Joanne sat quietly, biting her lip behind the concealment of a brittle formal smile. The Furgesons arrived. Walter was a small-boned man with a narrow mustache and the delicate body-control of one of the carnivore cats. Martha Furgeson always made Joanne think of yodels, yogurt and milking stools. She had a soft blondness, a shy eye, the warm look of the well loved. Walter treated her the way a headwaiter would treat visiting royalty, yet with a lingering personal emphasis that would have resulted in any waiter being fired on the spot. They were, in the language of the group, a special couple.
She saw Barney notice the Furgesons, remember, flash her a look of apology, terminate his conversation and come back to her. She made room for him and he sat near her. He lighted her cigarette, talked to her, saw that she had a fresh drink.
He did a little better the second time. She guessed it was twenty minutes before he was back over by the fireplace in a heated argument about how the Dodgers would shape up next season. And she saw Walter Furgeson sitting beside his Martha on the couch, their fingers interlocked, but not blatantly as their hands were partially concealed by a fold of Martha’s full skirt.
She was saying to herself, rather grimly, “Maybe it’s just because he has more fun talking to them. He can talk to me any time.” Lost in those dismal reflections, responding mechanically to the small talk, Joanne was startled by Martha’s gasp, by her quick voice saying, “Oh, I’m sorry, darling. That was clumsy of me.”
Ruth Shubley had passed some hot little cheese and tomato things and Martha had bitten into one. The tomato, under dental compression, had jetted out onto Walter’s sleeve. Walter was always so immaculate. Joanne suspected that he wouldn’t have been caught dead in one of Barney’s beloved patched shirts.
“Don’t you fret, dear,” Walter said, smiling at her as he dabbed at the stains with a paper napkin.
Martha got up, however, and Joanne heard her talk to Ruth Shubley about a spot remover. Then the three of them went off to the bathroom. Ruth came back alone, smiling, saying, “Aren’t they the sweetest things? She’s in there trying to get those spots out.”
Joanne suddenly recalled an effective home-grown remedy for removing tomato stains while they were fresh, so she got up quickly and went out of the living room and down the carpeted hallway to tell Martha about it. Her steps were quick and light and soundless. She was eight feet from the open bathroom door when she heard Walter’s voice, low and deadly and vicious, saying, “You clumsy fool! Of all the messy, sloppy, careless things you manage to do—”
Martha’s voice rose over his with the same rasp of hate as Joanne stopped abruptly, barely in time. “You incredible louse,” she said. “Always blaming me for your stupidity. Now shut up and hold still.” Joanne turned and fled silently, running from those dreadful voices, running from the destruction of a myth, shocked and oddly embarrassed. People couldn’t talk to each other that way. It was the death of love and the end of all personal dignity.
She returned numbly to her chair, realizing the true and monstrous hoax the Furgesons had perpetrated to advertise their life together as the perfection any marriage could achieve under the wise counseling they were in the business of providing. Joanne felt slightly ill...
Barney managed one more era of attentiveness before it was time to leave. Joanne was not very aware of his attentions. She was too shocked by the Furgesons sitting as before, smiling, warmly solicitous of each other, hands again entwined and half concealed. Joanne was glad to leave...
They walked slowly, and Joanne walked with her head bent, scuffing her heels, thoughtful.
Barney sighed. “I need more practice. I kept forgetting. I’ll do better next time.”
They were in a dark place. Her voice sounded soft and broken as she said his name.
“Hey, I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
“Hold me, Barney. Just hold me tight.” They were near their house. He held her closely, her forehead fitting into its safe and warm place under his chin.
“What’s the matter, darling?” he whispered. It was a sane, known voice. The voice of love and concern.
“I was just... scared of a lot of things all of a sudden. Scared of pretending. Let’s not ever pretend, Barney. Please?”
“Pretend what?”
“Never pretend you love me if you don’t.”
“Jo, you are truly a strange character. I love you.”
She knew she would tell him, some time, about the Furgesons. But not yet. Not while there were things to think out and sort out in her mind.
So she whirled out of his arms and said, “Race you home, Buster.”
And she won, because she had a start and because she was running as fast as she could, and maybe because she had red hair, and probably because she felt, all at once, very much alive and loved.
