Free Superior Women by Alice Adams Page A

later, though, she is able to wonder just what it is that she fears: his being away? being killed?
    “Yes, just for a practice cruise. On the
Enterprise.
” He looks at his watch. “Look, I have to get back now. I’m on duty. But I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll see each other for sure. I have to see you.”
    Gordon does not call, not that day or the next. Lavinia continues to keep herself looking beautiful, and to say that Gordon is restricted, on duty—as she feels her thin blood blacken with rage and pain.
    Only to Peg does she confide that Gordon is shipping out, and only that; she does not mention not hearing from him. “Oh Peg, I’m so frightened! I don’t know what to do.”
    “Poor little Lavinia—oh, poor thing! But you mustn’t worry, Gordon will come back safe and sound to you. No one gets hurt on a practice cruise. And in the meantime, would you like a nice back rub?”
    “Oh Peg, you’re so nice. Whatever would I do without you?”
    Big kind Peg, whom Lavinia secretly suspects of being a lesbian.
    At last, beneath Peg’s big strong clumsy well-meaning hands, Lavinia allows herself to cry.
    •     •     •
    A week later, on board the
Enterprise,
on the trial cruise, Gordon Shaughnessey dies of a burst appendix. Only the circumstance of its happening on an aircraft carrier makes it seem a military death.

6
    By early spring of that year, 1944, the four friends have divided themselves into twos; it is now Lavinia and Peg who are always together, and Megan and Cathy. By everyone else the four are still perceived as a group (to which Megan was once so eager, so desperate to belong), and they are still friends; there has been no falling out. But Megan, for example, has spent no time alone with Lavinia, has had no private conversations with her since Christmas vacation; nor have Cathy and Lavinia spent any time together. Cathy and Peg were never more than friends of friends, and so it is less remarkable that they have hardly talked; they never really did. All in all there has been a distinct change, though, in the four-way relationship.
    Undoubtedly the death of Gordon Shaughnessey had something to do with this new patterning. Since that happened Lavinia has spent even more time with Peg; they go to movies in Boston, even out to dinner together. It is as though Lavinia were newly widowed, and being cared for by her friend.
    Megan and Cathy find it interesting to talk about.
    “It’s very strange,” Megan says, one morning in Hood’s, between bites of bran muffin, sips of coffee. “It’s as though in some way she’s happier now; she’d almost rather be going to matinees with Peg than waiting around for Gordon, the way she did all last fall.”
    “I know what you mean.” Generally Cathy simply listens and agrees, she is not inclined to put forward theories of her own. But sometimes there is a sharp thrust to her observations. “Laviniadoes everything in such a beautiful, ladylike way,” she now says. “And ‘war widow’ is an especially good thing for her to do.”
    They laugh, and Megan agrees, “Oh
yes.
” She enjoys Cathy so much, she finds Cathy so very bright, and funny. She adds, “Lavinia is a terrific widow, one of the prettiest and youngest around the Square.”
    They laugh again, until at the same moment the possible unfunniness of being a war widow strikes them both, in a sobering way. But they do not express this perception to each other; they never talk about the war. It isn’t funny.
    “And Peg is the perfect comforting friend.” Megan carries it on, in their usual tone. “Peg’s not going to like it when Lavinia gets tired of being a widow and starts going out again.” Some time ago Megan faced the fact that she just does not care much for Peg, jolly noisy old good-hearted Peg.
    “Oh, you’re so right,” agrees Cathy. “This is the best time of all for Peg.”
    Megan is aware that envy, sheer unacceptable and generally inadmissible envy, is making her