Away from Home by Rona Jaffe

She thought guiltily. I couldn’t even talk to that woman. Or she couldn’t talk to me . Why can’t I be so involved in my children that I don’t care about anything else? But she thought she knew the answer. Roger had never, even when he was a baby, hidden his face in her skirt and clung and scowled at the world, and she was grateful for it. Perhaps it was more difficult to keep an affectionate distance and feel lonely than to have a child who was so jealous that he could not even allow you to converse with a stranger.
    She had some difficulty persuading Roger and Julie to come out of the water, but at last they were dried and dressed and she took them to the clubhouse. They found a table on the gallery that bordered the second floor and had a view of the green golf course and the mountains. Helen liked having lunch with her children. Their conversation always amused and surprised her. So when she saw Mil Burns coming toward her with her own two younger children in tow, Helen was not altogether glad.
    “Hi,” Mil called. She always sounded a little wry, even when she was saying hello. “Have you got room there for me and my brood?”
    “Of course,” Helen said. “We’ll get another chair. Here.” She moved a chair from a neighboring empty table.
    “Whew!” Mil exclaimed, sinking into a chair and fanning her face with a paper fan printed with the advertisement of a local jewelry store. “Governess’s day off. You too?”
    “Not exactly,” Helen said. “I needed her to do some things in town.”
    Mil’s two younger children were boys, one the same age as Julie, the other a little older. Confronted by two boys, besides her brother, Julie immediately became very quiet and ladylike and self-conscious, folding her hands on the table in front of her and staring at her water glass. “Why don’t you children go to the buffet and find something you like?” Helen said.
    “Go on,” Mil said, not unaffectionately. “Beat it.”
    The boys were up immediately, and Julie followed behind, looking rather like a terrified girl going to her first dance. “Aren’t you coming, Mom?”
    “In a very short while,” Helen said. “We’re going to have a drink first. Please see that you little brother doesn’t take only dessert.”
    Mil waved for the waiter. “Last night the lights went out,” she said. “As usual. They were out for forty minutes. Naturally, everything in the freezer started to thaw. Those stupid girls didn’t know what to do with the food. They started to put it back. I had to tell them to cook it. Now we have enough roast beef for a siege.”
    “You could always give another dinner party,” Helen said. “I’m sure your friends would be delighted.”
    Mil fanned her face and neck. “No, thank you. I nearly had a nervous breakdown from that one. You know why everyone has two maids in Brazil? Because one is too stupid to do the work of one, that’s why. It takes two to do the work of one, and then only if you’re lucky.”
    “Mine are wonderful,” Helen said mildly.
    “Oh, sure. Like laundry. I told Phil if he didn’t get me a washing machine from somewhere I was going to leave this stinking place. You think I’m joking? But you can’t get them. Did you ever hear of anything so primitive as doing all the wash for a family of five by hand? ”
    “The maids do it,” Helen said. “You don’t. Back home hand laundry is considered very fancy.” She didn’t mean to enter into an argument, but somehow today she felt as though the world was full of stupid, limited people, leading their own little lives oblivious of anyone else. She didn’t know why she was so irritable. Perhaps it was the heat.
    “I tried sending Phil’s shirts out to a washerwoman,” Mil said. “My next-door neighbor had one she said was wonderful. So this Negro woman arrives, and she takes the laundry up to her house in the favellas somewhere, and four days later it comes back all nice and clean. I keep sending it,