“Thank you.”

“Actually, I teach Chaucer. Your racy dialogue reminds me a bit of his.”

A woman brushes by him, pinches his arm. “Lafcadio, you devil, you never commit yourself to anything. We’re still over here waiting for your opinion.”

“Right now I’m committing myself to this glass of gin, and the shape of that woman’s ass.”

“Which one?”

“Over there.” He points.

“Oh, you’re no good; you’re shameless.” She giggles and flutters away.

He turns back to me.

“Smile.”

I smile.

“Show me your teeth, I mean.”

I show them, like a jack-o’-lantern.

“Did you know that a gap-toothed woman is a sign of a lecherous woman—in medieval folklore?”

“I’m not gap-toothed.”

“Well . . . no, a piece of raisin.”

He removes it with his finger, pops it into his own mouth.

I stare, unbelieving.

“Turn that music up, Harriet. That’s Latin inspired. Do you rumba?”

“No.”

“No?”

He lifts my hand. “You’re married. Is your husband here?”

“No.”

“You’re wonderfully monosyllabic too, aren’t you? Just like the old bard. Awake anon. Wake up, Woman! Yis?”

I bite into another piece of raisin cake.

“Excuse me, I’m going over here and get a closer look at that piece of ass. It’s talking to me if the woman won’t.”

50

“This is shit,” he said, laying the pages on the coffee table. “It’s shit?”

I stood in the corner of the study, feeling as cornered as the furniture.

“Yeah, you can’t publish this shit,” he said.

I said nothing.

“Is it that bad?”

“I think so.”

I drooped like a wet rag. Then I took the proofs and put them in the desk drawer. I sat in the hard chair looking at the wall but not at him, though I could tell his eyes were on me.

“So what are you thinking?” he asked.

I said nothing for a moment, then it came out like a dam had broken loose. “I’m thinking of the women writers I know who live with men who think their work is shit, or next to shit. I can list about five of them. But I can’t list any, not one, of the men writers I know who live with women who think theirs is less than fantastic.”

“They’re better liars.”

“That’s not true. That’s not true,” I said. Then I said, “They wouldn’t put up with it. They wouldn’t. Why do you think we women put up with it?”

He was silent. I glanced over to see his shadow to make sure he was still there. His shadow raised its arms over its head and yawned. One arm came down first, the other looked like it was saluting, then it fell to its knee and scratched.

“Am I boring you?” I asked.

“Go on Manda-Panda, what’s up?”

“Maybe all of our women’s work is shit, let’s suppose, but I’m sure all six of us could find at least some man who thought our shit was taffy.”

“I’m sure you could,” he said.

“Suppose I thought you were a lousy biology teacher?”