Summer of '69(29)

Instead of seeing Angus’s acquiescence about the extra expenses as kind, Blair understands them as a manifestation of his guilty conscience. He’s unwilling to tell Blair the truth about where he was the day she surprised him at the office; he resolutely maintains he was at a meeting, although the nature of that meeting has changed three times, and he can’t explain why his hair was mussed or his shirt misbuttoned.

Blair also noted a suspicious phone call. She answered the phone in their apartment, and a woman’s cool, melodious voice asked for Mr. Whalen—this when everyone at MIT calls Angus Dr. Whalen or Professor Whalen. Blair acted on her hunch and said, “I’m sorry, he’s not home at the moment. Is this Joanne?” The woman hung up.

One evening in early June, the phone rings and Angus answers the kitchen phone at the same time that Blair picks up the extension next to the bed. She’s lying there in her underwear beneath one thin sheet, morosely waiting for Angus to warm up a TV dinner and deliver it like room service.

“Hello,” Angus says, “Whalen residence.”

“Mr. Whalen?” the silvery voice says. “This is Trixie.”

It takes Blair only an instant to realize that Angus doesn’t know she’s on the line.

“Trixie,” Angus said. “Listen, I’m sorry about today. Something came up at work, but…I’d like to see you tomorrow.”

“That’s fine, but I’m going to have to charge you for today.”

“Yes,” Angus says. “I understand, of course.” Blair barely manages to stifle a gasp. Angus clears his throat and says, “Darling, are you on the phone?” He pauses. “Blair?”

Blair presses the plastic button to disconnect, then carefully sets the receiver down and lies back in what she hopes is a believable imitation of pregnant slumber.

A second later, Angus taps on the door and Blair smells the commingled scents of Salisbury steak, peas, and apple cobbler. “Darling?”

Blair keeps her eyes shut. Angus has been seeing a call girl, a prostitute. On the one hand, this is a relief because it’s not Joanne of the turquoise eye shadow and Pat the Bunny, and it eliminates Blair’s other suspicion that Angus is involved romantically with one of the male students at the university.

On the other hand, the idea of Angus with a prostitute is sickening. It’s so seedy, so beneath him. He’s paying for sex! It’s possible he’s been paying for sex all along. This would explain how he became so skilled in the bedroom. But what about disease? Does Angus really have so little regard for Blair and for their unborn baby?

Trixie, Blair thinks. It’s gratifying to have a name to pin on her rival. The prostitute’s name is Trixie.



As Blair waits for the next mysterious phone call, the days grow hotter. Kirby swings by the apartment to say goodbye. She’s spending the summer on Martha’s Vineyard instead of Nantucket, something Blair doesn’t quite understand.

“I need to get Mom’s foot off my neck,” Kirby says. “It’s time for me to grow up.”

This, Blair wholeheartedly agrees with. Kirby lacks discipline and seems content to go whichever way the wind blows her. Blair decides not to tell Kirby that being a grown-up is overrated.

“You’re working in housekeeping?” Blair says. “Was that the best job you could find?”

“At least I have a job,” Kirby says. She rakes her eyes across Blair’s bed—food wrappers, empty pudding cups, the TV Guide, and a copy of The Love Machine by Jacqueline Susann, which is what passes for literature these days.

Blair nearly snaps back but she can see that her situation is pathetic and she doesn’t have the energy to match wits with her sister. Her brain has turned to consommé.

The role reversal is disheartening. Back in the dark days when Blair and Kirby’s father died—Blair was eight, Kirby five—Kirby used to climb, whimpering, into Blair’s bed. She was old enough to know something was very wrong but not old enough to be told exactly what, and Kate had been focused on caring for Tiger, who was only three and still a handful. Blair remembers someone—her grandmother, maybe, or Janie Beckett—telling Blair that Kirby was lucky to have her as an older sister. She could serve as a role model. Blair had taken this very seriously. Her entire life has been a master class in How to Lead by Example.

But now Kirby must be looking at Blair and thinking, I do not want to end up this way.

“I shouldn’t have quit my job,” Blair says. “I should have spent the past year teaching, but Angus wanted me home.”

“Why didn’t you stand up for yourself?” Kirby asks. “You know what Betty Friedan would say—”

“Betty Friedan isn’t married to an astronaut!” Blair nearly laughs because that statement is so absurd, and no doubt, Kirby’s next point will be that Blair isn’t married to an astronaut either—not really. “And now I’m good and stuck, aren’t I? Barefoot and pregnant. I’m bored out of my mind. I’m so bored that my imagination comes up with all of these conspiracy theories…”

“Have you figured out who killed the Kennedys?” Kirby asks.

Blair can’t bring herself to smile. She longs to tell her sister abut Angus and Trixie, but she doesn’t want to admit to another failure. Not only is Blair not working but the husband she quit her job for is cheating on her.