Helen Hath No Fury

"H ave sex and die." Helen Coulter barely paused for breath. "That's what she's saying."? Helen's words produced the heavy silence of a collective held breath. Etiquette had been broached. My book group had been discussing Kate Chopin's The Awakening. More accurately, we'd been listening to another member discuss the research she'd done on the book and author when Helen charged in. My teacher muscles twitched, ready to chastise Helen for interrupting. I reminded myself that this wasn't a classroom, it was a living room, and its occupants, all ten of us, were adults. Helen filled the lull she'd created. "I'm sick of that literary staple--dark-haired women who lust and die." Helen tossed her own sleek cap of brown-black hair like one of those vixen heroines of old B movies. "Why was suicide her only option? Suicide is cowardly, too easy. She had her own house, her painting, friends like the piano teacher, her children--why do such a thing? No wonder the critics hated it." "Not because of that." Denise was the one who'd been interrupted. "They considered it pornography." Denise had a sheaf of printouts on her lap, and although she was being polite about being interrupted and misrepresented, she kept smoothing her skirt in a compulsive manner that suggested how much she wanted to do the same thing to the discussion. "Well, it makes this critic sick, too," Helen said. "Maybe a woman wrote it, but she's echoing all the men through history who decided that if a woman steps across their line in the sand--sexually--she has to be punished." At this, Denise stopped pressing her skirt and sat up, on alert, sensing a slur on her husband, Roy Stanton Harris, state legislator, candidate for Congress, and energetic advocate of "family values." In my family, values meant really good buys--low rates for strip steak or telephone calls--but it didn't mean that to him. Denise was a fairly recent bride. She'd retained her maiden and professional name since marrying Roy Stanton, as she always referred to him, but she'd merged identity and opinions with him and had become the perfect political wife. "Sorry," Helen said, not sounding at all sorry. "But that's how I feel. Sick and tired of men telling women what to do with their bodies." Denise looked on the verge of snapping back, but only for the smallest interval. And then her composed expression returned. "Could we talk about the book? About Kate Chopin's book?" she asked quietly. "About Edna Pontellier and her world?" In response, a chorus of voices. After a year in the group, I've given up wishing we'd be coherent or stay on track. We've twice voted down the idea of a formal leader, and instead took turns leading sessions. We are noisy and opinionated, sometimes chaotic, but I appreciate the emotion that's behind the clamor. A love of books propelled me into teaching, then made the job frustrating, because I can so seldom transfer my passion for words and stories to my students. So it's a treat to gather with literate women to whom ideas mattered, women who savored books the way they might fine meals. Or savaged them if they found them rancid, because their quality mattered to them. "Don't blondes also lust and die?" Clary Oliver asked. She was Helen's business partner and best friend, and together, they produced high-end children's clothing. Now she adopted a challenging stance and raised her eyebrows. "Hath not a blonde a sex drive?" she asked. Her own head sported a unique and expensive shade of beige. Her sister and shadow, Louisa, also blonde, laughed with a harsh "Ha!" that I was sure was supposed to conveyRoberts, Gillian is the author of 'Helen Hath No Fury' with ISBN 9780345429322 and ISBN 034542932X.