What Love Sees by Susan Vreeland Page A

passions. They were the same as Jean’s—music, opera, books. Icy and her mother talked about politics, too, something Jean never heard about at home. Together Mrs. Eastman and the girls listened to operas on the radio and talked about composers and musicians and authors. “I know everyone says Jeannette Antoine’s not as great as Lily Pons,” Jean said one night. “I guess they’re right, but I still like her.”
    “Jean, if you think Jeannette Antoine is good, then you think that,” Mrs. Eastman said flatly. “It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Hold your ground. Your ear is as good as anyone’s. Later if you change your mind, that’s okay too. Say what you think even if it’s different from what others think.”
    She liked that in Mrs. Eastman, that spunk. After Mrs. Eastman went to bed, Icy and Jean huddled on the floor wrapped in a blanket tent to catch heat through the furnace grating from the family below. “Your mother is so easy to be with. I bet you can talk to her about anything.”
    “Just about.”
    “Sex?”
    Icy nodded.
    “I’ve never discussed sex with my Mother. It’s not just that she’s a New Englander. She’s always so distant, about everything.”
    “Your mother’s very much a lady.”
    “Even to Lucy and me. Maybe I’d be too embarrassed to talk to her anyway. I’d be curious about something, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.”
    “So, ask me. Not that I’m an authority.”
    Jean’s questions poured out: What does making love feel like? What does a man’s organ look like? How do you know whether you really love a man? How do you know when you’re pregnant? Can you have sex when you’re pregnant?
    “I feel so naïve not knowing this, but what kind of women have sex appeal? I mean, is it only physical qualities or is it some kind of aura?”
    “Both. For some men it’s more subtle, how you move, how you look at them, what you say.”
    “That I know.”
    “For others, the more simple-minded, it’s just the size of your breasts.”
    “Well?”
    “Quite adequate, silly. Especially since you’re so petite and have a small waist.”
    The Eastmans were a liberating influence. Mother and Father didn’t take too well to these intimate visits with a family outside their social circle, but Jean went anyway. “I like them,” she protested gently. She knew what she really meant, though she would never say it to Mother. The Eastmans filled a need left empty at Hickory Hill.
    Few of Jean’s other friends were in Bristol. The Hill crowd was in college or already married. Occasionally she spent a Saturday with Lorraine, playing piano together at Hickory Hill, but that wasn’t often because Lorraine was busy with two jobs, saving to get married. Once they went to a Saturday matinee of Gone With The Wind . They sat in the last row and Lorraine described the action to Jean in whispers. By the end of the movie, Lorraine was hoarse and both girls were shaken.
    “You look pretty bleary-eyed,” Bill said when he picked them up.
    Jean groaned. “We feel like we’ve been though the war.”
    “The burning of Atlanta, all those war casualties, birthin’ babies. No wonder our eyes are red,” Lorraine said.
    “Here, ladies, hand over your hankies. Let me ring them out.”
    “Quit teasing, Bill. Ginny would have cried, too,” Jean protested, referring to Bill’s fiancée.
    “But wasn’t Clark Gable divine?” he said, mimicking her.
    “No!” they wailed. “He left her!”
    “You mean you didn’t like it, all that passion and sugar- coated history?”
    “No. We loved it,” they said, laughing at themselves.
    Occasionally Dody spent a weekend at Hickory Hill. Vassar wasn’t too far away. Sometimes Dody got dates for Jean with men she met at West Point mixers. Once after Dody had been home in California for the summer, she burst into Jean’s room and sat on her bed.
    “Jean, I met this man at home.”
    “So, what else is new?”
    “Listen a minute. He lives