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recognizing his secret sorrow at having to be with me and not with Adelaide.
    Or “Oh, Charlie,” she’d laugh, “remember what a great time you and Adelaide and your girls had with us last year when we went on that picnic?”
    Or, “Yes, this bread is delicious, isn’t it. It’s Adelaide’s recipe. She is the best cook.”
    Or, “Yes, my children are sweet, aren’t they. But then, all children are beautiful. They’re the living product of a man and woman’s eternal abiding love for one another.”
    Or, pulling Charlie aside, in stage whispers, “I saw Adelaide today. She’s gotten her hair cut and she looks like a new woman. You really ought to stop by and see her; you’d be delighted, I know.”
    After Charlie and I were married and Adelaide and her girls moved to Massachusetts, June’s attitude didn’t change. If anything, she became even sterner and less open to me, as if trying to be the messenger of Adelaide’s bitterness.
    Back then—it seems so long ago, so much has changed—things were really different for women, especially for Kansas women. Adelaide and June were closed into a way of life which meant only husband, home, and children. I was ten or twelve years younger than they (and my mother and grandmothers had all gone to college and held vaguely liberated philosophies); I wanted something different from what they had. I was their enemy, openly announcing that I did not think their way of life significant, satisfying, enough for me. And in a way they were my enemies: specters of what I couldbe if I once forgot to take my Pill, if I bought a fondue pot or looked at fabric samples. I intended to get a PhD, to teach at university level, and I was as eager as any man to read everything, to sharpen my wits in stimulating conversation. Charlie, who had been smothered by routinized domestic life, loved the crazy way we lived, eating at least half of our meals out at all times of the day and night, doing the laundry and cleaning together or ignoring it, making love or horseback riding instead of looking at furniture or rugs or chairs. But when we were with Anthony and June, I was never comfortable. I didn’t want to listen to her recipes or stories of children’s illnesses or cutenesses. I wanted to be talking with Charlie and Anthony, not with her. We had nothing to say to each other.
    Back then things seemed black and white. I did not like June; she did not like me. But I did not protest when Charlie invited Anthony and his family down to the farm on that first Saturday. I suppose I thought that the presence of Charlie’s girls in our home with me cooking for everyone and flitting about being sweet would make me more acceptable in June’s eyes. Charlie cared a great deal for Anthony and tolerated June. I wanted the Leydens to like me. No, I wanted them to love me. I wanted them to think I was absolutely wonderful. I wanted them to bless Charlie-and-me. I should have had more practice at cheerfully flitting. We should have waited a few more weeks to invite Anthony and June down.
    It went bad right from the start. We four were all just out of bed, stumbling around the kitchen yawning and trying to wake up, when Charlie saw the Leydens’ car crossing the entrance to the farm.
    “Holy cow,” Charlie said. “There’re Anthony and June. They’re here already. Can you believe it? Hold the fort, Zelda. I’ll go on out and meet them.”
    “June and Anthony?” I said, panicked. I wasn’t prepared for them yet, not at all. “Are you sure it’s their car? Oh, Lord, I’m not even dressed. Okay, go on out, Charlie, stall them, and I’ll— Caroline, would you please watch at the window and be sure Mr. Leyden shuts the gate so the horses don’t get out? Cathy, would you make some more toast? I’ve got to get dressed.”
    “Squeak, squeak …” Cathy said.
    “Sorry, Cathy, I didn’t hear what you said.” I paused halfway into the bedroom.
    “I said I don’t know how to make toast,” Cathy