The Stories of John Cheever

The next character to enter the scene is my mother-in-law, whose name is Minnie. Minnie is a harsh-voiced blonde of about seventy, with four scars on the side of her face, from cosmetic surgery. You may have seen Minnie rattling around Neiman-Marcus or the lobby of practically any Grand Hotel. Minnie uses the word “fashionable” with great versatility. Of her husband’s suicide in 1932. Minnie says, “Jumping out of windows was quite fashionable.” When her only son was fired out of secondary school for improper conduct and went to live in Paris with an older man, Minnie said, “I know it’s revolting, but it seems to be terribly fashionable.” Of her own outrageous plumage she says, “It’s hideously uncomfortable but it’s divinely fashionable.” Minnie is cruel and idle, and Cora, who is her only daughter, hates her. Cora has drafted her nature along lines that are the opposite of Minnie’s. She is loving, serious-minded, sober, and kind. I think that in order to safeguard her virtues—her hopefulness, really—Cora has been forced to evolve a fantasy in which her mother is not Minnie at all but is instead some sage and gracious lady, working at an embroidery hoop. Everybody knows how persuasive and treacherous fantasies can be.