Stepping by Nancy Thayer Page A

him every minute that she’s here.
    But I wanted to go to the party to meet the famous intellectual woman. In 1965 there weren’t that many of them, and even fewer came to the Midwest. I knew that just setting eyes on the real woman in real life would be important to me.
    “Oh, Charlie ,” I wailed, “it will only be for two hours. Or one hour. We’ll hurry.”
    “Zelda,” he said, “I’m sorry. I can’t. I can’t leave the girls. Not this time.” Then, more hopefully, “ You could still go—”
    “Me? Alone? Are you kidding? The only way I can go is as the wife of famous Professor So-and-so. They’re not inviting students to that thing. Oh, Charlie .” I was sick. But it was true. In 1977, I could have gone alone, even as a lowly student. But in 1965 things were more proper, rules were stricter. Women still wore mostly skirts, and gloves, and their purses matched their shoes, and they didn’t go to parties alone, uninvited. I was still mostly only a faculty member’s wife. Low on the totem pole. Very low.
    “I hate being in the middle like this,” Charlie said. “I don’t know what to do.”
    “Oh, Charlie, you’ve been with those girls, or I have, every minute of the time they’ve been here. Surely that’s not natural. Two hours without you won’t kill them. AndLeslie is a lovely smart girl; Caroline and Cathy will enjoy her, I’m sure. Charlie, it’s so important to me, it’s not just a party , it’s like a symbol, a sign—”
    Charlie stood up suddenly. “Don’t, Zelda. Just don’t. Please. I’m sorry, but I’m not going.”
    I immediately burst into tears. Perhaps they had been building up over the summer. I didn’t cry easily then; I didn’t think it was fair to Charlie. But I was sick with disappointment, and I was mad.
    “Jesus,” Charlie said, and walked over and punched the lyre tree on the trunk, hard. “There’s nothing like a house full of weepy females.”
    I jumped up, nearly spitting in my anger. “Don’t you dare class me with them!” I yelled. I now think that he didn’t even think of it himself, but in lumping me with his daughters—weepy females—he lumped me with Adelaide, his former wife, crazy, weepy bitch. And I didn’t want to be like Adelaide in any way at all.
    At that point I noticed that Cathy and Caroline were standing in the back door watching us, and that made me even madder. I felt as though I had spies in my house who would report every negative detail back to an enemy. (As it turned out, I was right.) That summer, when Charlie and I hadn’t been married a full year yet, I wanted the girls to think we never spoke a cross word to each other, that we thought as one. Now here they were, watching us hiss and fight, and the expressions on their faces were unreadable. Surprise? Delight?
    I suddenly felt trapped in my own backyard. I wanted to get away from them all, yet I couldn’t even go into the house because the girls were standing there, together, solidly, like the bottom half of a Dutch door, barring the way. I turned and went around the side of the house fast, and walked off down the street. I didn’t know where I was going on a weekday morning in a nice section of town wearing only shorts and a halter, not even a pair of sandals on my feet. But I had to get away.
    Charlie appeared suddenly at the side of the house.
    “Zelda,” he called, and I looked back to see him standing there, dismayed and angry and sorry and shocked. He was wearing only shorts, and he was so tall and blond and strong that I wanted to run back immediately and press my body against his. In those days we had only to touch each other and a sort of magic balm swept over us, erasing allhurt.
    But then a door slammed and Caroline and Cathy ran to their father’s side and stood staring at me as if I were some kind of animal loose from a zoo. What a picture they were, those three healthy, big-boned blonds! So obviously related. So inseparably related. The blood racing in