American Appetites by Joyce Carol Oates

about him, commingled with a sweet wine smell. A guilty man, Glynnis thinks. An adulterer.
    She says, calmly, “Something is wrong, isn’t it? Who did you call?”
    â€œI tried to call Stanley Brisbane . . . but no one answered. I’ve been trying to get through to him most of the day.”
    â€œWho is Stanley Brisbane?”
    â€œMy co-chairman for the Budapest conference in October . . . he and I are organizing the world population symposium . . . we have to get speakers, panels. There is a minor crisis, a budget problem; I’ve been trying to reach him in Chicago for two days, actually, with no—”
    Glynnis cries, “Ian, please do not speak of that now .”
    When they return to the dining room, it is to discover, to Glynnis’s chagrin, that several of their guests are on their feet, ready to leave; and Ian apologizes, not without a certain measure of charm, explaining about the telephone call, his futile attempts to reach Stanley Brisbane, the political scientist, of Chicago, the problems he has been having with Brisbane overall, in organizing their part of the conference, and so on and so forth, glossing over the awkward moment and making everything all right, or nearly. Denis, in whom drink arouses belligerence and a curious stubborn loyalty to friends, says, “You should know better than to get involved with Stanley: the man is spoiled rotten.” Denis proceeds then to tell one of his convoluted and, in this instance, not entirely coherent tales, and the Hawleys and the Kuhns, though prepared to leave, linger; and everyone laughs at the posturings and pretensions of Stanley Brisbane, of Chicago, of whom, until now, Glynnis has never heard. But she laughs, with the others. And pours herself another tiny glass of crème de menthe. So lethal, and so delicious.
    BY THE TIME the taxi comes for Marvis it is 1:20 A.M . Glynnis, switching off the lights in the kitchen, dining room, living room, sips a glass of leftover Bernkasteler Doktor Auslese 1982, swaying, in her stockinged feet, with exhaustion and exhilaration: for Ian McCullough’s fiftieth birthday has been a great success . . . a memorable evening, as everyone said . . . the food superb . . . no one quite like Glynnis. Ian, helping clear the dining room table, swaying too on his feet, was apologetic, contrite, speaking slowly, enunciating each syllable, his way when he has had too much to drink and doesn’t know it. Saying for the third or fourth time, “I am sorry, I hadn’t realized, I didn’t mean to be rude, I seem to have lost track of. . . .”
    And then Bianca comes home; and Glynnis feels compelled to speak with her, if only to show her, the hurtful little bitch, how little her absence meant: how little, in truth, her mother had been hurt by her selfish behavior. “And did you enjoy yourself, with—who was it, Kim?” Glynnis begins.
    And Bianca says quickly, “Yes. Kim. And, yes, I did”—peeling off her sweater—“and how was Daddy’s party here?”
    â€œDaddy’s party was fine,” Glynnis says, betraying no irony, no anger, not even reproach, as, all but ignoring her, Bianca stretches, and yawns, and shakes her head as a dog shakes its head, a handsome young woman whose vision of herself, so far as Glynnis can determine, is deliberately crude, flat-footed, clumsy, the obverse of her mother’s style, it might be said, and in defiance of it. “Where did you eat finally?” Glynnis asks.
    And Bianca says, shrugging, “Nowhere special.”
    Glynnis says, “Yes, but where?”
    And Bianca turns away, bored, sullen, belching beer. “One of the usual places.”
    Why do you hate me? Glynnis thinks. Why, when I love you, when I would love you, except for your opposition?
    Mother and daughter are standing just outside the door to Bianca’s room. It is twenty to two; Ian has