application, several months after the party. This was just a get-together, black tie optional, to let people know I was glad to be back after a year and two summers of blessed solitude.
The final guest list ran to about eighty people. We started with a nice mix of gypsy scholars and old-line academic aristocrats from across campus, then salted with a smattering of university bureaucrats and our latest batch of teaching assistants, including Buddy Elder. We threw the west pasture open for parking, and set up a keg of beer outside. There were more refined choices within, including copious offerings of champagne and caviar.
After the thing was under way and politics took a backseat to just enjoying myself, I was standing in a circle of young men in the main hall at the bottom of our grand stairway. I was regaling them with one of the anecdotes that had not made the final cut of Jinx, when I noticed every eye shift toward the stairs. That could mean only one thing, and being a male, I had to turn and look too. Coming down the polished walnut stair-case was the most beautiful woman at the party, my wife Molly. She was not an especially tall woman, but she seemed so because of the confident way she carried herself. Her long hair was the colour of dark honey. Her skin was ruddy from long hours of working in the sun.
Her shoulders were high and beautifully developed. As she came off the last step, Molly’s blue eyes found me, and she cocked her finger playfully with a come-hither beckoning. I made my excuses affably, my story unfinished, and followed her toward our kitchen, marvelling at how her waist pinched down like a bowtie.
‘I need a hand in the pantry, David,’ Molly announced in a stage whisper. It was an old game we liked to play at other people’s parties, but I was up for it at our own.
We entered a large well-stocked pantry, and Molly shut the door behind us at once. Kissing me seriously, she put my hand under the hem of her black sequined gown, apparently just where she needed it. ‘You think anyone would notice if we just disappeared for half-an-hour?’
‘Molly,’ I said biting her lip playfully, ‘everyone notices when a beautiful woman disappears.’
She stroked me mischievously, knowing I would be trapped in the pantry until I calmed down. ‘Dean Lintz said he’s heard you’re a wonderful teacher, David.’
I moved her hand away but could not resist kissing her neck. ‘That’s shop talk for a lack of scholarship.’
‘Morgan read your book.’
Morgan was the vice president for academic affairs.
He had a habit of never quite looking my way even if we were the only two people in a room. ‘Unbelievable,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know he could read.’
‘Everyone likes the house.’ Molly slipped her fingers under my cummerbund.
‘The house is beautiful. You’re a genius with wood.’
I kissed her again and, soft touch that I am, let her have her way with me. ‘I especially like the pantry.’
When she had me completely excited, she pulled away and began adjusting her dress. ‘I think we should put a daybed in here though… for parties.’
‘A daybed would be good,’ I said, struggling vainly to get things put back in order.
‘Randy Winston told me when I got tired of you he’d love to show me what I’m missing.’
I laughed. ‘What does he think you’re missing?’
‘You want me to ask him?’
‘Maybe I will.’
‘Get another case of champagne, David. We have to take something out.’
‘Afraid people will think we’re in love?’
‘David, we’ve been married for twelve years. If we’re in here fooling around after all that time, the natural assumption is we’ve been having problems.’
‘At the moment I’ve got a terrible problem.’
She smiled at her handiwork. ‘What are we going to do about it?’
‘Tonight we’re going to finish what we started. For now this ought to do it.’ I picked up one of the boxes of champagne and held it before me.
On tiptoes, Molly looked over. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Tell me something awful.’
‘Did I ever tell you about the drunken carpenter who leaned a little too far over his table saw?’
‘Awful enough,’ I winced. ‘You know I hate table saws!’
Molly laughed and opened the door, telling me in a voice loud enough for everyone in the kitchen to hear, ‘That should do it for a while.’
I lugged the champagne to a barrel of ice water on our back porch and with the help of one of our servers began slipping new bottles underneath the cold ones.
As I was finishing up, Walt Beery came through the back door. Walt wore a smoking jacket and cummerbund as I had anticipated. To my astonishment he was sober.
‘Molly,’ he said, giving her a hug, then holding both her hands, ‘You look great! If this bum ever forgets how lucky he is-’
‘You’ll be the first, Walt,’ Molly answered, smiling and running her fingers over the ruffles of his shirt.
To me and not nearly as playful about it, she added, ‘…but definitely not the last.’
She went on, leaving us alone. ‘That’s my wife,’ I told Walt. ‘Pull your tongue in.’
He turned to me with all the sentiment of a great drunk, ‘You are a lucky bastard. You know that?’
‘I know it,’ I answered.
‘Do you?’ A bit too much passion in this.
‘I know it,’ I said cautiously.
Walt’s eyes tightened now, and something went slack in him. ‘You heard about Barbara and me, I guess?’
‘Heard what?’
‘She kicked me out, David.’
I groaned, struggling for some kind of appropriate answer. Walt’s fantasy of freedom had come at last, and I could see it terrified him.
‘I’m too old to start over,’ he muttered.
‘You need a drink.’ I said. ‘A few beers and things will look better. The TAs are going to show up pretty soon and put a little life in this funeral!’
‘I’m off the booze.’
‘How long?’
‘Three days,’ he said. ‘Three long days.’ His eyes watered suddenly, so that I had to turn to avoid seeing his tears. ‘I had the shakes so bad this morning I almost…well, you know how it is.’
I didn’t, but I nodded. ‘Are you doing this on your own?’ I asked.
‘I can beat it. I have to. I promised myself a week.
I make it a week and I go talk to Barbara. Tell her what I’m doing. See if we can get a fresh start.’
‘Sounds like it might work.’
‘A week doesn’t sound like much, does it?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s like crawling on broken glass. That’s the first day. It gets worse after that.’
‘It gets better eventually,’ I said. ‘It gets good, if you want to know the truth.’
‘When?’
I thought about one more lie since I was passing them out so glibly, but I didn’t have the heart. I simply excused myself.
Academic parties have a pace one can only begin to understand after a dozen or so of them. Early there is always a bit of formality. Rank still matters.
Masks still fit snugly. Then come the first bits of laughter, nothing too raucous, of course, more like Jane Austen humour. At this point, the old guard wades in with stories from the Grand Old Days, well-worn lamentations for those of us who were not around when scholarship mattered! Then the associates and assistants take over. A careful crew, these. Paranoia as lifestyle, but with enough booze even the bureaucrats dance. A frosted look, a piece of crass laughter, a slipped confession. The physicist talking lit, the historian discussing the theory of point spreads. Circles and cliques breaking apart, new friendships tested, and finally the inevitable quarrel.
At our party it was the literary merit of the Brownings. Only an English prof could have seen this one coming.
