Smart Women (30 page)

“No, darling . . . you wanted more.”

“Are you saying that you and Dad don’t have what I think you have?”

“We have closeness and respect and love, if that’s what you mean, but none of it happened overnight.”

Clare told her, “You look like hell, Margo. Are you sure you’re not walking around with pneumonia or something?”

“I don’t think it’s physical,” Margo said, but she had pains in her stomach and a rash on her neck.

“I could take Sara for a while if that would help,” Clare said.

“No. She belongs with Andrew . . . with us.”

“Is she giving you trouble?”

“No, not at all. She keeps to herself. I’m worried about her, but Andrew thinks she’s okay.”

“You should get a checkup, Margo. It’s not going to help if something happens to you too.”

“I’ll be okay,” Margo said.

At the office the next day, Michael Benson said, “Is there anything I can do?” They’d been discussing the Danish Plan—designed to limit growth in the city by restricting the construction of residential units for the next five years. Michael had said, “I don’t think it’s going to hurt us that much. We’ve established a reputation for creative renovations and that’s where the business is going to be.” He’d paused for a minute to look at Margo and out of nowhere she had started to cry.

“That bad?” he had asked.

“I feel overwhelmed, Michael. I feel like I’ve lost control of my life.”

“I warned you, didn’t I? I tried to tell you about my own mistakes.”

“This isn’t a mistake,” she said. “I love him.”

“Enough for all of this?”

“I hope so.”

“You know, Margo . . . you’re a really fine architect . . . a really talented person. You can’t toss it all away for some guy.”

“I’m not tossing anything away.”

Several times, before B.B.’s breakdown, Andrew had talked about tossing it all away and going to the Virgin Islands. He would start a salvage business, working when he felt like it, living the easy life. Margo would turn away, angry and frightened, when he talked that way, partly because she wasn’t sure there would be room for her in his carefree island life. But more than that, she still had responsibilities—to her children, to her work, to herself. She did not want to drop out, to sleep in some bare room on a mattress on the floor. As much as she wanted to be with him, she did not want to live that way.

Other times he would be full of plans for their future. After the kids were out of school they would travel—to New Zealand, to South America, to the Orient. Maybe he would write travel books, maybe she would do architectural photo essays. She would play along with him for a while, then she would say, “I like what I’m doing now . . . you know that, don’t you?”

And he would hold her tightly and say, “I’m only talking maybes. Don’t take it all so seriously.”

M
ARGO WENT TO SEE
HER DOCTOR
.

“Are you tense?” he asked.

She laughed. “You might say so.”

“A difficult time?”

“Yes, but I’m trying to work it out.”

“Are you exercising?”

“I do Jazzercise,” she said, thinking that B.B. had also done Jazzercise.

“Good,” Dr. Kaplan said. “Go easy on the diet for a while . . . stick to bland foods. I’ll give you a prescription for those patches of eczema. Looks like you’ve lost weight too.”

“A few pounds . . . with the flu.”

“You need rest, Margo. Are you getting enough sleep?”

“I sleep.”

“A change of pace wouldn’t hurt either. Are you getting out enough?”

“Come to think of it, probably not.”

So, when they were invited to Early Sumner’s house for dinner, Margo accepted without asking Andrew first. She knew that if she asked him, he would find an excuse not to go, not to leave Sara. But Sara seemed pleased that they were going out and invited Jennifer to spend the night.

Before the party Margo lay in the bathtub, soaping herself, thinking back to the night last fall when she had calmly made a mental list of the qualifications her steady man would have to have.

He would be divorced and have kids at least as old as hers, maybe even older. She was not interested in merging families. She had only one more year, after this one, with kids living at home. Then it was to be her turn. She wasn’t about to give up that kind of freedom for some guy with kids.

She laughed aloud, unable to believe she had been so naive, and not very long ago. She, who had vowed to simplify her life, had certainly complicated it. Andrew was right about that. She rinsed herself off and unplugged the drain, but did not get out of the tub. She lay there watching the water run out. Suppose B.B. did not get well? Suppose Andrew decided he should have custody of Sara? Five more years with a child at home. A child at home changed everything. She would be forty-five when Sara graduated from high school, almost forty-six. She began to sing, “Me and Bobby McGee.”

That song had once been her Bible. She had wanted her freedom so desperately then. But she hadn’t understood the meaning of the lyrics. That freedom is a myth. That sharing with another person is more important.

She stood up and reached for a towel. Tears stung her eyes. Why couldn’t life ever go smoothly? Why couldn’t you live happily ever after just for a little while?

35

M
ICHELLE WAS HOME ALONE,
devouring a box of Dutch pretzels and reading
The Bell Jar,
when someone knocked at the front door. She jumped off her bed and went to see who was there. It was Puffin. “Stuart’s not home yet,” Michelle told her. “I think he’s at tennis practice.”

“I came to see you,” Puffin said.

Michelle was surprised. She and Puffin were not the best of friends.

“Can I come in?” Puffin asked.

“Sure.”

Puffin followed Michelle down the hall to her room. She sat on Michelle’s bed.

“Want a pretzel?” Michelle asked, passing the box.

“Thanks.” Puffin took one and nibbled on it. Then she said, “Guess what . . . I’m pregnant.”

“I can’t believe it!” Michelle said, shocked. “How did you get pregnant?”

“You know . . .” Puffin said coyly.

“I mean,” Michelle said, “weren’t you using something . . . some method of birth control?”

“Well, yes, but we wanted to try it one time without a rubber, to see what it would feel like. So I picked a time I thought was safe.”

“There is no safe time,” Michelle said.

“I know that now.”

“I thought you were on the Pill, or that you had a diaphragm.”

“The Pill made me nauseous and the diaphragm’s so icky. You have to . . .” She paused, lowering her voice. “You have to touch yourself to get it in and I very nearly fainted trying to pull it out.”

“Does Stuart know?”

Puffin nodded.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

Puffin shrugged.

It was amazing, Michelle thought, watching Puffin, that Clare had produced this air-brained creature. Which proved that you never knew what you were going to get when you decided to have a kid. You tossed up the genes and took your chances. Margo and Freddy had been really lucky. She wondered what this baby of Stuart’s and Puffin’s might be like. She wondered if it might be anything like her. But finding out was out of the question. Puffin had to have an abortion. And it was up to Michelle to make her see that. “I don’t think you’re ready to have a baby, Puffin,” she said.

“But I’d get ready. There’s plenty of time to order the cradle and buy the clothes and all that.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean you’re not emotionally ready and neither is Stuart. If you two get married now it’ll be a disaster. It’ll be over before you’re twenty.” She sounded wise, she thought, but not pushy.

“You probably don’t know this,” Puffin said, “but I’ll be eighteen in August. I’m a year older than my class. I repeated seventh grade.”

“I didn’t know,” Michelle said, trying to figure out what that had to do with anything.

“I switched schools in seventh grade and the headmistress thought it would do me good to take the year over again. Since no one there knew me anyway it didn’t really matter, although I did cry about it at the time.”

“Look, if you think that was hard,” Michelle said, “picture yourself at twenty, divorced, with a two-year-old kid. You and Stuart would wind up hating each other, blaming each other. It would be really bad, not just for you, but for the kid.”

Tears came to Puffin’s eyes. “I do remember how I felt when my parents were divorced. It was just terrible. And even now that they’re back together, I hate it when they fight.”

“You see?” Michelle said. “That’s what I’m talking about. Teenage marriages hardly ever work.”

“My parents weren’t teenagers when they got married,” Puffin said, walking across the room and looking out the window. “That dog, Lucy, is digging a hole in your garden.”

“She likes to dig.”

“What’s it like, having Sara here?”

“We’re surviving.”

“I’m an only child. That’s why I want to start young and have a bunch of my own.”

“Have you thought about giving the baby up for adoption . . . I mean, if you’re dead set against abortion?”

“Please don’t call it a baby!” Puffin said, turning around. “Please just refer to it as my pregnancy.”

“Okay,” Michelle said. “Have you thought about an adoption for your pregnancy?”

“I would not be able to give up my pregnancy for adoption. Not to brag or anything, but no family could give it as much as mine. It would have trust funds from the day it was born. It would have everything. So adoption is out of the question. We’re the kind who might adopt, but not give up for adoption. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“Well, then . . .” Michelle said, sighing, “it sounds as if abortion is the only answer.”

“Won’t you please try to talk Stuart into marrying me? We’d have plenty of money. He wouldn’t have to worry about supporting me or the pregnancy. He could still go to college if he wanted to and we’d go with him.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I guess I didn’t think you would.” Puffin zipped up her vest. “Will you come with me to the clinic?”

“If you want me to.”

“Will you call and set up the appointment for me?”

“When do you want to go . . . tomorrow?”

“Whenever.” They walked to the front door. “You know something, Michelle? I used to think you were too serious, that you never had any fun, but now I wish I was more like you. I wish that I knew all that you know.”

Michelle put her arm around Puffin’s shoulder and was surprised by how small she seemed. “I don’t know everything,” she said.

“Maybe not . . . but you know enough.”

Michelle accompanied Stuart and Puffin to the clinic. Stuart had been pale and edgy that morning. He’d snapped at Sara at the breakfast table, telling her to keep her goddamned dog out of the kitchen. Sara had left the table in tears.

He did not say a word to Michelle while they sat, side by side, in the outer office of the clinic, waiting for Puffin to have her abortion. And when Puffin came out, smiling bravely, it was Michelle who hugged her first, asking if it had hurt. Puffin shook her head and held Michelle’s hand. Stuart just stood there, like a zombie. Then he drove them to Puffin’s house, where Michelle heated up a pot of soup. They sat with her all afternoon, watching over her as she dozed. When Clare came home they explained that Puffin had come down with a virus that was going around school.

“Not again,” Clare said. “We just got over the flu.”

“This one only lasts forty-eight hours,” Michelle explained. “Maybe even less.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

That night Stuart came to Michelle’s room. “Thanks for coming with us today.”

“I’m glad I could help.”

“You won’t say anything to Mom, will you?”

“No.”

“Good. Puffin wanted to tell the whole world, but I convinced her not to.”

“Do you love her, Stu?”

“I thought I did, but now I don’t know. The idea of spending the rest of my life with her scared the shit out of me. She had all these plans for us, like how we’d fix up our house and where we’d go on vacations.”

“Do you feel bad about the baby?”

“What would I do with a baby, Michelle? I don’t even know where I’m going to college.”

After Stuart left Michelle thought about how, in Margo’s day, you couldn’t just go out and get an abortion. If you got pregnant then you had to get married. And it was that fear, that fear of pregnancy, that kept girls virgins. Except, of course, Margo had slept with this one boy, James.

Suppose Margo got pregnant now? Michelle thought. Even though she was forty, it was still possible. God, what an idea! Margo, pregnant. Would she have an abortion or would she and Andrew get all sentimental and decide to get married and have the baby? That would certainly change things. She had worried when her father had married Aliza that they might have babies too, but so far they hadn’t. And Michelle was glad. She didn’t think either of her parents should have more kids. They should just try to do a better job with the two they already had.

During Christmas vacation one of Freddy’s friends had come over to visit. He had three screwed-up teenagers from his first marriage, but now he was married again and his new wife was pregnant.
This time I’m going to do it right,
he’d told Freddy.
I know a lot more about raising kids now. Forget the permissive stuff. What they need is authority.
Bullshit! Michelle thought. What they need is love.