Linda, who had gone to sleep in the middle of the party in her honor, stirred in her basket. Bambi could have gone into the bedroom to nurse her, but she felt contrary so she brought the baby out and nursed her in the living room in full view of her mother, who was folding up the wrapping paper and ribbons in order to reuse them. Thank goodness Bambi had thrust that receipt into the pocket of her smock.
“She looks like Edward R. Murrow,” Bambi said fondly.
“She looks like her father,” Ida said. Less fondly.
It was tacitly understood before Linda was born that no daughter of Bambi’s should be held to that standard of beauty, but Linda really did look like her father. Exactly. Bambi’s kinder friends said she had striking features and she would grow into them. By which they meant: Oh, dear God, the nose is ENORMOUS. Bambi didn’t mind. She believed her daughter would blossom. Besides, being beautiful, Bambi didn’t overrate its power. She didn’t underrate it, but she didn’t overrate it. Bambi’s beauty had been like a savings bond procured at her birth. A nice investment. But it couldn’t, as it turned out, provide her with everything she needed.
For example-a husband who slept in his own bed every night.
“Toys and clothes, clothes and toys,” her mother said, taking inventory of the gifts. “Why don’t people give useful things?”
“It’s more fun to give a little girl dresses and stuffed animals,” Bambi said.
“Fun,” her mother repeated, as if it were a profanity. “I don’t even understand why you had a party at all.”
“People like parties.”
“People like a lot of things.”
Bambi did not ask what her mother meant by this. Although her parents had always struck her as naïve, Bambi had to wonder if her mother had been onto Felix. If she had been right not to buy what he was selling.
To her own horror, she began to cry.
“Is something wrong?” her mother asked.
Bambi wanted to snap at her like a teenager. Of course something’s wrong. Instead she said: “I’m just so tired.”
“Babies are wonderful,” her mother said. “But they change everything.”
“For the better.” It was a question, but she tried to make it sound confident, emphatic.
“Mostly. But fathers get jealous. They can’t help it. The world revolved around them. Now it doesn’t anymore.”
“Did Papa get-jealous?”
“Papa was older. He had been through-a lot.” Bambi’s parents had an essentially arranged marriage, albeit one sweetened by genuine love and respect, then saddened by the string of miscarriages.
“Felix isn’t that young. He’s twenty-five, almost twenty-six.”
“Twenty-five.” Her mother really could cram a lot of meaning into a single word, a number.
“When we were engaged, you said twenty-five was too old. Now it’s too young?”
“You’ll see,” her mother said. Again, Bambi had to wonder just how much her mother knew. Earlier today, she had insisted on helping Bambi by sorting the laundry and taking it down to the basement. “Such dark lipstick you’re wearing these days,” her mother said, as she made a pile of Felix’s handkerchiefs. “I like you in lighter shades.”
“It’s the style,” said Bambi, who had switched to Elizabeth Arden Schoolhouse Red when she married. It was darker-but not quite as dark as the shade on Felix’s collar.
Her mother left at last, leaving behind a shining apartment, for which Bambi was grateful. She was tired these days. The hours crawled by. Linda slept, woke, ate, slept, woke, ate. Bambi waited for Felix, putting together funny stories about the party to entertain him. How her mother’s friend, Mrs. Minisch, had frowned at the carpet. How Aunt Harriet, who doted on Bambi and thought Felix was wonderful, had loved the hippo. How dowdy Irene looked since her marriage.
After Linda’s 10:00 P.M. feeding, Bambi changed into a pretty peignoir, figuring she had up to four hours to focus on Felix, assuming he came home. Eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, one o’clock. He didn’t come and Linda cried and Bambi’s breasts spurted, ruining the gown. What had Felix said? It’s a nocturnal business, darling. Your father gets up at 4:00 A.M. I’ll be lucky to get home by that time. Two sides of the same coin. She put Linda down and-tenderly, carefully-touched herself as Felix had touched her on their honeymoon. She didn’t like to do it by herself, but it was better than nothing and allowed her to see if she was ready, as the doctor had promised. Her gentle touch took her back to the honeymoon, the suite, Felix’s hands, his voice, her dreamy assent to everything he said. What had she agreed to as his hands moved through her hair, over her back, between her legs?
Not legal, but not the kind of illegal that anyone cares about. People want to gamble. I’m the bank. What could be more harmless? I collect the money, I give some away, keep the rest. I’m a dream merchant, sweetheart. No one gets hurt. No one is forced to do anything they don’t want to do. The cops don’t even care. No one cares, as long as you play by certain rules, stay away from certain things. I’ll have an office down on Baltimore Street, above the Coffee Pot Spot.
Baltimore Street was the Block, and his office was actually above a strip club, the Variety. A strip club that Felix owned. A strip club where it was rumored that the headliner had to pass a very special kind of audition. Bambi had tried to confront Felix about this but found she could not say the words. She decided it was better never to speak of it, to pretend that she didn’t care, to pretend to be asleep when he crept into bed and whispered: “Everything I do, I do for you.”
She had thought it was quite the stupidest thing she had ever heard. But Felix never said anything he didn’t believe to be true. Which was not to say he didn’t lie, only that he never thought of himself as a liar. But how could he say this? Was he saying that he slept with these whores, these nafkehs, as her mother would say, for her? Then again-she considered his practiced hands, the pleasure he gave her. Maybe they had taught him that. Okay, but now he knew. He should stop.
Linda stirred, uttered her bleating, lamblike cry, only to settle back to sleep before Bambi could swing her feet over the side of the bed. Too bad. She would have been happy to be up with the baby. She could use the company. Having a family was supposed to end her loneliness. Yet, in some ways, she was lonelier than ever before.
On their second date, Felix had stopped in front of a large gold-flecked mirror in the lobby of the Senator Theater. “Look at us,” he said. “We look like a couple.”
Bambi couldn’t see it, but she nodded, giving him a half smile.
“We’ll have the kind of house where there are portraits,” he said. “Of you and the kids, not my ugly mug.”
It wasn’t ugly, though. Not on a man.
True to his word, Felix had already found a house, although it was unclear how they would pay for it. He said he would commission a painting as soon as she was back in fighting shape. Bambi had cried when he said that because she was unused to being found wanting in that way. The women against whom he compared her had long legs and tiny waists. Bambi would never look like that, no matter how hard she tried.