“We weren’t starving,” says Belinda, “I know that. I know how much worse off everyone else in the world was or is or whatever. I know that life was basically pretty comfortable, but for a girl, then anyway, for a girl to go to school in clothes that everybody recognized weren’t hers — I mean, I knew they were looking at me, and they knew I was wearing what Elaine Toomey wore last year. It was horrible.”
Matthew nods his head.
“Today it probably wouldn’t be. Today it’s a completely different story. Leila would be happy if all her clothes were in tatters. Most of them are. But I wanted clothes, nice clothes, new clothes. And when I got older I wanted a fur coat. A white fur coat. And you know what? It was all right for me to want a fur coat. Completely all right.”
“Mm-hm,” says Matthew.
“I didn’t have to feel any guilt about wanting a fur coat. I was poor! When you’re poor you’re allowed to want anything you want.”
Matthew smiles. Belinda almost does.
“You know what I mean. It was okay to want anything when I was poor, but now it’s not, because I’m not poor anymore. I’m almost rich. By my parents’ standards, I am rich. And now I can’t want this coat. It makes me feel — I don’t know.”
“Guilty.”
“Yes, guilty. It makes me feel guilty. And you know what it is? Exactly? How can I walk past a woman who’s poor enough to have the right to want a coat like this? You see what I mean?”
“Yes,” says Matthew. It would be pretty hard getting past that gumdrop woman, too, he thinks. “Animals suffered agony to make your coat.” He’s reminded of the gay guy’s retort again, and he almost grins, but he keeps a sober look on his face. He decides to save the story of the gumdrop woman until later, when Belinda isn’t upset.
Belinda spins, making the coat flare around her. She’s getting good at it. “It’s too much for me,” she says. “I’m going to return it tomorrow.”
“Belinda,” Matthew says, “let me buy it for you. As a birthday present. Then you wouldn’t have to feel guilty about it — ”
“No.” She shakes her head. “Thanks, but it wouldn’t work. I’m going to take it back.”
She stands there for a moment. Then she holds her glass out for Matthew to fill.
“Besides,” she says, “if you really wanted to give it to me as a present, if you really wanted to take the guilt off my shoulders, you’d just go ahead and do it. You wouldn’t ask me to approve the idea.”
“Well,” says Matthew, “I didn’t think of that.”
“Sure you did,” she says. “You have to have. You’re not stupid. Somewhere in the back of your mind you must know that I couldn’t say yes to that proposal.”
“Come on, Belinda. I swear I didn’t think of it.” He honestly doesn’t think that he did, but he can’t imagine how to convince her of that.
“Forget it,” she says. “It doesn’t matter. It’s my problem, anyway, not yours. Excuse me a minute.” She walks the length of the room, spins around in the coat, and then turns down the hall. Matthew hears the bathroom door close. He sits in silence. In a couple of minutes, Belinda calls him. “Matthew? Matthew, come here.”
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies and Herb ’n’ Lorna.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document) and at Encyclopedia.com.
🎧 477: “We weren’t . . .”