Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Looking Through Windows

New York City

1976

Howard Kingsley and Dena’s lunches had become a weekly event and she always looked forward to them. They discussed theater and books and rarely talked about the news business anymore. But as the weeks went by she began to see a weariness that she had not seen before. He never said anything about what was happening at work, but one day as they were having their coffee, he said, “Dena, you know what’s wrong with the new bunch that’s taking over? There’s not an ounce of compassion in the whole lot. They don’t like people.”

He looked into his cup. “Oh, they may like a few people close to them, their families, but they don’t like people in general, people as a concept. They don’t have any loyalty except to themselves, and you can’t have compassion unless you have a certain loyalty to the human race.”

Dena nodded in agreement but felt like a fraud. Howard had just described her to a tee. She didn’t know if she particularly liked people, and as far as loyalty was concerned, she really did not know what it was. She had no idea what she could be loyal to, other than herself.

She went home that night and thought about what Howard had said and picked up the phone.

“Sookie, it’s Dena.”

“Dena!”

Sookie yelled at her husband, “Earle! It’s Dena! Dena, hold on, I’m going to take this in the bedroom.”

Dena heard Sookie tell Earle to hang up the phone when she picked up. Earle took the phone. “Dena, how are you?”

“Fine, Earle. How are you?”

Sookie came on the line, saying, “Hang up, Earle.”

“ ’Bye, Dena.”

“ ’Bye, Earle.”

“Dena, come on down here where it’s warm; we’re in the seventies today.”

“Wow. Well, it is pretty chilly here. How are you?”

“Wonderful. Just wonderful. Mother is in Europe on some religious art tour or something but we’re fine, how are you? Coming to Atlanta any time soon?”

“I don’t have anything planned at the moment. Sookie, the reason I’m calling … I want to ask you a question and I’m serious.”

“Is this another one of those who-am-I things?”

“No, just something I’m curious about. OK?”

“OK.”

“What does it feel like to be loyal?”

“What?”

“I know this sounds crazy but I’m not kidding. I really want to know.”

“What does it feel like to be loyal?”

“Yes.”

Sookie tried her best to answer truthfully. “What does it feel like? Well, I never thought about it. I guess I don’t know what it would feel like not to be. But why are you asking me? You know how it feels.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t think I’ve ever been loyal to anything in my entire life.”

“There you go again with that dramatic temperament. Of course you have, silly.”

“I haven’t.”

“What about me? You’ve been loyal to me.”

“No, I haven’t, you’re the one who’s kept up with me. If you had not kept in touch with me I would have lost you a long time ago.”

“Well, I’m not going to believe that,” Sookie said, “even if it’s true. I’m just not going to believe it of you. Don’t forget, I know you. I know you better than you know yourself. And no matter how hard you try not to be, you are a wonderful person. Besides, everyone has to side with something or other. Everybody has to be willing to fight for something … I think.”

“What would you be willing to fight for, Sookie, right now, today?”

“Oh, my family, my children—Junior League.”

“What?”

“I’m kidding.”

“No, I’m serious, Sookie. Say if there was another Civil War; would you fight for the South?”

“Well, that’s not going to happen. There’s so many Yankees moving down here, you can’t throw a rock down the street without hitting three of them in the head. But let’s say if something terrible happened, I would. I can’t help it, I just would. It’s my home. But I feel the same way about my family and friends.”

“Were you born feeling that way or did you have to work at it?”

“I don’t know, I never thought about it. It’s just how I feel. Everybody feels loyalty to something, don’t they? I’m loyal to my women friends; I’d fight anybody that hurt them.”

Sookie laughed. “Earle thinks that’s why there are so few divorces in town. He says the men are scared of what we all would do if one of them cheated.”

“Have you ever cheated or thought about cheating on Earle?”

“Oh, Dena, why are you asking me all these crazy questions? You’re not going to put me on TV in some exposé, are you?”

“Of course not. I’m not trying to be nosy, I really need to know. Have you ever thought about any man other than Earle? You can tell me.”

“Do you mean like Tony Curtis?”

“No, I mean someone you know or have met.”

“No, I really haven’t. Is that unsophisticated of me? Honestly, Dena, I know you think I’m corny and old-fashioned, but after all the fun and all the teas and the showers are over and you stand up there in church in front of all your family and friends and take that oath, it’s serious. At least it was to me. I would have been scared to death to swear to something I didn’t mean; you know what a chicken I am. I don’t know how Letty did it.”

“Did what?”

“Divorced her husband not more than six months after she married him. Said she loved the bridal showers and the honeymoon, it was marriage she didn’t like. Anyway, back to you. What makes you think that you, of all people, are not loyal? Honestly, Dena, you can come up with some of the kookiest ideas. Have you forgotten you are a Kappa? Of course you’re loyal, silly.”

After Dena hung up she didn’t feel any better. Sookie was wrong. Dena could barely remember any of the girls she went to school with, or at times even the names of the schools. Dena had always been a loner. She did not feel connected to anything. Or anybody. She felt as if everybody else had come into the world with a set of instructions about how to live and someone had forgotten to give them to her. She had no clue what she was supposed to feel, so she had spent her life faking at being a human being, with no idea how other people felt. What was it like to really love someone? To really fit in or belong somewhere? She was quick, and a good mimic, so she learned at an early age to give the impression of a normal, happy girl, but inside she had always been lonely.

As a child she had spent hours looking in windows at families, from trains, buses, seeing the people inside that looked so happy and content, longing to get inside but not knowing how to do it. She always thought things might change if she could just find the right apartment, the right house, but she never could. No matter where she lived it never felt like home. In fact, she didn’t even know what “home” felt like.

Did everybody feel alone out there in the world or were they all acting? Was she the only one? She had been flying blind all her life and now suddenly she had started to hit the wall. She sat drinking red wine, and thinking and wondering what was the matter with her. What had gone wrong?