Brenda used to think of herself as shy and retiring. In her dreams, she was the mousey, hunched-over, chignon-bearing girl rising awkwardly from the tea-table as the butler announced the arrival of the neighbouring squire's son, her worldly sister's fiancé. In truth, she was more like the figure who next appeared, boots and whip and all, his coat open to the very last button.
This inability to acknowledge, let alone moderate, her own especial power she now blames for many (but not all) of the broken relationships in her life. For years she had supposed the men she associated with to be stronger, more intelligent than they actually were. Of course, they eventually let her down. And when they did, she was sure it was because she, somehow, had failed to keep up. Eighteen months' worth of weekly sessions with a transient therapist taught her to think somewhat better of herself, much worse of them. Even Karl, who was an occasional lover long before he became a friend, even he had to be adjusted for size. "Thank you, Karl, but we can read the subtitles just as well by ourselves."
She should have been an architect; it was what she had originally wanted. But her impatience with the not so liberal arts and a kind of chronic mathematical hayfever (her mind blocked by the simplest theorem) utterly discouraged her from trying. After she got her degree, she took a course or two at a community college and found herself qualified to be a draughtsperson. She might not have gone so far if her best friend, Karen, hadn't already demonstrated how satisfying it was to be practical. Karen, whose life was backstage, who controlled the lights, urged her to think about medieval cathedrals, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, calligraphy, Ernst Schneidler, typesetting, Paula Modersohn-Becker, furniture, Walter Gropius, textiles, Oskar Schlemmer, couture, Zuzana Licko, pottery, and --. "Honestly, Brenda," she said, "you're so locked into this professionalism cant. The tools belong to those who lose them."
So many Germans, Brenda thought. Was Karen sleeping with Karl?
All the same, she finally opened shop, she and Pepsi.
