CHARITY DANCE

The first thing that Laura saw as she came in the door that evening was the person too terrible to name, even to herself. Laura’s gaze did not falter or even pause, sweeping smoothly right past the woman’s face, past the man standing next to her, who had been Laura’s husband for eight years and who was now the husband of the other woman. Laura’s gaze was clear and her eye was mild, but the sight of those two people was like the sudden electrifying blast of a whistle, shattering the center of her. Everything that had been loose in Laura’s body became taut. The proportions of the evening changed. Laura wondered if she could not simply turn around and slip right back out the door and onto the nighttime street.

But there were people crowding in behind her, she was jostled forward. Audrey Cunningham, who was on the committee, caught her eye and waved. It was too late, and Laura began unbuttoning her coat as she labored her way through the crush toward Audrey.

The two women kissed each other.

“Quite a crowd,” said Laura.

“Isn’t it awful?” asked Audrey, looking around. People were cramped into the narrow spaces between tables, looking uncomfortable already. “They lied to us about the number of people this place could take. Where is the Asiatic flu now that we need it?”

“But everything looks very nice,” said Laura. “It’s a pretty room.”

“Bless you,” said Audrey. “It is a pretty room, isn’t it? And don’t you love the palm trees? They cost the earth, and that wretched man refused to donate a cent to us—he wouldn’t even give us wholesale prices.”

Laura smiled but said nothing. The two women looked out again across the mass of people.

“Did you know James was coming?” asked Laura, not looking at Audrey.

Audrey turned to her. “Yes, of course I knew,” she said. Laura said nothing. “Now, come on,” said Audrey. “It’s been five years. There will be two hundred people here tonight. You can handle that.”

Laura shook her head and smiled. She still did not look at Audrey.

Audrey patted her shoulder. “You look terrific,” she said. “I love your bag.” She picked this up, as it hung from Laura’s shoulder. “Is it divine. Where did you get it?”

The bag had the shape and texture of fine braided straw. It was like the little bags Laura had taken to church at Easter as a child, but this one was made of pure silver. It was quite beautiful; James had given it to her when they were first married.

“I’ve had it for years,” said Laura.

“I love it,” said Audrey. Her attention was going. “There’s that idiot headwaiter. He’s going to tell me we have too many people.” Audrey went off into the crowd, her smooth brown back making a wide V into the waist of her red silk dress.

Left alone, Laura straightened her spine and lifted her chin. Her own dress had a sequined top, and made her (she hoped) look slim and dashing. Her hair was shiny, a glossy black cap that neatly framed her face. She looked around: she knew almost everyone she saw. These people were part of her life, she had met them at party after party, at drinks in friends’ weekend houses, at tennis tournaments, at charity balls, at holiday cocktail parties. Laura smiled at people, nodding, as she moved through the crowd, pushing toward a group she wanted to stand with, a group who would welcome her, where a man would ask if he could get her a drink.

More and more people arrived: the noise was terrible. Laura, talking with her friends, smiled and laughed, throwing her head back and showing off her neck and shoulders. She never looked at them, but she was aware at every second where James and the other person were. She could see their silhouettes without looking, as though the images had been etched into her mind with acid. The woman’s body, flat and angular, her fine mist of hair, her pale northern eyes burnt into Laura’s consciousness like sparks into flesh. She was alien to Laura, utterly foreign: who was this awful creature that had maimed her life? What could she be like, what poison in her veins? For it had not been James’s fault. No gesture of his had ruined the world that he and Laura had made. No matter what he had said, Laura knew it had been this intruder, this gleaming, wild, dangerous person, who had torn the smooth surface of their marriage. Laura could not risk looking at her.

At dinner Laura sat next to Michael Bannister, an old friend, whose wife Sarah had been at school with Laura.

“Where’s Sarah?” asked Laura, “I didn’t see her.”

“She’s in Santa Barbara with her mother,” said Michael, but Laura leaned forward and shook her head, not hearing him. “I SAID SHE’S IN SANTA BARBARA WITH HER MOTHER!” said Michael. “This is really something!”

“Isn’t it awful?” said Laura. “Audrey said they lied to her about the space.”

Michael leaned very close to Laura and whispered in her ear, “If Audrey made the arrangements I’m surprised they were even expecting us tonight.” Laura laughed, and moved slightly away from him. Michael was tall, with a Roman nose and thick black hair. He was very good-looking, he was very clever, and he was not quite kind. Since she had been divorced, Laura had seen some of her friends, men, in a new light. Men she had known for years, her friends, married to her friends, might, on a slow, hot night in the summer, or at the end of a long dinner party, when their wives were away, these men might ask themselves up to Laura’s apartment for a drink. They might talk and drink and stay until there was no point in going home at all. This pained Laura. Seldom did she let them come up, and still less often did she let them stay, the married men. But sometimes, the velvet depths of the night enclosing her and concealing her idea of how things really ought to be, sometimes Laura simply gave in to the strain of having been abandoned, sometimes she turned to those arms, those married men, for comfort.

Laura had found that when she next saw the men they seemed faintly embarrassed but full of virtue, as though they had made a large donation to a charity but did not like to brag about it. Laura sensed this possibility in Michael.

“By the way,” she said, “I want to thank you again for writing that school recommendation for Jamie. I’m so glad he’s at Choate.”

“Oh, you’re quite welcome,” said Michael, waving his hand. “I’m delighted he’s gone there. When did he start?”

“Last week.”

“And how’s it going?”

Laura smiled and nodded, “I think well. It’s a bit soon to tell.” What was not going well was her suddenly empty apartment, her suddenly solitary life. She and Jamie had looked after each other, and having him there had given her life a certain shape: she had shopped for groceries, and made appointments at the dentist. Without Jamie’s regular departure for school every day, his irregular arrival from it, Laura’s day was huge and formless: meals were pointless, errands could wait. Everything could wait.

“Well, I’m glad he chose Choate. Where else did you look?”

“We looked at Brooks, and Middlesex and Westminster. And St. George’s.”

“Did you take him around?”

“James and I.”

“Both of you?” Laura nodded. “Where was Fox?”

The name.

“I don’t know.”

Michael raised his eyebrows.

“Well, you know,” said Laura, as if this explained everything, “she has a job, and in any case Jamie is not her child. He is James’s and my child.”

“Very modern,” said Michael. “Good for you, going around together.”

It had been horrible.

For two days they had driven through New England, the three of them. James and Laura had spoken to Jamie, soliciting his views of each school, discussing the admissions people they had seen, advising him on the interviews. James had spoken seldom to the woman who had been his wife for eight years. His look had been distant and polite: “Would you like more coffee, or shall we go?” he would say. “I’m through, thanks,” Laura would answer. The divorce—James’s murder of his marriage as Laura saw it—lay before them like a mutilated body, too terrible to mention, too appalling to ignore. Laura had wanted something from James: she was past wanting him back, but she had wanted a sign, a gesture from him, something she could have accepted or rejected, as she wished. But James gave her nothing but courtesy, handing her in and out of the car, holding doors for her, helping her with her coat. He had been courteous five years earlier when he had told her he was leaving her, he had not shouted, or complained, or criticized her.

“Our marriage doesn’t work,” he had said. “It hasn’t worked for years.”

But it had worked for Laura, she had been happy married to James. She knew what probably happened on business trips to California, she knew what probably happened during the summer, during the week, while she and Jamie were in the house at the beach, she had accepted that as part of their marriage. It had been worth it: her marriage had worked, how could James’s marriage have not? But James had been polite and certain. He had pointed out things, the fact that they shared no interests: none. “The fact is,” he had said, “that we lead very separate lives. We never talk.” But if he had only told her, she would have given up every one of her interests, she would have talked to James without cessation. She would have taken up any interest he had wished. Why had he not told her before that these things, these absurd things, were so important? But James had sighed, and shaken his head. “We are so different,” he had said, “it doesn’t work.” Laura had not understood it at all. “It will be a new chance for us both,” James had said. “We will both be released. You can be anything you want to be.” But Laura would have none of this. “What I want to be,” she had answered, “is a married woman.”

James and Laura and Jamie had spent the night in a motel outside of Boston. Laura and Jamie had shared a room, James had had the one next door. After Jamie had gone to sleep Laura had turned off the television and had lain in bed, listening to James’s voice in the next room. He had talked to someone for a long time, his voice a steady rhythm in the quiet night. What was he talking about for so long, why did he have so much to say to that person? He had said nothing to Laura all day, nothing really.

When there had finally been silence from James’s room, Laura wondered if he was thinking of her on the other side of the wall. She wondered if he ever wanted to tell her anything more, to explain the real reason he had left her, to say something he had not been able to say before. She wondered if he wanted to say kind things about their marriage, if there were any kind thoughts he had about it. She thought of him lying in bed, approaching sleep. She knew how James slept, she knew what shape his body took. She knew how he bent his knees, clasped the edge of the pillow and slept with his chin raised, lifted against the tide of darkness.

“Well,” Michael said now, “Sarah took the twins around to look at schools by herself. She was a saint.” Sarah was well-known for her saintliness: Michael demanded it. Each year he made his wife drive the children, the dogs and the luggage on the ten-hour trip up to Maine. He flew.

“Have they started to look at colleges yet?” asked Laura, and as Michael answered she wondered suddenly what she looked like. In her wedding pictures, she recognized herself as a pretty woman, with large dark-blue eyes, straight nose, good skin. But since James had left her she had lost her sense of what she looked like, she had lost her own image. She wanted to interrupt Michael, leaning forward to say, “Just tell me, quickly, what I look like. Am I pretty? Am I old? Can you see me at all?”

Next to her, Michael stirred in his seat and looked around. They had finished coffee, and Laura wondered if he were getting restless.

“It’s a pretty room, don’t you think?” she asked. It was high-ceilinged, with carved gilt mirrors and palm trees. She looked around it, but only in one direction. James and the other person were two tables away on her left.

“I think it’s a crowded room,” said Michael. “Let’s go dance.”

Laura put her bag on the table and stood up. Michael steered her through the crowd to the tiny dance floor. Dancing with Michael, Laura smiled. She moved her shoulders up and down, and threw her head back: she was having a fine time, a wonderful time. They did funny old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll steps, and Laura kept right up with Michael, jigging up and down with the music. She smiled at Michael, and gave a little laugh, to let him know that she was there, that she was alive, and full of whimsy and charm.

The noise was incessant. It was a heavy backdrop of glowering sound, deadening speech, weakening thought. The dance floor was packed, there was really no room to move. Laura could see sweat on Michael’s forehead, and her own face was damp, her hair was clinging to it around the edges.

“This is too crowded,” yelled Michael, finally, “let’s go get a drink.”

Laura nodded, and they began to thread their way through the crowd. Laura felt Michael tug at her hand, and turned around. “I’ll get my coat,” he said, pointing toward the check room, “give me your ticket and I’ll get yours.” Laura looked surprised, and Michael said, “It’s too noisy here. I’ll take you home if you’ll give me a drink.” She nodded, and handed him the ticket from her pocket.

“I’ll get my bag,” she called, and kept on toward the table. She passed people without speaking. The women smiled at each other and raised their eyes despairingly—it was impossible to speak, the men smiled and shook their heads. She eased in between two tall men, and saw that James and the person were sitting where she and Michael had sat. The woman was in Laura’s chair, and next to her was David Ashton, an old friend of James and Laura’s. Laura stopped moving.

The woman was talking to David. She was waving her hands and talking very quickly, and David began to laugh. Laura’s silver bag was right in front of the woman, on the table. The woman’s pale thin arms swooped as she spoke. Laura could not watch her; she could not look away. The two men leaned toward the woman, listening to her. What was she talking about, what on earth was that woman talking about, for such a long time? The two men leaned toward her, smiling.

Laura looked at James. How did he dare talk to David Ashton, who had been in their wedding, who had come to visit them the year they were in South Carolina, who was a part of James and Laura’s marriage? How did James dare pretend that he and the other person could be David Ashton’s friends? Laura had refused to go to parties where James and the other person would be. She could not tolerate the seepage of new life into old.

James looked up, feeling her eyes on him, and saw Laura. She knew his face, she knew his deep-set eyes, his thick blond eyebrows. James smiled at her, a slow, real smile, his mouth set in kind lines. He was smiling at Laura as he had years ago, when the sight of her was what he wanted.

Surprising herself, Laura smiled back at James. She wondered if he recognized the bag.

The person slapped her hand flat on the table, and began to laugh, both she and David Ashton were laughing, and James’s eyes turned from Laura to the woman next to him. David said something, and paused. The woman answered him, shaking her finger at him as though she were in charge of him, as though she were his very good friend. She grinned, and they laughed, all three of them. Without looking behind her, without even glancing to see if it was there, the woman leaned suddenly back against James’s shoulder, and was still, smiling at David, the length of her leaning against James’s body.

Laura watched them: she felt as though she were stretched out along an enormous high voltage wire, as if wave after wave of shock were flooding through her body. She could not bear it. She wished the woman would stand up and go away, that she would just go away from the silver bag given Laura by her husband. But the woman did not move. She leaned against James, smiling, and James’s arm, knowing her, came around her hips, circling her body and holding it next to his.

Laura could not approach them. She took a step forward, but her heart failed her. She could not approach the woman. Laura looked around: she could not go on standing there. Michael was waiting for her. She would leave the bag, and Audrey would find it. Audrey would stay late, after everyone else left, and she would find it and recognize it and take it home. Laura turned around and fled.

In the cab with Michael, watching the darkened streets go by, Laura wondered if James and the person had seen her leave with Michael. She hoped that they had. She hoped, childishly, that they had felt themselves spurned, that they were staying on a sinking ship by staying on so long in that crowded, earsplitting mass. The real party, the best of it, was over. That was what Laura was signaling by her departure, and she hoped this signal had been seen.

Her apartment was dark and silent: Laura had forgotten Jamie’s absence, and had expected to see him, smiling at her from his doorway, looming over her now that he had decided to be a young man. The only light was in her bedroom, revealing the unmade bed, odd shoes lying about the floor, the chaise covered with clothes and books. Laura had tried to be neat when she was married to James: he had hated messiness. Once he had left her she had seen no point in trying; her own eyes did not seem reason enough for that disciplined landscape. She did not choose disorder, nor want it—she was waiting for it to leave her life. It was an interim government.

Laura turned out the light in her bedroom and went into the living room, where Michael was waiting. The paper was spread out on the sofa from last Sunday. She picked it up and carried it into the kitchen, dragging with her toe at a rumpled rug, on the way.

Laura brought in a tray with ice and glasses. In the quiet she could hear the soft rustle of her dress. She put the tray down, and sat next to Michael, on the sofa.

She sighed. “That was a good idea, getting out of there,” she said.

“What would you like to drink?” asked Michael. He began opening bottles and clinking ice cubes. Laura watched him, suddenly shy. They were alone.

“How long is Sarah going to be in Santa Barbara?” asked Laura, recalling his marriage to both of them.

“Just till next Wednesday,” said Michael.

“Her mother’s not sick, is she?”

“Just feeling lonely, between you and me. She’s a spoiled old biddy, and she likes to be able to crook her finger and have Sarah come running.” Laura did not answer. “I have a question,” said Michael.

“Ask.”

“Can you put on some music?”

“Yes,” said Laura, and got up.

“Put on a dancing record,” said Michael, watching her cross the room. “My god,” he said, his voice deepened suddenly, an actor’s resonance, “My god, woman, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t dance, just because we’re no longer in the middle of a maelstrom.” Laura came back to him, smiling, and he stood up. “We have the world before us,” Michael said, still booming, and took her in his arms. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t dance.”