The Age of Grief - Jane Smiley [7]
When Bryan comes in, she is pretending to be asleep. He walks around the bed. “I’m so comfortable,” she groans. “You’ll have to sleep on the floor.” She stretches out her arms. “There’s no room.”
“I see a spot,” he says. She can hear the smile in his voice, and she feels her body contract with the tension of imminent laughter. Then he launches himself diagonally across her. The weight of his body is delightful: for a moment they are still, and she seems to feel the muffled beat of his heart. Then they are laughing and floundering across one another. They have been laughing all evening, and this laughter, Florence knows, will bloom smoothly into lovemaking. “I love you,” he says. He has said it often lately.
“Do you mind if I reciprocate at once?”
“Not at all.”
“I love you, too.”
“Ah.” They snuggle down and pull up the covers.
Just when Florence thinks it is about to begin, when her skin seems to rise to meet the palm of his hand, he squeezes her closely and says, “Speaking of love.”
“Please do.”
“Your friend seems to have a new one.”
“Which friend?” Florence’s eyes are closed, and she is trying to guess where his hands are, where they will alight.
“Frannie,” he says.
Florence opens her eyes and sits up. “Oh, really?” she says. “Who?” And then, in a less casual tone, “She didn’t tell me.”
“A woman in the art school, I think.”
“Which part do you think?”
“What?”
“What’s questionable, love, art school, or woman?”
“Art school.”
“Oh.”
“I thought you’d be glad. They look very happy. I saw them having tea this afternoon.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry I told you.”
“Don’t be.”
“Come here. Please. We’ve had such a good time tonight.”
“We really have.” She kisses him on the nose and smiles, but in the end they settle into bed without making love. Florence says, “I think if we hadn’t had such a good time tonight then I wouldn’t be able to imagine their every moment together.” But she says it quietly, knowing that Bryan has fallen asleep.
She’d intended to drop in at Frannie’s the next morning, a Saturday, on her way to the store, but now that seems like she’d be rushing by for the details. She doesn’t know what she would say, all she can think of are challenges and accusations.
She stops on the way home, leaving Bryan’s car at the end of the block. No one is around, and she sees that Frannie’s belongings are in the street—the plant stand, two boxes of books; clothes in a large pile seem especially vulnerable. Florence looks around for Frannie’s winter coat to throw over them, but she can’t find it. While she is standing there, Frannie’s car pulls up. The other woman is with her, and Frannie’s “Hello!” is wildly exuberant. Florence attributes this to the presence of the other woman.
Frannie introduces them. The woman’s name, Helen Meardon, is certainly conservative, even old-fashioned, and her thighs are too fat. Otherwise she is very pretty. Florence listens for Helen Meardon to say, “I’ve heard so much about you,” but she does not, in fact, smile again after the introduction, although her inspection of Florence, whose clothes are a mess and whose hair is dirty, is frank and lengthy. Helen Meardon is a person of style. “I didn’t know you were moving,” Florence says heartily, thinking of a recent evening together.
“Darling! It’s very sudden. The house is terrific! Remember where we went for strawberries? Helen’s just put in the most beautiful red enameled wood-burning stove. It’s practically her place, she moved in so long ago, and the rent hasn’t been raised in years, so it should cost next to nothing to live there.”
“That’s great.”
“You’ll have to come over as soon as you can.”
“I’m so surprised.”
Helen Meardon is moving away, toward the apartment building. She exchanges with Florence a suspicious sidelong glance before passing her and climbing the porch steps.
“Maybe I will come over,” asserts Florence.
“Or we could have lunch together downtown.”
“Can