"The Season," Annie said wearily after the third dinner in a row, "has begun."
Betty often begged off this new rash of meals, waving her daughters out the door with a sense of relief. "Find nice, rich husbands," she would always call after them, just for the pleasure of hearing their ritualized outrage. Then, at last: privacy. Alone to rest, to order interesting inventions that were advertised on TV. It had begun with OxiClean, which even Annie admitted worked wonders. But since then Betty had gotten a fleece blanket with arms, which you wore like a backward robe; a portable steam cleaner; and a wonderful brush that worked for both dogs and cats and came with a free bonus attachment that cut off burrs and tangles.
"But we don't have a dog," Annie said when it arrived in the mail.
"Or even a cat," Miranda added.
"Unpredictable times, my darlings," said Betty. "Unpredictable times."
She turned the TV on now and found the channel that reran soap operas. She liked to watch Kit sometimes. It excited her that she knew someone who was on television. She wouldn't have admitted it to her daughters, however. They were so cavalier about things like that. Growing up in New York had done that, she thought. Nothing impressed them.
"But it's wrong," Kit was saying to his handsome lover.
Wrong, Betty thought. So much was wrong in this world. Why did those two beautiful, healthy young men worry about a little thing like a kiss? She remembered the first time Joseph had kissed her. It was as clear as if it had happened that morning. It had been on a morning, too, but so long ago. They had met at a party a week earlier and he had asked her to come to see an exhibit at the Metropolitan. She couldn't remember what the exhibit was. Spanish paintings, perhaps? Afterward, they had gone for a walk in Central Park. Her children, her babies, were home with the teenage girl from the apartment next door. She remembered wondering if the girl was ignoring them, talking on the phone with some pimply boyfriend instead of playing dolls and peek-a-boo. That wouldn't be so bad, she had thought, as long as the girl didn't let them drown in the bathtub somehow . . . Then, suddenly, Joseph had taken her hand and led her to a thicket of trees and bushes. She heard the traffic on Fifth Avenue; she heard a dog barking and a mother telling her children not to go too far ahead of her, a siren in the distance, a squirrel scurrying through the leaves, or was it a rat . . . And then Joseph looked down at her with half-closed eyes and kissed her.
Her heart fluttered even now, remembering. She had fallen in love with him the first time they spoke at that awful smoky downtown party. Sometimes people are mistaken when they fall in love at first sight, or even second or third sight. But I was right, Betty thought. Pity he had to ruin everything.
She turned off the TV and sorted through some papers. When the phone rang, she saw on the caller ID that it was her lawyer and eagerly picked it up.
"How's my Case?"
"You won't believe this, Betty, but I think . . . well, I think we're making progress! Suddenly Joseph Weissmann's lawyers, who refused to even refuse my calls, are calling and asking for meetings to 'clear this all up.'"
Betty felt a sickening surge of relief, sickening because it forced her to acknowledge how frightened she was, how precarious, how vulnerable. Then, a blind flash of rage. Then, oddly, a pang of sorrow for Joseph.
"I don't know what happened. Maybe you've just successfully waited Joseph out. Not all women have the resources to do that," the lawyer said. "They settle because they can't buy groceries."
"Joseph would never do that," Betty said.
"Only because you haven't let him. You can thank your family for that."
Joseph is my family, she wanted to explain.
"We did it, we did it!" Miranda cried, dancing around the cottage, when she told them the news.
"Maybe!" Annie joined in. "Maybe we did it!"
Betty found the possibility of victory painfully anticlimactic. What on earth were they dancing for? She looked around the little cottage, at her furniture and rug, her paintings and vases, and tried to remember them in their original setting. If she really went back to her apartment, would she miss the cottage? She wasn't sure. She hoped so. She didn't like to think of these past months as wasted. But for her, there was no joy in the thought of return. Living alone in the apartment would be like drifting on an ocean in a tiny boat. Nowhere to go, and no real hope of getting there.
18