Early Warning

1969

MINNIE HAD INSTIGATED a spring-vacation trip to the East Coast for junior and senior honors students — first New York, Empire State Building, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Statue of Liberty; then the train to Washington, D.C., where they would go to the Congress, have a tour of the White House, a trip to the monuments, and a day at the Smithsonian. Only two of the fourteen kids had ever been on a plane before. Minnie herself had flown once, to Dallas, for a conference. She said to Joe, “Do we pin the ‘Country Bumpkin’ signs to our chests or our behinds?” Joe laughed. Annie, who was sixteen but had the demeanor of a fourteen-year-old, was an honors student; she and Minnie were going ahead of time and staying two nights with Frank and Andy. Janet, now a freshman at Sweet Briar, would be driving up for the weekend. Rosanna maintained, “Janet has adopted herself into Lillian’s family, though she acknowledges Frank and Andy in a distant sort of way.” That was kids, if you asked Minnie.

When the plane took off, Annie put her two books obediently into the pocket of the seat back in front of her. When they were flying, she read them like clockwork, half an hour for The Mill on the Floss, half an hour for Love to the Rescue. Barbara Cartland. Well, better than television, Minnie thought. Minnie smoothed her wool skirt over her knees. That, too, was new — orange. Minnie could never have imagined herself in an orange skirt with an orange-and-green matching sweater. Annie had gone to Younkers and come out with a new brown dress; Minnie sometimes wondered what Annie would be like if she hadn’t lived all her life with the assistant principal (and now, as of next year, principal, the first-ever female principal in Usher County). Annie was soft and affectionate, a bit of a mouth breather, not much like Lois, who did everything right, including sleep in the same room with her husband and show kindness to her children. Lois acted toward Minnie with total correctness, but gave off no warmth that Minnie could see. Annie, Minnie thought, was, as the kids at school would say, clueless, though appealingly so. Minnie knew it was her job to prod her niece, to give her a little spine so that she might make something of her life. The stewardess announced that they were about to land; Minnie realized that she was not going to be able to distract herself from the marriage of Frank Langdon and Andrea Langdon for much longer.

Andy was waiting at the gate. Minnie saw her gaze take in Annie and then switch to her as she stepped forward and held out her arms. Minnie gave her a brief hug, and Andy said, “What a bright and cheerful outfit you have on.”

Andy herself was wearing slender high-heeled boots, black stockings, and a black belted wool coat, way beyond cheerful. Minnie began to see the humorous side of this visit.

Andy said, “Arthur and Lillian should be here by dinner. Nedra is making a leg of lamb. Is that all right? So many of Janet’s friends nearly pass out at the idea of eating a poor little lamb. Annie, you look so much like your aunt Claire. Are these your bags? I’ve parked right out front. So easy. Newark is much more accessible than LaGuardia. Frank should be home when we get there. I thought when he got out of the oil business he would be home more. I thought weapons would have a more relaxed schedule.” She took the keys out of her purse and left Minnie and Annie to wrestle their bags into the trunk of the Cadillac, yellow with a black convertible top.

The trip from the airport was a lesson in the steepness of the socioeconomic slope on the Eastern Seaboard. Seventeen miles, according to the odometer, that began in industrial wasteland, ended in pastures of heaven. The driveway was long, and heavily shaded. Andy pulled up in front of a sprawling contemporary house with overhanging eaves and tall, narrow windows. It looked like the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Mason City, though not quite as dark and heavy. Andy and Annie tromped right in, but Minnie stopped to gaze at the blooming forsythia. She saw over the hedge that the neighbors had both a tennis court and a swimming pool. She vowed not to look impressed. Nedra came out of the kitchen and said, “How are you, Miss Frederick? I put you in the upstairs guest room.”

Minnie’s outfit clashed with every item of furniture in the whole house, so she changed into plain old black trousers and a navy-blue sweater. She was coming down the staircase when Frank walked in. She hadn’t seen him since Claire’s wedding. He looked gaunt, she thought. When he took off his hat, he was bald over the top. She had only time to think that the shape of his head was quite attractive before he glanced her way and smiled.

He said, “I sense a lurker in the bushes.”

“Just an old nanny goat chewing a few leaves.”

He gave her a warm hug. Andy appeared with a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She said, “She made Baked Alaska.”

“Oh, I love that,” said Minnie.

“The Bergstroms invented Baked Alaska back in Eidsvoll, in 1234,” said Andy.

“Really?” exclaimed Minnie.

“No. But they called it a Norski omelette. My aunt always spread the sponge cake with lingonberry jam.” She sipped her drink. Frank kissed her on the forehead and went to the back of the house.

Andy said, “Bourbon, Scotch, vodka, gin, Burgundy, beer?”

“What are you having?”

“Old Fashioned. Only one. Only one. Only one.” Andy smiled.

Minnie said, “Maybe later.”

Andy turned the ice in her glass with her finger, then said, “How is everyone?”

“Fine,” said Minnie. “How do the boys like their military school?”

“Oh, they don’t. That’s the point. They had to go somewhere where the adults are one step ahead of them.”

“But they’re doing all right? That place has a good reputation for keeping the kids active and organized.”

“I would have sent them to Summerhill, in England—”

“Good heavens,” said Minnie.

“My psychiatrist knows A. S. Neill and respects him. He’s withstood lots of unfair criticism. Frank wouldn’t hear of it, though.”

Minnie was glad of that.

Now Frank came in from the back of the house, just as the door opened to reveal Tina and, behind her, Janet. Tina was wearing black trousers and a shirt dyed black with woodcut flowers in blue and green. Over this, a cape, also in black, that fell to her knees. She was a petite version of Arthur — brown hair, brown eyes — but serious, not playful. Janet had all of a sudden matured. She was Joe as a girl — blue eyes, serious face, full lips, gentle mouth. She was wearing navy-surplus pants with bell bottoms and thirteen buttons, a black turtleneck sweater, and a navy-surplus peacoat. Her hair was nearly to her waist, dark blond now. Janet glanced around, and the look on her face said, as clear as a shout, “Oh, this place again. What a dump.” It was the most beautiful house Minnie had ever seen.

Lillian bustled in, her hand on Arthur’s arm, then came right over and put her arms around Minnie as if Minnie had weathered blizzards to get here. No one in Iowa knew quite what had happened to Arthur — some sort of nervous breakdown, some famous hospital, out for the summer, back in for a month in the late fall, out now. Always “not bad, improving,” according to Rosanna, according to Lillian. Timmy’s death, it would have been. Rosanna said, “I saw this coming,” and Joe said, “Funny you never said a word about it.” But when he gave Minnie a hug and Andy a peck on the cheek, Arthur was grinning in his usual way, pulling off his hat and gloves, already talking about a VW bus they had seen on the highway, painted like a landscape, green with flowers around the bottom, blue along the roof, faces painted on the windows. “When it passed us, the face in the back window was screaming,” said Arthur. His hair was completely gray.

“Dad wanted to follow it into the Joyce Kilmer Plaza and trade the station wagon for it,” said Tina.

“Straight up,” said Arthur. “Kids thrown in, if need be.”

Everyone laughed.

The lamb was delicious, and so were the au-gratin potatoes and the asparagus with Mornay sauce. Minnie and Annie had wolfed theirs down before Minnie noticed that everyone else was picking politely. Janet took no lamb at all. Andy seemed to have begun another Old Fashioned.

Arthur and Lillian kept up the conversation, with occasional assists from Tina, who otherwise sat by Annie and whispered to her about rock bands. Annie preferred Creedence Clearwater Revival, but Tina was still loyal to the Stones. Annie said, “I really like your T-shirt.” Tina said, “I made four of them. I can send you one.” Please do, thought Minnie.

“Where are you girls going to college?” said Andy. Minnie wondered if she was mixed up — the kids were only sophomores.

“Rhode Island School of Design,” said Tina.

“She’s already working on her portfolio,” said Lillian. “She’s been working on her portfolio for ten years.”

Annie didn’t say anything.

Minnie said, “It’s so funny that all of you were born within a couple of months of one another.”

Andy said, “It’s like a genetic experiment.”

Frank said, “Boys take a while, no matter what.”

Lillian said, “How tall are Richie and Michael now? Dean is six four. I don’t know where that comes from.”

Frank said, “I was six feet by the time I was their age. I think Richie is five ten and Michael is a little taller. Michael outweighs Richie by fifteen pounds, and it’s all muscle. He’s a true mesomorph. Richie’s a bit of an ectomorph.” He seemed to disapprove of that. Nedra appeared from the kitchen, saw all the food left on the platters, and put her hands on her hips. Minnie said, “My goodness, that was delicious. Thank you, Nedra.” Nedra gave a nod.

Andy said, “She always makes an effort when Frank is going to be home.”

Yikes, thought Minnie.

A tiny muscle beside Frank’s right eye twitched.

Arthur said, “Yes, delicious.” He had his arm across the back of Lillian’s chair in a relaxed but possessive way, and, maybe without even knowing it, he glanced fondly at her. Well, everyone could see which marriage the old maid should envy.

But Minnie didn’t envy any marriages at all. She still loved Frank in the way that ghosts inhabited abandoned houses, but if your job was to monitor the products of all sorts of marriages as they paraded through your office between September and June, then the whole institution of marriage became suspect, didn’t it? Minnie, fifty, could see that little Billy Crocker resembled Mom’s brother, who had come to no good, but the parents themselves were stunned, still had hope, still thought Minnie could turn the kid around by talking to him, giving him Saturday detention, making him do some extra work, or agreeing that more beatings might be the ticket. To Minnie, they were all bent twigs, for good or ill.

The Baked Alaska was more successful than the lamb. Nedra had piped the meringue in a neat spiral, then dusted it with brown sugar and burned it with real conviction. Inside, the strawberry ice cream was hard and delicious, and the chocolate cake was steeped in some sharp but tasty liqueur. They all cleaned their plates. In absolute desperation, Minnie got up from the table and went into the kitchen, where she insisted upon helping Nedra with the dishes.

When the dishes were done, the kitchen had been sterilized, and Nedra finally shooed her away, Minnie went back into the living room. The girls had gone upstairs; Andy had switched from whiskey to brandy. Frank’s hands were on his knees, and he was gazing steadily at his wife, who was holding her drink in one hand and her cigarette in the other. The ash was an inch long and ready to fall on the carpet. Lillian and Arthur were sitting on the couch, thigh to thigh, arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder. When Minnie came in, they looked up at the same time. Andy was saying, “I’m talking general principles only. Nothing personal. But now that we know how chimps operate, we could structure our families like chimp families. Lillian, Lois, and I would have a group house, and we’d stay in there with the children. It would be warm, so we could go everywhere without shirts or bras, and the babies would cling to us, and take breast milk whenever they wanted to, until they were three years old, and then we would allow Frank, Joe, and Arthur, who had been displaying themselves and hunting together, to impregnate us, and then, when those babies were born, the earlier ones would give us a hand with them. That maybe could solve all of civilization’s problems.” She was slurring her “s”s and her “t”s. Frank glanced at Minnie. Minnie sat down and said, “What’s the control?”

“Everyone else is the control,” said Andy. “The whole fucking civilization.”

Minnie didn’t think she had ever heard that word in a living room before.

Arthur turned to Lillian and said, “I thought we did rear the kids like that. We were certainly trying to.” Lillian smiled. Andy tossed off what was left in her glass, and let her head drop against the back of the chair. Arthur said, “At least Rosanna believes that we stuck to those principles.”

“I’m for nature over nurture, myself,” said Minnie. “You see that line of Dugans pass through your office, and you never believe in nurture again.”

Frank smiled. “My first triumph.”

“Bobby Dugan has not stinted himself on the reproductive side. Closest thing to a litter I ever saw in a homo sapiens.”

Frank said, “Bobby Dugan used to bully us. I set a mousetrap for him in the school outhouse when I was two and a half.”

“Oh, you were seven,” said Minnie. “But it was enterprising. Anyway, he has eleven kids with two wives, and it’s like they’re stamped out by a press. They all have the same dimple in the chin and the same lopsided grin. And they all think they’re going to get away with smoking in exactly the same spot on the high-school grounds.”

“Nothing wrong with smoking.” Andy’s head was still resting on the back of the chair. “A pack of cigarettes is a little treasure, is what I think.”

Frank got up and walked out the front door.

It was Lillian who took her up to bed, laughing and cajoling and talking about plans for tomorrow. Minnie sat with Arthur and waited, even though she would have liked to turn in. She said to Arthur, “You don’t think this is a real Frank Lloyd Wright, do you?”

“Good imitation,” said Arthur. “Wright, but you can actually live in it.” He glanced up the stairs. Minnie saw that Lillian was in charge now. It was a poignant thought.

When Lillian came down, she said, “Minnie, you must be tired.”

“I could go to bed. I suppose the girls are all right?”

Arthur said, “Tina may be giving Annie a tattoo.”

“A tattoo!”

“Oh, you know. With markers. I have one.” He pulled up his trouser leg to reveal a psychedelic snowflake on his knee. “This is from an earlier collection — say, two weeks ago. Now she’s into snails.”

Lillian said, “I’m waiting for flowers, but she says they’re too ‘static.’ ”

Both parents smiled fondly. Lillian said, “You should see her room. San Francisco by way of the French Riviera.”

“How’s Debbie?”

“Strict,” said Arthur.

“She will graduate cum laude, I am sure. You know she is at Mount Holyoke, right?” said Lillian. “The boyfriend disappeared.”

“As he was destined to do,” said Arthur. “You could tell that he wasn’t quite formed yet. I think she’s going to go for an older man myself, preferably married.”

Lillian shook her head, but affectionately.

“It’s the Freudian thing to do,” said Arthur.

“Speaking of that,” said Lillian, leaning forward, “this psychiatrist of Andy’s has a terrible reputation. Frank is beside himself. They have spent tens of thousands of dollars on this guy, and as you can see…”

Minnie knew that back home, at just about this point, someone would say, “I just don’t understand those Easterners.”

—

THERE WAS A balcony off Minnie’s bedroom that she hadn’t noticed earlier. Since she had her robe and slippers with her (in case she had to deal with some problem among the touring honors students after curfew), she bundled up and went outside to look at the view. She had been out there only a minute or so when another balcony door opened, and Frank appeared, still dressed. Minnie put her hand on her door, but Frank said, “Did you look to the right there?”

Minnie looked to the right. Nothing but trees. She said, “Is there a view?”

“No.”

“Then why look to the right?”

“Just to start the conversation.”

Minnie laughed.

“How are you?”

Minnie wrapped her robe a little more tightly, then said, “Could be worse.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

“Oh goodness, Frankie. You have a beautiful house, and I read about you and your innovative weapons company, was that it, in the paper, and Richie and Michael—”

“Are safely confined for the moment.”

“Rosanna showed me their school pictures. They are very handsome boys.”

“Worse news.”

“You were a very handsome boy.”

“You told me so.”

“Me and everyone else.”

Frank leaned his elbows on the railing and stared out over the greenery. As always, he didn’t seem to feel the cold. Finally, he said, “Did your dad whip you?”

“No. My dad was reserved, as they say, and he didn’t even drink in the old days, hard as that is to believe. My mother used the flat of her hand every so often, but only on our behinds. My grandfather had a riding crop for all his boys. I know Walter whipped you.”

“By the time the others came along, he realized it was ineffective. I never whipped the boys, but now I wonder if I should have. I was in Caracas once when Richie nailed Michael on the head with a hammer. Knocked him out cold. I found out a year later.”

“What would you have done?”

“I have no idea. I was kind of glad not to be involved.”

Minnie didn’t say anything. Frank put his arm around her shoulders. She had only time to be surprised before he kissed her smack on the lips, and then, when she could not help sort of softening through her whole body, he put his arms around her. She felt her scalp prickle, and she had a profound sense of being taken by surprise, but that was all. She bent her knees and slipped out of his embrace.

—

FRANK HAD NOT EXPECTED her to be receptive — the last time he kissed her was forty years ago, in the cloakroom at the school, as she was hanging her plaid coat on her hook. He had taken her by surprise then, too. Probably that was the point, since Minnie had always seemed to be a half-step ahead of him. He said, “I’m sorry.” It was the appropriate thing to say.

“ ‘I apologize,’ or ‘I regret’?”

“Apologize. I won’t regret unless you hold it against me.”

“I don’t hold it against you.”

But she stepped out of reach. Frank said, “You can say it’s chilly and go back inside.” He was being quite a nice person, he thought.

“I might. But not if you want to talk.”

Why would this suggestion take him aback? But, then, who did he ever talk to, and what about? Lately, shooting differently shaped bullets into water and calculating how quickly they lost forward motion. The men he talked to about this had no names and no personalities. He said, “I don’t believe I know how to talk.”

Minnie said, “Frankie, you seem sad.”

“Already? I’ve hardly said anything.”

“Well, I was watching you at dinner and afterward.”

“I thought all eyes were on my wife.”

“Yours were.”

He said, “You know what she needs? She needs to drive a prairie schooner with a team of oxen across Colorado and into the Rockies, where she needs to save the party of settlers from three grizzly bears and a long winter.” He laughed at the thought.

“This is a lovely neighborhood.”

“I told Andy to find something around here. She did. One hundred percent class. Then she had it decorated and redid the grounds. But it’s done. What now? Her brother is the same way — born to own a large farm on the North Dakota prairie, but he missed his moment, so he trains every child he meets for the Winter Olympics. She goes to her therapist.” He was talking pretty well now, he thought.

There was a silence; then Minnie said, “Maybe that’s not working.”

He pivoted toward her. “Well, damn me, Min, it’s not working. The shrink is a creep who puts it to her every time she decides maybe she needs some other form of treatment.”

“Puts it to her?”

“Fucks her.”

Minnie looked shocked.

Frank said, “I believe he’s calling it Kama therapy. It’s not very common in New Jersey. What are they reading these days? Oh, Nature, Man and Woman. They finished The Psychedelic Experience.”

“She took LSD?”

“She says that he took LSD; she just pretended. It was a tiny yellow pill, and she pushed it under the radiator for any passing mouse. Arthur told me his agency is crawling with people who took LSD and lived to tell the tale. No one is impressed by LSD anymore, Minnie.” Then he said, “But that’s what I mean! Look at her. She’s healthy as an ox, and looks about thirty-five! She has no vocation and no outlet, and the house has central heating, so what’s there to do with herself?” Frank had expressed none of this stuff, ever, especially not to Andy. Of course, he was hardly ever alone with Andy, since the door between their rooms was always locked.

“She said that you play golf.”

“Golf is infinitely boring.” He reached out and took her hand. It was cold. He said, “What do you do?”

“For fun?”

“Of course.”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Oh, Min!”

She said, “Now I feel backward. Let’s see. Lois and I have a lot of flowers in the garden. They’re all perennials, though. We ponder them and discuss them. And we smell them — jonquils, lilies of the valley. Your mother’s lilacs are amazing. I guess you never come out during lilac season, but it’s like a canopy. You can smell them at our house. I clean things. Take stuff to the church and the Salvation Army. I listen to kids talk. Kids are funny. These days, my student teachers are like kids to me, so they’re funny, too. I read books. Joe and your mom watch TV, but Lois doesn’t have time, and I’m not that interested.” Her eyebrows lifted. She said, “Listen to me. I do nothing for fun!”

And then he kissed her again. This time he kissed for real, because he suddenly, after all these years — was it forty-five now? — appreciated her. And she felt it. She didn’t slip away. There was no alarm. It was a nice kiss, an appreciative kiss. When it was over, she put her arm around his waist and laid her head briefly on his shoulder; then she kissed him on the cheek and went into her room.

—

FRANK SAT UP and looked at the clock. It was almost three. He had dropped off once, and dreamt of, not the real Lydia, but a short woman in heels whom he identified as Lydia. She was walking down the street — a street in London, not New York. That was all he could remember. He was hot. He threw off the covers, then got up to take a piss.

Wide awake. There was something disquieting about having Minnie, Andy, and Lydia in the same house. He reached for a Kleenex from the box on the lower shelf of his bedside table and blew his nose.

Frank sensed a presence when he pushed on the swinging door, but whoever was sitting at the kitchen table hadn’t even turned on the light above the range. Frank paused. It was Arthur. His chair pushed back from the table, Arthur was resting his forearms on his thighs and looking straight ahead, neither up nor down. His head didn’t turn when Frank came in. Frank assumed he was on some sort of drug. He said, “Arthur.” Frank’s eyes now adjusted completely to the darkness. He said, “Can I do something for you?”

“Not that I know of,” murmured Arthur.

“Are you all right? Is Lillian all right?”

Arthur didn’t answer. Frank pulled out a chair and sat down. The fact was, he almost never came into his own kitchen; Nedra served every meal, in either the dining room or the breakfast room. If Arthur were to ask him for something, he would be hard put to find it. Frank cleared his throat, then said, “You’ll like what I did all last week. I watched a couple of guys shoot projectiles of various shapes into tanks of water. They were testing their calculations of how quickly the projectiles slowed and stopped. I enjoyed it. They asked me to estimate, and I was always wrong. Water is a brick wall, if you’re a projectile.”

Arthur said nothing.

Frank got comfortable, and said, “Theoretically, they told me that you could shape the tip of the projectile so that it created a vacuum just in front of it as it moved. Theoretically, it could get faster and faster.” He didn’t ask whether Arthur already knew this. The rumor was that the Soviets were quite advanced on this very project; he half expected Arthur to nod, or to let his gaze flicker some acknowledgment, but again there was nothing. He said, “Supersonic.”

Finally, Arthur yawned and looked at Frank. In the day he looked fine, but right now, in this light, he looked cadaverous. How old was he? thought Frank. Frank said, “Arthur, you’re making me think about dead people.”

And Arthur laughed.

As always, his laugh was contagious, and so Frank laughed, too.

“Sorry,” said Arthur. “I was half asleep. I know it didn’t look like it. It never does, but I cultivated that skill in boarding school. It’s been a valuable trick.”

“Spoken like a bureaucrat,” said Frank, “but why did you get up?”

“Why did you get up?”

“Too many women in the house. Makes me nervous.”

“Six women under one roof is fine with me,” said Arthur. “By the way, I like what you’ve done with the entry. The slate floor. It’s appropriate to the style of the house. The chandelier is interesting.”

“Eighteen bulbs,” said Frank.

“Who changes them? It must be twelve feet off the floor.”

“It’s on a pulley. It lowers.”

“I like that,” said Arthur.

For years, Frank had cultivated indifference to personal concerns. If someone had a complaint, Frank thought, it was that person’s job to express it, but, maybe because of the influence of Minnie, he now said, “How are you? Are you all right?”

“That’s an interesting question,” said Arthur. “I’m probably better than I’ve ever been.”

“What have they got you doing?”

“Divulging top-secret information.”

“Pardon me?” said Frank.

“Well, I was so secretive for so long that now, when I talk to news reporters, they think I’ve actually told them something, because, of course, we only do it in long walks in Rock Creek Park, or in garages, where whatever we say is broken up by the sound of revving engines.”

“Are you teasing me?”

“No. Even the KGB does PR. You can only say ‘no comment’ so many times, because ‘no comment’ means ‘yes.’ ”

Frank leaned forward. “But why you?”

Arthur shrugged. “What do I know?”

“You’ve been there since the beginning. You knew about everything.”

“I thought I knew a few things,” said Arthur. “But I don’t know them anymore.”

Shock treatments. A chill ran up Frank’s spine.

—

HENRY OPENED the door of his office on the second knock. In his first office hours of the fall, he expected kids either wanting in or wanting out of one of the three classes he was teaching. Instead, there was a pleasant-looking young man carrying a briefcase, smiling and holding out an envelope. The envelope had Henry’s name on it in Gothic letters. He took it, and opened it.

My dear boy,

Please note the bearer of this missive. He is a brilliant student of mine named Philip Cross who has taken it into his head, now that your poofters have decided to riot and make their presence felt, to try his luck in the U.S. He is about to enroll in that monument to capitalism, the University of Chicago, in literary criticism. Please do not discuss any work of literature with him, as you will not understand a word he says, and it will lower your estimation of our educational system. He is, however, a young man of exceptional grace and intelligence, and I told him that you will introduce him to the mid-continental wilderness, as you so ably introduced me. I have cultivated him assiduously and I defy you to uncover his dialect roots. In addition, he is an excellent chef. Suet is his middle name.

I am, as always, your devoted,

Basil

Henry said, “Philip. Do come in.” He stepped back, and this young man (Henry thought, no more than twenty-one, no taller than five nine, but neatly made) stepped across the threshold. Henry said, “U of Chicago. Good Lord. It’s a jungle down there.”

Philip smiled, opened his mouth, and came out with the most beautiful speaking voice Henry had ever heard, as vibrant, deep, and rounded as a human voice could be. Henry said, “I’m sorry. What did you say?” Philip said, “It does seem a different world than this campus, which is very open.”

“Northwestern is a little bit of Iowa right beside Lake Michigan. It came first, you know, before the town. We take an Iowa approach in many things — for example, we approach student unrest by wondering why the students are unhappy. Down there, they just expel you.”

“Is that a warning?” said Philip.

“Are you restless?” said Henry.

“Basil would say so,” said Philip. He sat down on the windowsill.

So — the young man called his professor “Basil.” Henry said, “His letter indicates that I am not to discuss literature with you, so what else are you interested in?”

“How do you feel about these bouts of campus—”

Henry waited to hear what word he would use—“unrest”? “silliness”? “brutality”? Henry had heard dozens of words applied. His aunt Eloise, who knew the U of Chicago catalyst, Marlene Dixon, slightly and said that she was “well meaning but doctrinaire,” always talked about “campus preliminaries.” Philip said—“rebellions.”

That was nicely limiting, but respectful. He said, “Ask me in ten years. I have no idea. I suppose I am sympathetic, but from a distance. As a medievalist, I am not asked to do teach-ins, but I would if I could think of something to teach. The fate of the Cathars is not a heartening precedent. I think the military draft has been God’s gift to the left.”

Philip smiled. “I didn’t realize God gave gifts to the left, or that those gifts were accepted.”

Oh, he is a charming boy, thought Henry, and Basil was right — he might have been born at the BBC, his pronunciation was so perfect and smooth.

Just then there was a knock, and when he opened the door, Henry saw Marcy Grant, his tallest student, decked out as usual in her giant army-surplus pants held up by a string, her glasses sporting a piece of masking tape, her hair a tangle. She peered at Henry and said, “Oh, Professor Langdon,” then looked around. She smiled her brilliant smile. Someday she would stand up straight and discover that she was a lovely woman. “That’s me,” said Henry.

“I forgot to sign up for the history-of-the-language course, but I thought I had. I already wrote my first paper over the summer.” She held out some typed pages. Henry knew they would be excellent. He took them, set them on the bookcase beside the door, and said, “Come in, I’ll give you a note.”

She squinted at him, then walked through the door. Philip’s response to Marcy wasn’t even curiosity, though whether that was because Marcy was female or because she was a mess, Henry couldn’t tell. Marcy’s response to Philip, though, was gratifying. Her mouth dropped open, and she kept glancing at him while Henry wrote the note to the registrar. Henry said, “Marcy, this is Philip Cross. He’s come over from England to do grad work at Chicago. Philip, my excellent but disorganized student Marcy Grant.”

Marcy exhibited the good manners her Wisconsin mother had impressed upon her — how very nice to meet you, hope you have a good time — but she could go no further. Philip gave her his fingertips and said, “You are very kind,” as if Marcy could now be quietly executed and removed from the company of the civilized. Henry handed her the note and herded her toward the corridor. Henry eased back into the office and closed the door.

Philip had picked up Henry’s monograph, which was sitting on the windowsill, Dialectical Variations in Anglo-Saxon Epic Poetry, Yale University Press, unreviewed in any American publication, but embraced by two scholars at Cambridge, one at Oxford, and his mother, Rosanna Vogel Langdon. Henry said, “It could keep you up at night.”

Now the expected knock came, and then Rick Kingsford pushed the door open, calling, “You here, Doc? Oh, hi. How are ya?”

Henry said, “I’m fine, Rick. How are you?”

“Well, I had this cough, but it’s not so bad today. I thought I was gonna havta go to the infirmary, but not yet.” Rick was an enthusiastic student of Old English. He planned to do a translation of “The Seafarer,” with notes, as his thesis. He also carried a thermometer with him at all times and refused to shake hands. When he saw Philip, he recoiled slightly.

“What can I do for you, Rick?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Philip was getting bored.

“I need a form you got, for the thesis credit.”

“Oh, I do have that,” said Henry. “Let’s see.”

Philip stood up and stretched, then looked out the window. Henry opened the top drawer of his filing cabinet and began to go through the folders.

Rick, looking over his shoulder, said, “That’s it, Doc.”

“Oh, good. Is that all you—”

“Hell, no! I mean, I was thinking I was going to do something like free verse; then, the other night, I thought obviously iambic pentameter, but now I’m not so sure. We could have echoes of Ibsen or something.”

Philip was at the door, his hand on the knob. Rick sat down in the chair beside the desk and wiggled around, making himself comfortable. “The words would be English, but the meter would evoke the North, you know? I’m thinking of my guy — let’s say his name is Thor — sailing almost to the Arctic Circle. It’s dark, it’s cold. No Latin-derived words, or, God, Norman French — you don’t want that. Well, maybe a few, but carefully se—”

“Just a minute, Rick, okay?”

As a known campus bachelor, Henry had to be careful, but he did step one step toward Philip.

Their gazes locked. Henry said, “Let me know if you need anything.” Then, “And give my best to Basil if you write.”

“Ta-ta!” said Philip.

The door closed behind him.

“Ta-ta?” exclaimed Rick.

“A bit of slang that could come from Swahili, oddly enough. Now, let’s get on with it, what do you say?” He sounded put out, and Rick looked alarmed.

At dusk, when he was walking home from the university, feeling not quite down but not quite up, thinking that the sixteen weeks of classes just now commencing was a long stretch of talking and reading, he sneezed and put his hand into his jacket pocket for his handkerchief. Instead of his handkerchief, which he now remembered leaving on the corner of his desk, he pulled out a slip of paper. It read, “Philip +, 312-678-3456.” Henry immediately felt much better.

—

“YOU LOOK SO GREAT,” said Ruth.

“Don’t say that,” said Claire. They were having breakfast at the pancake house, which they did every Monday morning. She had her turkey and a dozen eggs in the car, but the temperature was in the forties — she didn’t think the eggs would freeze. Paul wanted a “private Thanksgiving, just us,” but the smallest turkey she’d found was eighteen pounds. She and Ruth didn’t have much in common anymore, but they still referred to each other as “best friends.” Bradley was sitting quietly on the seat between Claire and the wall. He was holding his blueberry muffin, staring at it, turning it, and taking bites. He was concentrating. Claire smoothed his hair.

“Why not?”

“Because whenever Paul says that it’s because I’m pregnant again.”

Ruth laughed, but then said, “You don’t look…”

“No.” Then, “Not yet.” Claire knew this was a sensitive subject, and was sorry she hadn’t thought before saying what she did. She’d been taking the Pill for two months now, and she knew she had put on at least five pounds. She was also wearing contact lenses — she told everyone (including Paul) that that was Paul’s idea. It had been, at one point, but he had sort of forgotten about it. Brad looked up at her. Claire said, “That’s good, BB. You keep eating that. You need that.”

Brad nodded.

“He looks healthy,” said Ruth. “He ate the piece of sausage.”

“My mother says she never produced a picky eater.”

“I wish I’d been a picky eater,” said Ruth. “We heard so much about the starving Armenians that we had the clean-platter club, not the clean-plate club. You have such cute boys,” said Ruth.

“I do,” said Claire. This was how she was to be punished for veering toward a topic that had become taboo between them, the fact that Ruth had been married now for two years to Carl and still had no children. Not even a miscarriage. She would soon be thirty-one; ten years ago, she had planned to have had her own two by this time. Nor was she a member of the Wakonda Country Club, which Paul had joined the previous summer — three-thousand-dollar initiation fee, one-thousand-a-year membership. Claire took Ruth there as often as she wanted, but Carl, a builder, wouldn’t go. Carl was good-looking, as nice as pie, and could fix anything (Claire hired him whenever she could get him), but playing golf and tennis, swimming in a pool, and eating in a formal dining room with a tie on were not for Carl.

Ruth sighed. “I always wanted three.”

Ruth had a way of recasting her old ideas, making them more ambitious rather than less as they got more unattainable. “Sweetie,” said Claire firmly, “it can still happen.”

Ruth’s eyebrows dipped, and she put her fingers over her mouth.

Brad got onto his knees and set the remains of his muffin on his plate, then gazed at the orange slice. Claire picked it up, tasted it, put it back on the plate, and said, “You can eat it. It’s a sweet one.”

Brad shook his head.

Ruth said, “Does he like French toast? I haven’t touched this piece.” She turned her plate toward Claire, and Claire picked up the yellow triangle with Brad’s fork, set it on his plate, then cut it into pieces. She handed the fork to Brad. He said, “Wile Ting.”

Claire said, “The book is in the car. We’ll read it later. In the car is where the wild things are.” Brad grinned.

But it was she who was the wild thing, wasn’t it? thought Claire. There were four stages of wildness: Stage one was being married and falling silently in love with a young and charming man, but doing nothing. Stage two was doing something in the hope of trading your bossy, dissatisfied husband for the beloved young charmer; stage three was allowing the lithe physique and the merry nature of the charmer to occupy your every thought. Stage four was not caring, just acting. She was at stage three. If her analysis was correct, then she was a wild thing, but she didn’t feel wild, only that she was sitting inside the cage with the door open, and that was enough for now.

Brad successfully forked the first bit of French toast into his mouth, and Ruth said, “Good boy. Yummy.” He stabbed at the second.

“You are a good boy,” said Claire. She glanced at her watch. “Time to pick up Gray at nursery school. I’ve got fifteen minutes.”

“The streets are pretty clear. But it’s only a few blocks from here. Why don’t I stay with Brad, and you can bring Gray back here?”

Claire guided Brad’s fork just a bit, and he got the third piece. He seemed to be enjoying it. She said, “I’ll do that. Do you mind?”

Ruth shook her head. Her look was so sad, though, that Claire felt tears coming when she stood up from the booth. Yes, thought Claire, I deserve to have it all blow up, because obviously I do not value what I should. Why this was, she did not know. It was right out of Madame Bovary.