Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [31]
“Hard to say.” Vinnie’s interest in food is comparatively moderate.
“No. Not dill. I must ask the waiter.” Edwin sighs. “So how do you see the future of the affair, then?”
“I don’t know.” Vinnie puts down her fork, considering. “But whatever happens, it can’t last very long. Fred’s going back to America in June.”
“Oh? Who says so?”
“Why, Fred does. He told me himself.”
“Yes; but when did he tell you?”
“What? I don’t know—in December, before he left, it must have been.”
“Exactly.” Edwin gives the wide smile that increases his resemblance, noted before by Vinnie, to the Cheshire Cat.
“But that won’t make any difference. Fred has to be back in Corinth by the middle of June: he’s teaching two courses in summer school.”
“Unless he decides not to.”
“Oh no; that’s impossible,” Vinnie explains. “That’d be most inconvenient for the Department. They wouldn’t like that at all.”
“Really.” Edwin raises his eyebrows, somehow expressing doubt not of the English Department’s annoyance but of its very existence, and even of the existence of Hopkins County, New York. (“Tell us again the wonderful name of that place where you live in the States,” he occasionally says. “What is it? Simpkins County?”)
“Besides, he couldn’t afford it,” Vinnie continues. “Between us, he’s quite hard up.”
“Rosemary has plenty of money,” Edwin says.
This time Vinnie represses her immediate reaction, though the idea that one of her colleagues might allow himself to be kept by an English actress is not only displeasing but disgusting. “I’m sure that Fred’s not serious about her anyhow,” she says. “For one thing, she must be at least ten years older than he, don’t you think?”
“Who knows?” Edwin, who probably does know, shrugs. Officially, and in press releases, Rosemary is thirty-seven; her actual age is a matter of constant speculation among her acquaintances. “Oh yes, now let’s see,” he adds, his eyes lighting as the dessert menu is presented. “A lemon ice, perhaps? Or a teeny little bit of the apricot tart, would that be too fattening? What do you think, Vinnie?”
“If you’re really on a diet, you should have the cantaloupe,” she suggests, refusing for once to be an accessory before the fact; she is annoyed at Edwin both for his discretion about Rosemary’s age and his insinuations about Fred’s motives.
“No; not the cantaloupe.” Edwin continues to study the menu; his expression is both firm and a little injured.
“Just coffee for me, thanks,” Vinnie tells the waiter, offering a good example.
“Two coffees. And I’ll have the apricot tart, please.”
Vinnie does not comment, but it occurs to her for the first time that for such an intelligent man Edwin is disgracefully plump and self-indulgent; that his pretense of dieting is ridiculous; and that his demand that his friends join in the charade is becoming tiresome.
“But we musn’t just enjoy ourselves,” he says a few minutes later, wiping a bit of whipped cream from the side of his muzzle. “We must consider the problem of Rosemary, before there’s another disaster like the Ronnie one. If she keeps breaking her professional commitments to go off with some fellow . . . Well, naturally the word gets round: better not cast Rosemary Radley, she’s not dependable.” Edwin moves his plump forefinger in a horizontal circle, indicating world-wide distribution of this warning. “Jonathan, for instance, I know he wouldn’t consider it after the Greenwich debacle. . . . But she’s been working fearfully hard on that TV special, and in July she’s got to go on location for her series, she mustn’t be upset. I really think it’s your job to do something.”
“To do what? Warn Rosemary against Fred Turner?” Vinnie speaks rather impatiently; while watching Edwin’s loving consumption of his apricot tart it has struck her that in order to shame him into sticking to his diet—what a silly idea!—she has denied herself any dessert. And to no practical purpose, for she isn’t at all overweight; rather the reverse.
“Heavens, no,” Edwin replies soothingly, with the complacent tolerance of the well fed. “We all of us know how little use