We Were the Mulvaneys. Joyce Carol Oates

      “Well—yes.”

      “And—” Lydia was a bit rattled, breathless, “—how is your family?”

      “My family?” Corinne drew a blank. “Why, the last I knew, they were fine.”

      What an awkward encounter. Corinne stood miserably balancing a heavy grocery bag in the crook of one arm and her catchall tote bag crammed with library books in the other. Her parka hood had slipped so she had to tilt her head at an angle to look at Lydia Bethune; if they were to continue their conversation, she really should lower the hood, out of courtesy. Oh but she yearned to escape! Lydia had dredged up another subject, a mutual woman acquaintance who’d just had a cyst removed from a breast, and Corinne murmured yes Florence was lucky it had been benign, trying to back off, edging toward the door. She glanced at her watch and gave a little cry of alarm—“Oh, my God! The parking meter!”

      So Corinne made her escape, probably rather rudely. She heard Lydia Bethune call “Good-bye” after her but she did no more than waggle a hand, not glancing back.

      Now what had that been all about? She discovered she’d been perspiring inside the nylon parka. Damp circles the size of silver dollars had formed on the palms of her hands.

       Not those kind of people. We’re not!

      Everyone and everything associated with the Mt. Ephraim Country Club made Corinne uneasy. And when she was uneasy she was resentful, even angry.

      She hadn’t wanted to join, of course. It had all been Michael Sr.’s idea.

      Already Michael belonged to the Mt. Ephraim Chamber of Commerce, where for years he was one of the younger, more vigorous and more active members, and he belonged to the philantrophic-minded if not very effectual Mt. Ephraim Odd Fellows Association, and he belonged to the Chautauqua Sportsmen’s Club for “social and business” reasons, but for more years than he would have wished to acknowledge (at least fifteen) he’d wanted very badly to be invited to join the Mt. Ephraim Country Club which was the most “selective”—the most “prestigious”—certainly the most expensive—of all; where the richer, more prominent and influential of local citizens belonged, some of whom Michael Mulvaney did in fact count as friends, or anyway friendly acquaintances—the Boswells, the Mercers, the MacIntyres, the Spohrs, the Lundts, the Pringles, the Breuers, the Bethunes. There were not many prominent families in Chautauqua County, still fewer in Mt. Ephraim, but Michael Mulvaney knew them, knew the men; they knew him, and liked him; it wasn’t really an exaggeration to claim they were all equals. This, Michael felt strongly in his heart. He deserved to be a member of the Mt. Ephraim Country Club. He deserved the privilege of playing golf there if he wished, of bringing his family to the Sunday brunch buffet, of having dinner in the elegant atrium dining room overlooking the golf course, of playing poker with like-minded friends, of watching his children play tennis on the courts, of dropping by after business hours for drinks, a cigar, in the Club’s Yankee Doodle Tap Room. Strictly for business Michael insisted, but Corinne understood this was only part of her husband’s motivation, and surely not the largest part.

      Oh, she should have been more sympathetic!—Michael Mulvaney, a disowned son of a Catholic working-class family in Pittsburgh, had reimagined himself as a small-town American businessman who owned property, had money and influence, was “known” and “liked” and “respected” in his community. He’d been a loner in his late adolescence, and was now a “family man.” If he’d never be one of the wealthier citizens of Mt. Ephraim and vicinity he had a chance of becoming one of the “well-to-do”—“something of a country squire.” Or, if not quite even that, at least a friend, a friendly acquaintance, a social equal of such. At first Corinne in her awkward way tried to tease him—“Darling, aren’t we enough for you? Your family, your animals? High Point Farm and its debts?” But Michael had only grimaced, hadn’t laughed. Nor was he in a mood to be consoled when, year following year, into the 1970s, on or about March 12, the membership committee of the Club proposed its candidates for balloting, and Michael Mulvaney was overlooked.

      Secretly relieved, Corinne would say, incensed, “Those snobs! Self-important, selfish snobs! What do you care? We love you.”

      Michael would only shrug irritably, and turn away. No kisses from Whistle right now, no hugs and jokes. No thanks.

      Corinne would glimpse her husband outside, in his work clothes, lugging bales of hay, buckets of water into the horse barn. Exercising the horses in the back pasture, with the boys. He’d rise early to clean out the horses’ stalls, feed and bathe and groom the horses—these arduous, least-favorite chores the responsibility, of course, of his children. But there Michael was, working off nervous energy in the barn. He’s that hurt, that furious Corinne thought, shocked. It struck her to the heart, left her weak, disoriented, that, to Michael Mulvaney, after all, his family wasn’t quite enough.

      Then, March 1973, a call came, from the Club, followed by an absurdly self-important registered letter, and Michael Mulvaney was in.

      (No secret that Michael’s sponsor was his old friend and business associate, a fellow officer in the Odd Fellows, Morton Pringle. Mort who was chief counsel for the First Bank of Chautauqua and who’d hired Mulvaney Roofing for work he’d admired, and recommended to his well-to-do friends. One day, Michael would inadvertently learn that his candidacy at the Mt. Ephraim Country Club had not been unanimously supported. Out of deference to Mort Pringle, and because Michael was, in fact, a well-liked person in Mt. Ephraim, no one had actually blackballed him; but several members hadn’t voted. They’d gone onto the record as abstains.)

      Corinne wasn’t happy about the invitation, still less about her husband’s excitement at receiving it, at last. Where was his pride? Where was his character? How could he want to waste his hard-earned money (twenty-five hundred dollars for “induction fees,” six hundred dollars annual dues!) when High Point Farm’s expenditures were relentless, not to mention the children, a family of four healthy active children costs. “We’ve gotten along for almost twenty years without belonging to the Mt. Ephraim Country Club—why join now? Who cares?” Corinne demanded.

      Clearly, Michael Mulvaney cared.

      Corinne, a Democrat and a liberal, the sort of Protestant who allowed no one to stand between her and God, argued, furthermore, that the Club was un-American, unchristian, immoral—“For whites only! And all male! Women can belong only as adjuncts to their spouses or male relatives!”

      “So what?” Michael said.

      “So what? Don’t you understand?”

      “Corinne, it’s a private club. It’s friends who’ve gotten together, who want a clubhouse, essentially. When the Club was founded, in 1925, there were only twelve men—they were friends. And, eventually—”

      “Stop! I can’t believe what I’m hearing! You, Michael Mulvaney—a bigot. A sexist. A snob.”

      “What the hell, Corinne?—I can’t join the Women’s Garden Club, or the Women’s League of Voters—”

      “League of Women Voters—”

      “I can’t join a Negro fraternity, or the Knights of Columbus. There are exclusively Jewish country clubs, there are Italian-American clubs, what’s the problem?”

      “It’s un-American, that’s the problem!”

      “It’s American, in fact: all kinds of organizations, private clubs, even secret clubs. It’s people making their own decisions about who they want as friends.”

      “‘Friends’?—it’s as much about keeping people out. It’s cruel, it’s discriminatory. Look how they kept you waiting for years—how hurt you were. How you tried, you campaigned—”

      Heatedly Michael said, “Never mind about me! We’re talking principles here. First principles. The right of a group of people to—”

      “To