Lion House,The by Marjorie Lee Read Free Book Online

all over again he'd marry Whistler's Mother."
    "No, he's right," Helene said. "Severe hair-dos can be perfect for certain types of women, and you're one of them, Jo. It's —dignified."
    "Thanks," I told her, "but don't tout dignity with my ass."
    She blushed. I had forgotten for the moment that while we were close friends she had never been quite able to accept my language; nor several of my more "colorful" ideas. At college the lurid tales of my journeys through the male mill had left her awed but disapproving. During the course of innumerable all-night bull-sessions, sitting cross-legged on my bed, she had tried again and again to steer me up the Straight and Narrow. "It's only because I'm so fond of you, Jo," she would say. There were times when this fondness of hers became oppressive; but I in turn was fond of her, and so put up with it. I had found, in fact, a kind of demonic pleasure in shocking her. While telling her of my nocturnal escapades I had always been sure to include the most graphic details, undoubtedly more than half aware that the mental images she must then cart about secretly would be bound to plague her.
    Seated now across a table from her, so many years later, I saw again the flicker of discomfort in her face brought on by my remark about dignity, and wanted in the same demonic way to go on with my profanity. I didn't —because of the hovering head waiter and my concern with Marc's reputation at the Juniper.
    The next morning we got up rather late and Helene and I prepared a brunch for kings. Things might have gone off charmingly if Brad hadn't spiked a two-quart pitcher of orange juice with half a bottle of gin, and then insisted on consuming it single-handed.
    I liked to believe, the basic concepts of Sigmund Freud to the contrary, that if it hadn't been for that single act of imprudence on his part I might have been able to live out the rest of my life in its accustomed rut of apathy; float happily along on my personal raft of rationalization and delusion; and that the all-hell which was soon to break loose might, without the existence of that one pitcher of polluted orange juice, have been averted. This of course is sheer idiocy: no one punch is ever totally responsible for the ultimate knock-out; but, as I say: I like to believe.
    When brunch was over I suggested a ride over to Wingo to show the Finches the situs of my new career. Brad frowned a boozed and petulant frown. "I've had enough of that place to last for eternity," he said. "Wingo Day School, nothing! With Jo it's the Wingo Day and Night School!" So we went alone, leaving him behind to do the kitchen.
    It was fun; yet, the pleasure I took in showing them around made me conscious of how much a part of me Wingo had become: how deeply I relied on it as a haven of escape from the insecurity and sense of displacement in the other areas of my life; and how possessive I had grown about its students. In presenting the artistic and mechanical creations of their young hands I was as peacock-proud as any mother might have been; in a way, more so. And it was with a painful deliberateness that I had to bring myself back to the reality that they were not, after all, my own children, but merely strangers who, while entering through my acceptance at the bottom, would one day graduate, pass the top, and be forever lost to me.
    "Really, Jo," Dick said unwittingly, "you ought to see yourself. You'd make the world's best Momma, you know that?" And I answered, "Can't fight fate," — lightly, casually, not wanting to let him know how far his remark had plunged within me; how impossible it would have been for Brad and me to have a child. Wait’ll next year, he had kept saying, as next year came and went; wait’ll I land a job I like; wait’ll we have more money. And then, finally: Give it up, Jo; please give it up. I couldn't really stand it. I need you all for me...
    How could I, with any conscience, have a baby? How could I trap an infant with a father