The Time of Her Life (2 page)

“I don’t know if I should do it or not,” she said to Jane, about a class she might take. “Maggie wants me to, but I don’t
know…. You know how she wears you down. They don’t teach it here. I’d have to commute to Kansas City, and I don’t have any
sense of direction. And in the winter…” She told Jane all about her plans, new things that had occurred to her. She talked
and chatted while she moved dreamlike around the room, stepping over their dog, Nellie, without seeing her, reaching automatically
for the things she needed, without alacrity, just a lazy uncurling of her sleepy muscles when she reached or stirred. It was
the urgency of her new ideas that made Claudia appear languorous
as she moved around the counters. It was dazzling to her, the things that were possible, and in the morning her musings were
entirely visionary and hopeful. She gave Jane some toast and juice and settled at the table across from her daughter with
her own breakfast, but then she elbowed her plate slightly to one side and lit another cigarette, idly breaking her toast
into pieces with her other hand.

“And this is the last pack, Jane. I swear it! It really is,” she turned to her daughter to say, gesturing with the cigarette
she was smoking. Claudia’s gestures were fluid and poignant with earnestness, and she was impressed, herself, with her own
sincerity.

Jane was looking out the window in the direction of the Tunbridges’ house which could be glimpsed through the trees far away
down the hill, and her mute nod of acknowledgment was so peremptory, so casual, when Claudia meant never—
never
—to buy another pack of cigarettes, that Claudia slowly took in the presence of her daughter with a tinge of resentment that
colored her early ebullience. It was the first bruise on what she had chosen to see as the perfect apple of her day. Claudia
looked down the hill, too, at Maggie’s house, and was agitated all at once by the things in this day that she meant to get
done. She was disturbed by the idea of order and efficiency that always eluded her at the last minute. She almost got things
right. She just missed by a hair.

“Jane, you’ve got to get your things ready to go to Diana’s tonight.” This was a command, but in her sudden uneasiness Claudia’s
voice was faintly tentative. She was offering a small bit of instruction, a slight complaint. These days she had constantly
to remind Jane
of the obligations of Jane’s own social life, but all at once this year Jane’s face had elongated and become narrow and stern,
so that compelling her to do this thing or that was a risky business.

“I might not be going,” Jane said.

“Well, Jane. Please remember to tell me these things. Would that be too much trouble?” Her tone was light with injury. “I
thought it was all planned. When I talked to Maggie yesterday, she said Diana was counting on it. I thought you were going
over this morning and staying overnight.”

“I’m not sure I want to go, though,” Jane said.

Claudia sipped her coffee and let the conversation become vague in her mind. “I don’t want you to hurt Diana’s feelings,”
she said, but her wishes dispersed into the warm, scented kitchen air.

Jane finished her toast but still sat at the table, moving her juice glass in tight circles that blurred the ring of condensation
beneath it. “Did Dad come home?” she asked.

Claudia made a dismissive gesture with her hand and gave her daughter a nod, but in spite of herself a sudden weight of accountability
plummeted through her in that instant, making her lethargic, her arms and legs heavy with despair. Thirty-two years and the
responsibility for them. Claudia had never thought that life would demand any effort on her part; she had assumed it had its
own momentum. She had never even thought she would be thirty-two. The whole business had taken her by surprise.

“He’s still asleep,” she said to Jane. That’s where she had meant to leave Avery for the moment—stuporously asleep in their
bed—and she was irritated at Jane,
because here he was now, in the forefront of her mind. She wasn’t pleased to disturb herself this morning, in her favorite,
mellow hour.

Claudia and Avery had gone to a party at the Tunbridges’ the night before, and now Claudia lost all track of her thoughts
about the class she might take. The idea of herself in her blue car driving along I-70, sure of her destination, crisp in
nice clothes, passing by the idling traffic while she drove straight on to Kansas City to be on time—that soothing image—became
a kind of low hum of a thought to fall back on. It was a bit of theater, really; she enjoyed watching the idea work itself
out, but she would never have taken the action. She was irritated, though, because she didn’t want to think about the night
before, not any part of it at all, and here it was, surfacing in her mind.

At the party Maggie had been explaining how disappointed she had been after meeting and entertaining the convocation speaker,
a writer whose books she had reviewed several times. “It’s ruined his writing for me. He’s a whiner,” she had said, drawing
one foot up on the couch and clasping her arms around her knee. It had gotten late, and only eight or nine people were still
ranged around the room in various stages of party fatigue. Eight or so acquaintances who lingered on. “He’s insinuating. In
a sneaky way,” Maggie went on, “he’s really trying too hard to convince you how humble and amusing he is.”

“You were not impressed,” said Vince, who had been sitting in a chair across from his wife. He summed this up. It was only
a statement, but Avery waved his hand impatiently at this comment.

“Oh, Maggie. You were impressed. I know you. I
know you were impressed. Think of what that man has achieved!” There was a nasty note to Avery’s voice; there was a challenge
in his tone, and the whole group turned to him, surprised. He had said very little for some time.

This was a group of people—the ones who remained in the long living room—of some note. They had a little fame one way or another
or, like Claudia, were married to persons of some limited renown. But they were not necessarily fond of each other; they simply
tended to congregate because they had that much in common, and they were all there was.

Vince watched Avery for a moment. “Well, all right, Avery. What about you? Who would impress you? Living or dead?” Avery’s
face lost its sardonic expression and became momentarily reflective, so Vince pressed on. “Any single person. Who would you
like to meet? And why?” Vince added. “Why would you like to meet whoever you’d like to meet?”

Avery had become quite solemn, and he took some time thinking about this. “I would be”—Avery spoke slowly and raised one hand
to emphasize his words—“I believe I would be impressed by Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln.”

There was a small collective sigh of disappointment, and Avery raised his hand a little higher to retain their attention,
but he kept gazing morosely ahead of himself. His solemnity had become a kind of maudlin petulance. “No,” he said. “No. I
mean it. The language. He had the language…. He could write. But his terrible melancholy…” Avery was sinking into a slow-witted
and boozy sentimentality.

Vince moved right along, turning away from him.
“Okay. Maggie? We’re stuck with early American. Who would you want to meet?”

Maggie had finally come up with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an early feminist, and Evan Price, a young architect, had gone with
Thomas Jefferson. Vince himself had chosen Stephen A. Douglas. Then he had turned to Claudia.

“Oh, I’ll pass,” she said. “This isn’t my kind of game.”

Avery sat up straight and leaned toward her in irritation. All at once he was disconcertingly alert. “You can’t think of
anyone
?” he asked her much too loudly. “Not a single human being who ever lived?” He made a great show of incredulity.

“I don’t want to play this game,” Claudia had said very mildly. She didn’t seem to notice Avery’s immense irritation, but
he wouldn’t let the subject drop.

“Okay. Okay. What about Aaron Burr? Aaron Burr. Now he would interest you. Wouldn’t he? You really would like to meet Aaron
Burr, wouldn’t you?” Avery was becoming increasingly unpleasant, but Claudia looked across at him with no expression or response
at all.

“Oh, come on. Make Avery happy, Claudia,” said Vince. “You can come up with someone.”

At the same moment Avery had risen with difficulty from the deep wing chair in which he had been sitting. He had risen laboriously
and storklike, waving an arm to quiet Vince.

“No, no, no, Vince. No, there is nobody,” Avery said, “nobody at all who could ever possibly impress my wife. Not a single,
solitary person who ever existed. And it’s because what she really is… what Claudia really is
is a nihilist. A real one. The real thing,” he said ponderously, and he drank down more of his drink. “And ultimately…
ultimately
that’s just boring. Tedious! Tedious!”

No one said anything at all. No one had realized how drunk Avery had become. But Claudia was calm and irritated. “For God’s
sake, Avery, don’t be such a fool. I’d never describe myself as a nihilist.”

“But it’s exactly what you are! God damn it! That’s what you are.” The whole group tried hard to pretend that there was no
menace in Avery’s voice, but Claudia was not in the least intimidated. Instead she was unwisely cross. She disliked being
spoken for and having herself categorized in this sophomoric conversation.

“For Christ’s sake, Avery! Will you drop it? I certainly don’t believe in nothing.” She paused for a moment, and then she
smiled slightly so that all the force of her tremendous and ingenuous charm came across her face. “It’s just that there’s
nothing much that I believe in.” And the whole gathering broke into mild and relieved laughter. All, of course, but Avery.

Avery was still standing above them, and he looked around the room. “What you don’t understand…” Then he stopped in the center
of the room, resting the hand of his uplifted arm on the top of his head. He stood alone, looking angular and puzzled as if
he had forgotten what it was that he did understand. But the room remained attentive, and he continued. “What
you
don’t know, and
you
don’t know, and
you
don’t know,” he said, turning in a slow arc and lowering his raised arm at one person and then another in accusation and
inebriated slow motion. “What no one seems to see is that what Claudia thinks of all of you is that you’re just
a
dot!
That’s it! Just a dot…” He was too drunk to get the right tone; it fell short of sarcasm into a furious slurring. “A dot
on the great big blackboard of life!” He had meant this as a little witticism, but there was only silence in the room, and
this time Claudia had frowned. She hadn’t replied. After a moment he dropped his arm and smiled in huge pleasure at having
transmitted this message, and he wandered out of the room, not choosing to elaborate.

Claudia heard him leave through the front door, and when conversation started up again, she went and got their coats without
saying anything to anyone at all. Maggie came over to her, though, moving among her guests discreetly so as not to interrupt
them, and with a slight tipping back of her head, a conspiratorial downglance, had said to her, “Call me if you want. Later.
Or tomorrow.” She had spoken so softly that Claudia wondered afterward if she had actually said the words or mouthed them
in a silent pantomime of solidarity. Claudia had gone outside and found Avery sitting in the passenger seat of their car,
looking smug. He was pleased and quiet, and Claudia drove home.

By the time they were home, however, Avery had so much to talk about, and he was insistent that someone listen to him. He
put the dog out, coaxing her because she didn’t like the dark. “Go
on
, now, Nellie! You cowardly hound. Go out, now, go on out!” While he waited to let her back in he roamed around the living
room studying his own bookshelves, the pictures on his walls, as though there were something there of which he was suspicious,
something out of kilter, put there behind his back. At last he said, “I’ll go check on Jane,” while he was still on the move
around the room, and he was away
in a flash. He was quick, and he was sly; Claudia had been heading in the other direction to hang up their coats.

“Damn it! Avery, don’t wake her up! It’s almost one o’clock.” By then, though, Avery was leaning against Jane’s doorframe,
talking to her. Talking and talking. Asking her opinion. Wheedling and cajoling. What fools people were, weren’t they? he
said. Her teachers… “There is no one more intelligent than you are, Janie. That’s the thing. Now, knowledge. They might have
you there. But, still, if you always know that you’ve got one up on them”—and he tapped the side of his head with his forefinger
in a pretense of jest—“then you can be sure of a lot of things. Not
happy
all the time. That’s not the point. But you can always be absolutely sure that you know what you know.” And he rambled on
in a sweet muttering. The pleasure of his own voice was there, full in his throat, as he lifted the sound persuasively up
and down the scale, alternatingly soft and firm in tone. A joy in the night. He emitted a sound so charming it would lure
the birds right out of the trees. For a little while it always mesmerized Claudia. That’s how he could be when he chose. But
he grew tired there in the doorway and followed Claudia to the kitchen, where he fixed himself another drink. He always came
home late from long conversations and then had more to say. He could not
finish
talking, and his voice altered and became a deep, insistent whine. He was distressed all at once.

“Your real talent, Claudia, is that you suffer fools graciously! Christ! Fools. God, they’re fools. All the people we see.
How can you stand it? Why do you make these plans? How can I live with a woman who laughs
at Evan Price’s jokes? He’s mentally five years old! How can I
live
with a woman who laughs at bathroom humor? Did you know that? He’s five years old!” With the last two sentences he had pounded
the wall each time for emphasis, shouting now at Claudia, while she moved around the kitchen clearing up the dishes Jane had
left and emptying the ashtrays. When he had thought she wasn’t paying attention, he had put his drink down and gone slowly
toward her and taken hold of her lower arms between the wrist and elbow so that she had to stand in one place and watch him.
“How can I live with someone who would ever, ever laugh at Evan Price? How can I?”