Chapter 32 Failing at Meekness
FAILING AT MEEKNESS
Many things happened over the following weeks.
Joe began to recover over the next days, for one.
For another, Mrs. Stark rang on the telephone that Sunday while I was at Mass.
Joe told me later, “She was calling to check how I’m doing, just like she’s called every day.
I’d like to point out that nobody was this worried about me when I got shot, but that would only remind her of how fragile I am.
Just because I had some asthma as a kid.
Do I have asthma now, though? No, I do not.
I managed to serve Uncle Sam not entirely terribly for three years and never suffered so much as one episode of trenchfoot or dysentery, either.
” He moved his legs on the footstool rather irritably—I’d found Joe’s flaw; he hated to be confined or constrained—and added, “You’d think she’d have enough to occupy her taking care of Barbara and Sam.
Want to bet that David’s ready to bar the door? ”
“No,” I said. “I expect he may be wishing for quiet. Alas, babies are not very silent, and men don’t always realize how many things there are to do in a house.
I know I didn’t; the servants were so efficient that one barely noticed all they did.
The marketing, the cleaning—babies require great cleanliness—the cooking, the thinking of what to cook; oh, a great many things.
And with a baby, you know, there’s also a great deal of washing, and Barbara must also recover herself.
How fortunate that she has a mother so eager to help, and also an automatic washing machine!
And that it isn’t raining, too, so one may dry the clothes outside. ”
“Why won’t you ever let me be grouchy?” Joe asked. “You always have such a reasonable answer.”
I laughed and dropped a kiss on his head. “I’m sorry. Next time, you must tell me, ‘I wish to complain unreasonably now. Please don’t attempt to soothe me.’”
“Ha,” Joe said, but he was smiling. “Mom wants you to call her back.”
I blinked. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Probably to instruct you to make sure I wrap up my throat in a muffler.
Or she wants to ask whether we have soup, or if she should drive all the way down here with some of her own so I won’t die of inadequate caretaking.
Don’t worry; I didn’t tell her about the Campbell’s Chicken Noodle. ”
“Very fortunate,” I said. “I will ask very meekly that she send me her most excellent recipe through the mail, so I can prepare it for you. This will please her, I think.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t. Oh, it didn’t hurt, and the meekness of my request did make Joe smile. Mrs. Stark promised to send the recipe, but in the rather frosty tones I’d encountered at the beginning of our acquaintance.
“I think you wish to tell me something else, too,” I said.
I couldn’t imagine what; her disappointment that I wasn’t planning to hand over the necklace money to Joe and ask him to invest it for me, as I was much too scatterbrained and foolish to make such decisions?
That I’d erred in allowing Joe to catch flu at all, and must not be building him up enough?
The sooner she said it, the sooner we would be done with it.
“Well, I do,” she said. “Certainly I do. Why would you think it was appropriate to talk to Sophie—to my daughter—about the facts of life?”
“The facts of … I’m sorry. What facts have I conveyed to Sophie?”
“About her time of the month,” she said, “and worse.” This last was said very darkly, as if I’d taught Sophie some secret killing technique.
I was sitting beside Joe with the telephone cord stretched out from the wall—the advantage of a small apartment. I said, “One moment, please,” and told him, “I think perhaps we should both be part of this conversation.”
“You’re kidding,” he said. “What’s going on now?” I wondered how angry he would be if I told him to go lie down and take a nap instead of trying to study. Quite angry, I decided, so I wouldn’t say it. I would point out that he was snapping at me, though. After the phone call.
Meanwhile, I put my head beside his and positioned the telephone receiver so we could both hear. “Joe is now listening too. Yes, we discussed this with Sophie, as she had many questions.”
“We discussed? WE discussed?” Mrs. Stark was almost sputtering now. “You asked Joe to talk about … about that with his sister?”
“No,” Joe said. “My sister asked me to talk about it, and when Marguerite saw me flailing, she stepped in as usual to save me. Believe me, Mom, I didn’t tell her how the baby gets started. Catch me doing that! What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell her.”
“She’s fourteen years old!” Mrs. Stark said.
“Mom,” Joe said. “Fourteen’s too old not to know. You can bet all the boys know.”
“And what does that matter?” she said. “It’s not as if she’s going steady. At fourteen? When she’s sixteen and going to the … the soda fountain with a boy, it’ll be time enough to explain.”
“The cat’s pretty well out of the bag now, I think,” Joe said.
“And I’m sorry to disillusion you, but kids tend to lie a fair amount to their parents about where they’re going after school and so forth.
About whether the parents will be at the party.
About whether they played Spin the Bottle at that party.
Modern adolescence is like an iceberg: only about ten percent of it is on the surface. ”
“And there are the cars, of course,” I said.
Joe said, “Cars?”
I made an impatient motion with my hand. “Americans have a great many cars, and I suspect that if one sits in a car with a boy, there may be a great deal of … privacy.”
“Boy, you’ve got that right,” Joe said, and grinned. On a positive note, this conversation seemed to be improving his mood.
“I can’t even—” Mrs. Stark began, then stopped.
“And Marguerite tried to tell her using chickens,” Joe said.
“Chickens? What do—”
“About fertilizing the eggs,” I explained.
“I said that if the rooster covers the hen, the egg is fertilized and can grow into a chick. I thought that was a rather clever way to describe it, but Sophie has a most curious and scientific mind and wasn’t satisfied, for humans, you know, are not chickens.
Having three openings instead of one, for example.
” And at an inarticulate noise from Mrs. Stark, “But she did say that it sounded disgusting, which is perhaps good news?”
“Face it, Mom,” Joe said. “Sophie’s likely to be almost as disobedient as I was. She’s just not going to be as sneaky about it.”
“But you were wonderful,” Mrs. Stark said. “A wonderful child!”
“Well, thanks,” Joe said. “But remember that iceberg? Look at it this way: I turned out all right, didn’t I?
Other than marrying a shiksa, but then, I’m pretty crazy about my shiksa princess, so no hope there.
I’m guessing Sophie will be OK too. If you think any boy’s ever going to take advantage of her—well, I’d like to introduce you to Marguerite.
She slashed a guy across the forehead with a knife, remember? ”
“That may not be the assurance you think it is,” I said. “I expect that Mrs. Stark would prefer that Sophie not slash. She could kick, perhaps? Or a knee is very useful. Maybe you should teach her, Joe.”
The next thing that happened was not that we purchased the tract of land and the apartment house, for we had to wait for the money to come through first, and then for the loans to do so.
Christie’s would send a check eventually, and we would deposit the check, but there was apparently to be a great deal of “clearing” between each of these steps, for a check was only a piece of paper until proven otherwise.
I did wish I’d been allowed to take that “Economics of Enterprise” class, but in its absence, Joe and I had had a long conversation with the bank manager, who’d been most helpful in explaining.
I spent the time before the purchases could be completed by continuing to help Jean with her real-estate business, serving as a sort of general dogsbody and learning what happened behind the scenes.
There was a great deal of law and also a great many contracts, and with these, Joe was most helpful.
We’d learned Philosophy together, and now we were learning real estate together, too.
We also interviewed a number of possible stockbroking firms, for there would be rather a lot of money to be dealt with while we learned to make wise choices in our land acquisitions.
To my annoyance, nearly every man with whom we spoke addressed his replies to Joe, even when I’d been the one asking the questions and Joe had pointed out that the money was from the sale of my family’s property.
After four or five such experiences, I admit I despaired.
At last, however, we found the right person at a reputable old firm in San Francisco.
Not a young man, as I’d expected, but an older one with much experience, who seemed more focused on how to achieve my objectives than on convincing me that my objectives were wrong and I should listen to his much better ideas.
When I commented about his willingness to speak to me directly, Mr. Parks said, “Mrs. Stark, I’m convinced that women can be more skilled at investing than men.”
“How?” I asked. Was this merely flattery? I would telephone the clients on the list he’d given me, of course—and try to find clients not on the list as well to question—but I didn’t wish an advisor who went along with my every uninformed whim, either.
He said, “Because men go in thinking they already know, and women go in looking to find out.”
So you see why we chose him.