Surrender, Dorothy: A Novel by Meg Wolitzer

Author:Meg Wolitzer [Wolitzer, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2010-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

8

Campfire Girls

There was a party one afternoon at a mansion on the water, and Adam was invited. He didn’t really want to go, but Shawn worked on him, telling him it would be good for him to get out of the house. This was true, of course, although Shawn’s motives surely had to do with his own desire to be at that party. Shawn longed for such invitations, Adam knew, and had rarely been able to edge his way into that world of wealth and canapés and light conversation.

On the day of the party, when Adam and Shawn came downstairs dressed in pale, slightly formal summer clothes, Natalie stood in the kitchen with her head in the refrigerator. She was ferreting through everything on the shelves, extracting ancient bottles and jars. She yanked hard on a bottle that gripped the glass shelf with its own glue. Finally the jar was uprooted, and Natalie peered in to see what it was.

“Chutney,” she said aloud to no one in particular. “Major Grey’s Peach Chutney. Does anyone know how old this is?”

Adam, standing in the doorway buttoning his cuffs, tried to recall. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “We got it three or four summers ago. We had an Indian dinner. I think it was Sara’s idea.”

Natalie gazed at the bottle with the thoughtful attentiveness of a mother gazing at her daughter’s face. “Sara was a chutney person,” she said quietly. She cradled the sorry-looking bottle in her hands, and at that moment Adam decided it was essential to get this woman out of the house. Otherwise, he could imagine her standing here forever, the refrigerator door left swinging wide, the chutney held tenderly in her useless hands. “Mrs. Swerdlow,” he said. “Finish what you’re doing and get dressed. You’re coming with us.”

THE PARTY WAS held at the home of Paul and Sheila Normandy, noted patrons of the arts. Adam had initially met the couple backstage at a performance of his play; a stream of people often came backstage, including celebrities and friends of Adam’s parents (“It’s Adele Glucksman! From 15 Bluebird Court!”), as well as the mayor and a loose circle of wealthy friends of the producer, some of them Broadway investors. The Normandys fell into this last category, and while they hadn’t invested in his show, there would be future shows needing investors, and his agent, Mel Wolf, had wanted him to be charming backstage.

“But I don’t know how to be charming,” Adam nervously said to Sara after the curtain had come down one night and the actors were taking their bows. He and Sara sat in one of the tiny cinderblock dressing rooms; she was patiently retying his necktie, which he had knotted poorly, as usual.

“Yes you do,” she said. “They just want you to be yourself. The witty gay writer. Come on, you do that very well. You are charming, Adam; it’s not fake.”

Suddenly the Normandys appeared in the doorway of the dressing room, and Adam rose. His tie was neat now, and his hair newly combed.

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