Community of Women

16

Roz Barclay sat reading in a comfortable chair. The book in her hand had been written by a fellow with whom Linc had been friendly years ago. When they all lived in Manhattan, the writer and his wife and Linc and Roz were a frequent foursome. Now, while Linc and Roz had moved to northern Westchester, the other writer and his wife had wound up in Bucks County, in Pennsylvania. Both families lived within commuting distance of New York, but in opposite directions. They never saw each other any more.

The book was a rather moody novel about a disturbed teenager, and only loyalty to a writer who had been a close friend kept Roz from putting the book down unfinished. She plowed onward, hoping at least to be able to save Linc the monumental chore of reading the thing. This way she would finish it herself and tuck it away in the bookcase, and if he ever asked about it, she would tell him how rotten it was.

Because, for the time being, Linc did not have time to waste reading lousy books. He had his own lousy books to write.

And he would be coming to her soon. She shuddered in delighted anticipation, knowing that soon he would come to her, taking a break from the book to bring another slump to its end. He had told her not to wear anything under her dress, saying it would save time. And she was not wearing anything under her dress. When he came she could throw the dress over her head and be naked for him, nude for him, ready for him. Then he could take her, quickly and passionately and breathlessly, and the world could pour itself into a deep pit and dash itself to fragments.

Her eyes were busy with the bad book about a disturbed adolescent. But her mind and her body waited for Linc.

Elly was having a wonderful time.

She and Maggie were at a front table in Endsville, a progressive jazz club on the East Side. On the stand, an instrumental quartet was working wild changes on I’ve Got Rhythm. The original melody had disappeared, and the four Negroes were swinging with the basic chord structure, twisting the song through new and wonderful channels.

Elly listened to the drums, to the bass. The drummer worked the top cymbal, keeping the beat steady, playing on top of the beat. The bassist moved up and down the chord patterns, backing the group. She looked at the pianist, then at the tenor sax. The music was wild and her ears and brain were filled with it.

“Maggie,” she said, “this is fun.”

“You’re enjoying yourself?”

“I’m having a ball.”

“You like the music?”

“I love the music. I haven’t had this much fun in... in years. I’m glad we decided to stay in the city. This beats the damn train home and quitting early.”

Maggie smiled, and Elly noticed again just how beautiful the redhaired girl was. So beautiful, and so good to her, and so good for her, and so much fun to be with.

“When you’re having a good time,” Maggie said, “there’s no point in stopping early.”

“I know.”

“We’ll stay here for another drink or two. Then we’ll find someplace else to go. I already made reservations at the Hasbrouck House. Our room is waiting for us any time we want to go there. So we don’t have to worry about finding a place to stay. We can paint the town scarlet all night long.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It is fun, Ell.”

She got lost in the music again. The tenor man unwound with a long solo, gutty and bluesy, and she let her mind float along on the ribbon of pure melody, let herself get immersed in the music. When the solo ended she saw Maggie ordering another round of drinks.

“Not for me, Mag.”

“Of course for you. I can’t drink them both all by myself, Ell. One’s for me and one’s for you.”

“I’m pretty well stoned already, Maggie. I don’t want to pass out. I’d make a fool of myself.”

“No fool like a pretty fool, Ell.”

“I’m tipsy, Mag—”

Maggie’s hand moved across the table, caught Elly’s wrist, held it. “Don’t you worry,” she said. “We’re out on the town, sweetie. We’ve got a perfectly good right to get stoned.”

“I suppose so.”

“So you just drink your drink, Ell. We’ll stay here until the band takes a break. Then maybe we’ll take a hansom ride through Central Park. You know, one of the old horse cabs.”

“I’ve never been in one of those, Mag.”

“They’re fun.”

She looked at Maggie. Her eyes were bright now, alive. She sipped her drink and studied the redhaired girl over the brim of her glass. She was all keyed up, all excited.

“And we can neck in the back,” she said, giggling a little. “Like on a date. Can’t we, Maggie?”

“Of course, sweetie.”

Something was a little funny, she thought. Something was a little bit out of the ordinary.

She pushed the thought from her mind and finished her drink.

It was a Monday night, of course. And, since it was a Monday night, Howard Haskell had brought work home from the office. He’d taken a later train than usual from New York, and he’d hardly said a word through dinner, and now he was locked up in his den with the tentative plans for some advertising campaign or other.

And Nan was alone.

The boys were sleeping. Nan ate in front of the television set, which was not even turned on, and felt lonely. Lonely and wretched and unhappy. And, at the same time, alive.

Ted Carr.

Ted Carr, and the sordid and cheap affair in which he was her partner, was making a monumental difference in her life. Already, after one horrible and yet somehow wonderful love-bout in the middle of her own living room floor in the middle of the afternoon, the monotony had fled from her existence like bugs from a room sprayed with DDT. She was not just a wife, not just a mother.

She was a mistress.

A mistress. The word had a strange and unfamiliar ring to it. It didn’t seem possible that such a word could be properly applied to solid citizen Nan Haskell, mother of two, pillar of Cheshire Point. And yet it was true. She had given herself to Ted, had begged him on her knees to take her, had asked for him in vulgar words, had made a slave out of herself, a slave to his whims and passions.

And it was not a one-shot arrangement. She knew this, knew it for a fact, knew it as well as she knew her own name. It was autumn in Cheshire Point and she was somewhere in the middle of an illicit affair. In the fall a young wife’s fancies lightly turn to thoughts of sex, she thought. In the fall a young wife starts putting out for a neighbor.

In the fall—

It might have been different if Howard had not had a satchel full of work that night. Maybe that was just an excuse, maybe the affair with Ted was destined to run its course no matter what, but she somehow could not help feeling that if Howard had been able to spend time with her that very evening, if he had been more talkative and more... loving, she might have been able to get back on the right track.

It was a moot point now. She who had been so one-hundred per cent faithful was now unfaithful, and the act of infidelity would be repeated as long as it was valuable to her. She had been bored; she was bored no longer. She had been in a rut; the rut had now turned into a groove. She had been tired, miserable, plodding along without any interruption of what had developed into a less-than-bear-able routine.

Now all that was changed.

Ted Carr, sandy-haired, smiling, determined. Not so handsome as Howard, not at all as nice as Howard, not as desirable a mate as Howard, but somehow far more important than Howard could ever be, far more essential to her well-being.

And she would let the affair run its course. In time it would burn itself out, and she would be Howard Haskell’s faithful wife once more, and everything would be hunky-dory again. But for the time being she would be everything Ted Carr wanted her to be, would do everything he wanted her to do, would lower herself into muck and make herself worse than a whore if he ordered her to do so. He was her excitement, her dynamism, almost her whole life.

This is wrong, she thought. This is all very wrong, and I should be heartily ashamed of myself. I should hate myself.

I do hate myself.

But that was immaterial. She had a need for Ted which she could not deny. She was in a flimsy canoe in rocky waters, but she was also on one hell of a wild boatride.