Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [4]
Julia, on the other hand, did not need to pretend. She cared vitally about the progress of each case, and about such things as the rumor that a new federal courthouse might be built; and as the years went by he found that he was discussing these matters as intimately with Julia as he had once imagined he would discuss them with his wife. This, too, he reflected, must not be unnatural; no doubt other men had found themselves living a similarly divided life, involved with two women almost equally.
He was grateful that they got along well together. Julia was quite a pretty young woman, but so far his wife had shown no jealousy. Perhaps she sensed that he was not attracted to Julia, and occasionally he wondered why he was not. Julia’s features were regular and delicate and she had a charming smile. She walked gracefully. Her figure was trim. She never slouched or scratched her head or chewed a pencil. She dressed modestly, as women should, and did not smoke. She was intelligent and clean, and impudent to the point of mild impertinence. She ought to be physically inviting; it was curious that she was not, yet he could feel no desire for her. Somehow the idea of putting his arms around her was disagreeable.
Those evenings when they worked later than usual he drove her home instead of letting her take the bus. She lived in an ugly gray building just off Valentine Road, sharing an apartment with a much older sister who was crippled by arthritis. Each time he drove her there he felt uncomfortable and obscurely guilty, and after watching until she was inside the door he continued toward Mission Hills with a sense of relief. Her misfortune was not his fault. The salary she got was comparable to what she could earn anywhere else, and every few months Mrs. Bridge invited her to the house for dinner.
Except for these occasions when he escorted Julia home he seldom thought about her. He did not know whom she was seeing at night, if anybody. He did not care. She might possibly be planning to get married, although she had given no hint of this. If she did decide to marry it would be all right, providing she did not have a baby.
These two women were growing around him like strands of ivy, but the feeling of entanglement was not disturbing; it seemed to him that these persistent female tendrils were supporting and assisting him.
5 Dinner at Home
Around dinnertime it usually occurred to Mr. Bridge that there were, in fact, three women on whom he depended and Harriet was not the least of them. She was such a marvelous cook that he resented the occasions when he and Mrs. Bridge were invited out. There were traces of the South in her cooking. Such dishes as jambalaya appeared on the table, and frequently she served barbecued ribs which he loved with a love he held for very few things on earth. She could prepare sugar-cured ham with red-eye gravy far better than any restaurant, and hot biscuits and honey, and turnips which tasted like no other turnips, and candied yams with the flavor of marshmallow. She never used a cookbook. She knew. Sometimes while he was eating he would torment himself by trying to decide whether Harriet or Julia was more indispensable.
Every night he looked forward to his dinner and he was sorry when Thursday came around, which was Harriet’s night off. On Thursday there was apt to be macaroni casserole, or leftovers from Wednesday.
He concealed his dismay at these Thursday suppers, and told himself it was not his wife’s fault if she no longer cooked as well as she did when they were first married; after all, cooking requires practice like everything else, and since Harriet had taken over the kitchen there was not much for Mrs. Bridge to do. Once she had been quite good, never in a league with Harriet, but there had been a time when she could make excellent little puddings and special kinds of bread to go with the fried chicken and the pot roast. She could bake an agreeable cherry pie, a rich banana upside-down cake, and crisp tarts, and she knew how to make chili without using