What's for Dinner? by James Schuyler (to read list .txt) 📕

one partner is in the mood and the other isn’t. Don’t you find it so?”

“Comparisons are invidious. And, as I told you, I’m not a person of wide experience.”

“You don’t have any regrets, do you? I don’t. Not yet, anyway.”

“No regrets. And let’s see that there aren’t any in the future, either. That’s important to me, Mag.”

“Sometimes I can’t help thinking of you and Lottie, together, I mean, like this.”

“Try not to. My marriage is a contented one, just as yours and Bartram’s was, and it’s going to go on being one. You must remember that, or we’ll have to break off now. You’re a loving, satisfying, affectionate woman, Mag, but I’m serious about that.”

“Please don’t talk as though I were a threat to you. And Lottie. I’m not. You know people sometime think I’m a silly-billy because I babble on so, but I can keep my own counsel. You’d be surprised.”

“If there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s to be surprised. I hate surprises and I always have. So if you have any little secrets, please keep them.”

“I do, I do. As I say, you’d be surprised, but I’m not going to surprise you. That’s a promise. Which I’ll keep. I saw Maureen Delahantey uptown today. The shopping that woman has to do to feed that brood! Did you ever see such a collection of—I won’t say monsters, but, plain big people? Anyway, she got to talking about our pleasant evening of bridge, and wondered if we shouldn’t have another. She referred to you as the ‘grass widower.’ She seemed to think another go would be a good idea, and hinted rather broadly that it should be at my house this time. Would you be game?”

“Game for a game?”

“Oh Norris, I love your dry wit. Yes, game for another game. Chez moi.”

“I don’t see why not. Lottie encourages me to go out—she doesn’t expect me to become an eremite, or a troglodyte.”

“What’s that?”

“A hermit.”

“You do seem content to spend quite a few evenings at home alone.”

“Truthfully, I’d like to spend more of them with you, Mag, but you know and I know that that isn’t possible. This suburb is really quite a small town.”

“I’m grateful for small favors. And large. Shall I go ahead and plan a bridge evening? I’ll make it dinner, too. I haven’t given a dinner party in ever so long.”

“I see no objection to it. In fact, I’m all for it. So plan away, little planner.”

“Something I never thought I’d be: a woman with a secret life. It’s going to be hard going back to being plain Mag Carpenter, widowed home maker who cooks little dinners for one and gets to bed at a decent hour. If this is indecent, I much prefer it.”

“Wicked girl.”

“I suppose I am, but I don’t feel wicked.” She ran her hand over his chest. “That’s what I like to feel. Some of your chest hairs are gray. I’m going to pull this one out.”

“Ouch. They should be gray, at my age. Snow white, in fact.”

“Oh, you’re not all that old.”

“Old enough.” Norris pulled the strap of her slip. “What’s this?”

“That? That’s my breast.” Norris nuzzled it, and then replaced the strap.

“Are you planning to sleep in that?”

“This slip? Certainly not. I’m planning to sleep naked, next to you, with just a sheet over us. Sleeping seems such a waste of time, but I’m looking forward to it.”

“A good thing. Get that garment off, because I’m about ready to turn off the light. We both have long drives ahead of us in the morning.”

“All right my darling lover, Mr Taylor sir.”

Chapter V

1

“How do you feel?” Mrs Brice asked. “I think you look more composed today.”

“Somewhat better,” Lottie said. “Or rather, different. Terribly nervous and as though I might suddenly go on a crying jag. Which isn’t like me.”

“I was never much for tears, either. Even when the accident happened, and I finally took it in, I stayed dry-eyed. I felt all dried up on the inside. Mr Brice couldn’t hold back: how that man wept.”

“It might have been better if you had wept, too. Instead of controlling yourself.”

“Oh, it wasn’t anything I did on purpose. That was how it took me, that was all.”

“Coo-ee,” said a voice from the sun room door. There stood Maureen and Biddy. “Are we a surprise?” Maureen asked. “A welcome surprise, I mean?”

“Of course, of course. How sweet, how kind. Now don’t scoot off, Mrs Brice. I want you to meet my friends.” Lottie made the introductions. “If I seem a little jumpy you musn’t mind: I am jumpy. Have you a cigarette, Maureen?”

Maureen produced a pack from her purse.

“Mentholated,” Lottie said. “Well, any port in a storm. And when I think what I went through giving up cigarettes. But I simply must have someting to do with my hands, before I wring them off.”

“Are you neighbors of Mrs Taylor?” Mrs Brice asked.

“Close neighbors and old friends,” Biddy said. “How does that saying go? ‘Better near neighbors than far friends.’ I’ve never quite understood that.”

“It sounds a little too much like ‘Anything is better than nothing’ to me,” said Maureen.

“Near neighbors sometimes become fast friends,” Biddy opined.

“Sometimes they remain total strangers,” Mrs Brice said. “We never visit with the folks who share our drive. Once Mr Brice went over to tell them their chimney was on fire. I think that’s practically the only time we’ve ever spoken to them. Funny.”

“There’s probably something about them that makes you want not to become involved,” Biddy said. “Some neighbors take advantage and impose.”

“Well,” Mrs Brice said, “they do go to a different church. And they sometimes give rather loud parties. Once they had a weenie roast in their back yard and had a keg of beer. That’s not Mr Brice’s or my way.”

Lottie, who was smoking her cigarette in a rather feverish way, choked and gasped. “Oh Mrs Judson,” she called, “won’t you come and join us? Come and meet my friends.”

Mrs Judson brought over