keeps running tediously in her head:
Cleopatra’s lips are kissed
while an unimportant wife
writes “I do not like my life”
underneath her shopping list.
She drives home, puts away the groceries, makes a raspberry mousse, and is mixing some lemon cookies when Danielle’s VW pulls into the driveway.
“What a hell of a day, huh? Spring, it says on the calendar ... Oh, here’s that letter for Brian, before I forget,” Danielle says, stepping out of her slushy boots on the back porch and coming into the kitchen in purple tights.
“Thank you. How is everything?” Erica puts the letter on a shelf in front of her cookbooks without looking at it. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Love it. The kids won’t be home till four, thank God.” Danielle pulls off her coat with the careless, angry energy that has lately marked all her actions, and flings it toward a chair. Twenty years ago, when Erica first met her, she had a similar energy—only then it was not angry, but joyful.
Erica and Danielle had known each other at college, though not intimately—Danielle being a year ahead, and in a different set. After graduation they lost touch; in the autumn of 1964, when Danielle’s husband joined the English department and the family moved to Corinth, Erica was not aware of it, nor did Danielle realize that Erica already lived there. But a few weeks after their accidental meeting at Atwater’s Supermarket, each accompanied by a nine-year-old daughter, it was as if they had remained friends uninterruptedly.
Danielle, like Erica, has been described by her admirers as tall, dark-haired and beautiful. But where Erica is narrow, in the shoulders and hips, Danielle is broad; she is deep-bosomed, and stands on sturdy baroque legs. Her hair is long, heavy and straight, with a russet overtone; her skin has a russet glow even in the northern winter, when Erica bleaches to the color of cream. People who do not much like Erica admit that she is pretty, while those (a larger number) who do not much like Danielle admit that she is good-looking.
In college they had avoided each other slightly, as women who are attractive in conflicting styles often do—for the same motive that prevents Atwater’s Supermarket from placing cases of ice cream and sherbet next to cartons of beer. But now that they had both been purchased and brought home, this ceased to matter.
That first day Erica accompanied Danielle back to her house and stayed there, drinking coffee and talking, for two hours. Soon they met or telephoned almost daily. Erica recommended to Danielle her pediatrician, her garage, her cleaning woman, and those of her acquaintances she thought worthy of the privilege. They lent each other books, and went with their children to fairs and matinées and rummage sales. Muffy Tate and Ruth Zimmern (known as Roo) also became inseparable.
Equally agreeable, and more surprising, was the friendship that developed between Brian and Leonard Zimmern. For years, both Erica and Danielle had had the problem that their husbands did not get on very well with any of their friends’ husbands. Now they realized, with relief, that this was not due to prejudice or character defects. It was merely that men of their age (Leonard was then forty-three, Brian forty-one) could not be expected to become intimate with the fledgling editors, lawyers, artists, teachers, etc., whom their wives’ friends had married.
Since they were in different divisions of the university Leonard and Brian could not share the concerns of colleagues; but this very fact prevented competitive jockeying and the tendency to talk shop on social occasions, so tiresome to wives. Neither could hinder or further the other’s career; so they were able to risk disagreement, to speak their minds freely. The differences of temperament and background which had made Erica and Danielle fear they would quarrel actually endeared the men to each other—and to themselves. Leonard congratulated
Cleopatra’s lips are kissed
while an unimportant wife
writes “I do not like my life”
underneath her shopping list.
She drives home, puts away the groceries, makes a raspberry mousse, and is mixing some lemon cookies when Danielle’s VW pulls into the driveway.
“What a hell of a day, huh? Spring, it says on the calendar ... Oh, here’s that letter for Brian, before I forget,” Danielle says, stepping out of her slushy boots on the back porch and coming into the kitchen in purple tights.
“Thank you. How is everything?” Erica puts the letter on a shelf in front of her cookbooks without looking at it. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Love it. The kids won’t be home till four, thank God.” Danielle pulls off her coat with the careless, angry energy that has lately marked all her actions, and flings it toward a chair. Twenty years ago, when Erica first met her, she had a similar energy—only then it was not angry, but joyful.
Erica and Danielle had known each other at college, though not intimately—Danielle being a year ahead, and in a different set. After graduation they lost touch; in the autumn of 1964, when Danielle’s husband joined the English department and the family moved to Corinth, Erica was not aware of it, nor did Danielle realize that Erica already lived there. But a few weeks after their accidental meeting at Atwater’s Supermarket, each accompanied by a nine-year-old daughter, it was as if they had remained friends uninterruptedly.
Danielle, like Erica, has been described by her admirers as tall, dark-haired and beautiful. But where Erica is narrow, in the shoulders and hips, Danielle is broad; she is deep-bosomed, and stands on sturdy baroque legs. Her hair is long, heavy and straight, with a russet overtone; her skin has a russet glow even in the northern winter, when Erica bleaches to the color of cream. People who do not much like Erica admit that she is pretty, while those (a larger number) who do not much like Danielle admit that she is good-looking.
In college they had avoided each other slightly, as women who are attractive in conflicting styles often do—for the same motive that prevents Atwater’s Supermarket from placing cases of ice cream and sherbet next to cartons of beer. But now that they had both been purchased and brought home, this ceased to matter.
That first day Erica accompanied Danielle back to her house and stayed there, drinking coffee and talking, for two hours. Soon they met or telephoned almost daily. Erica recommended to Danielle her pediatrician, her garage, her cleaning woman, and those of her acquaintances she thought worthy of the privilege. They lent each other books, and went with their children to fairs and matinées and rummage sales. Muffy Tate and Ruth Zimmern (known as Roo) also became inseparable.
Equally agreeable, and more surprising, was the friendship that developed between Brian and Leonard Zimmern. For years, both Erica and Danielle had had the problem that their husbands did not get on very well with any of their friends’ husbands. Now they realized, with relief, that this was not due to prejudice or character defects. It was merely that men of their age (Leonard was then forty-three, Brian forty-one) could not be expected to become intimate with the fledgling editors, lawyers, artists, teachers, etc., whom their wives’ friends had married.
Since they were in different divisions of the university Leonard and Brian could not share the concerns of colleagues; but this very fact prevented competitive jockeying and the tendency to talk shop on social occasions, so tiresome to wives. Neither could hinder or further the other’s career; so they were able to risk disagreement, to speak their minds freely. The differences of temperament and background which had made Erica and Danielle fear they would quarrel actually endeared the men to each other—and to themselves. Leonard congratulated
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