American Wife

Marvin possessed little appeal.

When we stood to leave, Dr. Wycomb said, “Here’s a key, just in case, and I’ve written down my address and telephone number, should there be any sort of emergency.” She handed me a small square of paper.

“Gladys, they’ll be three blocks away,” my grandmother said. “And Marvin has no prison record, at least none that he’s mentioned.”

“Dr. Wycomb knows I’m as squeaky clean as they come,” Marvin said, and everyone chuckled. But I had an unsettled feeling in my stomach; it had come over me while I brushed my hair in the bathroom, and it hadn’t gone away when I’d met Marvin, even after I’d realized there was no reason to be intimidated by him. As she helped me put on my coat, my grandmother whispered, “So he’s a bit of a horse’s ass, but remember: practice.” In the elevator down to the lobby, I couldn’t help asking, “How tall are you?” and Marvin said, “Six-five,” in a way that implied both that he was asked often and that he never grew tired of answering.

The restaurant was called Buddy’s, which had made me imagine it would not be fancy, that we might even be overdressed. But it was fancy, and we were some of the youngest people there. Someone took our coats on our arrival, and the maitre d’ led us to the dining room, which was dimly lit, with heavy curtains and large wingback chairs at the tables.

After we’d sat, Marvin said, “To be honest, when my father told me I had to do this, I thought you’d be a dog, but you’re pretty darn cute.”

Uncertainly, I said, “Thanks.”

“Don’t be insulted—I wouldn’t be telling you if you were a dog.”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

“You’re still in high school, aren’t you?” When I nodded, he said, “Well, I advise you to stay away from Bryn Mawr. Of all the Seven Sisters, the girls there are the biggest ding-a-lings.”

“Who are the seven sisters?”

He looked at me as if trying to decide whether I was joking or serious. Then, not unkindly, he said, “You really are from a small town. They’re the female counterparts of the Ivies. Radcliffe goes with Harvard, Barnard goes with Columbia, and so on. In New Haven, our sister school is Vassar, though they’re a solid hour and a half away.”

“I want to go to Ersine Teachers College in Milwaukee,” I said. “It’s all girls, so maybe it’s a sister school—I don’t know.”

“It’s not a Seven Sisters school.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it is. I don’t know, though.”

“No,” he said. “It’s definitely not.”

That unsettled feeling from before—it still hadn’t gone away. It was now accompanied by a heat that was spreading through my body, collecting in my cheeks and neck.

“If I order for both of us, I’m sure they’ll bring you a drink,” he said.

“Water is fine.” I touched my fingertips to my face and, as I’d expected, my skin was burning. “Excuse me for a second.” The bathroom was also fancy: An attendant, a black girl who looked not much older than I, was sitting by the sink, and every stall had a wooden door that went all the way up to the ceiling; inside the stall, the fixture holding the toilet paper was gold. As my mother had taught me, I placed a strip of paper on either side of the seat before I sat down, and when I was finished urinating, I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, covering my face with my hands. It was not that I definitely would throw up, but the possibility existed. Was I really such a social coward? Though I didn’t think I cared what Marvin thought of me, perhaps my body knew more than my mind.

Conscious of the attendant out by the sink, I forced myself to stand, flush, and fix my clothes. I washed my hands, and when the woman passed me a towel, I said—I’d seen the dish of coins—“I’m sorry, but I left my purse at the table.”

When I returned to the dining room, Marvin said, “I took the liberty of ordering an hors d’oeuvre. How do you feel about escargot?”

“That’s fine.” I had, of course, never tasted them, though I knew what they were, and they sounded awful. When the waiter brought the small white bowl filled with brown globs in a pool of melted butter, I had to look away. For a main course, Marvin asked for fricassee of rabbit—smirking, he added, “With apologies to Mr. Bugs Bunny”— and I asked for steak; it seemed like something that wouldn’t hold surprises, it would be straightforward, and I could take three bites, then push the rest around my plate.

Marvin leaned intently across the table. “Here’s a moral dilemma for you. You’ve built a bomb shelter in your backyard, and your neighbors haven’t. When the Soviets attack, you hightail it to your shelter, but your neighbors come around begging for food and water. What do you do?”

“What?” I said.

“Alice, do you follow current affairs? And I don’t mean what hat Jackie Kennedy is wearing this week and who designed her dress.”

“Sometimes I read the newspaper.” One of my organs had just done a somersault inside my stomach, which was distracting enough that Marvin’s condescension didn’t really offend me.

“You shoot ’em dead,” he said. “That’s what you do. If your neighbors didn’t plan ahead, their survival isn’t your responsibility.”

This was when the waiter arrived with our entrees, and my steak was a lump of brown meat still attached to the bone, accompanied by menacingly glistening peas and carrots, and a baked potato bulging at the seams. I knew I couldn’t eat any of it; I couldn’t touch it.

“The thing no one realizes about Khrushchev—” Marvin began, and I said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel very well. I need to leave.”

“Now?” Marvin looked bewildered.

“I’m sorry.” I stood. “Please stay. I’ll be fine getting back to Dr. Wycomb’s.”