Just Three Dates Page 3

  Karen glanced at her mother, then back to Elizabeth. “I was. It was quite exciting, just like being in college when Mom was there.”

  “Now, Karen, you know I never…”

  “Mrs. Stuart, did you know that my mother was a campus radical back in the early seventies? Marched in protests, took control of the student union building, burned her—”

  “I did no such thing!” Margaret wore a horrified expression on her face at the mere suggestion.

  Elizabeth smiled when Karen began to laugh, pleased at her sense of humor.

  “Maybe I exaggerated a bit, but anyway, our teach-in was pretty much like the things Mom did—saw.”

  “What was it all about?” Elizabeth asked. “Some of the alumni were quite upset, but I never completely understood what went on, just that the students boycotted their classes, lit a bonfire, burned some…things.”

  “The teach-in was about equal rights for women. Specifically, we were upset because the president was retiring and when the board began its search for his replacement, there were no women among the finalists. Can you believe it? Stevens is a women’s college and no one on the board even thought that, maybe, just maybe, a woman could be the president.” She shook her head.

  “We marched around the admin building, singing sixties protest songs and waving signs. Then there were lectures about the role of women in American society. That kind of thing.” She shrugged.

  “So you took part?” Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, interested.

  “Hard not to unless you stayed in your room all day,” Margaret said.

  Karen shrugged. “I went to a couple of lectures. Cheered the marchers. We lit the bonfire that night and, uh…” She looked at her mother. “We had a good time. The next morning it was all over.”

  “Exciting.” Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled as she recalled her time in college.

  “It didn’t make any difference, did it?” Margaret asked. “I mean, they still hired Doctor McAdams to be the new president.”

  “I wouldn’t say it made no difference,” Karen responded. “Stevens often promotes its provost to the president’s office and Doctor McAdams had been the provost. We gathered on his front lawn the night his appointment was announced and cheered for him.”

  “That was quite nice, but…” Margaret looked up at the waiter, who was hovering nearby, as though waiting to take their orders.

  “Anyway, the new provost is a woman, a young woman who will still be at Stevens in five years when Doctor McAdams retires.”

  “So you made your point,” Elizabeth nodded. “Very good. Lost the battle but won the war.” She glanced around the table. “So, what are we all having?”

  Seeing a break in the conversation, the waiter approached the table.

  Karen studied the menu again, while Elizabeth and Margaret both ordered the seafood platter.

  “I haven’t eaten at the Grill in forever,” Karen mused.

  “The fried seafood is still some of the best in the city,” Elizabeth told her. “It’s so unusual to find it where it has not been fried crispy.”

  “Do you still have your seafood chowder?” Karen looked up at the waiter. “I don’t see it on the menu.”

  “It’s not on the menu.” Elizabeth leaned over conspiratorially. “You have to know to ask for it.”

  The waiter joined the three women in laughing. “The best you’ll find in the city,” he said. “Crab, shrimp, grouper. What could possibly be better?”

  “I’ll have a bowl of the chowder, then. And a salad, please.”

  “Have more than that,” her mother urged.

  Karen shook her head. “If I eat more than that for lunch, I’ll soon be as big as the Yorktown.”

  They chuckled at her reference to the World War II destroyer, now a museum, moored in the harbor.

  As the waiter walked away, Karen turned to Elizabeth. “What was Stevens like when you were a student, Mrs. Stuart? Did the students campaign against the war in Viet Nam like Mom did?”

  “I did not…” her mother began.

  “Oh no. We were interested in issues much closer to home. We had a midnight curfew on weekends and we had to wear skirts when we were out on the campus. I had to wear a raincoat to cover my gym clothes if I changed in the dormitory.” She smiled. “Even if it was a hundred degrees and humid!”

  “That’s so funny.”

  “It seems so now, but the students’ proposal to abolish those rules was quite controversial.” She smiled. “We were successful too.”

  “It’s certainly a beautiful day.” Margaret gazed out over the river.

  Elizabeth realized Margaret was attempting to turn attention away from the activities of the rebellious college students, perhaps fearing that if Elizabeth categorized Karen as one of them, she would lose interest in her as a spouse for Mark. Elizabeth, though, found Karen to be delightful, she was becoming convinced Karen would make a good wife for Mark, and she wanted to know more about her.

  She reached out to touch the back of Karen’s hand. “So, tell me what you do for a good time, Karen. So many young people today seem to work all of the time, but it’s important to have other interests too, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely. I jog…”

  “On King Street,” her mother said, shaking her head. “Dodging automobiles on the street and tourists on the sidewalk.”

  Karen laughed. “I’m always careful, Mom.” She smiled at Elizabeth and lowered her voice as if telling her a secret. “Mom’s real complaint is that I wear athletic shorts and a sports bra. She thinks I’m immoral.”

  “Not immoral, sweetie, just…”

  “Trashy?” Karen laughed again.

  “Inappropriate,” her mother sniffed. “Most inappropriate.”

  Elizabeth took a forkful of her seafood in order to cover her laughter. Margaret could be overly concerned about such things. While she agreed it was important to be concerned about one’s appearance, Elizabeth also recognized that times had changed since they were Karen’s age. And she was quite certain that Karen would know enough not to wear athletic clothes outside of athletics.

  “I enjoy hiking,” Karen continued. “I paint. My college major, I told you, was art. I love finding an interesting subject and settling in to paint. I often become so involved I forget what time it is. Last Saturday I was at Magnolia Gardens, one of the plantations up the Ashley River.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I know Magnolia Gardens.”

  “I started work at ten in the morning and was still hard at it when the security guard told me they were ready to close. I’d noticed that the light was changing, but…” She shrugged.

  “Karen has sold a number of her paintings,” Margaret said, her posture straightening with pride. “She’s quite talented.”

  “Mom…” Karen blushed.

  “Well, I’m proud of you, and I want to brag a little. It’s a mother’s right.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Definitely a mother’s right. You’ll understand when you have your own children,” she told Karen. “You do want children, don’t you?”

  ***

  Karen was just as she had hoped and, as she walked to her car, Elizabeth felt encouraged.

  She was attractive, very attractive. The photographs had not done her justice. Mark would like her appearance. He did, in fact. She had seen how his eyes had dilated when she’d handed him the photograph of Karen in her swimsuit. He would be even more attracted when he saw her in person.

  She would take his mind off the little…tramp.

  “Tramp,” she said to herself. “Tramp. I need to remember to say tramp. Not….” Mentally she listed the other terms she had used to describe the woman. Thinking her to be as evil as Voldemort, Harry Potter’s nemesis, Elizabeth refused to call her name, even in her mind.

  Karen looked a bit like the other woman, her build, the color of her hair. They both were artists, and Karen had the perky personality Mark liked. Why so few men had succeeded in reaching first base with her—El
isabeth had asked Emily what the term meant—she could not imagine, but she was pleased no one had hit a home run.

  She seemed more open-minded, more liberal, than Elizabeth had expected, and that was good, even if it had bothered her mother.

  Margaret probably thought Elizabeth would be appalled at the thought of Karen being involved in that protest at Stevens. She chuckled. Just as her father had been outraged at some of Elizabeth’s antics when she was young.

  Margaret had been a friend for almost a decade, but Elizabeth was still surprised when she was so cautious about expressing her opinions or doing things that might not be totally appropriate in some eyes. She supposed that came because Margaret still felt the need to “fit in.”

  Karen’s parents were not Charleston natives. They had lived twenty miles north in Summerville, where Margaret had taught history at the high school and her husband had been an accountant. Several years ago, though, her husband had opened his own accounting firm, going into practice with two friends in Charleston. He had done very well, and the family had moved to Daniel Island, a new neighborhood at the time, located on an island in the Cooper River. They had enrolled Karen in the same private school that Elizabeth’s children attended, and Margaret had stopped teaching, becoming a “permanent volunteer” with the Preservation Society. Elizabeth had met her the first day she had worked.

  Elizabeth had never needed to fit in. She had been born into an old Charleston family and had married into another. She was pleased that Karen seemed to feel at ease with her. As Mark’s wife, Karen would be a member of their family, and a Stuart had no need to prove herself, nor to be overly concerned about what people thought. She shook her head. Within limits, of course, a concept the little tramp had failed to understand.

  Karen’s anxious glances at her mother seemed to indicate she had been told to hide, or at least moderate, her opinions in public. College faculties, however, were not known as hot beds of conservatism and she would have no problems.

  Artists often seemed to be a little—she wasn’t sure how to say it—freer than other people, and Elizabeth thought Karen would be good for Mark, encourage him not to be serious all of the time. He needed someone with spunk, who would not be intimidated when he retreated to the comfort of his numbers when he was hurt or angry.

  Someone like that tramp, she fumed. She grudgingly gave her credit for drawing Mark out, encouraging him to be more social, even if she had broken his heart—something a mother could never forgive—even if the woman hadn’t a moral bone in her body.

  Mark had always turned to math for comfort, even as a child. She recalled once when another child had called him “weird” because he would spend hours absorbed in solving math puzzles, Mark had barricaded himself in his room, emerging only after he had developed a proof for the “Robertson’s Theorem,” a seemingly unprovable theorem that had stumped mathematicians for a decade. Mark had been pleased when Professor Robertson had travelled to Charleston from Boston to award him the five-hundred-dollar prize for his solution. The other little boy still thought he was weird, but Mark had no longer seemed to care.

  She turned her thoughts back to Karen. Her experience at the museum showed Elizabeth that Karen would find managing a party to be a fairly simple task, and her experience dealing with the public would make her an asset to Mark’s career.

  Were there issues about which she needed to be concerned? She paused beside her car as she thought, then she nodded.

  Her job sounded a bit like a career rather than something a woman might do to support herself until marriage. Most of her friends’ daughters stayed at home with their children, but Elizabeth was not certain she could see Karen doing that. Of course, she could paint at home while she watched the children…

  “I’m being old fashioned.” She opened the door, climbed into the car, and flipped the air conditioning to MAX. Most young women were working, many of them continuing in their careers after having children. Elizabeth sometimes wished a career had been a live option for her.

  “Had I been five years younger…”

  She paused before shifting into reverse, thinking about Karen, and she smiled.

  Karen would be perfect.

  You Need a Husband

  “You need a husband.”

  A week and a half had passed since her lunch at the Grill. Wrapped in a beach towel, Karen sat under the awning on the patio behind her parents’ house, a few chips, a bite of hamburger, and the remainder of her Coke on the table beside her, the cool water in the pool tempting her to take another plunge. Her mother sat on the other side of the table, a glass of red wine standing beside the remains of her meal.

  “Mother, we’ve talked about this before and—”

  “Stop.” Her mother held up her hand. “This afternoon, I’m the one who is going to talk, and you are going to listen.”

  They had discussed Karen’s “need” for a husband countless times. Her mother would tell her she needed to be married, and Karen would respond, listing all of the reasons she didn’t need a husband, didn’t want a husband, and wouldn’t have a husband. At the conclusion of her monologue, Karen would be angry and her mother would be annoyed.

  Following one recent confrontation, her mother had noted that over half of Karen’s reasons came from the pop psychology in the women’s newsletters to which she subscribed, and she had insisted Karen didn’t fully believe any of them even as the words tumbled from her mouth. Her other reasons were variations on “I want to fall in love” and “all men are liars.”

  Karen opened her mouth to begin her litany of objections, but changed her mind. She felt weary of arguing. She folded her hands, glared at her mother, and waited.

  “I’m listening. Go ahead.”

  Her mother leaned forward, resting one arm on the table. “You are twenty-five years old, and you need to have some concern about your future.”

  “I do, Mom,” Karen exclaimed. “I’m a college graduate. I have a good job—”

  “You’re supposed to let me talk.”

  Karen sighed. “Okay.”

  “You are twenty-five years old, you’re a college graduate, and you have a good job.” Margaret nodded. “One that makes it possible for you to have a four-room apartment above an attorney’s office on King Street.” She paused, watching as Karen bit her lower lip.

  “I love my apartment and the location is terrific.”

  “You’re listening, remember? Not talking?”

  Karen shut her mouth firmly and made a show of pretending to insert a key and turning it to lock her mouth closed, a gesture from her childhood. Karen had always been “rather verbal,” as one of her teachers had put it.

  Her mother chuckled at the gesture. “Your apartment really is quite pretty. You’ve decorated it nicely, and it is very close to the museum, but, sweetheart, it’s not how you are accustomed to living. Your friends trip over each other as they walk from the living room to the kitchen. You have no space for even a small table, so you eat at the bar.

  “You have very basic insurance. You have no savings, you’ve never taken a vacation, and when your car departed this life last year, I bought you a new one.”

  “You insisted on buying it. I would have found—” Karen pinched her lips shut, finding it virtually impossible not to jump into the conversation.

  “A used car that was little better than the one that you last saw behind a tow truck. My point is, sweetie, you are just getting by and—”

  “Do you know how many people would love to have my salary and my apartment? My life?”

  Her mother nodded. “They would. You’re right. But it’s not the way you grew up. It’s not what you expected from life…It’s not what you want, not long term.”

  “So I need a husband to bail me out? I need an additional income stream as Dad would put it?” Karen sat back, her arms crossed over her chest.

  Her mother laughed. “Your daddy phrased it exactly that way.”

  “Daddy agrees with you?” It was be
yond belief.

  “Look, sweetheart, you’re an artist, and a very good one. I knew you would love to paint when I saw the expression on your face the first time you picked up a brush. Critics rave about your work and buyers snap up every piece that you are willing to sell. I’m thrilled you enjoy your work at the museum. I would hate it if you ever needed to leave your job or to put away your brushes, but your salary and your sales simply do not provide enough for the life you want, the one you deserve.” Her mother sipped her wine and shifted her position, leaning back, matching Karen’s posture.

  “If you would produce prints of your paintings, prints with mass appeal, there might be no problem, but you won’t. If you had fallen in love with medicine, with law, with finance even, money might not be an issue, but you didn’t.”

  “But, Mom…”

  “You need a husband to provide for you.”

  “But if I don’t love him…” Karen held out her hands, appealing to her for support.

  “Love is absolutely wonderful, sweetie, but it doesn’t pay the bills.”

  Karen glared at her, but her mother continued.

  “You’re lonely, sweetheart.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I’m talking, remember? Or trying to.” Her mother smiled. Karen sighed and nodded.

  “You’re lonely. I know you have friends. Kimi, Vicky, and Pam are all good friends, but Vicky and Pam are married—Pam just recently, but still. Emily Stuart is getting married next spring. You sit at home by yourself. You go to parties by yourself.”

  “When have I ever…?”

  “Who is taking you to the gala when your Monet exhibit opens in two weeks?”

  Karen dropped her eyes, staring at the table.

  “You. Need. A. Husband.” Her mother drew out the sentence, emphasizing each word.

  Karen looked up, her eyes narrowed. “So you have a plan.”

  “I do.” Her mother smiled as she nodded. “Speaking of the Stuarts…Remember last week, when we had lunch at the Grill? With Elizabeth Stuart.”

  Karen nodded. She’d felt as if Ms. Stuart was grilling her.