Page 48 - WTP Vol.X#1

Act Two (continued from preceding page)
thick scales on my face, rubbed cream in and said to myself, just be nice to him. Like he was any friend, any- body new. My skin problem was so rare I’d never met anyone with it. While I powdered my face so to make it look as pale as I could, even though my reddish hue forced its way to the surface, I dimly thought no man would be seriously interested in me. Then I snuffed that idea and pulled on my best maroon turtleneck. It felt snug and I glanced at my nicely rounded breasts before I opened the door.
Normally I enjoyed the theatre. I’d grown up being taken to New York to see Broadway musicals such as The King and I, which my father loved. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to chat with Joe about the plot and the acting, or rather to listen to his remarks, the kind of chatter a bright Midwestern guy had already picked up from his British friends.
When the play was over, Joe walked me home up broad St. Giles street, where wet leaves blew onto
the pavement. That evening I felt grateful that men weren’t allowed into St. Anne’s after a certain hour. I didn’t have to worry about asking Joe back for cof-
fee and risking what might—or might not—happen in my room. Standing in front of St. Anne’s modern Gatehouse, I thanked Joe for the evening. Nearly a foot above me, he balanced on the balls of his feet, leaning slightly towards me, saying he hoped I’d had a good time. “Have a care among the Brits, girl. Sharp- en your wits; you’ve clearly got them.” I laughed in a short burst. He swung his black and white Magdalen scarf around his neck and waved as he walked away.
I sauntered back toward my Victorian room, wonder- ing if I had done okay with Joe and if he would get in touch again.
Remembering this scene as a middle-aged woman, I feel an enormous desire to go back and rewrite the script. Give myself clean skin, eyelashes, enough man-knowledge to flirt a little. Joe probably was just being nice to a friend of a friend, but relationships begin on lesser notes. I wish I’d had the chutzpah to invite him for tea, but back then, most women waited to be called by a man, and I knew no other way. In the letters I sent to my parents in the Philadelphia suburbs where I grew up, I mentioned Joe stopping by, though I never hinted at my feelings for him. Still when I sift through their responses now, I search for something to show they had seen between the lines. Couldn’t they have said, “you may have a bright red face but you can find boyfriends too?” No matter
how much they loved me, the thought of me dating unnerved them. It was a plot they couldn’t follow so they choose to be bystanders in this area of my life.
It’s true they had no one to advise them how to bring up a girl with heavy skin. No support group for ichthyosis, my skin difficulty, existed in those days. Irish-American families tended to steer clear of therapists. My father was the kind of loving man
who could never imagine his daughter as the object of another man’s desire. What’s more, they were Catholics. They didn’t adhere to every stricture of the church—“don’t believe everything the nuns tell you,” my father used to say. However the church’s generally repressive attitude to sexuality gave them a cushion, a way of denying the normal desires of a young woman.
~
I had come to England to read deeply in the great classics of English literature and get the degree which would prepare me for an academic career.
In Oxford, students were assigned one professor in their own college who acted as their primary teach- er, called a “tutor.” Usually members of the senior faculty, these powerful people normally taught, not in big classes but in “tutorials,” often in the tutor’s home or office. During my first days in Oxford, while
I waited to find out which tutor would be assigned to me, I discussed my prospects with other English ma- jors. They rated the teachers attached to our college. One Dorothy Bednarowska came out on top—with caveats. They called her brilliant, intense and beauti- ful. “She’s scarily elegant” one woman said, mention- ing the tutor’s Chanel-style suits and aura of worldly wisdom. Mrs. Bednarowska had briefly been married to a Polish philosopher and although they’d divorced, the girls led me to believe she positively shimmered with sexuality—an aura made more unsettling by the fact that as a devout Catholic she couldn’t remarry. This latter information calmed me. I wasn’t a practic- ing Catholic myself but I knew the rules. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with someone who had rowdy sex every night. Still I wondered how I’d handle the mysterious Mrs. Bednarowska if she became my tu- tor. My informants assured me that Mrs. Bed, as she was universally called—completely without irony— cared about her students. However some found her terrifying. She relished intellects which matched hers. If you didn’t measure up, her air of faint distain wouldn’t be hard to miss.
Three days later I got a note. She would be my tutor. She wanted to see me in her suite of rooms the next afternoon.
When I knocked on her white door, a lithe woman in a beige cashmere sweater and eye shadow greeted
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