The Hunger Moon (13 page)

“She was excellent. Some people are naturally good with babies,” Mrs. M. said.

“Well, I’m going to be looking for a regular sitter after the first of the year. Do you think you might be interested? I know Eleanor thinks the world of you. If we spent time together before I started the job, I think you’d be able to learn everything you need to know. One thing I found out when he was born is that nobody starts out an expert,” Renata said, smiling.

“I go to school during the day,” June said.

“I’m working nights at a downtown restaurant. I’ll need a babysitter about thirty hours a week, but most of that will be after he goes to bed, so you could do homework while you’re over. My shift is from five to midnight, Wednesday through Saturday.”

June calculated fast. Her dance classes were first thing in the morning next semester, and the rest of her classes got out by two. Then she had Mrs. M. on Tuesdays and Fridays.

“I’m here until four-thirty on Fridays,” June said. “What time do you have to leave for work?”

“Four-thirty, I’d say.”

“That’s perfect, June,” Mrs. MacGregor said. “All you have to do is go right next door. You were telling me you were looking for another job. I’ll be your baby consultant. But June has so much common sense, I doubt she’ll ever need me,” Mrs. MacGregor told Renata.

“Well—sure. I’d love to have the job,” June said. It wasn’t as if she needed to save her weekend nights for a boyfriend or anything.

“Great. Let’s try it out, see how it goes,” Renata said. “Do you think you could come over sometime next week and spend some more time with him? I’ll show you all his routines.” She turned to Mrs. MacGregor. “Why don’t you join us when we’re done, Eleanor, and I’ll cook dinner.”

June admired the way Renata could just say “Eleanor” instead of “Mrs. MacGregor.” It made them seem woman-to-woman, as if age were an irrelevancy.

A
WEEK LATER THE THREE OF THEM
were having dinner together at Renata’s. She had made spaghetti and salad and served little individual bakery tarts for dessert.

“You were right about June having a knack for babies,” Renata was telling Mrs. M. “Today he went off into the other room to play with her without even so much as a backward glance at me. And then tonight he let her bathe him and put him down for bed with a bottle. I was amazed.”

“You’re lucky. I remember having a nanny once that the children simply loathed. One day I pretended to go out just so I could go down to the cellar and put my ear to the furnace duct, trying to hear if she beat them when I was gone.”

“And did she?” Renata asked.

“I don’t think so. My plan didn’t work as well as I hoped. I could hear every word they said when they were in the kitchen, but as soon as they moved to the playroom I only heard murmurs.
But it didn’t sound like she was being cruel. I think they just decided that she was repugnant for some reason—maybe she had foul breath, or a mole, who knows. Eventually 1 had to let her go because they made such a fuss about her. You’ll see,” Mrs. MacGregor said with a smile. “Your pleasant young man will find not-so-pleasant tactics for making his will known. They can be quite tyrannical, children.”

June felt a little shy tonight. Mrs. M. and Renata found so much to talk about. Renata seemed to spark a liveliness in Mrs. MacGregor, this gossiping about feeding schedules and sleeping patterns, remedies for colic and cradle cap. June hadn’t realized there was such a timelessness to the work of tending babies. She would have assumed that Mrs. M.’s experience would be some-how outdated next to Renata’s. But it wasn’t the case. As mothers, the two of them met across a divide of generations as casually as if it were a picket fence they shared between their yards. June knew they weren’t trying to make her feel left out; but she did feel very much the spectator, the uninitiated. Yet it was cozy, listening to them.

Renata turned to her. “June, that nice guy at the desk, Owen, was telling me you’re going to New York soon.”

June was embarrassed. Renata’s eyebrows were lifted in question. Mrs. MacGregor was looking at her closely. “Oh, no, not soon,” she stammered. “I just mentioned that if I ever really wanted to be a dancer, New York would be the place to do it.” Now she was lying about her lie.

“I didn’t realize that you were a dancer,” Renata said.

“Well, you know, I’d like to be. I’ve studied for years. And New York is where all the important dance companies are.”

“You wouldn’t quit school, would you, June?” Mrs. MacGregor asked.

“No, not if I didn’t have anything definite lined up. But I could always go down this summer and check things out, and then come back to school in the fall.” She was making it up as she went along, but it sounded good.

“That’s probably what Owen was referring to. He made it sound like you were leaving next week,” Renata said.

“I guess maybe I left him with that impression,” June said. “He was trying to get me to go skiing with him, and I didn’t really want to.”

“He seems like a nice young man,” Mrs. MacGregor observed.

“But you must admit, Eleanor,” Renata said, “he’s not exactly June’s type. Too, too …”

“Nerdy,” June said.

Renata laughed. “Exactly. We want someone a bit more fun for June.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a steady, reliable fellow. Fun wears out,” Mrs. MacGregor warned.

“Tell us about your husband, Eleanor,” Renata urged, pouring them more wine. “Was he steady and reliable, or was he fun?”

Mrs. MacGregor frowned slightly and sat back in her chair. June thought Renata had overstepped. You didn’t barge into Mrs. M.’s personal life unless you were invited. To her surprise, Mrs. MacGregor took a sip of wine and reflected.

“He was steady and reliable,
and
fun,” she pronounced. “He knew how to have a good time.” She seemed on the verge of continuing, then took another sip of wine and stopped. She looked at June. “It
is
important that they know how to make you laugh,” she said.

“But it’s also important that there’s more to them than that,” Renata said, a sudden emphasis behind her words. “Listen to Eleanor, June, not me.”

June and Mrs. MacGregor looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate. But Renata just stood and began clearing the table. June rose to help her.

“Well, ladies, should I open another bottle of wine?” Renata asked, holding up the empty bottle.

“Goodness, no,” Mrs. MacGregor said. “I shouldn’t be drinking at my age, and I don’t think June shouldn’t be drinking at
her
age.”

“And I shouldn’t be drinking at any age,” Renata said.

June had begun to notice that Renata never fully explained herself.
In fact, all three of them seemed to have little doors that they began to open to each other, but only partially. Just when you started to see around the door to what was inside, it closed. Even so, it was a wonderful evening. Sitting in Renata’s kitchen with the two of them made June feel part of something. On the way back to her apartment, June found herself humming the song Renata had taught her as they did the dishes, something about three Irish maids, and their hard Irish luck.

E
LEANOR WAS FORCED TO OPEN ANOTHER BOX
to get at something to wear to the Bryces’ Christmas party on the twenty-third. She had forgotten to
RSVP
, and when Marjorie Bryce called her, Eleanor had an unguarded moment and said she would come. She would have liked to wear her usual clothes, but she knew everyone else would be in finery. Pride overcame her reluctance. She fished out a cherry red blazer piped with black velvet, and wide-legged black silk pants. She made up her face carefully, and rolled her hair in a French twist instead of her customary chignon. No one would say Eleanor MacGregor was going downhill.

At a quarter of eight she looked longingly at her armchair and newly begun novel, and called a cab. She hadn’t driven in more than three months; she really should sell her car before it quit running.

Lionel greeted her at the door effusively, kissing her on both cheeks. She detested the affectation of a European kiss. A plain peck on the cheek was perfectly adequate. He led her through the crowded living room, taking her coat and saying, “Look who’s here!” to anyone who would listen. Lionel always was a fool. He wasted time in his court making unnecessary conversation and
telling jokes, so his docket was glutted with a huge backlog that never went away or seemed to trouble him. In family court, the nature of the cases often carried life-altering consequences for the children involved. Eleanor had considered it a duty and a kindness to deal with her cases briskly and without time-consuming pleasantries, so that her docket was kept current and her judgments delivered with dispatch.

The doorbell rang. Lionel deposited Eleanor with Marjorie, who effused over Eleanor’s outfit. Marjorie was a tiny woman who wore fitted little suits that looked as though they were sized for dolls. She was vain about her hundred-pound frame, and always made a point of complimenting styles she never wore, saying, “I could never get away with that; I would simply swim in it. You’d never find me!”

“Lovely house, Marjorie,” Eleanor said.

“Oh, you know, we have a tradition of doing it up. Every year I swear I’m going to leave half of the stuff down, but then we get the boxes from the attic and the decorations just sort of make their way to their usual places.”

Eleanor agreed. It had been precisely that way in her Belmont home. Every wreath had had its appointed spot, every angel and candle its habitual place. This year she had no decorations whatsoever except June’s strand of lights. The lights didn’t feel Christmasy to her so much as they seemed magical, making her stark-white walls blink pastels.

“You’re so smart to have scaled down, Eleanor. Lionel and I keep thinking we might sell and get a condo in town, but when it comes right down to it, I know I lack the courage. How did you ever fit everything into a little apartment?”

Somehow every time Marjorie offered praise it sounded back-handed. To converse with her was always to be slightly on the defensive, to say, “Oh but it’s not
that
little, you know,” so that Marjorie could come back with, “Of course it’s not,” as if she were generously sparing your feelings. Eleanor didn’t want to play the game. She said, “I sold practically everything, and when I got to
the new place I never unpacked my boxes.”

Marjorie blinked, then brightened. “Wouldn’t we all love to do that,” she chirped, steering Eleanor over to the drinks table.

Eleanor asked for a hot buttered rum and sipped it from a chair near the fire. As always, the Bryces’ house looked like a Talbots ad: wreaths in every window sporting giant tartan bows, a tall spruce Christmas tree with imported glass ornaments, and white votive candles flickering everywhere. Lionel was wearing a reindeer tie with a red lightbulb nose that actually lit up. Eleanor spent a minute speculating on how it worked, concluding that a tiny battery must be embedded directly in the fabric. The Bryces were very Cambridge. They voted Democrat but lived Republican, stabling horses in the country and putting all of their five children through the best private schools. Marjorie came from family money and made a career out of volunteer fund-raising for non-profit arts organizations. Their names were listed under “Angels” in symphony and opera programs every year.

Did Lionel remember, Eleanor wondered, making a pass at her at one of these Christmas parties years ago? Robert had been talking deep-sea fishing with someone in the kitchen and Lionel had asked her to come see a new painting hanging on the second floor. As she looked at the painting she felt Lionel’s arm encircle her waist, and the next thing she knew he had planted a sloppy, whiskey-soaked kiss on her lips. “You’re the finest thing going, Eleanor,” he whispered thickly in her ear. “I mean it; none of these women can hold a candle to you.” This included, presumably, his wife, downstairs arranging more canapés on a platter. Eleanor felt no awkwardness in shoving him away, saying, “Lionel, don’t be an ass,” and going downstairs to rejoin her husband. She neither held it against him nor felt flattered by the episode. Eleanor had to respect a man before she could feel any attraction to him. Intellectually Lionel was a buffoon; had been appointed to his seat on the court through his political connections, and she suspected he had gotten into Harvard the same way. He was, for her, a pleasant enough host or guest once or twice a year, but as a man, or a
real friend, she found him beneath notice. It never occurred to her that the rebuff had meant anything more to him than it had to her until one summer day at a barbecue in Belmont, Robert had teased her, saying, “You’re hard, El,” after she had said something sarcastic, and Lionel, who had been standing nearby, agreed, “Hard as nails.” It was the way he had said it, with real feeling, that led Eleanor to believe he might be thinking of something specific, like the kiss in front of the painting.

Sitting there now, masking her boredom as she listened on the margins of a conversation about the condominium market, Eleanor couldn’t imagine what she ever saw in these parties. She had loved dressing up for them, that was true. Robert and she had presented quite a stunning picture when they wanted to; he was magnificent in black tie, and she had a beautiful neck and shoulders that she often bared in an evening or cocktail dress. She passed most of those dresses on to her daughters—though, come to think of it, she had never seen either of them wear one. Helen would have to have them let out a size, and Janice didn’t lead the kind of life that required off-the-shoulder gowns. She wondered if anyone did anymore. Even tonight at the Bryces’ party, she and all the other women wore beaded sweaters or silk jackets with flowing pants rather than dresses. It was their age, she supposed. They were the last generation to dress formally for special occasions, which also meant they were of an age when it wasn’t attractive to show too much flesh.