Free Lion House,The by Marjorie Lee Page A

waiting, and while he waited he poured himself a beer-mug of martini. By the time I got out of the tub he was lying on the bed trying his damnedest to pass out. He had been negative about the party from the very beginning. It bruised his ego, I suspected, to have to face the fact that Frannie and Marc had managed to retain at least seventy-five of their friends in spite of our self-granted priorities on them. "If you really want to know," he had said on the way home, "I don't feel like going back. Who wants to waste an evening on that bunch of jerks?"
    "Maybe they've invited Mrs. Harris," I said.
    "That bitch?"
    "Oh ..." I said. "I gather, then, that the lady was not for yearning?"
    "Was that Frannie's?" he asked. "Most of your bon mots these days are Frannie's."
    "It was mine," I answered. "There are still a few things left in this world that are mine." I heard the grate in my voice, though I'd have been hard put to explain exactly what the words meant. I'm just tired, I told myself. And I had reason to be. I'd worked like a slave for Frannie —under a weight of responsibility which should far more logically have been the hostess' rather than the guest's. And while I'd often felt her casual domestic incompetence to be one of the many paradoxical facets of her charm, I was getting slightly fed up with playing stand-in. There had been a night a few weeks before when I'd put the kids to bed—which could only be accomplished after I'd sorted out three sets of pajamas from a mountain of laundry in the basement. And then I'd read to them: one of the Oz books, by special request. Frannie had been reading them Gertrude Stein on the theory that Stein's complexity was actually based on the Absolute of Simplicity. But they'd begun to complain. "It hasn't got plots," they said.
    In any case, when I found Brad on the bed that evening I wasn't as miffed as I might have been. Let him sleep it off, I figured; and if he wakes up later we'll go.
    But he didn't come to; and at about ten the phone rang.
    "Where are you?" Frannie wanted to know.
    "Brad's out cold."
    "Wake him!"
    "I've tried. I get nowhere."
    "Well, come alone."
    "Oh, Frannie, I don't know. I'm pretty beat myself."
    "Now look, Jo, you've just got to. There are over half a hundred creeps here already and I can't face it by myself." I could hear the dull roar of voices in the background; the clink of glasses; and the record player.
    "Don't give me that," I said. "You're a great hostess when you want to be."
    "I'm not! I'm afraid of people! And anyhow, I'm throwing this brawl for you —in a way. Isn't your birthday pretty soon?"
    "My birthday's in August," I said, "and kindly don't remind me of it."
    She was quiet for a second. Then: "I'll drive over and wake him. I need you both. The whole thing's one dimensional without you."
    Within twenty minutes her car drove up and she barged in the back door followed by Jeff Deitz. I wasn't surprised that it was Jeff instead of Marc: first of all, she'd had to leave Marc there to carry on for her; and secondly, she had a funny thing about Jeff. In spite of his status as Most Unpopular Camper with many people, Frannie had often spoken in his defense. She had even gone so far as to give him an Italian tie for Christmas; and when Jeri, the Ever-Interested, had asked her why, Frannie had answered with the usual loaded non sequitur: "How would you like to be married to Marian?"
    Now, halfway up the steps, she turned. "I have your permission?"
    I looked at her. It hadn't occurred at me.
    "At this late date, Jo, surely you don't think I'd —"
    She stopped short because Jeff was there.
    I laughed. "Get him," I said. "At this late date, surely I don't!"
    "How's it going?" I asked Jeff as we waited.
    "Stinks —what else?"
    "No fun?"
    "Fun, shmun. I can't see it. Three cases of liquor, Marc shelled out for. For what? So they'll get invited back and then owe everybody all over again?"
    I fended off his down-beat comments for several minutes, and then