Listening to Billie by Alice Adams

Author:Alice Adams [Adams, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mothers and Daughters - Fiction, Fiction, Literary, Mothers and Daughters, General, Domestic Fiction
ISBN: 9780307798220
Publisher: Constable
Published: 1978-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

15 / Fantastic Sex

“And this is Reed Ashford, whom we met two years ago in Amsterdam,” said either Daria or Smith to Eliza, and Eliza, intent on Daria, who was recently declared “well,” didn’t even try to catch the name. But she registered, as people do, a great deal more than she was conscious of: extreme blond handsomeness, most obviously—a small man, perfectly made. And also a kind of tender gentleness, a desire to please. Some innate loneliness. And a strain of violence, as though he were saying: Come close, and I’ll break you apart. (The two faces that Daria saw in Amsterdam.)

However, Eliza was too busy observing Daria to be conscious of those confused reactions to a too attractive young man. Daria, cured, was a young Woodside matron, the wife of a success. And that was how she looked: beautifully dressed, of course, in pleated white silk. Serious rather than sad, and showing at least a perfunctory interest in every conversation, although not initiating any talk herself. She seemed older than she was; her eyes were a little tired, a little glazed.

And Eliza found herself—curiously, half consciously—imitating her sister; she, too, was unaccustomedly proper, and more than a little perfunctory. At some point she asked that over-attractive young man, whose name she had already lost, what he did in Europe; he had referred to a great many trips.

“Oh,” he answered, smiling beautifully and vaguely, “I sort of buy things for people.”

Not terribly interested—she was only making conversation—Eliza took this to mean that he traveled for fun and liked buying presents for friends, making a sort of occupation out of shopping, as terribly rich women seem to do. Much later she understood that he was a buyer, professionally, for antique and import-export stores, for decorators—anyone. And he was not, in fact, rich; he only had that air.

Daria’s husband was plumper and softer with success. Predictably, he had become an expert on wines; more surprising, he was interested in politics. Trips to Washington, for a long time now. A vague air of knowingness.

And Eliza remembered that at some point he and Daria were invited to the White House; they were going, and then did not.

Although she knew that the trip might be dangerous ground—it was still assumed that she and Smith disagreed on everything, that he probably considered her crazy—because she had thought of it, she asked, “You didn’t go to Washington, after all?”

Daria giggled in a loud and sudden way, quite out of keeping with her proper clothes, her hostessy demeanor (as Smith alarmedly recognized). “We thought it might be dangerous,” Daria said, and she laughed again.

Eliza, however, had liked her sister’s laugh; to her it was a glimpse of the old pre-depressed Daria, the lovely, hypersensitive, quick-to-laugh-or-cry girl that Eliza had known all her life. And so, in a superior way, Eliza said to Smith, “Dangerous to national security, I hope?”

Smith reddened, and at the same time looked very sad.

“Well, it certainly could have been interesting,” said the beautiful

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