Listening to Billie by Alice Adams

wanted to have this one.”

10 / And Some
Good News
    On a classically lovely day in early June, a Wednesday—the day after an unemployment appointment that was less frightening than usual—Eliza went down the slate steps to her mailbox, about midmorning. She found there mostly bills and advertisements, as usual. Macy’s, Saks, Catherine’s dentist. A mail order catalogue, some fliers from magazines soliciting subscriptions.
    Retrieved and spread out on her coffee table, the array of envelopes was discouraging: there was nothing among them to read. Which meant no respite or postponement of work, from either messy old unfinished poems or the perfectly blank paper on her desk upstairs. Idly and without hope, she looked at all those envelopes, and then, with a small rise of irritation, she thought, I
subscribe
to the
Nation
; why are they writing?
    Inside the
Nation
envelope was a short and graceful note: “We are accepting, with particular pleasure, your poem … an early issue … twelve dollars.”
    Involuntarily, in disbelief, Eliza’s hands flew up to cover her mouth as she stared at the small and important piece of paper. And then happiness like new blood flooded through all her veins. It was a moment of pure joy; she recognized and greeted it as such, looking out to the pale blue spring sky, the fluttering gray-green eucalyptus leaves, and much farther awaythe rising wrinkled green hills of Marin County. Pure joy, and a moment that she would remember, would recapture, resee.
    And now—whom to tell—to call?
    Catherine was in school. Daria was in Italy, recuperating from her miscarriage. Harry Argent was in Morocco again, and she had no current lover.
    Josephine? At the thought of phoning her mother and telling her this news, the familiar web of emotions began to knot and tangle in her chest: fear, guilt, affection, apprehension, anger. She dialed the well-known number: the house in Maine, which Josephine had gone to open for the summer.
    The phone rang and rang, while Eliza pictured the house perfectly: the large rooms, long windows looking out to the June-sparkling lake, or, on the other side, back to the pale and green leafed-out apple trees. She could even smell that slight odor of disuse—perhaps less an odor than a need of air—that came from a neglected, although immaculately clean and polished house at the start of summer.
    “Darling!” said Josephine, “how lovely to hear from you, such a surprise. And not calling collect!” She was out of breath, but insistently conversational. “What time of day is it out there? I can never remember which way it goes.”
    Not saying: I haven’t called you collect for at least ten years (although knowing that she will say this, in her mind, to Josephine, repeatedly; she is fated to such unspoken fights with her mother), Eliza said, “It’s eleven-fifteen. Mother, I have some really good news.” And Eliza told her the news.
    “Oh, Eliza, how marvelous! I’m absolutely delighted for you. But you didn’t say that you’d been writing poetry.”
    “Well, it sounds sort of silly.”
    “Not silly at all, when you impress a magazine like the
New Republic.
”
    “The
Nation
, Mother.”
    “Oh, I meant the
Nation.
It’s like the problem I used to have: no one could remember whether I had a piece in
Harper’s
or the
Atlantic.
Darling, I am so glad you called. I had a cardfrom Daria this morning. They’re in Florence, and she seems to be feeling enormously better.”
    “Oh good.”
    “Well, I did think Italy would help. And they do seem to do it in style. I must say that Smith has rather grand notions.” And then, unfortunately in the same breath, she asked, “How much do they pay for poetry? The
Nation
, right?”
    “Right. Oh, not much. In fact, not much at all. I may take Catherine out for a Chinese lunch, or something.”
    “Oh, well, money.”
    That’s easy for you to say: Eliza prevented herself from saying this to her mother, who had always