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By Martha Nelle Pskowski
The Hallorans, for reasons that had never been explained to him, did not
wear bathing suits. No explanations were in order, really.
—John Cheever, The Swimmer
The sun cutting through the lace curtain over the picture window woke James
Halloran. Sitting up in bed sent a wave of pain through his head. James
looked toward the dappled shadows patterning the floor to avert the ache.
“Much too large a window for a bedroom,” his mother-in-law had clucked before
she signed the papers for them a dozen years ago. “The neighbors will see
all your business.” James’s lips formed a tight scowl at the memory.
Separate piles of slacks, Oxford shirts, and white underwear surrounded the
bed. His wife Deirdre peeked out from behind the tallest pile, composed of
cotton blouses.
“Good morning, James. Why so grim?”
James wiped his eyes and blinked vigorously before reaching for his horn-rimmed
glasses. “My beauty rest for the party was interrupted, darling,” he said.
“Well, aren’t you funny. I’m still counting on you for the pound cake, you
know,” she replied with a defiant glare.
“Of course you’ll have a house-warming party, James.” His late mother-in-law’s
words rung in his ears again as he showered. “How else are you to enter the
neighborhood?” Her voice was etched into his memory as indelibly as his first
girlfriend’s phone number.
“And we can’t wait to show off the new house. Right, James?” Deirdre had
added, smiling only up to her eyes, which urged him to agree.
That evening, alone in the master bedroom, they had sat stiffly in bed.
The king-sized bed draped in luxurious linens felt like a hotel room to the
newlyweds.
The house had been built by an architect of modest fame at the turn of the
century. Its high ceilings and broad entryways were gorgeous, James knew,
but the history of the house weighed on him like handcuffs.
“Please put up with her, honey,” Deirdre said, rubbing his arm.
“Does she think this house has bought me? It’s a joke, living here. And
now I get to meet the neighbors!”
“Well it’s not what I imagined either. But considering you haven’t found
a job…”
“I’m not about to start slaving at some law firm, Deirdre! You know I couldn’t
stand one of those jobs. But living in this house I feel like I already have
that kind of job, am that kind of man.”
“You sound like that song. And the people in the houses all go to the
university and they all get put in boxes, little boxes all the same.”
Her sweet voice broke his foul mood. “ Deirdre, it really was a mistake for
you to chose teaching over folk singing.”
When they woke in the morning, they still had the glow of newlyweds.
James picked up the tune in the shower now. “There's a green one and
a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one,” he sung loudly, hoping
Deirdre heard down the hall. “And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
and they all look just the same.” Ricocheting off the porcelain walls,
the words blurred into incoherence.
Deirdre had given coffee up years ago but to James, morning just didn’t smell
right without Maxwell House. Waiting for his pot to brew, James scanned the
Sunday paper, open to the editorials. More opinions on Communist power in
Vietnam and the future of Richard Nixon. A few weeks back, inflamed by an
obvious renewal of McCarthyism, he’d written a letter to the editor.
A week later at breakfast, Deirdre, eating a scone over the paper spread
out like a tablecloth, exclaimed, “James!”
“What is it?”
“You wrote this letter!”
“Let me read it. I hope they didn’t butcher my words too much.” He swiped
the paper out of Deirdre’s hands, making her plate wobble, and scanned the
brief letter printed in the bottom right corner of page 3.
“That’s my letter. Are you worried about me being blacklisted or something?
It’s the 1970s, for God’s sake.”
Deirdre snapped open another section of the paper crisply and leaned in,
as if engrossed by an article.
Later that week at Mrs. Bidenberg’s book club (the only group Deirdre had
been invited to join in all these years), the women hushed their conversation
when she entered and greeted her a bit too heartily. They surrounded her,
poised on floridly embroidered arm chairs, as if ready to pounce. Tightening
her grip on the Delft china tea cup, Deirdre decided James wouldn’t get away
with that letter.
“James, don’t you think we should have a party?” she asked that afternoon
as they layed by the pool.
“A party?”
“Yes. We haven’t had anyone over in ages.”
He sipped thoughtfully from a glass of iced tea and then said, “No, I don’t
really think we should.”
“Well, I can tell you don’t care what the neighbors think of us, but
I would like to redeem what’s left of our reputation.” Her voice echoed with
the dictative tone of her mother.
The late afternoon sun softened his judgment and James relented. “Okay.
I’ve had my fun with the editors. You can have your fun with the neighbors.”
The coffee pot finished brewing, reminding James that he was here, today,
the day of the party. The night before, the scotch had dulled his displeasure,
but with the new day, it had returned. He ensconsed himself in his study
with his clients’ tax returns to avoid Deirdre’s spirited dusting and polishing
of every visible surface.
James had taken the job at the law firm only a few weeks after that bedtime
conversation with Deirdre a dozen years ago. He thought she would be happy:
a short bus ride away, opportunity for advancement, steady pay. But the work
load was heavy and many nights he spent holed up in his study, pouring over
pages and pages of fine black print. Deirdre always seemed gloomy at breakfast,
one of the few moments they had together. One morning she admitted, “I miss
when we would just lay on the floor and listen to blues records and talk about
the world.”
The sleek quartz clock hanging in the kitchen struck two, and Deirdre brought
out the last of the party refreshments; little cucumber on rye sandwiches,
puffy white meringues, mozzarella balls impaled on toothpicks, fresh strawberries.
She glanced over enviously at the bartender arranging his goods. She knew
full well that once the corks popped, all her hard work would fade into the
background. Just as she smoothed the last wrinkle from the lilac-hued linen
tablecloth, the doorbell buzzed to announce the first guests.
James sat in the parlor, reclining in an armchair with a glass of merlot
in one hand, as guests walked towards the deck. Deirdre welcomed the Fritzes
and the Duncans and the Bidenbergs. From then on, he began to lose track.
In a quiet moment, he heard one of the women—perhaps Mrs. Westen with that
nasal tone—whisper in a voice amplified by a few drinks, “We all know their
politics well enough but look at this house! Can you believe the artwork?
All breasts and thighs. Who knew nudes were in vogue?" James grimaced.
So they were a joke to the neighbors.
James stood up and entered the hall just as Deirdre came out of the kitchen
bearing a basket of rosemary crackers.
“James! Please join the party.”
“I’m sure they’re all just dying to see me,” he scoffed.
“Please, James,” she said under her breath, “Humor me and make some friendly
conversation.”
Deirdre led him by the arm to the deck overlooking the pool. The bar was
on the right side, the bottles lined up like offerings to a pagan god. The
Cunninghams and the de Lucas clustered closest to the alcohol, their heads
obscured by a tall potted plant. Mrs. Cunningham leaned over and gestured
toward James. He could almost see her hushed words flowing like poison through
Marie De Luca’s bloodstream. Maybe he could ask the bartender to pour something
a little more potent in her next refill.
“I’m planning to get a new set of clubs for Jim this year,” Mrs. Bidenberg
announced proudly to the approval of her audience, excepting James.
“And they all play on the golf-course, and drink their Martinis dry,”
James sung under his breath, leaning against the deck railing.
“What was that, James?” she asked, flicking her polite but lethal stare in
his direction.
“It’s a bit cooler out here than I realized. You don’t mind if I nip back
in for a sweater, Deir?” he said, turning to his wife.
“Go ahead. Could you bring the extra bowl of onion dip on your way back
out?”
The chatter of the party hummed along like a bicycle chain.
“Now what’s become of my husband?” Deirdre was thinking, as Mrs. Duncan went
on about her husband’s recent promotion. Then James emerged from the screen
door, wrapped in the gray terrycloth robe he always wore out to the pool.
Mrs. Duncan noted his entrance. Deirdre commented, “Your Rob is always so
charming but I was a bit anxious about James this afternoon. Luckily, he
seems to be having a pleasant time.”
“How is work at the law practice?” Mrs. Duncan asked, swirling the ice cubes
in her tumbler around and around.
“Oh, he keeps busy. He’s had the same clients for years now and no one knows
the tax law better,” she chuckled slightly. Mrs. Duncan looked over Deirdre’s
shoulder vacantly.
Deirdre followed her line of vision to the subject of their conversation,
who was making his way down to the water. James set his glasses on a wicker
table and disrobed to reveal his very pale and very naked body.
“Dear God,” Deirdre said under her breath.
Though her free hand reached up to cover her lips, a guffaw escaped Mrs.
Duncan.
In all his 100 laps a day glory, James mounted the few steps of the diving
board, walked calmly to its end and dived gracefully into the water. The
group of 20 or more was silent enough for the “boing” of the board to carry
across the deck. His gray head broke the surface first, then a tan arm stroked
out ahead. His other arm followed and he crawled smoothly through the turquoise
water. Little flutter kicks left a wake behind him. The palest white skin
was stretched across the taut muscles of his butt, his strong form suspending
it just below the surface. He brushed the stone wall with his hand and then
pushed off with a frog kick. The thrust carried him across a quarter of the
pool. Deirdre gripped the paper napkin in her left hand fiercely. She marched
down to the side of the diving board and waited for James to finish his lap.
Her eyes were glued on him, as if their guests had been blown away by a particularly
strong gust of wind.
Oblivious to her presence, he reached out his hand to the wall. She grabbed
it. He spluttered, and lifted his head out of the water.
“Over all these years I thought you might have realized, but I thought wrong,”
she said with a force that surprised herself. “You are no revolutionary,
no matter how many silly letters you write. You’ve never attended a Communist
meeting in your life so please stop pretending and grow up. Now I am going
to bring you your robe. You will put it on and go inside.”
James did not reply. Once Deirdre left the water’s edge, the guests broke
into excited whispers. James leaned against the stone side of the pool and
hunched his shoulders over. It felt as if Deirdre were covering the short
distance in baby steps. He peered into the undulating water as if looking
for an answer. Glancing back up to the deck he only saw laughing faces and
jewelry glittering in the sun.
Deirdre returned with his robe. She held it open, facing away from the deck.
James pulled himself on to the ledge and slipped into the worn terrycloth.
Walking across the deck, he asked the bartender for a scotch. The young man
fumbled with the bottles, knocking a glass to the floor. It shattered. The
guests hushed again. James grabbed his drink and rushed inside, flushed to
his forehead.
Deirdre stood by the pool. Her feet were cemented to the flagstones.
Mrs. Cunningham brushed her shoulder.
“Deirdre, we’re going to go now,” she said in a low voice.
“Oh, yes, right. Thanks so much for coming…” Her words faded.
The other guests began to depart, some making excuses and some not. It didn’t
matter to Deirdre. She sat in a wicker chair and sipped water slowly. The
swells and ripples of the pool’s surface captivated her. She was oblivious
to how much time had passed until the bartender approached her nervously.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, ma’am, if all the guests are gone…”
She turned to look at him. His face was babyish and his voice unsure.
“You can go ahead and leave, yes.”
He set about packing up the bottles and glasses, picking up napkins and toothpicks
separated from their olives long ago.
Deirdre went inside and found James in his study.
He didn’t notice her enter. He sat hunched over his desk listening to Chopin
on the record player. She almost wanted to laugh at his tattered robe in
the well-appointed room of plush red carpet and mahogany. Without his typical
slacks and Oxford shirt, James looked smaller. His slumped shoulders looked
drained of the strength he had exhibited in the pool. His gray hair, mussed
and matted from the water, was that of an old man.
“So that was your revolution?” she said, loud enough for him to hear over
the strains of violin.
Martha Nelle Pskowski just completed her senior year at Sandy Spring Friends
School in Sandy Spring.
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