lukewarm coffee and watching for the arrival of the Shapiro van with a feeling of dread that coalesced and spread through her abdomen like an oil spill. Above, she could hear Leonard’s footsteps as he crossed from the bathroom to the bedroom. She could feel each footstep deep in her belly, low and rhythmic like the clacking of railroad cars, like the ticking of a time bomb.
What had she been thinking?
She asked herself this as she sipped her coffee, her bleary eyes fixed on the street where, at any minute, the old blue Shapiro van would come careening around the corner. After that lunch meeting with Virginia Broadwell she had convinced herself that Mona Shapiro would be the perfect choice to cater. She had assured herself that given the fact she couldn’t find anyone else at this late date, she had no choice but to hire her. But now, a week later, with the reality of her decision weighing heavily on her conscience, Lavonne realized there had been a deeper, more profound motive to hiring Mrs. Shapiro. Her plan had seemed so perfect, her revenge so noble, a blow struck for her mother and Nita, and Mrs. Shapiro, and all the other sweet, docile women she had known in her life who seemed incapable of fighting back. It had seemed so courageous that day and now it all seemed foolish and immature and extremely disloyal to Leonard. What exactly did she have to complain about? She asked herself this again, trying to pinpoint the exact cause of her unhappiness. She lived in an expensive house, her daughters attended an expensive private school, her husband saw to it that they lacked nothing in the way of material comforts and still she was unhappy. Her problems, which had seemed that day so burdensome, seemed to her now, observed in the bright, clear light of her husband’s coming embarrassment, insignificant and petty.
She was not a champion of downtrodden women. She was a bored housewife with nothing better to do than plan petty revenges on a husband who did not deserve them.
N ITA ROSE FROM bed with a dull headache. Her eyes felt swollen. Her skull felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. Images seemed hazy, sounds seemed muffled. Below her in the kitchen she could hear Charles shouting at the children. This was a big day for him and he was as nervous as a crippled bridegroom.
Poor Charles,
she thought dejectedly.
Poor, poor Charles.
“Goddamn it, boy, get that mess cleaned up! There’s a party here today! You don’t have the sense God gave a grasshopper!” Nita listened to him shouting at their son in much the same way she imagined Charles’s father had shouted at him.
Everybody in town knew stories of the old judge, how he’d been born the grandson of a tenant farmer, the son of a hardware clerk; how the boy had bettered himself through a scholarship to the Barron Hall School and later the University of Georgia, and later still, the University of Georgia law school. Everybody knew how he’d built that big old house out on the river and filled it with the carcasses of animals he’d killed in far-off exotic places like Zimbabwe and Montana; how in thirty-five years of marriage the judge and Mrs. Broadwell had managed to produce only one child, Charles, who cried when he lost at sports and never bagged anything bigger than a goat. When the judge died, Charles locked himself in his bedroom and wept for two days. He had refused to eat and refused to sleep. Virginia had gone away shaking her head as if she had no idea what troubled him, but Nita had known. His daddy had died before Charles could prove himself a man. Now, eighteen years later, he was still trying to prove himself, surrounded by his daddy’s old friends and clients, trying to prove to the people of Ithaca he was every bit the man the old judge had been.
“Go to your room, boy!” Charles shouted from the kitchen. “Go to your room and don’t come out until I tell you to.”
The feeling of weightlessness that had occurred that day
What had she been thinking?
She asked herself this as she sipped her coffee, her bleary eyes fixed on the street where, at any minute, the old blue Shapiro van would come careening around the corner. After that lunch meeting with Virginia Broadwell she had convinced herself that Mona Shapiro would be the perfect choice to cater. She had assured herself that given the fact she couldn’t find anyone else at this late date, she had no choice but to hire her. But now, a week later, with the reality of her decision weighing heavily on her conscience, Lavonne realized there had been a deeper, more profound motive to hiring Mrs. Shapiro. Her plan had seemed so perfect, her revenge so noble, a blow struck for her mother and Nita, and Mrs. Shapiro, and all the other sweet, docile women she had known in her life who seemed incapable of fighting back. It had seemed so courageous that day and now it all seemed foolish and immature and extremely disloyal to Leonard. What exactly did she have to complain about? She asked herself this again, trying to pinpoint the exact cause of her unhappiness. She lived in an expensive house, her daughters attended an expensive private school, her husband saw to it that they lacked nothing in the way of material comforts and still she was unhappy. Her problems, which had seemed that day so burdensome, seemed to her now, observed in the bright, clear light of her husband’s coming embarrassment, insignificant and petty.
She was not a champion of downtrodden women. She was a bored housewife with nothing better to do than plan petty revenges on a husband who did not deserve them.
N ITA ROSE FROM bed with a dull headache. Her eyes felt swollen. Her skull felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. Images seemed hazy, sounds seemed muffled. Below her in the kitchen she could hear Charles shouting at the children. This was a big day for him and he was as nervous as a crippled bridegroom.
Poor Charles,
she thought dejectedly.
Poor, poor Charles.
“Goddamn it, boy, get that mess cleaned up! There’s a party here today! You don’t have the sense God gave a grasshopper!” Nita listened to him shouting at their son in much the same way she imagined Charles’s father had shouted at him.
Everybody in town knew stories of the old judge, how he’d been born the grandson of a tenant farmer, the son of a hardware clerk; how the boy had bettered himself through a scholarship to the Barron Hall School and later the University of Georgia, and later still, the University of Georgia law school. Everybody knew how he’d built that big old house out on the river and filled it with the carcasses of animals he’d killed in far-off exotic places like Zimbabwe and Montana; how in thirty-five years of marriage the judge and Mrs. Broadwell had managed to produce only one child, Charles, who cried when he lost at sports and never bagged anything bigger than a goat. When the judge died, Charles locked himself in his bedroom and wept for two days. He had refused to eat and refused to sleep. Virginia had gone away shaking her head as if she had no idea what troubled him, but Nita had known. His daddy had died before Charles could prove himself a man. Now, eighteen years later, he was still trying to prove himself, surrounded by his daddy’s old friends and clients, trying to prove to the people of Ithaca he was every bit the man the old judge had been.
“Go to your room, boy!” Charles shouted from the kitchen. “Go to your room and don’t come out until I tell you to.”
The feeling of weightlessness that had occurred that day
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