“Nine o’clock or so. You wanna come?”
She wanted. Later, when she did sit-downs with the women’s magazines, which would run an eight-hundred-word profile of the senator’s wife alongside a head shot and her recipe for chewy molasses cookies, she would tell the story differently. She’d say that she and Richard had met in the library, instead of on their way back from a funeral, which sounded grim, like it foreshadowed tragedy. She never told anyone how Richard had fallen, and how she’d gotten her first good look at her husband-to-be with his bottom soaking in an iced-over puddle. She didn’t mention that the first meeting had included a discussion of the Honorable Selma, or that their first real date had been at what turned out to be a typical beer-soaked, dope-smoky law school bash.
Richard lived in a rambling house with a half-rotted porch jutting off its front wall and a decaying couch beside the front door. Everything in the kitchen, every glass and plate and piece of cutlery, even the blender in which someone’s girlfriend was frothing margaritas, was coated with a thin film of grime.
She arrived at the party just after ten o’clock. Richard was in the kitchen, waiting for her, which made her feel giddy, as if she’d been drinking champagne. Taking her hand, he led her down a narrow hallway into his little bedroom, which was, surprisingly, neat as a monk’s cell. “Quieter in here,” he called over the music. Sylvie looked around. There was an old Kennedy/Johnson campaign poster over the desk, an American flag on the opposite wall, and Janis Joplin on the stereo. The bed was neatly made, with a worn red-and-green plaid comforter tucked in tightly at its corners. Sylvie sat at the edge of the bed with her legs crossed. She bet herself that this was Richard’s boyhood bedspread, that he’d brought it with him from home to college and then on to New Haven. She bet, too, that his parents hadn’t replaced it; that somewhere in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, there was a bed with just a sheet on it, maybe piled high with laundry, or clothes meant to be given away, but bare underneath, in a house that was very different from her parents’ apartment on the Upper West Side, and her own pink-and-white bedroom, where the rolltop desk and canopied bed still stood, waiting for her to come home.
“Get you something?” Richard’s face was flushed, from his jawline down the length of his throat, and she could smell him—sweat and soap and shampoo and liquor. In his hand was a tumbler of something amber on ice—a seven-and-seven, she’d later learn, Seagram’s whiskey and 7-Up. Most of the men she knew ordered whiskey, straight up, or what she’d come to think of as the beer of the proletariat—Pabst or Schlitz or Old Bohemian—but Richard liked his sweet drink and refused to change. It was one of the first things she admired about him.
“I’ll have what you’re having,” she said.
When the bedroom door opened she got a blast of heat and noise from the party. Janis had been replaced by the Doors. When Richard came back, he handed her a drink, then sat on the bed beside her. “So,” he said. “Sylvie Serfer.” With one fingertip he traced the edge of her neckline, an embroidered peasant blouse that she’d pulled on over a denim skirt, tights, and a pair of fringed suede boots three sizes too big that she’d bought at a thrift shop and worn with three pairs of socks. “I like your shirt.”
“Thanks.” She pulled back a bit, alarmed at the unexpected intimacy; alarmed even more at how much she liked it. She wanted Richard Woodruff to press his palm against the skin the shirt left bare, to push her back on the bed and kiss her. She could smell the liquor coming off him. His eyes were bright and his gestures a little too expansive as he stood up and did an imitation—startlingly apt and a little cruel—of their Contracts professor, who had a body shaped like a bowling pin and wore shirts that
She wanted. Later, when she did sit-downs with the women’s magazines, which would run an eight-hundred-word profile of the senator’s wife alongside a head shot and her recipe for chewy molasses cookies, she would tell the story differently. She’d say that she and Richard had met in the library, instead of on their way back from a funeral, which sounded grim, like it foreshadowed tragedy. She never told anyone how Richard had fallen, and how she’d gotten her first good look at her husband-to-be with his bottom soaking in an iced-over puddle. She didn’t mention that the first meeting had included a discussion of the Honorable Selma, or that their first real date had been at what turned out to be a typical beer-soaked, dope-smoky law school bash.
Richard lived in a rambling house with a half-rotted porch jutting off its front wall and a decaying couch beside the front door. Everything in the kitchen, every glass and plate and piece of cutlery, even the blender in which someone’s girlfriend was frothing margaritas, was coated with a thin film of grime.
She arrived at the party just after ten o’clock. Richard was in the kitchen, waiting for her, which made her feel giddy, as if she’d been drinking champagne. Taking her hand, he led her down a narrow hallway into his little bedroom, which was, surprisingly, neat as a monk’s cell. “Quieter in here,” he called over the music. Sylvie looked around. There was an old Kennedy/Johnson campaign poster over the desk, an American flag on the opposite wall, and Janis Joplin on the stereo. The bed was neatly made, with a worn red-and-green plaid comforter tucked in tightly at its corners. Sylvie sat at the edge of the bed with her legs crossed. She bet herself that this was Richard’s boyhood bedspread, that he’d brought it with him from home to college and then on to New Haven. She bet, too, that his parents hadn’t replaced it; that somewhere in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, there was a bed with just a sheet on it, maybe piled high with laundry, or clothes meant to be given away, but bare underneath, in a house that was very different from her parents’ apartment on the Upper West Side, and her own pink-and-white bedroom, where the rolltop desk and canopied bed still stood, waiting for her to come home.
“Get you something?” Richard’s face was flushed, from his jawline down the length of his throat, and she could smell him—sweat and soap and shampoo and liquor. In his hand was a tumbler of something amber on ice—a seven-and-seven, she’d later learn, Seagram’s whiskey and 7-Up. Most of the men she knew ordered whiskey, straight up, or what she’d come to think of as the beer of the proletariat—Pabst or Schlitz or Old Bohemian—but Richard liked his sweet drink and refused to change. It was one of the first things she admired about him.
“I’ll have what you’re having,” she said.
When the bedroom door opened she got a blast of heat and noise from the party. Janis had been replaced by the Doors. When Richard came back, he handed her a drink, then sat on the bed beside her. “So,” he said. “Sylvie Serfer.” With one fingertip he traced the edge of her neckline, an embroidered peasant blouse that she’d pulled on over a denim skirt, tights, and a pair of fringed suede boots three sizes too big that she’d bought at a thrift shop and worn with three pairs of socks. “I like your shirt.”
“Thanks.” She pulled back a bit, alarmed at the unexpected intimacy; alarmed even more at how much she liked it. She wanted Richard Woodruff to press his palm against the skin the shirt left bare, to push her back on the bed and kiss her. She could smell the liquor coming off him. His eyes were bright and his gestures a little too expansive as he stood up and did an imitation—startlingly apt and a little cruel—of their Contracts professor, who had a body shaped like a bowling pin and wore shirts that
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