Chapter 5 Truth Serum #2
you’ve missed two periods, and then you’ll have to wait a few days to get the results and see if the rabbit dies.”
“Oh, the rabbit always dies,” Bitsy said earnestly, laying her hand on Margaret’s arm. “Even if the test is negative, the rabbit still dies. It’s
barbaric. If I’m ever pregnant, I’m just going to wait until I start showing, no tests. But Margaret’s right,” she added quickly
after Margaret shot her a look. “Maybe you’re just coming down with something.”
“I’m not,” Viv said. “After six times at the rodeo, I know what pregnant feels like.”
Charlotte looked Viv up and down. “How old are you anyway?”
“Forty-one,” Viv said, then broke into a fresh wave of weeping. “Forty-one!”
“Wow,” Charlotte deadpanned. “Not a record, but right up there. Are you sure you don’t want a drink? What about straight vodka? It doesn’t smell like anything.”
Viv sniffled and swiped her nose with the sodden napkin. “I don’t like to drink when I’m pregnant. I don’t think it’s good
for the baby. When I worked in a hospital maternity ward before the war, it seemed to me that the babies of the mothers who
drank were smaller and not quite as healthy.”
“What are you talking about?” Charlotte asked, scoffing. “My doctor says a drink or two is good for expectant mothers, helps
them relax. When I showed up at the hospital three weeks early to have Andrew, they gave me vodka and orange juice to try
and help stop the labor.”
“Well, forgive me if I’m just a little skeptical about doctors right now,” Viv said, setting her jaw. “If that idiot MD I
went to see last month had given me the prescription I asked for instead of insisting that my husband take a whole day off
work, come to an appointment in person, and sign off on letting me have birth control pills, maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess!”
“Have you told Tony?” Margaret asked.
“Not yet. The second people hear you’re pregnant, they start treating you like an invalid.” Viv sighed, shoulders drooping.
“With Jenny in school, I was going to get back into nursing. But now . . .” She looked up, scanning their faces. “You won’t
tell anybody, will you?”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Bitsy said, holding her hand up flat to seal the oath.
Margaret did the same, nodding. “I won’t say a thing.”
“Neither will I,” Charlotte said. “But that doctor! What an arrogant SOB!”
She tossed back a gulp of stinger, handed fresh glasses to Bitsy and Margaret, then picked up the book again.
“But don’t you see, Viv? That’s why good old Aunt Betty’s book is relevant to your life, to all of our lives. Because at some point, every woman has been a Betty, roadblocked by biology, or society, or the whim of some
damn man. Look, I’m not saying you have to agree with everything that’s in here. But we all know there’s a problem. If we
can’t be honest about that, how is anything ever going to change?”
“Well, Tony has never tried to stand in my way,” Viv said. “Not even once. But big picture? I get it. You should have met
my commanding officer.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully and took the book from Charlotte’s hand. “Maybe I’ll give it
another try.”
“Atta girl.” Charlotte lifted her glass. “To Betty,” she said.
The others picked up their glasses, even Viv.
“Just one sip,” she said, pinching her nose, then clinking her rim against theirs. “To Betty. And the Betty Friedan book club.”
* * *
Viv took over bartending duty. As the stingers continued to flow, so did the secrets. It only took half a cocktail for Bitsy,
who’d once been grounded for a month when her mother caught her sipping champagne at a cousin’s wedding, to spill the beans.
“King got a referral to a fertility specialist from Johns Hopkins,” she said, cradling her cocktail glass like a chalice as
she sipped. “He told me tonight.”
Viv refilled Charlotte’s glass. “Well, maybe it’s time. At least this way you’ll know.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Bitsy slurred, lifting a hand as if casting a vote. “In addition to studying biology at the University
of Kentucky, I grew up on a stud farm. I know how breeding works. However, Mr. Kingsley Cobb has informed me that only one
of us will be seeing the doctor, and that would be me—Mrs. Kingsley Cobb.”
“What? Why?” Margaret frowned. “The issue could just as easily lie with him as with you. You went to college, but are you sure King did? Maybe you should ask to see his diploma from vet school. Because that’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Stupid,” Charlotte agreed. “But typical. Take Henry VIII. After six wives, wouldn’t you think it crossed his mind that he was the problem? But no. It had to be the women. Off with their heads!”
She thrust her glass into the air, sloshing green droplets over the rim. Bitsy lifted her glass to her lips for another drink.
“Nope. I really am the problem.”
Viv set down the cocktail shaker. “You don’t know that.”
“Oh, but I do,” Bitsy said, moving her head slowly from side to side, like a very old and very weary tortoise. “Turns out
that King has already fathered a child. Ten years ago, he had a fling with a married woman and got her pregnant. She lost
the baby, but her military husband was stationed in Korea, so King knew it was his. And since he’s ‘not shooting blanks,’
as he so delicately informed me, our failure to conceive must be my failure.”
Margaret, as upset with King’s tactless blame casting as she was with Bitsy’s acquiescence to it, smacked her empty glass
down on the table.
“Stop that right now. You are not a failure!”
“I feel like one.”
“Well, you’re not,” Margaret said. “Lemme tell you about failure.”
She reached for the shaker, then proceeded to tell them all about the contest, the rented typewriter, the hours she’d spent
writing and rewriting, her ridiculous hopes, the fight with Walt, and the crumpled rejection letter, which she passed around
for inspection and referred to as Exhibit A. “Incontrovertible proof of my status as an A1, first-class, bona fide loser.”
“Oh, puh-leeze,” Charlotte said, stretching her legs out long and crossing her feet at the ankles. “You’re not even close
to A1.
“In the ten years since I took up painting, I’ve sold exactly two pieces, both to people who hoped it’d give them an in for business deals with my father.
Also, my work has been rejected by every major gallery in New York, and most of the minor ones.
When you’ve been failing for a decade, then we’ll talk about status.
Viv? The shaker is empty. Can you mix up another round? ”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
“Why settle for enough when you can have more than enough?”
Margaret and Bitsy mumbled their support, telling Viv not to be a party pooper. She picked up the shaker and headed toward
the kitchen. “You’re gonna have one helluva headache in the morning.”
“Let’s worry about that tomorrow, shall we?” Charlotte rocked forward to retrieve her nearly flat pack of Newports from the
coffee table and lit one up. “Now that we’re an official book club, I suppose we should set some ground rules, work out a
structure.”
“Such as?” Bitsy asked.
“Such as,” Charlotte said, pausing to inhale. “Is this it? Or should we expand our ranks?”
Margaret shook her head. “I already asked the other women in the neighborhood. Not interested. I think it’s just as well.
They’re definitely not Bettys.”
“All right, we shall remain exclusive. No non-Bettys allowed.” Charlotte slipped off one of her blue spectator pumps and used
it to gavel in their decision, rapping the heel against the coffee table. “We’ll meet monthly, every third Wednesday. Since
not everyone has finished the book and we didn’t get very far this evening,” she said, casting a gimlet eye toward the kitchen
and Viv, “I move we continue our discussion of The Feminine Mystique to next month.”
Everyone agreed this was a good idea.
“But how do we decide what to read after that?” Bitsy asked.
The kitchen telephone rang in the background. Margaret called out to Viv, “Would you mind getting that? If it’s Walt, tell
him I’ve moved.” Margaret turned back to the group. “Why don’t we get some suggestions from Babcock’s and vote?”
“I love that bookstore,” Bitsy said, nodding. “Mrs. Babcock is so nice, and she really knows her stuff. She’ll have some great recommendations.”
Charlotte tapped her heel on the table again, declaring the motion adopted. Viv appeared in the doorway, holding the telephone
receiver. The bright yellow coil that tethered the phone to the wall prevented her from entering the room.
“Maggie? It’s for you.”
Margaret rose reluctantly from her seat, stretching out her hand to take the phone.
“His name is Leonard Clement,” Viv said. “He sounds older, and grouchy.”
Margaret frowned. The name didn’t sound familiar. She pressed the receiver to her ear.
“Hello? This is Margaret Ryan.”
“This is Leonard Clement.” Viv was right, he did sound grouchy. “With A Woman’s Place magazine.”
Margaret groaned. She should have told Viv to let it ring.
“Isn’t it a little late for sales calls? Besides, I already have a subscription, which I intend to cancel as soon as possible.”
“I’m not a salesman,” he said, sounding offended. “I’m an editor.”
The stinger buzz was beginning to fade, and the headache Viv had predicted was arriving ahead of schedule—so Margaret was
feeling pretty grouchy herself.
“Well, if you’re calling to let me know that I didn’t win the essay contest, you’re too late. The rejection letter came today.
So if you’ll excuse me—”
“Not calling about the contest, Mrs. Ryan,” he said, making the honorific sound more like an insult. “I’m calling to offer you a job. But hey, no skin off my nose
if you’re not interested. None of this was my idea, believe me.”
The quick, sharp shake of Margaret’s head was slightly painful and wholly involuntary, a reflexive response to a sentence
she was certain she’d misheard.
“Wait. Did you say a job? Doing what?”