After You've Gone by Alice Adams Page A

herself. She, Lisa, suffers more than occasional depressions. It is her work, not Antonia’s (well, hardly Antonia’s), that seems to be going nowhere. And Lisa, with no Reeve or anyone interesting in her life at the moment, is worried that this very attractive young man will not like her (she has always liked small, dark, trimly built men like Perry). Which is really why she said so much about Antonia—gossip as gift, which is something she knows about, having done it far too often.
    The truth is—or one truth is—that she is deeply, permanently fond of Antonia. And another truth is that her jealous competitiveness keeps cropping up, like some ugly, uncontrolled weed. She has to face up to it, do something about it, somehow.
    â€œWhat a superb cook Antonia is,” she now says (this is true, but is she atoning?). “Her food is always such a treat.”
    â€œThe truth is that Antonia does everything quite well,” Bynum intones. “Remember that little spate of jewelry design she went into? Therapy, she called it, and she gave it up pretty quickly, but she did some lovely stuff.”
    â€œOh, Bynum,” Lisa is unable not to cry out. “How can you even mention that junk? She was so depressed when she did it, and it did not work as therapy. You know perfectly well that she looked dreadful with all those dangles. She’s too big.”
    Perry laughs as she says this, but in a pleasant, rather sympathetic way, so that Lisa thinks that maybe, after all, he understood? understood about love as well as envy?
    Below them on the street now are the straining, dissonant, banging sounds of cars: people trying to park, trying to find their houses, to get home to rest. It is hard to separate one sound from another, to distinguish, identify. Thus, steps that must be Antonia’s, with whomever she is with, are practically upon them before anyone has time to say, “Oh, that must be Antonia.”
    It is, though: Antonia, her arm in its bright white muslin sling thrust before her, in a bright new shiny plaster cast. Tall Antonia, looking triumphant, if very pale. And taller Reeve, somewhat disheveled, longish sandy hair all awry, but also in his own way triumphant, smiling. His arm is around Antonia’s shoulder, in protective possession.
    First exclamations are in reaction to the cast. “Antonia, how terrible! However did you? How lucky that Reeve—How awful, does it still hurt? Your
left
arm, how lucky!”
    Reeve pulls out a chair for Antonia, and in an already practiced gesture with her good, lucky right arm she places the cast in her lap. In a somewhat embarrassed way (she has never been fond of center stage), she looks around at her friends. “I’m glad you went on with dinner” is the first thing she says. “Now you can feed us. God, I’m really starving.”
    â€œI came home and there she was on the floor—” Reeve begins, apparently about to start a speech.
    â€œThe damn cat!” Antonia cries out. “I tripped over Baron. I was making the salad.”
    Reeve scowls. “It was very scary,” he tells everyone present. “Suppose I hadn’t come home just then? I could have been traveling somewhere, although—”
    This time he is interrupted by Bynum, who reasonably, if unnecessarily, states, “In that case, we would have been the ones to find Antonia. Phyllis and I.”
    â€œI do wish someone would just hand me a plate of that stew,” Antonia puts in.
    â€œOh of course, you must be starved,” her friends all chorus. “Poor thing!”
    It is Lisa who places the full, steaming plate before Antonia, Lisa asking, “You can eat okay? You want me to butter some bread?”
    â€œDear Lisa. Well, actually I do, I guess. God, I hope I don’t get to like this helplessness.”
    â€œHere.” Lisa passes a thick slice of New York rye, all buttered. “Oh, and this is