Let Me Tell You Read Online Free PDF Page B

suppose,” Joan said. She looked inquiringly at Debbi, and Debbi, who was the talkative one, said “We’re going to my family’s summer place, most of the time.”
    “You won’t be home, then?” Louise said to Joan, a remark first to one, then to the other; how perfectly they guided her.
    “Mom’s in Europe, of course,” Joan said. “I may go to my brother’s for a while.”
    Joan’s brother, Louise knew perfectly well, was the well-known painter. Her mother was the dress designer. Debbi’s father owned the meatpacking company that provided all the tinned meat Louise Harlowe bought at her grocery. Another of Lionel’s students was the daughter of the family that owned the newspaper Louise and Lionel read. Still another had a father who directed the movies Louise and Lionel saw when they could afford it. We must have been crazy to let Lionel take this job, Louise thought briefly, and smiled again at Debbi—was it Debbi’s turn?—and said, “Going to do any writing this summer?”
    Debbi grinned, her own grin and not the polite smile she reserved for tea parties with faculty wives. “I hope,” she said.
    It cleared the air a little; the question had been so patently ridiculous. Louise’s own picture of the summer Debbi and Joan would find so dull involved a montage of sailboats, country club dances, expensive evening gowns, and good scotch. What cleared the air was that Debbi and Joan knew she knew.
    “Okay,” Louise said. “You know I can’t offer you a drink. So you might as well drink tea.”
    “I’ll have some more then, if I may,” Joan said. No matter what happens, Louise thought, touching the teapot lightly with her hand to test the heat, no matter what happens, they can’t ask for more tea without the grace of those years of training, that subtle polish that comes from a lifetime of custom, in houses where nothing is finger-marked and nothing is chipped and the tea is always hot.
    “It’s not awfully warm,” she said to Joan, mocking herself for saying “warm” instead of “hot”; who do I think I am? she wondered—Mrs. Astor?
My
brother sells insurance in New Jersey.
    “That doesn’t matter,” Joan said. She accepted her cup and set it down on the table next to her; it doesn’t matter a damn, Louise thought, she just won’t drink it.
    “So?” Louise said, leaning back against the couch cushions.
    “So?” Debbi said. She and Joan looked at each other again, almost experimentally. Louise watched.
    “You still making passes at my husband?” Louise asked deliberately of Joan, and was gratified to see them both blush. “Well?” she said.
    “Look, Mrs. Harlowe,” Joan said with a mild little laugh. “You know perfectly well—”
    “I do indeed,” Louise said. She waited again, still watching. The girls were tense, but not as tense as she was; they showed it more because they were younger and unprepared, and all of their training had not taught them what to do when they were attacked, because none of their training had ever anticipated that they might be exposed for anything, anywhere, at any time.
    “Look,” Joan tried helplessly, again. “Mrs. Harlowe, there’s nothing between—”
    Debbi decided to attack in her turn. “I don’t think you have any right to say something like that to Joan, Mrs. Harlowe. After all—”
    Louise laughed. “Listen,” she said. “If I were someone like Ellen Thorndyke, Joan and I would be having a little heart-to-heart talk right now. Wouldn’t we?”
    Joan and Debbi both smiled reluctantly.
    “Not that
that
did much good,” Louise said, and then they all laughed aloud.
    “It didn’t, either,” Debbi said. “That girl Dusty was so mad after Mrs. Thorndyke told her to lay off that—” She stopped abruptly.
    “Exactly,” Louise said.
    “But, Mrs. Harlowe,” Joan said. “Really, Mr. Harlowe and I—”
    “Never mind,” Louise said, perhaps a little too quickly. “Anyway, I won’t be seeing either of you again, will