We Were the Mulvaneys. Joyce Carol Oates

Чтение книги онлайн.

       THE REVELATION

      “Cor-rinne! Hello.”

      Wednesday morning, a harried errand-morning, and there was Mrs. Bethune the doctor’s wife approaching Corinne, with a smile and a wave of greeting, in the Mt. Ephraim Post Office. Not one of Corinne’s women friends.

      Keep in motion, don’t slacken and you’ll escape Corinne instructed herself, smiling vaguely at Mrs. Bethune even as she lifted a hand in an ambiguous gesture—hello, or hasty good-bye?

      Lydia Bethune was one of the inner circle of the Mt. Ephraim Country Club, to which the Mulvaneys had belonged for the past three years; always perfectly dressed and groomed, one of that species of attractive, capable women whose very being seemed a reproach to Corinne. For an ordinary weekday morning in Mt. Ephraim, Lydia was wearing, not wool slacks and a soiled parka, like Corinne, but a lovely soft russet-dyed rabbit-fur jacket, one of those unspeakable “fun” furs, and expensive-looking leather boots that shone as if they’d been polished only minutes before. Her hair was beauty-salon frosted-blond, cut stylishly short; her makeup was impeccable; thin smile-lines radiated outward from her pink-lipsticked mouth like Muffin’s whiskers, that seemed to quiver with emotion when he looked up at you. Lydia was a familiar Mt. Ephraim presence, active in charities including of course the hospital women’s auxiliary of which Corinne was a member; her daughter Priscilla was in Patrick’s class at the high school, a flashy girl with a sullen smile—pretty enough, Corinne granted, but thank God not hers.

      The inward-swinging door of the post office kept opening, customers kept coming in, Corinne’s escape was blocked. No choice but to stand and chat with Lydia Bethune who was a nice woman, a well-intentioned woman, but who carried with her an aura of perfumed complacency that set Corinne’s teeth on edge.

      “Corinne, how are you?”

      “Oh, well—you know, busy.”

      “Bart says he sees Michael at the club often, on the squash court especially, and I have lunch there sometimes, about once a week. But we never see you there.”

      Corinne murmured a vague apology. True, she rarely went to the Mt. Ephraim Country Club, despite the ridiculous six-hundred-dollar yearly dues Michael paid. She wasn’t a woman who golfed, in warmer weather; she had no use for the tennis courts, or the indoor or outdoor pools; if she wanted exercise, she had plenty of house-and farmwork to do. Above all, she wasn’t a woman who “lunched”; the thought made her smile. Dressing up to have expensive lunches, with drinks, with women like Lydia Bethune and her friends!—not quite Corinne Mulvaney’s style. Every few weeks, Michael insisted that they have dinner on a Saturday evening with one or two other couples, or maybe Sunday brunch, with the children, but that was about the extent of Corinne’s involvement. And even then she went reluctantly, like one of her own adolescent children dragooned into something against his will, complaining that she hadn’t the right clothes to wear, or her hair wasn’t right, or she had nothing to say to those people.

      Don’t be ridiculous, Michael chided, we’re those people ourselves.

      Lydia Bethune was chattering, smiling—a smile that made Corinne uneasy, it looked so forced. “Priscilla says Marianne was so pretty at the prom. I saw the pictures in the paper—”

      “Oh, yes.” Corinne’s cheeks burned. Her daughter was so much Corinne herself, how could she accept such a compliment?

      “I hope you took photographs?”

      “Well—yes.”

      “And—” Lydia was a bit rattled, breathless, “—how is your family?”

      “My family?” Corinne drew a blank. “Why, the last I knew, they were fine.”

      What an awkward encounter. Corinne stood miserably balancing a heavy grocery bag in the crook of one arm and her catchall tote bag crammed СКАЧАТЬ