American Appetites by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page A

delivery imminent from the wine and liquor store, and from the florist; and as soon as Marvis finishes with her housework, the two women will fit an extra leaf into the dining room table, to open it out for fifteen and to begin the task, which Glynnis always loves, of setting her table. We’ll be a bit crowded at dinner, Glynnis apologized, when she called to invite her friends, but I hope you won’t mind. Of course, Marvis is going to help every inch of the way.
    (Knowing, of course, that no one in their circle would mind in the slightest; being crowded sociably together, for one of Glynnis McCullough’s superb meals, has never troubled anyone in the past.)
    Though Glynnis is an experienced cook and, most of the time, a quite confident hostess, tonight’s party for her husband worries her: not so much the party itself, and the food—which will be tricky, but surely manageable—as the fact of its being a surprise, that most dubious of pleasures. “Do you think Ian might find it too much of a surprise?” she had asked their friend Denis Grinnell. “Coming into the house unprepared, preoccupied with his thoughts as he invariably is, and then finding all of you waiting?” “I think Ian will love it,” Denis said. And then: “I would love it.” (There is an old and not entirely resolved emotional issue between Glynnis McCullough and Denis Grinnell, to which, in the tacit understanding that has evolved between them, Denis may freely, yet never reproachfully, allude; while Glynnis is empowered to remain silent. Though Denis’s allusions may sometimes annoy her, or make her feel guilty, they more often please her, with the knowledge that, though she and her husband’s closest friend will never again make love, she is loved by him still; he remains faithful to her as any husband.) But Denis is not the point; Denis is no reliable measure, for he and Ian are quite distinct personalities, Glynnis thinks, and what the one might love, the other might not.
    To another friend, a woman friend, Glynnis said, laughing, “Isn’t it odd, I really don’t know whether Ian will be happy with the party or furious with me afterward; whether a ‘surprise’ of this kind might be too extreme for him, or whether it’s what he’d most like, in secret, for his fiftieth birthday. What do you think?”
    The woman, Meika Cassity, like Glynnis the wife of a man prominent in his profession (in Vaughn Cassity’s case, architecture), said, as if the question did not warrant much thought, “We must always do what we want to do and hope that it’s what they will like, or, in any case, what they will accept as liking. Otherwise, you know, Glynnis,” Meika said, dropping her voice in a sly pleased slide, “life in Hazelton would be quite dull.”
    â€œYes, I suppose so,” Glynnis said; and though ordinarily she would have liked very much to pursue the theme Meika had introduced—like Meika Cassity, Glynnis McCullough has a taste for adventure, and news of others’ adventures—she persisted in her own theme; of limited interest to others, perhaps, it was of crucial interest to her. “Do you think it’s odd, though—and please speak frankly, Meika—that after living with Ian for so many years, I really, at times, don’t seem to know him at all and can’t predict how he’ll react to things? For instance—”
    â€œOh, they live in their own heads,” Meika said, “our ‘brilliant’ husbands. They’re happiest there, so we must learn to be happy here.”
    â€œâ€˜Here’—?”
    â€œ Here .”
    Glynnis smiled; her friend’s answer pleased her. They were speaking over the telephone, and Glynnis was in her snug corner of the kitchen, seated at the table, back to the wall, midmorning cigarette in hand; a mug of coffee, black and strong, before her. Spread across