Community of Women

6

Elly Carr hadn’t heard the car stop at the curb in front. She was busy vacuuming the living room rug, and the noise of the vacuum cleaner was enough to drown out the sound of the big Buick hardtop pulling to a stop in front of her house. She heard the doorbell, though, and she switched off the vacuum cleaner and glanced out the front window. She saw the Buick, a red and black orgy in chrome, and couldn’t place it at first. Who did she know who drove a Buick hardtop? Not one of her friends. Maybe a salesman, maybe—

God, she thought. Maybe a man, tipped off by another man that all you have to do is ring Elly Carr’s doorbell and she spreads the welcome mat on her bed for you. Oh, God in heaven!

She went to the door, nervous, upset. But there was no man. Outside was a woman, a very attractive redhead who hid her eyes behind forbidding black glasses.

Maggie Whitcomb.

“Hi,” Maggie said. “You busy, Ell?”

“Nope. Come on in. I... I didn’t recognize the car.”

“It’s Dave’s. I usually take the VW but I felt like a bigger car today. How are you fixed for coffee?”

They sat in the living room and drank black coffee from china cups. Elly hardly knew Maggie Whitcomb, had only spoken to her a half dozen times that she could remember off hand. But in towns like Cheshire Point informality was the rule and open friendliness an obligation. When a community is composed of refugees from New York, all of them tossed together in a place where they have few if any friends, acquaintanceships are made quickly and easily.

“You have a lovely place here,” Maggie was saying now. “I’ve never been over before.”

“You should have come sooner.” What, Elly wondered, did Maggie Whitcomb want? It seemed strange that she would just drop in for coffee out of the blue. And yet so far it seemed like a purely social call. She wasn’t collecting for a charity, wasn’t organizing a neighborhood committee, wasn’t, in short, doing anything but drinking black coffee and making small talk.

“I suppose you’re wondering what prompted this visit, Ell.”

“Why—”

Maggie’s eyes were twinkling. “You have a perfect right to wonder. It’s just that I thought we ought to get to know one another. You seem like the sort of gal I might be able to relax and unwind with. And we’ve never really had much chance to let down our hair and get acquainted. I mean just the two of us, without a host of drunks around and without Dave and Ted making shop talk all night long.”

Dave Whitcomb, Elly remembered, was an assistant producer of a pair of morning teevee quiz shows. She tried to remember just what he looked like and couldn’t bring his face into mental focus. He was a quiet man, easily dominated in company by his dynamic redhaired wife.

“I’m glad you came,” Elly said. “Ted’s in the city and Pam’s at school and I’ve done about as much housework as I feel like doing.”

“Then I picked a good time.”

“You did.” She put down her coffee cup. “How about a sandwich? There’s some cold roast in the fridge.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to bother—”

“It’s no bother, Maggie. Just sit here.”

She hurried into the kitchen and put sandwiches together, then brought them back into the living room. They ate slowly, punctuating their conversation with small talk that was as easy and relaxed as it was fundamentally irrelevant. Elly found herself growing more and more at ease. Maggie was a striking woman, an interesting woman. Maybe, she thought, they would become close friends. And suddenly she realized just how desperately she needed a friend.

It sounded corny, but this made it no less true. She had a glut of friends, a bevy of acquaintances, but there had been something annoyingly superficial about every relationship she had entered into since she and Ted had moved to Cheshire Point. There were friends like Nan Haskell, friends like Rita Morgan and Cynthia Grass. They were people to talk to, girls to swap recipes with and otherwise pass time. But no close friends, no bosom buddies.

She looked at Maggie now, noticing again how attractive she was. Lustrous red hair, a full mouth, deep eyes. And a fine figure, with long shapely legs and high proud breasts. She thought again of Dave Whitcomb and wondered how come he had managed to grab off a prize like Maggie. Of course, he made a good living, and he was supposed to be a sharp guy in his field. But he didn’t have Maggie’s verve.

“Pam should be through with school soon,” she heard herself say. “I’ll have to run over and pick her up.”

“Can’t she walk home?”

“It’s a little far. She’s only six.”

Maggie nodded. “We don’t have children. Sometimes I’m glad of it and sometimes I’m sorry.”

“You haven’t wanted them?”

“It doesn’t really matter whether we want them or not,” Maggie said. “Dave is sterile.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I—”

Maggie grinned softly. “Please don’t be sorry. Really, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. One summer while he was in college he was in an auto accident, had some back trouble. They took too many x-rays, evidently. And that ended his chances of becoming a father.”

“It’s permanent?”

“Uh-huh. But it’s not that much of a tragedy. Oh, I suppose Dave would like to be a father, but I don’t imagine I’m much cut out for motherhood. It’s not my line.” She smiled again. “But it makes the days lonely, I’ll tell you that much.”

“You shouldn’t let yourself be lonely. Just drop in on me. Any time at all, Maggie.”

“You’re a doll, Ell. But I hate to make a pest of myself.”

“Don’t be silly — I like your company.”

“And I like you, Ell.”

There was something strange about the phrase, something a little funny about the way Maggie’s eyes held Elly’s, something weird in the intensity of Maggie’s gaze. Then Maggie’s eyes left hers and studied Elly’s body, glancing at breasts and hips. It was almost... well, almost sensual. A man looking at a woman—

Oh, that was ridiculous. Maggie was looking at her just the way she, in turn, had looked at Maggie. Women did that — they took note of other women’s physical attributes. It was a sort of measuring, with no sexual connotations at all.

“I’d better run, Ell. I’ll see you soon, won’t I?”

“Of course.”

“Fine. Thanks for the coffee, and the sandwich. Why don’t you drop in on me soon?”

“I will,” she promised. “Soon.”

She walked Maggie to the door, then went back to the living room and watched the redhaired girl walk down the driveway to the red and black Buick hardtop. She was aware of the fluid grace with which Maggie Whitcomb moved, the way her lush buttocks swayed as she walked, the way her long legs were shaped.

Well, she thought. Now I have a friend.

She lighted a cigarette, sat down on the couch and smoked. Maybe Maggie would make a difference. Maybe if she had a friend she could stop the wild sex, the horrible promiscuity. Maybe Maggie was an answer. Maybe it was loneliness and emotional insecurity that drove her into the arms of men like Rudy Gerber, loneliness and emotional insecurity that made her fantasy about a phantom lover on a sleek black stallion.

Because, she thought, the promiscuity had to stop. Ted was a good husband, a perfect husband. He was faithful to her — she was confident of this — and she certainly had an equal responsibility to be faithful in return. And, if she went on sleeping with any brawny moron who rang her doorbell, Ted would find out. Sooner or later he would learn, and he would be hurt and shocked, and he would leave her.

Pood Ted. She owed him fidelity. And now, with Maggie Whitcomb as a friend, maybe she could mend her ways.