long grave face.
“Oh, goodness,” she said, “what if you do look like an awful lemon? I know you’re not really, and I guess if you were always grinning away like clockwork, the way I do, we’d just explode when we got together. You stay the way you are, Lije, and keep me from floating away.”
And she kept Lije Baley from sinking down. He applied for a small Couples apartment and got a contingent admission pending marriage. He showed it to her and said, “Will you fix it so I can get out of Bachelor’s, Jessie? I don’t like it there.”
Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic proposal in the world, but Jessie liked it.
Baley could only remember one occasion on which Jessie’s habitual cheer deserted her completely and that, too, had involved her name. It was in their first year of marriage, and their baby had not yet come. In fact, it had been the very month in which Bentley was conceived. (Their I.Q. rating, Genetic Values status, and his position in the Department entitled him to two children, of which the first might be conceived during the first year.) Maybe, as Baley thought back upon it, Bentley’s beginnings might explain part of her unusual skittishness.
Jessie had been drooping a bit because of Baley’s consistent overtime.
She said, “It’s embarrassing to eat alone at the kitchen every night.”
Baley was tired and out of sorts. He said, “Why should it be? You can meet some nice single fellows there.”
And of course she promptly fired up. “Do you think I can’t make an impression on them, Lije Baley?”
Maybe it was just because he was tired; maybe because Julius Enderby, a classmate of his, had moved up another notch on the C-scale rating while he himself had not. Maybe it was simply because he was a little tired of having her try to act up to the name she bore when she was nothing of the sort and never could be anything of the sort.
In any case, he said bitingly, “I suppose you can, but I don’t think you’ll try. I wish you’d forget your name and be yourself.”
“I’ll be just what I please.”
“Trying to be Jezebel won’t get you anywhere. If you must know the truth, the name doesn’t mean what you think, anyway. The Jezebel of the Bible was a faithful wife and a good one according to her lights. She had no lovers that we know of, cut no high jinks, and took no moral liberties at all.”
Jessie stared angrily at him. “That’s isn’t so. I’ve heard the phrase, ‘a painted Jezebel.’ I know what that means.”
“Maybe you think you do, but listen. After Jezebel’s husband, King Ahab died, her son, Jehoram, became king. One of the captains of his army, Jehu, rebelled against him and assassinated him. Jehu then rode to Jezreel where the old queen-mother, Jezebel, was residing. Jezebel heard of his coming and knew that he could only mean to kill her. In her pride and courage, she painted her face and dressed herself inher best clothes so that she could meet him as a haughty and defiant queen. He had her thrown from the window of the palace and killed, but she made a good end, according to my notions. And that’s what people refer to when they speak of ‘a painted Jezebel,’ whether they know it or not.”
The next evening, Jessie said in a small voice, “I’ve been reading the Bible, Lije.”
“What?” For a moment, Baley was honestly bewildered.
“The parts about Jezebel.”
“Oh! Jessie, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I was being childish.”
“No. No.” She pushed his hand from her waist and sat on the couch, cool and upright, with a definite space between them. “It’s good to know the truth. I don’t want to be fooled by not knowing. So I read about her. She
was
a wicked woman, Lije.”
“Well, her enemies wrote those chapters. We don’t know her side.”
“She killed all the prophets of the Lord she could lay her hands on.”
“So they say she did.” Baley felt about in his pocket for a stick of chewing gum. (In later years
Jennifer Miller
James Swain
Joss Stirling
P.G. Wodehouse
Greenhorn
Bonnie Turner
Sheila Connolly
Jennifer Crusie
David Almond
Rebecca King