31

Diana was surprised to find the house dark. She went inside, flipping all the light switches along the way.

The air was thick and musty. She opened the door to the patio and let the cold night wind wash in.

She sat at the kitchen counter and dialed Bill’s number. The phone rang this time, but there was no answer.

She called Lida. “Are my kids at your place?” she asked.

“No. Hey, hello. No. Bill insisted on bringing them home.”

“He insisted?”

“Yeah. See, they weren’t in when I got there, and he had planned to take them out to dinner …”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“Lida, did you ask him to do this?”

“Ask him? No, I didn’t ask him. Diana, listen, I have a ton of stuff to tell you. You won’t believe it!”

“Oh, wait, I think I hear them.”

“Diana,” Lida said.

“I’ll have to call you back.”

“Wait. Let’s go somewhere, like a Chinese place. I just have to talk to you.”

“Chinese!” She fought to keep the anger from her voice, but it was there, she knew. “Lida, I’ve been driving all day long. How can you expect me to do that and then go out to a Chinese restaurant? I haven’t even seen my children! Now, I’ve got to hang up.”

But Lida hung up before she did. Oh, well, Lida would just have to understand, that’s all. She would talk to her tomorrow. It would be all right.

The front door slammed. Then it opened, ricocheted off the door stop, and slammed again. She ran in and hugged each of the boys in turn.

“Where’s your father?” she asked.

“Aw, he had to get back,” said her middle son, Tim.

“Boy,” Eddie, her youngest, said. “It really stinks in here.”

The troupe moved past her. Her eldest tossed his jacket to the floor and stretched in front of the patio door. “That air sure feels good,” he said.

Upstairs, Timmy had begun to play the stereo. The angry chords of Jimi Hendrix filled the house.

Eddie rooted through the refrigerator. “Is this cupcake still good?” he asked, dangling a plastic bag.

“I thought you just had dinner.” She put her arms around him. He was taller than she.

“I did. Hey, come on, Mom. You’re gonna smash my cupcake.”

Diana imagined herself snatching it, Baggie and all, in her fist. She would squeeze until chunks of devil’s food curled through the sundered seams. And Eddie, staring at her knuckles, would fall to his knees, repentant. “I’ll get you a plate,” she told her son, but he had already smeared the cupcake into his mouth.

“Stale,” he said, handing her the soiled bag and sauntering off to join his brothers.

Diana sat down at the kitchen table, rubbing her knuckles, twisting her ring.

“So this is motherhood,” Lida had once observed. “Matching socks and settling disputes and looking for their TV Guide at half-hour intervals. Jesus, you can have it.”

The boys took turns doing chores, of course. Diana had seen to that. But always she had to press them into service, sometimes wheedling, occasionally bribing, often shouting. And after one or another of them had, say, cleaned the kitchen, she would always find a congealed lump of something on the countertop. A sort of token. A way of saying “We need you, Mom.”

A few weeks ago she had been going into the powder room just off the downstairs hall: Eddie was at the sink, desultorily washing the dishes, while Lida sat reading at the dining-room table.

“Hey, Mom,” Eddie shouted, “I can’t get this pot clean.”

She was about to tell him to leave it. That she would do it later.

But Lida answered him. “Throw it away,” Lida said.

“Throw this pot away?” Eddie had whined. “Are you crazy?”

“Well, if you can’t get it clean,” Lida had said, “how do you expect your mother to get it clean? Throw it away.”

Diana had lingered in the bathroom, wondering what the outcome would be. Later, she noted the pot had been scoured to a shine.

Her children hated Lida, of course. They would contrive sore throats and sprained ankles whenever they caught wind of any plans that she and Lida had made. Diana always gave in.

“Sore throat, my ass,” Lida would say.

But Diana, firm in the belief that even a phony sore throat was a legitimate plea for her attention, would tell her, “I can’t go, Lida, and that’s that.”

And Lida would slam the door behind her, or hurl the receiver into its cradle. It had happened a hundred times.

Now Diana was weary of the contest.

It was Lida who continually ranted about the boys’ demands. But not, Diana felt, because Lida was attempting to protect her from their infringement. No. Because the demands of the children frequently conflicted with Lida’s own demands.

She would not call Lida, damn it. She would do nothing. She would spend the entire evening doing absolutely nothing.

“I’m feeling sick,” she told her children, musing that she should have said, “I’m feeling healthy.” “I’m going up to my room and I’m going to lock the door. I don’t want any phone calls. I don’t want any interruptions. And turn everything down. I don’t want to hear Kojak or Jimi Hendrix or any arguments. Is that clear?”

They looked at her and then at each other.

Diana went upstairs, relieved.

Diana opened her eyes and listened for the steady, whistling sound that Allen had made as he slept. But there was silence.

She sat up. She was still wearing the corduroy slacks she had driven home in. And the blouse. And the sweater. She pulled the blouse free and reached under it to unclasp her brassiere, straining forward as she did so to read the eerie numerals on the clock. It was, she thought, just after five.

She tried to will herself to stand and walk toward the shower. Get an early start. But there was no need for that. No classes today. Nor had the two committees on which she served planned to wrangle. It was a rare gift, this day. She could lean back against her pillow and court her memory.

Allen. His thick wrists and fingers. That wiry hair bristling everywhere. The pocket of warmth that his body made, wide enough for her to curl inside. And the wonderful sound of him there beside her.

I slept with him, she thought. I literally slept with him. With Lou—or with anyone married—that would not have been likely. Not without lies and complex logistics.

She was glad, now, to have settled for a corned-beef sandwich that morning with Lou. Glad to have waited for Allen.

Diana laughed out loud. Lord, she thought, wouldn’t Lida make fun of me now? She would say I was thinking like a virgin.