Read Online Men and Angels by Mary Gordon - Free Book Online

lauded as unusually representative of current trends. Anne knew that she could never have done what Ianthe did. She could never, for example, have accomplished Ianthe’s latest feat, the purchase, for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, of a painting by an Italian Neo-Expressionist. In tabloid colors, it presented a dog biting the thigh of a child who sprawled among his schoolbooks, screaming.
    “Darling, it’s this brain-damaged child they’ve hired to replace you,” Ianthe was saying. “I don’t know where they found him, the state hospital, no doubt. He’s probably the latest experiment in community care. I know they dope him up and let him out in the morning and send him to me to help me run the gallery.”
    “Jack is really very good, Ianthe. If you’ll calm down and explain things to him, I’m sure he can handle everything.”
    “There’s no use explaining things to him, my love. He doesn’t have a brain. Simply, physiologically, he doesn’t have one. So there’s no use wasting each other’s time. You speak to him; you’re used to your adorable children. Speak to him as you would to Peter. Or to Sarah, perhaps. Draw him pictures.”
    “I’ll speak to him, Ianthe. Only not right now.”
    “He’s right here, darling. At my elbow, as usual; he’s free to talk.”
    “But I’m not. I’m working. I’ll come over in the afternoon.”
    “Oh, excuse me. I forgot that you’d suddenly joined the ranks of the illustrious. Forgive this poor day laborer for daring to interrupt.”
    “I’ll come to the gallery this afternoon. I’ll see you at three.” Ianthe’s insults disturbed Anne not at all. It was part of the texture of their friendship. Ianthe felt free to say perfectly dreadful things to Anne, but, unlike the things that Hélène said to her, they were never really disturbing because either they were so far off the mark as to have no wounding power, or they were clearly true, something she’d known about herself forever. And with Ianthe, she had access to a life that had nothing to do with Selby. Ianthe left town on the first bus she could on Thursday afternoons to spend the weekends in New York, where she had an apartment. She was the only person in the town, Anne reckoned, not to own a down coat; in the winter she pushed through the snow in her mink, ruining pair after pair of Charles Jourdan shoes while the rest of the community made its wholesome unbeautiful way, every inch puffed out, protected and concealed. And in Selby, where everyone behaved well, where even homosexuals kept up a premise of solid and undangerous monogamy, Ianthe had flamboyant, public love affairs. Each of her affairs was like a brilliant, terrible child she brooded over—now Medea, now the Angel of the house. It was one of the things Anne admired her for; it took real courage, she felt, at forty-eight to give oneself over so wholeheartedly—the quick rush of initial faith, the brief luxe of the heyday of a love affair, the bitter unraveling, and with Ianthe, the long period of diamond vengeance. Her vengeances were splendid. She ended her affair with Adrian Rosen—who was, of all the people in Selby, Anne’s closest friend—by throwing all his clothes into the wood stove and falling asleep in his bed while they burned.
    Anne would always be grateful to Ianthe for returning to her her faith in her own abilities. After she’d lost her job at the Gardner Museum in Boston, she’d been convinced she had no talents and no right to the world of work.
    It was 1974 when she’d lost the job. The Arabs had raised the price of oil. Of course people would take their money from museums. Nothing to do with you, they reassured her, those silvery administrators telling her that they must let her go. Your work is excellent. It’s just our funding’s been cut way back. And we have to get rid of a few of the younger people.
    But how could it not reflect on her, that great exposing beam they cast upon her? Nine other