(1961) The Chapman Report (13 page)

When the sun was out at last, slanting through the white drapes, and her alarm sounded shrilly and she shut it off, she could hear Deirdre stirring in the next room. She sat up, almost believing there would be no lecture, and feeling sure that she need not bother to attend. Yet, after her toilet, and breakfast, and the brief trouble with Deirdre, she returned to her bedroom to remove her brunch coat and slip into her dressy beige sweater and skirt.

Driving through The Briars, her hope of the lecture’s being canceled diminished the nearer she approached The Village Green. When she reached Romola Place and peered off to her left down

the long, sloping street, hope vanished completely. As far as she could see, and even beyond the bend, the curbs were lined with parked cars. They were before the post office and the Optimist Club, and they filled the Junior Chamber of Commerce lot. She turned to look at the entrance to the two-story Women’s Association building. Three women-she was not sure, but one resembled Teresa Harnish-were animatedly conversing as they went inside. Two other women arrived at the entrance from opposite directions and greeted each other.

A hom honked impatiently. Kathleen glanced up at her rear-view mirror, saw a milk truck behind her, and hastily pressed the gas pedal and swung left down Romola Place. She drove slowly, in the right lane, searching for a parking place-if she found none, she would, of course, have to miss the lecture-and then, beyond the Chamber of Commerce lot, she saw a bald man maneuver his Cadillac from the curb and roar away. Reluctantly, she made for the gaping place. She would not be missing Dr. Chapman’s lecture, after all.

Walking uphill toward the Women’s Association building, Kathleen’s mind reached back for Deirdre. It had been one of their unhappier mornings. Deirdre was an enchantment-everyone said that she looked like Kathleen-except on those mornings when she had her spells. This morning, she had screamed and resisted dressing and, once dressed, had wet her pants, and they had to be removed and replaced. At breakfast, she would not eat, and when Olive Keegan came in the car pool auto, she would not enter it. Hating herself, Kathleen had bribed Deirdre with a package of sweet gum and a new book she had been saving for a Sunday, and, at last, the morning was placid.

These rebellions, a week of every month, left Kathleen trembling and fearfully alone. She had several times spoken to Dr. Howland, and he, always hurried and harried, had by rote reminded her that four-year-olds needed consistency of handling (“… boundaries of behavior, they want authority, they want to know how far they can go”), and Kathleen always came away hating Boynton more for having left unfinished business, and yet knowing he would have been of no use. But maybe it was really herself. If she stopped living like a recluse-more men coming and going, the tweedy smell of men and their bass voices-it would be different. And there was Ted Dyson, but he was interested only in her and not in a four-year-old-he had no talent for children-but maybe it wasn’t men

either; maybe it was what Deirdre wanted from her and did not get -warmth-hadn’t she been told that she had no warmth? “Kathleen!”

She was just at the entrance. She turned and saw Naomi Shields crossing the street toward her, waving. Kathleen waited. A convertible was approaching rapidly. “Look out, Naomi,” Kathleen called.

Naomi halted in mid-street, then looked off toward the vehicle, smiling, waiting for it to pass. The driver, a swarthy young man in a seersucker jacket, jammed on his brakes and skidded to a halt. Naomi, still smiling, inclined her head to the driver, and then paraded slowly across the bumpers to the curb. Kathleen watched the driver. He was regarding Naomi appreciatively. At last, with a sigh of regret it seemed (for his wife? his appointment? his lack of boldness?), he shifted the gear and drove away.

Kathleen switched her gaze to Naomi. She tried to see her as the young man had seen her, and she knew at once that Naomi would always cross streets safely in traffic. Naomi’s small, compact figure exuded an almost embarrassing air of obvious sensuality. The knit dress she now wore accentuated the effect. Few women, Kathleen decided, could successfully wear knit dresses-women in their thirties, that is-and Naomi was one of the few. Her doll face, and her extraordinary breasts, Kathleen concluded, must drive men insane. Did they? Were there men? Well, Dr. Chapman would know in a few days.

Naomi was beside her. “I’m glad I caught you, Katie. I’d hate to face that zoo alone.”

Kathleen looked down at her and thought there was whisky in the scent of perfume. “I’m glad you could make it,” she said. She could think of nothing less banal.

“I almost didn’t. I woke with a splitting headache. But I feel better now.” She inspected Kathleen. “You certainly look unmussed. How do you manage at this hour?”

“Clean living, I suppose,” Kathleen said, not thinking, and then she was sorry, remembering the rumors about Naomi.

But Naomi seemed not to have heard. She was staring at the entrance. “Imagine a sex lecture at ten-thirty in the morning.” “I suppose it does seem more appropriate to the evening.” “Oh, I don’t mean that. I think sex is fine in the morning-after you’ve brushed your teeth.” Suddenly, she laughed. “But who wants to listen to some old poop who’s over the hill?” She took

Kathleen’s arm. “Well, let’s join the dim bulbs and get it over with.”

Inside the large, gray inner hall, there were four tables, in a row, some yards apart, and on each a placard reading “A to G,” “H to M,” “N to S,” and “T to Z.” There were three nondescript girls, shorthand types with crooked teeth, behind three of the tables, and a tall, consumptive-appearing girl with lack-luster flaxen hair bending across one of the tables, whispering.

“Recruitment center,” said Kathleen.

“Draft board, you mean,” replied Naomi, too loudly.

Apparently, the tall girl had overheard her, for now she turned, an uncertain smile on her pale face, and came awkwardly forward.

“I’m Miss Selby, Dr. Chapman’s secretary,” she said. “Are you here for the lecture?”

“Somebody said something about stag films,” said Naomi cheerfully.

Miss Selby appeared bewildered. At last, she forced a smile. “You’ve been misinformed,” she said.

“I hope we’re not late,” said Kathleen.

“No, it’ll be another five minutes,” said Miss Selby. “The auditorium is almost filled.”

Kathleen followed Naomi down the corridor and then followed her into the auditorium. The room, three broad windows to one side and a flag on the opposite wall, held a capacity of three hundred, and now it seemed an irregular sea of heads and colored hats. Many turned toward the door, and Kathleen smiled vaguely back at the familiar faces.

“Let’s get off our feet,” said Naomi.

“I promised Ursula Palmer-Ursula said she was saving a seat for me.” Kathleen searched uncertainly.

From a row near the front, a hand was waving a pad. Kathleen stood on her toes. The hand belonged to Ursula. Now Ursula was removing the pad from her hand and holding up two fingers.

“I think she has a seat for you, too,” said Kathleen.

“Either that or she wants to go to the bathroom,” said Naomi.

They started down the center aisle, Naomi walking very erect, with her large busts high, regarding her contemporaries with arch superiority, and Kathleen, warm and self-conscious.

Ursula Palmer was in the aisle seat of the fifth row. There were two empty seats beside her. She stood up to allow Naomi and Kathleen to squeeze past her.

“Hello, Naomi, Kathleen.”

They greeted her and sat down.

“Sarah Goldsmith wanted me to hold one for her, too,” Ursula said, lowering herself into the seat. She looked up the aisle. “I guess she couldn’t make it.”

“She’s probably tied up with the children,” said Kathleen, thinking again of Deirdre.

“Little monsters,” said Ursula, because she often forgot that she was a mother.

Naomi poked her finger at the pad and pencil in Ursula’s hands. “Handy tips?” she asked teasingly.

“I may write an article,” said Ursula, annoyed.

Kathleen felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned. Mary McManus was in the seat behind, smiling. “Aren’t you excited, Kathleen?” Her narrow eyes and narrow face were shining.

“Well, curious,” said Kathleen.

“Hi, Mary,” Naomi called. “How’s Clarence Darrow?”

“You mean Norman? Oh, wonderful. Dad’s giving him his first court case next week.”

“Bravo,” said Naomi. Then she added, “What are you doing for lunch?”

“I’m free until two. Are you?”

“It’s a date,” said Naomi.

Ursula held up her pad and pointed it off. “I think the curtain’s about to go up.”

They all turned expectantly toward the barren stage. Grace Waterton was carrying a silver pitcher and drinking glass across the rostrum. She placed them carefully on the stand there. The room was hushed. Grace retraced her steps toward the wings, then halted, and descended to the pit. She started for the center aisle when Teresa Harnish, her coral headband dominating the front row, beckoned to her. Grace moved toward Teresa, and they held a brief consultation.

“If they’re talking sex,” said Naomi, “there’s the blind leading the blind.”

Grace was making her way up the center aisle. Her hair, which appeared freshly ironed, was gray-purple, and her tiny frame seemed to peck forward. She saw Ursula and Kathleen and waved. “Any minute,” she said. “He’s just finishing his press conference.”

As Grace continued on her way, Ursula frowned. “I didn’t know he was giving a press conference,” she muttered. “I should be there.”

“You won’t miss a thing,” Kathleen said to her. “What can he tell them that’s new?”

Kathleen glanced up at the barren stage again, uneasily studying the lectern and pitcher and glass and the gleaming silver head of the public-address microphone. She looked at the faces around her. Small talk and gossip had ceased. All seemed to be waiting expectantly or-did she fancy it?-fearfully. Tension seemed a solid that you could reach out and touch.

She settled back into herself: What can he tell them that’s new?

In the large cement dressing room, behind the velvet backdrop. Dr. George G. Chapman, wearing a dark-gray tie, white shirt, and charcoal suit, sat on the bench, arms propped back on the glass-topped table, and told the press that he was making this final appearance of the long and successful road trip an occasion on which to tell them something new.

The reaction in the cold room was immediate. Paul Radford, sitting in a pull-up chair a few feet from Dr. Chapman, could see it on every face. There were five reporters, four men and a woman, from the local dailies and the wire services, and two photographers. They were sitting or standing in a semicircle before Dr. Chapman, and somehow, all at once they seemed to be leaning closer to him. Beyond them, Emil Ackerman, a jolly, blubbery face on a fat body that spilled over his folding chair, sat with his arms folded and legs crossed. Now he unfolded his arms and uncrossed his legs. He scratched at the lapel of his tan silk suit, and then he found a gold cigarette case, and a cigarette, his eyes never leaving Dr. Chapman.

Dr. Chapman straightened on the bench and brought his hands together, lacing his fingers. He contemplated them for a moment, and then he looked up.

“Everywhere I have traveled,” he said, “I have been asked to give out some summary, some trend, of our inquiry into the sexual history of the married female. Everywhere I have declined.”

Paul shifted in his chair and stared at the maroon carpet. What Dr. Chapman was telling the press was not quite accurate, he knew. The project had been no more than six months on the road when, to climax every big-city press Conference, Dr. Chapman had begun to drop a new and provocative generality gleaned from his female survey. He judged, and correctly so, that these insignificant morsels would be lapped up by the sensation-hungry press and enlarged upon under great black headlines. Thus, the project would

be kept before the public, dynamic, important, and, appetites would be constantly whetted for the appearance of the forthcoming book. Dr. Chapman never discussed these casual droppings. Pure science was above catering to popularization and publicity. Perhaps he did not even design or plan them in advance. But so strong was his instinct for survival, for the project’s advancement, that possibly unconsciously he had kept adding these transfusions. Never before, however, had he prefaced an announcement of something new and newsworthy so definitely.

He wants to wind up the tour on a high note, Paul told himself. Or maybe this is the beginning of a campaign to combat Dr. Jonas before the jurors of the Zollman Foundation. Until now, Paul had tried to push off the uncomfortable assignment before him. He did not want to call on Dr. Jonas with a blatant bribe. But there could be no doubt that the future of the project was at stake. That justified what he must do, and what Dr. Chapman was now doing.

“… I have declined,” resumed Dr. Chapman, having disposed of his cigar stub, “because I did not feel we had gathered enough of a sampling to see any definite trends, and, even after we had, I was reticent because I wanted to check and study my totals with my staff. However, now that we are in Los Angeles for our final sampling-we have carefully interviewed over three thousand American married women, divorcees, widows, to date-I feel it only fair to let the public in on one aspect of our findings, one that I know to be generally accurate, and one that will have immediate significance to married women throughout the nation.”

Paul, observing the eager faces of the reporters, could conjure up a vision of the headlines expanding larger and larger, like mammoth balloons puffed round by the words Dr. Chapman was breathing.

“It became clearly evident to those of us on the team, very early, that the greatest-” Dr. Chapman paused, reconsidered, modified -“one of the greatest misunderstandings existing between the sexes is the belief that men and women are possessed of like or similar drives and emotions. While it is a fact that men and women are physiologically alike in genital responses, in location of erogenous zones, this alikeness does not carry over into needs and desires. The public seems to believe that for every man on earth who wants sexual relations, there also exists a woman who feels exactly the same way. In short, that both sexes have equal need of sexual release. While, I repeat, I am not yet prepared to present you with statistical evidence on this important point, I am quite prepared to