Free Old Neighborhood by Avery Corman Page A

late, first I had to attend a trade convention in Chicago, then Beverly had to participate in an art teachers’ seminar in Washington. We went to a French restaurant on Long Island. It was like a business meeting. Beverly brought me up to date on the latest developments in her work, and I did the same for my work. We spent a few minutes in token social conversation, talking about the children, and then, having exhausted the main topics of conversation, we sat in silence. We found a few minutes more of discussion on real estate, Beverly’s parents had advised us to build a swimming pool on our property, “A swimming pool increases your land values, boy.” I was opposed, since it was George’s suggestion. I also thought it would cheapen the appearance of the property. So Beverly and I discussed the pool, then we went home and made love, it was Saturday night and on the agenda.
    We were a picture couple, disregarding my paunch. Beverly looked even more beautiful than when she was younger, she had an aura that came with her success. When we went to industry dinners to see our agency win its customary creative awards, she looked outstanding. And when I stood with a forced smile at the community events Beverly was obliged to attend, people deferred to me, my name and sometimes my picture appeared in the business pages of The New York Times. And I always wore good suits, no longer gray-gray from Brooks, imported tailoring from Andre Oliver. We were two local stars, but we were evolving to a relationship that was less a marriage than it was a corporation.
    In the middle of a night I awoke with deep feelings of anxiety and I shook Beverly, who was asleep, and I said desperately:
    “Bevvy, what’s happening to us?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What can we do?”
    “I don’t know.”
    We held each other and we fell back asleep again, and in the morning, like a nightmare, the problems of our relationship were ignored, and we went back to the busy life of two professional people, as we tried not to notice that we were drifting away from each other.
    For Christmas 1978 I received from my family a gas-fired barbecue grill, a chef’s hat and an apron that said, “Get ’em while they’re hot.” The grill was, in part, a serious gift. I had insisted that one night a week we had a dinner together, as a family, in our home. Long past was our custom of taking family vacations, the children had been going to sleepaway camps and during the year they were involved with their social lives. Beverly and I were preoccupied with our careers. In our house, a conversation between any two people on a subject or a feeling, as opposed to a logistical problem or a monetary request, was a unique event. Monday night was the time chosen for the family, and for that meal, which I prepared, we were all obliged to remain at the table until dessert and remind each other that we all still lived there.
    Sarah, seventeen, was a high school senior and was stunning. Tall, graceful, with long blond hair, she read Vogue and was more sophisticated than her years. Boys collected at the doorstep like dust. Amy, fifteen, was working against her sister’s type and was wholesome rather than chic. She kept her blond hair short, and she was animated, whereas Sarah preferred to be cool. Sarah had been a Vietnam protester, her current cause seemed to be her personal appearance. Amy passed through causes the way Sarah passed through romances.
    “Some of us are going over to Shoreham on Saturday,” Amy announced.
    “Be careful,” I said.
    “It’s just a march.”
    “Daddy, don’t you think you can come up with something better than ‘Stop Nuclear Proliferation’?” Sarah asked, indicating a button Amy was wearing.
    “But I’m sure Daddy is in favor, right, Daddy? You’re a corporation man, you work for corporations and Corporate America wants nuclear power plants,” Amy said.
    “I’m not necessarily in favor.”
    “Advertising is the tool of the