The party was a bore; a gaggle of middle-aged people standing around sipping white wine and pitching Dale Carnegie small talk back and forth. "Where do you live?" "Who do you work for?" "How about those Jays, anyway?" And on. And on.
Marisa was bored. Nominally she was engaged in a conversation with Alice and Cora, women ten years further down that slippery slope to middle age than her. They were all three strangers thrown together by their hostess, then abandoned with the age-old excuse that hor-d'ouvres needed tending. She imagined that she could hear the distant echo of a Neanderthal woman excusing herself a million years ago because she had to scrape the woolly mammoth chunks off the hot rocks before they burned.
Despite investing several minutes of their time in small talk, all three were still strangers. They had found no common ground save for their experiences with most trite and mundane tasks of modern life.
Alice was saying, "...and the way she looked at me? Like I was some kind of prude. I told her, 'I know about office trysts, dear. I've seen that side of town and I've seen the regrets that live there.' And I meant it, too. I have seen the way some of my friends were treated by men they met at work. It's never a pretty sight, but I just can't convince her that a girl's got to watch her reputation. Especially these days when everyone is so afraid of catching some dread disease."
Cora nodded sympathetically. "You're right. A woman's reputation is especially important around the office. We women have to leave our private lives outside the company gates. Even if you just flirt a little, you're asking to be patronized. Don't you think, Marisa?"
Marisa arched her eyebrow. "In my experience, women get patronized when they are incompetent. And taken advantage of when they try to substitute cleavage and mascara for real accomplishments. Anytime a man ever looked down on me, I ignored him, buckled down and worked harder at my own job until it was plain to everyone that I was doing more and better than him. No one, man or woman, can patronize you if you are accomplishing more they are. As long as you make sure that you're getting the credit for your work you do, everyone else will be too busy trying to hang on to their own job to worry about patronizing you. The minor problems fix themselves." She smiled grimly. "If you want to flirt with a guy then, you go ahead and flirt. It'll just worry him all the more." She closed her mouth, knowing that she had been drawn into revealing more about her professional strategy to these two strangers than she had really wanted.
Cora looked sharply at her, wounded by the blunt rebuke from the younger woman, but saying nothing.
Alice did not realize the simple implication of Marisa's logic; that her concern about being patronized was the result of her own incompetence. She responded to Marisa's statement objectively rather than personally. "That's okay if it is someone that you can compete with, but if it's your boss, there isn't much you can do."
Marisa looked at Alice as though she was an uneducable child and shrugged. Cora, feeling some empathy for another woman of her generation, tried to explain the subtleties. "In a way, you do compete with your boss. You compete with his expectations of you. If you exceed his expectations, then you are winning the competition. And if you are exceeding the organization's expectations, you may get a promotion that could jeopardize his job."
Marisa did not bother acknowledging Cora's restatement of her thesis but let Alice blithely change the subject. "I've found the same thing in volunteer work. Even though there's no salary, people still compete for each other's jobs."
Cora nodded in agreement. "I know, but it's a lot more fun there because winning and losing doesn't matter much. I was a Brownie leader when my daughter was that age and my assistant leader kept coming up with such wonderful crafts. She really deserved to be the leader, but she didn't want to be."
Alice nodded vigorously. "Yes, isn't it marvelous some of the things they think up. My daughter brought me the most darling little wreath when she came home from camp one year..."
Marisa stopped listening as the conversation returned to its previous mundane level. She let her attention wander about the room while the other two women chattered on. From the corner of her eye she noticed Cora looking at her with a mild frown on her face. Too bad. She did not care if Cora thought her rude. They were nobody to her and it was their own fault if they could not hold her interest for more than a couple of minutes.
As she let her gaze sort through the crowd, she imagined that the other two women were silently congratulating themselves on the mature banality of their discourse; seeing themselves as perfect models of correct social behaviour for modern professional women in general and her, an up-and-coming youngster in particular.
She was well acquainted with the desperate hunger for the respect of younger women that seemed to consume so many of the women who were a few years her senior. She was forever coming across women in the business world who expected automatically to become her mentor. Perversely, it seemed that the fewer skills they had developed and the sparser their records of accomplishment, the more likely they were to expect her to sit at their feet in attentive adoration. She thought that it was probably because society worshiped female beauty. As women approached middle age and lost the effortless slender grace of their youth, they found that male adoration and female envy, both equally desired tributes, were no longer laid at their feet with casual disinterest. In compensation for the loss of adoration and envy, they believed that the world owed them unearned respect as an equally effortless substitute. Marisa was determined to avoid that fate by climbing into the rarefied corporate stratosphere at a young age on her intellectual merit alone.
She was more amused than annoyed by this pair of pedantic yuppie wives because she was certain that she already enjoyed a more successful career than either ever would.
Her attention came to rest on Bill on the other side of the crowd, pinned to the far wall by Al, Vice President of Marketing and her manager's supervisor. Al was important because he had the power to bestow her next promotion. Her own manager was powerless to promote her unless he was promoted himself, but he had neither the drive nor the talent to displace any of the Vice Presidents from their corner offices. And he would never recommend her for transfer or promotion away from his "team" because she was his most creative and productive staff member. She could not even hope that he would find a lateral transfer in these tight times and get out of her way. However, as a Vice President, Al had the power to promote her against her immediate supervisor's wishes.
Bill had a firm grasp of the dynamics of her organization and knew that, for her sake, he should act as though he were fascinated by whatever tedious conversation Al was droning into his ear. Even from across the room, she could see that, though he was playing this role with a subtle conviction that deserved critical acclaim, it was only an act. She could see the little signs, signs detectable only to a wife and helpmate with eight years of experience, that betrayed his boredom. Despite his frank gaze and frequent enthusiastic nods at Al, his finger slowly circled the base of his wine glass and the toe of his shoe dragged slowly back and forth across the carpet, exposing his underlying psychological rhythms; rhythms with the same tempo as his snores on a lazy Saturday morning.
Finding nothing else to interest her in the crowded room, she forced her attention back to Alice and Cora. Alice was saying, "...such a lovely dress. I'm dying to know where you got it."
Dying to know where she got it? Marisa imagined Alice's re-animated corpse dragging out of some boutique tomorrow in an identical dress, looking like Cora's evil twin resurrected from her untimely demise and escaping from an insufficiently secure grave.
Cora looked down at the maroon rib-knit sheath that clung to her slender body and replied, "I got it from Ron, my husband."
Marisa raised an involuntary eyebrow. Alice's comment had not been empty flattery, the dress was truly as lovely as she had said. Ron had uncommonly good taste in women's clothing.
Alice, her voice barely daring to hope, replied, "Oh, I see. I guess you don't know where he got it?"
Marisa expected Cora to protest her ignorance of her husband's shopping habits and squelch Alice's unseemly prying, but instead flabbergasted her. "I certainly do. Ron made it for me."
Alice sounded even more surprised than Marisa felt. "You're kidding! He made that?" Alice leaned toward Cora to inspect the seams minutely. "It's lovely work. I don't think I ever had a dress turn out as successfully. Is it a Vogue pattern?"
"No, Banana Republic. I bought a dress there some years ago when we were on vacation. It was my favorite dress, so when it finally wore out, Ron took it apart to use as a pattern. He has been making new dresses for me ever since, always starting with the same pattern. He just varies the details. This time he went for the cowl collar and a slit to the knee on the left side. Last time he put a keyhole neckline on a pale paisley print interlock and hemmed it an inch above the knee to get a kind of sixties retro look."
Alice fanned her face dramatically with her napkin. "I feel weak. I didn't know such men existed. Where did he learn to sew? Night classes?"
"No classes. He just read some sewing books and kept trying until he got it right. Trial and error, really. Mostly error for the first few dresses, but he learned. He still makes the occasional ghastly garment, but I don't have to wear those. I only have to take the successes."
Alice giggled with a particular quality that made Marisa think of sorority sisters sharing intimate secrets over hot cocoa after curfew. "I wish my Richard could whip up such lovely dresses for free. He gets so cranky about my Mastercard bills."
"Oh, my dear. Ron doesn't make these dresses for free. I pay for them." Cora raised an eyebrow and added, "And I'm sure I pay fair market value." Marisa wondered at the way the corners of Cora's mouth curved upward in a coy look as she uttered those words.
Alice seemed oblivious to Cora's subtle fleeting expression and just blinked her owl eyes in amazement. "Pay? How much does he charge you?"
"This one cost me three blow jobs." Marisa could see a twinkle in Cora's eye, but knew that Alice was sufficiently obtuse to let that impish light slip right by, unmarked.
Alice's eyes narrowed in ill-concealed revulsion. "You have to do that...to...to do that for him every time he makes you a dress?"
Cora waved her hand limply. "Heavens, no. We negotiate a mutually satisfactory price before he buys the material, and, if I don't like the way the dress turns out, I am quite free to re-negotiate the deal or even cancel it. The sixties retro number was nice enough, but not really up my alley, so I haggled him down to one nooner in his office, doggy style. I really wanted to get away with a hand job in the bath on that one, but he wouldn't go that low. And, after the work he put into it, I felt that I owed him something reasonable for his efforts, even if I didn't wear the dress much."
"That's...that's..." Words failed Alice and she simply stopped talking and shook her head with her mouth gaping.
Cora continued. "Sometimes he tries to hold out for more than I am willing to pay and never gets to make the dress. The worst was one time when we had a deal, but after the dress was finished, I just couldn't deliver my part of the contract. I tried, but I simply couldn't go through with it. I used to think that I could do anything for him, and it didn't sound that bad when we were just talking, but when the payment came due, I just didn't have the guts. It was a gorgeous wool herringbone with a false Peter Pan collar and cuffs in mauve chiffon, you know, so it looked like it had a blouse underneath it? I had to take it to the Salvation Army, unworn. I cried. I really did. After pushing the dress through their deposit chute, I actually sat in my car in the Salvation Army parking lot in broad daylight and cried like a baby. It was almost half an hour before I could control myself enough to drive home again. Now I'm a lot more careful about my negotiations. Sometimes, I get a real bargain from him, but he's never gone back on his word once we've come to an agreement." She grinned. "I think three blow jobs is a pretty good deal for this dress, don't you?"
Alice worked her mouth for a minute, still at a loss for words.
Cora stepped back into the conversational breach. "I mean really, it doesn't take nearly as much of my time as it does his. It took him almost eight hours to make this dress but the blow jobs only take a few minutes each. I don't think I'm ripping him off, though. Blow jobs are worth more per hour. On the street three blow jobs would cost a man a couple of hundred bucks, I think." She looked at Alice and smiled brightly, but only received an unblinking stare by way of reply. "Do you think I'm paying too dearly for this dress? Maybe I should have held out for one blow job instead of agreeing to three. It takes a few days to pay off three, but I can get one over with right away. Of course, if I wanted him to take just one, he probably would have wanted me on my knees in a public place. I'd rather give a man three blow jobs in the comfort of my bedroom than one in a public park after dark, wouldn't you?"
Alice finally found her voice, "I wouldn't consider it. I find the whole idea disgusting. It would make me feel like a prostitute."
"It does. So what. It's tolerable. I don't understand why one-sided sex is such a thrill for him, but if my husband wants to be serviced by a whore, I'll be damned certain that I am the whore that services him. Besides, I only service him if I make a fair profit." She smoothed the dress over her thighs and glanced down. "You said that you liked my profit." Cora was smiling gently, but Marisa knew she must be laughing uproariously underneath that cool exterior. She was tempted to give Cora's virtuoso display of iron self-control a standing ovation, but refrained because she did want to see how far Cora could extend this performance.
Alice replied with grim seriousness, enunciating each word separately and distinctly, "I don't have to make a profit from sex with my husband. We make love for the fun of it." Staring at her sour visage, Marisa found it hard to imagine Alice doing anything for the fun of it. But then, she knew that she was not seeing her at her best. Cora had certainly figured out how to jerk her chain. Marisa wished that she had paid closer attention to the preliminary small talk to see how Cora had got her number. But maybe she had not really got that much insight, because she was using a pretty blunt instrument. Under this kind of assault, few women could refrain from reacting badly.
Even so, Cora may have worried that she was pushing Alice farther than she intended. She sounded less playful, more pedantic when she replied, softly, "Making love is different. We do that most of the time. But I cherish every orgasm and if I'm doing something that doesn't give me any chance to get off, then neither Ron nor I call it, 'making love.' He was never selfish and I always suspected that he was silently forgoing some of the things that he most wanted for my sake. When he hit on the idea of exchanging something of value to me on those occasions when he wants something special, I jumped at the opportunity to accommodate him. Every couple of months he spends some of his time making a dress for me and I spend some of my time doing something for him in return. We both get what we want and we both feel good about it. That's real capitalism. Fair deals that make everyone winners and no one losers."
"My husband would never sink so low as to ask me for such crude things," Alice sniffed.
For the first time, Marisa heard an edge of anger creep into Cora's voice. "Better you should say he'll never rise so high. Do you have a dress that gives your husband a hard-on every time you wear it? Just seeing me slip this ordinary little dress over my head to go to work on a Monday morning gives him a bigger woody than any silly peek-a-boo lace and satin fantasy that Frederick's of Hollywood ever sold."
It may have been Cora's anger, or the cumulative effect of her increasing crudeness, or possibly her description of fantasy underwear as silly, but something finally broke in Alice. She reeled as though she had been slapped across the face, flushed a rosy pink, and could barely croak, "Excuse me, I think I need another drink." She turned to slink toward the kitchen.
Cora smiled innocently at Marisa and said blandly, "I love parties. Ron says he finds them boring, but I think meeting new people is just so interesting. Don't you?"
Marisa nodded mutely.
Cora sighed happily and said, "It was nice meeting you, but I think I'd better excuse myself. It's getting late and I'd like to persuade Ron to let me finish paying off this dress. I hate to be in debt. I'm sure you understand."
Marisa nodded again but could not think of any reply but for the banal, "It was nice meeting you." She surprised herself when she realized that meant it.
As Cora turned to walk away, Marisa noticed the small rectangle of top stitching just below the collar of her dress where the manufacturer's label was normally stitched inside. Some people put personalized labels in clothes that they made themselves. Maybe Ron's name really was on that label, but there was no way that she could ask to read it. And, if it was not Ron's personal label, she did not want to know.
She watched Cora put her arm about a man's waist and whisper a word in his ear. He was the most nondescript man in the room and Marisa was pierced with a sharp pang of disappointment. She expected Cora to be matched to someone extraordinary; someone who exuded gentle power; someone with dark, brooding eyes that stripped you down to your naked soul. With a cheerful nod to the man he was talking to, he excused himself from his conversation. She watched him escort Cora over to the hostess with his arm resting tenderly on her hip.
Rather than looking for another conversation, she decided that it was time to rescue Bill from Al. He had been doing yeoman's service for most of the evening and deserved a change of pace. Besides, the dregs of this party could only be a disappointing anticlimax for her.
She threaded her way through the other guests until she was standing by Bill. She did not interrupt Al's monologue until he paused to take a breath, "Gee, Bill, I hate to break up such an interesting conversation, but we promised the sitter we'd be home a half an hour ago."
Bill nodded reluctantly as though he really did have a sitter who had to be relieved, even though he hated to miss a single syllable of Al's incessant cascade of self-aggrandizing nattering.
As they crossed the room in search of their hostess, Marisa told Bill, "I'm really grateful to you for keeping Al entertained for so long."
He waved her gratitude off, "Aw, it was nothing, really."
"No, it was heroic. I know what Al is like. I think I owe you something for that."
He looked puzzled, "Owe me something?"
She leaned very close and whispered into his ear.
In violation of the fundamental principles of common courtesy they forgot about taking their leave from their hostess. Bill wheeled about and made a beeline for the front door and Marisa had to rush to catch up with him. She thought it must be some kind of male thing.
Cora, still collecting her serving platter in the kitchen, covertly watched Alice and Bill's unseemly retreat and knew victory.
Bill received payment in full less than four blocks away in the rear seat of their minivan in the far corner of an apartment building parking lot. Marisa wore a self-satisfied smile the rest of the way home.
But her smile was not as smug as Cora's knowing smirk on the other side of the city. As she hung up the dress, her husband, Ron, commented, "You look pleased with yourself. Enjoyed the party, did you, dear?"
"Yes, I did. Met some interesting people."
"Those two women you were talking to last?"
"Yes."
"Nice women?"
"Not particularly. One was quite a prude, the other rather an arrogant young woman."
"Oh, dear. I trust you weren't too hard on them?"
"No. Not much I could do for the prudish one. Showed her a more liberal view of the world, but I doubt she learned much from it. The other had potential though. She just needed to see herself in a more humble role."
"So you humbled her?" Ron grinned.
"No, dear. I just suggested that she humble herself. I think she'll be seeing herself in a new light one of these days."
"I bet."
When Cora did not volunteer more information, Ron knew not to press. Rather he nodded at the dress that Cora was returning to the closet. "Nice dress. Is it new?"
"Yes, dear. I picked it up at Holt-Renfrew last Saturday. I think it suits me rather well, even if I do say so myself."
She closed the closet door and winked at Ron.