Frances and Bernard - By Carlene Bauer Page 0,54

I’m telling you the truth. We lawyers don’t believe in perjury.

Affectionately,

Ted

July 15, 1960

Bernard—

You’re right—I don’t know what to believe. I’m sorry that my suspicion is killing you. I know what I want to believe, which is that you are not in the grip of an infatuation. I want to believe that. Very much. I will try to stop giving you a chill and wary air.

The Hudson River says hello. It doesn’t know what you see in New England’s blustering surf. It thinks a body of water earns its majesty by knowing how to keep its own counsel. That said, it is very secretly envious of something so effusive.

Love,

Frances

July 15, 1960

Dear Ted—

Thank you for writing what you did. I appreciate that you were looking out for your friend. I wrote Bernard the day I received your letter.

I’d send a peach pie through the mail but I trust only Jersey peaches and it looks like they don’t let them into the city.

I hope to see you again soon.

Affection returned,

Frances

July 20, 1960

Frances—

My love. You are sly, you are charming, you are never going to do what I ask in the way I want you to, but that is charming too, and I will see you in four days, which is far too far away.

Bernard

July 30, 1960

Dear Claire—

Congratulations on getting that job at the Tribune! I’m sure after you’ve spent a year on their women’s pages they’ll have you trailing the cops on the South Side. That boss of yours sounds hilarious. Like a big camellia with the teeth of a Venus flytrap in a vase of gabardine and with a bosom of granite. I think I just wrote a Picasso painting. “Your copy or your hide!” That would get me writing. After I stopped laughing. And she plays tennis too with that bosom? This confirms my idea about management: The competitively sporty excel. They like games; they have stamina. And you need stamina to put up with the games played by those above and below you. You played tennis too—you’ll be fine. But I like to swim.

You ask me how I am feeling. I find that it is very, very hard for me to put into words what I am feeling. I know you will forgive me for being Frances. I hope Bernard forgives me for being Frances. He seems to not mind that I do not articulate my affection very often. He knows, for example, to kiss me out on the street and not in a roomful of people. He shows so much affection to me, I think he sometimes does not notice my inability to show it. Sometimes. “Frances,” he said the other night after dinner, “often I think the only real evidence of your love is the amount you cook for me.” He was right. I make him bread. I make him cakes. Pies. And it’s summer. I am behaving the way I behave at home: standoffishly, and pies to offset the standoffishness. The bread and pies are beads on a rosary, paces to go through because I can’t think how I might love of my own accord.

I am hoping that God will forgive me for being Frances.

I will try to put two feelings into words. First, when I am walking down the street to meet him and I know that I have come into his view, and his eyes, as I approach, are giving off sparks of both hunger and affection, the two fighting it out like cats in his pupils, I feel that I would do anything to have that look cast upon me for the rest of my days. I feel that I am known more intimately than perhaps God knows me. And now I have blasphemed, so please burn this letter.

Second, do you remember when we sat in that booth at McKellan’s with Bob and Roger, and Roger looked at me and said: “I bet when you finally find someone who sends you, he’ll be Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and you’ll be Chicago”? For many years now, as you know, my official position on this assessment was to be offended. Who did Roger presume to be, making pronouncements on my womanhood—and without the excuse of flirtation, because he was courting you? Well, now I know what Roger was on about. I thank him for his prescience. Otherwise I might have mistakenly taken myself to the doctor.

Claire! I can’t even say what I mean to you.

Here is one more feeling. Sometimes I look at him, searching for signs