Observe, Margaret told herself, turning away from Pepe, whom she instinctively sensed was best left unobserved. Listen and observe. Then you can compare. Then you can judge. Observe.
Edward's ankles are showing between his socks and his pants. They are white. Fish-belly white. Lily is dressed in a sixties-inspired outfit that includes high lace-up moccasins, patterned tights, a mini miniskirt of crushed purple velvet, and a transparent paisley blouse. Beneath the paisley blouse, her skin is white. Why is the white of her skin different, less fishy, than the white of Edward's ankles? Is it because a shoulder is intrinsically more appealing, less fishy, than an ankle? Or is it that her shoulder in particular is aesthetically superior to Edward's fishy ankle in particular? Is her shoulder really more beautiful than Edward's ankle, or am I trapped in layers of received, culturally determined lies, and it's really Edward's ankle that stands as a thing of beauty?
With some effort, Margaret attempted to listen to what Edward and Lily were saying.
"Our fleet entering the gulf? The gulf? The vaginal gulf!"
"I mean the Persian Gulf."
"So do I."
Never mind, Margaret thought. She wished Till were there. She missed Till, but she was too ashamed to call her. What would she say, anyway? I apologize? Oh, that's okay, Till would answer. Think nothing of it. You've secretly hated my husband, who gave you fame and fortune, for all these years? Why, I'm flattered that you've stayed friends with me when seeing us must have been such a trial for you.
Margaret returned to her musing on the nature of ankles, shoulders, beauty, and truth. Edward's ankles were white, fish-belly white, and so were suggestive of fish bellies. While Lily's shoulders, skimmed by the transparent paisley blouse, were indistinctly white and so were suggestive of—shoulders! The white, hidden and yet apparent, was therefore a conscious color, a decision, a decision made with a purpose, and the purpose was to make the viewer think about how hidden the shoulder was, and by extension to think of what else was hidden. Edward's ankle, on the other hand, was bared thoughtlessly, and so expressed no purpose, in fact expressed the very antithesis of purpose, a lack of interest in the ankle and by extension in his body as a whole.
So, Margaret thought, that is why Lily's shoulder is sexy and Edward's ankle is fishlike. Margaret was struck, suddenly, by how very sexy Lily was. She was a bit blowsy, or so Margaret had always thought. But perhaps it was just that she was voluptuous? Margaret had never had occasion to wonder whether a woman was voluptuous or not, and she was not sure how one judged. She continued to observe Lily carefully, the way she whispered and tucked her feet beneath her on the couch.
Lily caught her watching and looked at Margaret, long and earnestly. Margaret turned back to Edward's familiar ankle, which suddenly looked quite nice after all. Margaret blushed. Did Lily know? Could she tell? That Margaret, tilting her head, had been wondering if Lily was or was not voluptuous?
Two
SONG OF MYSELF 11
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.
She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides, handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.
Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.
Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.
Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth
bather;
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.
The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from their
long hair:
Little streams pass'd all over their bodies.
An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.
The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the
sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and
bending arch,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.
—WALT WHITMAN
AT THE AIRPORT, Margaret waited to have her bags x-rayed and thought that when she passed through the metal detector, she would be passing into a new world. She would be on her way to Prague, formerly part of the second world, now reborn. Perhaps she would be reborn.
A little boy ran up to her, grabbed her hand, looked up, realized she was not his mother, and ran away in horror.
"I'm here," she heard a woman call. "I'm right here."