The Edible Woman

Down below the doorbell rang. Marian tensed, listening: she didn’t want to start down the stairs if it wasn’t necessary. She heard a mumble of voices and the reverberation of the closing door. The lady down below had been on the alert. She sighed, closed the cookbook, tossed her spoon into the sink after giving it one last lick, and screwed the top on the peanut-butter jar.

“Hi,” she said to Len as he rose, white faced and out of breath, from the stairwell. He looked ill. “Come on in and sit down.” Then, because it was only six-thirty, she asked, “Have you had dinner? Can I get you anything?” She wanted to prepare something for him, if only a bacon-and-tomato sandwich. Ever since her own relation to food had become ambiguous she found she took a perverse delight in watching other people eat.

“No thanks,” he said, “I’m not hungry. But I could use a drink if you’ve got one.” He walked into the living room and plopped himself onto the chesterfield as though his body was a sack that he was too tired to carry around any longer.

“I’ve only got beer – that okay?” She went into the kitchen, opened two bottles, and carried them into the living room. With good friends like Len she didn’t bother with the formality of glasses.

“Thanks,” he said. He upended the squat brown bottle. His mouth, pursed budlike around the bottleneck, was for a moment strangely infantile. “Christ, do I need this,” he said, putting the bottle down on the coffee table. “I guess she must’ve told you.”

Marian sipped at her beer before replying. It was Moose Beer; she had bought some out of curiosity. It tasted just like all the other brands.

“You mean that she’s pregnant,” she said in a neutral conversational tone. “Yes, of course.”

Len groaned. He took off his horn-rimmed glasses and pressed one hand over his eyes. “God, I feel just sick about it,” he said. “I was so shocked when she told me, god I’d just called her up to see if she’d have coffee with me, she’s been sort of avoiding me ever since that night, I guess all that really shook her up, and then to have that hit you over the phone. I haven’t been able to work all afternoon. I hung up right in the middle of the conversation, I don’t know what she thought about that but I couldn’t help it. She’s such a little girl, Marian, I mean most women you’d feel what the hell, they probably deserved it, rotten bitches anyway, not that anything like that has ever happened to me before. But she’s so young. The damn thing is, I can’t really remember what happened that evening. We came back for coffee, and I was feeling sort of rotten and that bottle of scotch was sitting on the table and I started in on it. Of course I won’t deny that I’d been angling for her, but, well, I wasn’t expecting it, I mean I wasn’t ready, I mean I would have been a lot more careful. What a mess. What’m I going to do?”

Marian sat watching him silently. Ainsley, then, hadn’t had a chance to explain her motives. She wondered whether she should attempt to unsnarl, for Len’s benefit, that rather improbable tangle, or wait and let Ainsley do it herself, as by right she ought to.

“I mean I can’t marry her,” Len said miserably. “Being a husband would be bad enough, I’m too young to get married, but can you imagine me as a husband and father?” He gave a small gurgle and upended his beer bottle again. “Birth,” he said, his voice higher and more distraught, “birth terrifies me. It’s revolting. I can’t stand the thought of having” – he shuddered – “a baby.”

“Well, it isn’t you who’s going to have it, you know,” Marian said reasonably.

Len turned to her, his face contorted, pleading. The contrast between this man, his eyes exposed and weak without their usual fence of glass and tortoise-shell, and the glib, clever, slightly leering Len she had always known was painful. “Marian,” he said, “please, can’t you try to reason with her? If she’d only decide to have an abortion, of course I’ll pay for it.” He swallowed; she watched his Adam’s apple go up and down. She hadn’t known anything could make him this unhappy.

“I’m afraid she won’t,” she said gently. “You see, the whole point of it was that she wanted to get pregnant.”

“She what?”

“She did it on purpose. She wanted to get pregnant.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Len said. “Nobody wants to get pregnant. Nobody would deliberately do a thing like that!”

Marian smiled; he was being simple-minded, which she found sweet, in a sticky sort of way. She felt as though she should take him upon her knee and say, “Now Leonard, it’s high time I told you about the Facts of Life.”

“You’d he surprised,” she said, “a lot of people do. It’s fashionable these days, you know; and Ainsley reads a lot; she was particularly fond of anthropology at college, and she’s convinced that no woman has fulfilled her femininity unless she’s had a baby. But don’t worry, you won’t have to be involved any further. She doesn’t want a husband, just a baby. So you’ve already done your bit.”

Len was having trouble believing her. He put on his glasses, stared at her through them, and took them off again. There was a pause while he drank more beer. “So she’s been to college, too. I should have known. That’s what we get then,” he said nastily, “for educating women. They get all kinds of ridiculous ideas.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Marian said with a touch of sharpness, “there’s some men it doesn’t do much good for either.”

Len winced. “Meaning me, I suppose. But how was I to know? You certainly didn’t tell me. What a friend.”

“Why, I’d never presume to try and tell you how to run your life,” Marian said indignantly. “But why should you be upset, now that you know? You don’t have to do anything. She’ll take care of the whole business. Believe me, Ainsley’s quite capable of looking after herself.”

Leonard’s mood seemed to be changing rapidly from despair to anger. “The little slut,” he muttered. “Getting me into something like this…”

There were footsteps on the stairs.

“Shhh,” Marian said, “here she is. Now keep calm.” She went out into the small vestibule to greet Ainsley.

“Hi, just wait till you see what I got,” Ainsley called, lilting up the stairs. She bustled into the kitchen, setting her parcels on the table and taking off her coat and talking breathlessly. “It was such a jam down there but besides the groceries – have to eat enough for two now, you know – oh, and I got my vitamin pills – and I got the darlingest little patterns, just wait till you see.” She produced a knitting book, then some blue baby- wool.

“So it’s going to be a boy,” Marian said.

Ainsley’s eyes widened. “Well of course. I mean, I thought it might be better…”

“Well, maybe you should have discussed it with the prospective father before you took the necessary steps. He’s in the living room, and he seems rather annoyed at not being consulted. You see,” Marian said maliciously, “he may have wanted a girl.”

Ainsley pushed back a strand of auburn hair that had fallen over her forehead. “Oh. Len’s here, is he?” she said, with pronounced coolness. “Yes. He sounded a little upset on the phone.” She walked into the living room. Marian did not know which of them needed her support more or which she would give it to if forced to choose between them. She followed Ainsley, aware that she should extricate herself before the thing got much messier, but not knowing how.

“Hi Len,” Ainsley said lightly. “You hung up on me before I had a chance to explain.”

Len wouldn’t look at her. “Marian has already explained, thanks.”

Ainsley pouted reproachfully. She had evidently wanted to do it herself.

“Well, it was somebody’s duty to,” Marian said, compressing her lips in a slightly Presbyterian manner. “He was suffering.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you at all,” Ainsley said, “but I really couldn’t keep it to myself. Just think, I’m going to be a mother! I’m really so happy about it.”

Len had been gradually bristling and swelling. “Well I’m not so damn happy about it,” he burst out. “All along you’ve only been using me. What a moron I was to think you were sweet and innocent, when it turns out you were actually college educated the whole time! Oh, they’re all the same. You weren’t interested in me at all. The only thing you wanted from me was my body!”

“What did you want,” Ainsley asked sweetly, “from me? Anyway, that’s all I took. You can have the rest. And you can keep your peace of mind, I’m not threatening you with a paternity suit.”

Len had stood up and was pacing the floor, at a safe distance from Ainsley. “Peace of mind. Hah. Oh no, you’ve