11
MYRA was deep into the article. She cleared the dinner dishes off the card table and went back to her desk. The chair she usually pulled up to the card table had broken, so she typed sitting on the ironing board facing the kitchen counter. She had a sudden brainstorm after a day of sitting this way: she turned it so that it was parallel to the high counter. That way, she did not feel as if she was poised at the end of a diving board, about to plunge into her Smith-Corona.
She had done all the necessary research, and all that she needed to do now was bang out the rough draft. Cameron Petrus, the hard-hitting reporter, actually lived for the time he could throw his javelin. Nigel McAllister, who took such wonderful photographs and who submitted his work to photography magazines, expressed his cynicism about photography’s ability to communicate to the students whom he befriended at the community college where he taught and spent his time meditating at an Ashram. Noonan, who had made a fine art of parody, was deeply committed to campaigning for gay rights. And Lucy Spenser, the lady counselor, was apparently unable to guide her own life gracefully. Myra had found that out when she discovered the letter to Cindi Coeur from Les Whitehall.
Myra spent a few minutes analyzing herself: was she trying to get Lucy Spenser on the phone because she secretly liked the idea of making her uncomfortable? It wasn’t that easy to make someone as together as Lucy uncomfortable, but the letter from Les, whoever he was, seemed sure to do it. There was no reason to mention in the article that Lucy and Hildon were lovers — it was hardly to the point — so wasn’t she calling just to make cool, pretty, talented Lucy, who had a handsome, interesting lover — squirm? It was one of the perks of the job.
First Lucy’s line had been busy, then there was no answer. Her own phone rang. It was her friend Mary, inviting her to a party that night. She had been seeing a man named Timothy Cooper. The party was at his mansion. He was inviting people his wife didn’t know, and she was inviting people he didn’t know. Myra wouldn’t be embarrassed, because it was going to be a large crowd, and each would think the other had invited her.
Mary hadn’t seen the house, but she had heard it was fabulous. She begged Myra to go with her. Myra was sure that Mary was just being nice; Mary knew she spent a lot of time alone and she often invited her to go along to things with her. The house sounded so interesting that she was tempted to go just to see it. Mary kept after her. Myra said she’d go. After living here for a year, Myra had very little sense of what the community was like. Probably, since there was so much money around this area, there were many enclaves like the one she was going to visit. Mary had a way of meeting men and getting around, but Myra had a dull life and lived for the day when she could move back to Boston. The men she met were taken not once, but twice; they all had wives and lovers. Myra had been her journalism professor’s lover in Boston. He had agonized — ostensibly — about whether or not to leave his wife and daughter. He had even o.d.’d on sleeping pills when Myra said she wouldn’t see him until he decided. And then she had found someone else. But her new boyfriend left Boston, and although they planned to get together before she left for Vermont, they never did. For months when she first moved to town she had not seen anyone, and then she had gone out a few times with a guy who played in a band. She didn’t really care about him, and she hadn’t seen him for more than a month. The only person who had asked her out in that month was Cameron Petrus. She didn’t think he was attractive, and lied that she was involved with somebody. She had coffee with him (he had ginseng tea), and he told her about his heart attack. He sounded like the weatherman narrating an electrical storm. The whole thing depressed her so much that she reread her ex-professor’s letters and thought about writing him — but what good would that do? He was never going to give up what he had. Her best friend had just married a man who made driftwood coffee tables. She tried not to think about it. If you couldn’t ignore things, making a joke seemed a feasible alternative. She couldn’t have agreed more with the Country Daze philosophy.
She wasn’t in the mood for a party. She poured a shot of Jack Daniels and drank it while she watched the evening news. She decided to wear her 1940s dress: navy-blue, with bouquets of carnations and ribbons floating across the rayon. She put on her high heels. She brushed her hair and made a knot with part of it at the nape of her neck. Her mouth was still sticky when she put on lipstick. She thought that she smelled like a bourbon factory, but since she had already put on her lipstick, she didn’t want to brush her teeth. She sprayed on perfume. She put on a rhinestone bracelet she had bought at the Ben Franklin. If Mary hadn’t pulled into her drive, she would have had another drink.
Mary was in such a good mood, it was almost contagious. Procol Harum was singing “Whiter Shade of Pale” on the radio. The car, a Datsun 280 ZX, had been part of her divorce settlement. She had also gotten the country house, in Bristol. In the winter she went back to Boston, where she restored paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts and was studying Raku pottery. It was no wonder that men found her more interesting to talk to than Myra. Myra was exactly Mary’s age, but she felt younger. Older, actually. She was just less sophisticated.
There was a man at the entranceway to the house with a walkie-talkie. He gave Mary’s name — he announced Myra “and guest”—and waved them in. A peacock was strolling around the front lawn. The front door was open, and there was a roar of noise inside. Some people were playing croquet on the side lawn. Myra suddenly felt nervous. It wasn’t going to be her kind of party, but now that she was here, she was going to have to go through with it. She stayed with Mary. They found the bar, in back of the staircase, and stood in line. The bartender had on wraparound, black sunglasses. Myra could not tell when she had his attention because he did not seem to be looking anywhere in particular. She stepped aside and let Mary take care of getting them a drink. The drinks were served in plastic cups, and Myra carried hers with exceptional care, so she would have something to concentrate on. She looked outside; there were faerie lights in the evergreens, and they seemed to border a pool. “Let’s go outside,” she said.
It was a pool. A naked man was lying on his stomach, stretched out on a green float with a turtle head at one end. The man’s head was resting on the turtle’s neck. A man came over who thought he knew Mary. They went through several possibilities, but it did not seem that they had met. As they were talking, someone that Mary did know — a man Myra had never met — came over and introduced his little boy. The boy had a peacock feather. “Tickle her with the feather,” the man said, and the boy shyly turned his face to his father’s leg. Myra had never seen so many men in white pants. Myra went back to the house and got another drink for both of them. This time, as she studied the bartender, she realized that he was blind: he knew where the bottles were, obviously; stopped pouring, she guessed, by how heavy the glass was. She wondered how many other people had realized he was blind. She took the spritzers and walked out back again. She didn’t see Mary. As she was standing there holding two glasses, a man came up and said, “One for me?” “I don’t know where my friend is,” she said, feeling foolish. “For me, then,” he said, taking the glass.
“I’ll bet everybody here is dying to know who everybody else is,” he said.
“Who are you?” she said.
“Somebody who’s out of his league,” he said. “There are people in the bushes over there, smoking opium. Who are you?”