Page 9 of Summer of '69
Blair assured him that he didn’t have to be sorry. She worried he had gotten too much sun or not enough sleep. She also suspected he was working too hard; even here in Bermuda, he sat at the little round table on their balcony and pored over his calculations, and when he finished, he picked up one of the books he’d brought. He was reading Hermann Hesse’sSiddharthain the original German and, “for fun,”The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
“You’re thinking too much,” Blair said. “Your mind needs a rest, Angus.”
“No, that’s not it,” he said. “It happens. It’s an affliction.” He then confessed that he had been visited by these “episodes” since he was an adolescent. The paralysis—mental and emotional—came and went capriciously, like a ghost haunting a house; there was no predicting its cause or its duration. He had been to hospitals, tests had been run, pills prescribed—but nothing made it better.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think you were marrying damaged goods,” Angus said.
“I would never think that, darling,” Blair said. She remembered Joey calling Angus a “crazy genius.” She’d thought Joey had been jealous.
The rest of that summer passed in a blissful haze. Because the MIT students were on summer break, Angus had been able to join Blair on Nantucket. While she sunned herself on Cliffside Beach, he worked on his research at Blair’s grandfather’s desk. They often met in the late afternoons in the shaded garden next to the Nantucket Atheneum, stopping at the Island Dairy Bar for one chocolate-and-vanilla soft-serve cone that they shared as they strolled back to All’s Fair. In the evenings, they ate with the family, then either drove out to the beach in the Galaxie and made love in the back seat or walked up Main Street and sat side by side on a bench, sharing a cigarette and looking out over the twinkling lights of town. Once a week, they had date night at the Opera House, with its proper European waiters, all of them old and with heavy accents, or the Skipper, where the college-age servers sang show tunes. One day Blair and Angus rode their bikes all the way out to Sankaty Head Lighthouse; another day they puttered Exalta’s thirteen-foot Boston Whaler over to Coatue, where they sat on the beach under an umbrella. They were the only people there that day, so Angus untied Blair’s bikini top and kissed the length of her spine, then flipped her over and made love to her right out there in the open where passing boaters might see them. Blair had to admit, that only made it more thrilling.
When they arrived back in the city after this extended honeymoon, they had their first argument.
Angus told Blair that he didn’t want her to return to Winsor.
“What are you talking about?” Blair said. She had been working on lesson plans since the first of August; she had ordered thirty copies of Flannery O’Connor’sA Good Man Is Hard to Find. Angus knew this! There were girls who had written to Blair on Nantucket to tell her how excited they were about taking her class. “Of course I’m going back.”
“No,” Angus said. “I need you to stay home and handle things here.”
“Handlewhat?” Blair said, though she knew he meant the house—cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, errands. “I’m more than capable of teachingandrunning the household, Angus.”
He’d kissed her nose and she nearly swatted him away, the gesture was so patronizing. “Youaremore than capable. But you don’thaveto work. I make plenty of money and we have your trust fund.”
The trust fund was fifty thousand dollars that Blair had gotten when she graduated from Wellesley. It was now in an account at the Bank of Boston under both her and Angus’s names.
“That money isn’t meant to be squandered on day-to-day expenses,” Blair said. “You know that.”
“Blair,” Angus said. “I don’t want a wife who works. My job is very taxing. Please, I need you at home. I realize every marriage requires compromise, which is why I gave up my place in Cambridge.”
“Wait,” Blair said. It was true that she had lobbied to live in Boston proper, and now she and Angus were renting a modern two-bedroom on Commonwealth Avenue. But she hadn’t realized that decision would put herjobat risk!
“Blair,” Angus said. “Please.”
“What am I going todoall day?” she asked.
“Do what other women do,” Angus said. “And if you have any spare time, you can read.”
Blair opened her remaining wedding presents. Some of them she returned (toasters, teacups, an angora blanket that shed like a St. Bernard), and some she placed around the apartment (crystal vases, candy dishes, a Moroccan tagine pot that they would never use but that looked stylish on the open shelves of the dining nook). She wrote thank-you notes on stationery engraved with her new monogram, BFW. She set up an account at Savenor’s on Charles Street, at the liquor store, at the hardware store. She placed the photos from the ceremony and reception in the white album that saidOur Weddingin foil-pressed letters on the front.
When all of that was completed, Blair found herself at a loss for something to do. Angus had suggested she read, but now that Blair had hours to read, entire days to read, potentially an entire married lifetime to read, books lost their luster, and she grew resentful. Angus said he wanted her home, but for what reason? He workedallthe time. He had classes to teach and graduate students to oversee but what gobbled up most of his waking hours was the Apollo 11 mission. He wasneverhome, and it didn’t take long for Blair to wonder if she’d made an error when she’d traded one Whalen brother for the other. Joey Whalen had given Blair a secret wedding present, a slender silver lighter engraved with the wordsI loved you first. Eternally yours, Joey.Every time Blair smoked a cigarette, she felt secretly, deliciously desired. Really, was there any better gift? Blair half wanted Angus to discover the lighter; she started leaving it out, engraved-side up. But Angus couldn’t be bothered with the minutiae of Blair’s life, so if there was one small secret between them, it was his own fault, she thought.
At the end of September, Angus traveled to Houston, then to Cape Kennedy. Blair stayed home and kept house. She boughtMastering the Art of French Cookingand decided that she would become a gourmet cook and host fashionable salons twice a month, evenings of cocktails and delectable bites where the conversation would focus on literature, art, music, history, and travel. Blair clung tight to the vision of these salons for a few feverish days, imagining that they would be in the same vein as gatherings hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. But then Blair tried and failed to make an ediblepoulet au portothree times, and she realized that Angus would never be able to commit to two nights home per month, and they didn’t have any friends anyway.
The middle of October brought the annual faculty potluck, the very same one Angus had famously skipped the year before. This time it was to be held at the home of Dr. Leonard Cushion, professor emeritus of microbiology; he lived on Brattle Street, a few doors down from Julia Child herself. Blair was excited for the potluck—finally, a chance to get out of the house and socialize. She slaved over a potato galette made with clarified butter, thyme, and rosemary that, when cut into slender wedges, would be a sophisticated shared dish. She was eager to meet Angus’s colleagues and enjoy some adult interaction. Blair wanted to appear serious and intellectual and so she chose to wear black bell-bottoms with a black turtleneck. She pulled her normally bouncy blond hair into a sleek ponytail and secured it with a black, orange, and pink Pucci scarf that had been a gift from her friend Sallie. Blair considered wearing silver hoop earrings but feared they would make her seem frivolous. She decided the same about makeup; she applied only eyebrow pencil and clear lip gloss.
When she came downstairs, Angus said, “That’s what you’re wearing?”
Blair picked up the galette with two quilted oven mitts and strode ahead to the car. Angus knew a lot about astrophysics and a little bit about Edith Wharton, but he knew nothing of women’s fashion.
Or did he?
Much to Blair’s dismay, the other wives at the potluck were wearing sheath dresses or dirndl skirts in fall colors—goldenrod, flame orange, burgundy. They had all had their hair set and were in full makeup, complete with false eyelashes and bright lipstick. Blair was greeted by Mrs. Nancy Cushion, who was a good thirty years younger than the esteemed Professor Cushion. Blair handed Nancy the galette, and the other wives—Judy, Carol, Marion, Joanne, Joanne, and Joanne—gave it sideways glances as they arranged trays of hors d’oeuvres, most of which appeared to be composed of three ingredients: cream cheese, olives, and toothpicks.
By the time Blair finished introducing herself, Angus had disappeared.
“Where did my husband go?” Blair asked Nancy Cushion.
“Men in the den,” Nancy said, raising her pencil-line eyebrows. “They drink bourbon, smoke cigars, and talk science.”
