My Dearest Friend (17 page)

“Hi!” he called, and stepped inside.

“Oh!” Daphne jumped, looking over her shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he apologized.

“I know you didn’t.” She laughed. “You just can’t hear anything when the machine’s going. Besides, you caught me with my shoes off.”

Jack looked down; so he had. Daphne’s brown leather shoes lay on their sides, their long heels pointed at each other, on either side of her stockinged feet.

“Come over here and talk to me,” Daphne ordered. “I’ve got to get this paper copied for Fred. He needs it for some journal.” She leaned close to Jack as he approached. “It is so boring,” she said through her teeth. “The paper, I mean. I had to type it.”

Jack went around to the other side of the Xerox machine. Daphne had a nice rhythm going: she raised the lid, picked up a sheet of paper, put another down, shut the lid, put the paper in a pile, and picked up a new sheet of paper from another pile. The machine hummed and clicked and stuck out a tongue of copied paper into its tray. He watched for a while, admiring her precision and organization. Her movements were almost hypnotic. She was like the machine—efficient, smooth—but unlike the machine with her grace. Next to the machine she seemed very female and curvaceous. Her breasts were right at the level of the lid, right in his line of vision as he watched her work.

“I have a favor to ask you,” he said, shaking away his thoughts. When Daphne looked at him questioningly, he went on, “I wonder if you would babysit for us tonight.” He held up a hand, forestalling any comment she would make. “I hope this isn’t an insult,” he said. “I mean, I know it’s an imposition, and I know you’re not a babysitter. But I’ve been trying all afternoon and I can’t find anyone who can come on such short notice. Hank Petrie gave me some names, but they’re all high-school girls who have to study for tests. And Pauline White gave me a name, but that woman already had plans.”

Daphne just looked at him, a funny smile on her face.

“I guess it’s kind of an emergency,” Jack went on. “To tell the truth, I’m a little desperate. Carey Ann is having a difficult time adjusting to the move and I need to have a long, uninterrupted talk with her. It’s hard to talk with Alexandra around.”

“Did Carey Ann get along with any of those women I introduced her to at the party?” Daphne asked.

“Well …” Jack hesitated, not certain how much to say. He didn’t want to betray Carey Ann; he didn’t know, after all, who might be good friends of Daphne’s—she did seem to know everyone—and he didn’t want to say anything he would mind having repeated.

With a sudden little flurry, Daphne stopped copying, piled up the papers, and flicked a button on the Xerox machine. Silence fell around them.

“Sure I’ll babysit,” she said. Her cheeks were flushed from the warmth of the machine. “What time would you like me to come down?”

She was so easy!, Jack thought. Daphne was so easy and pleasant, and on his side. Somehow she had learned the trick of taking the world in stride. And she had such good legs—he watched her step back into her high heels.

“God, this is really good of you,” Jack said. “You’ll have to let us do something
for you sometime. I really appreciate this.”

“We country folk have to stick together,” Daphne said, smiling. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure sometime this winter I’ll get sick and ask you or Carey Ann to get me some medicine, something like that. What time do you need me?”

“Six-thirty?” Jack asked. “Is that too early? We all have to get up early tomorrow, so we should make it an early night.”

“Six-thirty is fine.”

Carey Ann was on the floor with Alexandra, helping her put huge wooden pieces into a puzzle that would soon be a rabbit. Alexandra jumped up and ran to Jack as soon as he came in the door.

“We’re going out to dinner. I’ve got a babysitter!” Jack said, picking his daughter up and whirling her above his head. “Daphne Miller’s going to come down.”

He was grinning up at Alexandra, so he couldn’t see Carey Ann’s reaction to this news—he wasn’t sure he wanted to see it. She didn’t say anything.

“I couldn’t find anyone else,” he went on. “I got some names from Hank Petrie—he’s in English too, but his kids are older, but not old enough to babysit. They’re all high-school girls who will come on weekends but not on weeknights. It’ll be good having Daphne—I won’t have a long drive picking her up and taking her home.”

“It’s nice of her,” Carey Ann said slowly. “After working all day and all.”

“She’s coming at six-thirty. So go put on your dancing clothes, mama!” Jack made squeaky kisses on Lexi’s tummy.

The phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” Carey Ann said.

Jack carried his daughter into the living room and sank down onto the floor with her. She was having a giggling fit. He lay on his back, drew his knees to his chest, and put Alexandra on his legs, bum against the shelf of his feet. He held on to her hands and bounced his legs, and Alexandra laughed with pleasure.

“Yes, this is she,” Carey Ann was saying. “Oh, yes. Oh.”

Jack paused in his bouncing for a moment, trying to hear the conversation, trying to figure out who was on the other end of the line. But Alexandra screamed, “
Go
, horsie!” He bounced his legs again. He hoped it wasn’t Daphne, backing out.

He bounced Lexi till his legs grew tired, then lifted her above his head and turned
her into an airplane. Finally he said, “Daddy’s tired,” and let her down onto his chest and stomach. He hugged her. She snuggled against him. They both caught their breaths. Carey Ann hung up the phone in the kitchen and came into the living room. She sank down onto the sofa like someone who’d just been turned into jelly. There were tears in her eyes. Oh, no, now what?, Jack thought, his heart sinking.

“Oh, Jack,” Carey Ann said. “You’ll never guess. Oh, I’m so happy.” She smiled radiantly.

“What?” Jack said. He sat up, bringing Lexi up with him. She crawled off his lap and walked over to her mother.

“That was Shelby Currier,” Carey Ann said. “You know, the mother of the little baby that Alexandra hit today? Well, you won’t believe this, but she called to tell me not to worry about it. She said she knew I probably felt awful about it, because she has a little boy—Aaron, he’s four, he’s in preschool—and when he was two, the same sort of thing happened to them. Another little boy pretended to shoot at him with a toy gun, and Aaron said, ‘Don’t you shoot me!’ and picked up a wooden block and threw it and hit the little boy in the face. Made him have a terrible nosebleed. Shelby wanted to die. And the other mother was really awful about it, acted like Aaron was a psychopath or something. Oh, Jack, Shelby’s so
nice.
Jack, she belongs to this other group. It’s a group of young mothers who get together one night a week just to talk about their kids and their problems. Each week they meet at someone’s house, and they have a theme, like thumb-sucking or discipline or sibling rivalry, and it’s at her house tonight and she wants me to come. Oh, Jack, would you mind if I didn’t go out to dinner with you tonight? I mean, I love you, but …”

Jack grinned at his wife. “I love you, Carey Ann. Even if you prefer someone else to me.”

“Oh, Jack!” She grinned, then jumped up. “What shall I wear?”

Carey Ann had just driven off in her white Mustang convertible and Jack was still standing in the doorway with Alexandra waving in his arms—her entire arm going back and forth like a windshield wiper—when Daphne Miller came walking down the dirt road and into their yard. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and sneakers.

“Oh, God!” Jack said. “I forgot to call you. We had a change in plans. Well, listen, come on in anyway. Have a drink with me. The least I can do is give you a drink.”

Daphne smiled. “All right. It will give me a chance to get to know your daughter better. In case you ever need me to baby-sit again, she’ll be more comfortable with someone she’s familiar with.”

Jack sat Alexandra on the kitchen counter and gave her a slice of lime to entertain her while he fixed vodka tonics. He was suddenly happy—this miracle had happened for Carey Ann, and now he had a pleasant adult to talk to while he babysat his daughter, whom he adored, but who could get a little boring over the course of an evening. He told Daphne where his wife had gone.

“I’m so glad,” Daphne said, taking her drink. She followed Jack into the living room and sat down with him and Alexandra on the floor. “Shelby Currier’s very nice,” she said. “You know, she used to be a model. She married Watson Currier, who must be the homeliest man on the Lord’s earth, and he’s a chemistry prof and
shy
! The two of them couldn’t be more different. It’s always a mystery when two people choose each other, isn’t it? But Shelby is just as happy as a clam.”

“Well, I’m relieved,” Jack said. He told Daphne about the playgroup incident, using gestures and euphemisms and disguised language so that Alexandra wouldn’t know they were talking about her.

“Oh, it’s the hardest thing to move into a new town,” Daphne said. “I know. When I first moved here, I was a young faculty wife just like Carey Ann. The first semester, all I did was look at wallpaper books and paint the kitchen.” She laughed. “It’s a wonder Joe didn’t leave me then,” she said. “He’d come home from work and I’d have about seventeen billion wallpaper patterns for him to look at, all marked in the book with strips of paper.”

She laughed, and suddenly spread her legs out in a V from her body. She grabbed a ball and held it at her crotch, then rolled it toward Alexandra, who was now sitting that way. “Now, roll it to Daddy and Daddy will roll it to Daphne,” she said. “Watch out for your drink,” she told Jack as he arranged himself for the game.

Alexandra loved the game. Jack and Daphne talked—interrupting themselves constantly to pay attention to Lexi—and after a while Jack made them each another drink and they rolled the ball in the reverse direction. The living-room window gleamed, a wall of light. After a while Daphne said, “I love it when it’s just like this—not quite dark, but not daylight either. It makes the air seem so gentle.” They decided to go out for a little walk. Jack zipped a sweatshirt onto Lexi and stuck her fat feet into their sneakers. Then,
Jack holding one of the child’s hands, Daphne the other, the three of them walked down the dirt road toward Daphne’s house. The tunnel of trees was black. They could hear Dickens barking.

“Let’s turn around and go back before he has a heart attack,” Daphne said, and they did. “Hear the birds, Lexi? They’re calling good-night to you.”

It seemed perfectly natural for Daphne to fix them another drink while Jack changed Lexi’s diaper and put her in her sleepers. They were talking about the English department now, and about Hudson, and about different writers. It was a pure relief to Jack to say some things to someone who understood—who knew what college departments were like, what kind of squabbling and rivalries and games went on.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and went up the stairs and carefully lowered his sleeping daughter into her crib. He was surprised, when he came back down the stairs, to see that Daphne was crying. He couldn’t imagine what had happened. It always amazed him how much women cried, and how easily.

“I’m so sorry,” Daphne said. “Forgive me. I just … it was just seeing you like that with your daughter. The way you held her and looked down at her. You love her so much.”

To Jack’s dismay, Daphne bent over and crossed her arms on her lap and sobbed into them. He sat down on the sofa next to her, moving cautiously.

“I guess all fathers aren’t like that, huh?” he said. He didn’t want to probe, but he didn’t want to be aloof, either.

“Cynthia’s father wasn’t,” Daphne said. “Oh, Alexandra’s a lucky little girl!” She raised her head and wiped her eyes. “I’m getting maudlin. I’d better go.”

“No, no, finish your drink. Tell me about Cynthia’s father.” Jack sat at the other end of the sofa, looking at Daphne.

“Joe never wanted children,” Daphne said. “He was always so wrapped up in his work. While I … I hadn’t thought of having children, but all of a sudden this need grew right out of me. For a long time I tried to stifle it, thinking I could cajole Joe into having children. I had this very good friend, my best friend in those days, and she had the most beautiful little boy. While I was thinking about getting pregnant, Laura got pregnant for the second time. She was so thrilled, and I was so happy for her—but so jealous as I watched her growing bigger. And she loved being pregnant and loved talking about it.” Daphne stopped to sip her drink.

“That summer Laura and her husband went to their house on the Vineyard and Joe and I went down to spend a week with them. We had a wonderful time. We biked everywhere, swam—Laura and Otto swam naked when they could, they said they always went to nude beaches in Germany. That seemed so exciting and … oh, chic, to Joe and me, so deliciously wicked. The Krafts were fascinating. We all swam in the ocean and read books and ate enormous amounts of food.”

Daphne scrutinized Jack. “Why am I telling you all this?” she asked, and without waiting for his answer, went on: “Are you sure you want to hear all this? I don’t know why I’m thinking about it all now.”

“Go on,” Jack said.

“One afternoon we went out for a sail in Otto’s boat. Just the four adults; we left Hanno with a sitter. It was a nice big boat, with a cabin with a head and a galley and room to sleep six. It was the most beautiful summer afternoon—there was just enough wind to make us skip right along, yet it wasn’t too choppy. We’d been sailing for perhaps an hour. Suddenly Laura made this sort of grunting sound—so impolite, you know, I laughed with embarrassment for her, and she sat up all of a sudden and said something in German. Then she got up and went down below. I followed her. She went into the head. I stood by the door. ‘Tell Otto to head back to shore,’ she said. ‘Tell him he must hurry.’ ”

Daphne looked down into her drink. “She was losing the baby. She came out and lay on a bunk and I put pillows and towels under her bottom to elevate her, to stop the bleeding. But it didn’t help. By the time we got to shore, she was holding my hand and crying so terribly and writhing. She was in such pain. She thought she was going to die. I thought she was going to die. And she said … Laura said”—Daphne was crying a little now—“she kept saying, ‘Daphne, don’t let this scare you. You must have children. Even if I die this way, don’t be afraid. It’s a fluke. It won’t happen to you. You must have children. That is what life is all about.’