We Were the Mulvaneys. Joyce Carol Oates

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       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 with library books in the other. Her parka hood had slipped so she had to tilt her head at an angle to look at Lydia Bethune; if they were to continue their conversation, she really should lower the hood, out of courtesy. Oh but she yearned to escape! Lydia had dredged up another subject, a mutual woman acquaintance who’d just had a cyst removed from a breast, and Corinne murmured yes Florence was lucky it had been benign, trying to back off, edging toward the door. She glanced at her watch and gave a little cry of alarm—“Oh, my God! The parking meter!”

      So Corinne made her escape, probably rather rudely. She heard Lydia Bethune call “Good-bye” after her but she did no more than waggle a hand, not glancing back.

      Now what had that been all about? She discovered she’d been perspiring inside the nylon parka. Damp circles the size of silver dollars had formed on the palms of her hands.

       Not those kind of people. We’re not!

      Everyone and everything associated with the Mt. Ephraim Country Club made Corinne uneasy. And when she was uneasy she was resentful, even angry.

      She hadn’t wanted to join, of course. It had all been Michael Sr.’s idea.

      Already Michael belonged to the Mt. Ephraim Chamber of Commerce, where for years he was one of the younger, more vigorous and more active members, and he belonged to the philantrophic-minded if not very effectual Mt. Ephraim Odd Fellows Association, and he belonged to the Chautauqua Sportsmen’s Club for “social and business” reasons, but for more years than he would have wished to acknowledge (at least fifteen) he’d wanted very badly to be invited to join the Mt. Ephraim Country Club which was the most “selective”—the most “prestigious”—certainly the most expensive—of all; where the richer, more prominent and influential of local citizens belonged, some of whom Michael Mulvaney did in fact count as friends, or anyway friendly acquaintances—the Boswells, the Mercers, the MacIntyres, the Spohrs, the Lundts, the Pringles, the Breuers, the Bethunes. There were not many prominent families in Chautauqua County, still fewer in Mt. Ephraim, but Michael Mulvaney knew them, knew the men; they knew him, and liked him; it wasn’t really an exaggeration to claim they were all equals. This, Michael felt strongly in his heart. He deserved to be a member of the Mt. Ephraim Country Club. He deserved the privilege of playing golf there if he wished, of bringing his family to the Sunday brunch buffet, of having dinner in the elegant atrium dining room overlooking СКАЧАТЬ