Read Online Honeydew: Stories by Edith Pearlman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Edith Pearlman
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you?”
“We’re cousins. She’s my Cousin of Perpetual Penitence.”
Barbara sipped. She sipped and sipped. “Does she have cause for penitence?” she asked at last.
Fern said, “Oh, I couldn’t.” And then she did.
Decades ago, Fern began.
Remember the fizz of those times? The era, they call it now. Women and blacks, upward and outward, not exactly hand in hand except for certain instances. Well, this was an instance. Jamie was just out of college, doing an assistantship in Lev Thompson’s think tank. Fern had been in New York too, she said, student-teaching children who might as well have been orphans—whose parents noticed them only to knock them around. She and Jamie shared an apartment.
Lev Thompson. A figure. He’d passed his sixtieth year; he’d packed those six decades with admirable activity. He’d been a doctor, a civil rights leader, the head of one national organization and adviser to others. Now he spent most of his time on the lecture circuit. His voice wasn’t one of those fudge-rich bassos, no; it was soft and grainy. His skin was the color of shortbread. His mother was a teacher, Fern said, like us.
Jamie’s face was too thin and her shoulders too narrow. But her blue eyes were shot with golden glints; and then there was that head of hair: lots of it, mahogany. He liked to hold a thick strand of her hair between his fingers, she told me. She told me everything. He held her hair as if his fingers were tongs, and he slid the tongs down to the end, and then he started again from the scalp.
A flat chest; and her two front teeth overlapped. Some men were wild for such defects, who knew why. She and Jamie came from a certain sort of family, Fern said. You know, Connecticut—money so old that it’s gone. Anyway, Jamie, no boobs, too aristocratic for orthodontia—she appealed to him. He was populist, he had more than a streak of the preacher; but there was nothing coarse about his tastes. The first woman, the one he’d married when he was a young doctor—she was a person of refinement. Their three kids were a credit to them both. The second wife was a Gabonese surgeon—they had a daughter he doted on. The third was a German tennis player—he was still married to her when he and Jamie got together. Class acts, the lot of them. Sure, he’d played around some, he told Jamie, who told Fern. But just a little: Jamie was only his second affair this marriage. Schmidt, the tennis player, was on the road a lot, and at his age he didn’t like to be alone.
Fern stopped, ordered another drink. Barbara did too.
He needed company, Fern went on. He probably could have done without the sex. But Jamie was in love, just like her predecessors—in love with his voice, his skin, the way he had of shrugging and waiting in argument, palms turned outward, as if he had all of God’s eternity to spend until the other person came around to his way of thinking. The kindly smile—you saw it across the room, stretching his tawny face, and you ached to see it hanging over you, and you on your back…The hair on his chest was silver, Jamie reported. Sometimes, before they happened upon licking, she was slow to come. “So what?” he whispered into her ear. “I’m a patient darky.” Well, you know, only a man like that can say a thing like that.
His apartment was books and leather and wood, and there were pictures of his wives and children, including a life-size photograph of Schmidt returning a backhand. Jamie stayed there infrequently, and of course only when Schmidt was on tour. Schmidt liked other women, Lev told Jamie in that tolerant voice—liked men too, liked riding him as if she were a circus performer, her knees up around her ears, her arms stretched diagonally toward the heavens. “Want to try it that way—me the tired old horse, you the young rider?”
Sure: anything for him. But what she liked best was to lie beneath him, to let him envelop her, to raise her own knees only slightly, to
“We’re cousins. She’s my Cousin of Perpetual Penitence.”
Barbara sipped. She sipped and sipped. “Does she have cause for penitence?” she asked at last.
Fern said, “Oh, I couldn’t.” And then she did.
Decades ago, Fern began.
Remember the fizz of those times? The era, they call it now. Women and blacks, upward and outward, not exactly hand in hand except for certain instances. Well, this was an instance. Jamie was just out of college, doing an assistantship in Lev Thompson’s think tank. Fern had been in New York too, she said, student-teaching children who might as well have been orphans—whose parents noticed them only to knock them around. She and Jamie shared an apartment.
Lev Thompson. A figure. He’d passed his sixtieth year; he’d packed those six decades with admirable activity. He’d been a doctor, a civil rights leader, the head of one national organization and adviser to others. Now he spent most of his time on the lecture circuit. His voice wasn’t one of those fudge-rich bassos, no; it was soft and grainy. His skin was the color of shortbread. His mother was a teacher, Fern said, like us.
Jamie’s face was too thin and her shoulders too narrow. But her blue eyes were shot with golden glints; and then there was that head of hair: lots of it, mahogany. He liked to hold a thick strand of her hair between his fingers, she told me. She told me everything. He held her hair as if his fingers were tongs, and he slid the tongs down to the end, and then he started again from the scalp.
A flat chest; and her two front teeth overlapped. Some men were wild for such defects, who knew why. She and Jamie came from a certain sort of family, Fern said. You know, Connecticut—money so old that it’s gone. Anyway, Jamie, no boobs, too aristocratic for orthodontia—she appealed to him. He was populist, he had more than a streak of the preacher; but there was nothing coarse about his tastes. The first woman, the one he’d married when he was a young doctor—she was a person of refinement. Their three kids were a credit to them both. The second wife was a Gabonese surgeon—they had a daughter he doted on. The third was a German tennis player—he was still married to her when he and Jamie got together. Class acts, the lot of them. Sure, he’d played around some, he told Jamie, who told Fern. But just a little: Jamie was only his second affair this marriage. Schmidt, the tennis player, was on the road a lot, and at his age he didn’t like to be alone.
Fern stopped, ordered another drink. Barbara did too.
He needed company, Fern went on. He probably could have done without the sex. But Jamie was in love, just like her predecessors—in love with his voice, his skin, the way he had of shrugging and waiting in argument, palms turned outward, as if he had all of God’s eternity to spend until the other person came around to his way of thinking. The kindly smile—you saw it across the room, stretching his tawny face, and you ached to see it hanging over you, and you on your back…The hair on his chest was silver, Jamie reported. Sometimes, before they happened upon licking, she was slow to come. “So what?” he whispered into her ear. “I’m a patient darky.” Well, you know, only a man like that can say a thing like that.
His apartment was books and leather and wood, and there were pictures of his wives and children, including a life-size photograph of Schmidt returning a backhand. Jamie stayed there infrequently, and of course only when Schmidt was on tour. Schmidt liked other women, Lev told Jamie in that tolerant voice—liked men too, liked riding him as if she were a circus performer, her knees up around her ears, her arms stretched diagonally toward the heavens. “Want to try it that way—me the tired old horse, you the young rider?”
Sure: anything for him. But what she liked best was to lie beneath him, to let him envelop her, to raise her own knees only slightly, to
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