaven's sake. He needs somebody who'll send his suits to the cleaner and not care how late he stays out or how many secretaries he sleeps with, just so he brings home the paycheck. The guys Bill runs around with could trade wives blindfolded and never notice any difference. You're wasting your life."

Frances said slowly, "Sometimes I think Bill knows. About us, I mean."

"Then what have you got to lose? Just tell him you're leaving."

Frances picked her way across the slush-slippery intersection, keeping a wary eye out for taxis. It was an overcast day, gray and windy. Bake slipped a hand under her elbow, a rare gesture. Her usual public behavior was impersonal to the point of being curt.

"Remember our first day? It wasn't much like this."

Pattern of branches against a burning blue sky, and one small red leaf spiraling down. Frances' eyes misted. "No, it wasn't."

"Damn it, you sound like you were reading the obituary page. There's no reason it can't stay good. You're not the first person to make a stupid marriage and you wouldn't be the first person to get out of one, either. Sometimes I think you're simply too lazy."

"I keep telling myself."

"As far as Bill's concerned," Bake said coldly, "he's nothing but a Babbitt. I don't care how noble and idealistic he was when you married him, he doesn't know the first thing about you after
what is it, eighteen, nineteen years? I knew you better after eighteen minutes. In another ten years he'll have a paunch, a bald spot and an ulcer, and it'll be like living with the
Wall Street Journal."
She looked shrewdly at Frances. "In another ten years Bob will be married and have a couple of kids, too. Then what have you got to live for?"

"Oh God, you make it sound so horrible. Don't you suppose I've thought about all that?"

"If you didn't have to rush home from the office and cook dinner, you could take some evening courses and finish your degree work. I've always been sorry you dropped out when you went to work."

"What else could I do?”

"Nothing, I guess, as long as you're determined to be a household drudge."

"I'd have left anyway, after what that awful girl said to me in the washroom."

Bake shrugged. "That's a chance you take. It would have been the same thing if she saw you out with a man
well, no, not quite the same, but she was only kidding. You shouldn't have taken it so seriously."

"She wasn't kidding."

"Then you should have denied it."

Frances was silent. They reached her office building, tall, many-windowed, impersonal. "All right," she said abruptly, "I'll do it."

"What, go to Quebec with me?"

"That too. But I mean, I'll leave Bill." She swallowed hard. "I can't tell him till next week, though. He has this pre-Christmas convention coming up."

"You're scared to tell him."

"Yes, I am. But I will, as soon as the convention is over. That's a promise."

"Good girl. That gives me time to scout around and find a good lawyer. In this state you have to prove cruelty or infidelity, I think. You might ask Kay
she's been divorced."

"I like Kay."

"So does Jane," Bake said dryly. "Maybe we better postpone the trip, after all. If it got back to Bill, he might file a countersuit or something. We don't want anything to keep your decree from coming through. And God knows," Bake said, "we don't want any publicity."

"It sounds so messy."

"Not with a good lawyer. Look, baby, I'm late for an appointment. We'll talk it over tonight, shall we? We'll get everything settled and then go on a real binge, just the two of us."

"What, no Jane?"

"Don't be so bitchy. You know Jane's an old friend."

Frances hesitated. "Okay. I'll be down around eight.”

The glow of determination ebbed away as she rang for the elevator and then stood waiting, going over her problem for

the hundredth time. There isn't any good solution, she ought, feeling a little sick as the elevator door slid shut and the floors slid past. There just isn't any way out of this. No matter what I do, it's all wrong.

She was no longer able to think about her marriage objectively, if indeed she had ever been. Whether it had been a mistake from the beginning, her nature and Bill's being so different that happiness was impossible for them; or whether Bill had changed, as she supposed at first; or whether every marriage was doomed to self-destruction by its very nature, as some of Bake's friends argued
she had thought about all these possibilities without finding an answer. And of another possibility, that some twist in her own nature made it impossible for her to love normally, as the world judges love. That the same quality which made her love Bake also made her incapable of happiness with a man. She shrank from believing this, because it made her at the same time guilty and helpless to do anything about it. It was better to think that the fault was Bill's.

She hung her coat on the rack in the office washroom and absent-mindedly opened the first of her salesmen's reports. I've promised, she reminded herself unhappily. I can't back down now.

She felt confused and depressed.

As for the job, it was just a job. For the first few weeks it had been exciting to come to the Loop every morning, feeling herself part of the crowd that poured into the packed blocks between Michigan and Clark, Van Buren and Lake. Then the glamour wore thin and figuring commissions on insurance policies became no more exciting than washing dishes. Only the freedom that went with earning money
even though most of it went for clothes, lunches and bus fares
and the necessity to prove some degree of independence, kept her at her desk.