21
Diana
Diana had come to dinner on Friday night, just like they’d planned, on a night when Hal had stayed in town, having his monthly dinner with the partners. Diana had arrived with wine and chocolates. She’d admired Daisy’s home, unerringly zeroing in on the kitchen, and the fireplace and the skylight as the most beautiful parts of the room, and had praised Beatrice’s jewelry, a beetle with brilliant green wings that hung in a glass pendant that dangled from her neck. “Where did you find it?” Diana had asked, and Beatrice had explained that she did all her shopping on Etsy, that she never gave money to corporations if she could help it, but instead supported her fellow creators, the same way they supported her. Daisy had worried about how her daughter would behave, but Beatrice had seemed impressed with Diana, actually volunteering information about school, and her crafts, and the kids she’d met in class.
Over the past four weeks, Daisy and Diana had gotten in the habit of cooking on Tuesdays, at Diana’s apartment, and meeting, on Friday afternoons, for a walk along Forbidden Drive, one of Daisy’s favorite places in the city, a spot she’d been eager to show off for her new friend. She’d offered to meet Diana after work, even if it meant fighting rush-hour traffic, but Diana explained that being a consultant gave her the flexibility to set her own hours.
On those walks, they’d talked about everything from Diana’s boyfriend, to Daisy’s father, to how Daisy felt about being a mother and why Diana had chosen not to become one. The fourth Friday was a gorgeous afternoon, the spring air mild and fresh, the sun shining and the trees dressed in fresh, pale green, but Daisy was struggling to appreciate it. She was still bewildered by what had happened at the cocktail party the weekend before, the way Hal had threatened Mireille, and how he’d been drinking. Her husband’s mood had not been improved by the latest #MeToo casualty of another, this one a prominent local politician who’d gotten in trouble for salacious emails sent to his subordinates. All through dinner the night before, Hal had muttered that the women were only trying to leverage notoriety into money, or better jobs, which segued into a complaint about the mandatory sexual harassment training his firm had recently held.
“Half the people in the firm have dated each other,” he’d said. “I can name three different guys, and one woman, who’ve married summer associates. And now you can get in trouble for—wait, let me get this right.” He’d rummaged through his briefcase, pulling out a sheaf of papers and flipped through them until he’d landed, triumphantly, on the phrase “Unwelcome sexual advances to colleagues or subordinates.” “Do you know what that means? Flirting.”
“Well,” Daisy had ventured, “maybe not everyone wants to be flirted with at the office.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Hal had told her. When Daisy related the story to Diana, the other woman had shaken her head, a thin smile on her face. “I’ve met a lot of men who feel that way.”
A trio of runners blew past them, young men in skimpy shorts, their pale legs flashing. They watched them go, and Diana said, “I bet a lot of guys feel like the rug’s been pulled out from under them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh,” said Diana, whose sleek, high-tech exercise gear made Daisy, in sweatpants and an ancient T-shirt, feel especially frumpy, “just that the world was one way, and now, all the stuff they could get away with, all the stuff nobody even noticed, now it’s all, as they say, problematic.” Diana looked sideways at Daisy. “Do you ever worry about Beatrice?”
“Only all the time.” Daisy sighed. “Sometimes I think that all these rules are going to take all the romance and the mystery out of sex. Like, if she’s with a guy and he’s asking for permission for every single thing he’s doing, that doesn’t seem very exciting. But then I think about her being with a guy who wouldn’t ask permission, or who wouldn’t take no for an answer…” Her voice trailed off, and Diana didn’t pick up the ball that Daisy had dropped. She just kept walking, quickening her pace as a woman running alongside a gray pit bull made her way past them.
At the top of the trail, at a wide spot in the Wissahickon, there were ducks you could feed, and a restaurant with a snack bar. Daisy had come here with Beatrice, and Hal, when Beatrice was a toddler. Daisy felt disheartened as she counted backward, the months, then years, since she’d been on a walk with her husband.