Superior Women Page 3

  But, “Well, how’ve you been?” they both say, warmly, and at precisely the same instant. And, as a muttered afterthought, Megan adds, “I told Lavinia I might come by.”

  “Oh.” That is all that Janet says, but her sharp upward look continues a sentence: Oh, you’re friends with them?

  “I don’t really know them very well,” Megan has felt it necessary to explain. And then, “What’re you reading?”

  Janet shows her. Dos Passos, U.S.A.

  “Adam gives me these reading lists,” Janet proudly explains, and complains, “Honestly, it’s all I can do—”

  “I’d love to read it, when you’re through,” says Megan. “Maybe I could borrow—”

  “Oh sure, I’ll be through in a week or so. I read a lot every night, since of course I don’t go out.”

  “Oh—” Megan has suddenly remembered that she has Janet to thank for having urged her to call George. “Oh, I did what you said, I called that guy I know at Harvard Med. Remember I told you, and I didn’t want to call?”

  “You did? That’s wonderful! You see him a lot?” Janet is beaming, and her instantaneous vicarious pleasure is so warm and true that Megan is tempted to lie and to say, Yes, we see each other all the time, and it’s wonderful, we’re really in love. But some quality in Janet precludes such lies, and so in a wry way Megan (honestly) says, “Well, sometimes it’s wonderful, sort of.”

  Janet laughs, perhaps because she recognizes just that wry sadness as a frequent mood of her own; and the two young women part on that note, having exchanged a warm smile of mutual recognition.

  “Well, see you later,” they both say, as Janet lights another cigarette and Megan pushes through the wide swinging doors that lead to the open hall, the top floor of Barnard.

  Lavinia’s room is at the farthest end, Megan has been told, and she walks that echoing distance with something akin to stage fright: of course this is just a casual visit, but will she behave quite casually enough? For instance, what will she do if Lavinia isn’t there? Suppose there is only Cathy, or Peg; how could she explain having come over at all?

  But Lavinia is there, with Cathy. The door is open, and Megan sees them sitting close together on what must be Lavinia’s bed. And they are both in the robes in which Megan originally saw them, in the smoking room at Cabot, Lavinia’s bedraggled white satin and lace, Cathy’s red wool.

  Seeing Megan, Lavinia jumps up and comes to the door; she greets Megan as though she, Lavinia, were wearing something very elegant, or at least a clean, untattered robe. “Well, here’s our little Megan! You came to see us! We’ll have to make tea. Wicked Cathy, you go on down to Peglet’s room and borrow some tea bags.”

  Cathy, not glad to see Megan, mutters that she thinks Peg is out doing archery.

  “Just take them, then, and some of those really good cookies her mother sent. The chocolate chip. Megan will love them, I can tell.” Megan is given a complicitous smile as Cathy leaves; and Lavinia confides, with a small laugh, “Cathy was very naughty last night. On her very first date, with a brand-new boy, in the ROTC. The good Lord is punishing her with a terrible hangover.” She laughs again, very gently, as though to prove a lack of real malice.

  Some of Lavinia’s hair is up in pin curls, and there are traces of cold cream around her eyes, but still, despite all that, despite the untidy robe, her presence is impressive. Also, scrupulously analyzed, Lavinia’s features are not actually beautiful; she simply gives a strong impression of beauty. Her hair is not blond but an ashy color, an ashen light brown; her large gray eyes are too close together, and her nose a shade too large. Her upper lip is short, and her chin rather long, almost a Habsburg chin. Her skin is fine but uniformly white, too pale. She is very thin, with small breasts and long narrow feet.

  Lavinia knows what she looks like. “Actually I’m not at all prettier than you are,” she is to say, to Megan. “We just have opposite defects. I’m too thin, and you’re a little plump. I’m flat-chested, and you’re—you’re ‘overendowed.’ My skin is dry, yours isn’t. And my feet are too big, and too narrow for most shoes.”

  However, although it has a sound of reason, even of fairness, this diagnosis fails to cheer or even to convince Megan. Only years later is she able to diagnose its basic fallacy, which is that the defects Lavinia mentions as her own are quite acceptable—are classy, “aristocratic,” even. Of course it is preferable to be too thin, and to have dry skin rather than a face that perpetually shines and is often red, not to mention a tendency to bumps. And small breasts surely suggest greater refinement than large ones do. And what could be more regal than a long, narrow, high-arched foot?

  Lavinia has a carefully, delicately nurtured air about her; her look is ethereal, and certainly nonsexual. Whereas Megan looks strong, and clearly sexual. She sees herself as a peasant, in contrast to Lavinia.

  Cathy comes back into the room, and Megan thinks how punished she looks; wicked or not, Cathy looks miserable. Her pale skin is mottled, as though on the verge of breaking out, and her eyes are clouded. Megan feels a surge of sympathy for Cathy which is almost as strong as her curiosity as to what really happened. How awful Cathy must feel, and obviously does feel—but what exactly did she do, with the boy from the ROTC, besides just drinking too much?

  With what is either an intuitive flash, a look into Megan’s mind, or is more probably the continuation of an earlier conversation with Cathy, Lavinia now tells Megan, “She won’t say exactly what went on, so we can all think the worst.” She shoots a look at Cathy.

  Sounding more guilty than defensive, Cathy gets out, “I keep telling you, we just drank a lot of stingers at the Pudding, and then on the way home I guess we necked a lot.”

  “Well, I only hope his hangover is worse than yours is,” severe Lavinia pronounces, piously adding, “And I hope he calls you very soon.”

  At that last Cathy looks so stricken that Megan grasps that Lavinia has probed to Cathy’s darkest fear: Cathy is afraid, she knows, that the ROTC boy will never call her again; he is the kind of boy who would not approve of a girl who would neck on a first date, the kind of boy that in fact George Wharton could have turned out to be, and maybe really, basically, he is.

  None of which Lavinia could know about—or could she? Just how good-natured is her teasing? For the moment Megan cannot decide, or rather, she decides to avoid such conclusions.

  Lavinia makes their tea on a hot plate, and distributes it very grandly, in the thick white dormitory mugs, along with Peg’s mother’s chocolate-chip cookies, from a cracked blue plate.

  “Tea is the best possible thing for a hangover,” Lavinia instructs. “The morning after my cousin’s coming-out party, oh, I wanted to die! A friend of mine, Kitty—Kitty and I were so thirsty we drank a gallon of water, and that just made us drunk all over again! You must never drink water the morning after champagne. Anyway finally somebody, the maid, I guess, fed us both some tea, and by the time of the lunch party we felt almost human again. Kitty, now there’s a wild girl—” And Lavinia laughs, in a nostalgic, reminiscent way, as vividly glamorous images flow into Megan’s receptive imagination, a compound of literature and Hollywood: she sees a debut, a Scott Fitzgerald party. Bare powdered shoulders, corsages of orchids, gardenias. Floating chiffon, and men in tuxedoes, or gold-braided uniforms these days. And Lavinia (Carole Lombard! Daisy Buchanan!) lightly dancing, sipping champagne.

  Lavinia does have beautiful hands, Megan notices, as Lavinia pours out more tea. The white nails are perfect ovals, fingers long and narrow; even the tight white skin on her hands looks polished. Megan resolves to do her own nails more often; maybe you have to do them every day, to have them look like that?

  Now in her most serious voice Lavinia is asking Megan, “But do you really like it, living over there in Bertram?” Concern fills those wide gray eyes.

  Actually, Megan is so delighted, still, to be at college, at Radcliffe, at all, that she has not conceived of possible improvements in her state; she has not thou
ght about liking Bertram or not. And so she says, “Well, I guess so. It’s really all right. Actually I haven’t got to know anyone there too well. They’re mostly juniors or seniors, and they already know each other.”

  With one of her most intense, entirely concentrated looks, Lavinia remarks, “You don’t have to stay there, you know. You could tell them you want to move between terms, in September. You could come over here.”

  Surprisingly, Cathy adds, “You could have the room across the hall, actually. She’s moving into Cabot, she thinks it’s a little more ‘grand,’ over there.”

  (They all, the three and then four friends, acquire from Lavinia this verbal trick of emphasis, of just slightly setting off words; perhaps Cathy does it first. Later, reading Proust, they see it as Lavinia’s Duchess de Guermantes device, to which Lavinia readily agrees. “Of course, Proust has always been my absolutely favorite writer. I feel so at home in Proust.”)

  Loud clumping noises just then sound from down the hall, increasingly noisy, until there in the doorway is Peg, big Peg, looking bigger yet in her white gym uniform. She makes enthusiastic welcoming sounds at the sight of Megan—“Well, little Megan, our visitor for tea! Well! Welcome to Barnard!”—in her deep jolly voice.

  Responding politely, if not precisely in kind, Megan is darkly aware of some negative reaction to big Peg. I don’t like you, she is thinking, as she smiles up at Peg; but this is inadmissible, she will not allow herself not to like Peg. Lavinia and Cathy like her, so why should Megan not—what’s wrong with her?

  Peg says, “Well, I’m glad you girls appreciate my mother’s cooking,” and she laughs, very loud.

  “We’re just trying to see that you don’t eat too much, and put on weight,” Lavinia chides.

  “I’m starting my diet tomorrow.” An old joke, at which Peg laughs again. “Actually this dormitory food makes things a little difficult. It’s all so fattening. Have you noticed that too, little Megan?”

  I am nowhere near as fat as you are, Megan wants to say; we do not look in the least alike. But Peg’s tone has been one of polite inquiry, even concern, and so she only says, “I haven’t thought about it much. It is pretty fattening, I guess. So much starch.”

  It is Lavinia who says, “Peglet, Megan is nowhere near as big as you are. Now, really.” She has spoken very lightly, but definitively, with her tiny frown.

  Poor Peg flounders. “Oh, I didn’t mean—” She now sounds so distressed that Megan is touched, and likes Peg better. She herself sometimes says things that she has not quite meant to; feeling awkward herself, too often, she is moved by awkwardness in another person. But she is even more touched by Lavinia’s defense.

  “As a matter of fact Megan’s moving over here in the fall, and you both can go on diets,” Lavinia at that moment announces.

  Peg’s enthusiasm is noisy: Terrific, wonderful, neat—she says, while Megan smiles, feeling fairly foolish.

  Matter-of-factly, a welcome contrast to Peg, Cathy states, “It will be better, there being four of us.” But what did she mean?

  “I just love Barnard Hall,” Lavinia declares, at her most Southern. “And this top floor, our end of the hall. It’s our own private quarters.” She laughs, admitting that what she has been saying sounded a little silly, but then she says, “In fact I like it so much that I don’t think I’ll even bother going home between terms. I’ll just stay here and read up for next fall and take walks. And go to museums in Boston.”

  “Oh, Lavinia, you’ll be so lonely, you won’t like that at all,” Peg clucks worriedly. “If you don’t want to go all the way home you could come down to Plainfield with me. My mother would love—”

  “You’re so sweet, but not going home isn’t the point. I want to be here, by myself. And I won’t be lonely at all, I like being alone.”

  Megan has been listening rather breathlessly to this exchange. She too is going to stay at college between terms; her parents have said that coming back to California for such a short vacation is out of the question (although Florence has written enthusiastically about her new job, the great tips; mother the carhop, Megan can hardly bear to think of her). Megan’s imagination races ahead: she sees herself and Lavinia taking long walks, all over Cambridge, and going into Boston on the subway, going to museums. But then she wonders: will Lavinia want to do something expensive, like a matinee, or even dinner out? That thought scares her deeply for a moment, but her excitement is even stronger; she and Lavinia will talk, talk for hours. Tell each other things. Become real friends.

  Some instinct for caution, however, prevents her from mentioning this coincidence of plans to Lavinia. Not now. She does not say, Oh great, I’ll be here too.

  • • •

  But that is how she feels; she leaves Barnard Hall in a state of elation that afternoon, going back to Bertram. She will move to Barnard in the fall, she thinks, as she sits at her desk in her single corner room, trying to read a few pages of Chaucer before the dinner bell. She and Lavinia will have ten days, or a couple of weeks, of walking, conversation.

  Outside her windows, the golden Cambridge air is soft and gentle. Yellow leaves fall slowly, singly, to the drying grass; the sound of evening bells is distant, indistinct. Pale stars have just appeared in a paler sky; it is the faded-out end of a lively brilliant day. Barely thinking at all, Megan lets herself be filled with that view, with the evening air. It is another moment of great happiness for her; she is again aware of wonderful possibilities, golden chances.

  Just then the hall buzzer shrills out, a phone call for someone. In a minute a voice can be heard answering, “Third floor,” and then, more loudly, “Greene! Call on Line One!”

  It could only be George, Megan thinks, as she rushes toward the phone booth, takes up the receiver, and pushes down the button. And it is, George saying, “Well, I’ve really been hitting the books, but how about tonight? Could you possibly? Are you free?”

  Five minutes later, as she pins up her hair in bobbypins, hurrying—it is almost dinnertime—it strikes Megan that her visit to Barnard Hall has functioned as a good omen in her life: from now on she and Lavinia will be true friends, and her life will take on Lavinia-like qualities—she will lose weight, be thin, wear better clothes, and George will fall seriously in love with her.

  At the sound of the dinner bell she wraps her hair in a scarf, which is acceptable practice at meals; also, everyone knows that a person thus gotten up has an important date that night.

  Which leads to another small piece of luck for Megan, that day, enough to make her think that her fate has indeed taken a new direction: a girl from Chicago, a senior, known to be as rich as she is lazy, indolent, who has never bothered speaking to Megan before, addresses her from across the table: “Greene—” in her arrogant, idle nasal voice, “Greene, since you’re going out tonight, how would you like to be the proud recipient of a new white sweater that an aunt of mine just sent me? She means well but she’s a little dim about my size.” Betty, from Chicago, is tall, exceptionally thin, scrawny, actually. “Perfect for you, though, I think,” drawls Betty.

  Megan flounders, “Oh well, I’d really like to see it, but how—I mean, could I—” She is unable to say, Couldn’t I pay you for it.

  Betty’s laugh is harsh. “You could write to the aunt for me,” she suggests.

  “Oh, I’d be glad to.”

  “I’m kidding. Come by and try it on after coffee.”

  “You look, uh, terrific,” George says to Megan that night, in the Oxford Grill. He almost never remarks on how she looks, and the compliment has been an effort, he almost stutters over it.

  “I do? Well, thanks.” Megan feels a blush on her neck.

  “Something, uh, new? Your hair is longer?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Megan does not say, as she might have, that in the time since they have seen each other her hair could indeed have grown.

  “Well, how about another beer?”

  At a certain point George always asks that, an
d always Megan demurs. “Oh no, not for me, no thanks. But if you want another one—”

  Tonight, however, as he says those ritual words, what she thinks is, I’d really like another beer. And she further thinks, I wish we spent more time talking. And so, rather airily (in a Lavinia voice?), she says, “Actually I’d love another beer.”

  “You would? Well, in that case I’ll have one too.”

  No waitress is immediately present, and as they wait there Megan realizes that she is expected to withdraw; now she should say, Well, I really don’t need another beer. (George is very, uh, thrifty, Megan suddenly and meanly thinks.) But she does not withdraw; in fact she has another new thought that shocks her a little: Why don’t we ever go out to dinner? is what she thinks. Other people seem to. He must sometimes eat out?

  “I guess I’d better hustle up a waitress,” George says resignedly, getting up. And, watching his thin, lanky, khaki-clad body as he crosses the room, Megan retracts; she forgives the lack of dinner, food. He is so beautiful, so perfect, as a man.

  Setting down the new beers George says, “Well, I suppose you’re looking forward to getting back to California, after the summer term.”

  “Actually I think I’ll stick around here,” Megan tells him cautiously. “I’ve got a lot of reading to do, and I’d like to take some walks around Cambridge. Go into Boston and see a couple of museums.”

  “Oh, you’ll be around here, will you?” George seems to digest this slowly. “Well, we’ll have to get you down to the Cape sometime. Do you think you’d like sailing?”

  “Oh sure, I think I’d love it.”

  “Well, we’ll definitely have to think about that. Some Saturday. Usually the folks are around on weekends, and my brothers, but they’re a pretty good gang. Maybe you could stay over. Spend the weekend.”

  “I’d love that.” Out of breath with sheer pleasure, Megan looks up at him. It is the moment of her life in which she is prettiest, so far; she is almost beautiful, in her shining happiness. Which unfortunately she does not know, and George is not able to tell her.