keeps the doors opening. If they don’t take your story, John or your agent will make sure some other periodical of repute does. And you have that job, which makes this even less of a problem, because you are not dependent on the New Yorker to increase either people’s awareness of you or your bank account. (For now—like I said, you need to be looking for a husband with a steady income and a passing interest in books. Someone like Ted. If he hadn’t squandered himself on Kay, I’d already have married you off to him.) You have me, you have John, and you have your agent, whose name I am always forgetting, and your work is a miracle. Don’t be surprised if the New Yorker ends up publishing the housewife. Think about it: your sorority sisters from the Barbizon subscribe! But don’t be troubled about it either. I have never published there, as you know. I doubt I will. Just write what you need to.
Your Bernard
February 27, 1959
Dear Bernard—
March 6 is too far away! But I can make it until your visit. I feel a little less trapped in my own garret now because the weather has warmed just a little, and I have awoken to the sound of birds. Actual birds! Where are they coming from? I dare not ask.
Well, I thank you for your words of encouragement re the New Yorker. That seems about right. (But: Oh, Bernard. A miracle? This is always the difference between you and me.) I do feel lucky having John now as my editor. I feel a certain amount of security and confidence about my (near) future because of it. But Bernard, I am compelled to remind you that you are successful enough to have a constant stream of teaching offers and so can turn down the money your parents are always offering you. This isn’t envy talking, it’s the desire to put your nose in the face of the facts, which you often push to the margins. Irish girls from North Philadelphia can’t afford to think that they will be fine without the benevolence of the New Yorker, even as they give the New Yorker a Bronx cheer. And if I get wind of the fact that I am up against someone—oooh, I hate to lose. I really hate to lose. Especially when I know I’m the better bet.
I do have your friendship, though, and this Irish girl from North Philadelphia is quite grateful for your benevolence in extending it.
Yours,
Frances
March 9, 1959
Dear Frances—
I still don’t know whether I should apologize to you or whether you should apologize to me.
I did not come to New York intending to kiss you. It happened because there was one moment in a boisterous, warm, convivial bar full of laughter, one moment containing one boisterous, almost wicked smile that I thought might have been because of me, or intended only for me, and I couldn’t help myself.
I feel so very much for you and I wonder what it means. I have always felt this way—from the beginning—and now I wonder if I have been lying to myself about what it is that I feel.
I know this will make you even angrier than you were after I kissed you, but I often find myself wanting to call you my love. My love. Two words. Because you smile down the subway car at some waving child on a lap as we tunnel through thunder. You stand riveted in front of a Turner at the Met while tourists clog the room, and you mindlessly straighten your blue skirts as if they were hounds rustling at your feet waiting for the next command. You stare out the kitchen window while you do supper’s dishes, making up comic-strip stories about the windows across the alley. I think this is partly why I want to call you my love: you are not turned inward.
Would it insult you or be a relief to you if I describe what I did as mere reflexive male jealousy? I could lie and say I did it because you had been talking too long to Peter. You have a great deal of pride, but it would not be insulted that way. You would probably be relieved if I said that, because it would mean I did it out of spite, out of sport, and not because I desired you. This makes me hate you a little. Because I have pride too, and I want to feel that