Any Woman's Blues_ A Novel of Obsession - Erica Jong [16]
I blushed. (For some reason, Mrs. Donegal made me think of Enid Bagnold’s line: “In my day, only Negresses had orgasms.”)
“Well, er, it has had its adherents throughout history. The ancient Greeks actually—”
“She’s perrrfect for Trick,” said Mrs. Donegal. “He’s the only other person who would talk about ancient Greeks and oral sex in the same breath.”
Just then Trick (or Dart) reappeared, looking as glazed as a Christmas ham. Whatever he had done in the bathroom, it wasn’t purchased over the counter.
“Is dinner ready, Ven?” asked Mrs. Donegal.
“Not quite, m’dear,” said Mr. Donegal. “The girls are still fussing about.”
Conversation lagged. When in doubt, say nothing, I admonished myself. Normally ready with repartee, I could think of not a damn thing to say. Perhaps it was the pervasive odor of WASPdom, the cats, the conversation, or the straight vodka I had been consuming with the caviar, but all that came to mind were homilies like: “A stitch in time saves nine,” or “A rolling stone gathers no moss,” or “Penny wise, pound foolish.” What was it about the Donegals that made me feel I was in Poor Richard’s Almanack? (Even though I had been married to a WASP heir at one point during my hegira, that was in the sixties, when everyone was busy kicking over all traces of Heritage. Now, in the Reagan years, this stuff was serious again. Oddly enough, I responded.)
The maid appeared, to announce dinner. She was a sullen-looking brunette of about eighteen, wearing a white polyester minidress with a crooked hem. On her feet were white plastic cowboy boots, and there was a big white bow in her long, tangled hair. She looked as if she had been procured through the placement office of the local reform school.
“Dinner is served,” she said between chews on her mouthful of gum.
Mr. Donegal stood up (he had been sitting on the sagging couch next to his wife), and when he did, a packet of condoms fell out of his green velvet smoking jacket. “Excita,” they were called, in shocking-pink letters. I saw them. He saw that I saw them. And he looked me in the eye, challengingly, as he pocketed them. It was a moment, as they say in the theater. What aphorism in Poor Richard’s Almanack applied to this?
And so to dinner. We repaired to the cluttered formal dining room, where the table was elaborately set with a forest of cut-crystal wine goblets, a dazzling variety of forks and spoons, twin silver candelabra festooned with little green and red Christmas balls.
“Let us say grace,” said Mr. Donegal, taking my hand and his son’s. My other hand clutched Muffie’s, and she in turn held Dart’s.
We bowed our heads.
“Heavenly Father, make us truly grateful for what we are about to receive and ever mindful of the needs of others. We thank Thee for all the blessings Thou hast bestowed upon us in the year past, and will bestow in the year to come. . . . Amen.”
I thought of the condoms. Mr. Donegal looked up and blazed his malevolent blue eyes into mine. He was confident that I wouldn’t say anything. This was not a house in which people bared their souls. An invisible gas pervaded the air, keeping one from communicating any disturbing truths. The conversation lurched forward over the melon balls, Christmas balls, bread and butter. Mr. Donegal returned to the subject of art, something in which he claimed to be knowledgeable. He asked me what I thought of Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, Rosa Bonheur. I allowed that I admired them greatly. He asked if women artists today were still discriminated against. And I said that the discrimination was still there but had taken new forms.
Dart looked at me with adoration and admiration. When I took on his father, his love knew no bounds. I had the feeling, as I often have in my life, that I was on stage, in some surrealistic play. Life often seems immensely strange to me, and the most ordinary acts—Thanksgiving dinners, for example—can be stranger than space voyages. I am a visitor from another planet,