it’s a dinner george has promised her for months. that’s long enough for lucille to fashion a mental image of him as the modern man - the man she pictured george to be, before he walked her down the aisle and the sophistication gave way to idiocy. no. don draper is the real modern man. AND THIS IS THE MODERN WOMAN !! the perfect match. at least, that is what she is determined to say to her dinner guest, as indisputably as a billboard advertisement, like she has it all written above her in bold letters - the lies that lead to the conclusion. LUCILLE BLUTH HAS IT ALL - THE PERFECT HOME, THE SUCCESSFUL HUSBAND, THE BEAUTIFUL CHILD. STOP LOOKING, AMERICA - YOU’VE FOUND HER!
the image falls apart before she can really dress up in it. that’s the thing she’s learning about these rich families ( or her’s, at least ) : the veneer is a luxury for outsiders, and once you cross the threshold, or take that coveted bluth name, your own privilege is to try and exist in the anarchy of what you value most. her son won’t stop screaming. neither will her husband, she suspects, held up at the office by his secretary rather than his work ( he takes her for a fool, but it’s his tragedy, not hers ), but she’s not as unsettled by the elder george as she is by the younger. she caught motherhood like it’s a disease, &&. now, aware of its symptoms, there’s little left to do except to express her nurtured fury to a world who told her that this, THIS, is the pinnacle of a woman’s life. she loves her son, even if she doesn’t particularly like him yet. as she rocks him carefully she mutters some fucking dinner party in an oddly soothing tone, and spends the next few moments fretting that his first word might be ‘fuck’.
don draper will not be met at the door by the ‘modern woman’, not tonight, because LUCILLE BLUTH IS A CASE UNTO HER OWN! a woman who, achieving that ideal of wife and mother, has found herself suited to be neither. her greeting instead is simple, lacking in charm and overflowing in bite. ❛ —– are all children as UNBEARABLE as their fathers are, mr. draper ?? ❜
( @draperesque )
