“I knew it would be all right,” Jeanne said, smiling. “I mean, I knew you’d got Stevie’s room all ready for him, and I didn’t want to mess it up. Of course I changed the sheets again for you. Oh Polly, it was so lovely.” Jeanne held out her arms as if to embrace the whole world; her cheeks were flushed pink with retrospective pleasure. “You don’t mind?”
“No.” Polly shook her head, irritated to discover that she did mind. “Of course not. So where’s Betsy now?”
“She’s at her parents’ house up in New Canaan, till Monday. She was supposed to have gone there for Thanksgiving, with the husband, but she called to say she was sick. She’s going to tell them everything now.”
“Uh-huh,” Polly said. “So she’ll be staying there for a while?”
“Oh no; just for this weekend, it’s much too far to commute to the college, and of course we want to be together. We’ll share her place in Brooklyn Heights as soon as that creep leaves.” Jeanne leaned over the gladioli, pinching off a half-dead bloom.
“He’s going to move out, then?”
“Oh yes. He’ll have to, because Betsy owns half the apartment; it was bought partly with her parents’ money. But I thought that until then she could stay here.”
“He-yere?” Polly couldn’t prevent a break of dismay in the middle of the word.
“Just for a little while. After Stevie leaves, of course. I thought what we might do is move the bunk bed into your room, maybe take it apart into twin beds, that’d be more convenient for you. And then move the double into Stevie’s room for us.” She smiled brightly. “That would be so much nicer.”
“Well,” Polly said. “I don’t know.”
“Naturally Betsy would help with the expenses, so we’d all be saving money.”
“Mm,” Polly said, thinking that her friend hadn’t said “share.” But then, why should she? From Jeanne’s point of view, Polly was almost rich. Jeanne was scraping by on a mingy academic salary, and Betsy, who taught freshman composition part-time on a one-year contract, was even harder up.
All the same, Polly felt cross and beleaguered, like a child whose parents were arranging her life behind her back. She didn’t want Betsy in her apartment, and she wanted to sleep in her own bed. But to say so would sound selfish and grudging. And after all, it would only be for a few weeks, probably. It couldn’t be more, because Stevie would be home for good before Christmas. “That’s true,” she admitted.
“Oh, wonderful. Thank you, dear.” Jeanne, who had been shifting uneasily along the sofa, bounced up to give Polly another quick hug. “I want to apologize to you, too,” she added. “I know I’ve been awful to live with ever since I broke up with Betsy.”
“You haven’t, really.”
“Oh, yes, I have, Polly. I’ve been frightfully moody and distracted, and not much help around the house either. And you’ve been an angel to put up with me. But I’ll make it up to you now; we both will. Oh, I’m so happy. I’m going to call Betsy right now.”
“I’d like to ask you something,” Polly said after Jeanne had murmured a final series of childish endearments into the phone. “When Stevie gets home, could you give us some time alone to talk?”
“Oh, sure. Is something the matter?”
“No; I just didn’t get much chance to see him in Rochester. My family was all over the place, you know what they’re like. So if you could stay out of the way for an hour or so —”
“How do you mean, out of the way?” Jeanne said, her voice rising slightly. “Do you want me to go out and walk around the block for an hour? Because I can’t go into the park now, you know; it’s nearly dark out already.”
“No, of course not,” said Polly. “But if you’d just, I don’t know, go and work in my bedroom while I make dinner?”
“All right,” Jeanne agreed. “Just let me know when I can come out, okay?”
But in fact Jeanne didn’t stay in the bedroom. Instead, after Stevie returned, she wandered around the apartment like a cat whose territory had been invaded — though maintaining a considerate silence. Don’t worry, I’m not going to interrupt your conversation, her manner seemed to say. But you can’t fault me for going to the bathroom or looking for the Times.
Whether it was because of Jeanne’s hovering presence or not, Polly was unable to break through Stevie’s reserve, though he’d been fairly voluble on the plane and in the taxi from La Guardia, talking about what he wanted to do in New York and the kids he planned to see. Over supper he was still unnaturally quiet and polite; and whenever something almost like a conversation got going, it soon died away. Maybe because it was clear that though Jeanne was really trying, she found his subjects — skiing in Colorado, Star Trek, Halley’s Comet — deeply uninteresting. If it was going to be like this, Polly thought, she might as well have stayed in Rochester, surrounded by relatives. It might even have been better; if Stevie didn’t talk to her there she wouldn’t have noticed so much.
But was it really Jeanne’s fault, or had her son in fact become an alien? Because after the dishes were done, he spent the rest of the evening on the telephone and in front of the TV. (“Mom, do you mind? I don’t want to miss ‘Miami Vice.’ ”)
“Well, how was it?” Jeanne asked when he was in bed. “Did you have a good talk with Stevie?”
“Not yet, really.” Polly sighed. “We’re still sort of awkward with each other, you know.”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“He’s not in Colorado now, but he still seems almost that far away. And he’s developed such awfully good manners.”
“He certainly eats much less sloppily,” Jeanne agreed.
“I don’t mean just his table manners. It’s, like, his whole attitude. He’s so cool and polite, it almost scares me. I just don’t know.” She paused, waiting for Jeanne to ask, “Don’t know what?”
“I mean,” she continued, “I guess I should expect it to take a while for him to feel at home again, but hell —” Again Polly waited, and again her friend did not speak. “Of course, at that age three months is a big chunk of your life; it’s like a year or so for you or me.” No comment. “I realize I’ve just got to hang in there, give him time. But right now I hardly recognize him as my own kid.”
“Polly, dear. Stevie’s fourteen now. He’s not your kid anymore. He’s growing up, turning into a man.” Jeanne pronounced the noun with distaste; “Turning into a monkey,” she might as well have said.
“I suppose so.”
“I know it’s hard for you to face facts sometimes.” Her friend’s voice was kinder now, soft and soothing. “But you’ve simply got to reconcile yourself to losing him eventually.”
It was Polly’s turn now not to answer. I don’t reconcile myself, I won’t! she thought. And it isn’t hard for me to face facts, either. She opened her mouth to say this, then shut it, remembering how thin the walls were; if she and Jeanne raised their voices in an argument Stevie might hear it. “Maybe,” she muttered finally. “Well, I’m getting sleepy. Goodnight.”
She stamped crossly down the hall to her room, and then lay awake for a long time, wondering as she thrashed and turned whether Jeanne was right. Was her Stevie, the one she knew and loved, gone for good? Or was he only hidden under a laconic new manner and expensive Western clothes?
Polly had just finished making a late breakfast for her son the next morning and gone into the bathroom when she heard a smash of china and a shout of “Oh, fuck it!” from the kitchen.
She dropped the Times, pulled up her jeans, and hurried down the hall, arriving in time to hear Jeanne waiclass="underline" “Oh, no! Not Betsy’s darling Japanese teapot!”
“I’m sorry — I didn’t mean to —” Stevie had backed away from Jeanne’s misery and fury into a corner; his mouth was open, his elbows raised defensively.