What Men Say by Joan Smith Page A

Loretta’s bookshelves. “You don’t mind?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder. “I’m always interested in other people’s books.”
    â€œGo ahead,” said Loretta and watched as Janet took down a book, read the synopsis on the inside cover and put it back.
    â€œHave you read this?” She turned and held out another, this time a Virago paperback.
    â€œWhat is it?” Loretta leaned forward to get a better look and recognized a novel by Elizabeth von Arnim. “Mmm, no, I don’t think so. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s mine. Let’s have a look.” She held out her hand and took the book from Janet. “I thought so—it’s Bridget’s.” She turned it over and read the blurb aloud in a rapid monotone: “‘First published da-de-da . . . forceful study of the power of men . . . weakness of women when they love . . .’ I read another one,
Enchanted April,
and she said this was better. I think it’s the one about her marriage to—I’ve forgotten his name.”
    She placed the book on the low table in front of her, thinking she should at least offer to return it to Bridget. They had fallen into the habit of lending each other things, clothes as well as books, soon after Loretta moved to Oxford; she had gone to her first formal dinner, in the cavernous dining hall of one of the grandest colleges, where the only illumination came from candles flickering above tarnished silver, wearing a black lace cocktail dress which had originally belonged to Bridget’s aunt. She had been quite unprepared for the random, possibly mischievous placement, which had abandoned her to the mercies of a mechanical engineer, a former employee of British Rail who had talked about faults in railway engines throughout the first twocourses. The dress had at least given her the confidence to regard her plight with detached amusement.
    â€œSorry,” she said, realizing Janet had spoken. She put up a hand and pushed a few stray hairs back from her forehead, twisting them under the elastic band and wishing she had brushed it out before Janet arrived. “I haven’t been sleeping very well . . . What did you say?”
    Janet shook her head. “Nothing.” She draped herself gracefully on the sofa, glancing at her watch in a slightly surreptitious way which suggested she had had enough of their conversation and was impatient for Bridget to arrive. “Do you think Sam has a record? I suppose he’s too young to have been a draft dodger?”
    â€œI should have thought so. I don’t know his exact age.” Loretta tried to remember when the last American troops left Vietnam—1971?
    â€œMe neither. I don’t know much about him at all, do you?”
    Loretta said noncommittally: “Well, he hasn’t been here long. I know he’s got a mother in Boston, though she didn’t come to the wedding . . . He seems a perfectly ordinary—”
    â€œA perfectly ordinary what?” Janet prompted when Loretta failed to finish the sentence.
    â€œOh, I’m not the person to talk to about Sam,” Loretta said with feigned lightness, looking down and scratching at a minute paint stain on her jeans. She was unprepared for the rush of emotion unleashed by this trivial conversation, and her ears strained for the sound of Bridget’s key in the front door to end it.
    â€œI didn’t realize you disliked him so much.”
    â€œI don’t, I—it’s just sour grapes on my part.” Loretta dragged at the elastic band, tears springing to her eyes as it brought a knot of torn hair with it. “Bridget’s my closest friend, I’ve known her for, oh, ten years”—shepicked savagely at the band, trying to unwind strands of hair from it—“and of course there’ve been times when we saw less of each other, but it’s been such a shock, the way she’s