Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs Page B

window. They had some gray silk blouses that one must possess to match one’s gray wool slacks and one’s peach and gray knit sweater. Soft and cool and rich and secure. Gucci, in a direct rebuke, had forsaken the calm, understated colors and was pushing red. Red silk, red wool, red suede. Red to go with one’s bright, multi-textured life.
    “Hi,” said a voice next to me. I glanced away from the window, half expecting to see Claymore grinning at me. Instead, it was a stranger, a man about my age, a pleasant, ordinary-looking, brown-eyed stranger who wore a navy blue overcoat exactly like Bob’s. “Are you buying anything?” he asked. His smile was friendly.
    “Are you selling anything?” I responded. His expression changed almost microscopically, only his eyes glazing over, the curtain descending to hide the human being; my four words had transmogrified me from a person to a piece of ass.
    “What are you in the market for?” His voice thickened.
    “Actually, I’m just window shopping,” I said, smiling at him. He looked a little confused. “I was just being facetious when I asked you what you were selling.”
    “Oh, facetious. Do you work around here?”
    “No.”
    “Oh. By the way, my name’s Jonathan.”
    “Hi. Judith. You know, we sound like refugees from a first-grade reader. ‘See Judith and Jonathan. See them jump.’”
    He grinned, the curtain lifting from his eyes for the second act. “Can I buy you a drink?”
    “No thanks. I have a lunch date.”
    “Can I have your number?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “I’m married.” He looked skeptical, so I raised my left hand and passed it before his eyes. “I’m very married.”
    “Why are all the nice ones married?” he asked, talking to a red suede jacket in the window.
    “Nice meeting you, Jonathan. I have to go. Bye.”
    “Judith. Hey, wait. Would you like my number? I mean, in case it doesn’t work out.”
    I felt startled that I was tempted by his offer, surprised that it didn’t really sound so terribly absurd. In case it doesn’t work out.
    “No,” I answered, somewhat hesitantly, my timing barely within the limits of propriety. I should have snapped out a brusque “No thanks.” Still, I managed a small, regretful smile and added: “But I appreciate the offer.” I headed back into the tide of Fifth Avenue pedestrians, savoring a feeling of wistfulness and elation as I moved toward Claymore—and his safe connection with Bob. But how extraordinarily pleasurable it had been, that ordinary pick-up attempt by an ordinary man, the sort of thing that must happen to other women all the time. Just Jonathan and me. For the first time since my wedding, I had spoken with a man who knew nothing about my background, nothing of my marital status. Jonathan had seen me naked and unformed; I could create myself.
    I had been married for ten years, nearly all my adult life, and for the first three or four I had viewed even a serious discussion with another man as an implicit act of faithlessness. Men became asexual beings who happened to wear their vaginas inside out. And soon after that, after leaving graduate school with its occasional tempter in Harris tweeds or washed-out jeans, I had only Bob. I met other women’s husbands at parties, at community events, but amidst the laughter, the gossip, I remained Bob’s wife. I chatted and chuckled with shopkeepers, doctors, dentists, and insurance agents, and paid them with Bob’s money. Thus he was, even by default, the only man in my life. Even my friend Claymore was a friend I saw only in Bob’s presence; this was the first time I was going to be alone with him.
    I paused at the corner of Fifth Avenue, waiting obediently for the light to change. My left hand, with its heavy gold wedding band, was stuffed deep into my coat pocket. Somehow, I thought, I had floated through a revolution in women’s rights; I had embraced its rhetoric, been deeply touched by its insights, and yet remained