CHAPTER FOUR

“Why did you leave Gary, Marion?” I asked the next morning.

She gave me a look. “What brings that up?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Curiosity.”

“I didn’t exactly leave him,” she said. “We broke up. There’s a difference.”

“I accept the difference,” I said. “Why did you break up?”

“That’s not an easy question,” she said. “Mom and Dad haven’t asked it.”

“Mom and Dad are hung up on politeness,” I said. “They won’t bring it up until you do.”

“It’s been brought up,” Marion said. “They’re not unfeeling, you know. Just reserved.”

“I’m not reserved,” I said. “And I want to know why you and Gary broke up. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “We broke up because our marriage wasn’t working.”

“Great,” I said. “Answers like that I can get from bubblegum cards.”

Marion smiled. “I have a feeling you’re driving at something. What is it?”

“I’m not driving,” I said. “It’s just I don’t know you any more. You’re so much older than me. I was maid of honor at your wedding, but I don’t know why you married Gary. I never much liked him.”

“You’re not supposed to say things like that until the divorce is final,” Marion said. “In case we reconcile.”

“Are you planning to?”

“No. It’s a precaution.”

“You haven’t told me anything.”

“Your questions have been too hard. Why did I marry him? Why did I split up with him?”

“Come on Marion. You’ve spent months asking yourself those questions.”

“True,” Marion said. “Okay, I married Gary because he appealed to me fiercely. That’s the best word I can come up with. And I’m divorcing him now because that appeal is gone.”

“Better,” I said. “But I want to know more.”

“Have you considered law school?”

“I’m going to be a roller derby star,” I said.

“You’re going to do fine,” she said. “What I say is strictly between the two of us, right?”

“Of course.”

“Because even though there’s nothing I’m sure Mom and Dad don’t know, I don’t want them to know I know it. Did that make any sense?”

“With Mom and Dad it does,” I said. “Don’t worry. I don’t talk to them that much.”

“All my life,” Marion said, “Mom and Dad have been trying to make me feel secure. Loved. You know how they overcompensate.”

“Yeah.”

“I really appreciate Mom and Dad,” she said. “I love them too, but it takes a lot not to love your parents. I appreciate mine. They give me a lot of love and a lot of time. More time, I think, than they’ve given you. And because I was adopted, and because you weren’t, they made a special point of proving their love for me. I knew it. They knew it. I’d be very surprised if you didn’t know it.”

“I knew it,” I said.

“I had a miserable adolescence,” she said. “Partly because Mom started work again, and I resented it, and partly because adolescence isn’t easy when you’re adopted. It’s not easy for anybody, but it’s worse when you’re adopted. Incredible identity conflicts. And then there’s the peculiar quality of Mom and Dad to consider. They’re such giving people, but they’re not very loving.”

I didn’t say anything, but I felt glad Marion had said that. There are certain things you know about your parents that you don’t want to admit, and it helps when someone else says them for you.

“Not that they don’t love,” she said. “They do. But they’re not very expressive, at least not the way most other parents are. Even with me, and they tried much harder with me than with you. They never responded irrationally. They were always considerate. On paper they were the greatest parents going, but in real life you want a good dumb fight, and they can’t give you one.”

“I know,” I said.

“It’s very odd,” she said. “I’ve tried to explain it to people for years without too much success. I was encouraged to express anger. I didn’t swallow it. But every time we fought, they understood. When you’re a kid you can do with a little less understanding. It’s very hard to rebel against all that reason. And I had to rebel desperately. When I went to them and said I wanted to learn about my real parents, they didn’t say that was unhealthy, the way most parents would have. They agreed, and they tried to find something out. They gave me books on heredity and environment, for God’s sake. And they constantly reassured me. I was their daughter, completely and totally. And they were right. I am. I even look like them. There were moments in college when I thought I was their daughter biologically, and they said I was adopted just to give me the choice.”

“I understand all that,” I said. “But I don’t know what it has to do with Gary.”

“I never rebelled,” she said. “I was so well understood there wasn’t much point. Gary had good normal parents and went through a good normal rebellion, except he never quite outgrew it. He’s incredibly rude with his parents. He abuses them constantly, and they love it, his mother especially. He was spoiled rotten by them. They gave him everything, more than he’d ask for. In return they’d ask for love, and a little respect, which he never gave them. So they got to fight with him, and he got to fight with them, and they all love it. It was a whole new world for me. No reason. No understanding. Just wild abusive fights, which would end with Gary getting everything he wanted. I thought it was fantastic.”

“It doesn’t sound so bad to me either,” I said.

“It’s great when you’re eighteen,” she said. “I met Gary freshman year, remember, and I knew I was going to marry him on our first date. If he had proposed then I would have accepted without hesitation. He seemed inevitable and incredibly desirable to boot. My friends didn’t like him, but I assumed they were jealous.”

“Were they?”

“Not as much as I assumed,” she said with a smile. “Gary’s very obnoxious. I don’t blame him. That’s the way his parents taught him to be. His father’s not much better. My friends realized immediately what an obnoxious person he was, and didn’t like him. In retrospect it all seems quite sensible.”

“Didn’t you see he was obnoxious?” I asked. “I did.”

“I knew,” she said. “It just didn’t bother me. I liked aggressive men. That’s what I called it in those days. Aggressive. Much nicer word than obnoxious.”

“So now you’re divorcing him because you realized what everyone else knew all along,” I said.

“No,” she said. “I knew it all along too. I’m divorcing him because I don’t want to live with his obnoxiousness anymore. I’m tired of it. I married much too young …”

“You were twenty-one.”

“Exactly. That’s too young, especially if you spent your entire college life with the same man, like I did. I didn’t know about anything. If Mom and Dad hadn’t encouraged me to have my own apartment senior year, I never would have lived alone. Not that I did then really. Gary spent as much time there as I did. I never had a chance to develop by myself. That isn’t good.”

“But it’s not bad either,” I said. “Not if the two of you are in love. Gary’s obnoxious, but he’s not different. He cares about the same things you do.”

“That’s true,” she said. “I don’t think I could have fallen in love with a corporation lawyer, or a pool shark. I wasn’t rebelling against Mom and Dad, after all. I was just attracted to someone who was. Gary’s parents’ ambitions for him were retail management, and Gary was running in the opposite direction as fast as possible. I was much more an act of rebelling for him than he was for me. I was pretty safe though. Gary’s not given to taking chances.”

“Dad doesn’t like him.”

“No, of course not,” Marion said. “Neither does Mom, although neither one would want to admit it. They knew Gary was obnoxious, and being parents, they thought I deserved better. But when I said we were going to get married as soon as I graduated, they didn’t argue. And they supported me while Gary and I were in grad school. They were very nice. Surprise.”

“What’re you going to do now?”

“Rest. Relax. God, do I need to relax. Acknowledge that Gary just isn’t right for me, but that doesn’t mean somebody else won’t be. Mess around some. There are a lot of men I’ve never had a chance to know because of Gary, and I intend to make up for lost time. But not while I’m home. I’ll wait until I get back to Chicago before I start really having fun. And I’m going to spend some time with my friends. Gary never liked my friends, probably because they didn’t like him. And I’m going to read all your movie magazines, and not think about welfare rights more than three times a day. How’s that for plans?”

“Very impressive,” I said.

“I don’t think I could take too much irresponsibility,” Marion said. “I’m too indoctrinated for that. But a little bit of it sounds so great. I’ve been so blastedly responsible for so long now. I want to sleep until noon and eat strawberries, and enjoy the fact that my parents have the money to spend on them. I need that now. Mom and Dad don’t. They could give up strawberries without blinking.”

“I don’t want to give up anything,” I said. “I want to be the most selfish person alive. I want the world to make sacrifices just for me. I’ll demand tribute, gold and jewels, and strawberries. I’ll let you have the strawberries.”

“Thanks,” Marion said. “I’d prefer them to the gold.”

“Do you think I am?” I asked, very hesitantly.

“You are what?” Marion asked. I wished I’d never started it.

“Selfish,” I said. “Do you think I am?”

“No more than most people,” Marion said.

“Really,” I said.

“Paula, I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know you that well. Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said, with a shrug. “It seemed the thing to ask.”

“Something about Jordon or Jonny?”

“Nothing about either of them,” I said, and then the doorbell rang. I knew who it was just by instinct. “Let it ring,” I said.

“No,” Marion said. “You can never tell, it might be a person.”

“No chance,” I said and walked over to the door. It was Jordon, all right.

“I want to talk to you,” he said, in a whisper.

“Okay,” I said, only because I didn’t want to get into a fight with him while Marion was sitting there. No other reason. I went outside and we walked toward the side of the house. As soon as we were a safe distance, I said “Go away.”

“No,” Jordon said. “Why didn’t you agree to see me tonight?”

“Lots of reasons,” I said. “Shall I list them?”

“Please do,” he said.

“Because I felt rotten about hurting Jonny,” I said.

“God,” he said. “How much do you think Jonny cares?”

“Enough to ask me out,” I said. “And probably enough to be upset because I broke a date for no good reason.”

“You overrate yourself,” he said. “Jonny doesn’t care.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

“Don’t believe me,” he said. “You said you had lots of reasons.”

“Reason number two is that it would be tasteless. Not that you know anything about taste.”

“I know plenty about taste,” he said. “I know enough to reject it as a reason for doing something.”

“And mostly because I resent what you did,” I said. “You forced me into a position I didn’t want to be in, and you didn’t care. I’m human too, you know. I have feelings. I don’t like being shoved around. Can you understand that?”

“I didn’t shove you,” he said. “I put a choice to you, and you chose. You could have agreed to see Jonny, and the hell with me. You didn’t. I wasn’t holding a gun to you. You chose. Why can’t you accept that?”

“Because it’s more complicated,” I cried. “You make things so complicated.”

“I don’t see life as anything simple, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “My life has never been simple.”

“I don’t want to get into the middle of something that has nothing to do with me. I don’t want to be a pawn in some kind of game between you and your brother. Fair enough?”

“No,” Jordon said. “Not fair. You’re not a pawn. You’re a girl my brother and I both found attractive. I’ve never known a girl to object to that. We both tried, and you decided you preferred me. I’m not going to argue with your choice. I like it. I am grateful for it, goddam it, and all I’m asking is that you admit what you did, and relax and enjoy it.”

“I hate you,” I said.

“If you hated me you would have slammed the door in my face.”

“My sister was there. I didn’t want to make a scene in front of her.”

“Why? Bad taste? People who hate don’t care about taste. Face it, kid. You like me. Is that so horrible?”

“Yes,” I said. “You’re the last person in the world I want to like. You’re a troublemaker, and you make all the wrong kinds of trouble. You hurt people. You hurt Jonny. I don’t like that.”

“I have never hurt Jonny.”

“What do you call forcing me to break my date with him?”

“I didn’t force you.”

“I don’t think I can take much more of this,” I said.

“I know I can’t,” Jordon said, and turned away.

“Wait,” I said, and paused until my stomach stopped churning. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jordon said.

“No,” I said. “I know you love Jonny, that you wouldn’t deliberately hurt him. I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “I know what you meant.”

“I can’t go out with you tonight,” I said. “I just can’t. I’d hate myself if I did. Can you understand that?”

“I guess so,” he said. “As much as I can understand anything you do.”

“What do you mean?”

Jordon gave me a half smile. “I would have chosen Jonny,” he said.

“Oh Jordon,” I said.

“I was bluffing,” he said. “Well, not exactly bluffing. I meant what I said, every word of it. But I never thought you’d pick me.”

I looked at him, and tried to think of something to say.

“I’m very glad,” he said. “Don’t misunderstand me. Just a little baffled. Everybody always prefers Jonny to me, myself included.”

“You’re better looking,” I said finally.

Jordon smiled. “Thanks,” he said. “Not that I believe you. When may I see you again?”

The burst of manners stunned me. Jordon looked very self-conscious, very sad, as though the words had hurt and embarrassed him. And I knew it was because that was what Jonny would have said.

“Tonight,” I said. “After supper.”

“Tonight,” he repeated. I waited for him to thank me, but he didn’t.

“Around eight?”

“A little after,” I said. “We have late suppers.”

“Eight thirty then,” he said. “Can you pick me up?”

“Walk,” I said.

“I can’t,” he said. “I strained my leg jumping over that fence yesterday. I guess I’m out of practice.”

“Jordon,” I said.

“I don’t know how I’m going to make it home now,” he said. “Maybe with luck someone’ll give me a ride. But I know I can’t walk twelve miles in one day. It’s impossible.”

He kissed me. “See you then,” he said, and walked away.