Modern Baptists by James Wilcox

Author:James Wilcox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 1983-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Back in Tula Springs Donna Lee went straight to her apartment and fixed herself a martini. Although she had lived there for almost a year, the apartment looked as if she had just moved in. A box filled with extra linens, iseashells, and old letters from friends sat on the couch she was planning to reupholster. On the tacky linoleum that covered perfectly wonderful oak-block flooring was a brass wall lamp, which she didn’t want to screw in until she removed the “contemporary design” wallpaper that her father had installed while she was visiting a girl friend in New York. Totem and Taboo provided the fourth leg to the armchair Donna Lee had found at the city dump. It was a very comfortable chair, clean as could be, but Mrs. Keely refused to set foot in the apartment until it was removed. Donna Lee flopped into the chair and tried to read.

After a second martini Donna Lee climbed down the rickety wooden stairs outside her apartment to examine the dent in the Volvo again. She hated to think of herself as being so middle class that a dent upset her. On the way home from Ozone she had convinced herself that it really didn’t matter. After all, a car was for getting from one place to another. It was not—as so many American men felt—an extension of your personality. Besides, she’d rather not get involved with Mr. Pickens. He was a pain in the neck.

Taking a few steps back for a critical look at the car—she had bought it in 1979, the year her mother’s father died, leaving Donna Lee a healthy trust fund—she suddenly realized that all her excuses for not confronting Mr. Pickens added up to this simple fact: She was a marshmallow. “Dammit!” she cried, kicking the tire. Why hadn’t she charged Pickens for the office visit? And now, just because that damn urban planner was making her feel worthless, was she going to allow Pickens to walk all over her again? No, ma’am, she wasn’t.

The phone book was not by the phone. She thought she remembered seeing it in the refrigerator, which alarmed her a little, until she realized the memory was of a recent dream. Just as she was about to dial information the phone rang.

“Donna Lee”—it was her mother—”I just wanted to inform you that I’m taking an incomplete in abnormal psychology. I’ve reached my limit with it and refuse to hear another word Mr. Hale has to say about it.”

“Okay, fine with me.”

“I can’t understand why you made me take it in the first place.”

“Because, Mother, I thought it was high time you learned something about real life. You’ve had your head buried in the sand for too long. By the way, would you mind looking up a number for me?”

“Is it any wonder, baby, why you go around with such a long face? How can anyone bear to live, knowing such things go on? I was thinking about it just yesterday at that nice new student union at St.

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