Free Families and Survivors by Alice Adams Page A

believe in a man and a woman living together, being friends. I don’t think it matters who does what. David is a better cook than I am. While he was interning and I was working, we sort of cooked together—it was fun. I don’t think it matters who does dishes or stays at home with kids.”
    “Well, you would have made an awfully pretty suffragette,” says Andrew, laughing. And he has succeeded in lightening the moment (not only because he is a nice man; he is also strongly attracted to Kate).
    Kate blushes, both for the compliment and for what she has said. “But I mean it,” she says, purposely exaggerating her forthrightness—this is a way she has.
    Sally Chapin looks incredulously at Kate; she can hardly believe that such a pretty and well-dressed girl could have such—such ideas. And her vocabulary comes up with no word to describe Kate’s point of view. “Masculine” is the word most generally used (at that time) to describe unfortunate behavior in women, but that does not seem quite appropriate.
    “Kate, I really don’t think you’ve given this much thought,” Louisa says.
    “No, I haven’t,” says honest Kate, “but you know how I am. Instinctual.”
    “Well, Michael thinks all the time. He’s extremely intellectual.” Louisa feels the old thrill of defending Michael: there was a triumphant moment, some years ago at Michael’s parents’ house, when Louisa told his mother
please
to stop interrupting what Michael was saying.
    Kate then says, “Oh, God, my train! I have to go!”
    Andrew, who has just become conscious of how attracted he is, and who for the first time is a little irritated by Michael, asks, “Can’t we take you to your train? We have to go, too. Louisa, Michael—okay?”
    Louisa agrees, and so, because of the rush, the farewells are minimized, and what might have been somewhat awkward is capsuled.
    “Goodbye—great to see you—thanks!”
    Everyone says these things, and then Louisa and Michael are left alone.
    This is often a bad moment for them, but the evening has produced a mood of affectionate rapport. They have, at times, almost the quality of a conspiracy, an alliance against all other people, which other people sometimes sense (Sally Chapin does) and find unpleasant.
    “God, she’s really got much worse,” Louisa says. “She used to be sort of marvelous.”
    “Really? She did? I got a strong sense that there’s something terribly wrong with her marriage, didn’t you?” poor Michael says eagerly. “She seemed so defensive, as though she were projecting.”
    “I’m sure you’re right. He’s probably some real jerk, and she’s sorry she married him.”
    “Do you ever get the feeling that Andrew Chapin is essentially boring?”
    “Well, yes, and God knows Sally is.”
    “
Yes.
Well, time for bed?” he says, smiling.
    “I think I’m frustrated, that’s what’s wrong with me,” laughs Kate, somewhat embarrassed, as she settles into the Chapins’ car. “I really didn’t mean to be so disagreeable.”
    “You really weren’t,” says gentlemanly Andrew, who is kind.
    “Michael can be awfully—psychological,” Sally says softly. She has just realized with a start that she doesn’t like Michael at all. (In fact—it is years before she knows this—Sally likes very few people.) And she thinks this violent “different” girl is interesting.
    “Well, it is his field,” Andrew reminds her, out of a feeling that someone should stand up for Michael.
    At the station, where they are just in time—the train is coming up from the South (southern California)—Kate thanks them in her enthusiastic way. She says, “Please call me when you come up to the city. David Harrington.” She says this proudly; she likes David’s name, likes wearing it. “I’d love to see you.”
    But by the time they do call her, or, rather, Andrew does, she is not at first quite sure who he is.

Five / 1955
    From birth, Maude Wasserman, the daughter of Louisa and Michael,