The Ex-Suicide by Clark Katherine;

Author:Clark, Katherine;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Published: 2017-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

9

Normally on Thursdays he would have been preparing to meet with his therapist, but because it was a particular Thursday in late November, he found himself preparing to eat Thanksgiving dinner at the Mountain Brook Club. He would rather have been with his therapist. Looking around him at the blur of faces that didn’t seem a whole lot more festive than his, he wondered how many of these others would have preferred to be at their therapist’s office as well. Of course, if given completely free choice, all the men in the room, including himself, would have chosen to be at home in front of the television, watching football. Their faces had a look of glum acquiescence and submission to the will of their women. The children at every table squirmed uncomfortably in their boredom and Sunday best, as he himself had done when he was a child attending events at the club. At the moment, his nephews were squirming on either side of him, impatient for the meal to get underway and get over with. But they were better off than he was: at a certain point in the buffet service, when people were popping up peripatetically from tables all over the room to get seconds or thirds or dessert, the children could pop off and disappear to the usual hideaways and cubbyholes without anyone really noticing or objecting. He, on the other hand, was stuck for the duration, and had to resist the urge to squirm in his own seat.

On the whole, the women seemed the most satisfied to be where they were, showing off their new dresses, dutiful husbands and beautiful children in their literally priceless clothes. But even they weren’t exactly happy. Doubt lurked in the eyes of some; too much bourbon already shone in the eyes of others, especially the older women, the grandmothers like Lula Petsinger, who had most of her meals at the club anyway. It was the women who gave off the whiff of guilt and failure that made the whole atmosphere so oppressive and the whole occasion seem so doomed. The square jaws of their mirthless men and the restlessness of the malcontented children begged an obvious question these women could not ignore despite their bright laughter and jangling jewelry. Why weren’t they having Thanksgiving dinner at home, where Thanksgiving dinner belonged?

For once in this town where half the streets, including his own, were named “Country Club” Drive, Road, Place, Circle, Lane or Avenue, the Mountain Brook Club was not the place to be. For once, an appearance at the club was the ultimate sign of failure rather than success. This, at any rate, seemed to be the fear haunting the eyes of the ladies: that the people here today were not the people who had made it, or who had it made. These were the people who had come to naught and had not been able to come up with their own Thanksgiving dinner, or an invitation to someone else’s.

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