Chapter Fifteen

LAURA AND BENNIE TURNED onto the access road for the New Canaan Country Club. At first, they could just see the top of a flagpole with the American flag waving in the stout breeze. As the car climbed higher, the stately Norman-style clubhouse came into view. It was a red brick edifice, dominated in front by a large round tower and portico. Huge arched windows ran across the first floor, and dormers lined the second-floor rooftop.

Laura whistled. “Impressive, but it doesn't look like a place to have fun."

"It's a bit stuffy. That's the way the members like it. They tried to make it look like a castle in Northern France,” Bennie said.

“I can see that.”

Bennie led Laura through the heavy double front doors and stopped at a reception area just inside. The woman at the desk looked up from her log book and put on the glasses hanging from a chain around her neck.

“Mrs. Grant. How lovely to see you. We have both of you today,” the receptionist said.

Bennie stood with her hand poised over the log book.

“Yes, both you and Mrs. Grant Senior. She's having lunch with us.”

Bennie nodded, shooting Laura a look. “Nice to see you too, Ina. This is my guest and a potential new member, Mrs. Charles Clayborn.”

Bennie wrote Laura’s name in the logbook and led her through the carpeted foyer and down a hallway lined with lighted display cabinets full of photographs of tennis and golf players and silver trophies dating from the beginning of the club in the early 1900’s.

They changed into tennis clothes in the ladies’ dressing room, which looked more like a boudoir than a locker room. It was decorated in pastel colors with over-stuffed chairs and ottomans upholstered in chintz fabric in place of wooden benches. Instead of metal lockers for their street clothes, there were white French Provincial cabinets. Along one wall was a long vanity mirror with four upholstered stools in matching chintz.

Laura fingered the material on one of the chairs. “This place gives me the creeps. It could use an update. If I joined, do you think they’d let me redecorate?”

“I doubt it since the ladies steering committee just finished a year-long re-do. This is how they like it.”

Outside, the full spring sun made the freshly-groomed bright orange clay tennis courts appear unreal, as though they were drawings in a comic book.

"Looks like we have the place to ourselves this morning," Bennie said as she led the way onto the court.

After they warmed up, Bennie had the first serve. She took some speed off her serve and stayed at the baseline, feeling out the pace that would make Laura comfortable. After a long rally, though, Laura followed a backhand to the net for a winner.

"Oh ho, that's the way it's going to be, eh?" Bennie said with a laugh.

They began to compete in earnest, Bennie's conservative, steady game contrasting with Laura’s risk-taking style of play. In the end, Laura took three out of five sets. Bennie bent over to catch her breath.

"That's it for me. I need to quit while I'm behind. Let’s find a place to have some iced tea."

They chose a quiet table by the Olympic-sized swimming pool, still bearing its plastic shroud from winter. Bennie caught the eye of a waiter, and he hurried over. “Can you bring us iced teas?” she asked.

“Of course, Mrs. Grant. Right away.”

Laura smiled as the waiter sprinted away from their table.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was thinking about how second nature all this seems to you.” Laura made a three-hundred and sixty-degree gesture that took in the tennis courts, pool, busy lunch tables, golf course in the distance, and the stately club house. “I’ve always been too busy with my business to think about joining a country club, but I can see the attraction. What happens when you’re divorced? Do you and your husband get joint custody of the country club membership?”

“No. Divorced men can be members, but not divorced women. He’ll keep the membership. They do that so as not to disturb the tranquility they’ve worked so hard to create here.”

“That doesn’t seem quite fair.”

“I don’t care. He can have it.”

Laura took a cigarette from her bag and offered one to Bennie. “Have you thought about what you’ll do once you’re divorced? If you want to pursue your directing ambitions, Charles can certainly open doors on Broadway for a director’s assistant job.”

“If all goes well, and Will lives up to his promise, I’ll have Livie regularly.”

“What has he promised?”

Bennie told her about their meeting on Christmas Eve. “I had to swear that things were off with Alice and that I would not expose Livie to what he calls my odd leanings.”

Laura shook her head. “I see how you can live up to the technical terms of that agreement, but Will surely isn’t so naive as to think that Alice is the only person you might become involved with.”

“He sees it as a one-time aberration, with Alice only. I don’t think he honestly attaches much significance to it, but he doesn’t hesitate to use it to threaten me.”

A mixed foursome had taken over one of the tennis courts. They played with skill and were well-matched, and the steady pock-pock sound of their long rallies drifted across to the two women.

Laura leaned toward Bennie. “About going back with him, don’t you worry that might be worse for your child than a divorce? It may not be the best thing for her to live with a mother who is forced to deny her own nature.”

“Of course, I worry about that.” Bennie turned away from Laura and rubbed her temples.

“I think you’d like to say that I’m not a mother, and I can’t understand,” Laura said.

“Haven’t you ever wanted children? Hasn’t your husband?”

“You must have noticed that Charles and I don’t have what you might call a traditional marriage. We found each other early in our careers, and, at the time, a marriage was convenient for both of us, and has stayed that way for almost twenty years.”

Laura glanced at Bennie and went on.

“Besides, I don’t have any sign of a maternal instinct. I’ve known this all my life.”

“How were you so sure?” Bennie asked.

“You’re always interested in my life story,” Laura said, “so here’s a chapter. I told you about growing up in Alabama. My mother and father and I, and all my father’s family, went to the First Baptist Church every Sunday morning and Sunday evening. Sunday morning at ten o’clock was Sunday School, then a break, then the sermon at eleven. We never missed. It was a ritual as rigid as any you read about in history, the Druids, the Greeks, the Romans. Any of it.”

“After Sunday School, the men gathered on the grass outside the front door of the church to smoke and joke with each other. They all wore their Sunday suits with white shirts buttoned up to the top and their hair slicked back. They looked so different from the men they were during the week, farmers and mill workers and merchants with care-worn faces. For those few minutes they left worries behind and enjoyed being with each other. The women, on the other hand, spent that time after Sunday School in the nursery, settling babies who were too young to sit through the sermon, or they worked in the church kitchen preparing for some fellowship event after church. In other words, doing the things that they did every day of their lives.

“My earliest memories are of rejecting the idea of being stuck in a subservient role, and those women with children painted that picture in my mind early on. Symbolically, I wanted to be one of those men standing outside the church on the lawn instead of stuck in the nursery or the kitchen. That’s a much longer answer than the question warranted. There’s even more to the story, if you want me to go on.” Laura sipped her tea.

“Please.” Bennie noticed again the detached tone of Laura’s voice.

“One Sunday morning in the summertime, when I was thirteen or so, Mother let me sleep late and skip Sunday School on my promise to get myself ready and walk the half-mile from our farm to the church in time for the sermon. As I trudged up the gravel road toward the front of the church, kicking rocks and not caring if they scuffed my Sunday shoes, I noticed the usual cluster of men, my father was one of them, and in the middle was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was tall, the same height as most of the men, and she seemed perfectly at ease interacting with them. I was thunderstruck. It was the first time I had encountered a woman who appeared to break the mold, to defy the stereotype. It was love at first sight. She turned out to be a new teacher in our high school. She lived on her own and drove an automobile. She seemed to me to be able to make her own decisions and be who she wanted to be. I had a huge crush on her the whole next year. The following summer, she moved on.”

Bennie thought of the first time she saw Laura, encircled by men at the Board reception. She had been attracted by the same presence in Laura, perfectly comfortable in the situation not typical of a woman’s traditional role.

“So, here’s the punchline, finally,” Laura said. “A few years ago, I hired someone to find her, and I telephoned her. I’m not sure what I expected or wanted. To tell her what she meant in the life of that thirteen-year-old girl, I suppose. She was living in Birmingham, a widow with three grown children. When I asked if she remembered that summer morning in front of the church she said no, but she did remember the feeling of being in a new town and not knowing the customs. She stood out in front of the church with the men that morning because she didn’t know any better. Isn’t that funny?”

Before Bennie could respond, Laura’s eyes shifted from Bennie's face to over her left shoulder.

"Don't look now." Laura barely moved her lips as she said, "There's a woman making a bee-line for us, and if you were the director of this play, and you were casting the role of your mother-in-law, she'd win, hands-down."

Bennie fixed a smile on her face as she stood and turned to watch Olivia walk toward their table.

"Hello, Bennie. Getting in some early spring tennis, I see.” Olivia’s gaze subtly shifted to take in Laura from head to toe.

Laura stood and extended her hand.

“You must be Olivia Grant. I’ve heard so much about you from Bennie. I’m Laura Clayborn.”

“Ah, yes. On the Board at Mary Bradford’s.” She took Laura’s hand. “My son mentioned you might give our little club a tryout. How pleasantly surprising to see you here with Bennie.”

“I enlisted her.” Laura’s fingers lightly touched the small of Bennie’s back. “I’m not that familiar with country clubs.”

“You know your way around a tennis court, I noticed. High risk and high reward appears to be your game,” Olivia said.

“Thank you for the compliment, but I don’t fool myself that I’m good for the long run. More a flash-in-the-pan.”

"Yes, well. Are you having lunch, Bennie? Will and Janice took Livie to a horse show today, so I'm footloose."

Bennie made note of Olivia’s familiar use of the instructor’s first name, so atypical of Olivia’s usual attitude toward the hired help. She assumed Olivia was hoping to make her jealous.

Olivia gestured toward a table where two of her friends sat watching the exchange. They waved in Bennie's direction.

“Will you join us?" she asked.

Bennie glanced at Laura. She wondered if Laura felt as serene as she looked. If so, she would be perfectly at ease spending an hour being sized up by Olivia. Bennie shook her head. "I think we'll finish our drinks and play another game or two. Thanks, anyway, Olivia."

“Of course. Mrs. Clayborn, I hope you and your husband will seriously consider joining our club. Mother Berry has told us of your husband’s very generous gift to the drama program at the school. That’s particularly gratifying since my daughter-in-law is leading the department there.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Grant,” Laura said. “Shall we finish our tea, Bennie?”

Bennie and Laura watched as Olivia rejoined the ladies in her lunch group.

“Her daughter-in-law is leading the department.” Bennie shook her head. “A department of one. And did you notice that she mentioned Charles’ gift to the school, without acknowledging your part in it?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Laura laughed. “You give her too much power to upset you.”

Bennie picked up her tennis racquet.

“Let’s go. I don’t want to play any more with her watching.”

Bennie led the way back to the ladies’ locker room. Laura tossed her racket onto an ottoman, looked around the room, and plopped down in one of the chintz chairs.

“It appears we have the place to ourselves.”

“The golfers are probably just making the turn at the tenth tee,” Bennie said. “I’m going to shower. Are you?”

“Right now, I’m going to watch.” Laura gave Bennie a lascivious grin and winked.

Bennie smiled and started stripping off her tennis outfit. First, she pulled her polo shirt over her head and unhooked her bra. She bent over and slowly and deliberately untied her tennis shoes and took off her socks. She heard Laura’s gasp and the beginning of a whispered comment, “Bennie, you’re…” Bennie put her finger to her lips. She stepped out of her short tennis skirt and panties and, without looking at Laura, turned and walked naked toward the showers. As she passed the vanity mirror, she could see Laura’s reflection, motionless in the chair, her gaze following Bennie’s retreating backside.

Bennie stepped into the small dressing area connected to one of the showers and pulled the plastic privacy curtain closed behind her. Two fluffy towels and a terry cloth robe were neatly folded on a tiled bench. She picked up a new bar of lilac-scented soap and sniffed it. She turned the water as hot as she could stand it, moved under the stream, and lathered her face and shoulders. She heard the scrape of the curtain being pulled back and felt someone stepping under the shower behind her.

Laura whispered in her ear, “If you’re quiet, no one will know.”

Bennie leaned back on Laura and felt the pressure of her breasts and thighs. Her heart thudded against her ribs with both arousal and nervousness at the risk they were taking. Laura turned Bennie and kissed her hard, pressing her against the tile and taking the soap from her. She held Bennie’s hands over her head against the wall while she worked the soap between their bodies, rubbing the lilac-scented bar over Bennie’s breasts and belly and between her legs. Bennie closed her eyes and squeezed her lips shut, suppressing tell-tale sounds of her passion.

“Turn around.” Laura massaged Bennie’s buttocks with the soap and then returned to stroking back and forth between her legs. Bennie arched her back rhythmically against the pressure, and she clutched Laura’s hand as she climaxed. Her legs gave way, and she slid down the tile to sit on the floor, pulling Laura down with her.

“God,” she said.

The sound of water being turned on in the cubicle next to them made them both jump. Bennie stood and turned off the rush of water from the showerhead above them, handed Laura the robe, and pushed her outside the curtain. Bennie silently counted to ten, and ten again for good measure, dried off with one of the towels, and wrapped the other around herself.

The dressing area was beginning to fill with women coming from lunch or golfing. Laura was already half dressed in her street clothes. Bennie sat at the vanity and watched in the mirror as Laura gathered her tennis things and left. Bennie quickly changed and sat down again in front of the vanity mirror to towel dry her hair. The mirror reflected her flushed face and dilated pupils. She could still feel the pressure of Laura’s hand against her body.

Bennie found Laura at the check-in desk by the front door. She was writing something while Ina looked on with her usual obsequious smile. Laura signed her name with a flourish and held the note for Bennie to read.

 

Dear Mrs. Grant,

Thank you so much for your hospitality. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to your club. Bennie was a fine ambassador. The tennis was a treat, and I especially enjoyed the lovely ladies’ dressing area with its great shower facilities. I suspect you had a hand in the décor. Please tell your son that I’ll be giving my husband all the details.

 

Fondly, Laura Clayborn

 

Laura handed the note to Ina. “You’ll make sure to give this to Mrs. Grant Senior, won’t you?”

“Certainly. I’ll take it right now.”

In the car, Laura reached across the seat and took Bennie’s hand. “Are you sure you can’t spare the time to have dinner with me?”

“Laura, I promised myself that I wouldn’t see you again. I’ve got one more week of school, then a month left on my deal with Will. These last few weeks are dangerously important, and I don’t seem to be able to control myself with you.”

Laura lightly massaged Bennie’s palm with her fingertips. “Don’t worry about that. I can control both of us for a few weeks. Besides, sometimes what you deny yourself can be as erotic as what you act on.”

Laura turned into the driveway in front of Bennie’s residence hall, stopped the car, and turned off the motor. “Will you live here after the end of the term?”

“I’ve given Mother Berry notice that I won’t be teaching next year. I’ll start looking for a place for Livie and me right after the madness of graduation. I think Mother Berry will let me stay until I find something suitable. I’ll help out by straightening up the library or doing something in the office.”

Laura leaned across Bennie and peered out the car window at the residence hall’s façade. “Wouldn’t you rather be out of here as soon as possible? You are welcome to stay in my guest house for as long as you need. From what you’ve told me about Will, things may not go as smoothly as you hope. I’ve been thinking about getting a caretaker for the house anyway. This hotel project will keep me in Manhattan most weekends for the foreseeable future.”

“That’s generous of you, but…” Bennie hesitated.

“If you’re worried about controlling things between us, I’ll hardly be there. Go over sometime this week and look at the place. Here’s the key.” Laura took it off her keyring and handed it to Bennie. “And here’s the code to the front gate.” She wrote some numbers on a slip of paper from her purse. “I think you’d find it a comfortable paradise after that little room of yours. If you’re right about the Will business, it’s only for a few weeks.”