Lovers by Judith Krantz Read Free Book Online Page B

“Okay … here it is. ‘The infant takes control—over the initiations and terminations of direct visual engagement in social activities …’ What’d I tell you? There’s more, and I’m quoting here, ‘The visual-motor system, is … virtually mature …’ Did you hear that, Gigi,
mature
, and then he says that ‘when watching the mother and infant during this life period, one is watching two people
’—people
, Gigi—‘with almost equal facility and control over the same social behavior.’ So! What did I tell you?
Equal facility!
They’re four months old and I’m forty and we’re equal! And it gets worse,” Billy said dolefully, and read on. “ ‘They can avert their gaze, shut their eyes, stare past, become glassy-eyed. And through the decisive use of such gaze behaviors’—
decisive
, Gigi!—‘they can be seen to
reject, distance themselves from, or defend themselves against mother.’
Isn’t that terrible! Oh, God help me,” Billy cried; sighing deeply, “they can reject me.” She took a deep breath and shook her weary head sadly.
    “But they don’t!” Gigi almost shouted.
    “Well, that’s up to them, Gigi. Listen,” Billy said, reading again. “ ‘They can also
reinitiate
engagement and contact when they desire, through gazing, smiling, and vocalizing.’ That’s the only thing that keeps me going, the reinitiation part.” Billy fell back on the pillows.
    “Who wrote this?” Gigi demanded suspiciously, picking up the book.
    “A famous infant psychiatrist. Daniel Stern. It’s my bible. I wish I could understand everything in it, but it gets very complicated. Still, you see I’m right. Hal and Max control me, I can’t help it.”
    Gigi bent over the page Billy had been reading from. “Wait a minute, Billy, he says that ‘the mothers
give
the infant control’—you left that out. You don’t
have
to give them control.”
    “Yes you do. You’ll see. Try to force a baby to look at you when he doesn’t want to. It absolutely, positively cannot be done. Or just try to make them look away when they’re giving you that teary, outraged, utterly pitiful glare because they’re unhappy. Oh, I adore them, Gigi, but they’re
fiends
, utter fiends …”
    Gigi got up, took the book away from Billy, and removed it to the desk. She spoke in the voice of a psychiatric nurse dealing with someone who was fractious and disoriented, but who needed encouragement rather than coddling. “Billy, I’m sure they’ll grow up and be perfectly nice kids. Not fiends. This, as they say, is but a phase. Meanwhile, on another front, I’m leaving Scruples Two to work in an advertising agency, writing copy. Tomorrow’s my last day.”
    “Say that again.” Billy raised herself on one elbow.
    “Come on. You heard.”
    “Oh, Gigi, I’m so delighted for you! That’s
wonderful!
Give me a kiss!”
    “You’re not … upset?”
    “Of course not! What kind of selfish person do you think I am? I’ve been wondering when you were going to spread your wings, get off this particular branch and fly away. Lord, Gigi, when I was your age I’d spent a year in Paris on my own and lived in New York and held down an exciting job, I’d had all sorts of lovers and then I’d married Ellis and I’d been to state dinners at the White House in my Dior ballgowns and he’d bought me Empress Josephine’s emeralds and the ranch in Brazil and the place in Barbados and I was on the Best Dressed List—heavens,what
hadn’t
I done, years before your age! You’ve always been a late bloomer, and Zach is your first real romance. He’s wonderful, of course, but you haven’t really … well, had a lot of experience, shall we say?”
    “Forget about my shortcomings, Billy,” Gigi pounced. “Let’s talk about your lovers—you’ve never mentioned that little item before. Could you be more precise? Some specific details?”
    “They’ve passed into history,” Billy laughed. “You heard it once, but from